Blake makes up the B in Team RWBY. She's a mysterious girl who's quiet and observant. In the beginning, she was mostly seen reading a book. Blake actually gives us our first bit of subtle foreshadowing by telling Ruby she's reading a book about a man with two souls (iykyk).
Blake is a Faunus, meaning she has animal DNA. Underneath her black ribbon bow sits a pair of cute cat ears. Faunus are not exactly treated well in the World of Remnant. Because of this, Blake was part of an organization called the White Fang whose goal was to seek respect from humans. It started out as a peaceful organization before turning more violent after the founder stepped down as leader.
Speaking of White Fang's founder, Blake's father, Ghira, was the founder. After stepping down, he became the Chieftain of Menagerie, an island given to the Faunus after the war. There, he lives in Kuo Kuana with his wife, Blake's mother, Kali. Ghira is a panther and Kali is a cat.
Blake is the only member of Team RWBY to have two loving parents who just want her to be her best self.
Blake's weapon is Gambol Shroud, an extremely versatile weapon. The main part of it is a sword, a semi-auto pistol, and a sickle. The sheath she keeps it in can also be used as a cleaver, and she can use it to dual-wield. However, Blake also has a ribbon attached to it, making her weapon similar to a kusarigama (basically a chain sickle). With the ribbon, she can swing her weapon around using the recoil of the pistol in order to have her blade reach further distances. She can also use her weapon as a grappling hook. The pistol part can be used with dust rounds to give her elemental attacks. In V7, the group got a bunch of upgrades to their armor and weapons, Blake being no exception. However, Blake is different in that her weapon didn't actually change. She just got the blade fixed after it was broke in a fight in the previous volume. She had her blade fixed using Kintsugi, a Japanese art of repairing broken things like ceramic or glass with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Gambol Shroud's blade now has a gold line in the middle of it.
Blake's semblance is called Shadow. It's her ability to leave behind a shadow of herself in order to move away. This can be used to retreat or act as a shield, taking a hit so she can come at the enemy from a different angle. In V2, we see Blake use dust with her semblance for the first time while fighting Roman Torchwick. She was able to create "shadows" made of ice, fire, and rock. This helped with trapping Roman's weapon, allowing Blake to move around him. Blake can also use her semblance to propel herself, often using it to jump long distances. As the series progressed and Blake's semblance got stronger, her shadows became more tangible, allowing them to be interacted with to a certain extent; however, it seems only Blake can interact with them without breaking them. The moment someone else does, the shadow fades (I'm mostly getting this observation from the fight with the sea serpent in V4 where her shadow literally grabs her hand and throws her into the air.)
Being a cat Faunus, Blake can pretty much do what a cat can. She has enhanced senses like superior hearing and night-vision. She's also quite flexible and agile. Blake seems to have a cat's appetite and diet, preferring meat, especially fish. She also isn't too fond of canines, but she can tolerate them after a while as seen in her interactions with Zwei, Ruby and Yang's corgi, throughout V2. Though that could've just been a gag for comedy purposes.
I LOVE BLAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She's my favorite RWBY character. Not only is she my comfort character, she's also my main kin. I love her so much, and I relate to her a lot.
She's been through so much shit (as have all RWBY characters, crwby don't traumatize a character challenge). Her main thing is dealing with her identity. Her speech in V9 to the illusion of her past self who was trying to tell her to just give up being a Huntress bc it didn't seem worth it? bro.
"A simple life wouldn’t be my life! My family, my friends, my culture. I belong to them, just as much as they belong to me. To give that all away wouldn’t be simplicity, it would be betrayal."
As someone who has had troubles with my sense of self, feeling like things would be better if I was just normal, I relate to this so much. I had to learn that that's me. I am who I am. Blake had to learn that, too.
Also, I'm probably one of the only Blake enjoyers who ships both BlackSun and Bumblebee. I love Blake with both Sun and Yang, and I was super happy when Bumblebee was made canon. Like ykw LET HER DATE THEM BOTH U COWARDS!!! /j