Jaune Arc

**Jaune Arc** (ジョーン・アーク, *Jōn Āku*) is a Huntsman and former student at Beacon Academy. He is the leader and one of the members of Team JNPR and a former member of Team RNJR. His weapon of choice is Crocea Mors, which consists of a sword and a sheath that can expand into a shield. The weapon was handed down in his family from his great-great-grandfather, who used it to fight in the Great War.

He is the thirteenth official member of the Crystal Prince line-up.

## Description

### Appearance

Jaune is a very tall, muscular handsome young man with blonde hair and dark blue eyes. His attire almost always consists of a dark blue Pumpkin Pete hoodie and jeans, with a brown belt and gloves. He wears white and gold armor, primarily a chestplate, rerebraces, and elbow pads.

### Personality

Jaune begins as an outgoing, goofy, and all-around friendly person. He treats people equally and has no problems expressing himself to strangers and bonds with them easily, showing a lot of confidence. When faced with entirely new social situations, Jaune's confidence leads to bold behavior. This can become out of hand and backfire when pursuing romance. His voice actor, Miles Luna, admitted this by saying when Jaune tries too hard it can cause a misunderstanding. At heart, Jaune is a kind, amiable person and means well.

Jaune maintains his unselfish manner regardless of the situation, going as far as to defend Cardin Winchester, who had been blackmailing him and forcing him to do his work. A strong sense of integrity makes him willing to deliberately put himself in awkward situations, such as wearing a dress in public without a hint of embarrassment to uphold his family motto of not going back on one's word. During conversations, Jaune never contradicts himself and, while sometimes harsh, is always honest with answers.

Jaune is shown to care for his friends and the people around him, being protective of them and having a sense of responsibility as team leader. He focuses only on his teammates' well-being physically, mentally, and emotionally, disregarding his own to ensure theirs. He steps forward when others threaten his friends, and he has proven himself unwilling to do something that may hurt those he cares about.

At first, Jaune's family line leads to an obsession with being a hero. However, he was never formally trained like others in his family, causing him to lack self-esteem and assign a lot of importance to his image as a fighter. He values this image so much that he is willing to act dishonestly to achieve it- even using fake transcripts to be admitted to Beacon. The obsession makes him brash and headstrong in battle, jumping in without considering the risks and behaving predictably offensively.

However, following the Fall of Beacon, his personality is somewhat changed. After witnessing the aftermath of the attack on Shion, he is shown to be somewhat cynical, saying that they would arrive at Higanbana "if it's still there". He is also angry at Qrow Branwen for his involvement in Pyrrha's death, openly accusing him of using Ruby as bait. This is a completely different reaction from a year earlier when he tried to justify Cardin's bullying.

Jaune appears to prefer to keep his grief to himself, as he has continued to train on his own as a way to cope with the death of Pyrrha, listening to her recordings on his scroll. This indicates a deep-seated sense of regret and guilt at not being able to save her from Cinder Fall.

Jaune's good nature renders him almost incapable of comprehending the actions and personalities of people like Cinder, unable to fathom how someone can be so cold and cruel. This expression of disbelief at the sheer sadism of others serves to show how idealistic and noble Jaune remains despite his trials and losses, ultimately proving him to be a fundamentally humane and caring individual.

While Jaune is a good person, he is not above losing his cool, as seen as he punches a hole in the wall of his sister's house and when he takes his anger out on Oscar Pine over Ozpin keeping so many secrets. In spite of this, he isn't above keeping secrets himself. In "A New Approach", he went along with Ruby's decision to lie to James Ironwood and keep Ozpin's disappearance, how many questions left in the Relic of Knowledge, and Salem's immortality a secret from him.

It is only when he finds Pyrrha's memorial statue in Argus that he finally comes to term with her death, understanding that she had to try and make a difference, and becoming inspired to follow her example. This is best seen where in "Fault" where instead of getting mad at Ren who insulted him for faking his transcripts, he chooses not to argue and focus on getting to shelter. He also becomes much more wise in giving advice as he tried to help Ren.

Despite his idealism, Jaune is shown to be a remarkably strong-willed individual, forcing himself to go through with taking Penny's life to fulfill her desire to pass the Maiden powers on to Winter Schnee and prevent Cinder from acquiring even more power. During this, Jaune is shown to be distraught at the thought of killing his friend and screaming and crying as he does so, displaying signs of extreme trauma both during and after the act.

Additionally, Jaune is quick to be airsick, as seen in "Ruby Rose" and "As Above, So Below".

After the destruction of Atlas and Mantle, being forced to spend decades alone trapped in the Ever After, as well as being poisoned by Alyx, Jaune's overall mental state was severely affected. Because of this, he is now much more prone to fits of anger, such as when he met the Curious Cat again and lamented the fact that he couldn't even be the "make-believe hero" when he tried to get Alyx and Lewis on the same path as the fairy tale in order to get home. It is also implied that he now gets confused easily and suffers from hallucinations to the point where he can no longer tell what is real or not anymore, as the first thing he says to Team RWBY once their reunited is if they were really there.

In addition, Jaune also shows strong signs of suffering from depression, severe isolation and loneliness as he chose to name all of the Paper Pleasers after the people that he had once known and cared about back on Remnant as a way to try and still feel connected to them.

As seen in “The Perils of Paper Houses”, Jaune's mental state has gotten worse ever since the Paper Pleasers who saved his life years ago. He named them after his friends, and he refuses to let them ascend since it reminds him of his past failures. He also developed a deep hatred and prejudice against Afterans, believing them all to be either too wise, too stupid or too crazy to trust. After the Paper Pleasers die when their town is flooded and Ruby calls them Jaune's make-believe friends, he snaps at her and blames her for both their deaths since Neopolitan hated her and getting them trapped in the Ever After in the first place with her plan. After he lashed out at her and saw her cry as a result however, Jaune realized that he went too far and apologized for what he said while admitting that he wasn't okay and that he kept trying to "save" the Paper Pleasers since he wanted to be a hero that helped someone.

## Powers and Abilities

Despite not having it unlocked prior to the Beacon initiation, Pyrrha has noted in "The Emerald Forest" that Jaune possessed a lot of Aura. This has proved useful over the course of the series as his lack of experience caused him to be hit frequently. Overtime, Jaune uses his shield and his durability to his advantage, taking or deflecting hits from opponents in order to force them within striking range of his sword.

During the initiation, Jaune demonstrates the skills to be an adaptable leader, being willing and able to coordinate with allies while under pressure, such as when a Death Stalker attempts to knock down the bridge his future team stands on.

Although he does not have much skill in fighting, he has much more physical strength than would be expected. While not nearly at the level of his teammate Nora Valkyrie, he is strong enough to hold back the Nuckelavee Grimm for a few seconds, as well as lock swords with Cinder and not budge. His attacks are also shown to be incredibly strong. He is capable of cutting through the flesh of large Grimm with ease and the great force behind his attacks is made evident when the impact of his blade clashing with Cinder's caused a chain behind her to move despite being several meters away.

### Weapons

*Main article: Crocea Mors*

Jaune's weapon of choice is **Crocea Mors**. In contrast to Ruby, Jaune's weapon was not designed or made by him. It is instead a family heirloom that was passed down from his great-great-grandfather, who used it in the Great War. It is composed of a simple arming sword whose sheath unfolds into a heater shield for protection.

Post-timeskip, it adopts the same style of his armor and has the symbol of Pyrrha's headpiece. Jaune can combine the sword and shield of his modified Crocea Mors to form a more powerful blade whose edge is lined with metal from Pyrrha's weapons, Miló and Akoúo̱. Crocea Mors upgrades by having its sword placed into the sheath as the sheath folds inward, forming a second, stronger blade around the sword. It was used against the Nuckelavee and was noticeably more effective than Jaune's lone sword.

During his stay in Atlas, the weapon has received further upgrades. The sword now has Hard Light Dust built into the sides, allowing Jaune to cover more of his body when using the shield in defense and give his weapon a sharper edge. The Hard Light also allows Jaune to use the shield as an improvised paraglider. Jaune has also had his emblem on the shield modified to store Gravity Dust, allowing him to blast targets away or break long falls by using the shield as a bounce pad.

In "The Final Word", Crocea Mors is broken by Cinder Fall as she attacks Jaune in a fit of rage after he uses the blade to kill Penny Polendina to deny Cinder the Winter Maiden's powers.

*Main article: Disc Grenade*
While in Atlas he also acquired a **Disc Grenade**, which can project a Hard Light Dust shield and be pulled back to Crocea Mors through the use of Gravity Dust. The Disc Grenade was shown to be durable enough to withstand attacks from multiple Sabyr Grimm as well as a large fireball created by Cinder Fall.

### Leadership

Jaune's most remarkable feature is his natural leadership. He shows these skills, quickly grasping the tactical situation, forming plans to work according to their advantages and counter possible threats. He's very aware of the capabilities of his team and is able to properly coordinate them into achieving feats that can give them the upper hand during an encounter.

### Semblance

*Main article: Aura Amp*

Jaune's Semblance, **Aura Amp**, allows him to amplify his own Aura and that of others, effectively increasing the effects of Aura. He first accidentally uses it in "Forever Fall, Pt.2" when his Aura shield is intensified to the point of Cardin hurting his hand after punching him. Jaune can also use his Semblance to accelerate the healing effects of Aura and intensify another person's Semblance, as well as helping Penny Polendina resist the effects of a virus meant to control her actions. He can also amplify his own aura, shown when training with the Ace-Ops his aura went from 65% to 95%. However, it cannot remove severe scar tissue from a person's body as shown when he tried to heal Nora in "Risk".

He does not fully discover his Semblance until "Vault of the Spring Maiden" when he desperately tries to save Weiss Schnee's life and helps her recover from severe injury by amplifying her Aura.

### Weaknesses

Jaune's lack of experience has remained an ongoing problem for him throughout the volumes. Despite his noticeable improvement, evidenced by the speed with which he slays an Ursa in each of the first three volumes, Jaune is always the person on Team JNPR that contributes the least in terms of physical feats, much to his frustration.

Jaune is prompt to recklessly charge enemies when engaging them in single combat, which got him defeated in a spar with Cardin, and nearly got Jaune to lose all his Aura against an Ursa during the events of "Forever Fall". In his first encounter with Cinder during the events of "The More the Merrier", Jaune once again charged against a stronger enemy without a plan, fully intending to subdue her with brute force, and was easily defeated. Although Jaune usually keeps his emotions in check during a fight, the previously mentioned cases show that Jaune is easily angered which causes him to make mistakes. This is a weakness he has yet to overcome. Jaune implies during his confrontation with Cinder that he has developed a martyr complex, justifying himself dying as long as it buys his allies time to accomplish an objective. Cinder bluntly dismisses him as "a failure with a death wish," and Ren and Nora confront Jaune about his complex during their stay in Argus.

Jaune appears to have taken efforts to improve upon these weaknesses in the months since the Fall of Beacon, as evidenced in "Remembrance" when he trains using an instruction video sent to him by the late Pyrrha Nikos. His fighting stance is more composed and his sword swings are shown to be so strong that their force causes gusts of wind to blow through the air several meters in front of him. He is also shown to be strong enough to hold up Tyrian Callows as he clung onto his shield, and later block a Nuckelavee's front legs and hold his ground for a few seconds.

During his time in Atlas, Jaune showed drastic improvement in both his fighting skill and keeping his emotions in check during battle. He was able to use his upgraded shield as a glider, allowing him to fly around and propel both himself and his opponent in battle. He has also shown to no longer rush into danger, as after he was forced to kill Penny Polendina and saw all of Team RWBY fall and presumably die, he did not rush and attack Cinder Fall, instead deciding to retreat. He even ordered Winter Schnee to do so as well to prevent the risk of the Maiden powers falling to Cinder.

## Trivia

* Jaune alludes to the historical figure Joan of Arc:
	+ Jaune's name is a reference to Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc).
	+ He faked something about his identity to join into battle.
	+ Jaune Arc used to constantly be harassed and bullied by Cardin Winchester. Joan of Arc was sentenced to being burned at stake by Henry Beaufort, a.k.a. the Bishop of Winchester, who was also a Cardinal.
* "Jaune" is the French word for yellow.
	+ His name's meaning may be a reference to his apparently weak and timid behavior since "yellow" and "yellow belly" are slang terms for coward. This is particularly apparent in its connection to the French and the stereotypical and discriminatory association between France and cowardice.
* His symbol, a yellow, double crescent moon, could be a reference to his voice actor and RWBY writer Miles Luna, whose last name is Latin for "Moon."
* When frightened, Jaune has a very high pitched scream. It was enough for Yang to mistake it for a girl's scream.
* Jaune appears to have a somewhat weak stomach, and often suffers air sickness. When he first meets Ruby he tries to explain to her that air sickness is "a much bigger problem than most people let on."
* Jaune was the first member of team JNPR to be introduced in the series.
* Jaune may be allergic to the tree sap of the Forever Fall forest, as his face was swollen and he was speaking in a nasally voice after he gathered a large amount of it.
* Foreshadowing his skills as an adept dancer, before Volume 2 started, Monty created a rig of Jaune dancing and put it on his Facebook.
* He appears to be a fan of *X-Ray and Vav* comics.
* The name of his weapon translates to "Yellow Death"