Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-33953813-20171226015659/@comment-734582-20180117070536

Gagua2028 wrote: Where is that implied in the series that his eyes were considered mutation? Anyways, it would anyways look completely suspicious to orochimaru for a war orphan to get a mutation for "cosmetic appearances" I think Jiraiya says it when he faces pain. Gagua2028 wrote: Leaving that aside, I REALLY have a hard time believing that orochimaru wouldn't know anything about the Rinnegan since jiraiya knew about it. Jiraiya thought it was just a legend. He didn't truly believe it until Nagato showed himself to be clearly above the rest during training. To orochimaru, the kid just had weird eyes like many other people. I don't see him abducting Kurenai because her eyes are suspiciously sharingan-like.

On the contrary, we've seen him abduct people who clearly displayed unusual ability. Sasuke wasn't interesting to him until he was a ninja already and showed his Sharingan.

Gagua2028 wrote: Don't misunderstand me, I am not trying to point out the plot holes in naruto by putting such threads but it's still fun to speculate and do stuff like that on topics which weren't too specified in the manga/anime It's perfectly fine to point out plotholes. But i often get the impression that people try too hard to find one, even when alternative explanations are available. The author may not have had time to express such explanations and only hints may exist.

For instance, Kabuto's Rinnegan hypothesis is pretty interesting, but it requires for instance that he knew Madara survived the VotE fight. It seems to me that Orochimaru's interest in the Rinnegan couldn't have been stoked until he joined Akatsuki and saw Nagato (since it's similar to him meeting Sasuke and seeing his power for himself), and that his interest in Madara may not have been more than crude experiments into the Uchiha until Obito came forward. (well technically it was Kabuto, but he and Orochimaru shared all their research).

Kabuto's Rinnegan hypothesis doesn't make much sense (or rather, would hinge on pure guesswork) unless he knew for a fact that a Rinnegan could truly exist and until he knew that Madara may have survived. Until that point, it seemed he was merely interested in Hashirama's power for power's sake (his experiments into wood release show an interest in the power for power's sake, rather than later guided sharingan/hashicell experiments)