In Defense of Talk no Jutsu (Hope and Hypocrisy in Naruto)

there's one aspect of Naruto that was explored brilliantly over the course of the entire series one motif that remained consistent throughout for some it's the worst part of Naruto for others it's a big meme for me it's a stroke of pure genius I am of course referring to talk no jutsu Naruto supernatural ability to defeat any opponent and completely change their ideology just by talking to them now contrary to what some people may believe Naruto didn't always have this ability but even when he did use it his words weren't just words each successful instance of talk no jutsu was supported both by Naruto's actions and the past experiences of his opponent on top of that each one of his foes had an apparent contradiction in their ideals that Naruto forced them to recognize and it was the contradictions that led them to change their perspective not lazy overly optimistic writing not the power of friendship but the antagonists own hypocrisy and on the topic of hypocrisy let's go back to the origin of talk no jutsu let's go back to the land of waves prior to his initial conversation with Haku Naruto's desires were overly simplistic my money's on you know it's gotta meet that Mississippi on that he had a goal but not a purpose in other words he knew what he wanted to do but he didn't know why he wanted to do it did Naruto want to get stronger for himself or for someone else he had never thought about it until he met Haku and so it was through Haku that Naruto developed his worldview Haku strength came from his desire to protect what was most precious to him and that resonated with Naruto he recalled his past experiences with Inari Kakashi Arouca and realized that he wanted to protect people just as they protected him haku's impact on Naruto ran deeper than that though when Haku believed that he no longer had a purpose and asked to be killed Naruto was clearly upset about it but he nevertheless prepared to oblige him under the depressing pretense of that's just how the world works there's no other way Sasuke's supposedly dead bodies served to confirm in Naruto's mind that not everyone could achieve their dreams in this cruel world and though he and Haku could have been friends under different circumstances that was now an impossibility he saw two kids around his age who had both failed to attain their dreams and seemed ready to assume that there was nothing he could do but then something happened that changed his mind forever Haku stopped him took Kakashi's lightning blade to save his master and then Zabuza the cold and sadistic assassin of the mist shed tears for his subordinate those abusive view'd shinobi his tools he couldn't treat Haku like one when Haku sacrificed himself Zabuza had a chance to kill Kakashi by slashing through his disciple but he hesitated despite everything that Zabuza had said about Haku he couldn't dispose of him like a broken tool his hypocrisy was reinforced when this scene was called back to in the war arc as a mindless puppet whose feelings and free will had been stripped away Zabuza truly became a tool to Kabuto and Haku truly became a tool to Zabuza this mind controlled Zabuza showed no hesitation in hacking through Haku but in that state he wasn't really a shinobi he was a tool but he was no longer human while still alive however Zabuza couldn't escape the emotional Baggett's that came shackled to his humanity Haku lived to protect Zabuza as his tool yet he couldn't bring himself to kill Naruto or Sasuke even when doing so would have helped to protect his master likewise Zabuza was supposed to be nothing more than Gatos tool but in his last act he defied gato and thanked Haku for standing by his side by affirming their humanity Haku and Zubaz approved that shinobi couldn't just be tools once the battle was over however Sakura wondered whether or not those two were right about what a shinobi should be to which Kakashi replied shinobi 1000 gb no sons I do more to make Akane I had a dog was this one's eyes to the bottom after he sits he said that but when asked if he actually agreed with that idea Kakashi said no that this was merely an ideal that all ninja strive for rather than what ninja actually were in other words not everyone agreed that a ninja should be an emotionless tool but because that was the widely accepted notion of the perfect ninja most people just went along with it that's why when Naruto rejected that ideal and said that he would find his own ninja way it didn't come off as mere fantasy the current shinobi system was based on a falsehood and while it would take a tremendous amount of effort to reform the society actually inciting that change wasn't in a possibility but before Naruto could convince anyone to change the fate of the world he first had to convince one ninja that he could change his own fate stoic istikhara koto nado DNA what's Cola what's Kawada vamos a coke emotes karmakar us tonight stoic karate yoga an iconic whistle it's called another the huge Inga Neji Hyuga subscribed to the notion that all individuals have a predetermined destiny and that there is nothing anyone can do to change that at first he made his philosophy seemed pretty convincing before his fight with Hinata had even begun he read her body language like an open book and obliterated what little self-confidence she had without throwing a single punch he would have given her a full blown panic attack if Naruto hadn't interfered but all of this strength and Menace cleverly masked the obvious contradiction in Meggie's ideals while his all-seeing Byakugan allowed him to see the flaws of the world around him those distractions blinded him to his own dishonesty he told Hinata and later Naruto that people can't defy their destinies and yet his most significant moments showed him actively attempting to defy his own neji's cadet branch of the Hyuga clan had been forced to serve the main branch for generations this was a fate that Neji had been born into so according to his logic he would forever remain inferior to he not his main branch yet when he was paired against Hinata he viciously attacked her on a mental and physical level he consistently referred to himself as an elite in spite of the inferior bloodline he was born into while most talk no jutsu recipients tried to suppress or abandon their conflicting desires or tendencies Neji boldly displayed his hypocrisy without even realizing it that's why when he and Naruto faced off their battle was a simple one both boys stubbornly clung to their ideals and butted heads over and over again each believing the other to be full of crap the difference was that neji's actions and words were contradictory while Naruto's remained consistent as such it's only fitting that Naruto the problem child who couldn't even pull off a basic clone jutsu in the Ninja Academy would fool the talented Neji with his trademark shadow clone jutsu a joning level technique he had mastered as an attempt to defy his fate he won the match and by winning in this manner by using an ability that a so-called failure should never have perfected he definitively proved that neji's philosophy was wrong this was hammered home when Neji found out that the inciting incident for his pessimistic worldview was actually a lie that his father hadn't been forcibly killed but instead chose to die of his own free will and thus escaped the shackles of his predetermined destiny there was no room for debate he was wrong Saguna panini da da da hey EW he's taking an emissivity conscious ascetic Rita many songs I wrote America photos subarashii sekai ni 4 NH daily ropa vieja Japan's ascetic kuru kuru speech cassava songs ice skate economy car was the first of many twisted Naruto parallels that appeared in the series but he also served as a combination of previous conflicts Naruto had overcome like Neji Gaara had been shackled to a predetermined destiny of his own he would forever be hated and like Haku he had been left without a purpose for living Gaara was born with a monster trapped inside of him and he had been cast aside by his village just like Naruto as a child he craved friendship and acceptance but was denied these things at every turn constantly met with the same contemptuous glare eventually after he was betrayed by the only person whom he thought loved him guard did what Neji refused to do and embraced his fate he decided that families were mere halls of flesh connected by hatred and murderous intent and that he could only survive off the suffering of others killing became his purpose isolation became his vindication or did it internal Kodaka soon so stay serene econo an aside I know Cruz mediados de Diez de omar de una semilla still SCARA rondalee yep she meet us at cinema gym its tail ah noryeok ah dr. ug open you a condom porous dr. azouz the stadium ADA one cannot truly feel hatred without first experiencing love and therein lies gaara's conflict he claimed that he killed to feel alive and in doing so he held isolation above all but in truth Gaara hated being alone the very source of his hatred represented by the kanji that he carved into his skin as a child was his wish to be loved he tried to abandon this desire by loving himself but he could never fully do so to Gaara a meaningful battle wasn't just a physical death match it was a scenario in which one individual waged their purpose against another's and by losing the battle that person would lose their reason to exist in both Sasuke and Naruto Gaara was confronted by an opponent who shared personal ties with others since Sasuke's conviction was split between his desire to protect his comrades and his desire for vengeance he was defeated against Naruto however it was gaara's resolve that faltered after Naruto had learned of gaara's upbringing he viewed Gaara as a manifestation of the monster he himself could have become as well as a reminder of his own dark pasts that he wanted to leave behind because of this Gaara impacted him in a way that no one else in the tuning exams could wear Neji had angered Naruto Gaara terrified him where Naruto had been itching to fight Sasuke Rock Lee and others he wanted to avoid gar altogether that is until the lives of his allies were at stake unlike Gaara who believed that isolation gave him strength Naruto's power came from his connections and unlike Sasuke Naruto's commitment to his comrades was absolute he initially feared Gaara not just for his similar background but also because he unlike Naruto had managed to fight for himself while remaining isolated he was afraid of the possibility that Embree solitude would make one stronger than those who had escaped it when forced to fight him however Naruto recalled Haku another shinobi who once stood at the center of solitude and was reminded that loneliness does not lead to power only by protecting others could one truly become strong and because Naruto's ideals were unwavering he won Gaara on the other hand couldn't let go of his lingering longing for love and as such he lost meetha meetha REO boom Bharat co e na se na oh my omona saku-dono it on Yoshi sono itami guys don't succeed that was my video today oh it was sudden that it feels ok needed as I mentioned previously Sasuke was weak because he lacked conviction he stood at a crossroads with two paths laid out before him there was his brothers path the path of finding strength in his hatred and then there was Naruto's path the path of finding strength and bonds would he embrace his anger and take everything upon himself or would he reject his anger and find solace and friendship he was torn between two ideals unable to fully commit to either and eventually he would get his wake-up call in the form of Itachi who had returned to the village not to confront Sasuke but instead to retrieve Naruto when Sasuke challenged his brother he was brushed aside and met with a response why eventually sasuke had spent years preparing for this chance meeting with Itachi but his wishy-washy efforts had gotten him nowhere Naruto who had stayed true to his conviction was getting stronger while Sasuke split between love and hate was falling behind after being ignored and humiliated by the man he sought to kill Sasuke's indecision had reached a breaking point would he abandon his quest for vengeance or would he abandon his comrades unlike Gaara Sasuke had tried both and based on his own experiences he decided that he couldn't walk the same path as Naruto without remaining in his rivals shadow and so Sasuke chose revenge and left the village when Naruto finally confronted Sasuke in the valley of the end he lacked the same level of understanding that led him to victory against Neji and Gaara rather than challenge Sasuke on his ideals he instead attempted to guilt-trip him our peers risk their lives to bring you back Orochimaru killed the Third Hokage does Konoha mean nothing to you to Sasuke these were non sequiturs he didn't care about what other people had done he cared only about power and how to attain it so what if Orochimaru killed the Third Hokage he could make Sasuke stronger to win Sasuke over naruto needed to convince him that the path offered by Orochimaru the path of hatred was not the path to power and to do that he needed to fight and defeat Sasuke so they fought but because Naruto couldn't understand Sasuke and tried to drag him back to Konoha by force he lost his talk no jutsu failed meanwhile Sasuke had understood and even acknowledged Naruto's efforts which allowed him to win on this day in the future Naruto would learn from his mistakes and these two would clash again but before that the pain of his failure would grow even larger be watching us teach taka talla March in a bucket sigh Connie not the others she put the way yeah George yeah the next two story arcs highlighted Naruto struggled to move past his loss hot off the heels of a three-year time skip Naruto had a new look a better grasp of his abilities and an enhanced feeling of inadequacy knowing that the power of the nine tailed fox was slowly eating away at his psyche and on the verge of triggering a severe mental breakdown at a moment's notice were still another one of his comrades was abducted and just like last time there was nothing he could do to prevent it in typical Naruto fashion he plunged headfirst into the Kazakh on a rescue mission but because he couldn't keep his emotions in check he accomplished next to nothing the only character who actually benefited from his inclusion was lady Chiyo her contradiction was that she burdened the next generation with her generations problems yet had no faith in them and took no actions to help them bear that burden in other words she wouldn't take responsibility for them but expected them to take responsibility for her this dichotomy was strengthened by her reluctance to accept help from other villages and she even went so far as to say that friendly alliances are fundamentally impossible this was why Nara toe impacted her so greatly despite belonging to a different village he was able to connect to Gaara in a way that no other sand ninja could at the same time he denounced the flawed practices that had led guard to this tragic situation the flawed practices that lady Chiyo had taken responsibility for since Naruto hadn't actually backed his words with meaningful action like in the past however Chiyo needed to face her contradiction through an outside party she needed a battle of her own to strengthen her doubts and that's exactly why she fought Sasori her grandson was a prime example of what she owes toxic ideals had created an emotionless puppet who felt nothing even at the prospect of a close family member dying to put it another way you could say that Sasori viewed family as mere hulls of flesh connected by hatred and murderous intent not only had she owes generation led Gaara to be tormented by shukaku and alienated from the entire village but they had also birthed a member of the Akatsuki the very same organization that had already killed one kaze khegay and had now taken another in Gaara she had made two huge mistakes but who was it that arrived to clean up her mess why none other than Konoha the same village she had avoided in the past she had been proven definitively wrong and that's why the lady who had previously displayed no hope for the future of the village sacrificed her life to save the one who would lead that village to a brighter future this konnichiwa Akatsuki suppression was the only Naruto focused arc that didn't include an instance of talk no jutsu and as such it's a good example of what the series could have been without this thematic through line unlike the other antagonists I've covered kakuzu didn't possess an ideological contradiction that Naruto is meant to challenge instead he served to advance Naruto's relationship with Sasuke after failing to retrieve Sasuke during the aptly-named mission Naruto entered a downward spiral his only real achievement during the Kazakh hack a rescue arc was his influence on lady Chiyo otherwise he wasn't there to protect Gaara he fell under Itachi's genjutsu which only strengthened the sting of his failures he did basically nothing to take down data our Sasori he threw a tantrum that nearly initiated a partial nine tails transformation sure if he hadn't confronted Chiyo like he did Gaara might not have been revived but as Naruto's last encounter with Sasuke showed words alone weren't enough to bring Sasuke back Naruto needed power if he was going to change Sasuke's mind and he displayed none of that here so when the Tenchi bridge mission took place Naruto failed utterly he wasn't just unsuccessful in persuading Sasuke he barely registered on the dudes radar after his face had been hidden for the entire arc the first time we got to see Sasuke post time-skip was when he was looking down on team seven as if they were ants this wasn't the same Naruto whom Sasuke had acknowledged just before the time skip this wasn't the same Naruto that had stood across from him in the valley of the end this was a weak pathetic Naruto who begged and cried and bowed his head he didn't confront Sasuke like before and instead said dejected things like why didn't you kill me and if someone can't even save a friend I don't think they deserved to be Hokage he lost confidence in himself in his ideals and if Naruto didn't believe in what he was saying why would Sasuke by the time Akatsuki Suppression rolled around Naruto was desperate for a win he didn't care about inspiring anyone he just wanted to to himself that his hopes and ideals were worth defending kakuzu served as Naruto's fodder but that's the primary issue with his character kakuzu was largely disconnected from the two emotional payoffs in this arc and that made him an underwhelming antagonist he mostly stood on the sidelines when he Don fought Asuma and he offered no ideological conflict to Naruto he was just there to take the El and that's a real shame one of the most interesting aspects of Naruto is watching the titular knucklehead interact with these twisted parallels of himself and battle them on an ideological level as well as a physical one but while I do ultimately defend that this talk ned jutsu motif this was one example where the subject could have been given a little more nuance if kakuzu had possessed some sort of ideology that Naruto could have challenged the battle between them could have been far more memorable since Naruto didn't need the ideological victory here though he could have still defeated kakuzu without talk no jutsu you can write a character with conviction and problematic ideals who still loses in the end just look at stain from my hero academia this failure to change kakuzu would have played into the mixed feelings Naruto had after their fight the after-effects of the Ross and shuriken were already meant to undercut his victory and prevent him from fully escaping his downward spiral before Jiraiya's death and this added weight would have accentuated his desire to connect with pain even more as things turned out this arc which lacked talk no jutsu definitely didn't measure up to the ones that had it what it did do however was give naruto the confidence he needed to confront his toughest obstacle yet Jara no say no tameni Macarena konohana tasty artisanal oh my god any auto stereo total master Isis nominal snowy Tamiya Dharam Raj oh my mo mo sono itami I was sitting on auto-ship oh my love - a panic whatever or a no saying no panic they thought she was safe on you none of khushu it Harry taught a relative to non-union de who she was a little you naraba vamos a hacer on a loose-fish you oniy [Music] new criminal dense enough pain sought peace through oppression he wanted to focus all hatred on himself and rule over the populace like a god but before he challenged the world as a whole he first decided to test his ideology on a smaller scale enter the hidden rain village this was Payne's test subject a land in which everyone feared the same entity the same pain the flow of information was limited by the constant rain which served as both a sensor to keep locals in and a barrier to keep foreigners out it was nothing short of a dictatorship but it worked when Jiraiya infiltrated the village and interrogated two of its civilians they resisted him not just for their own sake but for pains as well these guys didn't just fear pain they supported him worshipped him even at one point referring to Lord pain as a God in Conan as an angel pains vision had proven itself to be an effective one in both theory and practice so with the Akatsuki backing him he attempted to expand the scope of his influence his new plan involved capturing all the tailed beasts and using their power to create jutsu of mass destruction with such power at their disposal the Akatsuki would control all wars and by destroying millions of people they would force the entire world to experience the same loss the same pain this in pains mind was the only way to end all conflicts for those who did not know pain would never understand true peace his ultimate goal was to unite the world through empathy so although his methods were cruel and extreme he believed that the end justify the means saij cuz I can take you under whoa kono sekai okay honesty suka sorry body panna cotta so Rico so say Donna Donna Marino Kazoku gory menachem all gory no sato no sato Panaji honest Tomodachi Konoha no shinobi dikenga hey vato Sergio Cucho nice arigatou you too sir a bucket alone either there's a good reason why even part - haters will point to the pain assault and say this was when Naruto got good again pain is one of if not the most imposing antagonist the series has to offer as he needed to be after Naruto had defeated kakuzu and started to escape his downward spiral pain killed Jiraiya and undercut Naruto's progress almost immediately then he presented Naruto with an ideological conflict that while disagreeable couldn't definitively be countered Payne's perspective was reasonable and his arguments appeared to be sound but most importantly Payne had conviction he wasn't like Neji whose actions and ideals had so blatantly contradicted each other at every turn he didn't struggle with an internal conflict like Gaara who had been continuously haunted by a more loving past that he so desperately wanted back if Payne had an underlying contradiction and his ideals he kept it hidden just as he did his true identity where neji's hypocrisy had been obvious and gaara's actions had been weakened by his own inner turmoil Naruto couldn't read pain and pain hadn't weakened himself as such when he was faced with a question how would you confront this hatred in order to create peace all Naruto could say was I don't know but your piece is still wrong of course this response which lacked any supporting evidence or paid wasn't going to satisfy a man with such conviction to properly understand pain and refute his ideology Naruto had to confront him face to face he had to hear the tale of Nagato the man behind the mask and only then could Naruto discover his enemy's hidden hypocrisy the brilliant thing about pain Naruto's characterization is that his contradictions were hiding in plain sight but Kishimoto still managed to hide them behind other layers of his character like the multi-faceted power of the Rena GaN the mystery surrounding his true identity the emotional appeal behind his frightening ideals but while Nagato hypocrisy had been present even early on Naruto didn't receive all of the details until the very end of the arc Jiraiya was able to recognize the contradictions but he was too late he had lived a life full of failures and thus had nothing to say that would change Nagato's mind he could say that Nagato was wrong but he had no experiences to support that claim all he could do was have faith in Naruto but when he died he took his knowledge in memories of Nagato with him nothing was passed along to Naruto saved the tales of a gutsy shinobi novel sure I had written using Nagato as inspiration for the protagonists these elements added weight to his presence in the story but they were carefully integrated in a way that didn't detract from his equally intricate hypocrisy something that had been hinted at from the very beginning Nagato had convinced himself that he was still striving for the same goal as Jiraiya but in reality he had abandoned Jiraiya's teachings long ago more specifically by attempting to unite everyone through pain Nagato had abandoned her empathy he placed himself on a pedestal and called himself a god that would rule over the world and guide it towards peace but in doing so he stopped trying to understand and empathize with people at one point he even told Naruto flat-out to walk his steady Cacioppo commodity no yakumo Madoka satellizer a winner and yet he still tried to connect them through a mutual understanding of pain his ideology was fundamentally flawed and as Naruto started learning more and more about him the cracks in Nagato's argument began to intensify until it eventually shattered entirely he wanted to guide the world toward peace but he said that true peace cannot exist and so he would instead strive for periods of temporary peace all of this he said without recognizing how twisted his original goal had become as an outsider looking in however Naruto did recognize it but he could only do so after he had defeated the six paths of pain a literal manifestation of Naruto moving past his pain by feeling a burning hatred and then deciding to compromise on his vengeance for the sake of peace Naruto did what Nagato had failed to do he never lost hope and he didn't forsake himself or his sensei just like with Jiraiya Nagato rejected this as a non-answer so Naruto went right after Nagato contradiction when Naruto quoted Uriah's book Nagato realized that he had become the very thing he had once been fighting against the moment pain was created was the moment Nagato lost faith in himself his alliance with the Akatsuki and his attack on Konoha had all been for nothing so in his last act he undid as much damage as he could with the rhaenyra birth and put his faith in Naruto hoping that the young ninja could carry his dream forward and succeed where he had failed Nagato had changed over time and in changing he had contradicted himself but though Naruto had stumbled as well he ultimately stayed true to his word at the end of their class to move toward peace Naruto's pending answer was better than Nagato strong answer and so Nagato decided to match Naruto's compromise with one of his own this was hardly a definitive victory though as Naruto's exchange with pain would weigh on his mind all throughout the chaotic 5k summit this Ark served as a key turning point in the series where the pessimistic principles of the ninja world began to shift on a large scale while Naruto had been protecting the village from pain Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki and become a wanted criminal this once again undercut Naruto's momentum as he was then bombarded by a bunch of new information and problems that were outside of his control with the pain compromised and his lack of an answer still stressing him out Naruto could do nothing but beg and take a beating on Sasuke's behalf without supporting actions his warnings about vengeance and the cycle of hatred accomplished nothing worse still Sasuke had moved further into darkness making it even more difficult for he and Naruto to understand each other in the meantime gaara's path to redemption had finally placed him in a position where he could attempt his own talk no jutsu in Naruto's place the first of these took place at the NGO cog a council where gaara's Naruto asked boldness resonated with the stubborn su Chi cago and led him to work alongside the other villages the second was with Sasuke and since they had once shared a mutual understanding in the past sasuke gave Gaara a chance their roles had reversed after all Gaara had gained the tremendous power on both the paths of hatred and the path of love something that Sasuke had been unable to do so his perspective wasn't worthless because he didn't make a strong enough effort to connect to Sasuke now though Gaara quickly failed he saw the same look in Sasuke's eyes that he did before but he made the mistake of attempting to reach the old Sasuke that had been torn in two the current Sasuke may have shared the same look in his eyes but those eyes had evolved he no longer had any need for nor interest in personal ties he had found power down the path of isolation a power far greater than Gaara had achieved so when Gaara continued to lecture him based on his own experiences instead of attempt to understand the man before him Sasuke lost interest like Naruto at 10 she bridges of he tried to bring Sasuke down by force and failed something similar took place with Kakashi and Sakura two people who had once been able to reach out to Sasuke but now were unable to do so due to their lack of understanding while everyone was telling Sasuke that what he was doing was wrong they weren't making an effort to relate to him and so he didn't care about their opinions on the other hand Naruto who had won understand Sasuke from the very beginning had now experienced Sasuke's pain but since the situation had changed he still couldn't counter him to connect to Sasuke and finally convinced him to return home Naruto first had to confront his hatred in the form of the nine tailed fox in the past he feared the fox's power ran away from his hatred only when he had given in to despair did Naruto let the Foxes rage rampage but when that happened Naruto was never in control to properly match Sasuke who had achieved power by embracing his hatred Naruto needed to control his own by taming the nine tailed fox upon doing that he had finally leveled the playing field for their clash at the end of the war from there Sasuke's defeat was inevitable he had planned to cut all ties and bare all the world's hatred from the shadows but in the end he couldn't cut down Naruto he never could his desire to protect his comrades hadn't been erased entirely as instinctual displays of selflessness like the one he displayed against Haku had continued to slip through on occasion even during the war as well as that Sasuke knew the pain of loneliness unlike pain who in a similar position viewed himself as a righteous god Sasuke knew that his notion of a Hokage would lead to his own suffering even as he was giving his response to Naruto he hesitated so what I know you whole cognitive uh deep down Sasuke couldn't abandon his connections he couldn't go back to being alone and that's why he had lost before the battle even began with that being said Naruto's previous ideological opponent didn't go down so easily and much like Sasuke he served as a culmination of everything Naruto had faced beforehand correction occurring at omyeon Akari kotoba mo en mo it's serene inner he's all about cooling agenda Obito was a culmination of the enemies Naruto had defeated beforehand which made him the perfect precursor to the final boss or at least he would have if moderate had been the final antagonist but that's a subject for another time he tapped into Naruto's greatest fears and challenged him on the things he had previously overcome his isolation and his pain one of his conversations with Naruto even acted as a direct extension of the pain compromise but because Obito had abandoned hope entirely he continued to push Naruto further than Nagato had unlike Nagato Obito didn't care about what Naruto had been entrusted with he knew from the beginning that Naruto shared an ideal that he too once held in the past and that's why he wanted to test him he wanted to see how Naruto would react to failure firsthand he wanted to break him down and watch a new version of his younger self abandon the world all over again he wanted Naruto to validate his own choices and prove that his life wasn't a complete failure Naruto found strength and connections Obito suffered because of his connections Naruto confronted his pain Obito tried to escape his own at first not unlike Sasuke he appeared to be Naruto's polar opposite both he and Sasuke had found suffering in their connections and decided to cut themselves off from the world but while Naruto had a deep understanding of Sasuke through their long history with each other which then made the result of their battle of foregone conclusion Naruto didn't know obito's tale at all and thus couldn't recognize his contradictions right off the bat as more details of his past began to surface however it became obvious that he was just another twisted reflection of Naruto what set him apart from Naruto's previous opponents however was the dynamic of their fight while Naruto was searching for Obito's hypocrisy Obito was looking for Naruto's he wanted to see if an unbreakable will could truly exist or if such a thing was mere fantasy so on that note were Naruto's actions consistent with his ideals it's one thing to say I'll never go back on my word but this theme would ultimately fall flat if Naruto was a hypocrite all along his behavior was never so let's examine his core principles and see if they hold up after his team was attacked during the escort mission he vowed that he would never run away again he contradicted this during the Chunin exams when he wanted to run from Gaara but Gaara called him out on it he threw Naruto's boasting back in his face and when push came to shove Naruto overcame his fear to protect his comrades he acknowledged his hypocrisy and truly corrected it for that was the last opponent he ever tried to run from another component of his ninja code also defined in the land of waves Ark was his belief that shinobi were human beings not tools thus when facing his enemies he treated them not as objects to use or break but his people to reform his battles weren't just battles they served as a dialogue between two characters this was also contradicted in a meaningful way during the first Sasuke fight Naruto demanded that Sasuke acknowledge him as an equal right after he said that he would drag Sasuke back to Konoha by force Sasuke initially refused of course because Naruto wasn't displaying equality in his actions he was attempting to display dominance Sasuke's eventual compromise came only after Naruto stated that he saw Sasuke as a brother but while he was willing to compromise Naruto was not even after he had been acknowledged Naruto still refused to acknowledge Sasuke's desires and so he had already lost the ideological battle this hypocrisy led to Naruto's downward spiral something he only recovered from after addressing his hypocrisy to move forward he had to correct his contradiction and compromise his hypocrisy was a critical part of his character arc and for the most part it was handled well I can't say it was perfect however because Kaku zhuzh fight with Naruto wasn't a meaningful contradiction that Naruto could grow from he needed a win to get closer to Sasuke kakuzu gave him that win in other words kakuzu was a tool Naruto used to reach Sasuke had he been fighting kakuzu to protect his comrades this might not have mattered after all keeping his allies alive had always been his top priority see Gaara and Kaguya but that wasn't why he wanted to beat kakuzu he vehemently rejected help and fought alone for the sole purpose of matching Sasuke's strength it's an unaddressed contradiction plain and simple kakuzu aside the prior addictions and Naruto's character gave Obito something to exploit he continuously pressured Naruto to see if he would give up but each time he wavered one of his comrades stepped in to remind him of everything they had accomplished before and of what they were fighting for now just as Naruto wanted to help others he could be helped by them Obito on the other hand was alone he lacked the same support network that Naruto had built so instead of testing Naruto he wound up testing himself as Naruto was continually validated Obito's will started to weaken he began to see images of an alternate reality where he hadn't abandoned his comrades where he hadn't abandoned hope the dream that he had wanted to fulfill in the infinite tsukuyomi became real his ideal world his ideal self was standing right in front of him Obito lost hope in reality and pursued a dream and because of that any happiness he could attain on that path would only be an illusion plus he had claimed that the name obito uchiha was meaningless to him but it was his past experiences that continued to motivate his actions his contradictions were obvious but he had repressed the past for so long that his denial was nearly impossible to break through even after Naruto had looked into his heart and spelled it out to him point-blank Obito still rejected the truth he stubbornly defended his choices because to do otherwise would undo everything he had spent a majority of his life working towards he would be forced to accept that he had sacrificed everything for nothing as he began to acknowledge Naruto's words as well as his own mistakes he tried to rationalize his position there's no need to walk a rugged path with an unclear end point anyone would take the easy path to peace and that's just what I'm doing Naruto refuted that there were no shortcuts or easy ways to escape hardship Obito was just running away from his problems and projecting righteousness onto himself but even then he hadn't truly given up imam under no michi niko came all night [Applause] kinga moody talked attano even oh my son here which home naruto was able to defeat Gaara by himself for the sake of his comrades so when Obito was too much for him to handle alone his comrades returned the favor his journey had come full circle Hope had taken a physical form in the bonds he had forged and his Obito laid defeated on the battlefield he finally confronted his hypocrisy and acknowledged this hope once again [Music] okay not all the stuff I'll be doing this quote has garnered criticism for being too sympathetic towards Obito some people even believe that this acceptance undoes the tragic elements of his character and this potential frustration is understandable here's Naruto the protagonist and moral center of the story praising the man responsible for neji's death I can see why that would raise a few eyebrows so let's unpack what Naruto actually said here at the end of the day Naruto saw Obito not as a murderer or traitor but as an ally and if you've been keeping up with Naruto's characterization up to this point you'd understand why this makes perfect sense he chose to value the good and obito over the bad just as he had done with Sasuke pain Gaara Neji and many others before him Bo Beto may have made countless mistakes in the past but he tried to atone for what little he could in his final act and there's something worth noting in that especially for Obito he didn't just abandon his sensei's teachings or his comrades he abandoned the entire world he forsook everything and dedicated years of his life to a worthless illusion in those final moments he had to admit that his entire life up to that point was a waste but even then deep down he never lost hope after dragging the shinobi world into war to benefit himself he died to protect the future of shinobi of course that would resonate with Naruto of course he would get defensive over Obito does that mean obito's actions were completely forgiven No Naruto didn't forgive Nagato for killing Jiraiya but when Obito criticized his final act Naruto was still willing to defend him you can certainly disagree with the optimism kishimoto presents but at no point is it ever inconsistent or problematic the same goes with talk no jutsu perhaps it doesn't align to your particular tastes but Naruto isn't worse off for having its antagonist change their ideals in the end if anything the series is all the more interesting for having crafted this narrative through line anybody can write a fight scene or two people punch each other until one guy falls down but it takes at least a bit of creativity to craft complex compelling characters that consistently conform to contradictory conduct I wouldn't call Naruto a masterpiece because of this but I definitely call kishimoto a genius or maybe I've just been talk no Jude Sood this video took an eternity to make but in the process of doing so I came up with like five or six other script ideas so I hope you're ready for the summer of NAR toe cuz I've got a bunch of Naruto videos that I want to make now the obvious one being a video about Madara cuz he still conforms to this idea of hypocrisy but with the structure I devised for this script moderate just couldn't fit and there's also some other stuff I'd like to touch on with Kaguya there so that's gonna be its own separate video kind of an addendum to this script and beyond that there's plenty of other ideas I want to get to eventually because Naruto is actually a good series guys I guess this is what happens when you talk about when you talk about a long-running Shonen manga for like 40 hours on a podcast is you're gonna have a lot to say about it when you revisit it if you like listening to critical analysis of Naruto or just long-running Shonen manga / anime in general or if you just want to support more long-form projects like this then be sure to head on over to patreon comm and join the likes of King Kevin 30 stone cold triple o 7 and all of my other lovely patrons who have supported me stuck with me even though it took like a month more than a month like a month and a half to make this video but thanks for being patient with me and putting up with with that I'd also be failing in this outro if I didn't mention craft stores new video about the conflict and compromise of sasuke uchiha basically works as like a partner to this video we even both like uploaded them I like the same time just like the thumbnails will play off each other if you had us in your subscription box so go check it out Sasuke gets a bad rap in its it's bad but craft store has a great defense of Sasuke analyzing his character and how great he is so when I when I said before that Sasuke is one of the best characters in Naruto I wasn't memeing it's real go watch that video and you'll understand - why Sasuke is the best and he's great I feel so bad for him because he like we came up with this idea he had already written the Sasuke video and then we I decided I would do talk no jutsu like we were gonna have him play off each other so he was all done and then I was like oh it's just gonna write a video about talking about jutsu it's not gonna be too bad and then I took like a month to make the video so he's just been waiting on he's got the video done and everything and at the time of recording this I still have like a week of editing to do but he's all done already he's waiting on me I feel bad I had to make him make him wait to do this so go over there and yeah support craft store as well cuz he he had to wait on old me who was just moving along moving along in the snail's pace and I feel bad but Sauer crafts dwarf it's over another way to support the two of us would be to go over and check out the Nenshi podcast like I said like 40 hours of discussing on Naruto there although we weren't is woke then on Naruto as we are now like in the process of making this video I came up with so many new realizations that I didn't have back then but if you want to go check that out we also are in the middle of doing bleach right now so if you like bleach or you hate bleach and you want to go over and make fun of bleach then we are over there talking about bleach the videos they have to make after this shouldn't be nearly as long as this one so hopefully the release schedule will be a bit more consistent from here on out lots of naruto content coming and maybe i'll watch other anime and manga and come up with new ideas too to put out the meantime but for now i'm thinking it's gonna be the summer of nara toe so stick around for that and as always keep on youtube and

Channel: Mathwiz

Views: 1,118,457

Keywords: In Defense of, Talk no Jutsu, Mathwiz, Hypocrisy, Hope

Id: gH3Sh3hRV-c

Length: 46min 27sec (2787 seconds)

Published: Thu May 31 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/UchihaFurkan61]

I didn’t think I was gonna watch the whole video, but I did. Whats this guys channel?

[u/N3osFox]

I didn't watch the video but I already think the "talk no jutsu" meme is stupid.

There are no "true" bad guys in Naruto. When Naruto changes these people he's just reminding them of the "what if" alternate path alternate path they could have taken.

He's reminding them of their true selves and what they actually wanted to do. I don't see why people make fun of that.

[u/Shrenade514]

How does this not have more upvotes is beyond me