Last month, I finished rereading Naruto, and after finishing up the final chapters, I wondered if the story ended in a satisfying way. I noticed that the two following themes of the series were often contradicted by a character’s actions or statements.
Revenge
When it comes to Sasuke’s revenge plot against Itachi, almost everyone told him to give up on his goal despite its importance to Sasuke. The most prolific figure who told him to abandon his goal was Kakashi, and this was under the impression that revenge wouldn’t get Sasuke anywhere.
But it’s apparent that Kakashi pushed Sasuke in Orochimaru’s direction because Orochimaru, supported Sasuke’s ambitions for his own nefarious reasons. And I find this notion to be problematic, and that’s not because I believe that revenge would solve anything. It’s because Kakashi assisted in Team 10’s revenge plans against Kakuzu and Hidan. What made their plans any different from Sasuke’s?
But this begs the question: should Kakashi have helped Sasuke? Should anyone from Team 7 have helped Sasuke? If anyone had, like Naruto, then I think that the story would have made Naruto into a more complex character. I imagine that the series would also be a lot more interesting, given the shadiness of the Uchiha massacre and the fact that the Third Hokage, Danzō, and the rest of the council played a role in the clan’s demise.
I should also add that Sasuke and Shikamaru had similar motives, but their (for a lack of a better word) commitment to their vengeance plans were different. Sasuke was an angry child and even admitted to living solely to kill Itachi. By the time of Asuma’s death, Shikamaru was more level-headed; he wasn’t dedicating his life to avenging Asuma. And while these characters led different different lives and had very different mental states, I still think that it was an awkward decision to make Kakashi oversee Team 10’s assassination of Kakuzu and Hidan.
I think that revenge as a theme is a difficult one to present in any story because it challenges the characters’ morals as well as the readers. I liked that Kishimoto did challenge Sasuke into making a difficult decision in the first half of the series. However, I think that he made Kakashi’s teachings in Part 1 completely pointless when he participated in Shikamaru’s plans to murder Kakuzu to avenge Asuma.
Innate talent vs hard work
I’ve seen the argument being made in the fandom that talent vs hard work is not a central theme in the series. However, Naruto was written with this theme at play. The titular character works hard to achieve Shadow Clone jutsu; he trains hard to catch up to Sasuke; and other characters besides Naruto work hard to be great ninjas.
Even Sasuke’s and Kabuto’s character arcs serve as blunt reminders about where shortcuts may lead us as the two grew lost in their arrogance and pursuit for power. And while these examples serve well for the story, Naruto’s characterization in the second part of the series smothers the good that they do.
Naruto’s the son of a Hokage; he has connections to the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Hokages; he inherited the Uzumaki clan’s immense chakra reserves; he’s the fated Child of Prophecy; he was named the reincarnation of Asura Otsutsuki; and he had a powerful demon sealed within him. All of these things shouldn’t have mattered in Naruto’s growth, but in the end, they did because he was fated to accomplish great things.
There are other things I want to talk about regarding Masashi Kishimoto’s series, but I’m going to take my time for now. (I still want to work on the character analyses posts that I mentioned a couple of months ago.)
Until my next post,
Cassandra D. 🌙
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