thoughts on geography in Naruto, and more "Guardian" planning

[edenfalling]

Look! gabriel_chaos drew me Naga in her "Guardian" incarnation. (Note the summoning scroll -- this will be a plot point.)

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Note to self -- whichever map I believe (thank you, deralte!) there's at least one small country between Sound and Thunder/Lightning. (What's the official English translation/transliteration of Rai no Kuni anyway? This is important!) I hereby declare it to be... hmmm...

Naming countries is harder than it seems. I've already decided that River Country has to be that medium-sized place with a coastline between Wind and Fire, which makes sense if it is, as Wikipedia claims, the location of Akatsuki's hideout where they took Gaara. (And yes, that's the same River Country I mentioned in "Tides" and am using in "Undertow" -- I didn't know it was 'real' at the time, but I'm willing to go along with it.)

Forest Country? Shadow Country? I'd use Rain, but it's taken (and somewhere west near Grass, Wind, and Earth) or Mist (but that's the village in Water Country). Mountain Country makes no real geographic sense... no wait, maybe it does. Peninsulas can be mountinous, after all. Pine Country? Avalanche Country? (Between Earth and Wind.) Lake Country? (No, put that along the coast of the northern bay, next to what I think may be Waterfall Country -- or that peninsula southeast of Fire Country, because I'm pretty sure Wave Country is meant to be only islands and no mainland territory.) Moss Country? (A northern bay place.) Autumn Country? (No, not seasons. 'Elements,' weather, or geographic features only. Though Tea Country breaks that... no, tea's a plant, like grass, and besides, I think it's an anime-only country, in which case I can ignore it if I want.) Sky Country? Y'know, I like Sky Country. It goes well next to Thunder/Lightning.

So. Amane Eiji lives in Sky Country, which is past Sound Country (I think -- executive decision here -- that Orochimaru has not yet left Akatsuki, so Hidden Sound doesn't exist at this point in time) and on the border of Thunder/Lightning Country. This means that Sky Country is the only land route into Thunder/Lightning, and is consequently of great interest to the shinobi of Hidden Cloud. They can, of course, do a lot of ocean-going trade, but the land route is particularly important for ninja, since ninja can move faster than boats. (Hey, canonically chuunin level shinobi can travel from Konoha to Suna in 3 days, and that's a pretty significant distance on the maps. Civilians can't go nearly that fast, and I doubt that Team 7 was in shape for a hard fight when they reached the Sand, but still. It's definitely something to keep in mind.) It's also the logical path of attack, if another war breaks out, so the Cloud-nin presumably maintain a strong presence on their border with Sky Country, and within Sky Country itself.

I think the Leaf-nin do the same thing to some of the small countries on their northern border, just as Mist-nin are interested in keeping the islands under their control. I can't tell from the Wikipedia map whether the land bits to the far east are simply large islands or part of another mainland landmass. If, as I suspect, it's another mainland, I don't think it's organized along the same social/military patterns as... damnit, I haven't heard a better name... as the Elemental Countries. Gato may very likely have been from that continent. (I suspect both Wind Country and Earth Country fade into desert as you go west off the map, which means their western borders are probably quite vague, and they're not worried about threats from whatever cultures exist in that direction.)

Wave Country seems not to be under anybody's specific influence, which is why Gato was able to move in without disturbing the hidden villages. It would probably fall under the aegis of Fire or Water, if either country took a strong interest.

Anyway, Eiji lives in Sky Country, in the town of... *fiddles with cheap online translation dictionary* Tengai. That will work. (Probably Tengai no Sato would be the more proper form, but I write in English, so who cares!) Now, should Tengai be a harbor town or a place on a land trade route? If it's a harbor, it makes very little sense for it to be on the southeastern coast, since Yukiko and company are traveling with a trade caravan, and a caravan from Fire Country probably wouldn't go to a harbor town out of the country, not one that's on the same bay that Fire Country touches. They might go to a northern bay harbor, or stop at a village on the land route into Thunder/Lightning Country. But Eiji's a cosmopolitan sort of man, with business interests in many places. He'd probably want a harbor base. So... Tengai is a town on the northwestern coast of Sky Country.

Details are my friends. If I know, firmly, where I'm going, then I don't have to worry about accidentally describing something that turns out to be impossible later on. Hopefully I can keep from working myself into the same sort of contortions I'm going through with regard to the school year in Naruto. It's my own fault for falling onto more American assumptions and not realizing those rules don't mesh well with the assumption of an autumn graduation from the ninja academy, but I blame Kishimoto at least partially, for not drawing clear seasons. He's very unclear about temperature in general, actually -- winter doesn't seem to occur, but Fire Country can't possibly be tropical or people wouldn't waltz around in fur-lined coats like Kiba and Hinata. It's as bad as JKR with the numbers of Hogwarts students, Hogwarts teachers, and their consequently impossible class schedules. (Oh, the contortions I went through to make that mess work out so I could make up a schedule for Ginny and keep "Secrets" from contradicting itself all over the place! But I managed. And I will manage this. *resolve face*)

(Of course, working out why the Sasayaki left Hidden Grass when people like that Venus fly-trap guy seem to have stayed and presumably been welcome is... well, I'll make that work, too. Somehow. Kishimoto makes very little sense on the subject of bloodline limits. I never know if they're accepted or not, and to what degree, and where. Haku wasn't, and I think he must have been from a water-based country -- maybe up north, because of the ice? -- but maybe he was from Water Country and that was a prejudice of Hidden Mist. Hidden Cloud is canonically interested in at least some bloodline limits -- see Hinata and Neji's backstory -- but I don't know if that's because they accept such ninja, or if they treat them as experimental subjects and slave-weapons, the way some ninja seem to consider jinchuuriki. Actually, maybe that's why fly-trap man went rogue? Hmmm. *sets idea aside for further consideration*)

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ETA: Look, maps!

Map #1
-----This is from Wikipedia, and is part of a long article on the geography and villages of the Elemental Countries. However, a significant portion of the information is based on the anime or the movies. I don't trust those parts, and will most likely not use them, especially since I've never seen the anime and I don't consider the filler arcs canon. The map is also small and hard to read in places.

Map #2
-----This one is more useful than the Wikipedia map, since it shows the hidden villages as well as the countries, and is more generally readable. It disagrees with the Wikipedia map in a couple places, but I am more inclined to trust it. (alternate link, fifth picture)

Map #3
-----This one mostly agrees with Map #2, and is actually easier to read since it doesn't have other pictures superimposed over it.

Comments

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think that most of the way bloodline limits get looked at is just a more extreme, or more obvious example of something we hear Zabuza state flat-out - that shinobi are nothing more than tools for their nations.

I don't think I've ever seen a map that extended far enough east to identify those/that land mass(es).

Anyway, you're putting Sky in between Lightning and Rice/Sound? Cool. *notes name and postion for his own world, because he's a fan of consistency*

...y'know, it suddenly occurs to me that everybody - including me - has gone and assumed that the Ninja Continent was in the northern hemisphere.

Climatalogical questions... *sighs* I think what I'm going to have to do is pick a value to ignore... Probably it'll be the, er, general look of the series, because I know that weather can sometimes look warmer than it is, but people generally don't willingly dress wrong for their climate. So, Konoha weather that we've seen tends more towards the sixties than they do to the eighties. Other likely datum is that Wave probably receives the most rainfall out of all the countries we've seen, with Konoha and maybe Rice, like, right after - you just don't see old growth the size of the Forest of Death without at least a borderline rainforest. Also, there's this massive gap after Naruto's graduation... a large part of it, I think, can be explained by simply thinking about how long it would take to build a causeway the size of Wave's, but the more I think about it, the more likely I find the idea that Konoha particularly and the ninja continent in general get a rainy monsoon, from the southeast, starting in late October or early November.

I'd try and be more specific about timing and duration, but the Narutofan forums give my computer foaming fits, and I haven't seen that timeline posted anywhere else. ^_^;

Hmm.

My best guess, at this point... Stone country is mountainous, I'd think, like a somewhat aged version of the Himalayas or Rockies, and has a northern coastline not more than a little past the edge of the maps we've got. That entire coastline, from Lightning to west of Stone, is a convergent plate boundary, which means that all along it there's an active volcanic chain like the Andes or Cascades. (The country on the northern peninsula, BTW, I plan to call Volcano Country and send Team 7 on a mission into. The backstory I've worked up says that, once upon a time, its hidden village, Crater, was one of the big five, until the Shichidaime Hokage of Hidden Crater got so fed up with that village's power politics that he defected to set up his own village in the hellish, monster-infested rainforests to the south. Obviously, Crater doesn't like the Leaf much.) The eastern land masses are large islands, and southeast of Konoha there's really not much but ocean. Wind Country has a total land area about the size of all five of the other major nations combined, but about four fifths of it is a single, vast, absolutely uninhabitable desert. Most of Wind's southern border - and most of the remainder of the continent's southern coastline - is occupied by a long, fairly narrow country which I've yet to come up with a name for, but which is very wet, since the border also has another mountain range. Aside from that, there's not much else except a squabbling horde of tiny, balkanized city-states along Stone's western border and the smallish Stone client states seperating Wind and Stone.

Err. Sorry, I babble. ^_^;

Anyway, what's Sky actually like? Customs, climate, geography? Dress, food?

Ja, -n
(curious)

[edenfalling]

I think that most of the way bloodline limits get looked at is just a more extreme, or more obvious example of something we hear Zabuza state flat-out - that shinobi are nothing more than tools for their nations.

Aha. Yes, that makes sense. Konoha's pretty atypical about that, isn't it? The Hyuuga and the Uchiha seem to be/have been quite powerful within the village structure, and there are a number of... partial or incomplete bloodline limits, I'd say. (Nara, Yamanaka, Iinuzuka, Aburame, possibly Akimichi -- since I doubt that other families' chakra would make butterfly wings -- possibly Hatake, etc.) More and more I suspect that at least one reason behind the founding of Konoha was a group of bloodline limit clans wanting a place where they weren't the weapons' weapons.

I had decided that winter was more rainy than cold/snowy/icy, since the continent seems to have a mild climate on the whole, but I'm a little unsure of buying into a monsoon season.

Mountain chains? Volcano Country? I guess that fits in with my general 'feel' for the Naruto world. I may assume some of your other geography/political divisions, but I reserve the right to tweak the hell out of them.

I have not yet defined Sky's climate, culture, etc. I assume it's more mountinous/hilly than the southern countries, and probably leans a bit more toward pine forests than broad-leaf trees. It's cooler (further north, further up from sea level) and maybe a bit less rain. But there's a fair amount of mist, which does tend to gather in mountain valleys. There are marvelous vistas from the high parts of the roads -- they have to snake around hills and mountains to get from village to village, so travel speed is slow. The rest... I will figure out later, since I need to go pack for my return home to Ithaca.

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

More and more I suspect that at least one reason behind the founding of Konoha was a group of bloodline limit clans wanting a place where they weren't the weapons' weapons.

*nodnod* My guess also. What I suspect happened was that the Shodaime Hokage, for personal reasons, got to be disenchanted with the existing structure of relations in and between hidden villages, with the associated constant warfare, and decided to try and found a new village that could either serve as an example of a workable alternative or, eventually, grow stong enough to bitchslap the others into behaving. To do that, though, he'd need support, and I think that offering the bloodline clans a better deal would be something that'd be likely coming from someone with the worldview needed to conceive of Konoha in the first place.

Hmm. I'd been thinking that Konoha had been counting Hokage only since their own founding and that previously the title had been associated with another village, but an alternate explanation might be that he was the first Kage, anywhere, and the other villages adopted the institution so as to compete...

I had decided that winter was more rainy than cold/snowy/icy, since the continent seems to have a mild climate on the whole, but I'm a little unsure of buying into a monsoon season.

*shrug* Well, it fits our data of mostly clear and sunny from late spring to late autumn, while also providing the massive rainfall suggested by the existence of the Forest of Death.

Mountain chains? Volcano Country? I guess that fits in with my general 'feel' for the Naruto world. I may assume some of your other geography/political divisions, but I reserve the right to tweak the hell out of them.

Heh. You'll probably end up getting to that point before I do, given the way I've found myself distracted, so feel absolutely free. ^_^

Ja, -n

[toki-usagi.livejournal.com]

This should help with the geography. http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/toki_usagi_2/Minimovie01.jpg

[edenfalling]

Eeee! A third map! Okay, now I can cross-check more effectively.

[acechan.livejournal.com]

Let's see... According to the anime, Sound village is in Rice country, but I don't really consider anything from the filler arcs to be canon, so nevermind.

I'm pretty sure that it said that Haku's situation was due to a strong prejudice against bloodlines in the Water country, caused by recent years of bloody warfare prominently featuring bloodline members as weapons of mass destruction. This could be taken to mean that such prejudice is highly unusual in the Naruto setting, though on the other hand, there seems to be a mild degree of segregation between bloodline clans and ordinary people even in Leaf village. Though it's hard to say if that's caused more by the normal people being freaked out, or the bloodline clans having huge sticks up their asses... *headdesk*
Maybe the norm is for bloodlines to be accepted (especially in Ninja villages) for their usefulness, but still regarded as "not one of us," with somewhat more paranoia from civilians. Also, it's an interesting question of whether the aloofness of some of the bloodline clans (particularly the Hyuuga and Uchiha) is influenced by these sorts of prejudices, and a fear that their place in the village (and thus, their safety) may be jeapordized if they do not try to hold on to their political power. Ehh, to much speculation.

[edenfalling]

Interesting. (I don't know if I'm going to name the country that Hidden Sound is in -- I might just call it Sound Country, which seems to be the pattern for less major ninja villages, like Grass and Rain.)

Sometime this week, I will have to sit down and hash out the bloodline situation in various countries, just for my own peace of mind!

I enjoy reading The Way of The Apartment Manager

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

Finally, an OC story that rocks, more detail review later. (In the middle of exam weeks, I read to de-stress, but can't think up a good review yet).

I think it's possible that Zetsu and his people, if they exist, don't live within the village at all. I mean, considering the fact that Zetsu is kinda half plant and can blend into trees, it's possible that his people live in the forest and generally stay out of the way of other people and that Leader-sama came across Zetsu by chance, that's my wild background theory at least.

Re: I enjoy reading The Way of The Apartment Manager

[edenfalling]

So, he'd be a member of an unaffiliated ninja clan? That could work. I'm using the background assumption that there were ninja clans long before there were hidden villages, so it makes sense that some of them might not have wanted to give up their autonomy -- and ones that could easily hide would be less likely to have been forced to join the villages.

I'm glad you like the story! (OCs really aren't that hard to write well, no more than original fiction is hard to write well. You just have to be honest about the characters -- human beings must act like human beings, in other words -- and make sure they play by the rules of the canon world. The rest is just down to telling a good story. Then again, I wrote original fiction for over a decade before I even heard of fanfiction, so I think I got my wish-fulfillment characters out of the way back then. *grin*)