Nora Valkyrie

Nora Valkyrie is a character from the RWBY animated series.

Nora is a former student at Beacon Academy, a member of Team RNJR and one of the remaining members of Team JNPR. Her weapon of choice is Magnhild, a hammer that can transform into a grenade launcher.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Nora is part of the Heroes Coalitions as a trainee.

Appearance
Nora has short orange hair and turquoise eyes. Her clothing is a mix and match of some sort, with different colors and themes. She wears a collared black vest that ends at her waist. Her signature emblem, a hammer with a lightning bolt, can be found on the back. Under the vest are two layers of clothing, colored red and light-blue respectively. In Volume 1, Nora has a turquoise bow at the back of her skirt, but it was removed in Volume 2.

She also wears a white sleeveless top that forms a tiny heart shape cut out over her chest, with a white detached sleeve on each arm. She wears matching fingerless gloves on each hand. She sports a short pink skirt that starts at the waist and ends mid-thigh. Her shoes are a mix of pink and white with pink laces, displaying her emblem on their soles.

She also wears armor that begins in the middle of the shoulder and neck and ends by the waist.

For her school uniform, she wears the standard uniform with black crew socks instead of the usual tights.

Her pajamas consist of a dark gray T-shirt with the word "Boop" written on it (which also includes her hammer emblem) and pink shorts patterned with white thunderbolts.

She wears a pink strapless dress with a white skirt to the Beacon Dance. Notably, the seam joining the two sections tapers to a point, which gives the top part of her dress a resemblance to a pink heart-shape.

She wears a white and pink V-neck T-shirt, which has a pink heart with a white thunderbolt on the chest, pink gym shorts with white stripes running down the sides, matching pink wristbands and sweatband, white knee high socks with pink stripes near the top, and a pair of pink converse-style shoes with white laces.

After the timeskip following the Fall of Beacon, her design is updated. She retains her gloves and wears a white top that is similar to her old one, though the heart cut-out on the top has a diagonal cut through it. She also wears a shorter, detached white sleeve on her left arm. Over the shirt, she wears a zippered navy blue bomber jacket with a damaged print of her emblem visible on the back and pink stripes along the sleeves. The pink bands of the jacket tighten on her upper arms. Her skirt is slightly longer with pleats that create some flair and two wide belt loops at the waist for her matching belt. She wears knee-high pink socks just visible above her calf-length boots, which are white with pink laces and black mid-wedges, soles and tips. Noticeably, her hair is now shoulder-length. She also has pink eyeshadow around the far upper corners of her eyes.

Personality
A happy-go-lucky, bubbly and playful young girl, Nora is mainly characterized by her boundless enthusiasm. When Nora talks, many of her words may sometimes come out randomly without her actually giving much thought to anything she comes up with. This is caused by her tendency to jump into a different topic most of the time and her rather peculiar imagination. Because of this and her free-spirited attitude, Nora's personality changes according to her mood, and she is prone to becoming a nuisance to the people around her, losing the point of a conversation, or even experiencing anxiety attacks. However, Nora is more insightful than one would think and is capable of being serious when most necessary. This rare sense of seriousness of hers is most prominently displayed during the battle against the Nuckelavee, where she literally slaps sense into Ren who was consumed in his need for revenge against the Grimm who wiped out his village and family. She explained this by telling him: "I won't let you kill yourself like this."

Nora is very open with her companions and quickly grows fond of them. Because of her motor mouth, she is very open to conversation and plays with her friends almost all the time she is interacting with them, making her a very social and likeable person. She can also be protective and supportive when she sees teammates need it. She is also considerate of their personal space and respects their decisions even if she doesn't agree with them. Nora does not doubt the talents of her friends and places her entire faith in Pyrrha Nikos' and Lie Ren's fighting skills, while following Jaune Arc's orders as her leader without question. She also appears to be good at reading people, as seen during interactions with Jaune and Pyrrha in "Burning the Candle" and "Destiny".

Although Nora retains her joyful personality even in combat, she is seen to be more focused and in control of herself during an encounter. She can be patient, obedient and smart. If she does not see the need for her assistance, she will stand back and choose to observe. Whenever she receives an order from one of her teammates, she always follows it with no doubts. And lastly, when she follows Jaune's plans and finds herself in a position that gives her the advantage, she's able to figure out a way to defeat her enemies on her own, indicating an ability to strategize quickly and efficiently.

It is suggested that Nora's happy-go-lucky nature in part disguises any pain and stress she may have retained from the Fall of Kuroyuri, the town in which she apparently grew up in. It was destroyed by the Nuckelavee, a massive Grimm that she later fought.

Nora seems to have a liking for sweet things, as she ate the red sap that Ren and Pyrrha had collected, as well as all the syrup that Team JNPR was going to have on their pancakes, and it can be inferred Nora is a big fan of pancakes. In "Welcome to Beacon", she is heard mumbling "pancakes" in her sleep and shouting it again when woken up.

Weapon

 * Main article: Magnhild

Nora wields a dual-function weapon named Magnhild. Magnhild can transform into one of two weapons, a grenade launcher and a war hammer, which Nora uses proficiently in combat. She uses the grenade launcher form for ranged strikes on her opponent. In its ranged form, the face of the launcher can unhinge, revealing six grenades that can be fired at once for maximum damage.

While using the hammer form, she is a lot more versatile in close-range attacks and movement. Nora uses the recoil of the grenade explosions fired from the face of the hammer to propel her certain distances or to add force to her strikes. In "Players and Pieces", she uses the recoil of her hammer to launch herself from one end of a broken bridge to the other, and in "Breach", she is seen traveling a considerable distance through the air by the same method. Her attacks are powerful enough to finish off an injured Death Stalker and kill a large King Taijitu in one hit.

After the Fall of Beacon, Nora upgrades Magnhild to be able to build up electricity in the hammer's head, allowing her to power herself up. This upgrade is first put to use in the fight against the Geist in "The Next Step".

Nora's fighting style is built around overwhelming and explosive physical force. This can be seen in her tendency to swing her hammer in wide arcs to build up momentum before striking. This is also noticeable in her use of either her hammer's recoil or nearby tall structures to achieve heights that allow her to come crashing down into her adversaries, crushing them under the combined impact of both natural momentum and her own raw power.

Strength
Her ability to easily carry and use Magnhild in its hammer form suggests that she possesses a high level of strength. This is further demonstrated when she sends Weiss flying across the canteen during their food fightdespite not using Magnhild. She also showed her strength when she sent Yang Xiao Long flying away through the roof in one hit, and the latter lands back in the room nearly two minutes later. She later states she can benchpress five times her own weight and she has been seen jumping several feet without aura, high enough to jump the length of a small building. She may also possess some form of enhanced speed, as seen where she appeared from one place to another. Nora has claimed to be able to bench five times her body weight, a feat that would stand consistent with her other displays of strength, certainly being more than just her usage of enthusiastic hyperbole.

Semblance
Nora's Semblance is the ability to produce and channel electrical energy into her muscles, giving her enhanced strength. This ability was first showcased in "New Challengers...", where she caught Nolan Porfirio off-guard by channeling the electricity from his weapon and using the resulting strength to send him into a nearby boulder, destroying it. Although she can absorb electricity from a direct blow, she can also use Magnhild as a lightning rod. This ability has been exploited by Ruby Rose, who has been known to shoot Nora with Lightning Dust rounds to give Nora a power boost when there is no surrounding electricity in either the environment nor the attacks of an enemy, such as when Team RNJR fightsTyrian Callows in Oniyuri. Her strength in this enhanced state is great enough to send even powerful juggernauts such as Hazel Rainart flying with one swing of her hammer.

In "Lighting the Fire", it is revealed that Nora discovered her Semblance after she was struck by lightning and subsequently did not die, considering it to be a crazy Thursday.

However, this does not mean she is outright immune to being electrocuted. When Hazel grabs her after enhancing himself with Lightning dust in Downfall, she screams in pain as he holds her down and zaps her.

Trivia

 * Nora alludes to Thor from Norse mythology. For more information on this allusion, as well as other choices the creators made for this character, see Nora Valkyrie/Behind the Scenes.
 * "Nora" may be an abbreviation of the Greek Eleanor or Eleonora, meaning light, or the Latin Honora, meaning honor. Nora, alternatively spelled Nóra or Norah, is also a given name in several European languages. In Arabic, "Nora" is another form of Noor or Nur, also literally meaning 'light'.
 * Nora's name may reference her color via the Nora Barlow Columbine, a pink flower named after the granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Given the abundance of pink in relation to her, especially in merchandise, this is most likely what her name is supposed to reference.
 * Nora's name may have come from the Japanese word "nora" which means "stray", as from the shown past with Ren, her origins were not given, meaning that she strayed into Ren's village.
 * The song "Boop" from the RWBY: Volume 2 Soundtrack is about Nora and her relationship with Ren. The song makes multiple references to her, including some of her lines from the series, like "Boop!" as well as the name of her weapon, Magnhild.
 * Nora, alongside Ruby Rose and Jaune Arc, is one of the characters who owns an object sold in the Rooster Teeth store: her "boop" shirt.
 * At the RTX Australia 2016 RWBY: Grimm Eclipse Live Let's Play, Lindsay Jones, the voice of Ruby Rose, said she recorded some lines for Nora.
 * Nora's eyes are originally turquoise in Volume 1 and RWBY Chibi, but in Volume 2 and 3, her eyes are jade. In Volume 4, her eyes are changed to aqua.
 * Nora still possesses her ribbon on her back in RWBY: Grimm Eclipse.