Blake Belladonna

Blake Belladonna (ブレイク・ベラドンナ, Bureiku Beradonna), is both a fictional character and protagonist from the Tales of RWBY series created by Monty Oum and Kōsuke Fujishima. She is a Huntress, having been trained at the now-defunct Beacon Academy.

She first appeared in the "Black" Trailer alongside Adam Taurus, her then-partner and former mentor in the White Fang, a Faunus terrorist group. She is the daughter of both Ghira Belladonna, the current chieftain of Menagerie and his wife Kali Belladonna.

After leaving the terrorist organization, Blake enrolled at the now-defunct Beacon, where she became a member of Team RWBY alongside Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee and Yang Xiao Long. She is also a Cat Faunus, although she kept it secret until two years later.

"It was a little strange at first because you were younger, but I've always looked up to you, Ruby. And I still do."
 * —Blake Belladonna, to her team's leader.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Arryn Zech (English), Yū Shimamura (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Appearance
Blake is a fair-skinned young woman with wavy black hair and amber eyes. Her Faunus trait is a pair of black cat ears on top of her head.

Original (Volumes 1–3)
During her attendance at Beacon, she wears a black, buttoned vest with coattails and a single silver button on the front. Underneath this is a white, sleeveless, high necked, crop undershirt and white shorts with a zipper on the front of each leg, emblazoned with the YKK logo of the real-life Japanese zipper manufacturer.

She also wears black low-heeled boots and full stockings with a color gradation of black to purple at her ankles. Her emblem is visible on the outside of both thighs just below her shorts in white. On her left arm is a black detached sleeve with a silver cuff around her bicep, and black ribbons are wrapped around both forearms. A small, loose, black scarf is wrapped around her neck, and a gray magnetic backpack is strapped to her back, hidden by her hair. She often keeps her weapon attached to the magnetic backpack when she is not using it.

A black ribbon is tied with a large bow on the top of her head, with her cat ears hidden inside the loops. She wears purple eyeshadow in Catseye style.

Pajamas
During her attendance at Beacon, Blake's pajamas are a black, long-sleeved, yukata-style shirt with white edging over a purple undershirt and a matching skirt. A black obi is wrapped around her waist and tied with a black and white string. While at Beacon, she wears her bow while sleeping.

Alternate Outfit (Slayer)
During the events of "A Minor Hiccup" and "Painting the Town...", Blake wears an alternate outfit codenamed "Intruder". This outfit consists of a white, v-neck, zip-up crop shirt with a black hem and three-quarter sleeves. Her emblem is printed in off-white on the left side of the shirt. She wears black pants that have a vertical gray stripe on the outer side of each leg and a black belt.

Attached to the rear of the belt is a black piece of fabric that covers her from hip to hip. Underneath this is a longer, translucent, purple piece of fabric. She also wears black high-heel boots with two straps and buckles and purple underoles, reaching to mid-calf. She retains the black ribbons on her forearms and her black bow.

Dance Outfit
During the Beacon Dance, Blake wears a short, purple, asymmetrical, halter neck dress that is split up the right side and has a black collar. Translucent black mesh covers her shoulders, decolletage and back, and decorative black swirls cover the left side of the dress and continue up the left strap. The outfit is completed with black pumps, and she wears a teal bow on her head as opposed to her usual black one.

Uniform
During her attendance at Beacon, Blake wears the same brown shoes, red tartan skirt, white blouse with maroon trim and thin red bow, a brown vest with gold buttons and a maroon blazer with gold trim as every other girl attending Beacon Academy, alongside knee-high black socks.

Haven Outfilt (Volume 4–7)
After the timeskip following the Fall of Beacon, her design features a long white tailcoat with dark violet inner lining and a sleeveless black crop top, as well as a belt attached from behind. The crop top has rectangular and diamond-shaped cutouts around the neckline, which have purple outlines beginning in Volume 6. Additionally, she wears a white belt over black fitted pants.

After the confrontation with Adam in "Heroes and Monsters", Blake has been left with an X-shaped scar just above her left hip.

Across her torso is a diagonal strap that has a smaller magnetic clip on the back, which is used to sheathe Gambol Shroud. She wears thigh-high black heeled boots with gold-colored edging around the top. The left boot has a belt wrapped twice around the thigh. Each boot bears her Belladonna emblem in white on the outer side of the thigh, and a white pouch is attached to the back of her belt.

In "Of Runaways and Stowaways", Blake removes her bow and throws it into the ocean. Later, in "The Lady in the Shoe", Adam slashes her tailcoat off her.

From Volume 4 onward, Blake's cat ears have a tendency to fold down or otherwise move in sync with her emotional state, much like the ears of an actual cat.

Atlas Outfit (Volume 7-Current)
After arriving in Atlas and meeting with James Ironwood, Blake cuts her hair up to shoulder-length bob. She changes her attire to a purple sleeveless catsuit with attached boots that has light purple soles and trim. The catsuit has a high neck with a single short silver zipper alongside matching zippers that run from her thighs to her ankles on the front of the legs.

A pair of kneepads, matching color to the catsuit with silver studs on them are attached to the knees of the catsuit. Her long, white tailcoat has desaturated purple detailing on the chest, sleeves, sides and collar alongside a dark purple detailing on the back. It has a narrow belt around the collar and a wide white belt loosely secured around her waist through the coat's belt loops.

The belt has two pouches attached to the back. The coattails end in a point and the inside lining is vivid purple. The front zipper of the coat is upside down and extends to the very bottom of the coat, and there are additional zippers along the lower half of the sleeves with a single purple line running between the zipper and her shoulders. Around each wrist is a dark purple belted wristband and has a desaturated purple magnetic backpack on her back.


 * Hair Color: Black (Volumes 1–3), Ashen-Black (Volume 4–Current)
 * Skin Color: Not Known
 * Eye Color: Amber
 * Age: 17 (Volumes 1–3), 19 (Volume 4–Current)
 * Birthday: January 19th
 * Height: 5'6" (1.68 meters) minus ears
 * Weight: Not Known

Background
Blake is a Faunus, a human with animal traits. Unfortunately for her, Faunus are under discrimination by the humans. As a kid, Blake joined a group called the White Fang, a Faunus group who claimed they were going to stop the discrimination. However, they planned to do that through fear, by getting the humans to be afraid of the White Fang. Once Blake figured out what the White Fang was doing, she defected from them and decided to go to Beacon Academy and become a Huntress. While there, she was grouped up with Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long, the four girls becoming Team RWBY.

Personality
"The entire time Blake was at Beacon, she was afraid to open up to people. She tried to keep her past separated from us. She tried to protect us. Eventually, those walls she put up came down. And the moment they did, the one thing she was afraid of actually happened. The universe proved her right."
 * —Weiss, to Yang about Blake.

Blake is described as being "mellow" by her voice actress, Arryn Zech. She displays a cool, reserved and serious personality most of the time but does not lack a humorous side, which is usually in the form of dry wit and sarcasm. Blake is a righteous person, respecting other people's lives regardless of whether they are Faunus or not. She strongly despises those who judge and discriminate based on racial prejudice. Blake is outspoken, going so far as to indirectly insult the Schnee Dust Company in front of its heiress and defend Faunus of any kind.

Blake is shown to be an introvert. Although she reads books to distance herself from the discussion at hand, as the series continues, she is shown to be more facetious and friendly. Blake appears most conversant when discussing the history and plight of her people.

As a Faunus, Blake has faced discrimination in the past and wears a bow when around Humans in order to be treated for her character and not her species. However, despite having no hate for Humans, she has seen how the real world works and wonders how she can undo so many years of hate and pain. After the Fall of Beacon, Blake discards her bow and does not cover her ears again, even around the presence of Humans, showing that she is no longer afraid to be seen as a Faunus anymore.

Blake's past negatively influenced her personality, leading to moodiness, stubbornness, sleep deprivation and trust issues at times. She also has self-loathing issues, viewing herself as a criminal hiding in plain sight because of her past with the White Fang until her teammates convinced her that they still trusted and cared for her despite her being a Faunus and a former member of the White Fang, and viewing herself as a coward who runs from her problems, viewing her Semblance as a prospect of her tendency to avoid conflict and feeling unworthy of her parents' love after leaving them behind. However, she has a strong sense of righteousness as she strongly disagreed with the White Fang increasing level of violence and hatred towards Humans, especially Adam's, and leaving Adam and the organization after realizing how spiteful and uncaring for Human lives he was and finally decided to fight back against him after discovering that he was planning to overthrow Sienna Khan and gain total control over the White Fang.

Thanks to her parents' unconditional love and Sun Wukong's support of her, Blake began to grow out of her self-loathing issues and mistrust for others, with Sun persuading her to let her friends help her as much as she believes she is helping them. She uses this, in turn, to persuade Ilia Amitola to leave the White Fang and to confront Adam with others' help and to reunite with her teammates at Haven.

Her Faunus traits also seem to give her other aspects of a cat, such as climbing up to Ruby's bed to stay away from Ruby and Yang's pet dog, Zwei. Another time, she is distracted by and instinctively decides to follow a laser pointer light to a waiting Yang in "Burning the Candle". She also has a great love for tuna, as shown in "Round One" where she drools over a bowl of noodles topped with tuna.

Friends/Allies

 * Beacon Academy
 * Ozpin
 * Glyndia Goodwitch
 * Team RWBY
 * Ruby Rose
 * Weiss Schnee
 * Yang Xiao Long
 * Team JNPR
 * Jaune Arc
 * Nora Valkyrie
 * Pyrrha Nikos
 * Lie Ren
 * Team SSSN
 * Sun Wukong
 * Neptune Vasilias
 * Qrow Branwen
 * Oscar Pine

Family

 * Kali Belladonna (Mother)
 * Ghira Belladonna (Father)

Neutral

 * Zwei
 * Ilia Amitola
 * Caroline Cordovin
 * Emerald Sustrai

Enemies

 * White Fang
 * Adam Taurus (former partner)
 * Demon's Inner Circle
 * Georg Heldalf
 * Salem
 * Cinder's Faction
 * Roman Torchwick
 * Neopolitan
 * Cinder Fall
 * Mercury Black
 * Abbey
 * Shigure Rangetsu

Powers and Abilities
Blake shows high agility, speed, and endurance, as shown when fighting multiple enemies yet maintaining motion and energy without fatigue. She also exhibits a high level of skill when handling Gambol Shroud. She can slash away at opponents with startling speed and deflect incoming machine-gun fire using her blade.

Blake also possesses remarkable reflexes, as she is able to dodge a nearly point-blank strike from Adam by using her Semblance. She is also capable of jumping large distances, leaping from building to building and even on moving cars, as seen in "Painting the Town...".

As a Faunus, Blake possesses the ability of night vision, granting her the ability to see proficiently in the dark, as is shown after shooting out the power during the White Fang Faction Meeting, using the dark as a means for her and Sun to escape from Roman Torchwick and the White Fang.

Semblance

 * Main article: Shadow

The Shadow (シャドウ, Shadō), Blake's Semblance, allows her to create shadow-clones of herself. These clones push her in the direction of her choosing and can be used to trick and disorient opponents.

Blake can use Dust to give her clones additional abilities, such as creating a fiery explosion or freezing an opponent's weapon in place.

Strength level

 * Effortlessly sliced through large robots.
 * Killed an Ursa with one hit.
 * Hit Nora with a sausage link hard enough to send her flying into a soda machine with the force to break it.
 * Cut off the arm of an Atleasian Paladin, the same mech that can bust down a wall by running through it, with Ruby's help.
 * Sliced three Beowolves in half, each with one strike.
 * Backhanded someone so hard they went flying.
 * Travelled hundreds of metres with a single leap.
 * Broke out of a spider web trap

Speed

 * Dodged bullets from a gatling gun.
 * Dodged a shot from Roman's cane.
 * Can deflect machine gun fire.
 * Outran cars on foot.
 * Dodged lightning from a Sea Feilong.

Durability

 * Tanked a laser blast that had enough power to blow through a blast door.
 * Wasn't injured by a point-blank explosion from Roman's cane.
 * Tanked getting pelted with metal cans.
 * Fell from a radio tower several stories up without destroying her Aura.

Skill

 * Destroyed several robots and fought against the Spider-Droid.
 * Casually kills Beowolves and Ursai.
 * Killed a Nevermore with her teammates.
 * Teamed with Sun Wukong to stop Roman Torchwick’s dock heist.
 * Defeated Roman Torchwick.
 * Defended Sun and her family from Iiia Amitola and several members of the White Fang.
 * Led a reformed version of the White Fang in the defense of Haven Academy in Mistral.
 * Overpowered and killed Adam Taurus alongside Yang.
 * Defended the abandoned Schnee Dust Company mine that the Amity Communications Tower was being set up above from various Grimm and probably bandits.

Weaknesses

 * Aura is finite: If Blake takes too many hits that are shielded by her Aura, her Aura will eventually run out and she will be much more vulnerable.
 * Stubborn: When Blake puts her mind to something, she won't stop until she puts her mind to it, even to the point of losing sleep, food, and other basic needs.
 * Scared of dogs: As a cat Faunus, Blake is afraid of dogs, though in the Tales of RWBY Chibi series, it is implied that she eventually makes peace with Zwei.

Weapons

 * Main article: Gambol Shroud

The Gambol Shroud (ガムボール・シュラウド, Gamubōru Shuraudo), is Blake's weapon of choice, a sword that has three forms. When sheathed, the weapon is able to slice opponents in two with its cleaver-like cover. However, when unsheathed, Blake is able to use both a sword and sheath in tandem against her opponents.

It can also transform into a gun. Gambol Shroud was destroyed in combat against Adam in "The Lady in the Shoe"; the blade being cut horizontally in half by Wilt, and later received an upgrade in Atlas. Using the black ribbon that extends off the weapon's grip, Blake can convert Gambol Shroud into a kusarigama, a grappling hook to swing herself or her friends, or ensnare or tangle her opponents.

White Fang
In "Black and White", Blake tells Sun Wukong that she was practically "born into" the White Fang organization while explaining to Professor Ozpin that she grew up outside of the Kingdoms of Remnant. In "Of Runaways and Stowaways" she reveals that Menagerie is her home.

From early in her life, she was involved in the organization's protests against the unfair and discriminatory treatment of Faunus. It is clear that she continued as an active supporter of the organization despite its turn to militancy approximately five years before she enrolled at Beacon Academy.

Despite her later-expressed misgivings at the organization trying to gain respect through fear, she fought alongside other members of the organization and was clearly trained to become a proficient guerrilla fighter.

On the night before the train heist, Blake approaches Adam after he turns down a deal with Cinder Fall.

"Black" Trailer
Blake is first seen assisting Adam Taurus in the raiding of a cargo train owned by the Schnee Dust Company, carrying shipments of Dust.

During the raid, Blake helps Adam fight off a large group of Atlesian Knight-130s in order to reach the cargo hold and find what Adam was looking for. However, upon discovering Adam's plans to blow the train up, along with the crew, Blake starts to have doubts.

They are then attacked by a Spider Droid and forced outside, where Blake distracts it long enough for Adam to charge an attack and destroy it. When he turns around, Blake decides to sever their connection and the train car, saying goodbye as the train pulls away without Adam.

Blake later tells Sun: "I decided I no longer wanted to use my skills to aid in their violence. Instead, I would dedicate my life to becoming a Huntress."

During the Timeskip
One year after her departure, Ruby comes across a village under attack from hordes of monsters. She quickly moves into the village and makes short work of the Grimm attackers, slaying a fearsome Grimm known as a Beringel. Nearby, Jaune, Ren and Nora see smoke and contact her by Scroll before rushing over to assist. Without waiting for them to arrive, Ruby eagerly continues her fight in the village alone.

Canon

 * Blake Belladonna and Adam Taurus vs. Atlesian Knight-130s (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Adam Taurus vs. Spider Droid (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long vs. Ursai (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna, Pyrrha Nikos, and Lie Ren vs. Death Stalker (Removed from combat)
 * Team RWBY vs. Nevermore (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Sun Wukong vs. Roman Torchwick and White Fang (Interfered)
 * Team RWBY vs. Team JNPR (Won)
 * Team RWBY, Sun Wukong, and Neptune Vasilias vs. Roman Torchwick (Draw)
 * Team RWBY vs. Grimm (Won)
 * Team RWBY and Dr. Oobleck vs. White Fang (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna vs. Roman Torchwick (Won)
 * Huntsmen vs. Grimm (Won)
 * Team RWBY vs. Team ABRN (Won)
 * Huntsmen vs. Grimm, White Fang and AK-200s (Withdrew)
 * Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long vs. Adam Taurus (Round 1; Lost)
 * Blake Belladonna, Sun Wukong, and Ship Crew vs. Sea Feilong (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Sun Wukong vs. Ilia Amitola (Won)
 * Belladonna Household vs. White Fang (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Sun Wukong vs. Adam Taurus (Won)
 * Blake, Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee vs. Hazel Rainart, Emerald Sustrai, and Mercury Black (Won)
 * Argus Limited vs. Manticores and Sphinx (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long vs. Adam Taurus (Round 2; Won)
 * Mantle Vs. Sabyrs (Won)
 * Atlas Huntsmen vs. Centinels (Won)
 * Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long vs. Robyn Hill (Interrupted)
 * Team RWBY Team RWBY vs. Ace-Ops Ace-Ops (Won)

Non-Canon

 * Ruby vs. Cardin Winchester (Won)

Canon

 * Beacon Academy Initiation
 * Vale Port Heist
 * White Fang Faction Meeting
 * Beacon Dance
 * 40th Vytal Festival
 * Battle of Beacon
 * Attack on the Belladonna Household
 * Battle of Haven

Theme songs

 * "Black" Trailer: "From Shadows" - Casey Lee Williams.

Etymology

 * Blake means "black" in Old English, and Belladonna means "fair lady" or "beautiful woman" in Spanish and Italian, and it is also the name of a toxic plant commonly known as deadly nightshade. The plant commonly bears poisonous black berries, which lends to Blake's black color theme. It also commonly bears purple bell-shaped flowers, which lends to her Aura color.
 * Blake's name and love of literature may be a coincidental reference to the noted English poet William Blake.
 * Blake alludes to both Belle and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast.
 * When she is first introduced in the regular series, she is seen having a love for reading, much like Belle. It is also shown that she has a candelabra in her possession, referencing Lumière from the Disney adaptation. In the Volume 1 directors' commentary, Miles Luna stated that they were trying to surround her with lots of "Belle-related items".
 * The lyrics to "Red Like Roses" supports the connection to Beauty and the Beast by referencing Blake as "Black the beast".

Notes & Trivia

 * The Rooster Teeth Productions crew said Blake is one of the hardest characters to write for.
 * It was stated by Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross that Blake prefers drinking tea over coffee. In "Destiny", when Weiss suggests the pair get coffee, Blake opts for tea instead. It was also mentioned in the Fan Service Podcast.
 * When asked about her bow by a fan during the Blake Week AMA, Arryn answered that Blake has a closet full of bows all neatly aligned on the walls.
 * Monty stated during a livestream that Blake's lack of a belly button in her original costume was a glitch with her character model. She does have one in her other costumes, though.
 * During group fight scenes, the music often switches to dramatic piano scales when the focus shifts solely on Blake, as seen in episodes such as "Players and Pieces", "Best Day Ever", "Painting the Town..." and "Round One". This could be a leitmotif of sorts for Blake.
 * On the first night at Beacon, Blake tells Ruby her book is about a man with two souls. The first line of the right-hand page of the book reads, "He raised the glass to his lips." - a direct quote from Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
 * Blake is a free playable DLC character in Cross Tag Battle.
 * In the fourth episode of G.I. gen:LOCK, another animated series produced by Rooster Teeth, one of the main characters, Yasamin Madrani, can be seen dressed as Blake (Volume 4-7) in the Ether.
 * Blake, alongside Ruby, Nora Valkyrie and Jaune Arc, is one of the characters who owns an object sold in the Rooster Teeth store: her backpack.
 * It is possible that Blake's Shadow Semblance was inspired by C.T.'s hologram armor enhancement from Red vs. Blue which functioned and was used very similarly to Blake's Semblance.
 * On July 19th, 2019, a limited event collaboration between Tales RWBY and SMITE was announced. Team RWBY is confirmed to appear as voiced skins with Blake as a skin for Amaterasu.
 * Blake's Huntress license number is 63600-23412-56709.
 * On a Galaxy Con Livestream, Arryn says that she's pretty similar to Blake to which Barbara responds, "Arryn also likes the men and the women," implying that just like her voice actor, Blake is bisexual. Barb follows up with, "I think it's pretty obvious that Blake likes all people." However, Lindsay Jones claims this to currently be a headcanon until confirmed by the series.
 * During RTX 2020 RWBY Panel, Blake's birthday is confirmed to be on January 19th, making her a Capricorn.