[FFML] [Naruto] Memories Lie chapters 3-4

[Aaron Nowack]

Juho Saarikko wrote:
>> With the lack of limitations shown in canon, an "actual complete
>> physical shapeshift" answer to "what exactly does Henge do?" makes that
>> jutsu obscenely powerful, to the point that it really does harm the
>> coherence of the setting.  (After all, it's supposed to be one of the
>> three simplest and easiest jutsu...)
> 
> Not really. Take the shapechanging pig and cat from Dragon Ball for 
> comparison. While they could change into anything, this didn't give them 
> any extra strength, so it wasn't useful iforcombat, just for 
> intimidation and transportation.
> 

When I said "complete physical shapeshift", I meant including gaining
all the properties of the form you're in.

A "no additional strength" type of limitation does limit the direct
combat application, but it still doesn't stop the jutsu from being
obscenely powerful and useful in all kinds of ways that close off what
might otherwise be whole categories of different techniques.  And more
importantly, it gives every ninja character such a wide range of
potential abilities that it makes plotting much more difficult. ;)

For those reasons, just from a setting design perspective, I prefer
Henge to be "simple and limited" as opposed to "incredibly flexible and
useful."

>> (In One Hundred Days, the primary limitation I used was that any sort of
>> physical stress - of which flying would definitely count - would dispel
>> the transformation.)
>>
> Flying doesn't cause any more stress than walking. It simply shifts the 
> weight-supporting structure from feet into arms (wings). Some forms of 
> flying use more energy, while some use almost nothing (eagle gliding on 
> rising currents).

That shift of weight-supporting structure is precisely the sort of thing
I meant.  Those transformed wings - in some vague quasi-defined way -
aren't completely real and the transformation fails when the ninja tries
to use them to support his/her weight.  It's not a perfect explanation,
but it works well enough for me and it was never really important enough
to the story to think through in further detail.

Another potential limitation might be that the transformed shape comes
from the ninja's mental image, and while it's easy enough to imagine
something that looks like a bird, it's quite another thing to get all
the details of muscles and feathers and so forth correct enough to
actually fly.  (Of course, this raises the question of why ninja are not
then trained to do just that, but that can also be limited by making (a)
detailed transformations take tremendous amounts of chakra and very good
control, and/or (b) making it really, really impractically hard to form
and hold onto a detailed enough mental image.)

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