Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-43403813-20191029010046

I know that there are many favourite characters in the Naruto series, for many different reasons. I'd like to hear about what your absolute favourite character is in the series and why (hoping that you go to a similar amount of detail as me lol).

To start off, my absolute favourite character is Pain. Even though he is loved by many, I still think his relatively short time in the entirety of Shippuden leaves him overlooked, especially in comparison with the late-game antagonists. I firmly believe that he could have been a much better final antagonist than Obito, Madara or Kaguya if Kishimoto had reserved him for just a little longer.

First, I think he is, hands-down, the best-written character in the whole Naruto series in terms of his etymology and lore.

Nagato's technique, The Six Paths of Pain, is deep-rooted in Buddhism and Hinduism. Each of the paths are named after one of the Six Samsaric Realms of Reincarnation, being the Preta, Asura, Naraka, Deva, Animal and Human paths, and all of their abilities correspond with said lore.

For example, the Naraka Path is essentially the Hinduism equivalent of Hell, which has its own entity residing there known as Yama, similar to the King of Hell in Naruto. When sinners die, they are brought before Yama to confess their sins, and if they lie to him, their tongues get ripped out. This is exactly how the technique operates in the series. All of the other paths have their same respective similarities with their own individual techniques.

Pain's WHOLE identity was the Rinnegan, which is why I believe that the Rinnegan was always meant to be his own when he first debuted, and not Madara's, they only made it Madara's Rinnegan so they could prolong the series. "Rinnegan" literally means "Samsara Eye", and its connection with religious ideologies is why Pain was made out to be divine in the first place.

Hence, a core reason as to why Pain is my favourite character is because he is rich with contextual background and lore, easily painting him as one of Kishimoto's most thought-out antagonists.

Second, Pain's storyline and ideology is another core reason. His background teaches us about the importance of perspective, and his ideology is a reflection of our own world.

Nagato grew up in atrocious conditions, in an impoverished and war-struck country whilst larger nations such as the Hidden Leaf lived on in blissful ignorance, profiting from all of the sufferings and pain. This alone draws attention to our reality where economically smaller countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria suffer due to interventions/invasions caused by the greater nations of the world.

This feeds into his ideology. Pain acknowledged that the world had an imperfect peace. Peace for some, pain for others. He acknowledges that in order to achieve "true peace", the world must have perspective and understand pain and fear, which is why he gave the Hidden Leaf a taste of their own medicine.

Even his own ideology is a reflection of our reality. The USA did the exact same thing to Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weaponry. These weapons of mass destruction, similar to Pain's plan of creating a Bijuu weapon, acted as a deterrent to war, effectively drawing WWII to a close. However, instead of only using the Bijuu weapon in one situation like the USA did, Pain planned to use the Bijuu weapon on all nations, so as to achieve a unified perspective.

I personally love it when a character represents reality, is willing to challenge the "cycle of hatred" that continues humanity's unrelenting affinity to war, and shows a deep understanding of how our world truly operates. Pain fits this description perfectly.

On another quick note, Pain being Jiraiya's former student and Naruto's sibling student created a unique connection that no other shinobi had. This is why I don't mind Naruto convincing, or "talk-no-jutsu'ing" Nagato, since Jiraiya neglected to connect with him on an emotional level in their fight, but Naruto did after Pain explained his ideology. It took Naruto quoting Nagato's exact words from Jiraiya's novel to make Nagato realise how twisted his old ideology with Yahiko had become.

Finally, Another reason as to why Pain is my favourite character are his appearance, power-scale and abilities.

Pain had the perfect kind of strength, in my opinion. He was strong enough to feel threatening to the viewer. At the time, most of us thought Pain was unstoppable before his battle with Naruto. However, he wasn't too strong so as to detract from the strategy that happens within battles; he had ridiculously strong techniques such as Chibaku Tensei and Chaotic Shinra Tensei, but he didn't use these techniques with zero effort, he strained with them, showing that he was strong, but not DBZ level. This helped a lot with the feeling of tension, and stakes in the battle.

In terms of his actual abilities, they were very strong. However, they did not have to be as strong as war-arc attacks in order to make Pain appear godly i.e. his use of Shinra Tensei and Chibaku Tensei are among the coolest attacks used in the series, and they weren't strong when put in comparison to later techniques. Hence, his abilities really helped to flesh out a facet of his identity, being his divinity.

Finally, his appearance as well. His striking Rinnegan eyes, the piercings, Akatsuki robe, his position as its leader... all these things contributed to his intimidating demeanour. His theme also helped convey his strength, his mercilessness and his position as a God. All of these things make him an amazing antagonist in my opinion, and it was a breath of fresh air to see a dojutsu more revered than the Sharingan, and a breath of fresh air to see an Uzumaki as an antagonist compared to an Uchiha. (but that didn't last long, considering Rinnegan was just retconned as the Sharingan's evolution when Madara first appeared in battle, and that Pain was reduced to an Uchiha puppet).

^Because of that, I do admit that Pain is not the absolute perfect character in terms of everything, but I can attest to his potential as a final antagonist, had Kishimoto not changed the origin of the Rinnegan, Pain's conviction and his role in the Akatsuki in order to prolong the series.

Phew, that's me done spieling. But yeah, Pain is my absolute favourite character for all those reasons above, and I don't see that changing any time soon. 