just so everyone knows, i am not as bothered by the subject, as by the lack of admittance regarding the obvious facts. I will hypothesize about the naruto turn of events and hidden meanings as much as, if not more than, the next guy. but what starts to get to me is when some of you continue to bicker over things that are ridiculously unlikely and highly improbable. or something that has already been explained and reexplained by the writer over and over! kishi himself has led us to understand that tobi is madara. no amount of bickering or speculating is going to change him into someone else. like was stated before by boobie220, the only person other than madara who could be tobi, is someone we DONT YET KNOW and HAVE NOT MET. he can not possibly be someone who we have already been introduced to, it is just NOT possible....well other than his brother Izuna I guess...and if you want to guess that it is him, then I probably wouldnt argue with you, because it's not entirely insane to think its him.
if you really want to speculate in the narutoverse as it stands, then speculate on ACTUAL mysteries(something without a "mountain of evidence"). for example: how will madara finally meet his doom and who will be the one to do it? will sasuke die or will he finally be freed of his dark passenger and live happily ever after? will naruto really become the hokage as he as dreamed about since chapter 1 or will he die as a tragic hero, saving the world from calamity?
or if you choose to be more specific or detail oriented...
who is zetsu and what is his relationship to madara? what have we learned about him that we could use to identify the hidden information?
how will using edo tensei so aggressively come back to bite kabuto in the snake butt?
i personally love the discussion about who is in the elusive "sixth" edo coffin that kabuto used to shock madara and ply his way into the akatsuki? I have changed my mind multiple times about that. kishi is such an excellent writer that he has left the door open for our minds to wander and wonder about the possibilities.
however, when it comes down to the identity of the man in the mask identified as tobi...
i really don't see any point in discussing it... is there a chance its someone other than madara? of course! there is almost always a chance of just about anything, thats part of the fun of a make believe world that exists only in the mind of one man who slowly shares his vision of that world with us.
yet this mystery has been solved already, imo. when tobi first hit the scene we didnt even know that madara was supposedly still alive. so of course tobi's identity was a total mystery, the mask was appropriate and even his actions and voice disguised him from the people closest to him. (like kisame for example, he had met madara in the past, but even he didnt realize that tobi was madara). We didnt learn about madara until much later in the story, and then only later after that were tobi and madara associated as being the same individual.
so like i've explained countless times, this mystery is over.
if youre wondering to yourself "well, why does he still wear a mask if the mystery of his identity is over?" i will tell you.
he wears a mask for much the same reason as any villian wears a mask whose identity is not in need of protection. (which madara's identity does not need protection anymore. he has blatantly admitted who he is to some of the most powerful characters in the narutoverse and others have figured it out on their own because of his abilities.)
he wears a mask to protect his face, and hide its deformity....
if you look closely and carefully at his fight with konan, after she destroys part of his mask and he uses izangi, you will notice that his concelead left eye and the surrounding tissue is damaged ( most likely through overuse/continual use of izangi, a forbidden jutsu)
you could even speculate that he wears his mask for much the same reason as kakashi, to protect his sharingan/izanagi eye.
you'll note that when he had only sharingans, he wore a mask with one hole only.
now that he has a sharingan and the rinnengan, he is wearing a mask with two holes.
let me reiterate how pointless a mask is for madara.
even if he went mask-less, WHO would recognize him? its not like his features are so discerning that he could be identified easily by ever little nugget who manages to look at him without being killed....everyone who would have known him without a mask should be DEAD. why would he even care if they did identify him? at this point, hiding his identity is a moot point.
anyways, ive contradicted myself in this post and have rambled on long enough. let me end with this: my mind is open to possibilities, but not stupid ones...ya dig?
