45 KiB
[BST] Ninjas vs Wizards
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2nsc1e/bst_ninjas_vs_wizards/
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Score: 8
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Created: 2014-11-29T21:07:21
Post:
If you were a first-year Hogwarts student with a wand and you had some ninja friends, and you were immune to genjutsu, how would you fight the antagonists of Naruto?
What sort of factors would be relevant, what would likely determine victory between, say, a chunin and a recent graduate of Hogwarts? How would ninjas deal with magic and how would wizards counter or coordinate with ninjutsu? What kinds of creative combinations or interactions can magic have with ninjutsu? Who would win in a fight, Orochimaru or Voldemort, and why? And how terrifying would they be if they teamed up?
I suppose I'm more interested in creativity and fun than logic, but logic is important too. Basically, what kind of cool things can you think of, and what spells, jutsus, or combinations of spells and jutsus seem particularly potent or needing to be addressed in some way? And bear in mind that my information about Naruto is largely secondhand (and about Haruhi Suzumiya for that matter), so I would appreciate answers that explain whatever ninja things are brought up.
Comments:
u/Escapement [+12] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (8 hours later)
Naruto is largely made of ass pulls to make the fight come out the way the writer wants. Huge plot device combat abilities show up once to get the author out of a corner they wrote themselves into and then are never ever revisited. Consider for example The Great Snake Escape. It is quite possible that in complete accord with Naruto canon, a ninja's response to being out of chakra and about to be massively exploded by an explosion that has already started to propagate a few feet away is to conjure a giant snake from nothing, use a sharingan genjutsu to hypnotize the snake, get inside the snake, then teleport the snake away in a manner that is never referred to or used again, in the few milliseconds of time before the explosion reaches them. Yes, seriously. Yes, the first two steps required lots of chakra every other time in the story they were seen. Yes, the second two steps are basically absurd on the face of them.
On the other hand, Rowling can't imagine a fight scene interestingly to save her life, and the only thing she ever has Harry do is disarm people; she tries to pass it off as a signature move or something, but I am pretty sure it's mostly just bad writing. Also, all the fights' various victories and defeats mostly seem like ass-pulls to a similar extent to HP's, see e.g. how badly Harry would have lost multiple times if Voldemort had been willing as a villain to fight unfairly and let his army of masked evil followers who call themselves Death Eaters help him in a confrontation with HP or even just allow them to kill HP.
Basically, both series come down to being answered best by Stan Lee's Who Would Win? - in both series the author has pretty clearly decided the outcome they want to each fight and, logic or reason be damned, that's what's going to happen by the end of the fight. Molly Weasley will kill Belatrix in a fight because no reason, and Deidara won't kill Sasuke because no reason.
That all said: Naruto is supersaturated with ways to instantly incapacitate or kill people from hiding (e.g. - hiding underground and instantly pulling people under with you, hiding in puddles [which would be much better in England], transforming into friendlies or civilians/muggles with henge, numerous psuedoteleportation skills, numerous clone skills, etc). On the other hand, Harry Potter can do a lot of that sort of thing too - starting a fight by whispering Avada Kedavra or whatever the petrifying one is from beneath a cloak of invisibility, or via polyjuice, or from above via broomsticks, or pretending to be animal via animagery, etc. Basilisk straight-up kill or petrify, there are those lethal plants if you can hear them, etc. Bearing all this in mind, if your plot wants to have Naruto characters win, have them be the ambushers; if you want HP characters to win instead, have them be the ambushers. Both series are supersaturated with ways to instantly ambush people and win (fatally or taking-prisoners-ways, for both) if that's what you want to do for your plot to make one side win or the other.
If both sides see each other and know of the other's presence, you can have basically anything you want to happen happen because a lot of both sides' powers are made of bullshit asspulls and are insufficiently explained to be even fully defined in their own continuities, and their interactions are of course explained even less than that because neither series has ever considered the existence of the other in canon. You could have the basic dispel magic spell interfere with chakra constructs and disrupt genjutsu and ninjutsu techniques like clones or whatever, followed by a incapacitating with jinxes that are homing or whatever. You could have the sunshin or replacement techniques allow a ninja to close to close quarters and disarm everyone with taijutsu in a half second before their wands are even drawn. You could have wizards' spells shatter helplessly on Rasengans or Rasenshurikens or even generic ninja attacks like Sasuke's start of series fireballs, or you could have ninjas attempt to close to melee range only to find that their opponents can fly around unsupported at fairly high speeds unsupported by anything because Snape wrote down the technique somewhere (he and Volde both did it in canon). You could have Harry's mysterious imperio-resistance trump card work on the Nara shadow thingy has or on Ino's soul-switchy thingy or basically any genjutsu or sharingan bullshit or not basically as the plot demands. Cloaks of invisibility, including The Cloak of Invisibility, can beat Hyuuga bullshit eyes or Uchiha bullshit eyes or Madara bullshit eyes, or not, 100% as your plot requires.
Naruto is supersaturated with cool-visual-ideas and neat combat options, and Harry Potter really isn't for the most part - the coolest thing anyone ever summons in combat is a snake once and that was in book 2 and had no effect. If you need good ideas in this vein for HP cool dueling spells to use in a standup fight that might give them cooler sounding and more tactical options to make the fights more interesting, the fanfic which did this best that I know of is Jim Bernheimer's The Lie I've Lived. This fic has an entire host of other issues, but the dueling and training for dueling and actual combat segments are extremely well done for a more 'interesting' wizarding combat that is nonetheless not too far out of line with other stuff J K Rowling came up with.
If you want a writing challenge, have all involved characters duplicate themselves and experience the fight in multiple non-chronoligcally-linear perspectives simultaneously (HP - time turners for Temporal Fugue Attack, Naruto - Shadow or other styles of Clones).
u/Tirran [+5] (an hour later)
A graduate of Hogwarts likely wouldn't be able to go up against any of the Naruto villains.
I'm gonna guess that even against a genin, the simple inability of Hogwarts' students to efficiently cast spells would be basically an insta-kill. Harry managed to defeat one of the most accomplished duelists simply by using Expelliarmus. There's not a lot of difference in skill between a fifty-year-old wizard and a fourteen-year-old in terms of ability, whereas in Naruto the difference between a thirty-year-old and a fourteen-year-old is so great as to be laughable. The wizard would probably get killed by a kunai or have their wamd switched out by a jutsu in the time it takes to just say an incantation.
Assuming that Avada Kedavra works like in the books, you really could just cast as many as you wanted in the direction of the people you want dead, because it only stops once it's killed someone. This would enable the insta-kill of Orochimaru's snake, as well as Gaara just due to the size of the monsters. Likewise, any super sized summon would be an easy kill, like Naruto's frogs. Every ninja settlement could be destroyed in an afternoon, because they could just apparate in, light up some fiendfyre, and then apparate out. Wizards could also be used to rapidly teleport high skill individuals into battle.
Legilimency and the imperius would be basically useless because of the high will of all ranking ninjas.
Transfiguration would be useless on a large scale because in Naruto, they have television. Any society that can handle that level of industry should be able to create more kunai or bombs or whatever faster than a bored seventeen-year-old could transfigure them.
All of this basically comes down to the fact that Harry Potter wizards are basically useless. I'm sure if you sent them to the equivalent of Brakebills(from the Magicians, which is a great book) they'd be a lot more combat effective, but almost every spell in the series is a one-use Chekov's gun. They had a spell that could destroy matter in the fourth book, but it was only used once to blast apart a hedge. They could have toppled Malfoy's manor after they'd gotten their wands back in the seventh book, but, instead, it's used once. Spells really aren't meant for war or killing in the books, and the wizards are definitely not fighters. Their best use would be as rapid destruction and redeployment forces.
u/None [+1] (an hour later)
Young wizards are pretty weak, but I like that. It challenges them and makes them think. I'd prefer a weak pseudo-munchkin to a strong guy who just blasts through everything.
The speed thing is a problem, and one I'm not sure what to do about. Even genin should be able to move so quickly the best wizards can't keep up. Maybe I could say they have potions to improve their reflexes.
You're right about the HP series really lacking a system of magic. It's more like whatever spell they need to solve the problem in a dramatically satisfying way. Which means I'll need to do some inventing. So what kind of imbalances would a wizard need to address--not necessarily to become as strong as a ninja, but to be able to survive with smarts and a bit of luck--and how best to maintain the feel of HP while inventing new spells and potions?
I think wizards would have to rely on certain informational advantages like obliviate and invisibility cloaks to stand a chance, especially because as you say they aren't soldiers. But it's more fun that way.
u/Tirran [+2] (6 hours later)
Large, rapidly castable are of effect attacks would be best. Most spells move at only moderately faster than a real human can run, as evidenced by the fact that at like 10 feet most people can dodge the spells cast by their opponents. If they had some ability to rapidly blow back everything, they would be safe from kunai amd a majority of wind, fire, and water techniques. The same spell could be used against Zabuza's mist, basically any type of gas, and, at close ranges, to turn high amounts of particulate (think sand, flour, or broken glass) into a whirlwind of doom. Most earth attacks(including the one where they go under the ground) could be stopped by the Chekov's gun from the fourth book. Realistically, it's reliant on the reflexes of the wizards in question, but, seeing as they'd be at a disadvantage for starting about two years after the ninja, they wouldn't even be able to see what was going on around them. They'd look almost to be chunin, especially because they'd probably be taller than their compatriots because of their Norman heritage, who were taller than normal back in the midle ages.
Some method of rapid divination would allow them to make up for the lack of neccessary reflexes. It could be an almost blatant ape of the sharingan.
Also potions won't work. Almost everything they learn in potions was based on milennia of randomly combining things together to find useful combinations of already magical ingredients. Having one student able to research and recreate entirely new potions would be absolutely unbelievable. That would break immersion as fast as a bad plothole.May e one workable potion after literally months of research would be credible . You could even have a character testing potions in combat situations as a main plot hook. Rapid progress feels like no progress, so make sure there's a lot of wrong hypotheses if you're gonna include potions.
You mentioned invisibility cloaks and obliviate, but those would be functionally useless. An invisibiloty cloak wouldn't stop the other aspects of a person under a cloak walking around the place, like their smell and the sound of their footsteps. Chunin would easily be able to detect those signs. Obliviate could be useful in an ANBU or Interrogation situation, but it wouldn't have practical applications in the middle of a battle. Maybe in an inflitration situation, obliviate could be used to erase the minds of anyone who suspected the wizard, or it could be used to absolutely destroy the combat effectiveness of enemy ninja once they've been captured. Can't fight if they can't remember how.
But yeah, Harry Potter characters couldn't survive on their own in Naruto's world.
u/None [+1] (7 hours later)
What Chekov's gun from the fourth book?
Divination is an interesting possibility.
Why not create new potions? Didn't HJPEV? And suppose the potions already exist but weren't well known because they're not much use aside from fighting ninjas. I'm just thinking of a handful of buffs a student could bring to the ninja world to give themselves a chance at a key moment.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (10 hours later)
HPMOR's theory of how potions work is noncanon.
u/E-o_o-3 [+4] (13 hours later)
Do I get a time turner? Do I get an invisibility cloak? Do I get a house elf? Do I get a pet basilisk or any other magical creature? Do they know my powers? Do I get a teleport? Do I get a broom stick? Mind reading? Muggle tech?
I won't watch Naruto so I wouldn't actually know, but these are the sorts of questions I'd want to know if I was against super-fast opponents who had supernaturally good senses and could not be hit with projectiles and I had time to prepare. If I had the time turner, I'd always have time to prepare,
Basilisks force opponents to close eyes, and besides there is a painful mental attack if they look at your eyes. Earplugs + adult Mandrakes might just kill them all immediately, but if not at least they can't hear you. A lot of patronuses flying around right in front of opponent's vision, blinding them if they look anywhere but at the basilisks. Also, you should fling stink pellets and perhaps poisonous gas everywhere, so they can't smell you under the cloaks. Now that hearing, seeing, smelling, or touching anything is deadly, you can be invisible in peace (also, the outside of your invisibility cloak is a portkey that apparates anyone who touches it to a hell somewhere) and maybe you can land a hit or two in the confusion. Hopefully you're at least safe from whatever poorly aimed projectiles manage to be thrown in this din, because you have magic force shield...whereas avada kedavra can go through enemy shields. You can even try Imperio if things go well.
House elves seem a lot more agile than wizards and can use lots of wandless magic, so are less easily disabled, and don't question orders or fear death. A house-elf touch kills instantly, since apparation is easily hacked into an insta-kill. Time turners provide intel, but they also double the size of your army with each use (10 invisible copies of house eleves riding basilisks! The first house elf in the time turner chain drank felix! The basilisks are randomly teleporting and disappearing-reappearing everywhere!). Teleporting stuff directly inside of them. How frequently can you apparate around? Oh, wait, it doesn't matter - your time turner-ed selves and/or magical creatures who can apparate can help you out while your apparation skill recharges, so you really hop around if you trust them to not splinch you. Also as long as we've got critters, dementors are indestructable, sooo...
Come to think of it, you can probably transfigure some of these creatures even if you can't bring them with. There's also at least a few Area of Effect spells. Hermione has a freezing charm which freezes all the pixies. Fiendfire. Disembodied horcruxes possessing them without them knowing.
Having at least one ninja ally really powers things up. Off the top of my head, you can hand them long sticks with portkey'd tips or a gun with portkey bullets which send whatever they touch to the bottom of the ocean, or something more insta-killingly lethal, and then use the time turner to make more ninjas.
Basically, the Wizard end of things is to just take all stack-able powers, and stack as many of them as possible. In a real Wizarding War, there would be so much flashing of light and sound and color and things would be going so fast and everyone on both sides would probably just die immediately.
u/Gurkenglas [+1] (14 hours later)
The time turner thing is problematic: Beyond the theorem that your body can only experience the same moment 7 times, precommiting your future selves to do something and observing it means that you are going to have to do it whether you regret it in the meantime or not; the whole scheme can only work in the first place if you don't die; and by invoking time turners and observing freely, you leave the turn of events up to whatever process decides between all possible stable time loops.
u/MugaSofer [+1] (17 hours later)
your body can only experience the same moment 7 times
It's actually 6 times, in canon.
u/Gurkenglas [+1] (18 hours later)
I got the 7 from HPMOR's 6 hours.
u/MugaSofer [+2] (a day later)
Yeah, canon settled on 5 hours.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (16 hours later)
Don't forget that ninja have (often massive) area effect powers.
Out of curiosity, you say that you "won't" watch Naruto, not that you "haven't" watched it. Why that verb?
u/E-o_o-3 [+1] (20 hours later)
typo, that said "don't". I would.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (21 hours later)
Ah. That makes more sense.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Hariya has a time turner, but it works on the order of centuries. After reading HPMOR I wouldn't want to give her a normal one for fear of doing damage to my own brain.
These are some interesting ideas. I'll have to think about it.
u/Gurkenglas [+1] (2 days later)
Yet more about the time turners:
[Chapter 76](#s " "And I know, the way the Time-Turner works, if you want to make Granger be there, you can't be told whether it's already happened."")
u/4t0m [+3] Chaos Legion (47 minutes later)
I think ninjas are overall more powerful, as well as being more physically capable and creative than most wizards. They seem to have access to larger attacks / effects than comparable wizards (e.g. the amount of fire that Sasuke can create as a genin would look impressive coming even from Dumbledore*). In the end it would come down to how wizard shielding spells hold up against elemental effects. Immortality / resurrection also seems easier for ninjas than for wizards.
Death-eaters might be a different story. AK is pretty OP. Do ninjas have any unblockable insta-kills?
*Actually, there is fiendfyre, a dark spell which an average seventh year was able to cast. I'm not sure how much fire it made, but it was
special fire, maybe comparable to Amaterasu.
u/None [+1] (an hour later)
Well, it seems to me that moving quickly plus a knife should equate to AK for most purposes. I suppose it depends on whether Protego blocks that sort of thing. On the other hand, ninjas can substitution jutsu out of an AK as long as there's a log nearby.
One question to consider is whether ninjas are treated as Muggles or not for the sake of wizard spells. I would say yes since I've already decided genjutsu doesn't work on wizards, which means that e.g. a ninja wouldn't be able to even see Hogwarts. Ironically, it seems that wizards have the advantage in information and ninjas the advantage in power.
Fiendfyre vs Amaterasu would be neat.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (an hour later)
Why are the wizards immune to genjutsu? If they are, shouldn't the ninja be immune to Imperio, Confundus, Obliviate and all the other mind-effecting HP magic?
Regardless of what's allowed though, I think there's two scenarios:
- The wizard is still a student: they possess only basic nonlethal jinxes (Jelly Legs, Expeliarmus, etc) and cannot apparate.
- Alternatively, both participants are mature, experienced representatives of their type. (e.g. chunin vs a typical Auror, or a jounin vs someone like Dumbledore, Voldemort, Bellatrix, Moody, etc)
In the first case, the ninja wins regardless of the level of the ninja, unless the wizard has a handy Floo or Portkey and can escape.
In the second case, it's a "who-goes-first" question, as both are glass cannon against the other's attacks. If the wizard lands an Avada Kedavar, the ninja dies. If the ninja lands a Rasengan, Chudori, etc, then the wizard dies.
The wizard's defenses would consist of Protego, Apparate, and Dumbledore's trick of putting physical objects in the way. The ninja's defenses would consist of a wide variety of movement abilities, elemental control techniques to create barriers, and lots of distraction techniques such as clones.
Overall, I suspect ninja would win much more often than wizards.
Important factors / techniques on the ninja side:
- Trained to kill
- Enormously superior physical abilities (martial arts, etc)
- Stealth and infiltration training
- Limited chakra: cannot spam their biggest attacks continually. For a jonin this is not such a factor.
- Kawarimi (replacement technique): Ninja switches for an object such as a log. Can be done fast enough to avoid a sword that is about to hit them.
- Shunshin (body flicker): Ninja moves faster than the eye can see across relatively short distances -- AIUI, anywhere up to across-my-small-town. It's effectively teleportation but it travels through the intervening space.
- Bunshin (clone): creates an illusionary copy of you that can act independently as a distraction. Dispels on light contact.
- Kage bunshin (shadow clone): creates a physical copy of you and all your non-magical gear which knows everything you do and can act independently. Dispels on medium contact but when it does you get all of its memories. Great for scouting. Also allows you to attack from multiple directions simultaneously. If you're Naruto or any other jinchuuriki and can create an effectively unlimited number of them it means that you never need to physically encounter the wizard at all.
- Elemental clones (water, earth, etc) For this purpose, same as kage bunshin.
- Earth Release Move around underground for surprise attacks.
- Exploding tags and trapmaking
- EDIT: Forgot to mention the Henge (transformation technique). A ninja can turn himself into another person or into any physical object, even one of a different size. I'm not familiar with canon, but I've seen 'fics where people turn themselves into kunai (throwing knives), buckets, etc. This is a basic Academy skill that even genin can do.
Important HP factors:
- Can spam spells infinitely
- Helpless without their wands
- Avada Kedavra
- Imperio
- Teleportation (Apparate, floo, portkey)
u/None [+2] (2 hours later)
I decided wizards are immune to genjutsu because they don't have any chakra to be manipulated. But ninjas still have brains. I'm thinking they should be considered Muggles in terms of magic affecting them, which means Imperio and the like should still work.
ninjas are broken =(
Actually, on the subject of chakra, how strict is it? Sasuke and Kakashi have very limited use of their eye powers and the chidori, but Naruto can make about a thousand clones? Is he supposed to be just that special?
I suppose what wizards would need is time to prepare. Disillusioned and with shields up and buffed with potions they would be pretty formidable. A wizard who just happens to stumble across a ninja is toast unless he can Apparate away in time.
Items would be a factor, again given preparation. Invisibility cloaks, brooms, and hats with shield charms would go a long way to giving wizards equal footing.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (2 hours later)
[genjutsu]
That actually makes a lot of sense. I hadn't realized that genjutsu were chakra manipulations.
[chakra reserves]
Sasuke is a genin, so his reserves are small. Kakashi is a jōnin; his reserves are pretty darn big. As I remember it, the fight against Zabuza at the bridge in Wave went on for a goodly while and trashed a lot of the landscape. He's got more than enough to get through a battle.
Naruto is the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi, the Nine Tailed Demon Beast, the most powerful of the Tailed Beasts. (Think big-ass demon.) Jinchūriki means "living container for a mega-demon"; it was sealed into him when he was a baby.
Naruto's own chakra reserves are enormous because plot, but when he draws on the Kyuubi's chakra they are effectively infinite. As such, he can make hundreds / a thousand shadow clones and can do it all day long. To see some of the implications, read Lighting Up The Dark. Kage Bunshin is just ludicrously broken when you are Naruto.
[prep time] Yep, a prepared wizard with battle training and appropriate gear is scary and would be very effective. He'd have to remain unnoticed and one-shot the ninja though. If not, the ninja is out of there and either the battle is over or it becomes cat-and-mouse as they each try to figure out where the other is.
One thing the wizards could do if they were smart: hire ninja from a different Hidden Village. If they're attached by Sound, hire Hidden Leaf (Naruto's village) or vice-versa. Ninja are mercenaries, after all.
u/None [+1] (2 hours later)
So if the demon fox is actually some kind of disease monster and not a big chakra beast, then how many shadow clones could Naruto make?
I will check out that fic. Any other good Naruto fics? And any fics that cross Harry Potter with Naruto?
u/eaglejarl [+2] (3 hours later)
So if the demon fox is actually some kind of disease monster and not a big chakra beast, then how many shadow clones could Naruto make?
As many as you say he can. Naruto's chakra reserves are canonically stated to be huge, but there's no clear delineation between how much is him directly and how much is the Kyuubi.
As I understand it, the technique uses a lot of chakra; it was a forbidden jutsu because of that. I don't know from canon, but in 'fic it seems like either no one else uses it at all, or they can only make 1d4 shadow clones.
Check the 'Favorite Stories' tab on my FFN profile for specific story recommendations. Beyond that, there's a boat-ton of HP/Naruto crossovers.
EDIT: In particular, check out Cleaning No Jutsu It's one of my particular favorites.
u/Patronicus [+1] (a day later)
Thank you for recommending Cleaning No Jutsu, that was excellent.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
You're welcome. If you happen to be a Firefly fan, check out anything by ebfiddler. They're all in my faves, and the first one is A Lion's Mouth.
u/dwibby [+2] (9 hours later)
(Spoilers ahead)
The mythology of chakra in the Narutoverse suggests that chakra is present in all living beings, and ninjas have a higher concentration of it and have ways of training to enhance their chakra reserves and control. Even civilians, who generally have low chakra reserves and control, can eventually become ninjas, as in the case of Sakura. The God Tree is mentioned to have grown in the blood of the fallen warriors, which I take to mean that it refined and concentrated their chakra in it's Fruit (the consumption of which lead to the advent of ninjas).
As for Naruto's insane chakra reserves, the explanation is a combination of the Uzumaki clan's resiliency, the incredible amount of toxic chakra that Kurama has been pumping through his chakra pathway system, such that Neji's attack on his chakra system was much less effective it would be on a average ninja. Naruto has enough chakra that he brute-forces most of his techniques, and learning better control has been a major feature of his development.
With the ability to manipulate sage, tailed beast and six paths chakra in addition to his own, Naruto can draw on incredibly large amounts of chakra by the end of the series. In addition, many of the major clans of Konoha could claim that they directly descended from the Rabbit Goddess (Uchiha, Senju, Uzumaki and likely Hyuga), and Naruto is a reincarnation of one of the Rabbit Goddess's grandchildren.
Outside of Naruto direct family, the Namikaze in general aren't really discussed, but Minato was skilled enough to be a major factor in the Third Ninja World War, and become the Hokage. Naruto is also part of the chain of teams that included all of the Hokages. Despite living for a decade in terrible conditions that made seriously compromised his early development, Naruto has a great deal of support to make him a extremely powerful shinobi.
Regarding how wizards and ninjas would interact, magic does seem to have a spiritual component, so magic and chakra manipulation may be somewhat related. I would draw on the similarities between wandless magic and hand seals, as well as wizard blood and kekkai genkai to smooth out the differences in a crossover setting.
For example, perhaps wizards are naturally gifted at chakra manipulation, and wands are made of chakra resonant materials ("9 inches, Hashirama wood, Nine-Tailed Fox fur"), but with military-class training, even Muggles can shape chakra/cast spells, if somewhat limited by their chakra system.
In this version, a chunin would be closer to an auror team leader. To a ninja, wizards would look like ninjutsu specialists, with some genjutsu ability and virtually no taijutsu skill. A wizard can have a wide array of spells would and Apparition behaves similar to the Flying Thunder God Technique which Minato used to devastating effect in the Third Ninja World War. A skilled wizard would look like a cross between Minato and Kakashi, and yet oddly ignores hand to hand combat skill. On the other hand, a wizard would probably think a ninja regretfully neglect their magical abilities, and worryingly make large use of child soldiers.
I think the biggest factor that would give ninjas on the whole the upper hand is that the culture is very much combat orientated. Those who fought in the Wizarding Wars would probably be competent combatants, but the ninja focus on speed and physical combat would incredibly dangerous to wizards, who largely stand around flinging spells/ninjutsu.
After first contact in the hypothetical crossover setting, taijutsu and wands would probably be the biggest exchanges. High quality ninja tools would incorporate wand cores to allow better chakra manipulation. Wizarding Schools would convert Flying Lessons to Magical Physical Education incorporating taijutsu, kawarmi and other "magical body enhancement charms." Kawarmi and Shunshin could form the basis of learning Apparition, with the Flying Thunder God Technique being a chakra tag assisted version. Wizards also have a great deal of tools (potions, brooms, portkeys, etc) that could be very interesting when weaponized (portkey to a deathtrap on a kunai).
u/eaglejarl [+1] (18 hours later)
I decided wizards are immune to genjutsu because they don't have any chakra to be manipulated.
Actually, thinking about this, I'm not sure it's the right choice. Naruto canon says "if it's alive it has chakra, if it has no chakra it's dead." Chakra exhaustion can actually kill you, IIRC. You can absolutely decide that HP wizards have no chakra, but then you're not being evenhanded between the universes -- you might as well say "ninja are immune to Avada Kedavra because they don't have souls".
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Hm. I've got a fix for this, which I won't spoil.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
If you're making "fixes" against particular points, then it sounds like you've already made your choice. If so, there's no point in making fixes -- just rule by authorial fiat that it is the case. If you've made up your mind, though, you've pretty clearly decided that the Wizards should win -- otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to nerf the ninja -- so there's not a lot of point in discussion.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
No, I just mean that I've thought of a way to keep that new fact consistent with what I've already written so that I don't have to go back and change things.
And it really won't be a wizard vs ninja battle so much as wizards and ninjas vs wizards and ninjas.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
No, I just mean that I've thought of a way to keep that new fact consistent with what I've already written so that I don't have to go back and change things.
Right, but if you started from a point where the ninja had been nerfed (no genjutsu allowed) and now you're trying to keep new facts consistent with that view, then you've still made your decision -- you're supporting it, not reevaluating based on new evidence.
It goes beyond genjutsu, too. If you're disallowing chakra manipulations to work on wizards and then allowing all magic to work on wizards, you are tilting the odds in favor of the HP wizards quite a bit. If you say that HP wizards have no chakra, then here's a partial list of things you've just taken away from the ninja:
- Sharingan (the Mangekyō is a genjutsu, and I believe the prediction abilities are based on reading chakra)
- The Hyūgas' Gentle Fist style -- it relies on sealing tenketsu to prevent use of chakra / disable someone by disrupting their chakra. They now have little to no taijutsu (martial arts) ability.
- The Hyūgas' Byakugan can no longer see through illusions and transformations such as Polyjuice
- Shino is now useless -- his signature move is to have his bugs eat your chakra until you fall over
That's just off the top of my head. Of course, the 'no chakra' decision enables other things -- for example, if the wizards have no chakra, then the replacement technique will treat them like an inanimate object. That allows assassination techniques such as: Ninja A swings a sword at his partner's neck. At the very last millisecond, his partner substitutes himself for a wizard standing a hundred yards away. The wizard is now dead.
Also, something else I thought of: the replacement technique appears to be causality-breaking: there are multiple times in the anime where a ninja is explicitly shown to have been cut in half -- you clearly see the body being divided -- and then it's just a log that was cut apart. The only way I can reconcile that is that the replacement can actually be made to happen a fraction of a second before the technique is actually activated, even if the ninja has died in the meantime.
To be clear: I'm fine with the idea that you want to nerf all this, and that HP wizards should win. If that's the story you want to write, cool. I am very much looking forward to it and if the basic writing mechanics are good then I'm sure I'll enjoy it a lot. I just want to point out the full implications of the decision.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
But I didn't know that every living thing should have chakra. I thought it was only ninjas. So from my perspective it's not a nerf at all but just logic, and I don't want to change it after learning what chakra is supposed to be because laziness, so you can't deduce anything about my desire to see wizards win over ninjas from that fact.
My fix, without spoiling anything, will not leave the sorts of techniques you list so useless as it may seem.
u/autowikiabot [+1] (an hour later)
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#### Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole Technique:
This technique changes earth into fine sand by channelling chakra into it, allowing the user to dig through it like a mole. This effect goes around the body (not just the hands), making it just large enough for a person to move through. The user can pinpoint where they are, despite being underground, by sensing the magnetic forces. They can also sense what is happening on the surface and use that information to launch a surprise attack on the enemy. One can also hide deep in the ground, escaping to a depth where the enemy can't reach. It also appears that after digging, the ground can be returned to its original state, leaving no trace of where the user entered the earth.
^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikiabot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cmggptc) ^or [^delete](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikiabot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+cmggptc)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| ^(FAQs) ^| ^Source ^(Please note this bot is in testing. Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it is just a bug report! Please checkout the) ^source ^code ^(to submit bugs)
u/None [+1] (2 hours later)
oh, and thanks for explaining ninja terms
u/eaglejarl [+1] (3 hours later)
No worries. Also, I forgot to list the Henge the first time around. I've added it -- it's a HUGE intelligence and infiltration advantage. Basically, free Polyjuice without needing a sample, plus a lot more.
u/None [+1] (7 hours later)
But it takes a conscious effort to get it right, right? You have to know the details. Naruto screws it up, doesn't he?
u/eaglejarl [+3] (8 hours later)
Remember that I've only seen a double handful of the episodes and haven't read the manga, so most of what I'm saying is from fanfic.
I don't remember ever seeing a depiction of Naruto messing up a henge. I've seen him mess up a bunshin (the standard, immaterial clone) because his chakra control bites and he can't manage to put in a small enough amount of chakra. (The poor control I'm pretty sure is actually canon.) Kage bunshin, the shadow clone, is actually harder for most people because it sucks up a lot more chakra, so he can do those perfectly every time.
As an aside: Naruto actually has two adaptations on the kage bunshin: Sexy No Jutsu, where he generates a shadow clone who looks like an 18-year-old female version of himself wearing nothing but clouds, and Harem No Jutsu, where he creates a whole swarm of such. Given that it's a Japanese anime these are ridiculously effective techniques: he uses SNJ to make ridiculously powerful old male ninja start spontaneously bleeding from the nose and passing out, and uses HNJ to utterly discombobulate adult male ninja so that Naruto can get a shot in.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (13 hours later)
A "normal" henge is a pure illusion (ie genjutsu), and the greater the change the harder it gets - so looking like someone with a similar build is easy, different build harder, and a tree very difficult.
Naruto... doesn't seem to follow these rules, even in canon. The best (fanon) explanation I've seen is that due to having a nine-tailed kitsune sealed into him, he has a unique shapeshifting ability and never realises.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (17 hours later)
Oh, it's a genjutsu? In that case it's already been stated that the HP wizards are immune. I thought it was an actual transformation.
u/Sophronius [+1] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
The genjutsu thing is fanon. In canon it is an actual transformation, allowing Naruto to transform himself into things like shuriken, which is ridiculous but there you go.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
Meh. Given that ninja create and destroy mass and energy all the time, it's no more ridiculous than anything else they do.
u/None [+2] (2 hours later)
I suppose the problem I really need to solve is how to have 1-3 first year Hogwarts students with ninja allies be able to contribute in some way to a ninja fight?
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (13 hours later)
They probably can't. The fundamental problem is that ninja just keep getting faster, tougher, and more lethal as you go up the scale - and it doesn't take long before you need something special to avoid being decapitated within a handful of milliseconds of being noticed.
u/Cheap_Management_615 [+1] (9 years later)
who is better ninja or wizard
u/Cheap_Management_615 [+1] (9 years later)
sd
u/capsless [+1] despiser of hpmor (4 hours later)
disclaimer: i know nothing about naruto. i'm just assuming it's typical shonen.
i've got to say, wizards seem pretty clearly superior. i suppose it depends a lot on whether you mean "average firsty" or "average firsty with the ability to use spells in ways they were not originally designed for". on first glance, it looks like ninjas will win in literally every situation, regardless of initiative.
consider: basically all combat spells in hp are easily-dodgable projectiles. even ak, which is pretty much constantly hailed as The Ultimate Attack, has a good quarter-second of lag as it makes its bright, easily distinguishable path across the battlefield. the reflexes of ninjas are far more than enough to dodge it (hell, iirc even in hp there were descriptions of dodged aks). conversely, ninjas have the capacity to kill a wizard before they draw their wand, let alone say the name of a spell and make the requisite wand motions.
... of course, all this depends on everything being comfortably within the stations of canon. if we allow even a little bit outside of that, both parties are on the fairly even platform of "whoever gets initiative wins". however great your reflexes, without wards there's not an awful lot one can do against the untargetted, instantaneous, and loe-less "accio enemy's upper cervical vertebrae", which has a range of several miles. hp is pretty heavily geared towards domestic spells, and as anyone who's ever looked at d&d's cantrip description knows, those are the most breakable.
and then if we go a little farther, ninjas are left pretty far out of their league. this is because of wizards' access to warding and so forth -- provided that there's a non-zero period of time in which both parties are opposed to one another but not in active combat, the wizard is pretty much guaranteed a win. warding isn't really explored much in hp canon, but even what little we know can completely nullify anything a ninja can throw at it. consider casting fidelius on one's current location and wiping the memory of the secret-keeper (or better yet, making yourself the secret-keeper); combat prowess is almost entirely irrelevant when the enemy can imp themselves close and put a round of lead through your cranium.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (17 hours later)
Can you Accio part of an object? Does it work on living things? I don't know if either of those were addressed in canon. Also, I don't think Fidelius can protect a person -- it has to be a place, and the times it was used in canon were static locations. Using it on a mobile location is fine if the author says, but isn't canon.
I agree with you that both sides are glass cannon to the others.
u/None [+1] (7 hours later)
Accioing a specific part of the spine is a pretty interesting idea. Hm.