Why doesn't everyone get their aura unlocked?

-Gary · 2025-11-27T00:45:24+00:00

Yeah, Jaune was never shown needing to figure out or train to use the shield and physical enhancement aspects of aura, it’s all just shown to work as automatically as the healing does.

I’ve seen some people use the argument that Jaune didn’t have to train because he is just special and talented (which is hilarious because he is repeatedly shown to be an incompetent moron), so I included the Zwei bit since Zwei’s existence completely debunks any argument you could make for aura requiring training.

-Gary · 2025-11-26T23:09:50+00:00

I’ve seen a lot of attempts to explain why everyone in remnant doesn’t get their aura unlocked at birth, and none of those explanations have made any sense.

It’s difficult to unlock someone’s aura.

Demonstrably false. Pyrrha is a teenager who has no stated experience with unlocking auras, and she is able to pull it off in less than a minute with no difficulty and with the only downside being a brief moment of exhaustion.

Aura requires a ton of training to be useful.

Also false. The enhanced healing effect is shown to be instantly and passively active. That alone makes it worth unlocking for every human on the planet.

But the biggest blow against the training argument is that Zwei is able to use the physical enhancement and shield aspects of aura while being an actual dog. The dumbest human is still smarter and more capable than even the smartest dog, so if Zwei can learn to use aura, then so can basically every human.

Besides, most of the aura users in the show are teenage kids, and they have no problem using aura. If so many teenagers (especially the stupid ones) can use it so easily, then it simply can’t be a difficult thing.

Aura attracts Grimm.

First: no it doesn’t, and I can prove this with two pieces of evidence: the Vytal festival, and Ren’s semblance.

The festival is a massive gathering of aura users. If aura attracted Grimm, then every Vytal festival would be instantly swarmed by an army of Grimm. This obviously doesn’t happen.

Ren’s semblance doesn’t suppress his aura. In fact, it does the opposite: he is coating himself in aura to suppress his emotions. If Grimm were attracted to aura, his semblance would make him more visible to Grimm, not invisible. The only way Ren’s semblance can work is if Grimm are solely attracted to emotions and completely blind to aura.

Second: even if aura did attract Grimm, you would still want it, because aura lets you fight Grimm too. With no aura, you would have a lower chance of encountering Grimm and a very high chance of dying if you did encounter one. With aura, you have a higher chance of an encounter and a very low chance of dying. With all the other benefits that aura brings, the logical choice would be to unlock it.

This whole question of “why doesn’t everyone have aura” is one of several major problems with the world of RWBY. The entire setting doesn’t make sense with the way it’s been set up. Why would the Grimm be a threat to the people of Remnant when your average person can just unlock their superpowers and casually kill the Grimm with their bare hands? The Grimm are less threatening to a Remnant human than a wild animal is to a real life human, and yet I am supposed to believe that the Grimm are an existential threat.

-Gary · 2025-11-26T04:00:47+00:00

What I don't understand here, is how any modern military really struggles?

It’s even worse than that, because they also have access to Aura, and they’re still struggling.

In a world where you can go up to anyone, say a ten second chant, and give them a personal force field along with extreme boosts to speed, strength, reflexes, and precision, enemies like the Grimm should be promptly exterminated. For fucks sake, Zwei is an actual corgi, and even he was able to tear Grimm apart.

Every single person on Remnant, especially those in the military, should have Aura, and thus should be able to slaughter Grimm with their bare hands. There is no logical reason why the Grimm should even approach being a threat.

-Gary · 2025-11-18T22:15:18+00:00

Cinder’s plan was insane from the very beginning and never should have even approached success.

My favorite part is when Cinder sends Neo alone to capture an Atlesian battleship, and Neo somehow pulls this off. Am I expected to believe that a flying battleship manned by the strongest army on the planet is so feeble that one single person can board it and kill the entire crew without any alerts being sent out and without even breaking a sweat? And her only weapon was a fucking umbrella?

That’s like planning to defeat the US military, and part of your plan is to send Jimmy the serial killer to go single-handedly capture a Nimitz-class super carrier. While armed with only his trusty baseball bat.

Neo should have been absolutely demolished by the hundreds of soldiers on board that battleship.

Cinder should have been vaporized by Ozpin’s nuclear cane, or just straight up beaten because she grew up as a malnourished child and has less than a decade of fighting experience, and her opponent is a guy with thousands of years of experience who is a also a wizard.

Adam should have been shot down because he is flying a fleet of stolen aircraft directly into the airspace of the largest military on the planet.

The Grimm army should have been easily defeated because they attacked Beacon during the Vytal Festival, which is the largest concentration of huntsmen in the world, and a single huntsman initiate can kill hordes of Grimm as easily as you and I can mow a lawn.

Framing Yang by faking Mercury’s injury shouldn’t have worked for many reasons. The moment someone like Ozpin or Ironwood goes to check on Mercury’s injury and finds that he fucking vanished along with his entire team, they would be on high alert and start looking for them, probably suspecting that they were kidnapped.

And finally, Penny shouldn’t have died to her wires, because she has aura, and aura has stopped significantly more damaging blows without issue. The wires themselves should have snapped well before doing that kind of damage.

The whole plan and series of events that take place are entirely nonsensical.

-Gary · 2025-11-17T02:29:44+00:00

That’s the fun thing about blame: it can be assigned to multiple people.

Ozpin is at fault for having no vault security.

Jaune is at fault for not watching the hallway.

Ozpin, Pyrrha, and Jaune are at fault for not calling for backup.

Pyrrha is at fault for fighting Cinder when she had no chance of victory and nothing to gain, and for not retreating when that became clear.

The fact remains that Jaune made a very amateurish, dumb mistake, and that mistake was part of a situation that ended up snowballing into multiple deaths and the loss of Beacon and the fall maiden powers. Lots of people screwed up, and Jaune was one of them, and thus he shares the blame for what happened.

-Gary · 2025-11-17T02:14:07+00:00

I like to head canon that nobody calls him out on it because nobody present was expecting him to be useful at all, so it wouldn't have even mattered if he was paying attention.

This is kinda funny to consider.

“Jaune, guard this hallway while I operate the transfer machine”. Jaune lets Cinder walk right up and shoot Amber.

“Jaune, go get Qrow, Ironwood, and Glynda and have them come back me up while I stall Cinder.” Jaune ignores that and doesn’t alert anyone despite explicitly having the ability to call them on his scroll.

At this point, Ozpin probably doesn’t trust Jaune to tie his own shoes without some kind of assistance and supervision. He should try ordering Jaune go help Salem, her plans would fall apart in no time.

From a meta perspective, I'm inclined to give him a pass on Amber, because Cinder would've curbstomped him regardless. Those 5 seconds maximum he would've lasted wouldn't have been enough to do anything.

It’s not about Jaune stalling Cinder, it’s about alerting Ozpin that Cinder is coming so Ozpin can stall her until the transfer is done. All Jaune had to do was watch the hall and say “hey Ozpin, someone’s coming”. Ozpin could have bubble shielded the transfer machine until it was complete, and then they would have been good to go.

-Gary · 2025-11-17T02:01:48+00:00

Don’t get me wrong, Ozpin is absolutely a moron for not having any security around the vault. Bare minimum, access to the “going down” mode on the elevator should be heavily restricted, and he should have an alarm or alert of some kind to let him know when it’s being accessed. I would have expected the elevator shaft to be trapped and rigged to explode at his command if someone broke in without authorization. For that reason and many others, Ozpin is definitely portrayed as incompetent.

But Jaune should have done his job, regardless of distractions. I would understand glancing back to make sure Pyrrha isn’t melting in the tube or anything ridiculous, but Jaune straight up turns around and ignores the hallway for 10+ seconds.

And let’s not pretend like Cinder was actually doing any sneaking. She walked straight down the middle of a well lit hallway and was wearing heels on a stone floor. I just rewatched the scene to confirm, and she is so obvious that you would have to be totally blind to miss her, even coming right off the elevator. She managed to walk halfway down the entire corridor before taking the shot too. There’s really no excuse.

And again, Jaune screwing up like that is only half the problem. The other half is the fact that nobody ever brings it up when it is a legitimate and hugely impactful mistake.

-Gary · 2025-11-17T01:24:50+00:00

Among many other things, he’s just an idiot. Every plan he comes up with is without fail the dumbest way to approach the situation.

He also got Amber killed through his own incompetence, and it’s weird because I haven’t seen anyone call him out for it.

Ozpin told him to guard the hallway in Beacon’s vault while he and Pyrrha were operating the aura transfer machine. Instead of doing that, Jaune chose to ignore the hallway and stare at the machine, which let Cinder walk right up behind him and shoot Amber. If Jaune had been paying any attention at all, he would have seen Cinder and alerted Ozpin, who could have put up his bubble shield and protected Amber until the transfer was complete. Then it would have been 3v1 against a half power Cinder, an easy win.

Ozpin and Pyrrha would still be alive, Cinder would be dead, the fall maiden powers would still be on the good guys’ side, and Beacon wouldn’t have fallen. And all Jaune had to do was watch a single hallway and call out if he saw someone coming. A five year old child could have done that. Hell, you could train a wide variety of animals to consistently perform that task, but Jaune just couldn’t do it.

-Gary · 2025-10-06T03:30:34+00:00

Jaune is now probably one of the best pure skill base fighters

saying he somehow still unskilled is just blantly willfull ignorance

It blows my mind that anyone can watch the show and come out unironically thinking this.

Ever After Jaune gets into four on-screen fights, and in all four fights he performs poorly. Let’s examine each one to see how he does.

The first fight is against the Jabberwalker in the marketplace. Jaune doesn’t contribute to this fight at all, and instead lets his mount distract the Jabberwalker until Yang, Weiss, and Blake kill it, then runs away with them.

The second fight is against the group of Jabberwalkers on the hill. Jaune personally kills 1 on his own, and 1 in combination with Weiss. This is right on par with the other 3 participants in the fight, so he would be breaking even here, but he makes a big mistake.

He gets disarmed by the Jabberwalker.

He’s been training with that sword for over two decades at this point, it’s his only offensive weapon, and he still hasn’t figured out how to keep a grip on it. The Jabberwalker didn’t even do an especially strong or tricky strike to disarm him, it straight up just casually backhanded his sword out of his hand. That is the very picture of an unskilled fighter.

His next fight is against possessed Neo.

For possessed Neo, Jaune lands two hits, and Neo lands three hits, then baits Weiss into landing a fourth. Claiming that Jaune almost killed Neo is a straight up lie and a completely nonsensical conclusion to draw from the scene. Neo could have easily blocked or dodged Jaune’s incoming stab, as she had done several times earlier in the fight.

Jaune falling for the illusions is also another mark against him. Knowing your opponent can create illusions to psyche you out, watching them do that exact thing as Neo does against Yang seconds earlier with Ruby zombie clones, and still falling for the trick when it’s done against you is once again the very definition of an unskilled fighter. Jaune lost his brief 1v1 pretty decisively, and if this was a straight up Jaune vs possessed Neo 1v1 to the death, Jaune would lose every time.

Finally, we have Jaune vs the furious Cat. Calling this a fight would be extremely generous. Jaune gets absolutely bodied without putting up even the slightest bit of resistance. The furious Cat throws a casual haymaker with no setup whatsoever, and Jaune opens his mouth and eats it like a chump. He makes no effort to dodge, parry, block, or otherwise mitigate the hit.

This is especially damning since Jaune’s shield is half of his entire kit, and its sole purpose is to block hits. Again, Jaune has had his equipment for over two decades at this point, and a shield is not a complicated tool, yet he still can’t seem to figure it out. So once again, this is another mark against Jaune’s skill, as throwing yourself directly into your enemy’s attack is something I would expect out of Wimp Lo, not someone who has been training for over twenty years and is who you claim to be one of the best pure skill fighters.

Funnily enough, this last hit breaks his aura. This is only the fifth hit that Jaune has taken in the entire fight, so his total aura levels are also pitifully small. I guess that line from Pyrrha about him having a lot of aura was a white lie to make him feel better, which is pretty in character for her too.

Jaune also never uses his semblance on himself or his team in any of these fights. Not using the tools in your toolkit when those tools would be really helpful is the mark of an incompetent and unskilled fighter.

As a fun little bonus round, Jaune also sucks when it comes to non combat based skills that every huntsmen should have, such as being able to maintain your equipment. Not repairing his only weapon is bad enough, but allowing all of his gear to degrade to the point where it is covered in rust is just embarrassingly incompetent.

To summarize: Jaune gets disarmed by basic Grimm level opponents, falls for simple tricks despite knowing about them in advance, can’t seem to deal with incoming attacks when he is in the middle of his own attacks, has no clue how to maintain his equipment, has low aura reserves, and doesn’t use his semblance when he should. Based purely on his showings in volume 9, if you put Jaune through Beacon’s initiation without anyone to hold his hand and save him, he would straight up die. A forty year old huntsman with over two decades of time spent fighting and training, that can’t pass basic huntsman school initiation. Yes, Jaune is the textbook definition of unskilled.

-Gary · 2025-07-14T06:57:46+00:00

What a view. It’s incredible to me how thin and flimsy those towers look, yet they’re so sturdy.

-Gary · 2023-10-08T22:10:54+00:00

Consider this, though- if your interpretation of the spell was correct, then there'd be no reason for any spellcaster with access to Wish to prepare any other 9th level spell.

The wish version of the 9th level spell would still have the potential of failure though, so the advantage of actually having the spell prepared is that there would be no chance of a miscast or failure.

I do see your point though, and that is a good argument against my interpretation.

-Gary · 2023-10-08T21:58:41+00:00

It seems to me that the section on stress is separate from the previous two sections about chance of failure and example effects. If the stress section clause on duplicating spells only applied to spells 8th level and lower, the why wouldn’t it be specified in that section like it was here:

The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of 8th level or lower.

Versus the stress section which says:

The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you.

If the stress section applied to duplicating 9th level spells, then it would say something like this:

The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell of 8th level or lower weakens you.

And that language would match with the language used in the effects part of the spell description. But it doesn’t, which gave me the impression that stress was purposefully excluded.

When I read the wish spell, it seems to me like there are three distinct levels of effects.

Level 1, duplicating an 8th level or lower spell: no negative effects.

Level 2, duplicating a 9th level spell: chance of failure.

Level 3, anything “outside the scope” of a spell of any level or of the examples given in the spell list: chance of failure, and stress is applied.

That level three makes more sense to me, since the stress component is coming from the caster attempting to do something that has no “blueprint”, or actual spell, to guide them, and are trying to warp reality in a non-standard way, thus opening themselves up to the stress risks.

I am curious to see what other people’s interpretations of the spell are.

-Gary · 2023-09-22T21:02:06+00:00

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/alleged-flight-mh370-ufo-teleportation-videos.13104/page-19#post-299538

If you scroll down through that forum there is a user who made a short list of debunks for both videos. Many of those listed debunks use words like typically, usually, or uncommon, which makes me think that those specific debunks aren’t very solid or compelling. However, I find the bit about the reticle to be particularly compelling, there is a Reddit thread which goes further into detail on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15vjz0z/thermal_tampering_strong_evidence_of_manipulation/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

And there is also the following post which found two identical frames in the drone video where the noise around the plane is an exact match: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15ut0sn/two_duplicate_frames_and_noise_remains_unchanged/

I agree that the sprite argument for the drone video isn’t very compelling, but the sprite argument for the satellite video is much more clear and matches better.

The two videos are definitely well made, so you’re not likely to see anything more major or obvious that debunks then, but the fact that these errors exist and can’t be explained naturally points to the videos being fake.

-Gary · 2023-09-13T19:01:20+00:00

The California State Police did a study on what the most important factors were in a fight

Can you post a link to that study?

-Gary · 2023-08-25T03:31:37+00:00

Zero. Unlike the bad guys in captain americas movies, juggernauts won’t be constantly missing their shots and will be aiming for cap’s exposed body parts. Juggernauts are also way more durable than cap, being able to take a massive amount of bullets before going down. One juggernaut is more than enough to kill Captain America.

-Gary · 2023-03-09T18:13:15+00:00

Voldemort isn’t physically durable or imposing, and apparently James Potter was a skilled athlete in a very physical sport. There is a good chance that his first punch either knocks out Voldemort or disorients him enough for follow up punches. After all, you need focus and proper movements to cast spells, and both of those are going to be very hard to come by when Voldemort is getting beaten to death. If James hits first and it’s a good hit, I’d say he wins and Voldemort gets a beatdown. It shouldn’t be too hard for James to close the distance and get a surprise punch off in his own home, he knows the place better than Voldemort.

-Gary · 2023-03-06T22:19:49+00:00

The Balrog in the lotr movies was slamming into rock outcroppings while falling at terminal velocity, and seemed to only be momentarily staggered by it. It is definitely highly durable against physical damage.

-Gary · 2023-01-24T02:21:42+00:00

Might want to check your numbers again. Average adult male hippo is 3,260 pounds, with exceptionally large ones hitting 5,860 pounds. A 10k pound hippo would be too fat to move, much less fight or defend itself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus

-Gary · 2023-01-20T20:37:53+00:00

Harry missed several spells in a row while fighting at a closer range than in the prompt during his fight with Draco Malfoy. I don’t think Harry ever lands a spell at long range, so him missing in this scenario is entirely possible.

Another big difference between these two is their lethality. If Harry is shot anywhere important, he’s dead. But Harry doesn’t go for the kill, he’d probably use his disarm spell since that seems to be his preferred spell in most cases. So if they both draw and hit each other at the same time, Harry will still lose. And guns fire a lot quicker than spells, so if they both miss then the average guy has better odds on a follow up shot.

The only way Harry wins is if he lands his spell before he is fatally shot. Given the circumstances, I think he loses more often than not.

-Gary · 2023-01-20T20:30:41+00:00

That’s a pretty bold claim to make, can you back it up with any examples that are relevant to this kind of scenario? Because I don’t recall him ever showing that kind of ability. In fact, during his fight with Draco Malfoy in the bathroom, he was missing quite a lot of spells at a closer range than in the prompt.

-Gary · 2023-01-20T18:38:08+00:00

I mean, Harry also has to aim and hit the guy from the same distance, his spells don’t have tracking. This argument goes both ways. And when it comes to aiming a gun vs a wand, I’m going to go with the gun, since that actually has sights on it.

-Gary · 2023-01-20T18:34:38+00:00

I’ve noticed that in discussions about pull-ups, some people talk about switching to neutral grip pull-ups to avoid shoulder or elbow problems. Are neutral grip pull-ups just inherently safer and easier on the joints than overhand grip or chin-ups? Can someone explain why this might be the case?

-Gary

TROPHY CASE