"Mercury, I will seriously pay you to shut up." |
"I don’t care about Salem! But I owe Cinder everything. You want to fight her that bad? Be my guest." |
Emerald Sustrai is a major antagonist in the American web cartoon series RWBY. She is one of Cinder Fall's two right-hands alongside her partner, Mercury Black.
She is voiced by Katie Newville.
Personality
Emerald initially appears to be extremely affable and disarmingly friendly; however, this belies a darker side of her character. On the whole, she seems to be genuinely outgoing, gregarious and quick-witted, if a little short-fused and impatient. She can also act a little childish and petty, such as when she stuck her tongue out at Roman Torchwick after she stole his lighter to mock him.
In "Best Day Ever", when she talks to Tukson about books, she seems to be very knowledgeable and intelligent about books and enjoys reading, as she lists off many titles. She also likes Vale, complimenting the city for its "tall buildings and diverse culture".
She also has a tendency to maintain a pretense of friendliness amongst people in order to gain their trust. This is shown on multiple occasions in "Best Day Ever", where she pretends to be extremely kind and demonstrative to the Shopkeep in order to catch him off guard and steal his wallet. Later in the same episode, she puts on a friendly act around Tukson before threatening and killing him. Another example is in "Extracurricular"; where she mostly ignores Ruby Rose until she looks directly at her, when Emerald off-handedly smiles and then rolls her eyes when Ruby looks away. In the episode "Round One", she states that she dislikes Team RWBY for their cheery and positive attitude, regardless of her acting as their friend for the time being.
Emerald also shows a strong sense of loyalty, specifically to Cinder, whom she appears to be incredibly eager to please. Accordingly, she is willing to take the initiative to impress her, such as tracking down Tukson and killing him. When Cinder rebukes her for killing Tukson, she defers to Cinder's judgment, quickly apologizing.
Judging from the composed and nonchalant way that she talked about killing Tukson, she appears to have no qualms about killing, even lightheartedly joking about it afterwards with Mercury. However, another side of her is seen in "Battle of Beacon", where she seems to be overwhelmed and disheartened at the sheer scale of the destruction and violence taking place, calling it "almost sad".
According to Emerald, her loyalty is exclusive to Cinder, rather than to Salem as well, and only complies to her plans and wishes due to owing Cinder "everything". Upon learning of Cinder's apparent demise, she immediately breaks down crying and (in a fit of despair and rage) creates a nightmarish illusion of Salem visible to everyone in the room, far exceeding her normal limitations of her Semblance.
Trivia
- For information about choices the creators made for this character, see Emerald Sustrai/Behind the Scenes.
- Emerald is a gemstone that is most often found in green colors.
- Sustrai, capitalized, is the Basque word for "thief" while sustrai, not capitalized, means "roots" or "undercurrent"
- Emerald's emblem is a stylized depiction of a cut emerald. This emblem appears on the back of her white top.
- In the episode "Best Day Ever", Emerald is established by her actions and Mercury's own words as a "master thief". Later, Roman refers to Emerald as a "street rat", a term used to describe the title character of Aladdin. It could suggest the basis of Emerald's character, as well as her name making allusion to the phrase "diamond in the rough", which is spoken in the Disney adaptation of the tale.
- In the Japanese dubbed version, Emerald is voiced by Marina Inoue, who also voiced Dark Tohka in Date A Live and Whitley Schnee also in the Japanese dub of RWBY.
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