Naruto [Naruto] Recommended Reading

AoMythology

Apparently a report-er
daniel_gudman said:
that could be pretty good in it's own right; the "civilian council" is a bunch of crotchety retired ninja militating for increased pension payments and more handrails on stairs and Kakashi is like "ohmigod I can't even"
Homura and Koharu are crotchety retired ninjas. Probably the same with Suna's council. :sisi:
 
Are Homura and Koharu retired? They both defended the village during the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox Attack.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
Altered Nova said:
Are Homura and Koharu retired? They both defended the village during the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox Attack.
Working Retired, maybe. Like many people who are officially retired but still work part-time to supplement their income.

Besides, I doubt Homura and Koharu are retired like we would call it. Retired from field work, sure. From the other aspects of running a village, I doubt it.
 
AoMythology said:
Konoha has never shown any traces of a non-shinobi council beyond Homura and Koharu, but Suna DOES have a council, IIRC.
well, that's is the TRUTH, but the civilian council is a very common piece of Fanon and is sadly used to... well, we have already said how it's generally used.
 
Altered Nova said:
Shirotsume said:
That's... nice and all, but that has literally nothing to do with a civilian council with direct military control.
My (admittedly indirect) point was that the Naruto world would almost certainly be a much nicer place to live if every ninja village had a civilian council with direct military control. Because civilian control of the military is something that is so inarguably good that all modern democratic nations do it. And it's kind of weird that pretty much every fanfic with a "evil civilian council" plot point doesn't seem to be aware of this fact.

(Of course civilian control of the military wouldn't be enough to fix the Naruto world. They would, at minimum, also need to nationalize all the ninja villages and turn them into non-profit organizations. But it would be a start.)
The thing is that these are modern democracies, which have lots more social progress and a much larger civilian power world wide to justify it working out well. In a feudal setting however it's a select few non-elected officials that are higher up on the chaste system and not necessarily hard working peasants. It may be called a council but it's essentially an Oligarchy, it doesn't serve the public but rather the ones in charge.
 
and there is Chakra and superpowered bullshit hax.
the 'ninja villages' are the 'guild town' of a really Big and organized Mercenary Group made up from the collaboration of several smaller 'mercenary gangs'.
 

AoMythology

Apparently a report-er
Altered Nova said:
Are Homura and Koharu retired? They both defended the village during the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox Attack.
My guess is that (relatively able-bodied) retirees are also drafted in village-wide emergencies, for similar reasons to the fact anyone below the age of 20 wasn't allowed to get anywhere near the Kyuubi, regardless of rank (to safeguard Konoha's youth/future).

shioran toushin said:
AoMythology said:
Konoha has never shown any traces of a non-shinobi council beyond Homura and Koharu, but Suna DOES have a council, IIRC.
well, that's is the TRUTH, but the civilian council is a very common piece of Fanon and is sadly used to... well, we have already said how it's generally used.
Yes, anyone who reads 'Naruto' fanfiction knows that crap inside and out (unfortunately). Why is nobody commenting on Suna's council, though?
 
maybe because most of us focus on the surroundings of the titular character and tend to tunnel vision anything outside it, AKA all the other villages unless it's relevant to the plot of the story/theory.
and frankly i don't recall anything about it.
 
Konoha:
Hokage is DA BOSS. Sarutobi(and Tsunade, though most likely for different reasons) had two ADVISORS helping him, most likely with no real OFFICIAL power. He also had the Anbu Head(before he incorporated that position because of Danzo's shenaningans) and the Jonin Commander for that.

Basically, the Hokage had under himself three(then two) different "offices", independent from each other.


Suna looks like has a Senate: older, high ranking ninja, possibly representatives of the various tribes\clan that haven't merged as well in the village as in Konoha.
A single "office" working together under the Kazekage
 
Nobody is talking about Suna's Council because there's nothing really remarkable about it. All the members are senior jounin, there are no civilians. They advise the Kazekage, and run the village in his absence. It's really no different than the Hokage's advisors (Homura, Koharu, Danzou, Shikaku), the Kazekage just has more of them and they are better organized.
 

AoMythology

Apparently a report-er
Probably retired, but yes, that's the gist of it.

Is anyone else getting the idea that the Kazekage is much less likely to be defied/disrespected in his face than the Hokage not just because Konoha is 'soft', but because that's how Suna's culture is - obedience has been drilled into them?
 
Not really... the Hokage get disrespected because the main character is Naruto and he gets a free pass.
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
I dunno, when the Hokage died the entire village showed up to cry at his funeral.

Meanwhile the Sunakage was betrayed and murdered and his body was dumped in a gorge by Orochimaru, and the Sand shinobi were like, "oh, that makes sense."

Like, people genuinely respect the Hokage even if Naruto is basically a disobedient grandkid who gives him guff, like that?
 

AoMythology

Apparently a report-er
daniel_gudman said:
I dunno, when the Hokage died the entire village showed up to cry at his funeral.

Meanwhile the Sunakage was betrayed and murdered and his body was dumped in a gorge by Orochimaru, and the Sand shinobi were like, "oh, that makes sense."

Like, people genuinely respect the Hokage even if Naruto is basically a disobedient grandkid who gives him guff, like that?
I'm talking about the fact that nobody stopped to wonder whether their leader was leading them to ruin, they simply obeyed (except Temari, IIRC). If Sarutobi or Tsunade had made a similarly stupid decision, there would be riots.

So, blind obedience (Suna) as opposed to genuine respect (Konoha).
 
Suna was also in a really bad spot at the time: most probably just thought the situation was actually even worse than they though if the Kazekage was willing to such a gamble.
 
ankokudaishogun said:
Suna was also in a really bad spot at the time: most probably just thought the situation was actually even worse than they though if the Kazekage was willing to such a gamble.
Maybe they were just happy that they don't have to spend hundreds of pounds of gold whenever their Kazekage decides to get into a fight?
 
ankokudaishogun said:
actually, they make money every time he fights...
Why didn't they just make money to solve their economic troubles?

Maybe they tried that before, it resulted in mass inflation, and suna got a lesson in macroeconmics, while gold became worthless in the elemental nations?
 

Altered Nova

Well-Known Member
Honestly I don't think gems and precious metals would be super rare and valuable in the elemental nations anyway. Even without magical magnetism powers that can somehow control non-magnetic gold, earth release jutsu would make it incredibly easy to build mines, and without polluting the environment with explosives and harsh chemicals. If they were smart each village would have at least one such mining operation going on somewhere in their host nation.

Really, it's kind of dumb that more ninja don't use their elemental jutsu earn money on the side in ways that civilians could never compete with. Suna could have amazing wind farms and monopolize the market on glass, Konoha would own the lumber industry and the Uchiha and Sarutobi clans could be the best smelters and smiths, Kiri could build the best fishing fleets, Kumo could be the best as producing electronics and other advanced technology... but they waste all those amazing powers on killing each other. What a shame.
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
Altered Nova said:
Even without magical magnetism powers that can somehow control non-magnetic gold, earth release jutsu would make it incredibly easy to build mines, and without polluting the environment with explosives and harsh chemicals.
Explosives are practically negligible as an environmental impact from mining.

The real reason mining tends to be a local environmental activists apocalypse is:
1) the sheer amount of dirt being dug up and turned over. Especially for pit/strip, everything is killed and entire new mountains of backfill are created.
2) slag; not the chemicals used to isolate the desired compounds, but the leftover dirt and smashed-up rocks that the desired minerals were cooked out of.

And it's very energy intensive, which practically means miners always burn a ton of fossil fuels.
 

Altered Nova

Well-Known Member
Huh, today I learned a bit about mining.

Well even so, earth release jutsu could easily fix all those issues. I mean, Iwa had that one guy who basically created a mountain with a single jutsu. Digging out a mine, separating the desired minerals from the slag, and transporting all the waste rocks and dirt far away from populated areas (or simply putting them back once the ore is depleted) should not be that difficult for a team of highly skilled earth specialist shinobi. And that's assuming they even need to dig out any dirt and rocks; some of those guys can literally swim through the ground like it's water. Also the only fuel they would need is food and water to keep their chakra levels up.
 
Altered Nova said:
Huh, today I learned a bit about mining.

Well even so, earth release jutsu could easily fix all those issues. I mean, Iwa had that one guy who basically created a mountain with a single jutsu. Digging out a mine, separating the desired minerals from the slag, and transporting all the waste rocks and dirt far away from populated areas (or simply putting them back once the ore is depleted) should not be that difficult for a team of highly skilled earth specialist shinobi. And that's assuming they even need to dig out any dirt and rocks; some of those guys can literally swim through the ground like it's water. Also the only fuel they would need is food and water to keep their chakra levels up.
Well there's general incentive. It takes years of harsh dedicated physical training involved to get good enough to be able to do those jutsu repeatedly yourself, and the gruntwork of mining probably isn't going to be paying you well enough for anyone who put that kind of effort in to want to do so voluntarily. Similarly the the high level ones would see such work as benieth them and could probably make more for less effort by assassinating some asshole for a noble.

It's sort of like the issue with the long bow and the early musket. sure muskets were not quite that accurate and took time to reload where as a trained archer could probably kill a man from hundreds of feet away with a high rate of success but the effort it takes to train the archers vs just spamming out guns to a bunch of mooks makes the latter more cost effective.

Genin probably do such work starting out, but probably aren't that much more effective than a normal person with some machines. Once they get better, again, they'll make more money killing doods than mining.
 

AoMythology

Apparently a report-er
Altered Nova said:
Honestly I don't think gems and precious metals would be super rare and valuable in the elemental nations anyway. Even without magical magnetism powers that can somehow control non-magnetic gold, earth release jutsu would make it incredibly easy to build mines, and without polluting the environment with explosives and harsh chemicals. If they were smart each village would have at least one such mining operation going on somewhere in their host nation.

Really, it's kind of dumb that more ninja don't use their elemental jutsu earn money on the side in ways that civilians could never compete with. Suna could have amazing wind farms and monopolize the market on glass, Konoha would own the lumber industry and the Uchiha and Sarutobi clans could be the best smelters and smiths, Kiri could build the best fishing fleets, Kumo could be the best as producing electronics and other advanced technology... but they waste all those amazing powers on killing each other. What a shame.
Kumo IS the best at producing electronics and other advanced technology; though it's more of an informed attribute than anything (Fourth Databook).

As for the precious metals, I'm quite sure that it's real world symbolism that made Kishimoto give Rasa powers over gold. (To show how much of a miser he is. :snigger:) Whether gold would get them decent money is another story; my guess is that in the Elemental Nations, silver is much rarer than gold, or something like that.
 
atlas_hugged said:
ankokudaishogun said:
actually, they make money every time he fights...
Why didn't they just make money to solve their economic troubles?
He does. I don't remember if it's the manga or the databook, but it was stated basically Suna was still a Great Village only because his magnetic gold power and skill in inventing new jutsu.
 
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