RWBY Theory Reveals The Dark Reason Salem Wants The Relics
The main antagonist of RWBY, Salem, is trying to collect all of Remnant's magical relics to destroy the world, but her motivation is much darker than expected. The world and lore of RWBY are both vast and diverse. Through the show's main continuity and its adjacent pieces of canon, the series goes into incredible detail in terms of showing Remnant and its origins, with many interesting theories and conspiracies coming to light with each new lore entry. One theory in particular (via Reddit) specifically centers around Salem, the series' main villain, strongly speculates what her ultimate end goal could be, and the result is rather dark.
In RWBY volume 6, chapter 3 "The Lost Fable," Ruby Rose and company learn the history of their world from the entity known as Jinn, the spirit within the Relic of Knowledge. The entire episode explains not only the history of the world, but also the mysteriously interconnected backstory of characters Ozma (a.k.a Professor Ozpin) and Salem and their historic love affair. When Ozma dies of sickness, Salem tries to convince Remnant's deities, the God of Light and the God of Darkness, to bring her love back to life. This confrontation leads to the Brother Gods turning against each other, throwing off the balance of life and death that they worked so hard to achieve. Not only do they end up refusing Salem's request, but also, as punishment, they grant (or curse) her with immortality, wipe all of humanity off the face of the planet, and then leave, taking their blessing of magic with them and turning Remnant into a lesser version of what it once was.
Before their departure, the God of Light creates four magical artifacts, the Relics of Creation, Destruction, Knowledge, and Choice, that, when brought together, will summon the Brother Gods back to Remnant to judge humanity, claiming that they will destroy the world if they deem mankind as incapable of unity and cooperation. He then makes the newly-reincarnated Ozma in charge of locating the Relics and bringing them together when the time is right. Salem eventually hears about these Relics and, by the time the main series starts, hatches a plan involving them. According to this Redditor's theory, she is collecting them for one reason and one reason only. Salem wishes for this fairy tale to end once and for all. Salem wants to die.
The Reddit post goes into great detail to support this theory. Essentially, it explains that, when the Brother Gods curse her with her immortality in the first place, their main reason is so that she will never be able to see her lover again (even in the afterlife), due to the fact that Salem's divine debacle is initially caused by her grief-fueled wish for them to bring Ozma back to life. Although, out of spite for the Gods, Salem tries to take her life anyway, making many different attempts with zero success. Her final attempt is the worst of all: dunking herself into a Grimm pool, a mass of black ichor from where the Creatures of Grimm spawn. She not only survives, but also is deformed by the dark waters, transforming her into the human/Grimm hybrid she appears as throughout the series.
When she realizes suicide is ineffective, Salem comes up with a Plan B. If the Gods could give her immortality, then there is a good chance they can take it away. That is why Salem wants the Relics so badly. She simply craves death. She is trying to sabotage Ozma's task of uniting humanity, keeping everyone divided with the hopes that the Gods' judgment will be negative. When both her curse and the world are destroyed, only then will she find peace. As of the RWBY Volume 8 finale, she already has two Relics in her possession. With RWBY season 9 set to come out sometime later this year, it will be interesting to see how things play out with this new theory in mind.