[FFML] [C&C] Re: [Fanfic][Naruto] Suiren, Chapter 13: Wolves...

[Aaron Nowack]

Eimii wrote:
> If only that were the case here. When i was writing the first ten
> chapters of this series, i had a 2-week average turnaround per chapter
> -_-;...

The time it takes to finish a chapter is directly proportional to how
many chapters have already been finished.  It's a law of nature.

Or, at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

> I hope this doesn't sound like a load of BS justification. I really
> don't want him to seem more powerful or important than he is, but he
> actively tries to make _himself_ seem that way -_-;...

Hmm.  I think, basically, part of the issue is that, so far, very little
has happened that shows the reader that he's trying to seem more
powerful than he is, so he comes off as actually seeming that important.

> They _are_ pretty one-sided, though. He's a hawk and an agitator, but
> before the war he was relatively harmless, and even now he doesn't
> have nearly enough men to be a credible threat. Konoha isn't afraid of
> him, it's just easier to put up with his eccentricities than it would
> be to eliminate him.

"One-sided" wasn't quite the right word I guess; I meant it more in the
sense that in the past couple chapters we've gotten a fair bit of Lord
Haruno  (trying to seem) like he's always one step ahead, laying down
the rules that the ninja have to follow, offering veiled and
not-so-veiled insult, and so forth.  We haven't really seen much of the
other side to show that Konoha's humoring him, that it's highly unusual
for him to have something Konoha needs like this, and that sort of thing.

It's a hard thing to balance and somewhat subjective.  My personal
reaction is only one data point, and I don't claim it's any more valid
than anyone else's.

I think the thing that rubs me the wrong way the most is the idea that
he can openly attack (and "kill") a Konoha ninja and expect to get away
with it.  Even if he knows that its a Kage Bunshin - which is a little
iffy itself - it's still a very important act, symbolically.  It's like
reading about a Governor having a state trooper shoot at the US Army -
even if he knew that they were wearing bulletproof vests that would stop
them from being injured, it's the kind of thing that would have serious,
irreversible consequences.

The Fire Country is not the US, of course, but in Naruto's
quasi-medieval society it seems like it would be just as or even more
serious - typically I'd expect the culture to have a traditional
emphasis on hospitality and protections for messengers and emissaries.
I just can't see Konoha (or the Fire Daimyo, for that matter) tolerating
that sort of behavior unless there's a good chance that Lord Haruno
would _win_ the ensuing conflict.  So, in my mind at least, that goes a
long way to making him actually appear a lot more powerful than I
believe you want him to seem.

> Given how quickly the high-level ninja on either side seemed to be
> cutting each other down during the war, is it really so hard for
> everyone to believe that a highly trained swordsman would be able to
> get the drop on an infiltration/genjutsu specialist? Despite how the
> main characters make it seem, sometimes people die really, really fast
> in combat- like poor Hayate -_-;...

The key difference, at least in my mind and I expect in many others, is
that it was other high-level ninja who were doing the cutting down
during the war.  Here, it's a non-ninja, even if it's a highly trained
one, and I don't think it's generally expected by readers for a
non-ninja to be a credible threat (without some supernatural power).
Doubly so when it comes to sneaking up on and ambushing a ninja.

Kurenai may be an infiltration/genjutsu specialist, but she's still a
full jounin, so the expectation is that she's awesome at infiltration
and genjtusu but only really, really good at everything else.  I think
the typical expectation in this situation is that she'd read something
in Lord Haruno's body language, hear someone sneaking up behind her,
sense the swordsman's killing intent, and then the swordsman decapitates
a handy coat rack.

> Maybe i could do that, i suppose, but as small of a threat that he is,
> he isn't _totally_ harmless. He hardly ever leaves his castle, where
> he is (relatively) safe, but he can still do them a small amount of
> political damage; for instance, he may now know the identity of a spy
> that Konoha had in the Fire Country court. Konoha depends on their
> good relationship with the Fire Country, and right now they won't want
> to do anything to sour it- such as assassinating noblemen.

Mmm... yes, but the general thrust of what I'm proposing is to
explicitly establish that, the instant it _was_ worth the cost, Konoha
could crush him.

> The 'new elements' are have been kind of over-emphasized in this
> chapter and the last, but i'm not sure how to remedy that without
> having a lot of denigrating asides regarding the lord's 'true'
> importance in the world. 

It doesn't need to be a lot of such asides; just one or two mentions or
hints would go a long way.

> It seemed inappropriate to me for Hinata or
> Sakura to belittle the man, and Kurenai has some valid political
> worries on her plate...

Hinata or Sakura, no, but it might fit to frame Kurenai's political
worries in a way that denigrates him a bit.  (After all, she's plenty of
reason to be upset with him at the moment.)  Perhaps something vaguely
along the lines of "Kurenai wished that the current political situation
let her properly respond to Lord Haruno's 'courtesy'..."

Anyway, at the end of the day, these are all just my suggestions.  Make
of them what you will, and use them or not as you see fit.  :)

-- 
           Aaron Nowack
"Never let reality get in the way of a good hypothesis."
http://www.mimiru.net/