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[RT][FF][HF] Naruto. The Need to Become Stronger, Chapter 18: Fire and Ice
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Author: u/Sophronius The Need to Become Stronger*
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URL: https://needtobecomestronger.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/chapter-18/
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Score: 26
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Created: 2017-05-28T21:13:05
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+10] (39 minutes later)
I liked this chapter quite a bit. You seem really good at writing your fight scenes like puzzles; we had all the info we needed to figure out how Naruto could go about beating Haku, and that makes the fact that Naruto solved this particular puzzle whilst in a combat situation particularily impressive.
Naruto and Sakura, in this chapter, looks smart. And I love reading about smart characters.
Keep up the good work!
u/Sophronius [+4] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
I'm glad it's appreciated! You wouldn't believe how much effort it took to plan all of this in advance, with the foreshadowing of Naruto and Sakura's research and establishing Naruto's seal use and the parallel of Naruto offering to carry Tazuna in the first chapter of the arc and so on. I'll be honest, if I had to do it all again I'm not sure I wouldn't just write one chapter at a time and make it up as I go along :P
u/Sophronius [+8] The Need to Become Stronger (5 minutes later)
Hey guys. It turns out my grandmother doesn't have a tumor after all, but only a bloodclot in the brain from which she's mostly recovered. I guess sometimes things do turn out randomly positive, after all. It's a huge relief, either way.
I'll post my beta-reader's feedback here, same as before (also in the hopes that it will spur more conversation):
Solid ending and good cliffhanger. I’ll admit, I didn’t see it coming. Naruto was being so clever that I really did think he’d pull it off. I suppose I did see it coming in one way: Sasuke hasn’t come to help him yet, so Naruto couldn’t just have won alone. That would’ve made the earlier bit pointless. Tazuna is dead meat, though.
Anyway, it’s another strong chapter. I have to admit that I am starting to get some amount of fight-fatigue, but I expect your target audience has a much more developed capacity for such than I do. Also, it was mostly an issue earlier in the fight. When the basement scene started, I became much more engaged and I really like the way the fight played out at the end.
On a slightly more worrying level, I’m not entirely sure the connection between Naruto and Haku is strong enough to give this scene that much of an emotional load. They had one scene together, in which they got along quite well despite half of them acting under false pretences. It’s believable they’d rather not kill one another, but it’s not that big of a deal. As for the readers: we have a bit more insight into Haku than N does, and are more likely to like him to some extent, but I can’t say I actually care for him that much. He mostly comes across as someone who could be a decent enough person if the Zabby Ninja weren’t around, but he’s not actually done anything in particular to make him rise above that.
This isn’t fatal to the scene: “would rather not kill eachother” works well enough at this early point in the story.
In other news, I liked Sakura’s and Sasuke’s scene. It moved the plot along and had some neat lines, especially by Sasuke. (When he finally opened his mouth, that is)
u/WriterBen01 [+3] (12 hours later)
Great chapter : ) I like how all the skills and preperations are coming together.
u/Sven10 [+3] (17 hours later)
I've read this story until about chapter 6, and I hate to ask it like this, but does it get better later on?
So far, I hadn't really read anything that really made it seem like rationalist fiction, but more like a regular naruto fanfic (albeit a little less dumb Naruto version so far, not even smart), with Sakura being a more rational character, but I have a pretty (irrational) hatred for her character, just cannot stand her. :v
u/Sophronius [+6] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
Erp. I would be more comfortable answering with a "yes" if you had only read until chapter 4 or something. I do think it gets better with each chapter (the first few are definitely my least favourite, personally) but if you didn't like chapter 5 at all for example then I cannot guarantee you'll like the rest.
You're not the first to remark that this Naruto doesn't seem that rational, but I do think that's not entirely fair. This Naruto is definitely very smart if you just look at what he does instead of how he acts, but because everybody else sees him as bit of a bumbling idiot it doesn't really come across that way. I think I tried to be a little too clever here, by intentionally subverting the tropes that the critics of HPMOR hated so much, where the protagonist lectures his superiors constantly and everybody else just rolls with it and accepts he's just that awesome. So I went in the opposite direction and wrote a protagonist who is objectively very smart, but who is very flawed and who just cannot get any recognition for his cleverness.
The mistake I made, I think, is forgetting that the whole reason people read rationalist fiction is because they want to see an awesome main character break the story by doing incredible things. If I were to do it all over again I would definitely start with Naruto clearly displaying his intelligence in a way that's obvious to the audience, though not necessarily to his peers.
Also, even with the failings of the main characters, the rest of the story I think still counts as rationalist, going purely by the definition on the sidebar. The underlying rules and mechanics are explored, the main character slowly becomes stronger through his efforts to munchkin them, the agents all have their own clear goals and motivations, and the final plot is of course a puzzle which can be solved by the reader much like a murder mystery novel.