Jaune Arc

Jaune Arc is the leader of Team JNPR. His weapon of choice is Crocea Mors, which is a sword and a sheath; the sheath doubles as a collapsible shield. The weapon was handed down in his family from his great-great-grandfather, who used it to fight in the Great War.

He makes his first appearance towards the end of the first episode, "Ruby Rose", throwing up in the airship and earning his temporary nickname, "Vomit Boy", from Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose.

Default Outfit
Jaune is a tall teenage boy with dark-blue eyes that are emphasized by his messy blonde hair. He is quite toned, having strong muscles in his arms, shoulders and upper chest. He wears a white chestplate and shoulder armor. Under the armor, he wears a black hoodie with reddish-orange sleeves and an emblem hidden underneath the chestplate. He also wears blue pants with a white patch on the left knee, as well as black shoes with "left" and "right" written in black on the respective shoes' soles.

He has two belts crisscrossing his waist, both different shades of brown, with a pair of small pouches on them. Jaune wears brown wrist-length gloves with exposed fingertips and a small metal plate on the back. His sword is strapped to the left side of his waist in a sheath that doubles as a collapsible shield.

Pajamas
He sleeps in blue full-body pajamas with blue bunny slippers and a white bunny face on its chest.

Personality
Jaune is not exactly the most suave individual in Beacon Academy, though he does try to portray himself as such. He is a fairly kindhearted person and means well, as shown when he helps Ruby up after the students' arrival at Beacon. When asked why, he simply noted that it seemed like a good opportunity to make a new friend.

He has been shown to maintain his unselfish manner regardless of the situation, even going as far as to defend Cardin Winchester, who has been blackmailing him and forcing him to do his work. When needed, he is even willing to deliberately put himself in awkward situations like walk in public in a dress without a hint of embarrassment in order to keep his word showing to have traits of nonconformity. Although, according to him, it is part of his family motto of not going back on one's word.

Jaune is an outgoing, goofy and all around friendly person. He treats people equally and has no problems expressing himself to strangers and bonds with them easily, showing a lot of confidence. However, his confidence can get out of hand and backfire during his pursuit of romance, something that his voice actor, Miles Luna, admitted himself saying that Jaune tries too hard which causes him to be misunderstood. Following his father's advice, Jaune usually comes up with silly schemes and pick-up lines in his attempts to get a girl's attention. Despite having confessed to having feelings for Weiss Schnee, Jaune has tried to win over Pyrrha Nikos and Yang in the past as well.



Jaune has shown to care for his friends and the people around him, being protective of them and having a sense of responsibility as a team leader which focuses only on his teammates' well being even excluding his own to achieve it. He would put himself on the spot if someone was threatening his friends and has shown to be unable to do something that may hurt the people he cares about. Jaune has also shown to take other people's feelings in priority, and is even willing to offer advice to help potential romantic rivals if it's for the well-being of the people he cares about.

Because of his family line, Jaune is obsessed with being a hero. However, he was never formally trained like the rest of his family; this causes him to lack self-esteem and assign a lot of importance to his image as a fighter; this is reflected in his willingness to perform dishonest actions, such as using fake transcripts to gain acceptance into Beacon. He also does not seem to be very proud of having a weapon given to him, rather than earning or crafting it on his own, referring to his weapon as a simple "hand-me-down" instead of a "family heirloom".

Despite usually being easily intimidated and scared, once the battle starts, Jaune's fears are replaced by his brash attitude, causing him to jump in headfirst without considering the risks. This causes him to be predictable when fighting, foregoing defense in favor of offense. Jaune's will remains strong even when outmatched by his opponents, especially when he is trying to protect someone or aid them in battle.

During his fights, despite taking several highly-damaging attacks, Jaune keeps pressing on his opponents, refusing to let their assault intimidate him. This trait persists even during conversations with others, as Jaune never contradicts himself and, while sometimes harsh, is always honest with answers.

Aura
It is stated by Pyrrha in "The Emerald Forest" that Jaune has a lot of Aura. His Aura reserves are large enough to provide him with a healing factor that heals his wounds almost immediately.

Semblance
Jaune's Semblance was first seen in "Forever Fall". When Cardin attempts to punch him, Jaune doesn't take any damage and, instead, it is Cardin who receives the impact of his own punch. This ability has been implied to be protective in nature and is likened to a shield. As of now Jaune and others around him are still unsure as to what his Semblance actually is, and he has shown a reluctance to work on developing his Aura because of that.

Leadership
Jaune's most remarkable feature is his natural leadership. He shows these skills, quickly grasping the tactical situation, forming plans to work according to their advantages and counter possible threats. He's very aware of the capabilities of his team and is able to properly coordinate them into achieving feats that can give them the upper hand during an encounter.

In "Players and Pieces", Jaune notices the weakened floor and orders his soon-to-be team to charge against the Death Stalker to escape a possibly fatal drop. He helps Pyrrha to create an opening for Ren to take down the stinger and later coordinates Pyrrha and Nora into delivering the finishing move thus bringing down the ancient Grimm.

In "Breach", his team trusts his judgement and follow his orders without question showing how far their loyalty for Jaune goes. They let him drag them away from their assigned mission, one that Ren and Nora were looking forward to do, just because Jaune wanted to check on team RWBY despite of their reasonable counterpoints. Because of this, team JNPR was armed and ready for battle when the city sirens signaled the incursion of Grimm into Vale.

In the fight against Team BRNZ during "New Challengers...", Jaune is very on top of the situation, giving orders to the team according to the enemy's strategies in order to counter these, which often work to their advantage. He manages to locate the sniper, May Zedong's position, directs his team to avoid her bullets, uses their side of the battlefield to their advantage, diverts May's attention with Ren, and protects Nora with Pyrrha when she's trying to get to the top of the mountain. It results in the opposite team losing their fire support and being temporarily incapacitated thus leaving them open for JNPR to counter attack and earn their victory.

Swordsmanship
Although initially untrained in this trait, Jaune quickly grasps the concept and, alongside his physical strength, proves to be capable enough to make incredibly deep cuts. This is best seen when he manages to decapitate an Ursa Major during his first duel against a Grimm with a single hit.

However, he was easily beaten by Cardin in their match and was unable to defend himself from the Ursa while he tried to attack it, resulting in Jaune receiving strong blows from the Grimm and forcing Pyrrha to help him in the last second, demonstrating his inability to respond correctly to attacks.

Months later, thanks to his constant training with Pyrrha, Jaune's skill with his sword increases immensely. He is now capable of using it as a defensive tool and can even capture incoming attacks with his sword. He also delivers several powerful slashes at an Ursa Minor, killing it in mere seconds without giving it time to fight back thus showing the improvement of the overall speed and accuracy of his attacks.

Defense


Even before being trained, Jaune showed impressive defensive skills. This can be seen during his fights against the creatures of Grimm where he is capable of holding the heavy claw of an Ursa Major and pushing it back. He is also able to slide its claws on his shield thus earning enough time to counter and behead it. However, this last feat wouldn't have been achieved without Pyrrha using her Semblance to move his shield in the right place to fend off the claw.

In addition, he blocks a powerful strike from a Death Stalker with his shield without getting injured or knocked back, which can also be attributed to the durability of his shield as well as showing the extent of his physical strength.

During his team's match against BRNZ, Jaune is able to hold his ground against two melee fighters while providing strategies and paying attention to his surroundings. However, he is incapable of going for an offensive approach which shows that he still can't properly respond with both offense and defense at the same time and has to give full priority a single tactic instead. As a result, he was able to endure the whole round but never tried to land a hit against any of his opponents.

Trivia

 * Jaune alludes to Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc), a medieval French war heroine and martyr. It is pronounced similar to Jean, the French form of John.
 * Monty stated that each member of JNPR alludes to someone who crossdressed in their story. Joan of Arc dressed as a man while in the French army.
 * Jaune Arc gets constantly harassed and bullied by Cardin Winchester. Joan of Arc was sentenced to being burned at stake by Henry Beaufort, the Bishop of Winchester, who was also a Cardinal.
 * "Jaune" is the French word for yellow.
 * Three of his possessions have an emblem on them. The front of his shield and the soles of his shoes in Volume 1 have an emblem that resembles two arcs. However, this emblem is not Jaune's, and his true emblem is located on his shirt under his breastplate.
 * The emblem that resembles two arcs is a rainbow.
 * As of Volume 2, the soles of Jaune's shoes have completely changed. In place of the rainbow emblem, he has "left" and "right" written on them. Miles once joked that Jaune might be worried that something may happen to him that makes him confuse left and right, such as a concussion.
 * During "The Stray", it is shown that Jaune's sword is nearly identical to the one wielded by the man on the statue in front of Beacon Academy.
 * Jaune may be allergic to the tree sap of the Forever Fall forest, as his face was swollen and he was speaking in a nasally voice after he gathered a large amount of it for Cardin and his team.
 * Foreshadowing his skills as an adept dancer, before Volume 2 started, Monty created a rig of Jaune dancing and put it on his Facebook.
 * In "Dance Dance Infiltration", Jaune mentioned that he has seven sisters. Where he was born among the sisters is unknown, but it can be assumed it was towards the younger end. He may possibly be the youngest or one of the youngest children in his family.
 * This makes him the only known character with multiple siblings and the only one to be a different gender than said siblings.
 * He is also the only member of Team JNPR known to have any siblings.
 * He appears to be a fan of X-Ray and Vav comics.
 * In Volume 1, Jaune has elbow guards with crosses on them, and he wears black high tops.