Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-1926479-20140720152733/@comment-28861328-20140721000334

Elveonora wrote: @Foxie, my problem is that after overhyping Madara so much, he wasn't even given a proper closure.

Some villains aren't given proper closure for a reason. You have to understand that, as an author, your job isn't to give every person a sob story (though Kishi gave many of his character's sob stories). Some villains you want to remain evil, no matter how pure their intentions may have originated, so, in a sense, by killing Madara mercilessly he left him the scum of the Naruto world. That too is an effective writing tool. I mean, honestly Elve, how many more Madara flashbacks do you need to bring him to an end? The man had already died once. Kishi may have just cut him loose and was done with him.

Kishi himself said that he wanted people to see the humanity in his characters and really take that away from his story. I'd say he's done a superb job. We already know Madara's story. We know why he became the way he did. We know that it made him an abhorrent human being (his purposeful destruction of Obito's life sealed his fate as far as I'm concerned), and the lesson behind that is that even the purest intentions can have the most horrifying consequences.

What more could Kishi give us? A flashback of Madara's entire life? There is a reason six Star Wars movies spawned thousands of spin-off books. Lucas had no intention of continuing beyond those six stories. He never intended to close every singular gap in his story. As an author, sometimes you just have to leave things to your readers imaginations. You've said it for years on this site; Kishi can't spoonfeed us. That defeats the purpose of being an author, which is to tell a story. The story isn't about Madara. Its not about Sasuke. Its not about Sakura or Itachi or Kakashi, or what have you.

Its about Naruto.

Madara's role in Naruto's story is up as far as Kishi's concerned. That's all we need to know and care about.