Jaune Arc

Jaune Arc is a character from the RWBY animated series.

Jaune is a former student at Beacon Academy, the leader and one of the remaining members of Team JNPR, and a member of Team RNJR. His weapon of choice is Crocea Mors, which is 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.

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

Appearance
Jaune is a tall teenage boy with dark-blue eyes that are emphasized by his short blond hair messily layered on his head with the right side of his hair nearing his right eye and the left side swept back. He is quite toned, having strong muscles in his arms, shoulders and upper chest. He wears a white diamond-shaped chestplate cut off above his lower abdomen and white spaulders with rerebraces set under them. Underneath the armor, he wears a black short-sleeved hoodie with detached reddish-orange sleeves and a dark brown image of the bunny rabbit Pumpkin Pete trimmed in white with cute black round eyes hidden underneath the chestplate. He also wears blue pants with a white patch on the left knee, as well as black sneakers with "left" and "right" written in black on the respective shoes' soles. In Volume 1, Jaune has elbow guards with cords strung through them and he wears black high tops.

He has two belts crisscrossing his waist, both different shades of brown, with a pair of small pouches on them. Jaune wears brown wrist-length gloves with exposed fingertips and small metal plates over the back. His sword is strapped to his left hip in a sheath that doubles as a collapsible shield.

He sleeps in blue full-body pajamas with blue bunny slippers and a white bunny face on its chest.

After the timeskip following the Fall of Beacon, his attire is updated. He retains his black hoodie, but he now wears a modified pure white chestplate covering a bit more of his upper abdomen trimmed with gold lining and similarly-colored bracers. Additionally, he wears black gloves with gold-colored metal armor plates over his fingers, and he appears to wear a red sash around his waist, similar in design to the late Pyrrha Nikos. He also now wears dark brown laced boots and a new brown belt with a pouch included worn around his waist.

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. Miles Luna, his voice actor, admitted this, saying that 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, he is always honest with answers.

Jaune has 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 the rest of 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 and befuddlement 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.

Abilities
Despite not having it unlocked prior to the Beacon initiation, Pyrrha Nikos 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.

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 Nuckleavee Grimm for a few seconds, as well as lock swords with Cinder Fall and not budge. His attacks are also shown to be incredibly strong. He's 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.

Weapon

 * Main article: 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, called Crocea Mors. Crocea Mors 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 weapon, 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.

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
Jaune's Semblance was first seen in "Forever Fall, Pt.2". When Cardin attempted to punch him. Cardin visibly winces while Jaune remains unscathed and surprised by the turn of events. Miles Luna has described this as Jaune using his Semblance to amplify his Aura cloak to block Cardin's punch. Based on this, it can be inferred that Jaune is capable of amplifying his own Aura to enhance his defensive capabilities.

In "Vault of the Spring Maiden", Jaune's Semblance activates for the first time, showing he has the power to help Weiss Schnee's Aura heal the near-fatal wound inflicted upon her by Cinder. This application of his Semblance is quite strong, as the Aura amplification is able enhance the healing properties of another person's Aura to the point where it is able to repair and seal several inches of impaled bone, skin, organs, and muscle tissue while preventing death from exsanguination even when the recipient is in critical condition. His abnormally high Aura reserves are apparently sufficient enough to completely restore Weiss' depleted reserves at no significant risk to himself. In "Argus Limited", Jaune amplifies Ren's Aura thus allowing the latter to use his Semblance to cloak the entire train filled with passengers. This shows just how powerful Jaune's amplification can be as Ren has only been seen using his Semblance on no more than two people and from a close distance but in this case, while his Aura was amplified, his Semblance hid a countless number of people from several meters away.

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 3 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 has gotten 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 mistake. This is a weakness he has yet to overcome.

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's 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.

Trivia

 * Jaune alludes to Joan of Arc. For more information on this allusion, as well as other choices the creators made for this character, see Jaune Arc/Behind the Scenes.
 * "Jaune" is the French word for yellow.
 * During "The Stray", it is shown that, before he modified his sword, it was nearly identical to the one wielded by the man on the statue in front of Beacon Academy.
 * Foreshadowing his skills as an adept dancer, before Volume 2 started, Monty uploaded a video of Jaune dancing to his Facebook.
 * At the RTX Australia 2016 RWBY Panel, Jaune's Skype username was "I <3YellowSnow".