Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-26904721-20150820181613/@comment-26773508-20150823124230

Thekillman wrote: BakumatsuWarrior wrote: So the idea that the Senju were wiped out due to warfare seems rather unlikely. I didn't say they were wiped out due to warfare. I said that in reality, things are usually a combination of factors. A combination of being exposed to above-average amounts of warfare, a completely different attitude to the village and natural intermingling with other clans are what i consider the top 3 reasons. Note that the Hyuuga kept their clan healthy via the whole Branch/Main family system. Both Hyuga and Uchiha put significant pride into being a member of the clan, whereas Hashirama's idea was that the Village should be put above clan. Yes that's the most sensible answer yet. It's also the kind of scenario that would occur in the real world i.e. the fall of advanced ancient civilizations, for instance, are almost always the consequences of an incredibly complex web of causes ranging from the environment (shifting of the path of a crucial river; decreased food production; etc), to society (social stagnation and lack of innovation), to economics, military organization, etc. My reasoning about the lack of Senjus was rather simplistic and one-dimensional. Thanks for your insights :)

GoldLiger wrote: The reason MN is a Senju Is that one guy deviates from everyone else, and so is assumed to be the status quo rather than what he really is, namely an exception to the rule.

'''We know nothing about Ashura. Maybe he simply was Kurama's jinchuriki.''' It's far more logical than assuming Minato, who has no senju connection, is a secret senju. That's what I thought when I first saw Asura's Chakra Mode in the manga. Hagoromo "entrusted" the fate of Ninshu and the Shinobi World to Ashura. Part of this succession gesture could have been Hagoromo gifting Ashura with Kurama. And although Hashirama has more or less proven that Ashura didn't need Kurama's chakra to compete against Indra, but still Ashura being Kurama's jinchuriki is the most sensible assumption as of now.

Regarding why Bee and Yagura (perfect jinchurikis) didn't have a Bijuu Chakra Cloak for mastering their bijuu, the manga seems to suggest that Kurama is rather special among the tailed beast, not just for his raw chakra power. The Uchiha Stone Tablet mentions that the sharingan can control Kurama. It makes no mention of other tailed beasts. One could object that the reason for this is that Konoha possessed only one bijuu i.e. Kurama. But upon further examination, this is proven wrong, given the fact that the Stone Tablet predates the founding of Konoha by about a thousand years. Kurama used to be Konoha's property/weapon. But Konoha didn't come into existence before at least 900 years had passed after the Tablet was written. So Kurama's unique chakra mode as well as the Uchiha Stone Tablet seems to suggest that Kurama is special for some reason.

However, I do sympathise with GoldLiger's views on Minato's heritage. The only problem is that he acts like a troll/Mr.Know-It-All. So far the manga has established no connection between Minato and the Senju. But given the fact that it's highly probable that the Senju intermingled freely with other clans, it isn't implausible that Minato really is a secret Senju. However, GoldLiger's arguments in favour of that claim is pure, unsubstantiated conjecture, since there's no evidence whatsoever to support that claim. And in the absence of evidence in support of the claim, our default assumption should align with the manga lore, which is that Minato is only a Namikaze, and probably has no Ashura blood in him.