#jaune arc critical

[lunatriense]

People complain that Ruby cheated or projected Jaunes's shortcomings onto her. The difference is Ruby actually put in the work she was recognized and offered the chance to move up. Blake was also accused, but unlike Jaune, Blake had prior combat experience that qualified her for Beacon.

100% this. She got preferential treatment, sure, but it wasn't something that she caused to happen. She was qualified to be there, and so was Blake. Jaune wasn't even qualified for McDonald's

[the-path-to-redemption]

What, Jaune is allowed to be imperfect and have misplaced anger at Ruby due to emotional meltdown, but Ruby can't even have the luxury to blame him for something that is 100% his fault?💀 go fuck yourself miles

The amount of writer's misogyny that Ruby experiences is insane bro, I cannot-

This is why no one fucking believes Miles when he said that "Jaune isn't his self-insert" and "he actually hates writing Jaune" because that's fucking bullshit. So many times we've seen Ruby actually having a hint of character depth and progression, here comes Jaune with his fucking perspective and his pain and his moment and his character coming in to completely bulldoze any of that fucking growth Ruby might have. Because it's not about Ruby or her experience, it's Jaune's turn.

Holy shit, with friends like this, why does Ruby even need enemies?

[dragynkeep]

Gonna continue with the SI stuff. The problem isn’t “this character is a self insert” the problem is “this character is a self-insert that actively takes away from the story/main character focus”

You wanna know why Jaune is the rusted knight? Because miles wanted to include jaune in everything. Even in a volume where the focus is supposed to be on the main girls, Jaune just HAD to be in it.

Exactly. Jaune didn't need to be in this volume, he didn't need to fall, he didn't need to kill Penny, he didn't need this big blowup regarding his isolation and grief. The reason he did all of these things is because the writers wrote him to do so.

What could've easily been a volume about our four main protagonists dealing with the aftermath of everything, with Ruby FINALLY getting to show her grief and struggles, was now co opted by Jaune for his own grief about Penny and the deaths of the Paper Pleasers.

When the Paper Pleasers could've easily gone to Ruby or Weiss. Ruby wanting to protect these people like she couldn't for Penny, Pyrrha, Beacon, Atlas, and when she failed yet again she finally breaks because her friends are trying to push her to move forward.

"It's okay, Ruby. You did your best."

Except when her best wasn't good enough. When doing her best doesn't suddenly mean that tthe consequences aren't hers to deal with.

Or Weiss, fresh from the destruction of her entire kingdom, her home, the death of her abusive father that she never got closure from, the idea that her remaining family is left to fight against Salem in a war she knows they can't win.

So she becomes the Rusted Knight and projects Atlas onto the Paper Pleasers. Only for her team to come and people end up dying again.

Let these two people who're so impacted by their actions actually get the storyline to flesh this out. Instead, we get Ruby's grief pushed to the side for Jaune's big moment again, before being solved by drinking the suicide tea, and Weiss was delegated to comic relief and a few moments of actual pathos regarding the fact that her home is gone.

[marrow-minded]

i think the funniest thing about "jaune gets so much better screentime and writing compared to the girls hes literally the main characters" is that jaunes writing literally isnt even good. like its frankly not good at all if you stack his writing up against any other protagonists, specifically the male hero archetypes hes clearly supposed to emulate. its just that the writers, in their own words, think they have done such interesting and deep character writing for the girls (bc they bought into their own hype and rely on fan interpretation to do the writing for them) that when they put jaune through approximations of the heroes journey, it looks WAY better in comparison to the mess that is the main girls writing.

but like. all these jaune Moments that steal screentime? ARENT EVEN THAT GOOD. v9 is arguably wheres jaunes character writing is the best and thats SQUANDERED by the finale essentially just resetting him, and not actually letting anything have CONSEQUENCES. theres no actual catharsis nor character development (afawk for now) and just puts jaune in this weird position of taking screentime from the mains but its warranted by the writing up until this point and his plight is Sympathetic but the entire time ur wondering who ur supposed to sympathize with more and its offset by silly talking animals and a god tree and its all just such a mess of ableism and trauma that u cant even properly enjoy it

v5s finale was utter dogshite and so that moment for jaune where he acts irrationally and gets weiss nearly killed through his own stupidity isnt actually built up to and so when the finale takes up FOUR FUCKING EPISODES u just are sitting there wondering why any of this is even happening. and again, LACK OF CONSEQUENCES. there could have been something INTERESTING with jaune realizing that he nearly got a friend KILLED through his actions, having HIM be the one ostracized throughout the atlas arc instead of ren, but they just. didnt? so again this set up wasnt set up in of itself and its consequences were nonexistent.

so its one of those things right where yeah, in comparison to the rest of the show, even a shoddily written and failed heroes journey, like the one jaune is supposedly on, looks way more compelling because hes the only one getting any iota of growth. but even that growth is TERRIBLE in terms of the overall story.

(which as a result makes it hard to like jaune as a character, like i do, bc like. the writers think theyre playing 4D Chess with the main girls but in actuality they cant write for shit and so its the uncomfortable truth that jaune is a better main character than the literal title character. and that SUCKS.)

[iceaura39]

Just gonna drop this here.

[reashot]

No Walkie With Blondie! (Feat. Wolf Faunus Ruby)

Ruby: *being happy* ☺

Tai: Hey, did something good happened Ruby?

Ruby: Oh that's because I have a date tomorrow. 🥰

Tai: A date? With whom!!! (Please be with a girl, please be with a girl.)

Ruby: Uhhh it's with... A girl. Also I like girl now dad. Yup, no boy for me. 😶

Tai: Oh Ruby I'm so glad... I mean proud! That you finally have the courage to come out and see that heteronormativism have no place in Remnants let alone this household. Also can I ask who's the lucky girl?

Ruby: Ughh... It's with... Wei.. I mean with Pyrrha. 😒

Tai: Ah of course. The champion... (Why is she hesitating though?) Ruby, can I see your Scroll?

Ruby: Uh... No. I'm still using it to download porn. 😣

Tai: Lesbian porn?

Ruby: Uh, sure.... 😔

Tai: That's okay Ruby. I support your preferences. I just need to see your chat log to make sure you're not dating anyone I don't approve of. *yoink Ruby's scroll*

Ruby: No wait! ��

Tai: Let's see here.... Wait a second this is not text between two girls in love this is a text between you and that Arc punk! And what the hell do you mean by walkie!... Ruby, why are you holding a leash?

Ruby: I-I thought it will be nice to bring Zwei along? 😰

Tai: *putting 2 & 2 together* Ohhh Hell Nawh!!! Not my daughter! No daughter of mine would end up in a hetero relationship. Especially not to a blonde, blue eyes, white male. In this house we do not tolerate the patriarchy and reinforcing the heteronormative hegemony. Especially reinforcing negative stereotypes of a woman being subservient to man. If you want to be treated like a dog than I suggest you sleep outside like the bitch you are.

Ruby: B-but dad... *whimper* 🐶

Tai: Now stay there until you are no longer in heat. *tied Ruby to the dog house*

*thunder crackling*

Ruby: *whimper* Jaune... Jaune... *howl* Jaune...😭

*crying herself to sleep*

(You can add more if you want)

[howlingday]

Ren: You may be fast, Jaune, but you're no match for my stealth.

Jaune: Ha! I can see you coming a mile away- I WAS LOOKING RIGHT AT HIM! HOW DID HE DO THAT?!

[imjusthereforironwood]

How I would use Jaune Arc

"Okay, look. The city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense. But I'm going back out there because it's my job. Okay?" ~Hawkeye, Age of Ultron

Jaune Arc is...probably one of the more contentious characters on RWBY's cast. There are opinions ranging from absolutely gushing, to wishing he would be killed off. In fanfiction, you see everything from Jaune being a walking deity to being absolutely destroyed and hated on.

I'm not going to tell you what to do with Jaune in fanfics. However, I will give my two cents on how he's used in canon. In short...he is a vehicle for the writers. Anything they personally want, they put on Jaune. Any character growth, they put into Jaune. Need someone to hurt, or someone to lift up, someone to be their hero or their main character? Look to Jaune.

Which sucks, because, personally, I think Jaune could be better used as the "Everyman" and not as the "Writer Insert". What do I mean by this?

Well, Jaune could be the average guy among our team of superheroes. He's the Hawkeye of the group, the normie. And yet, he's still here. He fights, and fails, and gets back up again. He could be Mumen Rider, while he may be just man, he still fights for what he believes in. Make him a personable character, give him a good head on his shoulders, but don't make him the Harem King, don't make him this all-powerful fighter. Make him average, normal, but still willing to fight. Heck, I'd argue that Jaune would be more intriguing if he didn't even have a semblance. Make him the Hawkeye of the teams.

"We're fighting a Grimm witch, there's an army of monsters outside, and I'm just a guy with a sword and shield. Nothing makes any sense. But I'm going to go out there, because there's people that need my help. Because my teammates are counting on me to help evacuate people. You can stay in here, and hide. Or, you can follow me out there. Once you do, you'll be considered a Hunter."

[the-god-of-nihon]

I dunno what it is about this type of arc that I like, but it’s a thing for me.

[constantvariations]

Yknow, sometimes I wonder if the anti rwde crowd knows what Doylist Analysis even is

You have so many takes about how Adam was always an abuser because of this scene, or Ironwood was always evil because of that foreshadowing, or etc etc etc, but these people fail to consider what these things mean in the broader scope of narrative and authorial intent

What does Adam being an abusive partner bring to the themes of racism and methods of resistance, if any at all? Does Ironwood’s fall from grace challenge our protagonists in any meaningful way or is it a cheap scapegoat for the writers who still have no idea what to do with Salem?

Once you start dissecting the show, it's very easy to see the methods and ideology behind its creation. That's the beauty of badly written media - its tracks are much easier to follow and trace back to the roots

And the roots of this show just happen to be ill conceived at best and downright malicious at worst. It's not personal towards the writers or characters or whatever to notice these things, it's just... how it is

[lunatriense]

You know people keep telling me that rwby are the main characters and should stop focusing and hating on jaune.

Yet here is the justice league x rwby dvd cover that has jaune on the front cover: no Weiss or Yang (the main characters) but Jaune is up there??

Why exactly he was on the front cover again?

Yuuuuuup. They couldn't leave their Most Super Specialest Boy off the cover, then people might think he's not the centre of the universe!

[the-path-to-redemption]

Ruby deserves to have a victim impact statement with Jaune for killing Penny. I want her to ask him in a cold, probing tone "Did you watch the light leave her eyes?"

Unfortunately, that would just mean more angst material for Jaune and more ammo against Ruby for feeling the way she does about Penny, because fuck her and her emotions, it's just for Jaune even if he murdered someone she considered a good friend (despite everything) because he gets to feel anguish for what happened to him.

I'm just annoyed whenever I think about Jaune now. He was a secondary character who got that special treatment because M*les can live his fantasy through him, and in a way, I am mad for Jaune. His writing is chocked full of misogynistic and transphobic rhetoric since the get go, when he can be so much more than just M*les dumbass, male fantasy self-insert in a show they heralded as "girl power", when none of the girls get the same level of care that Jaune does as characters.

Fuck this noise bruh.

[dragynkeep]

They really did just try to mix Jaune into everything even at the cost of other more relevant characters didn't they? Fan favorite character(s) die? Time to make it all about Jaune. Far more experienced fighters need a strat too deal with an enemy? Time for Jaune to come up with a half-ass plan an pretend it's good. Character(s) reach their limit and justifiably lash out? Well here comes Jaune to either talk down to them and/or make the situation worse. I could go on but you get what I'm saying?

yeah. this volume really cemented that no matter how much they'll try to put jaune on a "back burner", it won't last for long & he will still become center stage above the main girls when it comes down to brass tacks which is just.

at this point, name the show jrwby, mkek. stop pretending like you're not salivating at the idea of this whitebread loser being center stage with his ugly ass yeye haircut to kill off another woman for his "emotional growth" which goes nowhere.

[epic-arc]

Rwby Volume 9 ep 2:

Well I just saw ep 2 of volume 9 and I must say the animation is very good and even cartoonish in a good way and the measurement between comedy and seriousness is good and correct at the right moments and weiss being the best character in the ep so what I must have said my rating for this episode is an 8.5/10 and it was cute the mention of penny and weiss remembering jaune and winter thought they passing (Badly knowing about jaune) now what am i going to say is kinda meme cuz im a white knight shipper but it's nice to know that weiss cares about jaune and hopes he passed through the portal with winter.

[richardsphere]

How the writing accidentally “protag’d” Jaune, and how to prevent a repeat in V10

Look i’ll defend Jaune every day of my life, he’s a necessary grounding force in the story, a well written tragic figure and often an important voice of reason (as a result of being one of the more grounded figures in the show) and just generally a likeable guy. He’s one of my top 5 characters in the show even. But god you can see that even the showrunners are angry at how much he’s the only character they still really “know”how to write. and the worst part is that all of the choices are individually defensible and often even the right choice for the narrative.   This readmore focusses on speculations regarding the doylist reasons behind jaune’s prominence in certain scenes, and how to make adjust their course-correction strategy to be more effective.

Like i made a post before about how S1-3 were light on characterising Team RWBY because there’s gonna be a roadtrip arc and we’ll give them their own arcs to flesh them out then. And Jaune was verry much crucial in the early game (because he’s simultaneously ruby’s foil, an audience exposition receptical and Pyrrha is going to die and as the regular “normal guy” in the show no one else is better at representing the idea of “a regular life of happiness VS a great destiny that ends in tragedy” for our Achilles paralel). Then S4 splits the party up to give us the chance to characterise Blake, Yang and Weiss with their own arcs, so you’d expect those 2 seasons to give them some depth? But now that these characters are spread across 4 seperate continents we need to set up so many new side-characters for them to interact with that we dont have the time for introspection, we need to flesh out the politics of Menagerie, introduce Fake!Spring maiden, introduce Willow and Klein and Whitley and Jaques first(?) on screen appearance, and introduce Salems other lieutenants and set up the mystery of Oscarpin.... and Oopsie thats S4 done, we didnt have the time to flesh out any of WBY. And because its hard to make Ruby mourn something as abstract as a physical location, we’ll substitute it by making her foil mourn an actual person. So S4-5 doesnt flesh out RWBY, (and strangely does little for Team Sloth, who should probably have been shown mourning Pyrrha as well) but does flesh out Jaune a bit more. (which tbh, is justifiable, he’s the OG exposition-hearer and we’re about to enter the part of the plot where none of our protagonists know whats going on. Being “the guy who doesnt know stuff” isnt a schtick they can maintain for the guy anymore so we need to give him a new thing to do and “grief” is a good-enough thing for now). But at least WBY can have their own arcs to flesh themselves out right? only this is where the writers realise, we cant resolve or explore Yangs issues with Raven too deeply, because the Raven issues are inseperable from the “fate of Summer” mystery so they leave that on a half-resolution.

Weiss runs away from home, but that doesnt deepen her because “doesnt want to be with Jaques” was one of her first known traits. but at least we know she’s got a brother (who is in like one scene) a butler and moms alcoholism. Which leaves us in Menagerie, where we get some nice exploration of Blakes loving parents, but this arc doesnt really deepen out what makes her tick because Adam isnt in this arc and it turns out that: No Blake does not actually have some deep-seated reason to join the fang, she was just sort of born into it. which sort of waters her motivations down from “freedomfighter trying to achieve justice in a cruel and unjust world” to “Inherited the family business”. (and while “family legacy” is a big thing in RWBY, what with Ruby, Weiss and Jaune all being motivated by that specific thing, there are no other characters in the Menagerie arc that can contrast/foil/emphasise this part of her character so this new reveal about Blakes core motivations is a bit mellow). So after S5, the showrunners look over their charactersheets and realise “dammit, Jaune is currently the most well-defined character?” and they do the first thing they can think of: They eject Jaune from the plot ASAP. They cut the train in two so we can finally have some time with just RWBY and give them a little arc and some characterisation... And someone in the writers room piped up and said “wait, isnt the traincrash the only part we can really justify making Ozpin drop the lamp” and suddenly the “reaching Ansel safely”arc becomes the “Salem’s basic motivations and Ozpin cant be trusted” arc. so instead of “characterising RWBY” we get Ozposition and Salem backstory. But at least we get to see the heroes react to the revelation that Ozpin is full of it right? Well sort of, because while we do get a Qrow Lashing Out scene, Maria pipes in and reminds them “we’re allready holding the lamp, dont get emotional right now we cant afford a second grimm-magnet in this undefensible wilderness position”. (which yeah, fair point i guess she’s making a valid point but also, bad for the writing) And while you’d expect “our mentor cant be trusted” to be the perfect inciting incident for some character introspection, our next destination is the Brunswick farm, where the apathy lives. Now i love the apathy as a concept, and its a well written mini-arc. But whichever writer thought it was a good idea to follow the “our heroes are at the perfect moment for some real character-drama” up with a monster with the power to make characters behave in manners they normally would not behave, needs to surrender their christmass bonus. Like i get that you could argue they’re trying to go for “monster as analogy” but if you want to deepen out the characters here you really want the characters to respond to the issue in different, specific ways that flesh them out as individuals. but instead they are all forced into the same emotional state, which serves only to homogonise RWBY and make them less distinctive and identifiable. So the apathy cuts out our first real opportunity for some RWBY together-in-crisis exploration, but we fix the bike and make our way to Jaune’s Sisters Place for a second “ozpins full of shit” reveal, except this time to characters who arent going to be forced into non-response by Maria/Magic Apathy, and OOPS we just gave JNR the characterbeat that RWBY should’ve had. This is also when someone in the writers room (justifiably) pipes up: “wait, this is our last stop before we leave Mistral isnt it, and we’re not coming back to Mistral ever again afterwards right?”, and someone else answers yes, and the first guy responds “why did our 3 seasons in Pyrrha’s home-place never once make us meet her grieving family again?” and the second guy palms their face and said “allright you’ve got a point” and we get the Pyrrha Statue Scene. Which moves Jaune from “actively seeking death” to “Willing to postpone his his Suicinder until there’s no one left to mourn him”  We kill Adam while the plot prevents Weiss from ever seeing the weight of her family’s sins (yet again) as S6 comes to an end, and despite the writers taking active precautions to prevent it from happening, they’ve once again managed to flesh out Jaune without truly exploring the shows namesake team... And we get to S7, and they do the sensible thing and once again write Jaune out of the story by making him a traffic-cop who will not be involved in any plots or sub-plots for a while. But, We also brought back Penny, This is Watts’ only arc as a villain so we need to make him ominous and let him have his screentime, and we want to be interesting and make this arc Villain VS Villain with Ironwood VS Salem so the heroes wont actually get to interact with any of the antagonists for this plotline, allthewhile introducing Clover and the Aceops, setting up the Spear of Damocles and the Huntresses. So the heroes just spend a lot of time doing small fetch-quests that dont connect to anything too significant as the show tries to set the stage for S8. Also, this is our fourth? concecutive story about learning not to follow authorities blindly (Lionheart, Ozpin, Cordovin, Ironwood) so the show really struggles to sell the heroes trust in Ironwood when he introduces “operation world-wide grim-insurgence”. So a lot of this story-arc sort of falls flat as we spend most of S7 figuring out that, yeah the guy wanting to create a worldwide grimm-insurgence is probably not entirely morally right to do so. So S7 doesnt end up fleshing out anyone but perhaps Ren’s taste in bootleather, as it’s too busy setting up and fleshing out the villains to spend time on our heroes. Weiss does get to interact with her family though to flesh her out more. But the “confronting my asshole dad” thing is short and strangely low-stakes. (We havent seen verry much of Weiss’ homelife even during the V4 bit she was at home, and weiss has been largely sheltered from his “corporate crimes”, never getting to be in any scene that hints or adresses those victimised by the SDC. As a result his arrest at her hands lacks an emotional punch) S7 ends with Qrow broken, clovers death and Ironwood’s villain reveal as well as Penny as the Winter Maiden. S7 was so weak on characterisation for the main-cast, and semi-removed lessons learned in the last 3 seasons to a point where Jaune being largely absent ends up largely shielding him from the “did no one learn their lesson” feeling that permeates S7. And then we get to S8. S8 is still largely Villain VS villain, with our heroes forced to fight logistics of food-supplies and evactuations instead of dealing with any antagonistic force until Ironwood threatens the MantleBomb. This is also our last chance to characterise Penny. We get a little bit of “weiss loves her family” and Yang pining for Blake in the snowfields. But all the plotbeats go to Oscar, Emerald, Penny and the villains again until the team decides to use the spear, S8 is also largely a nothingburger for RWBYJNR is what im saying. Until the climax that is, where we dont get much in the form of characterisation beyond “the ones on the bridge grieve the fallen” but then Penny makes the sacrifice play, And Jaune screams. Now i understand why it couldnt be RWBY members to do the stab, (WBY have no real relation to penny and are already established as the sort-of-pragmatic castmembers who, while not happy wouldnt really “struggle” too much and Ruby needs to maintain her “innocence” for marketability purposes) so obviously Jaune was the only real option because as Ruby’s foil and with Penny being a maiden “ladykiller” has a sort-of second-hand connection to her. but goddamn could the show let the main four do SOMETHING important already without cutting away from their responding emotions for once? Then we get S9,   the show realises again that it needs to get rid of jaune because they’ve overused him again, creates a Jaune-free window for the characters to interact in again but wastes it’s chance again as it focusses on setting up new characters and building the setting and mystery for this new story-arc. Again. So according to some basic patern recognition: when we enter V10, expect Jaune to disapear from the story for the first half-season as the writers will, once again try to give the rest of the cast the spotlight back, only for exposition and worldbuilding to steal said spotlight from the cast anyway. Then when the plot kicks off and its “all hands on deck” Jaune will return to the plot because All Hands includes his healing hands, and that means that Jaune gets to once again be absent for the boring logistics of the narrative, and present for the characterisation bits. so now that we have identified root of the shows current problem, how would I fix it? I’d suggest moving the “Jaune free” plot-zone back a bit. Instead of putting it at the start of the vacuo arc, move it back to the early mid-point. Hell make him extremely prominent during the “boring worldbuilding” phase of our Vacuo arc. Then his dissapearence from the plot the inciting incident for the mid-point of the arc. Put him in prison/coma/other state of not-in-the-show for a bit and make Jaune’s Absence one of the things the rest of the cast can react and emote to/about. For example: Tyrian shows up, Tries to stab someone, Jaune interposes himself and turns out oops thats a poison and jaune slips into a coma. (no jaunes aura did not heal him from Alyx’ poison, the paperpleasers did cause they’re literal magic) How does Ruby respond to possibly losing her First Friend, especially now that she’s already lost her second friend (sorry weiss, but you werent a “friend” until after penny, pre penny you were an aquantence at best) How does Yang respond to Ruby’s response, does she go back to Momsis mode? How does Weiss respond to the guy who saved her life at Haven? How do ReNora respond to losing the last thing that seperated Team Sloth from JNPR being gone, possibly forever if they dont get the antidote from [Medical lab] Does Oscar become the new leader of OREN? (pronounced Orange) just, dont only remove Jaune from the setup, remove him from the actual plot next season.

[doomalade]

Just had a thought pop into my mind

Jaune Stans often write low quality stuff with the punchline being “haha sex” while also trying to sound deep and poetic but just ends up reeking of misogyny.

Does that remind you of anything?

Over simplification? Yes.

Pattern seeking brain? Yes.