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Season Three
Season 3 had very little thought before the story died way back when. It was vaguely intended as a tournament arc, since that was foreshadowed by canon Season 2, but little else was intended except for Jaune's witch-mother coming back, and the finale. These following was a lot less organized, focusing more on a lot of parallel character plots than a sequential core plot, so forgive the rambling and lack of clear linearity.
The meeting between Ironwood, Ozpin, and Ren/Ruby/Jaune focuses on an offer Ironwood has for Jaune- to give him a Penny-like body to call his own and 'live' again. Penny, it's revealed, is actually a lot like Jaune- before she was a robot, she was a ghost, and given the robotic shell to generate her own aura. With a body like Penny's, Jaune could 'live' again, through Beacon and beyond. Survival wouldn't be an issue.
Ozpin and Ironwood's offer comes with almost no strings attached- just that Jaune continue being a Good Ghost, and that he participate in the tournament. Since fighting would require a lot of aura-energy, Jaune and friends had been intending for him to sit out, but with the promise of a body to generate aura again there's no reason to hold back.
Giving Jaune the body is the goal in and of itself, meeting both Ironwood and Ozpin's interests. Ozpin rewards good work... and gets Jaune's mother to not kill him by already getting Jaune a new body to make up for the one that went splat. Ironwood gets to publicly demonstrate the feasibility of the technology on someone the world will recognize as a real ghost. Both of them get to reward Jaune for being a good ghost, despite the circumstances of his death and after-life, while Jaune paints ghosts in general in a better light than they'd been in before.
All the above wouldn't necessarily be the first scenes of the season, but would filter in over time. Ruby, Ren, and Jaune work under an understanding that Jaune's crisis of life is almost over, which is important to the friends.
The real early part of the tournament focuses on Jaune being publicized to the world and his family, and developments within the coven when Ruby starts showing signs of (ghost) pregnancy.
Jaune's (non)appearance at the no-Breach award ceremony is the first major-media event in which Beacon 'proves' the existence of ghosts, and only draws more attention to his (non)appearance in the upcoming tournament. Up to then students at Beacon had known, but almost no one outside the school knew or would have believed it. Most people dismissed it as rumors. Most people believe ghosts are just semblances. Jaune's existence in the tournament opens a lot of controversy, but it brings out the exorcists from hiding, who have been in a subtle war for influence and ideas with Ozpin over how to handle the ghost issue of Vale. The Exorcists have good standing in society, but Jaune seems to disprove most of their warnings of the inherent danger of ghosts. Jaune being a hero is a public relations shot across the bow for Ozpin.
The news of Jaune's death also brings in his mother, Salem, who is Very Unhappy her baby boy is dead, but Very Happy that he's gotten spirit-married in the mean-time. Salem is… sure, let's say that she was the Evil Witch of Canon. I came up with the name because Salem = Witches and ghosts, but why ditch a perfectly good set-up? Salem was the uber-evil antagonist Witch of canon, but then got met Jaune's father Nicholas (shout out to Coeur, who you should know), who converted her to the… not good side, but at least chaotic neutral, by virtue of lots of Arc lovin' and a good deal of confidence.
(This is a half natural direction, and half a nod to the Juniper Salem Arc jokes of Couer's Professor Arc forum. Good stuff.)
Salm is powerful. Salem is scary. Salem also has all the ghost-sensing senses- sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and even feeling. And bone white skin and black and red eyes and a creepy black dress. Don't ask.
Salem loves her family, doesn't like much else, and hates Ozpin. She hates him more for Jaune's death, but Ozpin's ready-go answer of supplying a replacement body mitigates some of the anger, and leaves Salem to more important things... like trying to find out who killed Jaune in the first place.
When Salem is effortlessly able to make Crocea Mors sing like a canary with some comedic threats, Pyrrha's imminent demise is only halted by Jaune declaring that he and Pyrrha are engaged. It's news to Pyrrha- who's a step behind the conversation since she requires translation- but she quickly goes along with it becomes clear that alleged necrophelia is better than dying a virgin. Salem accepts the boldface lie because she can totally believe a girl like Pyrrha would fall for her son at first sight, and welcomes her a daughter-in-law... along with the rest of Jaune's spirit brides.
Salem dotes on Jaune and knows quite a bit of ghost lore including spirit marriage- which, if it wasn't clear already, applies to everyone in the coven and not just Yang. While Crocea Mors officiated a ghost-marriage between Yang and Jaune, which made it 'official,' and the two even start going out after the Breach when Yang takes their ghost-dating fooling openly, all spirit marriage really requires is a special sort of bond. Unlocking the aura of a ghost is one- and explains how Ruby became the first- but every other spirit marriage bond after that requires some sort of catalyst. The group is collectively clueless, and Blake is silent, and Salem just supposes that they all couldn't get enough of her son and so who knows? Power of friendship? Spirit marriage is not necessarily romantic- it can be platonic- but it's an old tradition and Salem likes calling them all Jaune's spirit brides because it makes him sound so manly.
Salem serves as an exposition device for ghost marriage, weapon spirits, and a lot of the ghost lore that the group wouldn't otherwise know or hadn't put together quite right. Salem puts it together, clearing up what had been implied in Seasons 1 and 2, and makes sense of a lot of things.
Salem is also the one to identify that Ruby has a phantom pregnancy.
Ruby's ghost pregnancy is something that bridges from mid-season 2 to the end of Season 3, while throwing a wrench in the coven shaking up the status quo with the recognition that not only does Jaune have more than the one spirit marriage with Yang, but that the spirit marriages have more consequences than previously assumed. Despite Ruby and Jaune have never shared a dirty dream, Ruby is the first of the spirit-wives to 'conceive,' showing as early as the Dance Arc in season 2, when she had craving and sore feat. Spirit marriage conception only requires emotional intimacy, not dream sex, and the conception of intimate trust occurred way back during the Cardin arc. Phantom pregnancy is different from regular pregnancy, with no physical offspring, and takes less time to boot. After initially intending to take Jaune home, Salem stays for the duration of the tournament arc as Ruby nears her term. Ruby 'delivers' during the end-season crisis, with Salem playing mid-wife.
'Pregnant' Ruby is played for comedy- starting with her in an unusually good mood post-season 2, having unusual cravings (such as for, egh, oatmeal raisin cookies), and having a lot of the symptoms of pregnancy without the baby or physical aspects. It also becomes a way for Ruby to beg favors from Jaune to do things for her rather than do them herself. She's still fully capable, just increasingly taxed on her aura reserves, but otherwise has been showing no physical signs. Though Ren starts to see some hints of aura glow from within her, the group doesn't understand what's going until Salem explains it.
Ruby is going to give birth to a weapon spirit- a ghost who never had the chance to be alive, because one of their parents was dead. Because they never lived to generate residual aura needed to survive as a ghost, they can only survive on the residual aura of a parent's weapon, hence the name. Weapon spirits are a natural outcome of spirit marriage, and are responsible for some of the truly remarkable weapons- like Crocea Mors, or Roman's cane- which can directly affect ghosts. Weapon spirits are really more of giving life to a weapon one already has, and allow the weapons they inhabit to damage ghosts.
Ruby's 'pregnancy' causes drama, misunderstandings, and threatens to throw the coven into jealousy and infringed feelings amongst the spirit wives until the chaste nature of the relationship is affirmed. Spirit marriage doesn't require sex, just emotional intimacy… such as amongst really good friends. For Ruby and Jaune, it was either right before or right after the Cardin incident. When Salem does some more checks, half of the friends- the Team RWBY half- are starting to to show spirit-weapons as well. Only one person from Team JNPR, who Jaune's had no dream-sex with, is pregnant.
Ren.
Jaune and Ren are both taken aback, and open to jokes, but it more or less proves the point. Ren is Jaune's closest emotional connection on Team JNPR, but still utterly platonic. Phantom pregnancy, even the male sort, is Magic and Closeness, not biology.
With Ruby's virtue maintained, and weapon spirits not being like 'normal' children but more like awakening the weapons they already have, the Coven stabilizes… especially when the rest of Team RWBY soon too comes down with diagnosis of spirit weapon, though theirs were conceived in the more conventional way in the Jaune dreams. Ruby is able to fight for the rest of the tournament despite some aura loss, and only really is incapacitated during the 'delivery.' Ultimately Ruby's 'pregnancy' forces the quasi-polyamorous nature of Jaune's spirit-marriage Coven to be raised, while resolving it in a way where the participants accept it as a real but not really real relationship. Jaune is all their friend, and friendship is hardly exclusive, right? Right. Everyone agrees.
That's Season 3 setup, before the Season 3 of canon quite starts. It's also as far as I 'firmly' planned.
Knowing what I know now from Season 3 and the Season 4 set-up…
Season 3 would be a tournament arc, but with Cinder's goal being mass-casualties rather than the Fall Maiden. Cinder needs ghosts, but can't see or collect them herself, and so she uses the White Fang and their ghosts to manipulate the Exorcists into doing her work for her. The White Fang cause enough ghost trouble to force the Exorcists to bring out the big guns, including a relic that is Cinder's actual target for Roman to steal.
While the main plot is going on, though, the key emotional plot of the story is Jaune's discovery of the newest ghost who's been haunting Beacon, and has been haunting Ruby at various points in the story.
Summer Rose.
Summer Rose is still dead, and still around, but just barely. Unwittingly banished by Ruby in childhood, Summer has survived at the edge of non-existence for over a decade. Summer's last source of residual aura resides in the cape Ruby wears- but because Ruby banished her to 'go away' and 'leave her alone,' she can't get close. Summer is like a woman surviving of sips of water in a desert, and had devolved into a single-minded wisp of a ghost.
Until Jaune died, and started picking up residual aura and carrying it away from Ruby to where Summer could pick it up and start to reform in earnest.
Summer's been appearing more in brief bits as the story progressed, but come Season 3 she's back for real, barely. As a wisp she's badly confused and single-mindedly focused on Ruby/Yang but also staying out of Ruby's way, but as she gains more aura her form and mind return. When Summer's recovered enough to be coherent, Jaune tries to get her to make herself known, but Summer's afraid/can't because of the banishment. So instead Jaune brings in Ghost Yang- who thinks it's a nookie session until she's reunited with her dead spirit-momma- and Yang is able to work through Ruby.
The return of Summer, and the reuniting of her with her family, is a very significant part of the story... that will be covered more in the character sections later. But, suffice to say, it means a lot to everyone involved, and marks a turning point in Jaune's relationships with both Yang and Ruby... who, by the time Summer is revealed, is near-due for her spiritual pregnancy.
All this occurs before the finals, and the capstone of Cinder's plot. The White Fang have been releasing ghosts and causing trouble all the while, but the finals marks the chance for a 'blitz' of angry spirits and corrupted wraiths. Fortunately, or not, the Exorcists- who Ren has been less and less reluctant to help all this time- have a trump card.
The crux of the plot is an Exorcist macguffin artifact called The Lantern that serves as lure for ghosts, guiding them into a trap from which they can't escape. Rather than kill ghosts outright or banish them to be devoured by Grimm, the Exorcists devised these traps as a more humane solution, and have used them to capture countless ghosts over the centuries. To a ghost the Lantern looks like a path to Heaven/The Other Side, and tricks them by making them think they can move on. This is actually the same sort of device that was used by the exorcist who dealt with Nora's grandmother. The Lantern doesn't kill ghosts, but traps them in a sort of stasis prison. The power of the Lantern fills the ghosts with light, sustaining them and giving them new aura even when their long-lost bodies are gone.
Cinder wants this artifact because she can make use of the ghosts inside. Cinder turns out to be a Ghost Eater- one of the rarest sorts of Seers who can 'taste' ghosts. Ghost Eaters can not only taste ghosts, but consume them for power like a Grimm, and Cinder can use the Lantern to consume the countless ghosts trapped inside. Consuming ghosts grants power- more ghost senses, ghost powers, and more- and fits into her plan for total power.
When Cinder consumes the soul-lights of the Lantern, she gains all the ghosts senses and more ghost powers than Jaune and is ridiculously overpowered… but she gains other attributes too. Bone white skin, red eyes, black eyes... after devouring so many souls, Cinder becomes a Grimm. A sentient, human-shaped Grimm with great power and even greater appetites. In order to trap and devour all the souls of Vale, Cinder activates the Lantern in full to suck in and trap all the ghosts- including Jaune, Summer, and Ruby's recently born ghost-baby.
Jaune is just strong enough to resist the Lantern's lure, but Summer and the child are not. While Jaune's own mother, Salem, is able to protect the weapon spirit she and Summer just delivered, Summer falls towards the Lantern after the handing it over. Jaune strives to save her, in a 'not going to let go' sort of dilemma, but Jaune and Summer will both meet a Grimm Fate in Cinder's belly if Jaune doesn't let go. Jaune won't, and Cinder gloats that he's sure to die again. For good this time.
Then Pyrrha shatters the lantern with a well-placed spear.
The only one who can kill Jaune is her, and she's not about to let Cinder into the Coven either. One-liner aside, Pyrrha breaking the Lantern is a Big Deal, as both Cinder and the Exorcists around give a 'What Have You Done?' shock.
Breaking the Lantern causes releases the ghosts still inside- good and bad ghosts gathered over centuries- who fly across the sky like a meteor shower in all directions before falling across all of Remnant as shooting stars. Breaking just one lantern returns ghosts to all of Remnant, causing chaos across the world as ghosts return and are eager to resume un-living after centuries of stasis.
Cinder's plot succeeds- creating mass panic and chaos- but has Unforeseen Consequences for her. When the Lantern breaks, the outburst of power and light is too much for Cinder to bear. Cinder shape-shifts into a dragon as she's driven off, and a last final attempt to devour Ruby and the baby-spirit on her way out is prevented by Salem bitch-slapping her away. Cinder is knocked off course, but still manages to flee and poses an even greater threat in the future.
Cinder's transformation broaches new questions- the relationship between Ghosts and Grimm and Man- even as she becomes a threat to all the Kingdoms. In her final scene, Cinder-Grimm shape-shifts back into her a Salem-like form and is mastering new powers, like using Grimm as familiars and shape-shifting herself. Her powers are unstable, and Cinder hates what she's become, but intends to continue in the name of her vengeance… and consume the other Exorcist Lanterns in her quest for even more power.
The plot of the season mostly ends there, with a bit of fallout as people react to the new threat of Cinder and the changes to the world.
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Stepping back a bit to see how the season finale would be set up by the various actors- with caveats that character arcs will be covered more and better later-
The Vytal Tournament, in which the Teams compete, is part of Ozpin and Ironwood's plan to re-introduce ghosts to the world in a positive way. Jaune is to be the epitome/exemplar of what good ghosts can be- defenders of the living- while Jaune's exposure to his family is the necessary cost Ozpin has to make. Ozpin's ideal outcome is a world which accepts ghosts as a normal part of the cycle of life, afterlife, and death. Jaune's presence in the tournament is a part of that normalization. The breaking of the Lantern throws the world into chaos, and while Ozpin is still around he has to try and manage the chaos lest it turn to fear of the newly released spirits.
Ironwood's goal is a bit more ambitious- a new form of immortality where people who die can become immortal ghosts. Penny is Ironwood's end-game- a ghost, given a new body, and thus new life. Atlas is offering a sort of immortality as people could conceivably live, die, and then live again in Penny-bot bodies, which can be 'possessed' and then generate new life-aura for the ghost. Penny doesn't remember being a ghost, having been a wisp at the time, but she's the first prototype of a sort of mechanical immortality.
Ironwood's plan is extremely controversial, and after Cinder's chaos his project is shut down with only a single new Penny-body made. Ironwood returns to Atlas where the return of ghosts is causing great strife to break out between those who see ghosts/Penny-project as the way to the future, and those who see the project as an abomination. Ironwood leaves the last Penny-type body to Jaune, as a promised reward for his cooperation in the tournament and to provide living aura once more.
Intended for Jaune, Jaune instead gives it to Summer Rose who used up nearly the last of her energy in the last battle and is close to perma-death. Summer adapts to the new body, and gets a tender reunion with her family, but soon after is kidnapped by Raven for unclear reasons, prompting Taiyang to lead the search for them both. Yang joins him, but Ruby joins the hunt for Cinder.
The White Fang plot focuses on their use of ghosts. The White Fang uses ghosts as weapons, but not all their angry spirits are naturally like that- some turn out to be normal ghosts forced into madness through the same sort of defilement and desecration that Cardin did to Jaune. There'd be at least one new faunus ghost OC- an 'innocent'- forced into villainy, and a realization that the faunus ghosts are victims to. After creating the crisis, the White Fang retreats to Menagerie.
During the season, Blake- whose relationship with Sun ends after being a bit too creepy-cute and goes back to living out her fantasies in Jaune Dreams- is sent notes by an unidentified person. The person, presumed to be a stalker, is actually Adam, who may as well be a stalker. Adam wants Blake back, convinced she'll come back now that he's found a way to win the war against the Schnees. Blake, in order to find the source of the White Fang ghosts and stop it, (fake) defects at Adam's 'invitation' in order to be taken to the White Fang base. Blake's defection would be cast as a betrayal, but one that her friends don't fall for.
The Weiss plot would be to slowly develop the supernatural aspect of Weiss's past, including the ties to spirits known as angles. In Season 3 her family semblance- to give (temporary) pure white angelic form to spirits- becomes significant as it not only gives Jaune a chance to be seen and interact in the contexts around the tournament, but offers a chance to protect/save 'the Innocent' faunus ghost from White Fang defilement. On top of her own personal relationship with Jaune, Season 3 sets up Weiss for a heavy role in Season 4. As everyone diverges, Weiss returns to Atlas to face the ghosts of her childhood.
Ruby and Yang are mostly tied to Jaune's plot. Ruby and Yang are two of the closest 'spirit marriages,' with Ruby chaste and Yang anything but. Yang's out-of-body experiences and non-dream ghost-sex with Jaune puts her closer than 'just' dirty dreams, and their (open, non-exclusive) relationship is more or less as real and official as a dead guy and living girl can be. While the two are officially 'dating' since shortly after the Breach, with lots of what they thought was consequence-free ghost fooling around, Yang's dreams have heavy themes of 'commitment' as she gets more and more serious about what started as something openly non-exclusive and initially played off as 'not real.' Ruby's not so romantically involved, but she wants Jaune to be around for awhile yet, especially with the conception of the spirit of Crescent Rose. Jaune wins major points when Summer is found, more when he saves her from the Lantern and Cinder in the final battle, and even more when he gives up his chance at a body and life for Summer's sake. Yang joins her father in the search for Summer and Raven, even as Ruby decides that Cinder is the real threat. Yang and Ruby separate amicably, trusting the tasks to each other, but both want Jaune to accompany them on theirs.
Team NPR also schisms at the end.
Ren and Nora, but especially Ren, are tied to the Exorcist plotline. After Jaune works to get the two together, the two have different views on the Exorcists. Nora hates them for killing ghosts, and for coercing Ren into joining them, but Ren thinks they have a point, that bad ghosts are a problem that needs to be managed. Nora is allergic to this sort of reasoning, and even saying the Exorcists have a point while still being wrong causes friction. Said friction is worsened when Ren is actively sought for recruitment by the Exorcists. Ren eventually joins- or pretends to join- the Exorcists in order to access their archives for ghost-lore that might help Jaune. Nora makes rescuing the faunus ghosts from defilement a priority. Over Season 2 and 3, Ren forms a rapport and mutually respectful understanding with the Exorcist OC as he understands the Exorcist perspective more and more. Ren and Nora are happy together, but tensions in the real world increasingly make the shared Jaune Dreams the happiest place for the three of them.
In the end the relationship breaks when Ren joins the Exorcists after the crisis, wanting to influence how they deal with all the newly released ghosts, but also to help them protect the remaining Lanterns from Cinder. Nora won't work with the exorcists,and joins the anti-Cinder effort directly. After realizing that the ghosts inside the lanterns are trapped, and that her grandmother may still be 'alive', Nora intends to break any exorcist lanterns she comes across. The breakup is hard for both Ren and Nora, even as both share the same desire to help ghosts and protect the Lanterns from Cinder. They still care as much as they hurt, and in the meantime Jaune is torn between two of his closest friends and supporters in what is the darkest part of the finale.
As for Pyrrha, who started it all...
Pyrrha ends the season alive, but publicly blamed for breaking the Lantern and returning ghosts to the world. She did it to save Jaune and Summer from the Lantern, before Cinder could complete her consumption and kill them, but Pyrrha's actions are viewed dimly by the livings. Pyrrha's actions won the battle, kind of, but it's a Pyrrhic Victory that throws the world into chaos as ghosts both good and bad streak across the sky and come down everywhere. At the same time, or rather during the tourney as part of Cinder's conniving to distract the Coven, Pyrrha's name was also blackened for her role in the Sisterhood. Dark whispers and gossip magazines speak of the witch of a coven, the cannibal cereal mascot, the eternal virgin in love with the dead, and, of course, Jaune's murderer. So to clear her name- or cover up the deed- or make recompenses- or to meet some condition that would see Jaune have a new chance at the life he lost- Pyrrha sets out to track the dragon and end Cinder. Alone, if need be.
(She won't be. Ruby, Nora, and Penny join the Hunt for Cinder, while helping resolve ghost issues along the way.)
And so Teams RWBY and JNPR are broken up once more. Less fatally, but just as surely as in canon, as the coven- the Sisterhood that Murdered Jaune- splits up to address their myriad of issues.
And as for Jaune? Where does he go?
After a season in which Jaune's mother- the one and only Salem- tried to take him away so that she could prepare a new body for him, Jaune still refuses to go home even though his friends have scattered. Even the prospect of a new body- hints of a homonculus shell- isn't enough. Salem eventually relents, and asks Jaune the question that had plagued the romantic tension to date. With whom will he go? Who will he choose?
Who will Jaune stay beside as spirit-spouse?
Jaune looks at his departing friends, his coven, each of them clasping their relic made of his bones, and says…
All of them.
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End planning for Season 3.
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Author Notes:
And that's as far as organized plot planning went.
For such a gruesome story, Season 3 wasn't going to be as bad as canon ended up being. It was going to involve a tournament, the pregnancy, and the schism after crisis. In one sense it is a defeat- the group is shattered, and Ren and Nora divided- but on the other it's also them focusing on a lot of problems.
Some more notes about a hypothetical season 4 will come with the character sketches, but next we'll get into the ghost mechanics I had in mind for the story. A more meta look at the powers, mechanics, and limitations of the supernatural ghost elements.
Share your thoughts, and what you liked if you liked anything.