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The problem is not about Madara "dying" or “being defeated” here, or even necessarily “being usurped”. ". I always knew that he would be defeated eventually, as we all did. It was the disgustingly abysmal writing and the way Kishimoto just more or less erased him entirely from the manga, replacing him with this generic, personality-less retcon of a character who is not only the new supposed main villain, but who only had a presence in the manga 5 chapters before last week. Though I do still believe he will make a comeback and be the one to stab that third eye out, thus weakening her enough for her to be sealed (he has to get closure; even after this week I have difficulty believing the story can be that awful), the treatment he received was abysmal and even people who despise him must acknowledge this.
Madara was a firmly established villain with a very solid foundation, consistent and gradual character development, intimate ties to everyone and everything in the story, a presence that has permeated the plot since Part 1 (over 400 chapters now), a clear motive, significant control over all of the other villains without the slightest hint of there being more beyond him, a pro-active as opposed to a reactionary agenda, an ideology and a drive that perfectly paralleled the main hero while having a place that paralleled the anti-hero, and as a symbol he was exactly who the two heroes needed to defeat to amend their differences and bring everything full circle. He was also someone who temporarily killed off the two heroes and actually succeeded in his plan to rule the world, if only for a chapter. Despite however he may have behaved in between and whatever ridiculous outfit he wore, he was a force to be reckoned with and his act is a nigh-impossible one to follow. Whatever you thought of him, whether you hated or loved him, his role in the manga was solid, gradual, developed, and well-established. It made sense, and was foreseeable as far back as when Obito first claimed to be him.
Kaguya has...none of that. Just none of it. She was first mentioned 30 chapters ago, in passing, a myth only to help explain the creation of Narutoverse. Less than 10 chapters ago, she was brought up again, this time with an altered story (despite the same person telling it, as the RS wrote the tablet Madara spoke of) and a very nonsensical malicious agenda. Five chapters ago, she had her first line, but was quickly dropped again. She has NO foundation or establishment in the manga whatsoever. She has NO character development, NO ties to anyone in the story that are remotely significant, NO presence, NO motive that makes any sense, NO hints of ever having controlled anyone before now, NO logical agenda, NO parallels to either hero, and symbolically she is utterly meaningless. All to say nothing of the fact that she just has NO personality or substance as a character (and please don't even start on how it is great that she is female when the one of the first things she talks about upon returning is taking care of her nursery). And of course, how can her villainry top killing the heroes and taking over the world? It can’t. She just took the place of someone who already took over the world. How are we supposed to remotely care about this person? Villains might be villains but they still ought to have some development. Kishimoto has always been a very big fan of developing his villains, so this sudden lack of characterization in someone who he claims is the big bad is troubling and unsuitable for the Naruto manga.
To further complicate matters, she doesn't even make sense. Despite her story being changed, in both versions she was still someone who initially ate the shinju's fruit to end war. Now, somehow, she was the voice of the shinju and is implied to be the juubi itself, even though the juubi was well-established as a force of nature and the tree that Kaguya ate the fruit from. The entire fabric of the universe's logic is based on her angering the shinju/juubi; how can she suddenly be it? Maybe she isn't and this is a big fan misinterpretation, but the story is extremely difficult to understand here (I have never seen a good explanation) and given the intended audience of the manga, it should not be as such (yes, we ought to wait for an explanation, but if not a single individual seems to be able to make proper sense of it before a reveal, there is a problem). And somehow she is supposed to represent total war and true evil? Really, Kishi? No. It existed before her! She tried to do good, screwed up, and lost her shit! She is not remotely special in terms of being villainous in that regard. In fact, she just lost her shit according to the RS; she didn't even think about it and gradually become warped by life and ideologies!
Her plan is bizarre, retconned, and illogical to the point of making one uncomfortable. Did she ever actually perform MT? It was implied as such, but according to legend she existed before a moon, so this was not plausible. And who is she building an army for? She has the entire human race under her power. What kind of army would she need? Is this manga really moving into outer space? That's...embarrassingly random and entirely uncalled for. How can you even take this seriously? And how are the white Zetsus her army if they were already established to be imperfect clones of Hashirama, if they first appeared on this planet when Madara joined his Hashirama DNA to the Gedo? That's severely problematic.
Her only valid tie to the current cast at all is the Indra/Ashura reincarnation connection, one that she didn't even recognize! How's that for being connected to the heroes? Never mind that she was supposedly ****ing with Madara's will (ambiguous as to how deeply) despite being confused about the idea of Indra having successors (which means that either she's dumb as bricks or she can't possibly have had anything to do with Madara's actions). And what about her being Black Zetsu all of a sudden? Black Zetsu who had Madara's personality despite barely ever coming into contact with him, who was too weak to fight Minato or Kakashi? And speaking of weakness, I'm not quite sure how Madara could casually absorb the juubi, shinju and all (which had already killed and absorbed the power of thousands of shinobi) but couldn't handle the collective chakra of other non-RS-relevant humans. How did Black Zetsu/Kaguya manage to weaken him like that?
It is utterly impossible to compare this to the Madara-Obito scenario, as Madara was hinted at as an important character even before Kakashi Gaiden and Obito pretended to be him for 200+ chapters. Yes, Madara was the shadowy figure of legend who stepped forward when the time was right, but he had an established place in the manga from as far back as Part 1 (and being directly paralleled to the anti-hero, thus creating an early connection), already had a significantly-developed story long before he emerged as an Edo, had another major character actively pretending to be him on panel for years who was able to build him up for us, etc... And even then, years passed between his arrival as an Edo Tensei and his step over Obito into power. Madara may have been a terror of legend, but he still had a real presence throughout much of the manga that was reiterated and built upon time and again; the same can not be said for Kaguya on any level. The idea of Kaguya suddenly being the one behind everything is entirely incomparable, and it's bizarre that anyone might claim it's similar.
There is also no point in waiting to "give her a chance". It is too late for that. This is the endgame. You can't drastically change things this much this late in the story. When you are writing something for 15 years, it's necessary to weave someone as critical as the main villain into the plot for years and years, to develop them, to make us care about them, to make us aware of their potential existence. I see many people making jokes about how this is like a Final Fantasy game, but...even the last-minute turnovers in video games are monsters/people discussed regularly throughout the story. Backtracking to tell us that she was always the juubi or, as some claim, the death god, doesn't cut it. I know some people are fine with this kind of writing but it really is not acceptable.
It would be stupid enough if the juubi, staying a mindless and wrathful beast, managed to overpower Madara and rampage. However, that would at least make sense given what we know about bijuu (even if it had a mind and a personality, this would make sense!). It wouldn't require extensive retcons. It wouldn't require a near-erasure of a heavily developed character. This was a scenario that, while not exactly good, was at least in keeping with the logic of the universe, was slightly foreshadowed (at least with the idea of jinns loosing control), and didn't do unbelievable disservice to the characters involved (because really, this is doing everyone a disservice)
Trying to say that the juubi is actually this person Kaguya (which makes little sense due to the matter of the shinju anyway) doesn't explain away the fact that this character came out of nowhere. If Kishi wanted to make the juubi the big villain, he should have kept the juubi as the juubi. He shouldn't have randomly tried to give them a human body and personality (that has its own very human story) last-minute. Any hint of the juubi being "final villain", real or imagined, does not indicate any foreshadowing of Kaguya being a player in this game more than 10 chapters ago.
If you could have looked at the manga three years ago, two years ago, even just a year ago, and said "Yes, clearly the main villain is this Kaguya, an alien woman who desires to turn the entire human race into her private army, perhaps for a space battle." then maybe you'd have a point. Even if you didn't know her name, you'd have a point. Unfortunately, this is not something anyone could possibly have predicted without some heavy drugs. Believe it or not, there is a difference between a surprise twist and a total asspull. There were plenty of surprise twists in this manga that angered people, caught them off guard, but the majority had been hinted at, foreshadowed, for years, and they actually had substance and ties to the story's other themes and characters. But this? No.
Don't try to tell me she was planned (and by "planned", I mean at least one year in advance; this manga is from the '90s. Saying "oh Kishi hinted at this a month ago!" is a joke). Don't try to tell me she wasn't a last-minute retcon designed very recently solely because Kishi didn't know how to deal with Madara. If you think that, if you think this is honestly "good writing", you're a total fool. There is no hope for you. You're the type of apologist who thinks there is no such thing as objectively terrible writing, who tries to force their speshul snowflake syndrome into the literary realm. Just accept it. This isn't about "being right". This isn't about being fans or haters of one character or another. This is about what is and isn't acceptable in a work of fiction, and Kishi has crossed a line here unprecedented in anything I have ever seen. I don't pretend to be a great author by any means, and even I could have found a dozen ways to work with things without this joke of a Deus Ex Machina. I'm sure many of us could.
So no. This is not "just about" Madara dying or randomly being usurped. It's not even "just about" Madara. It's about the fact that the author just threw who was clearly intended to be the main villain of the series into the shredder because he admitted he didn't know how to handle him and in doing so, compromising the very fabric of his universe's logic, the messages and themes he was trying to represent in this story, and the entire story itself. Kishi has just destroyed his manga, and he destroyed it with Kaguya. There is no getting around this. Yes, I am a Madara fan. Yes, I am wildly in love with him and this broke my heart last week. And yes, I am also a literature fan. I am a fan of stories. And here is a story that I have invested five years of my life in that the author just utterly destroyed for no reason. I can honestly say that this has offended and hurt. Yes, it's his story, and yes, he can do what he wants, but there comes a point when a story becomes so big that it belongs to more than just you. All authors know this. It's the nature of writing. Kishi doesn’t seem to care though. Even if this had nothing to do with my favorite character being destroyed, I’d be utterly baffled at this sudden turn of events and the author’s behavior and treatment of his own creation. Maybe this is just the casual author in my speaking, but it’s utterly surreal.
He abruptly turned the manga around in the end game and it’s rapidly becoming some bizarre ghost-family space-odyssey where the main themes of the story that have been with us since the Land of Waves are no longer relevant and where established characters that he doesn’t know how to handle anymore are literally just erased.
I feel betrayed by Kishimoto here, as we all should, regardless of our character fandoms, regardless of who we root for or who we hate, because in the end, we are all fans of Naruto, and the manga we know and love is gone forever.
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