[complich8]

Originally Posted by Erock

I know Shukaku is responsible for the shield, which Gaara has no control over, but I'm not sure if Desert Funeral is, it seems Gaara makes a conscience effort to that one, and it seems to fit the dynamics of a normal jutsu rather than an automatic defense. I doubt we will ever know for sure.

I think you'd be better served thinking of Gaara's sand-related abilities the same way you'd think of Neji's Byakugan, or the Sharingan, or way back to the early teen episodes and Haku's crazy ice powers. They're all basically bloodline limit things. Sharingan can't copy Kyuubi-chakra. It can't copy Haku ice, or any of that stuff. Why should it be able to copy things that have nothing to do with ninja techniques, but with the very nature of the character.

I think it's a plot weakness to stretch the power of sharingan to essentially copying Lee's speed. Mimicing taijutsu (which boils down to moving in a certain way) is one thing, but acquiring attributes of other people, without the training necessary to make your body physically capable of having those attributes ... I don't think that should have been within the scope of Sasuke's power (since it trivializes Lee's decade or so of hard training to get that distinct trait). But that's just my opinion.

I think, going back to the "who could kill gaara" thought ... it'd probably be better to think of "why does gaara exist in the series?"

Gaara was built to be a disturbingly powerful genin, generally thought to be unbeatable, but later (and relatively easily) torn down to reveal a much, much greater power. The plan for the destruction of Konoha involved getting Gaara out there, and having him lose control of his form in the middle of Konoha, flipping out and letting Shukaku loose, and having that giant monster sand racoon stomp the whole village flat. As a demon basically evenly matched with a highest-level summoned monster, without something strong enough to fight him, he would have completely razed the village.

So who can bring something the size of Shukaku? So far, we don't know for sure whether the Third could or not (his summon was about human sized). Jiraiya, Naruto, Orochimaru, Tsunade all can, we know. Kakashi and Gai seemed less concerned about the giant snakes, and more concerned about beating down invading ninjas hand-to-hand, but the biggest summons we've seen either of them do are a somewhat large tortoise and a pretty big dog. Nobody other than Naruto or Jiraiya (or Tsunade or Orochimaru) has shown us a weapon big enough to take on Shukaku.

I don't think the jounins (in general) can come anywhere close to kyuubi-level chakra. It's even an achievement for the legendary sannin and for hokages to be able to do that. Without that level of power in enough places, Konoha would have been destroyed, and the series would be a whole lot shorter.

But my point is ... who cares who can break Gaara's shield? It's obvious that it can be outdone, by people with extremes in one direction or the other. It's also obvious that it's by far NOT the most dangerous thing about Gaara. It's just a point of mechanics that Gaara is basically impervious to things on a "normal" level.