A Child of Prophecy who failed to fulfill his destiny.
Being an absolute cultural juggernaut Naruto is rightfully considered both the face and the shonen genre and one of the most popular titles that have ever been released. At the cornerstone of its enormous popularity there is a single character that had been written so incredibly well that he immediately resonated with millions of fans all over the world.
That character is none other than Uzumaki Naruto himself.
A hero of his own franchise in every meaning of the word and beloved by the audience he possesses almost no significant flaws — and those few that he does actually end up having are very easy to overlook. If there was a generalized composite character of a 'good guy' protagonist — that most certainly would be Naruto. At least in the shonen genre.
But what if we told you that there is a surprisingly darker side to many of his actions? A side that — while rarely noticed by fans — is impossible to forget once you actually think of it.
First of all, for a supposedly benevolent person, he is shockingly narcissistic. Many times throughout the story we are given scenes of Naruto empathizing with various characters — friends and foes alike. Yet nobody seems to notice that he only does that if he can see a reflection of himself in the other person. 'We both want to be Hokage! We are both jinchuriki! We are both orphans!' But if they share no common traits — he is simply not interested, which grossly undermines the whole point of this kind of 'empathizing'.
It is simply hypocritical.
Secondly, Naruto is surprisingly shallow and vain with the core of his motivation being nothing but a desire to be acknowledged for acknowledgement's sake. We start off the story with Naruto being shunned and disrespected by other characters and him wanting to become a Hokage only to make them respect him. To prove a point. To have his face on the mountain.
He does not want to change his village for the better, to get rid of its corrupt ways — that is not his ambition. He just wants to be the boss so everyone around would finally put some respect on his name.
Thirdly, Naruto is scarily needy and self-absorbed. This is best explained by an example of his relations with Sasuke. When Sasuke leaves Konoha, Naruto decides that he has to bring him back by force — against his own will. At a certain point Naruto even says that he is ready to break every bone in Sasuke's body and drag his body back if he has to — only to prevent him from leaving and 'protect the bond' that they have with each other.
He is completely uninterested in Sasuke's motivation for leaving — his desire to avenge his family and the fact that Sasuke does not feel towards Naruto the same way that Naruto does towards him. Everything Naruto does in that arc he does for himself and in order to satisfy his own selfish emotional needs.
On top of that, the man is also a fake underdog.
The story makes a lot of effort to portray him as an unlikely winner but in reality he is kind of overpowered from the very start. He is supposed to be untalented but somehow learns Rasengan — an astonishingly powerful ability — in just two weeks. Same goes for his sage mode that he fully masters in a couple of months time while Jiraiya and Minato, who by lore are described to be near geniuses at mastering techniques, spent years and years in attempts to reach this kind of power level. How on earth are we supposed to seriously think this guy is an underdog?
Sadly enough, Naruto is also a liar. On many occasions throughout the story he gives very big promises to various characters — only to them either break them or decide to ignore, pretending that nothing ever happened.
_15818.webp)
He promises Neji — his future wife's brother — that he will reform the Hyuuga clan for the better, but he never does. He promises Nagato to change the political system that feeds off war and forces the will of the strong upon the weak — only to then continue to ignore smaller villages, leaving them with zero agency and no voice.
Ultimately Naruto can arguably be considered a failure as — while being a Hokage and a Child of Prophecy who is supposed to change the world and rid it of its unvirtuous ways — he decides to preserve the status quo in pretty much everything. Yes, he defeats a bunch of bad guys but the system that spawned them and that regularly pits the whole world against each other in bloody wars — he decides to leave untouched. Thus, cursing it all to come full circle yet again.