[Manga] Naruto Chapter 625 Discussion Thread

[Hunter]

They don't? Have they no long-term memory? Obviously I can't pile-up examples for Hashirama because he doesn't have as much exposition as Naruto but do you realize how many insane decisions Naruto has made over the years and how many of them didn't make things better? The answers are respectively all and none of them.

Form an alliance with the Uchiha? Foolishness! Choose suicide to convince Madara? Insanity! Madara should be 1st Hokage? Preposterous!
At one point you got to realize that there is more to Hahirama and Naruto than idealism when everything they do work for the best. As I said it's just analyzing data, Tsunade always take Naruto's side on faith but really she doesn't need to, she just has to look back at her past and see that all things good in her life happened when she asked herself WWND?

[james0246]

^You're kind of dismissing the entire notion of drama right now. If everyone followed Naruto mindlessly then there would be no drama and there would be no series. You can certainly argue that some opposition is contrived (I argued as much a few weeks previous concerning characters/posters believing Naruto to be an underdog, I even argued it in respect to Team 7's placement), but overall the situations and events follow a very basic narrative tension where characters with basic dimension argue (With Fists!!!) points of view that differ from each other. Is Naruto always quantifiably right? Yes (kind of). But that doesn't mean every person in the Narutoverse knows he is right. That's probably why Kishimoto concocted this giant war so everyone could see Naruto being right, and effectively end all drama in the Narutoverse in one clean sweep.

edit: And, to be fair, it's not like people/countries/everyone in the real world doesn't do equally stupid things even though well documented sources of reason tell them not to...

[JustRob]

Originally Posted by Hunter

They don't? Have they no long-term memory? Obviously I can't pile-up examples for Hashirama because he doesn't have as much exposition as Naruto but do you realize how many insane decisions Naruto has made over the years and how many of them didn't make things better? The answers are respectively all and none of them.

Form an alliance with the Uchiha? Foolishness! Choose suicide to convince Madara? Insanity! Madara should be 1st Hokage? Preposterous!
At one point you got to realize that there is more to Hahirama and Naruto than idealism when everything they do work for the best. As I said it's just analyzing data, Tsunade always take Naruto's side on faith but really she doesn't need to, she just has to look back at her past and see that all things good in her life happened when she asked herself WWND?

None of these decisions seem bad to me. But oh yes, let's instead form an alliance with them and at the same time distrust them and little by little take more of their influence. Yes, because that's obviously going to work out so great, and if they don't like it, well I guess then we'll take the most gullible dude in their clan and make him kill all the others.

Honestly. Fear leads to distrust, distrust leads to hatred. Tobirama chose the path of hatred and the Uchiha became the victims of that. No one here is to blame but him.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by JustRob

Honestly. Fear leads to distrust, distrust leads to hatred. Tobirama chose the path of hatred and the Uchiha became the victims of that. No one here is to blame but him.

That's not exactly true. Both sides were equally dishonest when it came to an alliance and eventual peace. Neither trusted the other, and Madara was just as willing to abandon the village for his own ideas (without ever even trying to work toward peace) as Tobirama was willing to ostracize and eventually exclude the Uchiha. Both were too ingrained within the beliefs of the past that neither could enter the peace honestly nor even try to make it work in the end.

[JustRob]

Originally Posted by james0246

That's not exactly true. Both sides were equally dishonest when it came to an alliance and eventual peace. Neither trusted the other, and Madara was just as willing to abandon the village for his own ideas (without ever even trying to work toward peace) as Tobirama was willing to ostracize and eventually exclude the Uchiha. Both were too ingrained within the beliefs of the past that neither could enter the peace honestly nor even try to make it work in the end.

Madara could have done it if Hashirama had been the only one in the picture. He started to trust him when he showed Madara that he would even take his own life if it meant the fighting to stop.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by JustRob

Madara could have done it if Hashirama had been the only one in the picture. He started to trust him when he showed Madara that he would even take his own life if it meant the fighting to stop.

If only Hashirama existed, then of course Madara would have never had any problems with anything. Instead, others with differing opinions exist, so Madara gave up before he could even try.

Madara has been shown to be a character that as so long as everything is going his way he is cool, but the second things get hard he simply gives up and never even tries (he must have had a truly shitty romantic life). Tobirama and the village were definitely a problem, but as Hashirama said work and effort could be used to change their opinions (and Hashirama is always right). Sadly, Madara seemingly wasn't able to actually change (He equated change with subservience? His pride got in the way? His past could not be surmounted?) or try to actually put in the effort we all know would have paid off. He gave up after one bad word (admittedly, there were probably many, but we only really saw the one).

[Hunter]

Originally Posted by james0246

^You're kind of dismissing the entire notion of drama right now. If everyone followed Naruto mindlessly then there would be no drama and there would be no series. You can certainly argue that some opposition is contrived (I argued as much a few weeks previous concerning characters/posters believing Naruto to be an underdog, I even argued it in respect to Team 7's placement), but overall the situations and events follow a very basic narrative tension where characters with basic dimension argue (With Fists!!!) points of view that differ from each other. Is Naruto always quantifiably right? Yes (kind of). But that doesn't mean every person in the Narutoverse knows he is right. That's probably why Kishimoto concocted this giant war so everyone could see Naruto being right, and effectively end all drama in the Narutoverse in one clean sweep.

edit: And, to be fair, it's not like people/countries/everyone in the real world doesn't do equally stupid things even though well documented sources of reason tell them not to...

But I don't disagree with any of that, my original argument wasn't that all people should know better or that ordinary folk making stupid choices over and over isn't perfectly realist or that the story doesn't need those mistakes to have a plot (I even addressed that when I mentioned that their world would be boring if everybody had followed Hashirama's lead) and personally I prefer the Tobirama/Danzou type rather than Shodai and Naruto whom I find boring and cheesy.
No, I was merely pointing out that it's difficult to write them off as realist/pragmatist when everything they do consistently and predicatively produce worse situations than they used to be. It kind of goes against what those terms mean.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Hunter

No, I was merely pointing out that it's difficult to write them off as realist/pragmatist when everything they do consistently and predicatively produce worse situations than they used to be. It kind of goes against what those terms mean.

Ah, I didn't see that post (I only really started with Sabaku's response at the top of the page ).

[JustRob]

Originally Posted by james0246

If only Hashirama existed, then of course Madara would have never had any problems with anything. Instead, others with differing opinions exist, so Madara gave up before he could even try.

Madara has been shown to be a character that as so long as everything is going his way he is cool, but the second things get hard he simply gives up and never even tries (he must have had a truly shitty romantic life). Tobirama and the village were definitely a problem, but as Hashirama said work and effort could be used to change their opinions (and Hashirama is always right). Sadly, Madara seemingly wasn't able to actually change (He equated change with subservience? His pride got in the way? His past could not be surmounted?) or try to actually put in the effort we all know would have paid off. He gave up after one bad word (admittedly, there were probably many, but we only really saw the one).

Madara could see the truth. Despite the fairytales Hashirama told him, he knew the Uchiha would always be persecuted no matter how hard they tried. And we have seen that he was right in the future, because Danzo and the Elders carried on Tobirama's ideals and distrusted the Uchiha, despite how hard they worked for the village. And then they had them killed.

[itachi-san314]

Originally Posted by Hunter

No, I was merely pointing out that it's difficult to write them off as realist/pragmatist when everything they do consistently and predicatively produce worse situations than they used to be. It kind of goes against what those terms mean.

yea I agree. it's like in x-files how scully was always skeptical of mulder's intuition, yet mulder's intuition was pretty much 100% accurate season after season. there was no learning curve with her character, much like tobirama's character. no matter how much hashirama is proven correct, tobirama has an ingrained disposition to always disagree with him

[james0246]

Originally Posted by JustRob

Madara could see the truth. Despite the fairytales Hashirama told him...

Kishimoto clearly wants us to side with Hashirama, so his "fairy tales" were the 'truth'.

Originally Posted by JustRob

And we have seen that he was right in the future...

He was right because his actions (abandoning the village and attacking Hashirama) proved to those with already negative opinions that the Uchiha could not be trusted (implicitly, If Madara had not abandoned the village, then his actions would have proven those negative opinion false). As has been said many times before, Madara and Tobirama created a nice self-fulfilling prophecy. Neither side trusted the other and neither side attempted to change the others opinions. Instead, they believed the worst in each other from the start and were not surprised when the worst ended up happening.

[JustRob]

Originally Posted by james0246

Kishimoto clearly wants us to side with Hashirama, so his "fairy tales" were the 'truth'.



He was right because his actions (abandoning the village and attacking Hashirama) proved to those with already negative opinions that the Uchiha could not be trusted (implicitly, If Madara had not abandoned the village, then his actions would have proven those negative opinion false). As has been said many times before, Madara and Tobirama created a nice self-fulfilling prophecy. Neither side trusted the other and neither side attempted to change the others opinions. Instead, they believed the worst in each other from the start and were not surprised when the worst ended up happening.

One Uchiha abandoning the village proves that the Uchiha clan is not to be trusted? I'm sorry, but there's clearly one side with twisted logic here, and it's not the Uchiha.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by JustRob

One Uchiha abandoning the village proves that the Uchiha clan is not to be trusted? I'm sorry, but there's clearly one side with twisted logic here, and it's not the Uchiha.

I never claimed otherwise (though from Itachi's and Obito's recollections to Sasuke, there were other Uchiha that attempted other disturbances in the past). You're putting all the blame on Tobirama. That is false. Madara's actions influenced Tobirama's actions, just as Tobirama's actions influenced Madara. Did Tobirama escalate the actions to the extreme? Yes (though it is unknown what happened with Madara after he left Konoha). But, he would have never done anything if Madara were to have stayed in Konoha (and presumably not attacked Hashirama). There is no singular person at fault, everyone that didn't listen to Hashirama is at fault.

[Hunter]

Tobirama and Madara's claims came to be true for the same reason : self-fulfilling prophecy.

Originally Posted by itachi-san314

yea I agree.

Great Scott I must have traveled 3 days into the future!

[JustRob]

Originally Posted by james0246

I never claimed otherwise (though from Itachi's and Obito's recollections to Sasuke, there were other Uchiha that attempted other disturbances in the past). You're putting all the blame on Tobirama. That is false. Madara's actions influenced Tobirama's actions, just as Tobirama's actions influenced Madara. Did Tobirama escalate the actions to the extreme? Yes (though it is unknown what happened with Madara after he left Konoha). But, he would have never done anything if Madara were to have stayed in Konoha (and presumably not attacked Hashirama). There is no singular person at fault, everyone that didn't listen to Hashirama is at fault.

Still Tobirama who started it all. Madara left the village BECAUSE of his distrust. That's the singular thing that triggered it all. Tobirama didn't trust Madara, he didn't trust the Uchiha, hell he had trouble trusting his brother. It's because of guys like Tobirama and Danzo that so much tragedy fell upon the Uchiha and Konoha.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by JustRob

Still Tobirama who started it all. Madara left the village BECAUSE of his distrust.

And Tobirama distrusted Madara do to actions Madara performed in the past (not to mention the fact that he probably couldn't believe that Madara could ever willingly work with men who had killed his brothers), and there's the whole curse of hatred thing Uchihas have (stemming from the Sage choosing the younger brother over the older brother), not to mention the fact that the Uchiha are apparently driven insane by their own powers.

Actions do not exist in a vacuum. Tobirama isn't the big bang of evil in the Narutoverse (the Jyuubi is, or at least the Rikidou-Sennin). Tobirama acted based on actions he attributed to Madara, Madara acted based on actions he attributed to Tobirama.

This is getting cyclical now, so I will bow out with this final post on this topic (at least for this week).

[itachi-san314]

Originally Posted by JustRob

Still Tobirama who started it all. Madara left the village BECAUSE of his distrust. That's the singular thing that triggered it all. Tobirama didn't trust Madara, he didn't trust the Uchiha, hell he had trouble trusting his brother. It's because of guys like Tobirama and Danzo that so much tragedy fell upon the Uchiha and Konoha.

it's certainly not the singular thing. i doubt madara placed tobirama's distrust above his own clan's feeling about him. i think the fact that he couldn't get the uchiha to back him was the most significant reason for him leaving konoha

[JustRob]

Originally Posted by itachi-san314

it's certainly not the singular thing. i doubt madara placed tobirama's distrust above his own clan's feeling about him. i think the fact that he couldn't get the uchiha to back him was the most significant reason for him leaving konoha

I never said it was that singular thing, but it was what started it all. Tobirama's distrust urged Madara to convince the Uchiha clan, which failed, and then to leave Konoha.

Can you believe it? Madara is even the one who named Konoha.

[Sabaku Kyu]

Originally Posted by Hunter

They don't? Have they no long-term memory? Obviously I can't pile-up examples for Hashirama because he doesn't have as much exposition as Naruto but do you realize how many insane decisions Naruto has made over the years and how many of them didn't make things better? The answers are respectively all and none of them.

Yeah, but he has to convince people he's right and earn their trust. Which is the way it should be. People who have just met Naruto, like the Raikage, have no reason to believe Naruto is infalliable. Tobirama, obviously he had faith in Hashirama's leadership because he followed him loyally, but he was right that Madara was dangerous and he'd be a fool not to see that. I'd say it was very pragmatic he didn't simply decide Hashirama was correct because he's Hashirama. I don't really consider Danzou pragmatic, he was more power-hungry and paranoid. But doubts aren't unreasonable. Naruto and Hashirama are able to see the good in people and bring out the best in others but even in real life that wouldn't make me think someone's decisions were unquestionable.

And I could see your point more if Naruto and Hashirama's decisions always had immediate, clear benefits with no consequences whatsoever (as definitely was the case with Pein). But Madara and Sasuke have both caused tons of destruction and chaos. Naruto and Hashirama-- as heroes who have decided they won't give up their bonds with these dangerous people in order to stop them for good--they don't hold any responsibility for that?

[Hunter]

I don't remember anything convincing coming out of Naruto's mouth (and in the Raikage's case the convincing argument was dodging his punch!) and earning trust isn't something that Hashirama had to deal with for the most part (and then stopping the unending era of chaos pretty much took care of that world-wide).
And no I don't think they have responsibility over Sasuke and Madara for two reason : as I said I believe that if people had followed Hashirama's wishes and trusted Madara everything would have turned out fine. Everything is a parallel in this manga, Madara was basically comparable to Kushina, Mito, inner Naruto and the Kyubi. They needed a hug and to be shown a little love. It's that cheesy. Since they didn't, the fault lies on them and (for the most part except if he makes an insanity plea) Madara.
Naruto has even less responsibility for Sasuke because he was never at his mercy, has never done anything really bad and will probably redeem himself and save the day thanks to Naruto somehow.