A few years ago, People used to say it "curiosity" that eating Naruto up and making him act that way. Naruto wanted to know what it feel like to have people care for him and acknowledge him. People used to say naruto is interesting than sasuke. Now looking back on that, I half agree about the "curiosity" part. When I look at other characters that want to be acknowledge by other, they tend to go out and make name for themselves. But naruto didn't, he stay in the village. I guess this why kishimoto made him dumb. Because anyone with common sense wouldn't have done half of the shit naruto did.