Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-32864768-20180916164445/@comment-2245550-20180917140342

I'm gonna assume that everything after the Land Of Waves happens just as normal, just that we're assuming something such as Tazuna dying before he got to the Leaf Village, thus the Leaf never sent any support because they knew nothing.

I'm thinking that Naruto would've died in the Chunin Exams. His experiences in the Land Of Waves hardened him enough to be able to fight Orochimaru and stand up to him whilst Sasuke was cowering. Hell, maybe Naruto wouldn't have even stepped in to help them, the KI projected by Orochimaru freezing his body in place or worse, forcing him to run away. And that's assuming he even managed to build up enough willpower to explode the snake he was swallowed up by.

There's a lot of possibilities, and frankly, this all seems to be pretty likely to me. Simply put, the trauma that happened in the Land Of Waves gave him the strength, will, courage and drive to succeed in the Chunin Exams. It even showed him the dark side of the shinobi system, where they're all trained from a young age to be killing machines. Everything that happened to him was necessary for the end of the journey. Change one thing, and everything collapses.