So, one case out of the many times that he's used Shadow Clones? He uses them all the time and that's the only time he's had any backlash?

 

The biggest part beside their natural genius is the family in which these special individuals are born into. Kakashi Hatake, Itachi Uchiha and Neji Hyuuga are all born into families with highly advanced shinobi background. They had access to knowledge and teaching early on, which made it possible for them to advance so fast.

A SI, who isn't born into such circumstances will only learn the very basics in the Academy. They might know that certain techniques exist, but I refuse to believe, that they know every single handseal or how to mold their chakra for even the most basic jutsu. The SI might learn to control his chakra with the exercises, because it's leaning by doing till you get it, but that's about it.

 

I don't know if this has been ever addressed in an SI story, but suddenly being woken up in a world of killers after spending a relatively normal and mundane life should lead to some serious issues. Just being an adult in a child's body shouldn't be enough to give someone the ability to cope with the fucked up world that Naruto's is. It should make things harder if anything as a matter of fact.

 

It would be largely personality dependent. But really, do you want to read that story? Where the SI gets into Naruto and rather than having mild mental/moral issues and doing some awesome shit, they have massive mental trauma, PTSD from killing, a slow angst filled slide away from contemporary 20th century moralizing, etc. etc.

Sounds like a boring drag to me. And definitely not what I would look for in an SI, or expect an amateur author to be able to pull off. I want a Naruto story to be fun, an exploration of a person from our mundane world thrust into a world of spectacular shit and honest to god magic (chakra), full of fun characters and ninja skills and battles. And maybe things get dark and bloody, and grim at times, because the source material does too, but ultimately that's not what Naruto is about.

 

Reincarnation Roulette does an ok job of handling it (at least the first one-shot in it), and What Doesn't Kill You touches on it, but it's not something that would work in most SI stories.

 

And this is the reason why I filter out Angst when surfing FF.

 

It is one of the main problems I have with the genre. You're right of course about how it won't make a very compelling story. But SI stories in general are the author's way of saying how 'they would totally kick ass and do it bettter than the MCs if they were born in that world' without really exploring the other issues.

 

And why do you have to do one or the other? Why not have an SI without super powers and without issues?

Cause let's be honest, if you were transported to the Naruto world, you would not have any issues. You might freak out for maybe half an hour (If that) before just getting on your way.

 

There are several issues with SI's, that make it so they'll never be anything better than a guilty pleasure, no matter what the supposed quality of the fic is.

The thing is, A SI fic tends to mean the SI knows the canon setting. Maybe not all the specifics, and little details, but they know all the major events, all the dirty little secrets of the major players, and their goals. They'll know this person's personality, and have good idea of how they'll act and think, making them more predictable than normal.

That alone is a huge advantage. Even more than you get from a time travel fic, where the character should only know what they experienced.

And this makes it easy to play people. Ignoring the likely chance of the author of the SI having a bad handle on various character's personality or even being a -shudder- basher of certain characters, this basically means that if someone isn't using this advantage, they're an idiot. If they are using it, then things will probably be going way to smooth for them, essentially turning it into a fix-it fic.

Unfortunately, this kind of problem shows elsewhere. If you're not gaming the system of the setting, then you are, in fact, doing it wrong. Not because you need to be ridiculously OP, but because, holy shit, there's a huge ass conflict incoming with a high chance of your death if your not prepared.

Will butterflies happen? Undoubtedly, but you'll know people's goals and what they're aiming for, which tends to be enough to get a good idea of what you need to do. For Naruto, you'd have to worry about Akatsuki and Madara and the whole Moon's Eye Plan. The only way your surviving that is by pure luck, or being strong enough to withstand it or stop it in its tracks.

But even that's easy, because hey, you know all the people in Akatsuki and their power and weaknesses. You know Obitio is alive. You know Nagato is the 'Leader' and how his Six Paths of Pain work, meaning Jiraiya won't have to sacrifice himself to figure that shit out. A lot of problems can be solved just by getting the right info to the right people.

Essentially, there's a very fine balance you need to hit with a SI fic, where your not only acting in character, but also being smart enough to use what you know, and then still have things become tense enough that everything doesn't go your way, and write it in such a way that things make sense and are logical and not just shoved in there for the sake of conflict.

Not many people have the required talent and skill to actually strike that kind of balance, and if they do, then what the fuck are they doing writing an SI fic?!

 

I think one of the best ways to do an SI fic without falling into any of the obvious trappings is if the SI hadn't actually read or watched Naruto before. Of course, you have to give them some knowledge otherwise you're writing an OC fic (Quite similar).

Maybe have the SI aware of Naruto like their best friend is a Naruto fan or they read crossover fanfiction from their own fandom. You could probably have some fun with the SI treating the chakra system and society like the one in the Harry Potter world and coming up with hilarious results.

 

Konan is not a person. She is a manga character drawn on... I think I'm gonna stop here.

 

Except a SI is an insert of the author, and hos is an author going to write in a setting if they don't know the canon? By the very virtue of writing the fic, the setting, or otherwise started the fic and then caught up on everything in the series. Sure, the author can say that the SI is just them, but without knowledge of the setting, but then it's not really them is it?

A SI takes a certain bit integrity when it comes to the author, to keep both to the setting and knowing themselves and how they would act in this or that situation. The problems arise when the author's SI is presented with a situation, and rather than doing the IC thing, they do what work out best for them in the short or long term. And a lot of the time, the only one who knows the SI is acting OOC -or maybe not even then, as it may just be subconscious- is the author themself.

 

I think that's really only one way to look at it. To be honest, I think there's merit in the idea of an SI without the knowledge, or at least without some of it.

I mean, I hadn't even read the Naruto manga until six months ago, and before that had only watched the first season of the anime 7 or 8 years ago now. And I certainly have a good enough grasp on who I was six months ago to write the me from slightly before I read the manga.

If I was to write an SI based of of me six months ago, I can only imagine all the shit I would screw up due to misremembering things, vague impressions of characters I liked or hated, and no meaningful knowledge at all of the real threats lurking in the background waiting to fuck up the world.

WOuld that story really be any less an SI? I don't see how.

 

There was a post Hash made regarding ASOIAF SIs where you write down everything you can remember about a setting at that very moment without checking other sources or browsing the internet and that is the extent of your character's knowledge. So when you research other aspects of the world the SI inhabits, the SI is confronted by things he doesn't quite understand or know. Similarly, the world is constantly changing and adapting to the presence and interference of the character and a good writer will be able to explore those changes and their relation to the character's knowledge.

 

1) SI or no SI, if they aren't enough surprises along the way you don't have a story. Period.

2) Naruto at age 6 is not going to be anywhere remotely near as powerful as most people seem to think. Chakra isn't like mana/magicka/you-must-construct-additional-pylons whatever. It's not just some power that you're born with. At least read the Wikipedia articles on chakra and ki/qi/chi. It most certainly does grow depending on your physical/spiritual state -- which should have been obvious from canon anywhere if you compare the rookie post-timeskip to pre-timeskip -- and if you understand human biology in the slightest then you should understand that the body changes dramatically during puberty. It's reasonable to assume that puberty has a huge impact on a ninja's growth and development. It's unlikely Kishimoto put much conscious thought into that part; however, at least with Itachi he seems fully grown at the time of the Uchiha massacre and it's worth noting how different Kakashi's style of fighting is when we see flashbacks of him as a youth. It makes sense that he would have been promoted rapidly because Konoha needed jounins.

3) Again with Naruto not being as powerful as everyone seems to think. Kakashi himself -- who is a better judge than any of us and is likely acting as Kishimoto's voice for delivering exposition at the time -- says that Naruto has about 4 times as much chakra as himself without the Kyuubi and 100 times as much with the Kyuubi. How Naruto goes from that level to complete God Mode between the Kakuzu arc and the end of the manga isn't easily explained through anything resembling logic, but if we assume that Kakashi's assessment is accurate at the time -- and it likely is given that Kakashi is acting as Mr. Exposition -- then even taking into account that Post-timeskip Kakashi is stronger than pre-timeskip, we have a clear upper limit of Naruto's chakra capacity.

4) Going back to pre-timeskip, Ebisu's lecture to Naruto shows that his control is really bad and that he's wasting A LOT of chakra. This was even after learning tree climbing.

5) Ultimately, learning tree climbing isn't an instantaneous solution for better chakra control. It does not define a level of control anymore than beating two computers on Lost Temple defines your skill at Starcraft. There are many skills that other people have been able to learn that Naruto still can't after tree climbing. The important thing with tree climbing is that:
a) It's a useful skill for it's own sake.
b) The concept is simple.
c) You're using chakra in a way that you aren't used to. This is all but explicitly stated when Kakashi says that the bottom of the foot is the hardest part of the body to control chakra (at least for beginner's, I'd guess). This forces you to concentrate on what you are doing.

6) The challenges of learning any techniques are always going to depend on how you approach learning them and how well you are equipped to do them. Even if you're more booksmart than Naruto and placed in the same body, you don't have the same approach to learning and therefore will achieve different results. Perhaps sometimes better, but often not.

To explain... well, have you ever read the Belgariad? Remember the part where Belgarath is explaining that different sorcerers have different abilities because they all think about things differently?

We're used to the idea that intelligence is strictly measurable because school programs you to think that way. The reality is far different. You're assuming that some general knowledge about the way the world works and vastly greater booksmarts will allow you to master ninjutsu in a way Naruto never could. Completely false. It's like studying for an exam in biology and expecting to outperform someone else in an exam in physics.

What's more, I'm not sure anyone supporting the idea that an SI!Naruto would be OP quite realizes that this is a world where getting stabbed by a kunai is quite normal. Let me say this: I'm not afraid of fistfights, but put me in Naruto's position and I'd be terrified. Just because it's a shounen manga, you forget that this is a world with super-powered individuals who can mindfuck you, burn you alive, disappear and attack you while completely invisible to the naked eye or teleport you to a different dimension. This is a world where it's normal for half the people you know to get killed in action. No thank you.

 

As an aside from this discussion right now, the strength of the characters should be dependent upon their personality and other extraneous factors.

A devoted & determined ninja born into a prestigious clan will likely be stronger than the average ninja of the same age every step of the way. What is most important to remember is that every ninja starts at the same place. As long as the progression of power is proportional to the determination and training of the character, then almost any level of strength is fine. (Hell, we see Sasuke & Naruto become semi-gods at the end of the manga. From bumbling prankster with no control to master sage & Hokage with friends all around the world?)