Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-26145872-20160224185338/@comment-26998824-20160309001726

There's many different types of intelligence. Jutsu, Life and Battle. Uchiha's are very gifted in battle smart and apart from strong ninja's who are obviously smart like Minato and Kakashi, Shikamaru is an outlier where he's not the strongest but his thought process makes up for it. People like Tobirama, Hiruzen, Madara and Orochimaru are Jutsu smart. Looking beyond the fighting and segregation are people who are life smart like Shisui, Jiraiya, Itachi, and Hashirama. Hashirama because he literally invented the modern day Shinobi world.

Notes: I'm not sure I can give extra credit to Naruto, Obito or Madara for intelligence more than what can be seen since their knowledge is so predicated by plot its hard to give them Life smart. They were just a nexus to fight each other until the other surrenders to their own ideals. Kishi chose Naruto (There's nothing wrong with that). Though all are battle smart.

Rasa is more smarter than Gaara since he was inventing jutsu for the Sand village but we didn't get to see much of him so it's null. But Gaara is life smart, more so than plot allows him to be. I'd add him to the Life smart list.

Minato is jutsu smart but he was surprised at Orochimaru undoing the RDS when Oro found it through Uzumaki research and Minato did extensive research on Uzumaki's too so I'd put him below the ones I've mentioned.

Madara and Tobirama's Jutsu smart is questionable. How did they know so much when there time had long since past. I think it's obviously plot but they are of another caliber in terms of being sheer ninjas and Tobirama did create some very common and powerful jutsu.

Nagato I think was just strong. His alignment of Pains when fighting Naruto was smart though. He's not life smart to me since all he was defeated by is a book which he could've read himself and plot.