Something i'm incredibly tired of/Explanation

[itsxtrayy]

I'm incredibly tired of people saying "Of course Naruto and Sasuke have to be nerfed otherwise they would one shot" people who say this don't understand basic storytelling just ignore them. Allow me to explain some things I learned by taking writing courses in college. If an author has to nerf their characters especially in their sequel there wasn't a worthwhile story to tell in the first place. Gaiden is INHERENTLY FLAWED. If he just focused on the kids, no threats could arise that we wouldn't expect Naruto and Sasuke to be able to handle easily thus making the kids irrelevant. If he focuses on Naruto and Sasuke he has to nerf them for the plot to work which is a clear sign of bad writing and an author out of ideas. This is better explained on tv tropes. It's a trope called Story-Breaker Power. "Explanation in the spoiler tag."

Spoiler

This is a common problem for sequels of works that end with the protagonist unlocking their full power. Once they get too much power they win the Superpower Lottery and become godlike, or worse, Suelike. On the other hand, a simple or limited power can lead to viewers asking "Why don't they just use his power of X to do Y and stop the bad guy/get the MacGuffin?". In order to challenge the protagonist the writers will have to ramp up the villain's power, find a way to otherwise remove or sideline them, Depower them or at least reduce it to more reasonable levels, take away their weapons, or give them a Drama-Preserving Handicap of some sort. Otherwise, the character will be Too Powerful to Live. The easiest way to tell if this trope is in effect is when the writer resorts to handing the protagonist the Idiot Ball and Forgot About His Powers to keep the character from using their powers in a straightforward way.

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In character driven stories the CHARACTERS are what drive the plot forward, things happen because the characters make them happen and because of actions followed by consequences the "plot" doesn't dictate what characters do, the characters make the plot happen not the other way around. If things happen "because of plot" that's called BAD WRITING. It gives the story an inauthentic feeling, like things are only happening because they have to happen and not because the characters make them happen. You never want this.

For example, Sasuke can and has used Susanoo to protect people in the past, but he doesn't use it to protect his own daughter? He doesn't know how deadly those knives are they could of gone right through him and killed Sarada. Kishimoto had to contrive a way to show Sasuke's feelings for Sarada after almost killing her last chapter, and he had to set-up Sakura's introduction by having those knives paralyze Sasuke. Therefore, Sasuke doesn't use Susanoo "because of plot" even though it was his most logical course of action. Overall, this is just a SMALL EXAMPLE (so don't dwell on it in replies), but there are dozens of examples like this all throughout the Naruto story, the most glaring action ones concern Madara, but the more egregious ones involve the very foundations of the story and Obito. So when people tell me Naruto is well written or a masterpiece I just laugh.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Naruto and think it's entertaining, that's why I continue to read it but well written? Not in a million years.

 

[Fateh Muhammad khan]

So much truth in one thread. Wow. This is EXACTLY whats wrong with naruto gaiden. Nothing makes sense and we're just supposed to go with it "because plot". When kishi started this manga, we saw flashes of brilliance with te smallest actions at the start leading to a huge plot twist at the end. But after a while he just ran out of ideas.

 

[Anime Godd]

I'm incredibly tired of people saying "Of course Naruto and Sasuke have to be nerfed otherwise they would one shot" people who say this don't understand basic storytelling just ignore them. Allow me to explain some things I learned by taking writing courses in college. If an author has to nerf their characters especially in their sequel there wasn't a worthwhile story to tell in the first place. Gaiden is INHERENTLY FLAWED. If he just focused on the kids, no threats could arise that we wouldn't expect Naruto and Sasuke to be able to handle easily thus making the kids irrelevant. If he focuses on Naruto and Sasuke he has to nerf them for the plot to work which is a clear sign of bad writing and an author out of ideas. This is better explained on tv tropes. It's a trope called Story-Breaker Power. "Explanation in the spoiler tag."

Spoiler

This is a common problem for sequels of works that end with the protagonist unlocking their full power. Once they get too much power they win the Superpower Lottery and become godlike, or worse, Suelike. On the other hand, a simple or limited power can lead to viewers asking "Why don't they just use his power of X to do Y and stop the bad guy/get the MacGuffin?". In order to challenge the protagonist the writers will have to ramp up the villain's power, find a way to otherwise remove or sideline them, Depower them or at least reduce it to more reasonable levels, take away their weapons, or give them a Drama-Preserving Handicap of some sort. Otherwise, the character will be Too Powerful to Live. The easiest way to tell if this trope is in effect is when the writer resorts to handing the protagonist the Idiot Ball and Forgot About His Powers to keep the character from using their powers in a straightforward way.

Read more:

You must be registered for see links

In character driven stories the CHARACTERS are what drive the plot forward, things happen because the characters make them happen and because of actions followed by consequences the "plot" doesn't dictate what characters do, the characters make the plot happen not the other way around. If things happen "because of plot" that's called BAD WRITING. It gives the story an inauthentic feeling, like things are only happening because they have to happen and not because the characters make them happen. You never want this.

For example, Sasuke can and has used Susanoo to protect people in the past, but he doesn't use it to protect his own daughter? He doesn't know how deadly those knives are they could of gone right through him and killed Sarada. Kishimoto had to contrive a way to show Sasuke's feelings for Sarada after almost killing her last chapter, and he had to set-up Sakura's introduction by having those knives paralyze Sasuke. Therefore, Sasuke doesn't use Susanoo "because of plot" even though it was his most logical course of action. Overall, this is just a SMALL EXAMPLE (so don't dwell on it in replies), but there are dozens of examples like this all throughout the Naruto story, the most glaring action ones concern Madara, but the more egregious ones involve the very foundations of the story and Obito. So when people tell me Naruto is well written or a masterpiece I just laugh.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Naruto and think it's entertaining, that's why I continue to read it but well written? Not in a million years.

He should have stopped at the pein arc a lot of stuff after that was an asspull if you think this is a masterpiece then you are probably one of those people who would be impressed by reading a Curious George Book

 

[Fateh Muhammad khan]

He should have stopped at the pein arc a lot of stuff after that was an asspull if you think this is a masterpiece then you are probably one of those people who would be impressed by reading a Curious George Book

Yep. I'd say everything after that was just *vomits*
Especially the obito crap -_-

 

[itsxtrayy]

He should have stopped at the pein arc a lot of stuff after that was an asspull if you think this is a masterpiece then you are probably one of those people who would be impressed by reading a Curious George Book

I agree the pein arc was great, I have minor quibble's with it, but it's arguably the best arc in the whole story. Naruto truly grew as a character in that arc. And yeah the war arc introduced A LOT of problems and it dragged wayyy too long.

 

[Anime Godd]

I agree the pein arc was great, I have minor quibble's with it, but it's arguably the best arc in the whole story. Naruto truly grew as a character in that arc. And yeah the war arc introduced A LOT of problems and it dragged wayyy too long.

What I think Kishi tried to do and failed miserably at is develop too many cahracters at once that were irrelevant I mean most of the war if you think about it was a filler

 

[Angelic.]

gaiden is pretty pointless lol

 

[Veggie the Tormentor]

TLDR.

They gotta capture these fodder to know about the threat.

 

[chaos control]

He should have stopped at the pein arc a lot of stuff after that was an asspull if you think this is a masterpiece then you are probably one of those people who would be impressed by reading a Curious George Book

I've always hated hearing people say that he should have stopped at Pain! How the heck would that even make sense? So many things would have been wrong with that:

For starters,

1. Obito would have still been alive (and still with identity in secret).
2. Zetsu would have still been alive.
3. Kisame would have still been alive.
4. Kabuto would have still been alive and active with Orochimaru's power.
5. Issues with Sasuke would not have been resolved. He was still in the crush Konoha phase at the time of Pain's battle.

Do you really think those first 3 people would have just up and stopped all of their work with akautski just because Nagato died (when they had already had plenty of members die to begin with)?

How would you justify Kishi just ending the series with Kabutomaru running around most likely experimenting on people and plotting against Konoha?

Do you really think that Sasuke (the 2nd main character after Naruto) would just be forgotten and get no resolution?

Here are some more problems:
6. Naruto had not yet mastered Kurama's power.
7. Naruto had not yet met Kushina
8. Naruto had not brought peace to the ninja world or become hokage yet.

Now think about number 6: Before the fight with Pain, we had previously seen Bee demonstrate the power of a perfect jinchuuriki against Sasuke. Even part 1 Gaara, despite not being a perfect jinchuuriki, had at least transformed fully into his beast! Having shown us this, why on Earth would Kishi end the series on a note where the main character was clearly lacking in terms of the power that he could have had, and he hadn't even truly mastered the true potential he had within him? At that time we hadn't even gotten to see Naruto go all 9 tails! He only went 8 in the fight with Pain! A hero is ultimately supposed to reach their true potential.

Number 7: Naruto met Minato in that fight, but not Kushina! It wouldn't have made any sense at all for Kishi to reveal one of the main character's parents and not the other when the main character had longed to meet his parents since he was born!

Number 8: This one is obvious! Since day 1 Naruto had been shouting to the heavens that he was going to become hokage! It would be just plain wrong for the series to end without him becoming it!

There are still more problems to come:

9. What of the eternal mangekyou sharingan? That had already been introduced to us by Itachi and it was pretty much foreshadowed that Sasuke would eventually get it. If the series ended at Pain, then we wouldn't have gotten EMS Sasuke. A foreshadow would have been wasted.

10. I already touched on how Obito was still alive, but there is also the fact that he took the guise of Madara. At the time of the Pain battle, we had been introduced to the character of Madara (even if it was Obito in disguise). If the series ended at Pain, then we would have had this hyped character that we got an introduction to and it would have all been wasted! Not to mention the fact that even Kurama referenced Madara early in part 2 when he encountered Sasuke!

11. We didn't even definitively know akautski's goal at the time! Sure Nagato brought up that bijuu weapon plan, but did you really believe that this was Madara's (Obito's) true agenda! When explaining this plan to Naruto, Nagato even referenced a lot of stuff about understanding pain (which was clearly a hint that this goal was really just Nagato's and not akautski's real goal)! Even Nagato throughout the series had been inconsistent in how he described his plan (as he had told Hidan earlier that the goal was to become the sole center of shinobi labor and get all the income or something like that).

Conclusion: People complain that the series after the Pain arc started declining in the quality of writing, but ending it at the Pain arc would have been one of the worst writing decisions he could have made!

 

[Anime Godd]

I've always hated hearing people say that he should have stopped at Pain! How the heck would that even make sense? So many things would have been wrong with that:

For starters,

1. Obito would have still been alive (and still with identity in secret).
2. Zetsu would have still been alive.
3. Kisame would have still been alive.
4. Kabuto would have still been alive and active with Orochimaru's power.
5. Issues with Sasuke would not have been resolved. He was still in the crush Konoha phase at the time of Pain's battle.

Do you really think those first 3 people would have just up and stopped all of their work with akautski just because Nagato died (when they had already had plenty of members die to begin with)?

How would you justify Kishi just ending the series with Kabutomaru running around most likely experimenting on people and plotting against Konoha?

Do you really think that Sasuke (the 2nd main character after Naruto) would just be forgotten and get no resolution?

Here are some more problems:
6. Naruto had not yet mastered Kurama's power.
7. Naruto had not yet met Kushina
8. Naruto had not brought peace to the ninja world or become hokage yet.

Now think about number 6: Before the fight with Pain, we had previously seen Bee demonstrate the power of a perfect jinchuuriki against Sasuke. Even part 1 Gaara, despite not being a perfect jinchuuriki, had at least transformed fully into his beast! Having shown us this, why on Earth would Kishi end the series on a note where the main character was clearly lacking in terms of the power that he could have had, and he hadn't even truly mastered the true potential he had within him? At that time we hadn't even gotten to see Naruto go all 9 tails! He only went 8 in the fight with Pain! A hero is ultimately supposed to reach their true potential.

Number 7: Naruto met Minato in that fight, but not Kushina! It wouldn't have made any sense at all for Kishi to reveal one of the main character's parents and not the other when the main character had longed to meet his parents since he was born!

Number 8: This one is obvious! Since day 1 Naruto had been shouting to the heavens that he was going to become hokage! It would be just plain wrong for the series to end without him becoming it!

There are still more problems to come:

9. What of the eternal mangekyou sharingan? That had already been introduced to us by Itachi and it was pretty much foreshadowed that Sasuke would eventually get it. If the series ended at Pain, then we wouldn't have gotten EMS Sasuke. A foreshadow would have been wasted.

10. I already touched on how Obito was still alive, but there is also the fact that he took the guise of Madara. At the time of the Pain battle, we had been introduced to the character of Madara (even if it was Obito in disguise). If the series ended at Pain, then we would have had this hyped character that we got an introduction to and it would have all been wasted! Not to mention the fact that even Kurama referenced Madara early in part 2 when he encountered Sasuke!

11. We didn't even definitively know akautski's goal at the time! Sure Nagato brought up that bijuu weapon plan, but did you really believe that this was Madara's (Obito's) true agenda! When explaining this plan to Naruto, Nagato even referenced a lot of stuff about understanding pain (which was clearly a hint that this goal was really just Nagato's and not akautski's real goal)! Even Nagato throughout the series had been inconsistent in how he described his plan (as he had told Hidan earlier that the goal was to become the sole center of shinobi labor and get all the income or something like that).

Conclusion: People complain that the series after the Pain arc started declining in the quality of writing, but ending it at the Pain arc would have been one of the worst writing decisions he could have made!

Most of the shit you named could have went about another way or just been cut out completely
1. Obito was not needed he was easily defeated and it would have avoided the war arc
2. Could have been killed along with pein
3. Akautski could have disbanded after their leader was murdered
4. Could have been avoided Sasuke could have just wiped him out after defeating Itachi or after defeating oro
5. That could have ended the series Naruto fighting Sasuke and one of them dying or coming to an agreement
6. Could have trained with bee learned to master it then fight sasuke
7. Could have met her when he was training with bee to fight sasuke or when he fought against pein
8. Could have still ended with him becoming hokage
9. Still could have learned about it through kabuto and kabuto could have took Itachi's eyes and Sasuke transplant them after they fight
10. Like I said obito could have been cut out completely
11. This could have been cut out as well not that big a deal

Everything after the pein arc was an asspull completely I mean the power scales jumped dramatically also if he didn't make Naruto and Sasuke Demi Gods he could have made another serious without nerfing the characters it's just bad writing on Kishi's part ending at the pein arc means that everything after that was pointless he could have made Naruto and Sasuke team up but like a gradual team up like Madara and Hashi and made them fight over and over like Hashi and Maddy the serious was rushed and the war arc was a terrible arc

 

[chaos control]

Most of the shit you named could have went about another way or just been cut out completely
1. Obito was not needed he was easily defeated and it would have avoided the war arc
2. Could have been killed along with pein
3. Akautski could have disbanded after their leader was murdered
4. Could have been avoided Sasuke could have just wiped him out after defeating Itachi or after defeating oro
5. That could have ended the series Naruto fighting Sasuke and one of them dying or coming to an agreement
6. Could have trained with bee learned to master it then fight sasuke
7. Could have met her when he was training with bee to fight sasuke or when he fought against pein
8. Could have still ended with him becoming hokage
9. Still could have learned about it through kabuto and kabuto could have took Itachi's eyes and Sasuke transplant them after they fight
10. Like I said obito could have been cut out completely
11. This could have been cut out as well not that big a deal

Everything after the pein arc was an asspull completely I mean the power scales jumped dramatically also if he didn't make Naruto and Sasuke Demi Gods he could have made another serious without nerfing the characters it's just bad writing on Kishi's part ending at the pein arc means that everything after that was pointless he could have made Naruto and Sasuke team up but like a gradual team up like Madara and Hashi and made them fight over and over like Hashi and Maddy the serious was rushed and the war arc was a terrible arc

I disagree whole heartedly with what you said.

1. Obito (as Madara) was already introduced, so it would have been too late to just cut him out. Plus he was one of the strongest characters in the manga, so no he couldn't just be defeated easily! Heck, Naruto wasn't even able to touch pre-jinchuuriki Obito without having Kakashi's help (due to Kamui)! Obito has also defeated S-rank shinobi such as Konan and multiple anbus. Therefore, he is not weak as you say! Also, the war was epic!!

2. Why would Zetsu have just randomly been killed with Pain? He was watching the battle from afar, but he wasn't really on the battlefield and he wasn't really a battle type! It wouldn't make sense for him to just randomly jump in and get killed!

3. They had 7 bijuus! Leader or not, you don't just drop what you are doing just because one person dies after you have come so far! Also, where would they have gone? Home? Kisame was a missing nin! He was an S-ranked criminal! Surely he wouldn't have just given up all of his hopes and dreams with akautski! If he had done that, he'd have nothing left! He would have continued to do something nefarious even if it just boiled down to attacking Konoha to avenge Pain.

4. Sasuke had no reason to seek out and/or kill Kabuto. He defeated Orochimaru because Sasuke no longer had need for Orochimaru and he knew that Orochimaru was after his body. Kabuto wasn't even on the scene when Sasuke beat Itachi. If anything Sasuke would have been more interested in seeking out and killing Madara (Obito) since Itachi revealed that "Madara" helped him carry out the massacre. Alternatively, he would have just kept straight on the crush Konoha path since Obito revealed the truth about Itachi.

5.We'd still need a good way to get to that point.

6.Naruto only met Bee due to the fact that he was transported to turtle island in order to be kept out of the impending war. Therefore, no war arc = Naruto doesn't meet Bee. What other circumstances would those two have had to possibly meet. Even if you say something like, "Kumo gets mad at Konoha because of Sasuke's attack and decides to invade Konoha. As that happens, Bee shows up in Konoha and that is how he meets Naruto" that scenario would still involve somewhat of a war (just a war over a different issue). Either way, this would still require going beyond just Pain.

7. True
8. True
9. Like I said, Kabuto wasn't even on the scene in the Sasuke/Itachi fight when EMS was introduced. Sasuke never cared about Kabuto until he and Itachi had to fight him in the war. Sasuke would have had no reason to seek out Kabuto, nor would he have just automatically known the whereabouts or activities of Kabuto. Therefore, Sasuke going to Kabuto would just be random and illogical! Not to mention that, Sasuke had killed Kabuto's idol Orochimaru, so Sasuke would be stupid to think that Kabuto would even agree to do the eye transplant for him.

10. Like I said, Madara had already been referenced, hyped and introduced! Even Kurama referenced him early on!

11. In what literature is the primary goal of the main antagonistic force not a big deal?!

Anyway, most of the solutions you listed would still involve going beyond the Pain arc.

Sasuke seeking out Kabuto to get EMS
Bee somehow meeting and training Naruto
Naruto and Sasuke fighting and coming up to some agreement (or teaming up gradually as you later said)

All of the above things would require some detail and more plot beyond the Pain arc. Therefore, even your proposed solutions only serve to prove my point that it wouldn't make sense to end things at the pain arc!

Finally, the powerups were not "asspulls" as you say! They were all actually foreshadowed and there was plot progression towards them!

There was a whole arc about Naruto training to master Kurama's chakara and get KCM (the confining the jinchuuriki arc). All that time spent on turtle island, fighting dark Naruto, fighting Kurama, meeting Kushina, etc... lead up to Naruto getting KCM.

Bijuu mode was slowly being progressed towards soon after that. Starting from the time when Naruto said to Kurama "Some day I'm going to eliminate the hatred in your heart too" all the way through the time that Kurama willingly gave Naruto chakara against Madara and shouted "Go Naruto" or the time when Naruto said "Being bonded to a bijuu is not all bad", and so fourth, we were slowly but surely seeing Naruto and Kurama's bond progress. Therefore it was natural that this progression culminated in bijuu mode!

BSM to be honest was just plain expected from the time Naruto even got KCM! People (myself included) had long been saying that Naruto should combine Kurama's chakara with sage mode.

As for RSM, it is true that Hagoromo's appearance just kind of came out of nowhere, but the power was gradually built towards anyway. Ever since Naruto's fight with Obito's six paths of pain, Naruto had already begun gathering the bijuu chakaras. Hagoromo even appeared inside of Naruto (which made the juubi afraid). It should have been obvious that Naruto was going to get some rikudou level power up!

Sasuke's powerups were built towards as well.

It was natural that Sasuke awakened the MS due to his grief over Itachi. MS was already introduced in part 1, so that was nowhere near an "asspull". It was probably expected that Sasuke would awaken it eventually.

Itachi introduced EMS to us just before the battle began and Obito asked Sasuke after the battle if he wanted Itachi's eyes. It was clear upon introduction that EMS was in Sasuke's future.

It became clear that rinnegan was in Sasuke's future the moment Madara revealed his own rinnegan in chapter 560 and when it was revealed that Madara had Hashirama's DNA! Even though we didn't know about the whole Indra and Asura thing at the time, many people were still at least able to instantly theorize that EMS + Senju DNA = rinnegan at that time. We all knew Sasuke was getting it. We just didn't know when he'd get it and where he'd get the DNA from.

Conclusion: You may be a power hater, but just because something is powerful does not make it an "asspull"! Also, the war was epic! Great plot! Great characters! Great battles/power/action! It was the best part of the manga!

I don't know why people hate power so much!