Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-4244051-20141120202849/@comment-4366149-20141121003522

Tobi's real identity irked me. Kaguya's debut made me flip. Sasuke's sudden repentance in the end made me buy a new laptop, jk. Kishi's villains do not adhere to the simple concept of cause and effect. In Kishi's mind, the only reason any villain in the manga is bad is because they have power. Once they lose their power or supremacy, they simply forget all their original motives and ideologies, and simply become saints. Zabuza, Nagato, Orochimaru, Obito, Madara and finally Sasuke. If these bad guys are just repenting because they lost their power, which happens to be the case, then their "change of heart" is nothing but crocodile tears and remorse that has been necessitated by pragmatism, and not true repentance. Now of course this could make for a good plot point if handled properly, but nope.

I personally don't think it's impossible for someone to undergo a u-turn, but it's just that the consequences of such repentance (that have only been necessitated by the situation) never gets explored in the story. For some reason, none of the characters seem to ever notice that these "bad guys" only repent after they lose their power in a battle, and no one ever questions the credibility of such a repentance. That is the real stupidity.