Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-1512913-20170609150729/@comment-734582-20170622173745

Starscream1998 wrote: Um no, Naruto beat Haku and near the end of Part 1 Sasuke got green with envy over Naruto's development. And how did he beat Haku? With the single strongest demon in existence. It's how naruto got his power. It also nicely shows that pre-existing power + effort beats effort alone, since Naruto did have immense power, he just sucked at using it.

Kishimoto doesn't really seem to like Aesops since every time we get one he quickly deconstructs it. The villains put in some of the most effort in the series (Nagato worked hard for decades for his village and dream, obito worked for years to implement the plan, Madara worked for decades to achieve his power), yet they lost.

People with effort (most of Konoha, but also most of K11) lost to people with effort and genes (Sasuke, Neji for instance) and got eclipsed by people with effort, genes and smarts (Minato, Itachi, Madara, you name it).