Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-26490760-20150926205437/@comment-734582-20151005093414

BakumatsuWarrior wrote: Naruto was supposed to be an idiot with very little natural talent when it came to jutsus. Nope. just, nope. Naruto has very little capacity for abstract and analytical thinking. He has a great intuitive understanding of many things. He intuitively fought quite well against Kakashi even with the bell test, going for distractions and surprise attacks. Naruto was never quite stupid. Naruto was simply the victim of being ignored, and having a school system that favors analytical and abstract thinkers over intuitive thinkers.

I would also like to remind you that in Episode 1, Naruto mastered a Jonin level technique in just a few hours (shadowclone). Naruto was never bad with Ninjutsu, he just never had a capacity to understand the mechanics behind it, yet was surrounded by people who learned and created Ninjutsu because they understood the mechanics behind it

BakumatsuWarrior wrote: All he had was an external power source that fucked things up instead of helping him. The whole thing about Part 1 was a stubborn brat gradually becoming successful not because of talent, but because of hard work. Also near-infinite stamina and extreme healing power that allowed him to train harder, more and longer than anyone else without any of the side-effects. BakumatsuWarrior wrote: To be honest, I was never convinced Naruto would ever help overcome hatred in the world. The realistic thing would be that there would be no end to hatred, ever. I would advise to read Pain's words again. So far, 80% of his predictions have come true. The combination of the Biju causing pain, that pain causing people to unite and create temporary peace. Quite the dark side of the series, actually, but i think it's highly ironic that Pain was right, all along.

EDIT: i forgot: "the next generation surpassing the previous" is not supposed to be taken literally, and of all things is not about power. It's a highly symbolic thing, where a disciple is able to achieve something their sensei was not. Someone like Part1 Konohameru would surpass Hiruzen if he managed to make a good Tea recipe that Hiruzen always failed at. That's what that sentence means. It's not about power. Naruto was said to surpass Kakashi when he got Rasenshuriken, even though it's fairly clear that Kakashi would at that point easily kick Naruto's ass. Same goes for Sage Mode and Jiraiya. The sensei had greater knowledge, power and far more experience and jutsu. Naruto simply achieved something they never managed to do.