When we first met Naruto he was an under dog and unlikely hero. No self control, no family to speak of and no past. All we knew was everyone hated him cause I was forced to have a demon inside him.
Fast forward to now. Turns out his Dad was the 4th Hokage, his mom was a pretty good ninja in her own right, he's from a really powerful Uzimaki clan, basically every Hokage except the 3rd is related to him in some way. All the major role players (Nagato, Sasuke, Madara, Harshirama) are basically his cousins an this is all part of one elaborately large family feud which Naruto was destined to solve. Jiraiy is basically is grandfather (technically is god father) if I didn't mention that.
So far if a charter doesn't have a connection to Naruto no matter how distant they no longer matter to the story (i.e. Konoha 11, everyone else from the other villages) they have a minor or no role at all.
With all that said he's not any kind of under dog anymore. In fact nothing happens in Naruto that doesn't impact him now. He's more important to Konoha than the actual Hokage is now. For the most part he is Hokage in everything but title. The whole village counts on him and the Hokage in fact the whole world counts on him instead of the Kages.
Fast forward to now. Turns out his Dad was the 4th Hokage, his mom was a pretty good ninja in her own right, he's from a really powerful Uzimaki clan, basically every Hokage except the 3rd is related to him in some way. All the major role players (Nagato, Sasuke, Madara, Harshirama) are basically his cousins an this is all part of one elaborately large family feud which Naruto was destined to solve. Jiraiy is basically is grandfather (technically is god father) if I didn't mention that.
So far if a charter doesn't have a connection to Naruto no matter how distant they no longer matter to the story (i.e. Konoha 11, everyone else from the other villages) they have a minor or no role at all.
With all that said he's not any kind of under dog anymore. In fact nothing happens in Naruto that doesn't impact him now. He's more important to Konoha than the actual Hokage is now. For the most part he is Hokage in everything but title. The whole village counts on him and the Hokage in fact the whole world counts on him instead of the Kages.