Talk:Jaune Arc/@comment-4141313-20181110041828/@comment-37232527-20181219082159

Honestly, it because at the beginning we had him, Ren and Ozpin for male characters, Ozpin was a teacher figure and Ren was a  side character with an obvious love interest. Jaune was an ignorant kid to aura and dust meant to be the person to ask the questions we didn't know. This made him relatable to us, the fact that he was stubborn and bit childish made him more relatable than the others who were top tier fighter from the get-go. It made him feel like an underdog and Jaundice made it obvious he wasn't set to be a side character like the rest of JNPR came off feeling like.

Add in that he was the first friend to the lead Ruby, was introduced by throwing up on Yang and was enamoured with Weiss and he was fairly well connected to three of the main four off the back. Unlike team, RWBY Jaune had side characters to play off of and who flushed him out like Pyrrha, Ren and Nora as where the members of RWBY had to play off one another which split the focus between those characters.

Jaune being leader came off as an actual trial for him that he might and did initially fail at, we knew Ruby would succeed, so we never got the sense of growth from her Ruby. Since we knew Jaune was essentially level one from the start every episode he showed in gave the impression that he made it another day and by extension improved as his character actually felt as though he needed to be at Beacon and grow as a student would as opposed to RWBY who main time was fighting Roman and terrorist.

Add into that the good portion of the fandom hates him for shipping purposes and claiming he doesn't fit the narrative and others, of course, come to defend him hence further endearing him. Sorry if this feels like a rant I just saw your comment and gave my impression why he's rather popular for Fanfics.