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Perspective: Jaune Arc, the Man Who Stepped Over RWBY

Genre: Meta

Note: We were going have some salt and pepper with your commentary.

Tags: Jaune Arc, Semi-Ranting, Mostly Discussion

[Cues: RWBY V2 Opening (Instrumental)]

Jaune Arc. The man who has dominated the RWBY fandom with his presence. More than the Wasps or the other shippers, no…this guy somehow beat them all. Let me be honest, Jaune suffers from the Naruto effect. What is the Naruto effect?

Well, if you think it's in relation what HP goes through…not exactly.

I define the Naruto effect as when one character out of the main cast is most liked where the others are split on at best or outright despise at worst. Don't believe me? Go look at the mountain of 'Betrayal fics' and…practically most of VFSSnake's work (not that it's all bad), and tell me I'm crazy. Yes, Ash from Pokémon, goes through a similar issue, but he doesn't have the luxury of having characters worse than him. No, he's just too 'safe' as a character compared to everyone else. But back to Jaune.

Jaune, people latched onto very quickly. Me? I don't really see all the appeal myself. I wanted the focus on the main four than this guy in V1. His design to me was pretty lackluster, his weapon was basic, and his semblance was kept a secret until V5. His story is riddled with plot holes if you think about it too hard.

Despite this, he's still the most popular character for fanfiction writers. This thing started because of this trend much to my parting regret. Why? Well, I hate to admit but…especially now, the Naruto effect is cleaning house on RWBY. Ruby's blander than toast, Weiss was losing steam after they wrapped her arc, Blake was being a damn jobber, Yang became an unlikeable turd only more blatant with no mask of coolness to hide it, Ren's still in background, Nora's a meme, and Pyrrha's deader than any hope for the Monochrome fans to get vindicated.

Let's take a step back. Jaune is a blank slate with a novel concept and an OP semblance that has not been stated to have a limit. He is basically Naruto…or half of him. Ruby got the other half. But let's get to the trend that Jaune fans have put them through.

Betrayal Fics…ugh.

I loathe this trope mostly because it's overdone tripe. Especially in Naruto and Pokémon…and RWBY is a close third. What doesn't help is unlike the first two, I can't exactly feel bad if Jaune gets sacked from Beacon because of his transcripts. He did CHEAT to get into Beacon and thus denied another person the rightful chance to go. Technically Ozpin also did to another hopeful because he took in Ruby. The idea of a story of those two rejected hopefuls wanting answers would be interesting though.

JauneShipping

Ok, I will admit to liking Dragonslayer, Topaz, and Nora's Arc. Knightshade was what got be into the RWBY fandom into the first place. I don't really have to much issue with the Jauneships. Though considering what happened in recent times, I wouldn't really ship Dragonslayer. Arkos however is the big ticket and honestly…I never saw the appeal in it mostly on Pyrrha's side of the fence. But Arkos fans are the most prevalent and the loudest. Personally, Arkos was just way too cliché as they had made Pyrrha a Satellite Love Interest for Jaune's development. There's a reason I don't personally ship it…or write it often unless I absolutely have to.

Jaune Reaction Fics

I do not hate these, but I do wish we got more general reactions allowing more of the cast to shine.

Jaune Stans

They're about as annoying as the Raven stans, the Yang stans, the Blake stans, and the stans that deny RWBY has a serious problem.

In Conclusion…

Jaune is a character most optimists would like. Personally, I feel Jaune would have best worked as a character if he was a better balance of an optimistic and a pragmatic approach to his character. He had good potential and he's lucky to stay likeable compared to most of the other characters thus far.

(A/N: You Jaune fans better hope he doesn't die by the end of Volume 8.)