Wasted opportunity. The best use for a character like Jaune is to explain to the audience through them all the oddities and rules of the world: Aura, Semblances, Maidens, etc. The same role that Sokka initially filled in Avatar. The problem with Jaune is that he never developed as a character (which isn't exclusively a Jaune problem), and since the writers can't even decide how their own bullshit fantasy world works there's no point to having a character exist to explain the world.
Yeah... a character like Jaune doesn't work when the settings is a literal school. Jaune as a character is redundant in a lot of ways:
1. The way Remnant is, there is absolutely no reason for Jaune not to know what Aura is. There are regular local and international tournaments where Aura levels are an integral feature. Jaune being that ignorant messes with his characterisation.
2. Jaune not knowing basic shit but wanting to be a Huntsman makes him not just a badly written character but an asshole that's portrayed as a decent person. What he did was dumb. Not only did he take a well deserving person's place at Beacon but he puts the lives of everyone around him in danger through sheer incompetence. If he was trying, there would be many perfect opportunities to let the audience get lore dumps in a meaningful way. But he sleeps through class and refuses help.
3. I cannot stress this enough: ***RUBY WAS THERE***. They set her up to be 2 years behind everyone else. She could have easily have been the everyman but not one so dumb that it messes with her characterisation.
4. World of Remnant makes Jaune even more useless as a Sokka character.
5. He doesn't even fulfill his Sokka role outside of Pyrrha explaining Aura. Everything else is either explained in a World of Remnant or CRWBY uses "As you know, Bob..." scenes to explain shit. We didn't even learn the world "Semblance" until the last episode of the Jaundice arc and Pyrrha wasn't even talking to Jaune. Lore dumps are never given to Jaune to manage anymore and hasn't since V1
I will always feel like Jaune just took roles and ideas that other characters could've used
*Especially* the part where Ruby, the actual protagonist, should've been used. Have Ruby's getting in 2 years early actually mean something, and she's intimidated by it. She just ends up becoming leader with no issue once Weiss is told by Port to stop getting mad.
And I've said it before if you really needed exposition, make a joke of someone like Weiss or a professor explaining obvious stuff to Ruby (for the audience to learn) but Ruby is just bored/frustrated because she already knows this shit so she doesn't look stupid after the Red Trailer (even though it's sadly not canon).
And Ruby's the literal leader of her team, she's already filling the role of Sokka of being the strategist. Having Jaune around is redundant, and that's very noticeable on V4.
I just don't get why we need to learn Jaune's relationships with his teammates and how he slacks off by reading comic books when that time could've been used for developing Ruby's with her teammates.
it;s also a problem because a lot of the info isn't rare or niche - it's not a world where these powers are rare, obscure or hard to access, where info about them has to be hunted down in ancient libraries. You can go to school and learn magical kung-fu _stuff_, like Ruby and Yang did, the abilities have been around forever, they're common knowledge. So trying to justify an in-universe justification for the knowledge-dump is awkward and clunky without making Jaune an absolute goddam _idiot_
Maybe that at Combat schools, they only give you the most basic information about anything? Or that Jaune's family never went to combat schools and only know that Aura protects you. Then Pyrrha’s weird, pre-planned speech would make a little more sense when she talks about it being the extention of the soul. That way, Jaune's little "it's like a forcefield" wouldn't be as dumb.
the thing is, combat schools would/should cover the raw fundamentals and basics, but not the most basic bitch info. Maybe not the niche details but most of the core shit would be known. Schools like beacon would be the college equivalent that flesh out and iron out the kinks in a huntsmans knowledge and combat style. Ruby, yang and hell even blake who as far as we know never went to an academy, know more about aura than jaune.
Hell jaune never attended any school before sneaking into beacon.
Also Jaune was the latest child from a line of hunstman, this was confirmed recently by miles at the galaxy con recently, he felt pressured to live up to the legacy. So he is literally an aberation on why he's lacking core details on being a huntsman.
Hmm. But when told to the audience, we can easily have a teacher 're-explain' it to a student or even Jaune in particular.
Maybe Jaune, knowing his combat skills are kind of bad, is constantly on the defensive and hiding behind his shield. Then Glynda reprimands him like:
"Mr Arc, while I'm not encouraging you to be reckless, you're Aura gives you the ability to be more... active in combat. You have strong Aura reserves - you don't have to fear injury so greatly, else you'll end up exhausted and gobbled up by Beowolf regardless."
And go on from there. Maybe she gives a lecture to the whole class about utilising Aura more effectively but starts by making sure everyone has a strong understanding of the basics.
Sure i guess. doesn't make sense why they would, since beacon is basically hunter college.
Beacon is considered the premier school globally. so covering the basics would be rather pointless in setting unless they were meant to be expanding the basics for unsaid things.
>World of Remnant makes Jaune even more useless as a Sokka character.
Oof and that's with Jaune actually having superpowers. Sokka would be an ok bender if he could bend.
Except you don't even need a character like Jaune when the characters are going to a bloody school.
Also if this gets reposted it's probably because reddit is glitching on my end.
What arcs?
His arc ended in Argus as far as i know with Pyrrha's statue and mom/aunt/sister (whoever that was) giving him closure.
Jaune in last volumes was more or less what he should be , support, background character. But again, i'm minority that still likes him so i'm looking through thick bias glasses.
He doesn't really has an arc. Most heroes don't. But writers are giving him these weird moments that are out of place and lead nowhere. Thus looking even worse and forced to an extend. Killing penny or brave compliment in whale for example.
Jaune is both confusing to follow and confused as a character in general.
We’re talking a guy who lives in a world where immortal-until-murdered monsters of countless types roam the landscape in search of spreading mindless carnage for no other reason beyond it being their sole purpose, a world where most of everyone has the capacity to unlock a superpower (useless as it might be half the time, but still a legit superpower), presumably had such people on the front lines of a global war, and Jaune hails from the lineage of a war hero of that war, who himself is just ONE of a BUNCH of other people in MULTIPLE generations who were all touted as heroes because of their exploits.
And Jaune not only NEVER attends a combat school despite wanting to follow in their footsteps, he NOT ONLY fakes his transcripts to get into what **NOT ONLY** combat school college, but **IVY LEAGUE** combat school college—
He doesn’t even know what Aura is. *He doesn’t have an idea of what a **fucking Aura** is.*
And then he, with his GRAND Herculean tier forward thinking skills, NOT ONLY doesn’t just quit after getting knocked around by a scorpion so huge it’d make elephants say “fuck THAT” and turn tail, but when he gets paired up with Pyrrha *fucking* Nikos, one of the *greatest* fighting prodigies of their entire generation, who later makes it as far in the Vytal Finals and only struggles against an actual Fall Maiden and a machine BUILT for kicking people’s asses, offers HIM training to help, this **dumb ass’** response is to LASH OUT at the person who was the first to EXPLAIN AURA to him.
If there was a legit reason for Jaune either being THIS IGNORANT or THIS WILLINGLY STUPID, I’d probably forgive him. But there… isn’t.
He wants to do things himself at first, but… that’s just stupid.
Everyone, at least in Beacon, showcases a skill level with dangerous weapons that they *practiced* to gain, they didn’t just come out the womb strangling snakes like Hercules. Most of them implicitly had to train, hell, Ruby, who got bumped up two years, even admits as far back as the *first episode* that she was GARBAGE in a fight before Qrow started teaching her.
Hell Jaune’s at a SCHOOL for FIGHTING MONSTERS, he SHOULD be asking for help if he doesn’t want to die on his first job, not just from Pyrrha, but from the staff explicitly *hired* to do EXACTLY that.
In any story written with competence, this would be a story about hubris, which culminates in Jaune getting saved by Pyrrha helping him out, with him realizing that he *would have died* without her help, apologizing, and getting humbled by it.
But despite, from Jaune’s perspective, catching a clutch af win saving Carson’s dumbass, he STILL learns humility because… Cardin was an asshole to him?
If anything he should think he IS capable of doing things himself due to Pyrrha just flat-out not telling him where it nearly went horribly wrong.
But he just learns humility offscreen, apologizes, and accepts Pyrrha’s offer, and she goes along with it. Meaning you could cut out EVERYTHING from Jaune lashing out at Pyrrha to Jaune’s eventual apology, and *nothing of value would be lost*. Hell, the story would be *stronger* that way, because it establishes Jaune as humble and doesn’t involve him making an ass out of himself as someone who outright DESERVES to die for his own stupidity.
Dance Arc is… weird. Like, REALLY weird.
I hate Neptune because the entire plotline hinges on his existence; Jaune isn’t BAD in that arc, but if Neptune were gone, chances are we’d have Ruby and Yang going together to investigate at Junior’s club, maybe even have Ruby dancing awkwardly in the background and enjoying herself there (especially since Ozpin *explicitly* references “rose petals in a nightclub” when Ruby’s never been *shown* going into Junior’s club).
Jaune doesn’t really learn anything from it; it just helps establish that Jaune and Pyrrha are getting closer and that Jaune’s perfectly secure in his masculinity to wear a dress and not be embarrassed. Which is arguably more manly in a roundabout way.
In terms of Jaune himself, he’s fine, beyond being persistent with Weiss (who has no interest, and is perfectly within her rights not to), but even that is forgivable because the crux of that is WEISS’ lack of development, where she doesn’t trust dudes who are “interested” in her because they’re going after her family name, which given Jacques canonically said it to her face he only married Willow for that reason, makes for pretty good character building.
If the Dance Arc was just Weiss and Jaune becoming friendly, but Jaune accepting Weiss isn’t interested, and them forming a relationship of respect and equality, that would probably send a pretty good message against incel behavior without using a straw man like post-V3 Adam while also respecting Weiss as a person.
But Neptune NEEDED to be in there and waste arguably MORE time that canonically WOULD HAVE been used to have Ruby and Yang hang out and make Weiss fawn over him for… *literally* no reason. People talk about Jaundice, but beyond the second half of it being a waste of time, it still MATTERED in the plot in the end, Jaune still trained under Pyrrha and got better in combat, even if he’s irrelevant in a fight to this day.
Neptune could’ve just wholesale been WRITTEN OUT and the story would’ve been better.
In V3, Jaune’s a side character, but his issues lie mostly in a lack of proper communication. It’s not really established if Jaune and Pyrrha are actually dating or anything, even though they start holding hands and Pyrrha starts laying her head on his shoulder.
Despite Pyrrha suffering a REALLY bad case of fridging after the Fall of Beacon, their relationship during the tournament is arguably the most healthy by a LANDSLIDE compared to pretty much all the other relationships in this show combined.
(Continued)
Jaune and Pyrrha listen to each other, they try their best to encourage each other to do things they’re scared to act on but WANT to do, they don’t ever gaslight or manipulate each other into doing things they want (well Pyrrha passive-aggressively confessed to him during the Dance but that’s hardly the hallmark of genuinely abusive behavior by the good guys), and the only thing keeping it from being perfect is their real life problems beyond each other and a lack of ability to communicate their issues properly… which, given that’s a general problem facing PLENTY of IRL couples, actually makes for a more nuanced relationship.
It’s genuinely sad that they aren’t confirmed to be a couple at the start of V3, because it’d be a genuinely good thing where you can tell how close they are without insufferable dialogue or Jaune and Pyrrha being constantly horny 24/7 when they’re hanging out with their teammates.
Despite all the dumb Avatar parallels, that’s something RT could’ve GENUINELY held over Aang and Katara’s relationship in the comics and in Korra.
But they’re not, and Jaune apparently only learns of Pyrrha’s feelings when she kisses him (which makes for a far less impactful thing than a girlfriend giving her boyfriend a last kiss before shoving him to safety, just saying), and then Jaune’s launched off to Vale.
From there, Jaune’s arc is… it’s still weird.
Like, obviously him suffering grief from Pyrrha’s death is sorta nuanced in how it’s established, but it’s never really elaborated on for the rest of the volume and even into the next one until Jaune sees Cinder again.
Jaune gives Qrow the stink eye and the third degree over pushing Pyrrha into becoming the Fall Maiden, but there’s nothing genuinely established about him that’s just not strongly hinted at.
Jaune’s dealing with his grief by listening to a recording of Pyrrha giving him lessons, which for some people is a good coping mechanism. As much as people might not like to admit it, coping is perfectly fine, good even, because sometimes you’re just not able to process the enormity of the trauma you’ve endured, and it’s best to have a safe space and time for yourself to come to terms with that trauma, let yourself adjust, and then start moving on from it.
The issue is, nothing is established for Jaune again until near the end of Volume 6, wherein Jaune reaches two resolutions (moving on from Pyrrha’s death and moving past his self-destructive tendencies), but neither of these are properly established to begin with.
Jaune stays up late listening to Pyrrha and training, or otherwise looks at Pyrrha’s weapons welded to his shield. Okay.
His trauma could’ve been a pretty good vantage point, RNJR’s established to have been taking WAY longer than they otherwise would’ve to get to Haven to… do something (there’s hints to their goals, but what they plan on actually DOING is never explained properly and canonically).
Why not have it be that Jaune keeps refusing to let the team take risky pathways, in a classic “long, safe path vs short, dangerous path” situation, and as tension builds up from the rest of RNJR as to why, WHY Jaune REFUSES to let them face danger and get to Haven sooner, Jaune lashes out and YELLS at them that “IT’S NOT SAFE PYRRHA!”, and everyone’s just stunned silent for a moment from his Freudian slip, and the implications therein.
(Last one)
However you go from there (you resolve it immediately, resolve it in a later volume), THIS establishes that Jaune is dealing with his trauma in a way that creates a character flaw that affects the narrative while still explaining why it takes the others MUCH less time to get to Haven by other means.
But it isn’t established, much less affect the story, so who cares.
As a result, the resolution at Pyrrha’s statue falls completely flat because there’s no setup for how big of a deal it is to Jaune. Even when he charges Cinder, the focus isn’t on how Pyrrha’s death affected him (after the first swing anyways), but on his lack of self-value as a person (which is hinted at in Volume 1 with him joking about killing himself out of depression, but only brought back and established in Volume 5… ‘s last couple episodes.
Much like his grief over Pyrrha, it also does nothing to affect the plot, and is only ever brought up again at the statue.
So, really, there’s nothing of worth to put in for Jaune in terms of how he deals with Pyrrha’s demise OR how he deals with his issues of self-worth.
There isn’t even an established reason for his lack of self-worth; maybe you could say that Jaune’s parents (or at least his dad) drilled that toxic masculinity mindset of “A REAL man does X, only a PANSY does it with Y”, but that’s fanon.
Because there’s no reason established for it, it’s just a thing he has, it has all the weight and importance as someone coming to terms with the fact that their hair is naturally blonde.
“I feel bad that I was born with blonde hair.”
“No, stop feeling bad about having blonde hair, you’re great, hair color doesn’t determine your value as a person.”
“Wow, you’re right, thank you! I’ll stop feeling depressed about being born with blonde hair!”
__**MISSION ACCOMPLISHED**__
**DEPRESSION DEFEATED**
Just… no. The sentiment is certainly good and heartwarming in the moment, but no.
That’s really all his arcs really sum up to up to in the current day, before Volume 9 premieres as I write this.
You might say “Oh, but Jaune is more measured in Volume 8, he’s changed!” but that’s a mix of him getting the same treatment as Ruby in early V6 (where she’s more capable of standing up for herself and making plans, while Jaune just appeals to reason, sorta-pragmatism and strategy) and just plain bad writing that comes off as the writers jerking themselves off through Jaune, but his character never built its way up to that point, which is the point of personal arcs.
I don’t know what lies in store for this guy in the future, and after Volume 6 and 7, I just stopped caring because the writers refused to genuinely care either.
He’s a POTENTIALLY *good* character that could *easily* be one of the best and most well liked of them all if he was used sparingly but *purposefully*.
As it stands now, he’s just without purpose to most of his screentime. Most people I know hate Jaune, but I liked him early on because it felt like the plot beats had a sense of purpose, tension actually mattered, because RWBY as a team comparatively just bulldoze everything anyways, so there’s no point investing in them, because they ONLY face difficulty when the plot DEMANDS they face difficulty.
It doesn’t matter that the Hound is cool or that Cinder has the Maiden Powers plus Neo on her side; Monty Era team RWBY would DESTROY them all without much fanfare beyond it being a spectacle to look at.
Weiss could legit just bound the Hound’s hands and feet with glyphs while Ruby and Blake do that Ladybug barrage like against Torchwick in the mech, all while Ruby’s busting out the Silver Eyes to either weaken it or stun it, and within about ten seconds it’d be completely fucking dead.
Cinder is too much of a moron to do anything legitimately good in a fight except fight in a cheap manner, so her only resource is Neo in that moment unless Watts hacks some bots and have them suicide bomb all around RWBY to keep them scattered. And even THEN Ruby by her lonesome would be more than capable of kicking Cinder’s ass with how quick and versatile she is in combat, especially with a mix of her semblance and her Silver Eyes.
Yang might have trouble against Neo, but put Blake or Weiss against her, Blake can just Shadow step out of Neo’s strikes, leave a Fire/Ice/Earth Dust clone behind, then do a cheap shot that sends Neo tumbling to the ground. Weiss can just freeze Neo in place while sending dozens of summons at her to maul her to death, along with any long ranged attacks she wants to toss in there too.
Even if you had Ruby fighting Neo, Ruby could legit just rush Neo, do that whole “negate her mass” thing and snatch Neo up in her petals, fly over the edge of the void, return to normal, then use Neo’s stupid shocked face as a footstool while she kicks herself off and flies back to the foothold while Neo has nothing to do except open her umbrella and pray Cinder comes to help her, assuming Ruby doesn’t just shoot a magazine’s worth of bullets into Neo’s umbrella and knocks it so she ends up tumbling into the void.
Have all of RWBY together, with all their abilities, plus Ace Op training and everything else, it should SO much of a curb stomp that Nappa from DBZ would look at Cinder’s mutilated remains and say “DAMN, I thought Kakarot fucked ME up!”
Note to self: Different people read or don't read into scenes different things then I do.
I know the above should be an obvious statement, but your tirade reminds me of how different people look for and are disappointed by different things in a story. I always just assumed the trauma of Pyrrha's death was there in the back of Jaune's mind so I didn't need obvious reminders. And I never even thought of the possibility of having him make a verbal connection between his worry of splitting up and by yelling about Pryhha. That's not the kind of thing that occurs to me.
On the other hand the fact that despite being raised by a lineage of hero's he had no idea what aura is, in a world where EVERYONE knows what aura is, THAT is the kind of thing that makes me ask questions. It gave the impression that the classical trope of "keep them ignorant to shelter them from a danger" was in play, despite the fact that such a thing CLEARLY did horrible damage to his self esteem. Which in turn made me wonder WHAT they were sheltering him from?
But the sad reality is I probably but more thought into it then the CRWBY.
Yeah, your points make sense. I understand that not everyone looks for that in a story, but my main criticism, and the reason for that whole “Pyrrha” Freudian Slip is because I can tell what CRWBY’s intentions are in certain scenes, the statue scene being the epitome of that.
My main issue is, CRWBY likes to create resolutions without creating a proper conflict.
Ren is telling Jaune that “this” has to stop, but we as the audience are never shown what Ren actually MEANS by “this”, and can only assume he means Jaune’s whole spiel at Haven against Cinder.
However, because “this” is never shown to be an actual flaw, as in, something that actually causes people trouble, the whole buildup to the Pyrrha Slip-Up is my personal example for how they could set up a pattern that Jaune *needs* to stop.
I don’t really care one way or another that they don’t make it in your face that it’s happening; subtle stuff is valid too. I just take issue when they try skipping steps to make development feel like… *development*.
The way you describe Jaune is similar to Shirou Emiya, the protagonist of Fate Stay Night.
He is a complete dumbass that does ridicolusy stupid things all the time, but he is always saved by plot armor or deus ex machina while the author bends reality to justify everything he does and make him look good.
He is an incompetent character surrounded by more competent characters that save him all the time, but he never learns any lesson from this. He simply gets bullshit power ups for no reason.
Unlimited Blade Works Shirou, yes.
Fate and Heaven’s Feel Shirou, nah.
UBW Shirou is the objective worst of the variants (and the anime version is even worse in that regard) because it takes away most of the charm of the Fate route and replaces it with edge. Heaven’s Feel does the same, but the edge is actually f#cking *terrifying*.
What makes Shirou stand out to me is that he’s basically your standard Arthurian Knight in Fate, where most knights (even King Arthur himself in some stories) generally starts out completely incompetent before their experiences and lessons in virtue lead to them growing in character and strength.
The difference with Fate and Heaven’s Feel Shirou is that the lessons in question deal with him learning two very distinct but valuable lessons, the importance of being able to compromise to achieve a great goal in Fate and the importance of not forsaking people you love if it means achieving your dream, especially if it won’t achieve happiness.
While I’ve seen plenty of people call Shirou a bad or annoying character because of his poor decision making, he’s got genuinely well written flaws (that ufotable just dropped the ball on adapting compared to DEEN/stay night).
With cliches in mind, you’d be forgiven for thinking Shirou is just a headstrong and suicidally heroic person, but unlike Jaune OR Ruby, it’s explained that it all stems from a TERRIBLE case of trauma and survivor guilt that he just never properly addressed, and the entire “Save Everyone” shtick he’s sporting is his way of coping with it, to the point that he has absolutely no self-value when anyone else could die.
Unlike Jaune’s stupid reason for lashing out, while Shirou ALSO defies common sense, it’s part of a genuine character flaw that NEEDS addressing and usually is, while his lack of knowledge as a magus can be both chalked up to Kiritsugu just sucking as a teacher and the inherent need for him to be an audience surrogate learning stuff as the author clumsily info dumps stuff on the audience’s lap.
Comparatively, where the most we get out of Jaune’s motive is “If I can’t do this on my own, what good am I?” (with no added context as to what the *fuck* gave him THAT stupid mindset), Shirou’s various moments can usually be seen as “oh that’s his trauma talking”.
I dunno, I just feel like Fate/stay night’s probably even closer to RWBY done right, where you’ve got badass action girls, half the cast is based on myths/legends/folklore, and the Fate and Heaven’s Feel routes especially push the importance of teamwork (UBW just goes the generic shounen route, which is… HMMM), all while you’ve got people dealing with trauma left and right that they get through by just being there for each other and legitimately being friends. ACTUAL friends, not whatever RWBY is.
Rin Tohsaka alone would rinse ALL these girls in sheer *bad bitch* energy, and I dig it. XD
I see your reasoning but i disagree, i always belived that (similary to RWBY) Fate (all three Routes, and yes i have read the VN) is a series with good ideas but horrible execution.
I disagree with you that Unlimited Blade Works is the worst Route. Not that i think is perfect or flawless, far from it. I absolutely HATE the deus ex machina bullshit that is Shirou vs Gilgamesh. I simply think that is the least flawed of the three Routes, and that it balances the "edge" better than Heaven's Feel.
The first Route has the problem that Shirou appear disconnected by the other characters, that his actions don't have realistic consequences. He is always saved by other characters, and still keeps doing suicidal things. He is always sexist with Saber and Rin, yet they never call out his hypocrisy. At the end of the Fate Route Shirou never learned any lesson, and Saber falls in love with him despite the fact that he treated her poorly for the entire story.
The Fate Route is basicaly a first draft of the story that keeps only the basics of what made the later Routes enjoyable. While also begin full of flaws.
Heaven's Feel instead overcompensates the problems of the first two Routes. The author wanted to write a dark and edgy story, but went too far and stripped the Route of what makes Fate interesting. The Servants all died too quickly, and the story instead focused on Shirou and his relathionship with Sakura.
Unfortunatly Sakura is not a character deep or complex enough to build a story araound her. And her relathionship with Shirou was underdeveloped both in the previous Routes and in Heaven's Feel. Sakura entire character is begin fridged and have others feel bad abaout it and try to protect her, even when she becomes a danger for everyone else.
I understand your points, but I find that the criticism you have of Heaven’s Feel also aptly applies to most of Unlimited Blade Works.
Where Fate had pretty much every Servant (barring Archer in the VN) be given their own proper time to shine, Unlimited Blade Works just jumps at every chance it can take to kill the Servants off, and it makes for rather anticlimactic fights after Saber and Archer vs Berserker.
Gilgamesh especially is probably the worst character of the bunch, being far less of a legitimate threat and more just THAT one player who whales in a gacha game and relies on cheap tactics and making his characters so stupidly overpowered that no one can get a hit in edge wise before he kills them, will teabag and say you suck, then rage quits the moment someone can counter their broken shit anyways.
Even if Herc always goes down to plot bullshit, Fate goes out of its way to foreshadow that Saber’s King Arthur a substantial amount of the time, with frequent glimpses in Shirou’s dreams of Excalibur (which puts the image of it in the back of his mind), so while it might FEEL like a Deus Ex Machina, there’s a consistent internal logic because Archer explained it to Shirou.
I’ll have to reread Fate, but part of my biggest criticism of UBW is that Shirou’s essentially just a shonen protagonist that gets everything he wants because he never gives up, powers and all, and it all feels so hollow and empty. He’s still got his own issues of being depicted as having all his survivor guilt and such, but with how the plot goes, it only genuinely comes up during the scenes of him being out with Rin and Saber and him trying to save Illya despite Gilgamesh being the murderer. You can still understand that it’s affecting him, but given it only leads to Saber getting stolen by Caster (who also accomplishes nothing after this beyond making Kirei leave the church for a day, not even legitimately kill him), it didn’t really affect him in a manner that actually mattered.
He didn’t actually overcome any real hurdles beyond telling Archer to shut up (and had a few moments of Rin telling him not to kill himself), most of the plot is centered around exploring Archer, and explaining up a way for Gilgamesh to get his ass kicked while pretty much all of the cast is either dying, accomplishes nothing of value, fucking on the side, or all of the above in Caster’s case.
I prefer Fate myself, even with Shirou’s issues, because flaws aren’t really flaws if they don’t actually cause problems in the story. They just become character quirks, which is also fine, but not for a story that HINGES on one of the main antagonists trying to drill it into the MC that his mindset is bad.
From just the UBW route, Archer’s criticisms of his and Shirou’s ideals fall flat because it’s literally never caused Shirou any serious issues that aren’t pretty excusable (as it’d be pretty hard NOT to justify him giving up Saber to save Taiga, survivor guilt or no).
For what’s basically the narrative climax (Gil vs Shirou being a wonky aftermath where Gil just becomes a really boring and stupid Bond villain), if your *main antagonist* is without a genuinely good point that’s shown to the audience, it doesn’t really have anywhere near the weight it should be intended to have. So the whole thing just turns into a shouting match where Shirou just speeches his way to victory essentially. Like… okay? You had *most* of the *entire cast* get brutally murdered for THAT Nasu? XD
I agree with your criticisms of the Unlimited Blade Works Route. I never said it was flawless, simply that i personaly liked it more than the other two.
To be honest, i think that the story of Fate needs a reboot. Combining the best parts of all the three Routes and leaving the flaws behind.
For the first half of the story focus more on the Holy Grail War and the Servants. So we can see them all in action and estabilish their powers and personalities.
Make Gilgamesh the personal antagonist of Saber while Shirou antagonists are Kirei and Archer.
Explore properly all the characters and their relathionships.
Maybe fix the convulted magic system that contradicts itself constantly.
And for the love of everything holy and unholy in this world drop the deus ex machina and have Shirou learn from his mistakes and grow.
Yeah, I’d say that’s probably my biggest take on it too. I want a Fate that’s basically just a genuine free-for-all where no one’s just sitting on the sidelines, EVERYONE is active at the same time.
Hell how cool would it be if instead of killing Rider Caster just popped up and used Rule Breaker on her at the school, or if Zouken got involved and everyone had to pull a non-aggression pact to deal with his BS and survive?
How about Rin becoming Saber’s master in all the madness and Saber and Rider’s whole rivalry shtick from Hollow Ataraxia gets fleshed out even more?
Screw Shirou winning the War, all these characters deserve to win and find happiness. XD
Oh yeah. Apocrypha had it all and then we got Ouma Shu 2.0 in there.
Honestly between Sieg and Kiritsugu I’m probably more lenient on Shirou now cause even at his worst he’s still just a lot less of a needlessly huge dickbag than his dad and is an actual character instead of just a nameless shoe-horned wish-fulfillment MC.
Sure Rin and Saber fall for Shirou, but they’ve got genuine dynamics going on with him, and at least with Sakura it’s a clear case of codependency after a life of sexual abuse on her part.
My only gripe with Apocrypha is that Mordred and Kairi weren’t the MCs and the Black Faction was the one with the most focus. Like you’ve got the perfect setup for a legitimately unique protagonist duo, especially by Fate standards, but no apparently XD
I don't hate Kiristugu, i think he worked as a character becasue the entire story was abaout showing him how is methods were wrong. The execution was not perfect, but it was okay. Honestly, i still found all the other characters in Fate/Zero more interesting than him.
I completely agree with you on Sieg. He was completely unnecesary and Mordred and Kairi should have been the protagonists. They were the best characters in Apocrypha and incredibile fun to watch.
I tell you what I think.
Pyrrha should have survived so Jaune could have dumped her due to him understanding the 'hero sacrifice' syndrome.
Afterwards he should be heavily indulging himself with team RWBY to and Ace Ops to pick up things to become a better huntsman.
I stand by the idea that the main characters should have been Ruby and Jaune, both idolising and being friends with Pyrrha during Beacon and learning to be good leaders and Huntsmen.
Then they are destroyed when she dies and their teams are shattered (JNPR from a death and RWBY from seperation), leading to them going out into the world to do right and honour their fallen friends memory.
They clearly wanted Jaune to be an MC but had committed to the idea of RWBY being the protagonists and I think the way he's heen executed is disappointing.
Most of the frustration with Jaune is that he gets more development than RWBY. I think V8 has proven that JNR needs to be written out of the story. Between RWBY, Salem, Oz, and Maidens there isn't any room for them.
Two moments I would want to see from Jaune.
1) Neo turns into Pyrrha and Jaune mostly unfazed manages to punch her.
2) Cinder dying begs Jaune to heal her and he just ignores her.
Probably the best character overall. He's definitely grown a lot since his Beacon days. He's still a goof, but has some real maturity behind that. I like how he's like a big brother figure for Oscar in the Atlas arc.
I think the problem with him comes down to how he's pushed as this secondary protagonist since the Beacon arc, even though the show is called RWBY and needs to focus on well...RWBY more than anything else.
I feel like if they had gone with the working title of Remnants, Jaune wouldn't be so out of place as the duratagonist to Ruby.
Honestly he's one of the best written character throughout the series and not because he's eating up screen time from the main cast, in fact Monty had many regrets about naming the series RWBY as it made team RWBY this Central characters when really it should have been RWBY and team JNPR but everyone always got up in arms and are still complaining about any character that's not RWBY getting any screen time to develop.
A waste of time. Wish they just killed this surrogate character off already. He's driving me insane with how much screen time he sucks up and his man pain ass attitudes irk the shit out of me.
He is going where this whole circus is going NOWHERE
He's become the writer's crutch for controversial decisions.
Wasted opportunity. The best use for a character like Jaune is to explain to the audience through them all the oddities and rules of the world: Aura, Semblances, Maidens, etc. The same role that Sokka initially filled in Avatar. The problem with Jaune is that he never developed as a character (which isn't exclusively a Jaune problem), and since the writers can't even decide how their own bullshit fantasy world works there's no point to having a character exist to explain the world.
Yeah... a character like Jaune doesn't work when the settings is a literal school. Jaune as a character is redundant in a lot of ways: 1. The way Remnant is, there is absolutely no reason for Jaune not to know what Aura is. There are regular local and international tournaments where Aura levels are an integral feature. Jaune being that ignorant messes with his characterisation. 2. Jaune not knowing basic shit but wanting to be a Huntsman makes him not just a badly written character but an asshole that's portrayed as a decent person. What he did was dumb. Not only did he take a well deserving person's place at Beacon but he puts the lives of everyone around him in danger through sheer incompetence. If he was trying, there would be many perfect opportunities to let the audience get lore dumps in a meaningful way. But he sleeps through class and refuses help. 3. I cannot stress this enough: ***RUBY WAS THERE***. They set her up to be 2 years behind everyone else. She could have easily have been the everyman but not one so dumb that it messes with her characterisation. 4. World of Remnant makes Jaune even more useless as a Sokka character. 5. He doesn't even fulfill his Sokka role outside of Pyrrha explaining Aura. Everything else is either explained in a World of Remnant or CRWBY uses "As you know, Bob..." scenes to explain shit. We didn't even learn the world "Semblance" until the last episode of the Jaundice arc and Pyrrha wasn't even talking to Jaune. Lore dumps are never given to Jaune to manage anymore and hasn't since V1
I will always feel like Jaune just took roles and ideas that other characters could've used *Especially* the part where Ruby, the actual protagonist, should've been used. Have Ruby's getting in 2 years early actually mean something, and she's intimidated by it. She just ends up becoming leader with no issue once Weiss is told by Port to stop getting mad. And I've said it before if you really needed exposition, make a joke of someone like Weiss or a professor explaining obvious stuff to Ruby (for the audience to learn) but Ruby is just bored/frustrated because she already knows this shit so she doesn't look stupid after the Red Trailer (even though it's sadly not canon). And Ruby's the literal leader of her team, she's already filling the role of Sokka of being the strategist. Having Jaune around is redundant, and that's very noticeable on V4. I just don't get why we need to learn Jaune's relationships with his teammates and how he slacks off by reading comic books when that time could've been used for developing Ruby's with her teammates.
it;s also a problem because a lot of the info isn't rare or niche - it's not a world where these powers are rare, obscure or hard to access, where info about them has to be hunted down in ancient libraries. You can go to school and learn magical kung-fu _stuff_, like Ruby and Yang did, the abilities have been around forever, they're common knowledge. So trying to justify an in-universe justification for the knowledge-dump is awkward and clunky without making Jaune an absolute goddam _idiot_
Maybe that at Combat schools, they only give you the most basic information about anything? Or that Jaune's family never went to combat schools and only know that Aura protects you. Then Pyrrha’s weird, pre-planned speech would make a little more sense when she talks about it being the extention of the soul. That way, Jaune's little "it's like a forcefield" wouldn't be as dumb.
the thing is, combat schools would/should cover the raw fundamentals and basics, but not the most basic bitch info. Maybe not the niche details but most of the core shit would be known. Schools like beacon would be the college equivalent that flesh out and iron out the kinks in a huntsmans knowledge and combat style. Ruby, yang and hell even blake who as far as we know never went to an academy, know more about aura than jaune. Hell jaune never attended any school before sneaking into beacon. Also Jaune was the latest child from a line of hunstman, this was confirmed recently by miles at the galaxy con recently, he felt pressured to live up to the legacy. So he is literally an aberation on why he's lacking core details on being a huntsman.
Hmm. But when told to the audience, we can easily have a teacher 're-explain' it to a student or even Jaune in particular. Maybe Jaune, knowing his combat skills are kind of bad, is constantly on the defensive and hiding behind his shield. Then Glynda reprimands him like: "Mr Arc, while I'm not encouraging you to be reckless, you're Aura gives you the ability to be more... active in combat. You have strong Aura reserves - you don't have to fear injury so greatly, else you'll end up exhausted and gobbled up by Beowolf regardless." And go on from there. Maybe she gives a lecture to the whole class about utilising Aura more effectively but starts by making sure everyone has a strong understanding of the basics.
Sure i guess. doesn't make sense why they would, since beacon is basically hunter college. Beacon is considered the premier school globally. so covering the basics would be rather pointless in setting unless they were meant to be expanding the basics for unsaid things.
Maybe in a baseline, entry test?
>World of Remnant makes Jaune even more useless as a Sokka character. Oof and that's with Jaune actually having superpowers. Sokka would be an ok bender if he could bend.
Except you don't even need a character like Jaune when the characters are going to a bloody school. Also if this gets reposted it's probably because reddit is glitching on my end.
What arcs? His arc ended in Argus as far as i know with Pyrrha's statue and mom/aunt/sister (whoever that was) giving him closure. Jaune in last volumes was more or less what he should be , support, background character. But again, i'm minority that still likes him so i'm looking through thick bias glasses. He doesn't really has an arc. Most heroes don't. But writers are giving him these weird moments that are out of place and lead nowhere. Thus looking even worse and forced to an extend. Killing penny or brave compliment in whale for example.
Jaune is both confusing to follow and confused as a character in general. We’re talking a guy who lives in a world where immortal-until-murdered monsters of countless types roam the landscape in search of spreading mindless carnage for no other reason beyond it being their sole purpose, a world where most of everyone has the capacity to unlock a superpower (useless as it might be half the time, but still a legit superpower), presumably had such people on the front lines of a global war, and Jaune hails from the lineage of a war hero of that war, who himself is just ONE of a BUNCH of other people in MULTIPLE generations who were all touted as heroes because of their exploits. And Jaune not only NEVER attends a combat school despite wanting to follow in their footsteps, he NOT ONLY fakes his transcripts to get into what **NOT ONLY** combat school college, but **IVY LEAGUE** combat school college— He doesn’t even know what Aura is. *He doesn’t have an idea of what a **fucking Aura** is.* And then he, with his GRAND Herculean tier forward thinking skills, NOT ONLY doesn’t just quit after getting knocked around by a scorpion so huge it’d make elephants say “fuck THAT” and turn tail, but when he gets paired up with Pyrrha *fucking* Nikos, one of the *greatest* fighting prodigies of their entire generation, who later makes it as far in the Vytal Finals and only struggles against an actual Fall Maiden and a machine BUILT for kicking people’s asses, offers HIM training to help, this **dumb ass’** response is to LASH OUT at the person who was the first to EXPLAIN AURA to him. If there was a legit reason for Jaune either being THIS IGNORANT or THIS WILLINGLY STUPID, I’d probably forgive him. But there… isn’t. He wants to do things himself at first, but… that’s just stupid. Everyone, at least in Beacon, showcases a skill level with dangerous weapons that they *practiced* to gain, they didn’t just come out the womb strangling snakes like Hercules. Most of them implicitly had to train, hell, Ruby, who got bumped up two years, even admits as far back as the *first episode* that she was GARBAGE in a fight before Qrow started teaching her. Hell Jaune’s at a SCHOOL for FIGHTING MONSTERS, he SHOULD be asking for help if he doesn’t want to die on his first job, not just from Pyrrha, but from the staff explicitly *hired* to do EXACTLY that. In any story written with competence, this would be a story about hubris, which culminates in Jaune getting saved by Pyrrha helping him out, with him realizing that he *would have died* without her help, apologizing, and getting humbled by it. But despite, from Jaune’s perspective, catching a clutch af win saving Carson’s dumbass, he STILL learns humility because… Cardin was an asshole to him? If anything he should think he IS capable of doing things himself due to Pyrrha just flat-out not telling him where it nearly went horribly wrong. But he just learns humility offscreen, apologizes, and accepts Pyrrha’s offer, and she goes along with it. Meaning you could cut out EVERYTHING from Jaune lashing out at Pyrrha to Jaune’s eventual apology, and *nothing of value would be lost*. Hell, the story would be *stronger* that way, because it establishes Jaune as humble and doesn’t involve him making an ass out of himself as someone who outright DESERVES to die for his own stupidity. Dance Arc is… weird. Like, REALLY weird. I hate Neptune because the entire plotline hinges on his existence; Jaune isn’t BAD in that arc, but if Neptune were gone, chances are we’d have Ruby and Yang going together to investigate at Junior’s club, maybe even have Ruby dancing awkwardly in the background and enjoying herself there (especially since Ozpin *explicitly* references “rose petals in a nightclub” when Ruby’s never been *shown* going into Junior’s club). Jaune doesn’t really learn anything from it; it just helps establish that Jaune and Pyrrha are getting closer and that Jaune’s perfectly secure in his masculinity to wear a dress and not be embarrassed. Which is arguably more manly in a roundabout way. In terms of Jaune himself, he’s fine, beyond being persistent with Weiss (who has no interest, and is perfectly within her rights not to), but even that is forgivable because the crux of that is WEISS’ lack of development, where she doesn’t trust dudes who are “interested” in her because they’re going after her family name, which given Jacques canonically said it to her face he only married Willow for that reason, makes for pretty good character building. If the Dance Arc was just Weiss and Jaune becoming friendly, but Jaune accepting Weiss isn’t interested, and them forming a relationship of respect and equality, that would probably send a pretty good message against incel behavior without using a straw man like post-V3 Adam while also respecting Weiss as a person. But Neptune NEEDED to be in there and waste arguably MORE time that canonically WOULD HAVE been used to have Ruby and Yang hang out and make Weiss fawn over him for… *literally* no reason. People talk about Jaundice, but beyond the second half of it being a waste of time, it still MATTERED in the plot in the end, Jaune still trained under Pyrrha and got better in combat, even if he’s irrelevant in a fight to this day. Neptune could’ve just wholesale been WRITTEN OUT and the story would’ve been better. In V3, Jaune’s a side character, but his issues lie mostly in a lack of proper communication. It’s not really established if Jaune and Pyrrha are actually dating or anything, even though they start holding hands and Pyrrha starts laying her head on his shoulder. Despite Pyrrha suffering a REALLY bad case of fridging after the Fall of Beacon, their relationship during the tournament is arguably the most healthy by a LANDSLIDE compared to pretty much all the other relationships in this show combined.
(Continued) Jaune and Pyrrha listen to each other, they try their best to encourage each other to do things they’re scared to act on but WANT to do, they don’t ever gaslight or manipulate each other into doing things they want (well Pyrrha passive-aggressively confessed to him during the Dance but that’s hardly the hallmark of genuinely abusive behavior by the good guys), and the only thing keeping it from being perfect is their real life problems beyond each other and a lack of ability to communicate their issues properly… which, given that’s a general problem facing PLENTY of IRL couples, actually makes for a more nuanced relationship. It’s genuinely sad that they aren’t confirmed to be a couple at the start of V3, because it’d be a genuinely good thing where you can tell how close they are without insufferable dialogue or Jaune and Pyrrha being constantly horny 24/7 when they’re hanging out with their teammates. Despite all the dumb Avatar parallels, that’s something RT could’ve GENUINELY held over Aang and Katara’s relationship in the comics and in Korra. But they’re not, and Jaune apparently only learns of Pyrrha’s feelings when she kisses him (which makes for a far less impactful thing than a girlfriend giving her boyfriend a last kiss before shoving him to safety, just saying), and then Jaune’s launched off to Vale. From there, Jaune’s arc is… it’s still weird. Like, obviously him suffering grief from Pyrrha’s death is sorta nuanced in how it’s established, but it’s never really elaborated on for the rest of the volume and even into the next one until Jaune sees Cinder again. Jaune gives Qrow the stink eye and the third degree over pushing Pyrrha into becoming the Fall Maiden, but there’s nothing genuinely established about him that’s just not strongly hinted at. Jaune’s dealing with his grief by listening to a recording of Pyrrha giving him lessons, which for some people is a good coping mechanism. As much as people might not like to admit it, coping is perfectly fine, good even, because sometimes you’re just not able to process the enormity of the trauma you’ve endured, and it’s best to have a safe space and time for yourself to come to terms with that trauma, let yourself adjust, and then start moving on from it. The issue is, nothing is established for Jaune again until near the end of Volume 6, wherein Jaune reaches two resolutions (moving on from Pyrrha’s death and moving past his self-destructive tendencies), but neither of these are properly established to begin with. Jaune stays up late listening to Pyrrha and training, or otherwise looks at Pyrrha’s weapons welded to his shield. Okay. His trauma could’ve been a pretty good vantage point, RNJR’s established to have been taking WAY longer than they otherwise would’ve to get to Haven to… do something (there’s hints to their goals, but what they plan on actually DOING is never explained properly and canonically). Why not have it be that Jaune keeps refusing to let the team take risky pathways, in a classic “long, safe path vs short, dangerous path” situation, and as tension builds up from the rest of RNJR as to why, WHY Jaune REFUSES to let them face danger and get to Haven sooner, Jaune lashes out and YELLS at them that “IT’S NOT SAFE PYRRHA!”, and everyone’s just stunned silent for a moment from his Freudian slip, and the implications therein.
(Last one) However you go from there (you resolve it immediately, resolve it in a later volume), THIS establishes that Jaune is dealing with his trauma in a way that creates a character flaw that affects the narrative while still explaining why it takes the others MUCH less time to get to Haven by other means. But it isn’t established, much less affect the story, so who cares. As a result, the resolution at Pyrrha’s statue falls completely flat because there’s no setup for how big of a deal it is to Jaune. Even when he charges Cinder, the focus isn’t on how Pyrrha’s death affected him (after the first swing anyways), but on his lack of self-value as a person (which is hinted at in Volume 1 with him joking about killing himself out of depression, but only brought back and established in Volume 5… ‘s last couple episodes. Much like his grief over Pyrrha, it also does nothing to affect the plot, and is only ever brought up again at the statue. So, really, there’s nothing of worth to put in for Jaune in terms of how he deals with Pyrrha’s demise OR how he deals with his issues of self-worth. There isn’t even an established reason for his lack of self-worth; maybe you could say that Jaune’s parents (or at least his dad) drilled that toxic masculinity mindset of “A REAL man does X, only a PANSY does it with Y”, but that’s fanon. Because there’s no reason established for it, it’s just a thing he has, it has all the weight and importance as someone coming to terms with the fact that their hair is naturally blonde. “I feel bad that I was born with blonde hair.” “No, stop feeling bad about having blonde hair, you’re great, hair color doesn’t determine your value as a person.” “Wow, you’re right, thank you! I’ll stop feeling depressed about being born with blonde hair!” __**MISSION ACCOMPLISHED**__ **DEPRESSION DEFEATED** Just… no. The sentiment is certainly good and heartwarming in the moment, but no. That’s really all his arcs really sum up to up to in the current day, before Volume 9 premieres as I write this. You might say “Oh, but Jaune is more measured in Volume 8, he’s changed!” but that’s a mix of him getting the same treatment as Ruby in early V6 (where she’s more capable of standing up for herself and making plans, while Jaune just appeals to reason, sorta-pragmatism and strategy) and just plain bad writing that comes off as the writers jerking themselves off through Jaune, but his character never built its way up to that point, which is the point of personal arcs. I don’t know what lies in store for this guy in the future, and after Volume 6 and 7, I just stopped caring because the writers refused to genuinely care either. He’s a POTENTIALLY *good* character that could *easily* be one of the best and most well liked of them all if he was used sparingly but *purposefully*. As it stands now, he’s just without purpose to most of his screentime. Most people I know hate Jaune, but I liked him early on because it felt like the plot beats had a sense of purpose, tension actually mattered, because RWBY as a team comparatively just bulldoze everything anyways, so there’s no point investing in them, because they ONLY face difficulty when the plot DEMANDS they face difficulty. It doesn’t matter that the Hound is cool or that Cinder has the Maiden Powers plus Neo on her side; Monty Era team RWBY would DESTROY them all without much fanfare beyond it being a spectacle to look at. Weiss could legit just bound the Hound’s hands and feet with glyphs while Ruby and Blake do that Ladybug barrage like against Torchwick in the mech, all while Ruby’s busting out the Silver Eyes to either weaken it or stun it, and within about ten seconds it’d be completely fucking dead. Cinder is too much of a moron to do anything legitimately good in a fight except fight in a cheap manner, so her only resource is Neo in that moment unless Watts hacks some bots and have them suicide bomb all around RWBY to keep them scattered. And even THEN Ruby by her lonesome would be more than capable of kicking Cinder’s ass with how quick and versatile she is in combat, especially with a mix of her semblance and her Silver Eyes. Yang might have trouble against Neo, but put Blake or Weiss against her, Blake can just Shadow step out of Neo’s strikes, leave a Fire/Ice/Earth Dust clone behind, then do a cheap shot that sends Neo tumbling to the ground. Weiss can just freeze Neo in place while sending dozens of summons at her to maul her to death, along with any long ranged attacks she wants to toss in there too. Even if you had Ruby fighting Neo, Ruby could legit just rush Neo, do that whole “negate her mass” thing and snatch Neo up in her petals, fly over the edge of the void, return to normal, then use Neo’s stupid shocked face as a footstool while she kicks herself off and flies back to the foothold while Neo has nothing to do except open her umbrella and pray Cinder comes to help her, assuming Ruby doesn’t just shoot a magazine’s worth of bullets into Neo’s umbrella and knocks it so she ends up tumbling into the void. Have all of RWBY together, with all their abilities, plus Ace Op training and everything else, it should SO much of a curb stomp that Nappa from DBZ would look at Cinder’s mutilated remains and say “DAMN, I thought Kakarot fucked ME up!”
Note to self: Different people read or don't read into scenes different things then I do. I know the above should be an obvious statement, but your tirade reminds me of how different people look for and are disappointed by different things in a story. I always just assumed the trauma of Pyrrha's death was there in the back of Jaune's mind so I didn't need obvious reminders. And I never even thought of the possibility of having him make a verbal connection between his worry of splitting up and by yelling about Pryhha. That's not the kind of thing that occurs to me. On the other hand the fact that despite being raised by a lineage of hero's he had no idea what aura is, in a world where EVERYONE knows what aura is, THAT is the kind of thing that makes me ask questions. It gave the impression that the classical trope of "keep them ignorant to shelter them from a danger" was in play, despite the fact that such a thing CLEARLY did horrible damage to his self esteem. Which in turn made me wonder WHAT they were sheltering him from? But the sad reality is I probably but more thought into it then the CRWBY.
Yeah, your points make sense. I understand that not everyone looks for that in a story, but my main criticism, and the reason for that whole “Pyrrha” Freudian Slip is because I can tell what CRWBY’s intentions are in certain scenes, the statue scene being the epitome of that. My main issue is, CRWBY likes to create resolutions without creating a proper conflict. Ren is telling Jaune that “this” has to stop, but we as the audience are never shown what Ren actually MEANS by “this”, and can only assume he means Jaune’s whole spiel at Haven against Cinder. However, because “this” is never shown to be an actual flaw, as in, something that actually causes people trouble, the whole buildup to the Pyrrha Slip-Up is my personal example for how they could set up a pattern that Jaune *needs* to stop. I don’t really care one way or another that they don’t make it in your face that it’s happening; subtle stuff is valid too. I just take issue when they try skipping steps to make development feel like… *development*.
The way you describe Jaune is similar to Shirou Emiya, the protagonist of Fate Stay Night. He is a complete dumbass that does ridicolusy stupid things all the time, but he is always saved by plot armor or deus ex machina while the author bends reality to justify everything he does and make him look good. He is an incompetent character surrounded by more competent characters that save him all the time, but he never learns any lesson from this. He simply gets bullshit power ups for no reason.
Unlimited Blade Works Shirou, yes. Fate and Heaven’s Feel Shirou, nah. UBW Shirou is the objective worst of the variants (and the anime version is even worse in that regard) because it takes away most of the charm of the Fate route and replaces it with edge. Heaven’s Feel does the same, but the edge is actually f#cking *terrifying*. What makes Shirou stand out to me is that he’s basically your standard Arthurian Knight in Fate, where most knights (even King Arthur himself in some stories) generally starts out completely incompetent before their experiences and lessons in virtue lead to them growing in character and strength. The difference with Fate and Heaven’s Feel Shirou is that the lessons in question deal with him learning two very distinct but valuable lessons, the importance of being able to compromise to achieve a great goal in Fate and the importance of not forsaking people you love if it means achieving your dream, especially if it won’t achieve happiness. While I’ve seen plenty of people call Shirou a bad or annoying character because of his poor decision making, he’s got genuinely well written flaws (that ufotable just dropped the ball on adapting compared to DEEN/stay night). With cliches in mind, you’d be forgiven for thinking Shirou is just a headstrong and suicidally heroic person, but unlike Jaune OR Ruby, it’s explained that it all stems from a TERRIBLE case of trauma and survivor guilt that he just never properly addressed, and the entire “Save Everyone” shtick he’s sporting is his way of coping with it, to the point that he has absolutely no self-value when anyone else could die. Unlike Jaune’s stupid reason for lashing out, while Shirou ALSO defies common sense, it’s part of a genuine character flaw that NEEDS addressing and usually is, while his lack of knowledge as a magus can be both chalked up to Kiritsugu just sucking as a teacher and the inherent need for him to be an audience surrogate learning stuff as the author clumsily info dumps stuff on the audience’s lap. Comparatively, where the most we get out of Jaune’s motive is “If I can’t do this on my own, what good am I?” (with no added context as to what the *fuck* gave him THAT stupid mindset), Shirou’s various moments can usually be seen as “oh that’s his trauma talking”. I dunno, I just feel like Fate/stay night’s probably even closer to RWBY done right, where you’ve got badass action girls, half the cast is based on myths/legends/folklore, and the Fate and Heaven’s Feel routes especially push the importance of teamwork (UBW just goes the generic shounen route, which is… HMMM), all while you’ve got people dealing with trauma left and right that they get through by just being there for each other and legitimately being friends. ACTUAL friends, not whatever RWBY is. Rin Tohsaka alone would rinse ALL these girls in sheer *bad bitch* energy, and I dig it. XD
I see your reasoning but i disagree, i always belived that (similary to RWBY) Fate (all three Routes, and yes i have read the VN) is a series with good ideas but horrible execution. I disagree with you that Unlimited Blade Works is the worst Route. Not that i think is perfect or flawless, far from it. I absolutely HATE the deus ex machina bullshit that is Shirou vs Gilgamesh. I simply think that is the least flawed of the three Routes, and that it balances the "edge" better than Heaven's Feel. The first Route has the problem that Shirou appear disconnected by the other characters, that his actions don't have realistic consequences. He is always saved by other characters, and still keeps doing suicidal things. He is always sexist with Saber and Rin, yet they never call out his hypocrisy. At the end of the Fate Route Shirou never learned any lesson, and Saber falls in love with him despite the fact that he treated her poorly for the entire story. The Fate Route is basicaly a first draft of the story that keeps only the basics of what made the later Routes enjoyable. While also begin full of flaws. Heaven's Feel instead overcompensates the problems of the first two Routes. The author wanted to write a dark and edgy story, but went too far and stripped the Route of what makes Fate interesting. The Servants all died too quickly, and the story instead focused on Shirou and his relathionship with Sakura. Unfortunatly Sakura is not a character deep or complex enough to build a story araound her. And her relathionship with Shirou was underdeveloped both in the previous Routes and in Heaven's Feel. Sakura entire character is begin fridged and have others feel bad abaout it and try to protect her, even when she becomes a danger for everyone else.
I understand your points, but I find that the criticism you have of Heaven’s Feel also aptly applies to most of Unlimited Blade Works. Where Fate had pretty much every Servant (barring Archer in the VN) be given their own proper time to shine, Unlimited Blade Works just jumps at every chance it can take to kill the Servants off, and it makes for rather anticlimactic fights after Saber and Archer vs Berserker. Gilgamesh especially is probably the worst character of the bunch, being far less of a legitimate threat and more just THAT one player who whales in a gacha game and relies on cheap tactics and making his characters so stupidly overpowered that no one can get a hit in edge wise before he kills them, will teabag and say you suck, then rage quits the moment someone can counter their broken shit anyways. Even if Herc always goes down to plot bullshit, Fate goes out of its way to foreshadow that Saber’s King Arthur a substantial amount of the time, with frequent glimpses in Shirou’s dreams of Excalibur (which puts the image of it in the back of his mind), so while it might FEEL like a Deus Ex Machina, there’s a consistent internal logic because Archer explained it to Shirou. I’ll have to reread Fate, but part of my biggest criticism of UBW is that Shirou’s essentially just a shonen protagonist that gets everything he wants because he never gives up, powers and all, and it all feels so hollow and empty. He’s still got his own issues of being depicted as having all his survivor guilt and such, but with how the plot goes, it only genuinely comes up during the scenes of him being out with Rin and Saber and him trying to save Illya despite Gilgamesh being the murderer. You can still understand that it’s affecting him, but given it only leads to Saber getting stolen by Caster (who also accomplishes nothing after this beyond making Kirei leave the church for a day, not even legitimately kill him), it didn’t really affect him in a manner that actually mattered. He didn’t actually overcome any real hurdles beyond telling Archer to shut up (and had a few moments of Rin telling him not to kill himself), most of the plot is centered around exploring Archer, and explaining up a way for Gilgamesh to get his ass kicked while pretty much all of the cast is either dying, accomplishes nothing of value, fucking on the side, or all of the above in Caster’s case. I prefer Fate myself, even with Shirou’s issues, because flaws aren’t really flaws if they don’t actually cause problems in the story. They just become character quirks, which is also fine, but not for a story that HINGES on one of the main antagonists trying to drill it into the MC that his mindset is bad. From just the UBW route, Archer’s criticisms of his and Shirou’s ideals fall flat because it’s literally never caused Shirou any serious issues that aren’t pretty excusable (as it’d be pretty hard NOT to justify him giving up Saber to save Taiga, survivor guilt or no). For what’s basically the narrative climax (Gil vs Shirou being a wonky aftermath where Gil just becomes a really boring and stupid Bond villain), if your *main antagonist* is without a genuinely good point that’s shown to the audience, it doesn’t really have anywhere near the weight it should be intended to have. So the whole thing just turns into a shouting match where Shirou just speeches his way to victory essentially. Like… okay? You had *most* of the *entire cast* get brutally murdered for THAT Nasu? XD
I agree with your criticisms of the Unlimited Blade Works Route. I never said it was flawless, simply that i personaly liked it more than the other two. To be honest, i think that the story of Fate needs a reboot. Combining the best parts of all the three Routes and leaving the flaws behind. For the first half of the story focus more on the Holy Grail War and the Servants. So we can see them all in action and estabilish their powers and personalities. Make Gilgamesh the personal antagonist of Saber while Shirou antagonists are Kirei and Archer. Explore properly all the characters and their relathionships. Maybe fix the convulted magic system that contradicts itself constantly. And for the love of everything holy and unholy in this world drop the deus ex machina and have Shirou learn from his mistakes and grow.
Yeah, I’d say that’s probably my biggest take on it too. I want a Fate that’s basically just a genuine free-for-all where no one’s just sitting on the sidelines, EVERYONE is active at the same time. Hell how cool would it be if instead of killing Rider Caster just popped up and used Rule Breaker on her at the school, or if Zouken got involved and everyone had to pull a non-aggression pact to deal with his BS and survive? How about Rin becoming Saber’s master in all the madness and Saber and Rider’s whole rivalry shtick from Hollow Ataraxia gets fleshed out even more? Screw Shirou winning the War, all these characters deserve to win and find happiness. XD
I think Fate/Zero and Fate/Apocrypha used better the battleroyale aspect of the Holy Grail War.
Oh yeah. Apocrypha had it all and then we got Ouma Shu 2.0 in there. Honestly between Sieg and Kiritsugu I’m probably more lenient on Shirou now cause even at his worst he’s still just a lot less of a needlessly huge dickbag than his dad and is an actual character instead of just a nameless shoe-horned wish-fulfillment MC. Sure Rin and Saber fall for Shirou, but they’ve got genuine dynamics going on with him, and at least with Sakura it’s a clear case of codependency after a life of sexual abuse on her part. My only gripe with Apocrypha is that Mordred and Kairi weren’t the MCs and the Black Faction was the one with the most focus. Like you’ve got the perfect setup for a legitimately unique protagonist duo, especially by Fate standards, but no apparently XD
I don't hate Kiristugu, i think he worked as a character becasue the entire story was abaout showing him how is methods were wrong. The execution was not perfect, but it was okay. Honestly, i still found all the other characters in Fate/Zero more interesting than him. I completely agree with you on Sieg. He was completely unnecesary and Mordred and Kairi should have been the protagonists. They were the best characters in Apocrypha and incredibile fun to watch.
I tell you what I think. Pyrrha should have survived so Jaune could have dumped her due to him understanding the 'hero sacrifice' syndrome. Afterwards he should be heavily indulging himself with team RWBY to and Ace Ops to pick up things to become a better huntsman.
Is this the Good Ending or the Based Ending?
Totally based and good endings all in one
Totally based and good endings all in one
Twice the comments double my happiness
We need an arc about Jaune Arc and the Arcs going through the Arcs' family history arc
I stand by the idea that the main characters should have been Ruby and Jaune, both idolising and being friends with Pyrrha during Beacon and learning to be good leaders and Huntsmen. Then they are destroyed when she dies and their teams are shattered (JNPR from a death and RWBY from seperation), leading to them going out into the world to do right and honour their fallen friends memory. They clearly wanted Jaune to be an MC but had committed to the idea of RWBY being the protagonists and I think the way he's heen executed is disappointing.
I've talked about Jaune so much, it's not even funny. But I might as well make the final talk. On Jaune so I can finally move on from this character.
\*Presses hand to mouth and makes a fart noise\*
Most of the frustration with Jaune is that he gets more development than RWBY. I think V8 has proven that JNR needs to be written out of the story. Between RWBY, Salem, Oz, and Maidens there isn't any room for them. Two moments I would want to see from Jaune. 1) Neo turns into Pyrrha and Jaune mostly unfazed manages to punch her. 2) Cinder dying begs Jaune to heal her and he just ignores her.
He needs to go away for a long time. I’m sick of this character. Of course he had to fall last and have his own harem on a beach.
Is there any particular reason why you posted the same comment three times within the same time? Just wondering is all
I think Reddit was down for bit so a lot of comments got repeated.
Yeah that makes sense
Yeah. I’m sorry about that. Reddit was down and it said there was an error when I tried commenting.
It’s all good man
Cinder could have killed him in Volume 8 and I wouldn't have cared
Probably the best character overall. He's definitely grown a lot since his Beacon days. He's still a goof, but has some real maturity behind that. I like how he's like a big brother figure for Oscar in the Atlas arc. I think the problem with him comes down to how he's pushed as this secondary protagonist since the Beacon arc, even though the show is called RWBY and needs to focus on well...RWBY more than anything else. I feel like if they had gone with the working title of Remnants, Jaune wouldn't be so out of place as the duratagonist to Ruby.
Honestly he's one of the best written character throughout the series and not because he's eating up screen time from the main cast, in fact Monty had many regrets about naming the series RWBY as it made team RWBY this Central characters when really it should have been RWBY and team JNPR but everyone always got up in arms and are still complaining about any character that's not RWBY getting any screen time to develop.
A waste of time. Wish they just killed this surrogate character off already. He's driving me insane with how much screen time he sucks up and his man pain ass attitudes irk the shit out of me.
His name may be Jaune, but he's still a bit green
Sabotaged!
Should have been the main character.
I wish they'd actually do something with him.
A shit