Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4830106-20130823152544/@comment-10390252-20130823155601

I've got the feeling that we have the first hints in this episode of the overarching arc of the show.

1) Jaune has an unusually powerful aura and I don't think anyone can say he isn't innocent;

2) Ruby, in a moment of anger cleaved right through a tree trunk.  I can't easily describe how much energy she would have needed to do that, even with a recoil boost, which she didn't use.  I think that was her own aura at work.

I think that we're going to have a two-half story here:

The first will be Ruby's quest to learn to control these amazing powers of hers - strength, speed, maybe near-invulnerabilty and a host of other aura-based dust-enabled abiltiies that would put her above Glynda and Crimson's power levels in terms of 'magic'. Right now, she has no conscious control of it; maybe isn't even aware of it. That's where Beacon comes in. Can she become who she needs to be, The Champion of the Light.

The second will be Jaune's attempt to discover his own destiny. I wonder if his is the pure, innocent soul that is needed to save the world from the Grim. I also wonder if Pyrrha's oath she swore as she unlocked his aura binds her fate to his destines her to die in his defence. I really and truely wonder if he is to be The Messiah of Light, with all that implies.

I have, in my head, a very, very dim mental image of a Mass Effect 3-style scenario where the Grim are running rampant and, as the opening narration warned, there is no victory in strength. It falls to some superlative act on Jaune and Ruby's part to save the world. They will, as Ruby foresaw, make things better. But, as Blake foresaw, the real world isn't a fairy tale and there will be a most terrible price paid, maybe in their friends, maybe in their dreams and their ability to sleep without nightmares... and maybe in their lives.