21 KiB
[RT] Chapter 17 of Lighting Up the Dark, a rational Naruto fanfic
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Author: u/Velorien *
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9311012/18/Lighting-Up-the-Dark
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Score: 44
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Created: 2015-10-26T16:13:36
Post:
Comments:
u/Nevereatcars [+14] The Greatest Is Behind (an hour later)
Of course, since Hidden Sand helped develop this genjutsu game, their genin were made aware of it so they don't blow the surprise invasion.
And poor Neji; all he wants to do is hate his cousin. Nobody gives him respect for that wish.
u/None [+1] (3 months later)
Whoa you’re in r/rational. Neat.
Necropost
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (3 months later)
Ayyyyyyy
u/None [+1] (3 months later)
rivals and rational fiction are basically the only 2 things I do with my time anymore
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (3 months later)
You realize this means we have to be best friends, right?
u/None [+1] (3 months later)
Probably. But there's one last test: Have you read Worm?
^^please ^^no ^^one ^^I ^^know ^^irl ^^will ^^read ^^it
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (3 months later)
I read MOST of Worm, up to the arc where they
WORM SPOILERS
kill the first Endbringer in India.
And then I got distracted by Name of the Wind. I'll finish it someday
u/None [+1] (3 months later)
Ah better than most. Although the really interesting bit, imo, is of course at the end.
Kingkiller is another weakness of mine. I think I've read NoTW and WMF 4 or 5 times... I've also homebrewed Rothfuss' metheglin recipe, which was... strange.
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (3 months later)
But have you read Slow Regard and The Broken Tree?
u/None [+1] (3 months later)
Not broken tree yet, which I need to fix. Slow regard was interesting but felt really forced/fake to me
u/sir_pirriplin [+10] (31 minutes later)
Looks like Orochimaru will have to appeal to something more subtle and clever than Sasuke's thirst for revenge to get him on his side.
Can't wait to see what that will be.
u/Drazelic [+13] Dai-Gurren Brigade (8 hours later)
How do we know Sasuke's gonna go with Orochimaru? For all we know, Orochimaru will appeal to Naruto's desire for power with which to change the world instead, playing the Quirrell figure, and Naruto will go with Orochimaru.
u/sir_pirriplin [+8] (8 hours later)
In canon, Orochimaru wanted a specimen with a sharingan.
Naruto is only valuable because of his brain and the Kyubei. Orochimaru is not going to give himself a brain transplant, and the Kyubei risk/reward ratio is worse than the canon Kyubi.
u/RandomDamage [+10] (2 hours later)
I like that the senior ninjas are also more rational, I'd expect a similar scenario to be SOP for all Chunin exams (and kept secret from the participants).
u/None [+10] (4 hours later)
Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for coming back and continuing this great story. I fell in love with it from the very first chapter and checked it's page every day for six months when you went on hiatus. I greatly look forward to reading these latest two chapters.
You're an inspiration.
Edit: Three chapters! It's my lucky day.
u/eaglejarl [+5] (13 hours later)
I've never understood the thing with Kabuto. I haven't read the canon, so maybe it's explained there -- my understanding is that he's a spy for Orochimaru, but I don't get why he's walking around showing people cards. What's he trying to gain that is worth drawing attention to himself?
Can anyone more familiar with the canon lay it out for me?
u/Saffrin-chan [+5] (14 hours later)
I kind of mentioned this in passing in another comment, but in canon Kabuto is one of those characters where the reader is told that they're some smart, cunning mastermind, but when you actually look at the character as a whole and the actions they've taken, they seem really, really stupid.
I've seen people try to explain in other fics that Kabuto's info cards are a method he uses to get close and gain the trust of certain participants in the Chunin Exams, Team 7 and Sasuke by extension in particular. In the original, Kabuto does approach Team 7, not the other way around like here. But besides the fact that there's a million other ways to gain the trust of the impressionable 12 year olds Team 7 are in canon without looking like a suspicious security leak, it's clearly an example of authors taking somthing that didn't make much sense in the original and trying to come up with a rational reason for it in their story. I don't actually think there ever is a real explanation in canon for what the heck Kabuto was trying to accomplish with those cards except for the weak "he's a spy for Orochimaru," where we have to assume every weird, unexplained action he took was on some strange order that the reasoning behind will never be explained.
u/sir_pirriplin [+8] (20 hours later)
But besides the fact that there's a million other ways to gain the trust of the impressionable 12 year olds Team 7 are in canon without looking like a suspicious security leak...
His "cunning" plan also serves as helpful exposition for the audience to understand some weird things about the exam, like why there are comparatively so few ninja participating from other countries (something Naruto in this fic did not notice or did not point out). He also foreshadowed interesting stuff about Lee's abilities (something Naruto in this fic already knows because he is not a moron).
u/Saffrin-chan [+3] (4 hours later)
So Kabuto knows some things about Naruto. More than just secrets like him being a jinchuriki, but things Naruto has been deliberately hiding from everyone else. He obviously got this information by spying, but I wonder who was he spying for at the time? It seems like Kabuto spends time as a spy for pretty much every "bad" faction at some point in canon, and I'm interested in seeing how him being a spy for Root/Orochimaru/Akatsuki/whoever he feels like that week will go down in this story.
u/Nevereatcars [+2] The Greatest Is Behind (4 hours later)
Kabuto showing HiddenAbilities!Naruto that he has knowledge about Naruto that he can't possibly know with his supposed clearance and skills is so overplayed. It's such an obvious and avoidable mistake for this supposedly Anbu-level spy and it happens in dozens of fics.
u/sir_pirriplin [+4] (7 hours later)
It's not above Kabuto's clearance to know about Naruto's chakra control.
Remember in the first chapter, Naruto says the Kyubei is famous for its intelligence and chakra control, so if Kabuto knows Naruto has the Kyubei inside him (and Naruto himself said it was a very poorly kept secret) then he knows about the chakra control.
I think Naruto was worried more about Kabuto showing that card to ninjas from other villages and wouldn't have minded if Kabuto had kept that knowledge to himself.
EDIT: Just noticed now that Kabuto knows Naruto is competent at ninjutsu. That should probably worry Naruto more.
u/Saffrin-chan [+5] (4 hours later)
Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I'm so curious with the direction Kabuto is going to be taken in this story. Velorien hasn't made any glaring errors like this yet (and I'm not saying this story hasn't had smaller problems), where they keep something in the story just because it's always in the story (and Kabuto with his info cards are always in Chunin Exam fics). So I'm fairly confident that something is going on with Kabuto, and he'll end up being more than the "smart" but actually pretty stupid plotter he is in so many stories.
u/Traiden04 [+3] (6 hours later)
I felt it was to add more misdirection away from his boss. He is the bait that encourages them to look only deep enough and not find the actual threat. Naruto is doing the same thing on a different way, to get the group thinking that his team is not a priority.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
I talked with him in PM- apparently he does have a reason for this. I just hope it is an interesting reason.
u/None [+5] (a day later)
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u/eaglejarl [+2] (a day later)
I used to get that with The Two Year Emperor. I would always simply say "Wait for it."
u/iSuggestViolence [+3] (13 hours later)
Really enjoying the series so far. Good work OP!
u/MadScientist95387 [+2] (20 hours later)
So Kabuto is trying to recruit Naruto (for Sound? for Himself?)
He's showing Naruto that his intelligence gathering is superior to Naruto's counter-intelligence, and the most likely reason I can think for him to do that is to advertise himself as a useful ally.
u/None [-3] (a day later)
and the most likely reason I can think for him to do that is to
The problem is that there is an infinite sea of hypotheses for every phenomenon, and our brain has not evolved to find out every one, nor even the majority nor a high probability subset of them. In other words, you, like every other human, are blind to the causes of things that happen, unless they are really common and obvious.
Just sayin'
EDIT: It has been drawn to my attention that people infer from what I wrote things that aren't there. What I meant to say is that to understand the motives behind one single action of a smart, rational character is a trickier endeavour than most, because in the case of particularly smart, rational characters the motives behind their actions are seldom common or obvious, as opposed to the actions of everyday people.
I wrote phenomenons because, at the same time, laws of physics and natural events are very common, but not so obvious, and in fact for example it took many years and a vast number of experiments to arrive to the theory of... pretty much any theory, because that would narrow dawn the sea of possible hypotheses. It also helps that in nature the simplest explanation is usually the right one, while this is not always the case for smart people and characters.
u/None [+4] (a day later)
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u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Nnnnnno. What I'm saying is that people can predict characters' future actions, to some degree of accuracy, once they know their motivations, but to understand a character's motivation is a whole other matter.
What I'm saying is that if you met a person on a street, and this person was throwing dice on the sidewalk, you could have a simple explanation, maybe five if you're full of inventiveness, but you can't possibly predict that those dice are a construct produced by a multidimensional being in a contest among multidimensional beings to see which blue is bluer on a series of planets originated with an algorithm including twelve prime numbers, and that the guy who is currently kneeling on the sidewalk is a former KGB agent under cover, who casually found himself in this situation to try and bring back to life his lost love.
What I'm saying is that we can come up with some motives for why people do what they do, provided they are common and obvious, and we are usually right because they are the most common for a reason, but we couldn't get the motives of above average smart or subtle or rational characters because we won't ever be able to have a sufficient model of their reasons, who can be many and strange, just like we won't understand the reasons behind particularly unusual events or behaviours.
Had you understood why spoiler HPMOR before the author explained it to you? Sure you could have found a reasonable enough explanation for the choice of her, like "she has some bad influence over Harry", but had you guessed why Draco? Had you guessed that spoiler? Had you guessed that spoiler?
To extrapolate why a person does something is harder than to know what is the next move of a chess player, but we usually get the right answer on the first one because people share the most common motives.
tl/dr Kabuto can have a whole bunch of plans, more that is easy to imagine and guess. Author may not realize this because thay are the on the side who chooses the motives of their characters.
Post scriptum, also realize that we don't know how much of Kabuto you have changed from the original.
u/None [+5] (2 days later)
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u/None [+1] (2 days later)
OK... So what was the purpose of your original post? To tell MadScientist95387 that they were wrong to put forth a hypothesis about Kabuto's motivation?
Nah, just making conversation.
I would add that predicting smart or subtle or rational characters' motivations isn't that difficult, because in most cases, their intelligence shapes how they express their motivations, rather than giving them radically different ones. The idiot savant canon!Naruto and the prodigy rational!Harry might have very different ideas of how to bring about peace and happiness for humanity, but it is nevertheless a motivation that both share, and one which is in no way strange or alien to the reader.
Uhm, well to be more clear, let's say that value motivations are nearly always the same (barring reasonably constructed aliens and crazy people), but instrumental motivations are not. For example, canon!Voldemort wants to kill Harry, rational!Voldemort wants to spoiler.
Missing information =/= inherent unknowability.
I wonder. But surely the less you know the more you fail to reach a valid hypothesis, even more so when instrumental motivations are held by smart or subtle or rational characters.
Yes. But this does not make it any less legitimate to say "based on the currently available information, I hypothesise that X". All hypotheses are based on currently available information, and are capable of being overturned by the discovery of new information in the future.
Well, to answer that, would you have predicted in the original Naruto that Kabuto was a spy of Orochimaru, when you didn't even know about Orochimaru's existence?
It's obviously easier to guess motivations in fanfiction, since you already know a good deal of backstory, but less easy in rational/creative fanfiction, when a smart author may have found reasonable causes for the same events, like: we read about a Kabuto showing stat-cards around and we know that in the original was a poor move, but we know how you deal with poor moves and we expect of you to have changed something to make this work. The reason for this move can float in a sea of possible hypothesis, like, I don't know, Kabuto had an aneurysm, or Kabuto is following four-level-deep orders from Orochimaru in a bigger scheme, or Kabuto is trying to recruit Naruto like MadScientist95387 speculated, or Kabuto is trying to scare Naruto into forfeiting, or Kabuto wants to feign superior intelligence gathering abilities while e just had a stroke of luck in getting those stats, or Kabuto...
This is what I was trying to say, we can't possibly get the whole picture. We can try to guess what you where thinking, based on our knowledge of your style, smarts and the rational fiction guidelines, and the fact that this will be somewhat Naruto, just like we guessed that the first test was a Kobayashi Maru because it is a common trope and it wasn't some smart character's scheme, but to guess what the hell Kabuto is trying to accomplish is a whole other story.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
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u/None [+1] (2 days later)
But I still think coming up with such explanations and refining them as more information becomes available is a valuable exercise, as it can generate new insights, develop one's predictive skills, and on occasion give an author ideas which are better than what he had to begin with.
No questioning that. It's probably one of the main reasons we all enjoy rational fiction.
and had I been a bit more genre savvy, I could have correctly theorised that Kabuto was playing some kind of deeper game, especially if I'd watched something like Durarara!! beforehand.
Or HunterxHunter, for that matter. But we already guessed Kabuto is in for a spyer than you reveal, now we want to discover where this will get us.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (2 days later)
So, because we are not omniscient we should just give up and not try to understand things based on the evidence that we do have? Because that's what I'm getting from what you're writing.
u/None [+2] (4 days later)
that's what I'm getting from what you're writing.
Really? Because if you read again, that's not what I was saying.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)
Then I'm afraid you might want to work on your clarity, because that seems to be what people are inferring.
u/None [+2] (4 days later)
Fixed it. I hope it's clear now.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)
Oh yeah, that makes much more sense. Trying to figure out what level 2 or 3 characters are actually up to is a damn difficult proposition.
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
I should really work on my clarity, it's not the first time people say to me something I wrote isn't clear. I guess it might in part be because I'm no native speaker, but I can't begin to guess how to address the issue.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)
Aye, it's a difficult proposition because a lot of the message can be in the implication and secondary meanings of words. The thing to do would be to find non-native speakers who've overcome it and ask them how they managed it, I suppose.
Talking about complicated concepts like these is a lot harder than just asking where the shops are.
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
Or pointing out that the cat is on the table.
u/None [+1] (5 days later)
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u/None [+1] (5 days later)
That is pretty much what I said, only without the "nothing can be explained" part. That would be absurd, since things are explained all the time.
But yes, our brains are not wired to easily find hypotheses, unless they are common or obvious. We strain very much to achieve them.
I read an interesting article on lesswrong.com which got on this matter, among other things, and it was surely better expressed than how I did here. I can't seem to be able to find it again, though.
u/thedarkone47 [-5] (3 hours later)
That thumbnail always gets me interested, but then I see that it's Naruto and get disappointing.
u/None [+5] (16 hours later)
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u/Nevereatcars [+5] The Greatest Is Behind (18 hours later)
Alas, Code Geass S2. What could have been shall never be.
u/C_Densem [+1] LessWrong (than usual) (2 days later)
If I wasn't perpetually behind in Fallout, I'd give this a crack. Alas, the trials of the busy author :p
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (2 days later)
I think they were on track early on, but then they realised that none of the writers were actually strategists at all and just ignored that whole ball game in favour of who had the most overpowered fighter ace robot. The bulk of the armies may as well have not existed for all the difference they made.
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (2 days later)
I especially liked the part where Kallen, Spoiler
u/eaglejarl [+6] (13 hours later)
Thank you for sharing that.