Lilt
Jōnin Strategist 🧠
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
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"To be a genius without a bloodline is superior."
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This is always a silly point to me, because even geniuses like Kabuto or Minato were born extraordinarily intelligent, which is a definite unfair advantage, and either the result of a bloodline filled with intelligence, or just blind chance. They were blessed with the ability to perceive more and make a greater amount of connections with the information received. Every genius in Naruto has an unfair advantage from birth, be it immediate of latent potential, and in that context, they are all equal. The element of luck and blind chance is everpresent, from before birth all the way to death, and the purpose of this thread can be summed up in six words: fairness has no role in genius.
"The Sharingan in particular is a distinctly unfair advantage."
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Realistically, if an individual in the real world were to have the Sharingan, then their IQ would be considered immeasurable and over 200, as they could master sports, arts, or games in a matter of minutes due to eidetic memory and flawless pattern decoding and mirroring. However, it's largely ignored that the Sharingan was stated by Sasuke to have been a very rare gift among the Uchiha clan. So in a sense, the Uchiha clan can give birth to the traditional super-geniuses, as well as unintelligent children with latent potential to be super-geniuses, such as Obito, or the extremely rare combination of both—which is just a luckier draw on the genius-lottery. I don't see why people consider latent potential to be unfair, however, and the initial birth to be fairgame in the context of geniuses. If anything, the latent potentials would be closer to hardwork than the born geniuses, and thus be more admirable within the context of the part one theme.
"Ninja that invent their own powers are more admirable."
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Understand this: all of the great ninja more or less adopted and improved upon the abilities of their forefathers or peers, and it's foolish to assume that they plucked their revelations out of thin air. For instance, Minato's Hiraishin and arsenal was a result of Uzamaki fūinjutsu influences. Kabuto's arsenal was a result of Orochimaru's kinjutsu influences. Sasori's arsenal was a result of Chiyo's puppetry influence. Sasuke's arsenal was a result of Kakashi raiton influences, etc. The reason each generation surpasses the last is because they build upon one another, not because of an inherent superiority. We simply have marginal knowledge of the forefathers given the manga's timeframe, but it's a virtual certainty that they didn't invent jutsu technology out of thin air either. When a genius is born without access to clan techniques and masters, be it Nara or Uchiha, they adopt the closest available "clan" to learn from. All of them did so, because it is only natural for those with high learning potentials that thirst for knowledge.
To be born with genius and masters, or to stumble upon them: unfair!
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Answer: both involve blind, unfair luck. And they are equal in that sense.
The greatest ninja of them all, regardless of chance?
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Maito Gai. Born with nothing, handed nothing, and molded through constant mediocrity. Failure granted him strength. Defeat granted him victory. More than any other ninja, Gai stands as a bastion of what bad luck can bring. In a perfect world, everybody would admire Gai, as he's the closest thing to inspiration involving the triumph of the human spirit that this manga offers. Individuals like Itachi do not exist. Nobody has both super-genius and magic eyes. Yet in Gai, there is hope for humanity in the most holistic sense, regardless of chance or advantage in nature or nurture.
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