A Proposal for an Avatar/ Naruto Crossover
Okay, its my belief while the stories of the two series are incompatible due to themes and narrative style the settings are VERY blendable without outright contradiction of key and important elements to the story and would tell an interesting tale in and of itself.
Ideas
The real tough part is the combining of narrative. Avatar is planned and defined epic with good character development geared to very thought out narrative/story. Naruto is more free action and adventure character drama with the most driving and attractive narrative points being plotlines reflective of certain characters. The most current Naruto has no exact status quo. Things are in motion, changing. The thrust of the current plot is Sasuke and his drama as well as the quickly executing schemes of the Akatatsuki.
Avatar: the Last Airbender is the story of Aang and his gang and rivals as they try determine the fate of the world and two main characters face their destiny.
In short the physical properties of the settings are easy to combine. The spirits of them, along with some characters, especially the ones that are important and most compelling to each, will require a lot of work to merge and meet. Having some Avatar have a history or affect causes a plothook, or a point of contagion at the least. But mainly even if you find a reason to get them together. . .What the hell ya going to do.
The extra hard problem is that where as in the Naruto manga Shippuden has really only taken place over the course of three months you can speed things up and slow them down and put the story at a number of safe points. Avatar however has a massive countdown on the way, every bit counts and if you divert the group from their course you will end up without direct action affecting the narrative ôpurityö of Avatar while at the same time if you pick the group from the wrong point in time you end up with a team so much less competent you might as well just have them be the other charactersÆ towel boys. Hell even a 24/Naruto crossover would be easier. Have a terrorist event, the conventions of 24, a Jack Bauer, and have him have to work with the ninja, not necessarily a team up but they are a faction/element of the ongoing story which for the Naruto side would be mission same as BauerÆs side. Easy.
There are a number of political and mystical points. We can use the Avatar and spirit world as a connect. Heck maybe Aang just wants to stop by somewhere he remembers or see all the cool ôweirdö animals in the region. Maybe Sokka goes there to recruit muscle for the FN-invasion only to find the FN is there first with a nonaggression treaty and group of countries who wonÆt stop fighting each other. It could be a post/prewar fic where the avatar makes his power/authority known to the Region at last.
I think the final one is the best bet. It runs into some problems in that we donÆt know how book 3 will end whereas, sad to say, Naruto isnÆt being that unpredictable, plus has a number of plateaus that can be where you insert the influence of Avatar the only ôsafeö status quo was Season 1 and for the most part the gang woundnÆt be up to full strength. It would also help enable you to change the avatar characters just enough so if you feel their personalities need some slight tinkering you CAN and put them with the Naruto Region people.
The change in assumption about what is a ninja, how the world works, would be massive so at least some implicit worldbuilding might be needed. Knowing when and where and with who to set things up in the crossover might be needed as well.
Someone told me they think, settingwise, Naruto and Avatar are incompatible. I believe world wise, they could work. There are thematic clashes but ones I think would be worth seeing on paper. He also suggested a powerful barrier. I admit there needs to be ôwallö but I prefer one not so à blatant. Hopefully the bits in the ôAssumptionö part of this proposal act as enough of a passive and invisible one barrier.
Okay, its my belief while the stories of the two series are incompatible due to themes and narrative style the settings are VERY blendable without outright contradiction of key and important elements to the story and would tell an interesting tale in and of itself.
Ideas
The real tough part is the combining of narrative. Avatar is planned and defined epic with good character development geared to very thought out narrative/story. Naruto is more free action and adventure character drama with the most driving and attractive narrative points being plotlines reflective of certain characters. The most current Naruto has no exact status quo. Things are in motion, changing. The thrust of the current plot is Sasuke and his drama as well as the quickly executing schemes of the Akatatsuki.
Avatar: the Last Airbender is the story of Aang and his gang and rivals as they try determine the fate of the world and two main characters face their destiny.
In short the physical properties of the settings are easy to combine. The spirits of them, along with some characters, especially the ones that are important and most compelling to each, will require a lot of work to merge and meet. Having some Avatar have a history or affect causes a plothook, or a point of contagion at the least. But mainly even if you find a reason to get them together. . .What the hell ya going to do.
The extra hard problem is that where as in the Naruto manga Shippuden has really only taken place over the course of three months you can speed things up and slow them down and put the story at a number of safe points. Avatar however has a massive countdown on the way, every bit counts and if you divert the group from their course you will end up without direct action affecting the narrative ôpurityö of Avatar while at the same time if you pick the group from the wrong point in time you end up with a team so much less competent you might as well just have them be the other charactersÆ towel boys. Hell even a 24/Naruto crossover would be easier. Have a terrorist event, the conventions of 24, a Jack Bauer, and have him have to work with the ninja, not necessarily a team up but they are a faction/element of the ongoing story which for the Naruto side would be mission same as BauerÆs side. Easy.
There are a number of political and mystical points. We can use the Avatar and spirit world as a connect. Heck maybe Aang just wants to stop by somewhere he remembers or see all the cool ôweirdö animals in the region. Maybe Sokka goes there to recruit muscle for the FN-invasion only to find the FN is there first with a nonaggression treaty and group of countries who wonÆt stop fighting each other. It could be a post/prewar fic where the avatar makes his power/authority known to the Region at last.
I think the final one is the best bet. It runs into some problems in that we donÆt know how book 3 will end whereas, sad to say, Naruto isnÆt being that unpredictable, plus has a number of plateaus that can be where you insert the influence of Avatar the only ôsafeö status quo was Season 1 and for the most part the gang woundnÆt be up to full strength. It would also help enable you to change the avatar characters just enough so if you feel their personalities need some slight tinkering you CAN and put them with the Naruto Region people.
The change in assumption about what is a ninja, how the world works, would be massive so at least some implicit worldbuilding might be needed. Knowing when and where and with who to set things up in the crossover might be needed as well.
Someone told me they think, settingwise, Naruto and Avatar are incompatible. I believe world wise, they could work. There are thematic clashes but ones I think would be worth seeing on paper. He also suggested a powerful barrier. I admit there needs to be ôwallö but I prefer one not so à blatant. Hopefully the bits in the ôAssumptionö part of this proposal act as enough of a passive and invisible one barrier.