Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-18016240-20160208110013/@comment-734582-20160417195754

Minamoto15 wrote: Danzō for being too rigid on his hard-line stances, and to a much lesser extent Hiruzen for allowing the former to enforce it. Hiruzen clearly valued Danzō, so I can't blame him too much for trying to allow Danzō some wiggle room to work with, but damnit you're the Hokage and you know how he operates. I actually seriously question how aware Hiruzen was of Danzo's real operations. He was dirty, everyone knew Danzo was dirty. But Hiruzen was clearly unaware that Danzo cooperated and even sheltered and protected Orochimaru, and actively tried to undermine the Hokage.

It seems that Hiruzen had nothing on Danzo to actually shut him down, until the Uchiha Massacre.

Then, considering his two mentors actively used the Yin/Yang hokage concept (Hashirama being the Light hokage and Tobirama the Dark Hokage), and Hiruzen realizing his own weaknesses (as well as the Shumura and Sarutobi clans being first-hour allies of the Senju-Uchiha alliance and so Danzo's position probably being a very political appointment as well), it's no surprise that Hiruzen maintained Danzo's position for so long.

Minamoto15 wrote: Now, Tobirama DID say that he figured the Uchiha would try a coup at some point down the road, so the people who say that he should've saw it coming are justified there. Yea but really, how clairvoyant is it to say that after an era of eternal strife, a village run by dozens of clans would see potential coups? It's pretty much guaranteed that attempts will be made. There's good reason that Hashirama dreamed that people would value the village above their clan. And it seems only the Uchiha and Hyuga really maintained their clan structure after those 80-ish years. In that respect, it seems Hiruzen did a pretty good job of spreading the Will of Fire and fulfilling Hashirama's dream. In fact, it's a testament to the first three Hokage's capabilities that the Uchiha were the only ones to stage a coup at all. Minamoto15 wrote: As you said, he tried and failed. But to me, too many things happened in between then and the clan massacre for me to pin any of it on Tobirama. Well, there's also the part that the more actively Tobirama may have tried to avoid a coup, the more likely it was going to happen. After all, there are more clans to keep happy than just the Uchiha, and the more Uchiha favoritism he shows (to prevent a coup) the more the other clans would disagree. Considering the basis of the Konoha village and the many powerful clans it has, it's a miracle (and i can't stress this enough) that the Uchiha were the only ones to revolt at all.

The Sarutobi, judging by Konohameru/Hiruzen/some random members, are a pretty potent clan. The Uchiha, but the Hyuga as well. And the Senju could've couped against the entire thing as well since they basically formed a village upon a military victory. I mean Madara cooperated with the alliance, but it's clear that afterwards Madara felt like he hadn't signed an alliance but a terms of surrender.