| “ | My darling, you are my most precious possession. | „ |
| ~ Salem's Father, in response to her asking why he won't let her leave the tower |
Salem's Father, otherwise known as a King and formerly Noble Hero, appears in the American animated webseries RWBY, as well as in the book RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant and its animated series adaptation. In ancient times, he was the father of Salem and imprisoned her for her entire childhood, vowing to never lose her as he lost his wife. However, he was betrayed by his daughter seeking freedom.
History[]
Salem's Father was once a simple, but noble hero and adventurer. During one of his adventures, he rescued a woman from a gang of raiders and they fell in love. After acquiring the kingdom and marrying the woman, she fell ill and died in childbirth. Stricken with grief, the king opted to imprison his daughter, Salem, keeping her safe from anything that could ever hurt her. He kept her locked in her room in the castle tower, where her late mother used to come and look at the moon. He considered her his "most precious possession" and would only allow himself and her nanny to be the ones to see her, though he would later become obsessed with wealth and materialism to cope with the loss of his wife, gifting Salem material wealth yet seeing her less often in her tower. Salem longed to leave the tower and recieve more attention from her paranoid father. After reading books and learning of the world outside her tower, this desire grew stronger and stronger.
On her sixteenth birthday, Salem requested a pen and paper as a present, claiming she wanted to write her own books. Her father agreed, eager to hear what stories she would write. Salem wrote notes of how her father was a tyrant and was keeping her imprisoned against her will, and sent the letters flying out the window as only objects could pass through the magical barrier. Those who found copies of the story would attempt to save her by attacking the castle, and the king would defend his property by destroying them with magic.
Finally, a copy of the note found its way to the young warrior Ozma, who, wielding his own magic, attacked the castle and killed the king, freeing Salem. Salem and Ozma would run off to explore the world, though things would eventually go wrong when their paths and moral choices would lead them to become enemies.
Centuries later, Ozma's reincarnation Professor Ozpin would claim Salem wanted her story to elicit sympathy and motivate people to come to her aid, subsequently dooming many warriors to die for her. He thinks her story may not include the whole truth, and is ambiguous as to what might have been false when she spread word of her tale. The story of Salem became known as The Girl in the Tower. Though the omniscient spirit of the Relic of Knowledge, Jinn when asked by Ruby Rose what Ozpin was hiding from them, described Salem's father as cruel[1].
