21 KiB
[RT][FF] Chapter 18 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/9311012/19/Lighting-Up-the-Dark
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Score: 42
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Created: 2015-11-02T12:26:03
Post:
Comments:
u/tilkau [+7] (44 minutes later)
A textbook example of why munchkinry is not simply 'that thing that you should be doing', but a tool.
A/N: "AU" as used during this exam is an abbreviation for "arbitrary unit".
Are you a fan of roguelikes, perhaps ?
u/None [+2] (2 hours later)
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u/nifboy [+2] (3 hours later)
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup measures time in AUTs (Arbitrary Unit of Time), which is different from player turns, which can be of variable length in AUTs.
u/sir_pirriplin [+2] (6 hours later)
Weight used to be measured in Arbitrary Units of Mass, too.
u/tilkau [+2] (10 hours later)
Angband (and most variants) uses AUs for gold; IIRC intended to have a literal meaning: 'AU', and a pun meaning: 'Au'. Until weight was abolished (hurrah!), DCSS was using AUMs for weight.
That's actually all I could think of offhand. I guess Angband's usage of au really stuck in my mind for some reason. EDIT: yes, and AUTs like nifboy mentions.
u/None [+17] (3 hours later)
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u/4t0m [+23] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)
As a counterpoint, it could be extremely dangerous to be promoted to Chunin before you are ready, which can happen if your teammate totally carries you through the exam. Also, I feel like her's is a pretty reasonable and realistic (though perhaps not rational) emotional response to 1) seeing that your teammate doesn't respect you or trust your abilities (esp. in a domain you consider a particular strength) and 2) going through a high stress situation and probably working really hard to accomplish something and not let down your team, only to find out that nothing you did mattered. Desiring communication from your teammates is pretty reasonable.
That said, I totally get where you're coming from. HPMOR!Hermione occasionally annoyed me, and I think it was for similar reasons.
u/MadScientist95387 [+2] (3 days later)
Cheating on tests is an area of strength for Sakura?
The point isn't to get a perfect score on your questions, the point is to be in the top half. And the top half will be the people who stole answers from the bottom half and have way more answers than they were given questions.
If Sakura only perfectly answered her own questions then I doubt she would have passed the exam.
u/eaglejarl [+5] (6 hours later)
Both of them, actually.
Also, Naruto's solution was brilliant.
u/None [+7] (6 hours later)
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u/eaglejarl [+8] (6 hours later)
My understanding was that he had the same problem as Sakura, he just wasn't actually bothering to speak out loud.
u/Transfuturist [+5] Carthago delenda est. (8 hours later)
I'm not sure you can count it as brilliance when the author changed the rules in a way that was easily gamed by shadow clones.
u/eaglejarl [+5] (15 hours later)
I didn't think of that solution, and when I read it I had a "oh, cool!" response.
Did you think of it?
u/None [+8] (8 hours later)
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u/QWieke [+3] (10 hours later)
With Naruto's increased intelligence that wouldn't even be necessary.
u/mhd-hbd [+1] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (7 days later)
When writing twelve year olds, there is some import in writing twelve year olds, my friend.
Twelve year olds are like that, and I write them like that too.
u/eaglejarl [+8] (6 hours later)
Very nice. I always enjoy the cheat-to-win test in the Chunin Exams.
At first I was thinking people might deliberately write down wrong answers and "accidentally" let their opponents copy them, then they themselves simply don't hand in those sheets. Then I remembered that you don't get penalized for wrong answers, so that would just be a waste.
Ino should have used her mind control jutsu to sabotage others instead of just steal answers. She could have made them run around tearing up other people's answer sheets, which would have gotten the possessed person so many negative points they would have been out, along with their entire team, and would have ruined the ability of the attacked person to turn in answer sheets without stealing someone else's. That would have been a great way to take Gaara out -- possess Temari or her brother and get them DQ'd by sabotaging other students and then punching out an invigilator. (Also, why 'invigilator' instead of the more usual 'proctor'?)
What was the method that Shikamaru thought of but didn't use?
u/diraniola [+7] (6 hours later)
Shikamaru probably thought of the Naruto method but has the interpersonal skills to not use it. He also told Ino to run interference, which I assume means sabotaging others answer sheets. I'm also not sure that any of team 10 know about Gaara, so they would have no reason to target him.
u/Transfuturist [+10] Carthago delenda est. (8 hours later)
has the interpersonal skills to not use it
I'm dying.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (15 hours later)
Shikamaru probably thought of the Naruto method but has the interpersonal skills to not use it.
Also, he can't make hundreds of shadow clones, so I don't think he has the option. He could have manually filled in a bunch of sheets, but I doubt he had hundreds of them.
I'm also not sure that any of team 10 know about Gaara, so they would have no reason to target him.
Good point.
u/diraniola [+5] (22 hours later)
Realistically, he wouldn't need to. Shadow possession both teammates at once, start writing. Keep writing until time is called. As long as less than half of the room writes answers at the same speed or faster, you pass. Probably the only one who would beat him in volume would be team 7 because of shenanigans.
u/None [+4] (7 hours later)
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u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+7] (16 hours later)
Today is quite literally the first time I remember hearing of the word 'invigilator'. It is something that surprised me more than a little, and caused me to stumble enough in my reading that I had to look it up.
u/PeridexisErrant [+2] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
Huh, it's more common than "proctor" in Australia - at least in my experience.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
I had never heard it before either. I figured out what it meant because it had the root 'vigil', but I still looked it up.
u/Jiro_T [+7] (3 hours later)
Examiners: "The rules require that you write the question and answer on the answer sheets. Answer sheets were described as being, and I quote, 'in front of you' at the start of the test. Since your clones were not in front of you at that moment, clones are not considered answer sheets and all answers given on clones disguised as answer sheets are disqualified. Also, you seem to have created the clones with pre-written answers, violating the rule that you write the question and answer, so you'd have been disqualified on that basis alone".
Or even more simply: "Ninjas are expected to understand orders, not blindly follow their literal words. Cloning yourself into answer sheets may fit the literal words of the rules, but clearly doesn't indicate actual comprehension of the intent behind them. Disqualified."
This chapter is bothersome because it seems to use the geek fallacy of "what I did is what you literally asked for, so you have nothing to complain about" thinking the world works like a computer program. There may be one or two cases, such as with bureaucracies, where you can get away with it, but it usually fails miserably; in the real world it just gets you marked as a smartass. Naruto here is like the person who sees items on sale for 0.50 cents and tries to buy 200 of them for a dollar, even though context makes it obvious that someone meant $0.50 and just didn't write it down properly.
u/eaglejarl [+20] (6 hours later)
The exam isn't about the questions, the exam is about cheating. This is very clear from the way the rules are structured, the challenge rating of the questions, and the fact that ninja -- information gathering is a far more valuable skill than academics, and it is far more sensible to test that.
Sasuke and Sakura tick me off, though. It's about getting it done, guys, not about your ego.
u/None [+13] (5 hours later)
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u/Jiro_T [-1] (8 hours later)
Rather, the purpose of the exam is to test cheating ability as much as, if not more than, academic ability.
It doesn't automatically follow from "this exam is meant to test cheating" that the exam is meant to test every single thing that could conceivably fall under "cheating".
It would be one thing if Naruto sat down and actually thought "let's see, given my understanding of what the examiners are trying to do, would they accept cloning answer sheets? I believe they would". It's another thing if Naruto just acts as though of course cloning answer sheets has to be acceptable because he literally followed the rules and hey, who could ever complain about literally following the rules?
I run into the latter type of pedants constantly on the Internet, including on LW and SSC.
Statement
Rules. "I will now tell you the rules for...."
It is only by inference that these three sentences are related to each other
If Naruto decides to "cheat" by excising implicature from the language, the examiners could equally well fail him by similar reasoning:
"I did not say I exhaustively listed everything that affects your score. So I'll dock you 200 points for ignoring common sense. You only inferred that I described every single thing that affects your score."
"I didn't say what a 'correct' question-answer pair is. You only inferred that I defined it as 'expresses correct facts' rather than 'expressed correct facts and was produced using an acceptable method'."
"I didn't describe what a 'pair' is. In particular, you only inferred that two instances of the same (by information content) pair counts as two pairs."
And I run into these on the Internet constantly too.
u/None [+6] (10 hours later)
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u/Jiro_T [-1] (10 hours later)
How do you envision the examiners justifying their disqualification? "Sorry, Uzumaki, you fail the cheating test because you broke the rules too hard"?
"Sorry, you fail the cheating test because you are unable to tell the difference between cheating we want you to do and cheating we don't. Learn to model other people's minds better for next time."
u/None [+9] (19 hours later)
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u/Jiro_T [-1] (21 hours later)
he has no responsibility to the examiners to complete the exam in a way that follows some unstated rules which he has to guess to succeed.
All nontrivial human communication works on such unstated rules. Not understanding them is just another way of describing lack of social skills, and understanding them but using plausible deniability of "you can't prove that the rules actually require that, so you're just making me guess" is just being a jerk.
Furthermore, if this counts as a "guess" it is a guess that 99% of test-takers would automatically make.
Imagine if real-life exams worked that way.
They do. Try doing your driver's license test riding a bicycle on the grounds that the examiner forgot to tell you to use a car.
having to model the examiner's mind unfairly advantages Leaf ninja,
The rate of Leaf ninja who didn't use clones that way is less than 100%. The rate of non-Leaf ninja who didn't use clones that way is 100%. Empirically, this is not something that Leaf ninja have an easier time figuring out.
u/None [+7] (22 hours later)
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u/Jiro_T [-1] (a day later)
Presumably, you'd raise the same objection to any other activity that violated the stated rules
It's your story. When violating the stated rules violates the implicit rules, and how narrow or wide the implicit rules are, depends purely on your say-so. I can't really object on the grounds that Naruto went against the examiners' implicit desires when he obviously didn't.
However, for Naruto to win on that basis would have to mean that he sat down and thought "judging from what the examiners seem to want, I believe that using clones this way falls within the parameters they would consider acceptable". (And it wouldn't be a "guess"; assessing what one's opponents are likely to do is a skill, not the equivalent of guessing a password.)
What it would not mean is that Naruto thinks his solution has to work because anyone can see that he didn't break any explicit rules, and as long as you don't break any explicit rules, other people are automatically obliged to accept what you did. There are lots of people like that on the quasi-real-life that is the Internet, and Naruto pattern-matches to them far more strongly than he does to a specialist who figured out that the implicit rules are particularly loose just this one time.
If every ninja capable of breaking the rules you deem unbreakable has to model the examiner's mind, then Leaf ninja will have an unfair advantage.
By that reasoning even if the test just involved Naruto fighting the Leaf ninja, he'd have an unfair advantage.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
There were three foreseeable outcomes of the "Cloned Sheet Strategy":
- Examiner goes along
- Examiner disqualifies you
- Examiner pops the clones
One is advantageous, one is neutral and one is disadvantageous. Statistics says he should go with it.
Furthermore, exam could as well have had written "Let's see how well you cheat" on the metaphorical forehead. Cheating is promoted, getting caught is not, and this is because in the life of a ninja, cheating is success, getting caught is torture and death.
This said, there is a last thing to take into consideration. If you give the results of your cheating to a favourable party (as in, one taking the role of a Kage) they will commend you for your cheating. If you give them to an objecting party they will punish you.
So the examiner will either favour you or fail you, depending on their antagonism. In terms of decision theory, this is a fifty/fifty scenario.
Naruto has chosen to be an optimist, and in doing so has taken a risk that might have been avoided.
But this risk was taken against high odds of defeat, so I guess that all in all is a viable choice.
I hope this is clear.
u/The_Fallen_Child [+3] (a day later)
The point of the test is to see how clever ninja are, if you're in an actual battle with someone and you have an ability that they don't know about that's an advantage for you.
If you are taking a test that tests your ability to be clever and you have an ability the proctors don't know about it is in your best interest to utilize that ability
u/Reasonableviking [+2] (an hour later)
Am I missing something with Ino and Shikamaru? 14-2-2-2=8 not 6. I could just be being an idiot though.
u/None [+6] (2 hours later)
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u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (2 hours later)
Ahhh ok.
u/4t0m [+5] Chaos Legion (an hour later)
Arbitrary Units (AUs) have arbitrary and non-consistent sizes, which makes arithmetic very difficult. /s
u/Reasonableviking [+3] (an hour later)
Shikamaru is a smart guy he's probably much smarter than me afterall, I trust his judgement.
u/4t0m [+4] Chaos Legion (2 hours later)
Shikamaru was indeed smarter than we were.
u/Revisional_Sin [+2] (6 days later)
"For every correct question-answer pair handed in at the end of test, you will receive one point"
According to his wording everyone will receive points for every correct answer that is submitted by somebody.
The winning strategy is to take a nap.
u/None [+3] (6 days later)
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u/Revisional_Sin [+1] (7 days later)
a) Good point. I guess I got a bit too hung up on the "real solution".
I fricking love Naruto's fighting btw. Very cool exploitation of the transformation technique.
u/abcd_z [+2] (an hour later)
If the questions are all unique, why was Sasuke blindly copying from a genin a few rows away? The text said nothing about Sasuke being able to see the genin's text to make sure they were the right questions to copy.
Also, who was the Naruto-clone disguised as? The only blonde females I can think of would be female-naruto or Temari. Or was he just disguised as a random blonde ninja?
u/None [+5] (2 hours later)
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u/MadScientist95387 [+2] (a day later)
Ibiki is aware of the impending invasion and wanted to stop "her" from blurting out information that might let the sound/sand genin realize they know?
u/4t0m [+3] Chaos Legion (an hour later)
It doesn't matter whether they are the "right questions" since you get points for any correct "question number" + "answer" pair. What I'm more concerned about is confirming that the copied answers are correct. I'm not sure how Naruto managed to get every question right since the questions were stated to be so difficult. You would expect some incorrect answers to be passed around, and Naruto would need to know the answers himself to either correct these responses or choose between various options. Maybe as questions are collected by better cheaters, answers are corrected (since being better at answering questions and being better at cheated are probably correlated), but this process wouldn't be perfect. (Edit: I was confused.)
Also, even if Sasuke did need answers to his specific questions, he could just blindly copy random people who seem to be writing a lot and erase/cross out any useless info.
u/None [+6] (2 hours later)
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u/4t0m [+3] Chaos Legion (2 hours later)
Ah okay, I misinterpreted a few things. First, I thought that the was able to answer the question you gave an example not only because he was smart but also because clones were a particular interest of his. Also, while I at first thought that he was using the test as an opportunity to observe his opponents, at some point I got the impression (I really can't say why) that he was using his vantage point to acquire all of the question+answer combinations. This is unnecessary given his shadow clone strategy, and confused me for the reasons I mention above.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (a day later)
Naruto doesn't need to copy anyone. If we assume that Naruto is smart enough to correctly answer his own sheet, he can just copy that 199 times.
Actually, as you get points for each correct "question answer pair", you don't even need to go that far.
Solve the easiest question. Make as many copies of that question and answer as possible within the time limit. Win. 300 copies of question 1 is worth just as many points as 30 copies of all 10 questions, and it's quicker to solve and copy.
u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (3 days later)
Sorry, I don't think I understand. Naruto's got a question. He knows the answer to that question. He writes the number of the question and his answer. He does this, for this one, unique, specific question, 200 points. Does that count as 200 unique correct answers?
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
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u/Nevereatcars [+1] The Greatest Is Behind (4 days later)
So not 200 unique answers, but yes 200 points. I understand now.
u/abcd_z [+2] (an hour later)
It doesn't matter whether they are the "right questions" since you get points for any correct "question number" + "answer" pair.
Ah, so it is. I missed that part.
u/GlueBoy [+2] anti-skub (an hour later)
From what I understood, incorrect answers don't matter. So even if you have 5 different answers to a question, as long 1 is correct you get a point.
u/4t0m [+2] Chaos Legion (2 hours later)
Good point. Still sort of inelegant, and every question still needs to be seen by someone who can generate the answer for Naruto to get them all right.
It's described in the story as "Two hundred copies of the exact same sheet of correct answers"
(Edit: I was confused.)
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (an hour later)
Love this fic. Amazing job with the recent frequent updates!