The Origination of Jaune’s Semblance in Relation to Weiss
Jaune’s semblance, being one that directly interacts with aura, is a bit of an interesting case in RWBY, where semblances usually take the forms of unique powers instead such as the ability to dematerialize as a flurry of rose petals or cast magical glyphs to various effects and purposes. And amongst his friends, Jaune is certainly unique in possessing a semblance significantly poised to act as a support over anything else, just as his nature itself is about aiding others as he himself has found out over the course of the series.
But what is also interesting about his semblance is how and why the show uses it in each case, as while it possesses quite a lot of potential – for instance, what would occur to the clones were Blake or Sun boosted? – CRWBY has only allowed us to see the effects in very limited circumstances so far. The two primary beneficiaries (excluding Nora and Penny being “healed” once each) being Weiss and Ren.
And CRWBY intentionally choosing it to be Weiss and Ren, despite the plot motivations behind that, might be telling as well. Ren and Weiss were the two people around him when he unlocked the semblance in V5 – and perhaps two of the closest people in his heart as well, as this disposition to use his semblance on them specifically may be telling us. Or perhaps its just as telling that Jaune is most compatible with Weiss or Ren, almost as if by intention, one being his teammate and the other potentially something even more to him.
But returning to the point of his semblance, the fact that Jaune is literally sharing out his soul to the beneficiary is interesting and provokes a lot of questions – can they feel his aura or emotions? His intentions? Can he feel theirs? Is a connection established once this happens, as perhaps Jaune once perhaps had a connection to Pyrrha who awakened his aura?
Looking back to the scene of him awakening his semblance, we can see Jaune the moment before is in fact focusing on the idea of not losing someone like he lost Pyrrha – as well as worrying of course for Weiss herself. Whether it is his love for Weiss (friendly or romantic) or his previous connection to Pyrrha or even both, in that moment, he finally is able to discover the manifestation of his soul and save Weiss, in a moment clearly intended to be her “true love’s kiss” as the Snow White character of RWBY.
I would like to clarify as well a mistaken part of this scene as well. Weiss, upon awakening, clearly has no idea what happened and is groggy and out of it. When she asks Jaune what happened, she then replies with “that’s…annoying” which some fans took as Weiss being ungrateful or rude even to her savior. But this is quite literally Weiss coming out of her death, the lowest point of her life so far, it is understandable that she would not know how to respond, with Jaune himself not taking offense to it either.
And later, when Weiss actually gets up, we see Weiss encourage Jaune with a smile and ask him to continue, so we can see Weiss in her right mind is clearly thankful of Jaune too. I would hope people would not take that out of context, but I have seen this criticism before, even though it doesn’t make much sense in the context of the full scene.
Anyways, based on Jaune’s awakening of his semblance above, we can see his semblance is at the very least deeply connected to his internal self, his thoughts and also some of the people closest to him (notably being Ren and Weiss). But what makes it additionally interesting is how Jaune’s semblance itself manifests on the body on the receiver, if one pays close enough attention.
For instance, one of the first notable changes that V5 makes clear is that the aura color on the person will reflect that of the person (eventually) rather than Jaune’s color, as he is supplementing their aura, not replacing it with his. In the case of Weiss, the reason it likely stays looking like Jaune’s for a bit is because Weiss had her aura broken – her blue aura likely needed a small amount of time to charge back up to cover her body once again, with the help of Jaune’s semblance, hence the change we see over time on Weiss.
But where the semblance starts its effect on the body is also interesting. In the video of his first activation, we are not shown the actual spot his aura begins spreading from, except that it is somewhere on Weiss’s torso, assumed to be the place Jaune is touching with her wound…but what if it was not on the wound?
Indeed, if you pay attention to how Jaune’s aura amp acts on different people, you will see it spreads differently per person!
For Ren’s case, it spreads from the point of contact and retracts there once he stops (as you would expect).
For Nora’s case, it disappears all at once from her body once he stops.
For Penny’s case, it disappears starting with her head and gradually vanishes downwards.
But for Weiss, it appears it may actually be starting from her heart and retracting back to her heart after he stops.
This could be extremely telling for what the souls are communicating as to the connection between Weiss and Jaune here. And this references back to when Weiss is first healed by Jaune, where, again, we don’t see exactly where the aura sharing starts, just that it starts below her neck...and it certainly could have started at her heart in that instance as well.
Regardless, I found this little detail interesting once it was pointed out in a tweet by Akumu Oukoku.
Whether or not this detail is actually intended by the animators, I will always find it incredible that Jaune not only unlocked the symbolization and materialization of his very soul for Weiss’s sake (and acted as the Prince to her Snow White in that instance), but also that they may share a rather telling bond via where their auras connect intentionally as well.
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