[Manga] Naruto Chapter 646 Discussion Thread

[Artimus_Prime]

Originally Posted by Cookie-Monster

Devil fruit!

question. in japanese folklore, are horns on the head associated with the good guy? just looking at O. Kaguya's design...i mean she was a princess so i assume she was kind and well-intentioned. but maybe she wasn't and it was actually the tree thats on the better half of this equation and she was just being selfish. that is until the tree creates/turns into the juubi

[Ulquiorra]

Originally Posted by james0246

God that sounds awful; what a horrendous moral Kishimoto would be teaching his audience. Instead of the people growing and maturing as a race, coming to the conclusion that needless violence and hatred is actually bad, they instead need to simply wish away their powers and responsibilities since they obviously will only ever abuse the power and continue to hurt each other. Because Narutokind can never be anything but the brutes they are.

That is a pretty damn bleak outlook for a Shounen series.

Madara sees the presence of chakra as being the cause of all evil (or at least the escalation of evil). We know Madara is wrong since he is the villain (, there is ample moral and ethical discussions that can show just why Madara's prelapsarian discussion is just plain stupid), so obviously doing away with all chakra is not even close to being what Kishimoto wants or is interested in, nor should it be considering how amazingly pessimistic the very idea is.

You have to understand. Kishimoto grew up near a military base and has talked about the impact Hiroshima still has on Japanese culture. He understands how power can get out of hand.

Let's break it down. There were wars in Naruto Land. Some woman decided to eat a fruit that humanity was told NOT to eat so she could gain power to stop the fighting. She became a god and used that power humanity was not suppose to have to stop everyone. She had son who became the SOTSP and taught others how to use chakra. The tree wanted its chakra back and juubi was created. Why? Because this was something man was not meant to have. The SOTSP was able to subdue the juubi, first seal it inside of himself, and later split its chakra into the 9 biju.

But what were we left with? The wars started up again, but now the fighters essentially had superpowers. People weren't living past their pre-teens. And that is where we pick up the Madara and Hashirama story. Where people try to make sense of what they have become and the formation of the ninja villages. Which gives us a legacy of people trying to do good, but ultimately failing.

Kishi's villains are not black and white with the exception of Hidan. Madara is both right and wrong. He was right that mankind screwed up by eating the fruit and things have gotten worse. Humanity getting greater power only meant greater destruction. Just like when the real world went from spears to guns to missiles and then nuclear weapons. This is where Kishi's allegory might kick in. Madara is wrong, just like Nagato, in his solution to the problem. You cannot lose faith in humanity in Kishi's manga. You must always have hope.

So that is where we are at. The ninja system is broken. For too long ninja were just tools. Something has to replace it. Either Narutism, where everyone accepts peace and these superpowers are forever used for good. A perfect fantasy ending for a fantasy manga. Would you be happy with that? Or Kishi can hit the reset button and man returns to what he was suppose to be and the chakra curse is broken. I am not saying either ending would be great.

[james0246]

^Hitting the reset button implies none of the individuals have any responsibilities for their own actions. It's not their faults, they were merely controlled by/tempted by/too prideful of their power, and everything got out of hand.

Madara, and all the others, must acknowledge their own shortcomings instead of simply ignoring them and blaming others for their bad decisions. Maturity and growth can only occur when you actually learn from your own mistakes, and hitting the reset button eliminates all hope for the characters to ever mature.

Personally, I do not really see a regression back to a pre-chakra system as being better than what currently exists, and considering the will of the people is completely against the idea (why else would the world be fighting against Madara?), I am unclear why anyone would believe it is Kishimoto's intention to follow through with Madara's plan.

The dilemma the Narutoverse currently faces is the question of whether their power controls them, or they control their power. To quote FDR, "great power involves great responsibility". Learning to control this power (and consequently control their own motivations), not simply do away with it, seems to be a much more likely conclusion to the series...

edit: control and respect.

[Cookie-Monster]

Originally Posted by Artimus_Prime

question. in japanese folklore, are horns on the head associated with the good guy? just looking at O. Kaguya's design...i mean she was a princess so i assume she was kind and well-intentioned. but maybe she wasn't and it was actually the tree thats on the better half of this equation and she was just being selfish. that is until the tree creates/turns into the juubi

Thats a good question, the answer of which I have no idea! =)

I'm not sure about japanese mythologoy, but generally speaking the idea of horned creatures being devilish is more of a western one. Tricksy greek satyrs, and satanic biblical devils goats. But in other cultures horned creatures did not necessarily represent devils. In ancient egypt many gods/godesses like Isis were depicted with horns. The famous babylonian god Baal had horns. In india you have different horned gods like Nandi.

Horns seems like a stratgely benign symbol to be associated with demons/evil. After all goats/cows/sheeps and other tasty life-sustaining animals all have horns.

I think the symbol of serpent/snakes is a more universal symbol of evil stuff.

No one likes slimy gross snakes that hide in dark corners and kill you with a bite.

Evil f***king snakes

[Artimus_Prime]

Originally Posted by james0246

Personally, I do not really see a regression back to a pre-chakra system as being better than what currently exists, and considering the will of the people is completely against the idea (why else would the world be fighting against Madara?), I am unclear why anyone would believe it is Kishimoto's intention to follow through with Madara's plan.

especially when at that time, fighting was so bad O. Kaguya felt the need to eat the fruit in the first place...

Originally Posted by Cookie-Monster

Thats a good question, the answer of which I have no idea! =)

I'm not sure about japanese mythologoy, but generally speaking the idea of horned creatures being devilish is more of a western one. Tricksy greek satyrs, and satanic biblical devils goats. But in other cultures horned creatures did not necessarily represent devils. In ancient egypt many gods/godesses like Isis were depicted with horns. The famous babylonian god Baal had horns. In india you have different horned gods like Nandi.

Horns seems like a stratgely benign symbol to be associated with demons/evil. After all goats/cows/sheeps and other tasty life-sustaining animals all have horns.

I think the symbol of serpent/snakes is a more universal symbol of evil stuff.

No one likes slimy gross snakes that hide in dark corners and kill you with a bite.

Evil f***king snakes

Thanks

Originally Posted by james0246

The dilemma the Narutoverse currently faces is the question of whether the power controls them, or they control the power. To quote FDR, "great power involves great responsibility". Learning to control this power seems to be a much more likely conclusion than doing away with chakra because people cannot be trusted with the responsibility...

yeah but the sage of 6 paths already tried that right? but it only resulted in more bloodshed likely because man just ended up coveting more power for selfish gains or something to that effect. there seems to be this tone [in the story] that there is an answer to breaking "the cycle." but what if it shouldn't be broken? if there is a balance between creation/life and destruction/death maybe the cycle should just run its course....unless the real answer is that they should run in parallel...
but you right though. they shouldnt have to get rid of chakra. the only problem is the story is telling us they werent suppose to have it in the first place...

[yamakumori]

horns are a symbol of demon energy\aura since in japanese culture this is not a negetive thing due to there are positive and negetive demons. More of a divine hinting. they work more of symbols of power, thus in most anime a "powered" person the hair goes up symbolizing this and becomes spiked or horned. also long hair is a symbol of great heart or righteousness.

[Monster0]

I'm not sure about this but it seems that the princess did achieve a temporary peace.And i haven't heard of any other enemy of the Sage besides the Juubi.So it gives the impression that the peace was broken not by men but by the godtree.
Then once the Juubi was stopped there seems to have been peace again until the Sage passed away.Then the peace was broken by the Sage's sons or eldest son.So everytime there is peace it is disturbed by grudges of some kind.It's all about bonds and grudges.
Now maybe through Narutoism the bonds can be stronger than the grudges. He made friends with the tailed beast,and of course the new bonds formed with the allied shinobi. But the rest is probably up to Sasuke,so his relevance doesn't have to be about whether or not he can hurt Obito.Sasuke has to be the one to break this curse.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by james0246

^Hitting the reset button implies none of the individuals have any responsibilities for their own actions. It's not their faults, they were merely controlled by/tempted by/too prideful of their power, and everything got out of hand.

Not like Kishi is afraid of doing that. See: Uchiha can all plead insanity due to the sharingan which for some reason never affects Kakashi.

[Ero-Senn1n]

Originally Posted by Keroko

The chapter is quite clear that the woman stole chakra from the world tree, and that the ten-tail (and the current root absorption) was the tree's attempt to get it back. If humans always had chakra, the woman would not have stolen chakra. Nor would the tree be trying to "get it back."

So if you steal a large amount of very special jewelry that means you couldn't have some of your own cheap jewels? It was a very special tree that had it's own consciousness and it grew a fruit only once in a millenia. It's obvious that it's chakra had to be very special when compared to that of any other living being. One obvious very special trait of the chakra - assuming the fruit's chakra is like the chakra of the tailed beasts created from it - is that it's infinite: the tailed beasts never run out of chakra and they never die, even if the ninja host died the tailed beast returns to the living world somehow. Another special trait might be what we saw in this war from the kyuubi and Naruto: they are able to convert their chakra to be compatible with another person's chakra so that they can give chakra to others.
And most importantly why do you take just a couple of sentences literally? People who take literally ancient stories written in holy books are usually called fundamentalists.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Except according to this chapter, the very ability to use chakra itself is a bloodline. If you're not one of the sage's descendants, you're out of luck. No chakra for you. Which is another contradiction to the previous lore, which established bloodline limits and the ability to use chakra as two different things.

It never said that. We can speculate if performing jutsu requires one to be a descendant of the Sage and so to have part of the stolen chakra in your body/DNA, or maybe anyone can do it if he learned how to use his chakra which is not from the fruit.
Having or not having a bloodline has nothing to do with chakra. While the Sage of 6 paths might have been the origin of all bloodlines it never says that those who do not have a bloodline cannot learn how to use their own chakra. It's the opposite: if we assume that everything has its own chakra and special bloodlines are those that also have the chakra from the fruit then it makes sense that only a few ninja have bloodlines while the majority is just regular ninja who learned in the ninja academy how to use his own chakra.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Oh, I'm not saying that it's impossible for all ninja to be related to the sage, but think about the implications of that: If every single ninja is related to the sage, that means every single ninja has the potential for the rinnegan in their blood.

I didn't say it either, i just said that mathematically it is possible, although it would make more sense that even without any inheritance of the powers of the fruit one can still learn to use his own chakra to create jutsu.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Except that Madara was quite clear on the tree in this chapter: All the chakra that all the ninja are using is world tree chakra. That's why it's trying to get it back from every single ninja in reach.

Thats true if you take Madara's words literally, or i should say the english translation of Madara's words literally. And of course if you believe he is telling the exact truth. But how many times did we read sentences spoken by various characters that turned out to be wrong or inaccurate. I remember a lot. Of course if someone wants to take back what was stolen from him he would often do even more, he would try to take everything, even the part that was never his. So the tree might try to go after all chakra, even the part that is not from the fruit. Or it could be that the tree is not really a human-level-inteligence, after all its called a "tree", trees usually are not too smart, so maybe it just goes after anything where it can sense chakra. Or maybe the fruit's chakra has been mixed into the chakra of ninja or even their DNA, so the tree can't make a difference. Also notice how Madara doesn't say "all the chakra belongs to the god tree", he says "all the chakra here", he might talk about the special chakra of the ninja, those who can use chakra not just have it in their bodies. An example in our world is having electricity in your body as our nerve-cells communicate using electricity, we even have electromagnetic brain waves, and using electricity to create our modern world. Just because we didn't use electricity for most of the history of humans that doesn't mean that our body and the body of animals and even plants doesn't have electricity in it.

[DGDCOne]

Damn that god tree looks madness!, suck their chakra and it's game over.

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

gentleman a new chapter is out so I suggest u enjoy it

[Shay]

Originally Posted by ImperialFlameGod8190

gentleman a new chapter is out so I suggest u enjoy it

Spoiler for Spoiler:

Talk about mass depression! Thank god the Prince of Darkness has arrived.

[Winterson]

The naive princess ate the the devil fruit from the God tree now turned eeeeviil juubi!!! Madara is better off as a historian since everything is so effing messed up that everyone wonders what's happening.

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

Yea this chapter proves that they are out of ideas I mean literally half the chapter is flashbacks and naruto fans are tired of those. Worse off the anime is about to get into probably the most depressing part of the current fighting

[james0246]

Spoilers have been released. Please move all relevant discussions to the newly opened thread.