Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-35700339-20180527031815/@comment-734582-20180527055731

CaytoDragneel wrote: The Great Lord Elder said that Jiraiya would train a great apprentice and that apprentice would either bring great peace or great destruction to the world based on Jiraiya's "critical selection" as the toad put it. If we assume that this was only one child apprentice, it would obviously be Naruto. Nagato. IF we're to assume it's only one apprentice, it has to be Nagato. The book-writing and travelling brought Jiraiya to apprentice Nagato and his first book had great influence on and was greatly influenced by Nagato. Neither part of the prophecy applies to Naruto, but Nagato ticks all the boxes.

But no, the prophecy was never terribly accurate and it's questionable that it was aimed at anyone in particular. Note that Jiraiya thinks it's Minato at some point (who was influenced by the book, and his decisions are responsible for basically half the Shippuden plot.) It's not that prophecies are aimed at anyone in particular, it's that the prophecy is simply fit to whatever people encounter.