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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Roomba said:
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm all-in on the survey plan. Live fast, die hard.
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Im good with this.



So paraphrasing Jiraiya:

"I want to become stronger" is insufficient. Not good enough. Just doesnt have the staying power. Tsuyoku Naritai, my ass.

Trying hard aint enough. Trying super duper harder aint enough. Trying isnt a word that should enter the equation.

Challenge accepted.

Looks like we gotta be the change we wish to see in this shithole.

 
So here's an interesting question.

How does a person convince themselves that they're stronger than anything they're up against, even and especially when it isn't true?

Maybe blind belief in one's self picked up from surviving countless battles is part of what makes a Jonin. 'I've been through terrible things and bad odds before, I will survive this too'.

If that's true, how do we get to that end intentionally without going through the process of building it as a side effect of surviving for long enough?
 
Velorien said:
"Beats me," Jiraiya said. "Remember, I barely know the girl.
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This makes me sad.
Velorien said:
"There are others out there. I once knew a man who'd dedicated himself to the protection of Leaf to the point where nothing else existed for him. If you could be used to protect Leaf, he would use you. If you were a threat to Leaf, he would remove you. That was the sum total of his world. He wasn't even a Kage, but his aura could floor jōnin too.
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So of course this means Danzo. Now, does this mean Danzo is actually dead like his estate suggests, or is Jiraiya covering up his faked death so he can full-time lead Root?
 
MadScientist said:
J was describing jonin aura as TYS points.
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Lailoken said:
jounin aura = thousand yard stare points
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Okay, before this goes further, please read more carefully, because I think you are both wrong.

Velorien said:
"You won't get anywhere, I can tell you that now. Apart from the fact that you're trying to face off against an incredible badass who makes ordinary jōnin quake in their boots, you just don't have the right kind of resolve. Mari told me about how she rescued you from Shikigami's camp. It was brave of you to run headfirst into the unknown, but when it comes down to it, you ran because there was no other choice. I think a lot of your missing-nin adventures were like that. Heck, I'm the one who forced you into half of them. You made choices based on what increased your odds of survival. Which was smart, sensible, and absolutely the right thing for a missing-nin to do, but the resolve you get from that? It's a survivor's resolve. You stare into the eyes of danger and go 'I've faced worse than you and survived.'

"You can't beat me with survivor's resolve. Somewhere in the back of your mind there'll be a voice going 'I'm stronger than Jiraiya and here is why', and another voice going 'I'm weaker than Jiraiya but I have to beat him anyway in order to survive.' Neither of those voices will give you what you need."
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Velorien said:
"It's not that belief can't work to give you strong enough resolve. But it takes purity of focus. It takes a kind of fanaticism that you don't have. Look at Zabuza. Zabuza dedicated every waking moment of his life to being a hunter-nin, whether he had to or not. On top of making him the ultimate master of his craft, it also gave him an identity that couldn't break under pressure. He had no voices in the back of his head, and I doubt I could have made him submit if I wanted to.
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If Thousand-Yard Stare is in this picture, Jiraiya is describing it as the thing that isn't enough to get you a jounin-aura. He isn't describing how Zabuza got a Million-Yard Stare, he's describing how he lived his life with such dedication to the thing that made him who he was. This is a very, very different thing. I don't know how more explicit the text would have to be to make the case that TYS != Jounin Aura.
 
To put Jiraiya's explanation in shounen terms, you don't get powerful because of determination or willpower, or friendship. You get it by being fundamentally incapable of yielding, of letting go of who you are. We ran from Hidden Swamp, and Shikigami stayed, knowing what awaited him. I bet the idea of running didn't even occur to him, and I bet he had one hell of a jounin aura.

This is pretty bad for us, because it's strongly at odds with how we operate. We look for the optimal strategy, we compromise, we roll with punches and are eager to let go of sunk costs. That's all good and it has served us well, but it's not conducive to Hazou developing an identity that would let him withstand a Kage's aura. In-thread, we'd need unanimous consensus on some foundational principles, which I doubt we can get.

It is nice that we now have a somewhat mechanical incentive to invest in the development of Hazou's character, though. Thanks @Velorien!
 
I too thought it was extremely clear that this isnt as simple as letting XP or TYS points tick up.
 
Vecht said:
I don't know how more explicit the text would have to be to make the case that TYS != Jounin Aura.
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Probably by not also saying things like:

Velorien said:
"How many times have you walked into danger certain that you weren't coming back? How many of your loved ones have you betrayed for power? How many times have you begged at your worst enemy's feet so they would spare someone you'd failed to protect?

"Being a jōnin isn't about skill. Everybody thinks that, but it's not. Skill is what we keep special jōnin around for. Being a jōnin is about being sent crashing into your limits as a human being, and then paying a price nobody else would pay in order to break through them. What you buy with that price, you get to bring back, and that's what you compress into a self that's denser than anyone else's. It's also what makes every jōnin seriously screwed up in their own ways, because those limits are there for a reason."
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Velorien said:
"What I'm getting at here, is that you, kid, are powered by your ideals, or at least so you say. That's good. Great. Commendable. What have you sacrificed for them? What choices have you made that others refused to make? What nightmares have you plunged yourself into because a piece of your new world might lie on the other side?
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fictionfan said:
So, So long as Hazō is a hivemind he can't have a Jōnin aura.
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Roomba said:
This is pretty bad for us, because it's strongly at odds with how we operate. We look for the optimal strategy, we compromise, we roll with punches and are eager to let go of sunk costs. That's all good and it has served us well, but it's not conducive to Hazou developing an identity that would let him withstand a Kage's aura. In-thread, we'd need unanimous consensus on some foundational principles, which I doubt we can get.
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You guys give up too easily! Who says a hivemind can't be of one mind?

MadScientist said:
Probably by not also saying things like:
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Want to bet on it?
 
MadScientist said:
Probably by not also saying things like:
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Thats not what TYS points are though. Those are solely just for witnessing absolutely terrible stuff, to the point where you become jaded about things and the lesser horrors scare you a bit less.

These often seem to be written off as "general badass points" or something, but thats not what they are.
 
MadScientist said:
Possibly, but you never know.

Thread? Shall we discuss this and find out if we can agree on some things?
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So my thoughts here drift immediately towards a meta-level consensus protocol. Like, we have some mechanism between us and Hazou, and no matter how disparate our individual opinions are, we all agree that once the consensus (as established by the protocol) has been met, then we all unanimously support the consensus.

I'm partial to using prediction markets myself, but that's probably a nonstarter for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are complexity, difficulty of implementation in a forum, and buy-in of both existing members and new folks (barriers to entry and all that).
 
I really appreciate that Kei considers this "metaphysical nonsense", reminding us that it's Jiraiya's in universe POV rather than exposition from @Velorien's mouth. Mind you, "what makes a Jonin" is something that MfDworld societies have heavy incentives to solve, but maybe the rarity + weirdness of Jonin makes it hard to separate out the possibilities.

Jiraiya's explanation actually makes me think of Worm, where powers are provided by entities that seek and reward conflict. I do wonder if there's some reductionistic or biological explanation here, or if MfD physics is just really weird.
 
MMKII said:
I too thought it was extremely clear that this isnt as simple as letting XP or TYS points tick up.
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I didn't feel like it would be as simple as having high enough XP and TYS, but I did figure one or both of those were the important foundations of it, and that if we had enough of the foundations we could start actively building if we wanted too.

Regardless, the fact that XP and TYS are only very loosely connected to the real foundation is good knowledge to have.
 
I think regardless of the actual whateverness behind it, a good first step would be to have Hazou do a lot more walking the walk and not as much talking the talk.
 
@Cariyaga: blerg, phonepost misquoting
Vecht said:
So my thoughts here drift immediately towards a meta-level consensus protocol. Like, we have some mechanism between us and Hazou, and no matter how disparate our individual opinions are, we all agree that once the consensus (as established by the protocol) has been met, then we all unanimously support the consensus.

I'm partial to using prediction markets myself, but that's probably a nonstarter for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are complexity, difficulty of implementation in a forum, and buy-in of both existing members and new folks (barriers to entry and all that).
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Though that does have the side effect of stultifying criticism of hive mind error because of mechanical shinies. Cooperation should not be a suicide pact. Look at the most recent plan, for example. What would've happened if we tried to non-consensually mind-fondle Keiko and the sensible option didn't come because of consensus lock in?
 
Velorien said:
"What I'm getting at here, is that you, kid, are powered by your ideals, or at least so you say. That's good. Great. Commendable. What have you sacrificed for them? What choices have you made that others refused to make? What nightmares have you plunged yourself into because a piece of your new world might lie on the other side?
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Approximately forty civilians, his innocence, and Minami Nikkou's life.
 
Origami Clock said:
Though that does have the side effect of stultifying criticism of hive mind error because of mechanical shinies. Cooperation should not be a suicide pact. Look at the most recent plan, for example. What would've happened if we tried to non-consensually mind-fondle Keiko and the sensible option didn't come because of consensus lock in?
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I mean, a consensus protocol that doesn't allow consensus to change based on new information or new arguments is a poor consensus protocol?
 
@Vecht Plans are the only way to put a thought into Hazou's head (consistently). Hivemind uncertainty doesn't have much of an impact as far as I'm aware.
 
Cariyaga said:
@Vecht Plans are the only way to put a thought into Hazou's head (consistently). Hivemind uncertainty doesn't have much of an impact as far as I'm aware.
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Yes, but if we're constantly jerking Hazou back and forth between "Go do stuff!" and "No, that's too risky, more conservative!" or any other two extremes, this isn't as good for Hazou's characterization than if we just did away with that, figured out the middle ground we could all agree on (or if nothing else, predict the midpoint our various pulls would take him to) and then just go there, with all the conviction and zeal he could muster.
 
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