Instigator / Pro
4
1510
rating
62
debates
54.03%
won
Topic
#5323
Naruto failed at his goal of becoming "the greatest Hokage".
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
Benjamin
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Rated
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
- Minimal rating
- None
Contender / Con
7
1760
rating
92
debates
77.17%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
Hashirama Senju is the greatest Hokage in general.
Hashirama was the most powerful Hokage with Naruto being the second most powerful. Hashirama (resurrected by forbidden Ninjutsu at the time) stated that Naruto was ALMOST as powerful as him when Naruto was in Kyubi Cloak Mode level 2. This means that when using the full power of the Nine tailed fox, Naruto is still weaker than Hashirama is when in sage mode. The only time when Naruto surpasses KCM2 is when he uses six paths sage mode, but by the time he becomes Hokage Naruto loses this ability and it is debatable whether he surpasses or equals Hashirama's sage mode which wouldn't guarantee victory even if he was stronger in that state which he could only access for a short period of his life before he even became Hokage.
Hashirama was not only able to defeat the nine tailed fox when Madara used the Kyubi in battle, but he also defeated Kyubi while Madara augmented Kyubi's defense using his Susano which has an incredibly high level of protective capability. Combining Madara's susano with Kyubi arguably makes Kyubi equal or stronger than six paths Naruto.
I would rate both Hashirama and Naruto a 7/10 in Intelligence, they are equal in that regard but Hashirama was the one who came up with the concept of "the will of fire" and basically invented Naruto's entire philosophy before Naruto was even born.
This is a bit of a side tangent but you may be thinking that Naruto is actually dumb by default and randomly becomes a genius when the plot requires him too. The way I interpret Naruto is that he is actually well above average in intelligence, but he has extremely severe ADHD and lacks attention to detail by default which makes him very bad at book smarts but when he is in high-pressure situations he goes into hyper-focus mode and becomes a tactical/creative genius. Naruto also has an extremely high EQ/empathy and I think him and Hashirama share this trait.
Hashirama created the entire fucking Hidden Leaf Village, it's pretty hard to top that feat when it comes to being a Hokage. He went way against the current like the world's strongest salmon and managed to make peace between numerous clans who mostly hated each other and unite them under a common banner. In contrast, Naruto only presided over a relatively peaceful time between the various nations and villages because those nations and villages were forced to unite in order for any of them to survive the fourth great shinobi war. Sure, Naruto helped hold that peace together but he didn't create it like Hashirama did plus Naruto was lucky to have certain more reasonable individuals in power in the other villages than he otherwise could have had.
Every other Hokage other than Hashirama was more intelligent than Naruto.
Hashirama: 7/10
Tobirama: 9/10
Herozen: 8/10
Minato: 10/10
Tsunade: 8/10
Kakashi: 8/10
Naruto: 7/10
Shikamaru: 10/10
The reason Tobirama (who invented over 1000 jutsu and architected the majority of how the Leaf Village's government works which was copied by the other villages) is a 9/10 rather than a 10/10 is because he is prone to bias. This is mostly demonstrated in his inherent dislike of the Uchiha clan, but other than that Tobirama is blatantly smarter than Naruto by far.
Herozen was not just tactical and creative like Naruto, but an actual strategist who didn't have to rely completely on someone like Shikamaru as Naruto did and he was nicknamed "the professor" for his love of study and extensive knowledge.
Minato's mind worked just as fast as his body. For example he was the only character to figure out how Obito's kamui worked on the spot while in the heat of combat and he did so in a matter of seconds and almost killed Obito.
Tsunade was not only an effective leader but a medical genius at the same time. Just imagine if someone was a world class surgeon and had 0 experience or training in politics but suddenly became the leader of a country and ran it almost perfectly during an extremely difficult time in the country's history. This is basically what Tsunade is.
Kakashi is blatantly just smarter than Naruto, he demonstrates this numerous times. He was already a genin at age 6, a chunin at age 8 and a jonin at age 12. Naruto needed to study for two years after the fourth great shinobi war to become a jonin, so he was studying and struggling to grasp stuff that Kakashi knew as a 12 year old kid and when Naruto was that age he couldn't even grasp knowledge required to become a genin and only became one due to Iruka being impressed with his massive chakra levels when he produced over 1000 shadow clones.
Shikamaru is basically Itachi with less chakra and no sharingan, or alternatively Minato without his insane physical speed. Without Shikamaru doing all the strategic thinking for him Naruto would have been relatively ineffective as a Hokage.
Hashirama was the most powerful Hokage with Naruto being the second most powerful. Hashirama (resurrected by forbidden Ninjutsu at the time) stated that Naruto was ALMOST as powerful as him when Naruto was in Kyubi Cloak Mode level 2. This means that when using the full power of the Nine tailed fox, Naruto is still weaker than Hashirama is when in sage mode. The only time when Naruto surpasses KCM2 is when he uses six paths sage mode, but by the time he becomes Hokage Naruto loses this ability and it is debatable whether he surpasses or equals Hashirama's sage mode which wouldn't guarantee victory even if he was stronger in that state which he could only access for a short period of his life before he even became Hokage.
Hashirama was not only able to defeat the nine tailed fox when Madara used the Kyubi in battle, but he also defeated Kyubi while Madara augmented Kyubi's defense using his Susano which has an incredibly high level of protective capability. Combining Madara's susano with Kyubi arguably makes Kyubi equal or stronger than six paths Naruto.
I would rate both Hashirama and Naruto a 7/10 in Intelligence, they are equal in that regard but Hashirama was the one who came up with the concept of "the will of fire" and basically invented Naruto's entire philosophy before Naruto was even born.
This is a bit of a side tangent but you may be thinking that Naruto is actually dumb by default and randomly becomes a genius when the plot requires him too. The way I interpret Naruto is that he is actually well above average in intelligence, but he has extremely severe ADHD and lacks attention to detail by default which makes him very bad at book smarts but when he is in high-pressure situations he goes into hyper-focus mode and becomes a tactical/creative genius. Naruto also has an extremely high EQ/empathy and I think him and Hashirama share this trait.
Hashirama created the entire fucking Hidden Leaf Village, it's pretty hard to top that feat when it comes to being a Hokage. He went way against the current like the world's strongest salmon and managed to make peace between numerous clans who mostly hated each other and unite them under a common banner. In contrast, Naruto only presided over a relatively peaceful time between the various nations and villages because those nations and villages were forced to unite in order for any of them to survive the fourth great shinobi war. Sure, Naruto helped hold that peace together but he didn't create it like Hashirama did plus Naruto was lucky to have certain more reasonable individuals in power in the other villages than he otherwise could have had.
Every other Hokage other than Hashirama was more intelligent than Naruto.
Hashirama: 7/10
Tobirama: 9/10
Herozen: 8/10
Minato: 10/10
Tsunade: 8/10
Kakashi: 8/10
Naruto: 7/10
Shikamaru: 10/10
The reason Tobirama (who invented over 1000 jutsu and architected the majority of how the Leaf Village's government works which was copied by the other villages) is a 9/10 rather than a 10/10 is because he is prone to bias. This is mostly demonstrated in his inherent dislike of the Uchiha clan, but other than that Tobirama is blatantly smarter than Naruto by far.
Herozen was not just tactical and creative like Naruto, but an actual strategist who didn't have to rely completely on someone like Shikamaru as Naruto did and he was nicknamed "the professor" for his love of study and extensive knowledge.
Minato's mind worked just as fast as his body. For example he was the only character to figure out how Obito's kamui worked on the spot while in the heat of combat and he did so in a matter of seconds and almost killed Obito.
Tsunade was not only an effective leader but a medical genius at the same time. Just imagine if someone was a world class surgeon and had 0 experience or training in politics but suddenly became the leader of a country and ran it almost perfectly during an extremely difficult time in the country's history. This is basically what Tsunade is.
Kakashi is blatantly just smarter than Naruto, he demonstrates this numerous times. He was already a genin at age 6, a chunin at age 8 and a jonin at age 12. Naruto needed to study for two years after the fourth great shinobi war to become a jonin, so he was studying and struggling to grasp stuff that Kakashi knew as a 12 year old kid and when Naruto was that age he couldn't even grasp knowledge required to become a genin and only became one due to Iruka being impressed with his massive chakra levels when he produced over 1000 shadow clones.
Shikamaru is basically Itachi with less chakra and no sharingan, or alternatively Minato without his insane physical speed. Without Shikamaru doing all the strategic thinking for him Naruto would have been relatively ineffective as a Hokage.
Thank you, FishChaser.
PRO claims that Hashirama is the greatest Hokage. This implies that Hashirama is greater than all the other Hokage that was not Naruto, which I accept for the purpose of this debate, and that Hashirama is greater than Naruto, which i strongly dispute. PRO has simplified my workload to only show how Naruto surpassed Hashirama in terms of overall greatness. Also, PRO cites creating the leaf village as a feat of Hashirama. Obviously, this happened before he was appointed Hokage. So PRO has already accepted that we should look at what these characters achieved throughout their entire lives, not only what they did specifically while being Hokage.
PRO's argument is also kind of a ridiculous. Kid Naruto had no knowledge of how great Hashirama was, and his ambition was probably never to be able to destroy mountains.
Comparing feats
Hashirama lived a life of war. Then he defeated Maadara, spared him, and formed the leaf village. He became Hokage, then failed to protect his friend from the dark side, and had to take his life -- which he failed to do funny enough, because Maadara survived, and this directly caused all of the problems that Naruto had to deal with in shippuden.
List of Narutos most important feats:
- Defeating Gaara, thus saving the village, and then showing him the light, enabling good relations with the sand village
- One-shotting Kakazu with razenshuriken, saving all his friends and Kakashi
- Defeating Pain, thus saving the village, and then showing him the light, making him revive everyone he killed
- One-shottign Kizame, the single strongest physical fighter in the Akkatsuki
- Making a dozen shaddowclones, sending them to each front in the war, singlehandedly winning the war against all the white zetsu and former kages
- Protecting the entire shinobi alliance from getting blown to bits by giving them chakra cloaks
- Defeating Obito, thus saving the world, and then showing him the light, enabling the victory over Kagya
- Defeating Maadara, thus saving the world
- Defeating Kagya, thus saving the world
- Fighting Sasuke till the end, thus saving the world, and then showing him the light, which made it possible for the two of them to save the world multiple times in Boruto.
Maintaining peace
PRO makes it seem like Naruto had it easier when it came to maintaining peace. That is very reductive. The claim that Naruto got "lucky" to have reasonable kages is just flat out wrong. Hashirama only had to deal with one single person, Maadara, who was his very good friend as a child. He still ultimately failed to maintain peace with the guy, but he was just very lucky that all the Uchiha somehow did not follow their legendary leader in rebellion. Naruto literally had to beat reason into the hard skull of Gaara, and then work tiresomely for multiple arcs to better the relations with the sand village. When it comes to the cloud village, they were not so reasonable either. Naruto was willing to bow in the snow to the raikagev to make him not try to execute Sasuke, but failed. That Naruto in the end managed to get the other villages to accept Sasukes redemption, is a diplomatic feat greater than anything Hashirama ever achieved.
When Naruto was Hokage, he and Sasuke were singlehandedly winning the war against the God level beings out to kill all the shinobi and steal their chakra. To say that Naruto had it easy is blatantly false on every conceivably level. The only reason that peace between villages was maintained initially, was because Naruto was so good at diplomacy that he won all of the kages respect, coupled with the fact that if war was to break out, he could easily erase all the other villages from the map without a sweat.
Strenght
By Hashiramas own admission, Naruto in his Kyubi Cloak Mode level 2, was almost as strong as himself in his prime with sage mode. So already we have 16 year old Naruto rivalling the strenght of peak adult Hashirama. What PRO neglects to mention is that when Obito absorbs the 10 tails, he becomes WAY stronger, so that Hashirama, Hiruzen and Tobirama all agree that Hashirama in his prime would be no match for him. But that was not all. Because after a while, Obito was able to fully master this new strenght, and received the sage of six path orbs and his staff. So the Obito that Hashirama admitted he could not overpower, was less powerfull than the one Naruto now had to fight. Even still, by infusing his sage mode chakra into his KCM2 chakra, Naruto was able to fight this Obito that was upgraded twice, and with the help of Sasuke, he actually defeated him. This already puts both Naruto and Sasuke clearly above peak Hashirama in terms of strenght. So even if the series ended right there, Naruto had ecclipsed Hashirama, without even needing the mark of the sage of six paths. But the crazyness did not stop there. Obito was forced by black Zetsu to revive Maadara with Rene-Rebirth. Madaara then jumped on the opportunity to absorb the 10 tails chakra that Obito lost. He then let loose the tree of life that grabbed hundreds of shinobi and drained their chakra killing them in the process. This Maadara easily killed both Sasuke and Naruto, so he clearly ecclipsed 10-tails Obito by a huge margin. Then Might Guy let loose the Eight Inner Gate of death, got something like 10^8 times stronger, and was able to stall him out with Taijutsu. In the meantime, the Sage of Six paths revived Naruto and Sasuke and gave them his power in the form of hand seals. When Naruto returned, he was able to almost one shot Maadara, and also revive Might Guy during the process of dying which even the most procificient medical ninja could not. Maadara was forced to absorb the full power of the tree of life.
At this point, Maadara was an absolute beast:
- He was actually alive this time, ressurected for real, so not nerfed by being an Edo Tensei.
- This alone puts him on the same tier of power as peak Hashirama.
- But he had way more advantages than he had when he fought Hashirama wiht nine-tails.
- He had the Hashirama cells and their regenerative abilities as well as wood style jutsu
- He possesed the rinnegan, the most powerfull of the occular powers
- He was powered by the chakra of the 10-tails and the tree of life
- He also had access to the SOSP orbs and the staff
- Plus had access to his limbo clones
Nobody who watched the series or read the manga can say with a straight face that this Maadara wasn't at least two orders of magnitude more powerfull than peak Hashirama. And yet, Naruto and Sasuke with SOSP powers were able to keep up with him. Then Black Zetsu backstabbed Maadara, killing him and reviving Kagya. Both Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi and Obito, all agreed that she was on a whole different level from the Maadara who was already 2-3 levels above peak Hashirama. While Hashirama was called the God of shinobi, Kagya was an ACTUALL God, the origin of all chakra, and master of multiple dimensions she created herself. This literall God was told to be cautious when fighting Naruto. Even when seperated from Sasuke, he was able to land huge blows on her, sending her flying. When the two of them joined together again, they were able to seal her quite easily.
So both lore wise and feat wise, SOSP Naruto was at least 3 tiers of power above peak hashirama. This might sound ridiculous, but this is how shonen powercreep works.
Did he get nerfed?
PRO says that Naruto got nerfed, that he lost his SOSP power. I have 3 objections:
- When evaluating how great Naruto or any other character is, we should take into consideration their most powerfull form, not only their strenghts while being hokage.
- But Naruto clearly still had access to the SOSP powers when he became Hokage, only losing access to it later, in order to make his son Boruto more relevant.
- Most importantly, Naruto already ecclipsed the power of peak Hashirama fighting against 10-tails Obito, before he received SOSP powers. And after he lost SOSP, he got new powerups.
Plus, Naruto grew immensely since the end of Shippuden. In the Boruto anime, Hokage Naruto IN BASE FORM was able to briefly throw hands with Momoshiki, a Kagya level threat.
There was a video taking a deep dive into who would win between prime Naruto and all the other hokages in their primes. One of the comments summarized it in a funny way:
After a harsh battle, the hokages finally took down Naruto. Only to realize they were fighting a shadow clone while the real Naruto sit on his ass somewhere eating instant ramen.
There can be made no argument that Naruto in his prime did not have at least 100 times more power than Hashirama in his prime. That is just how shonen powercreep goes.
Late bloomer
PRO says that Naruto was not as quick to learn all the basic shinobi knowledge. That is kind of a given, since he grew up with no parrents, had ADHD, and carried Kurama which not only reduced his chakra reserves from 100 times Kakashis to 4 times Kakashis, but also disrupted the flow of his chakra. If Naruto had grown up normally, he would have been a prodigy no doubt. But even with these handicaps, its impressive how far he managed to get even without the nine tails chakra. Almost beating Pain who was way stronger than Orochimaru (an actual prodigy with 50 years of experience), with his own nerfed chakra and sage mode he learned in like a week, all while being 16 year old, is actually the most impressive thing he ever did.
Mental strenght
Intelligence
PRO already covered this. I mostly agree with him. Hashirama and Naruto are on the same wavelenght mentally most of the time, but when Naruto needs to be, he lets loose his inner genious. Even in the firs arch of the story, kid Naruto was able to pull of crazy stunts like freeing Kakashi from Zabusa, a legendery Jonin, by genious mind-games with throwing weapons, shaddow clones and transformation jutsu. We have no such feats of intelligence from Hashirama.
Social intelligence
PRO says that Hashirama shares this trait with Naruto. But again, we see no such feats indicating he was even on the same tier as Naruto when it comes to empathy and understanding. Yes Hashirama was willing to die for his lifelong friend, but he was not able to actually understand Maadara and appeal to him on a level deeper than just showing basic love. Naruto was literally meeting new people left and right, who where obviously evil to most other characters, then hearing them out, feeling empathy and understanding, and then showing them the same level of care and respect that Hashirama did his childhood friend.
Talk-no-jutsu
This is Narutos greatest strenght as a Hokage. Whereas Hashirama was able to kill everyone he met, Naruto was able to beat them in a fight, then listen to their problems, and then convince them to change their ways. Gaara, Pain, Obito, Sasuke, almost everyone Naruto tried this on, he managed to show the light. In so doing he ended the cycle of hatred, avoided being targeted in acts of revenge, and made himself friends and important allies. Every other Hokage had one of their friends or students turn evil. Naruto not only prevented Sasuke from becoming evil, he also fixed the people the other hokages failed.
Wisdom
Naruto is stated multiple times to have the strongest will of fire, which is the mentallity expected of a Hokage. Plus, that Naruto surrounded himself with trusted friends who were more intelligent than him, like Shikamaru, shows that he possesed wisdom. While Naruto was not a perfect politicion, Hashirama was not a good politician either, rellying on Tobirama as a trusted advisor. Naruto's willingness to subject himself to hardship to save his friends and mend broken relationships, even further solidifies that he was amongst the wisest hokage. Plus his work ethic was the strongest of all the Hokage. He views the entire leaf village as his family.
Conclusion:
Naruto is very clearly the greatest Hokage. He did not fail his goal, far from it. He became way more powerfull and respected that he could have ever dreamt off.
Round 2
PRO cites creating the leaf village as a feat of Hashirama. Obviously, this happened before he was appointed Hokage.
This was the very act that made him Hokage and was the most Hokage-esque feat of any Hokage. Hashirama invented everything that it means to be Hokage.
So PRO has already accepted that we should look at what these characters achieved throughout their entire lives, not only what they did specifically while being Hokage.
Not necessarily, I wouldn't say that Kakashi rivals Minato, Hashirama and Naruto just because he had both of Obito's sharingan and a very powerful susanoo for brief periods during the war arc. Also keep in mind that just like Kakashi borrowing power from Obito, everything that makes Naruto so amazingly powerful is something that he is getting directly from someone else where as Hashirama is vastly more powerful than Naruto by default. Kurama and the sage of six paths are the real source of Naruto's power, without them Naruto is only sannin level at his peak.
By default Kakashi is a 6/10 fighter, maybe pushing 7/10 in Boruto era. But with both Obito's sharingan he goes up to 8/10 or maybe even 9/10 although this is very brief and it is completely borrowed power just like Naruto's. Hashirama on his own is a 9/10 and Hokage Naruto is a 7/10 with only sage mode and not Kurama or six paths sage mode.
Hashirama only had to deal with one single person, Maadara
No, Hashirama made peace between numerous clans who were all at each other's throats.
Naruto literally had to beat reason into the hard skull of Gaara, and then work tiresomely for multiple arcs to better the relations with the sand village.
Everything Naruto did with Gaara is something Hashirama could have done. Hashirama could have beaten Gaara easily compared to Naruto, and Gaara would have seen that he was stronger than him despite his reason for fighting being to protect others, thus Gaara would have questioned his beliefs and started to change just like he did after fighting Naruto. There is no magical talk no jutsu at play here, all Naruto did was beat Gaara and say "true strength comes from protecting others" which Hashirama could have done.
That Naruto in the end managed to get the other villages to accept Sasukes redemption, is a diplomatic feat greater than anything Hashirama ever achieved.
No, creating the leaf village and bringing peace between 100 different clans who hated each other is the greatest diplomatic feat of any Hokage.
When Naruto was Hokage, he and Sasuke were singlehandedly winning the war against the God level beings out to kill all the shinobi and steal their chakra.
Every time you bring up stuff like this, you're powerscaling Naruto as if he did it on his own but he always has tons of help in defeating opponents like Obito, Madara (who he didn't really defeat) Kaguya and all other Otsotsuki.
Naruto was able to fight this Obito that was upgraded twice, and with the help of Sasuke, he actually defeated him. This already puts both Naruto and Sasuke clearly above peak Hashirama in terms of strenght.
That's like Saying Hashirama is stronger on his own because him and Madara defeated some strong opponent together, it isn't a valid argument. Naruto barely won the fight and needed the help of someone almost equal to himself just to barely win.
Nobody who watched the series or read the manga can say with a straight face that this Maadara wasn't at least two orders of magnitude more powerfull than peak Hashirama.
There are many who say that Madara and Obito were actually nerfed in their upgraded forms as they stopped using their old abilities which were more useful than their new ones.
So both lore wise and feat wise, SOSP Naruto was at least 3 tiers of power above peak hashirama. This might sound ridiculous, but this is how shonen powercreep works.
That would only be true if Naruto didn't have help from 5 other people while fighting Kaguya.
- When evaluating how great Naruto or any other character is, we should take into consideration their most powerfull form, not only their strenghts while being hokage.
Then Kakashi is stronger than Hokage Naruto in Boruto because he had both Obito's sharingan for 2 seconds while fighting Kaguya.
- But Naruto clearly still had access to the SOSP powers when he became Hokage, only losing access to it later, in order to make his son Boruto more relevant.
I'm not aware of him ever using it while Hokage.
- Most importantly, Naruto already ecclipsed the power of peak Hashirama fighting against 10-tails Obito, before he received SOSP powers. And after he lost SOSP, he got new powerups.
Hashirama and Madara together easily beat so6p Naruto therefore Hashirama is stronger.
If Naruto had grown up normally, he would have been a prodigy no doubt.
He would still struggle academically, but yes he would still be a prodigy without Kurama and whatnot. He would still be under Minato in fighting ability though and WAY under him in intelligence.
Almost beating Pain who was way stronger than Orochimaru (an actual prodigy with 50 years of experience), with his own nerfed chakra and sage mode he learned in like a week, all while being 16 year old, is actually the most impressive thing he ever did.
If it wasn't for both Kurama weakening Pain and Minato re-sealing Kurama Naruto would have been ass raped by Pain.
PRO says that Hashirama shares this trait with Naruto. But again, we see no such feats indicating he was even on the same tier as Naruto when it comes to empathy and understanding.
The feat is that he created Konoha with 100 different clans who hated each other.
he was not able to actually understand Maadara and appeal to him on a level deeper than just showing basic love.
When Naruto talk no jutsus people, they are usually still kids or deeply sensitive people who turned evil from unfortunate experiences but still had a lot of empathy deep down. Madara was an adult so his brain was more set in it's ways, and he was a Sociopath. Madara and Orochimaru are perhaps the only two main villains in Naruto who are genuine Sociopaths, the rest are good people who got their worldview fucked up by harsh experiences.
Thank you, FishChaser.
First, a reminder of important points:
- PRO has still not provided an adequate framework. He must clearly define what "greatest Hokage" means and prove that his definition is what Naruto meant.
- PRO does not dispute that his argument hinges on the comparison between Naruto and Hashirama.
- This means comparrisons to other Hokages are irrelevant, since surpassing the first Hokage means surpassing all the others.
- He also conceeded that Naruto is just as smart and talented as Hashirama. But also that unlike Hashirama, when Naruto needs to be, he becomes a creative genious.
- He also did not dispute that compared to Hashirama, Naruto has way more wisdom, empathy, battle IQ and a stronger will of fire.
- PRO has also not provided any argument to demonstrate that Hashirama creating the leaf village is a greater feat than Naruto SAVING THE WORLD multiple times.
Critical analysis of Hashirama Senju
Establishing the leaf
Madara and many other people also created the leaf village, that act did not make them Hokage. Hashirama's creation of the leaf village was not a Hokage feat, but a Senju leader feat. If you are going to include what Hashirama did before he was appointed Hokage, then you must also accept what Naruto did before becoming Hokage, like saving the world.
1. The magnitude of the change:
Arguably, the establishment of the leaf village was not a big change. They said there was a constant state of waring clans. But really, before and after the village was created, the fundamental problem remained. Ninjas were still just glorified mercenaries working for the great nations, just now organized in bigger groups and waging fewer wars but of larger scale.
2. The difficulty of causing it
I stated in round 1 that Madara was the only major obstacle to the creation of the leaf village. Once Madara was onboard with it, the Uchiha followed, and the two most powerful clans settled in the land of fire. It was at that point that other clans started to flock to them, since being allied to the two strongest clans is massively beneficial. PRO claims that the creation of the village was this nearly impossible task that involved dealing with a hundred clans that hated each other and made it extremely difficult. But the village system spread like wildfire and was rapidly implemented everywhere else with no major hiccups. So clearly, organizing a shinobi village is not this super impressive feat that only Jesus Christ himself could achieve.
3. What resulted from it.
The great Ninja wars were just as bad as the constant state of smaller scale warring clans. For many, like the smaller villages, and the Uchiha, this new status quo was extremely detrimental.
Establishing the leaf village is not a very great feat. It was not that hard, not that big a deal, and not that positive. It's more important what Hashirama did after becoming Hokage.
Hashiramas failures as a leader
First we must answer what is the duty of a ninja leader. PRO says that Hashirama is great because he acted the most like a Hokage, but he also says that Hashirama defines what being a Hokage means. Essentially, the argument is that Hashirama is great because he acted very Hashirama-esque. That is a very blatant example of circular reasoning.
Here are 3 principles that should be no-brainers for an epic ninja leader:
- Protect the village from immidiate external and internal threats
- Act in accordance with the village's strategic interest
- Develop the city politically, economically, and socially
Hashirama has commited grave infractions against all these principles of leadership.
Failure to protect:
- Hashirama spared Madara after he made a declaration of war TO HIS FACE.
- He failed to anticipate and prevent his turn to the dark side.
- Then he failed to kill him or show him the light.
- When he in the end fought Madara, he failed to verify that he was dead.
- He also failed to kill or capture Kakazu. Letting someone who attacks the Hokage escape is not something a great Hokage would do.
- He captured powerfull tailed beast's and brought them to the village. Their enslavement made them more angry and dangerous, plus allowed Uchihas to manipulate them.
Breach of strategic interests:
- He gave the tailed beasts to the other villages for free, without even getting promises of peace in return, all but guaranteeing higher leaf casualties in future wars.
- Hashirama failed to implement the cessation of child soldiers, despite that being his main reason for creating the village. Children dying in war is both immoral and a waste.
Lackluster and bad development:
- Hashirama did not develop the village economically, culturally or socialy, not even a little bit.
- The Hokage system is basically a dictatorship. Even if Hashirama was a good guy, its reckless to leave the future in the hands of a single person you have not even met.
- The Hokage system that he created led to Senju having all the power and the Uchiha having none, ensuring oppression of his people and legitimizing future revolutions.
In Conclusion, Hashirama is a good man but a bad Hokage. His power and skill as a ninja gave him the unique position of strong-arming any problem without having to actually solve them at their root. He did not display the intellect needed to truly lead the village to long term prosperity. In fact, it seemed the opposite since war began shortly after his death [1].
- Established and maintained peace between the villages
- Helped grow the village economically, technologically and culturally.
- Made Konoha a more caring place for those with absent or dead parrents
- Revamped the ninja academy and chunin exams to be way safer
- Established ACTUALLY GOOD RELATIONS with the other villages, where before the term "good relations" had meant mere peace treaties or strictly military alliances.
- When his son cheated, and nobody else noticed, he exposed him publically and set an example of him.
- Naruto has to deal with way more paperwork than any Hokage before him. That he goes through mountains of documents without a secretary shows his efficiency.
- He was very proactive when it came to ensuring the safety of the village and taking care of threats early. But he respected borders and peoples rights to privacy.
- That he trusted and respected Sasuke allowed them to have a shaddow Hokage, enabling him to keep track of and defeat the literal GODS who were invading them.
Naruto was Hokage at a point in time where being Hokage was exponentially more taxing and complicated than in Hashiramas time, and he still performed exceptionally well.
Hashiramas failure to help his best friend:
Madara was Hashiramas best friend from childhood. If Hashirama could have used talk-no-jutsu on anyone, it would have been Madara. And yet he failed miserably. Madara outright stated that he could not understand him. PRO says that Madara Uchiha was not broken, but just a sociopath. That makes me wonder did we even watch the same show? As a kid, Madara was just like Hashirama, with the same ideals of a peaceful world. He became battle hardened and forced to battle his best friend for decades, and then he lost his brother to Tobiramas hands, and then he was robbed of a leadership position in Konoha, his childhood dream, also by Tobirama. His mistrust of the Senju clans unfair political power, which was completely justified, led him to be worried about the safety of his clan. Being a good leader with a proactive attitude got him rejected and austracized by the village and his clan. He got depressed, as anyone would, which allowed black zetsu to trick and manipulate him. Madara sincerely believed that the infinite tsukyomi could bring world peace. Nothing in the show implies Madara is a sociopath.
Here are all the people Naruto turned, and why they are worse cases than Madara:
- Obito is almost excactly like Madara in terms of backstory, motivation and methods. Naruto turning this guy is proof that Madara was not beyon saving like PRO claimed.
- Zabusa was a cold-blooded assasin who took a random child and used him as a weapon, and was willing to murder innocent bridge builders for cash
- Sai was by his own admission a mere tool for the evil Danzo, with all emotions systematically removed. He was by definition a sociopath. Naruto reversed that process.
- Pain's plan for world peace involved creating the 10-tails, not to create genjutsu utopia, but to cause a war of untold destruction specifically to make the world suffer.
- Gaara was literally going around murdering innocent kids just because it "gave him a reason to live"
- Sasuke wanted to commit mass genocide just to feel better
- Even Kurama himself, the being consisting of PURE HATRED that nobody had connected with before, was swayed by Naruto's talk-no-jutsu.
Notice how at least half of these people had been evil since before Naruto was born. Naruto turned many of the hardest cases in less than a day, with no prep time or prior relationsship.
Powerscaling rebbuttals
Hashirama and Madara together easily beat so6p Naruto therefore Hashirama is stronger.
- You are clearly trying to straw man my argument.
- I explained that Naruto and Sasuke beating an opponent doesn't prove that Naruto is 100% as strong as him, but it proves he is atleast 50%. You didn't refute this.
- You totally ignore the other point of scaling, which is that Naruto even without any help was able to fight Kagya blow for blow a prolonged period of time.
- The third point of scaling. Naruto was stated by Hashirama to be nearly his peak strenght, and that was before he got THE 2 BIGGEST POWERBOOSTS IN THE SERIES.
- Even if Naruto was only 20% as strong as Kagya, which is a ridiculous lowball, that is still at least 100 times stronger than peak Hashirama with sage mode.
- All of this is based on the conservative scaling that PRO has yet to refute.
I'm not aware of him ever using so6p power while Hokage.
- You just conceeded that Naruto and Sasuke, when they absolutely demolished Momoshiki after half their chakra was drained, did not need so6p to low-diff a Kagya level opponent.
- Meaning Hokage Naruto with 100% of his chakra could defeat Kagya single-handedly even without his so6p powers. Please provide your proof that Hashirama beats Kagya.
Without Kurama and Minato Naruto would have been ass raped by Pain.
- The point is that he did more damage to Pain than the village and Jiraiya combined. Naruto at sixteen mastered Sage mode better in a week than Jiraiya could in his entire life.
Hashirama is vastly more powerful than Naruto by default.
- Wrong:
- Naruto without Kurama would have had 100 x Kakashis chakra AS A KID, and as an Uzumaki, this number inceases exponentially.
- That is why Hokage Naruto in his base form was able to throw hands with upgraded Momoshiki, who is 3 orders of magnitude stronger than sage mode Hashirama.
- But if you want to be pedantic, Hashirama is also relying on power granted by or stolen from others:
- He is the reincarnation of Ashura, son of SOSP.
- All chakra was stolen from Kagya, it belongs to her, not him.
- His sage mode is literally the absorption of nature energy that is not your own power.
- So your statement is completely wrong on so many levels.
- But also irrelevant:
- Even if all of Narutos power was given by someone else, that does not make his power somehow dissapear or not be relevant to discussing how great he is.
- And also harmfull to your case:
- Naruto literally earned all his power:
- He tamed Kurama, the evil beast that respected nobody besides SOSP.
- Combined its chakra with sage mode he mastered himself, something no other Jinchuriki thought to do.
- Then SOSP himself considered Naruto worthy of granting him his power.
That would make Naruto's power that he earned from others way more impressive than Hashirama's "default" power that he was simply born with.
Round 3
- PRO has still not provided an adequate framework. He must clearly define what "greatest Hokage" means and prove that his definition is what Naruto meant.
Naruto likely meant "most badass" i.e most powerful and most "cool", the latter of which is entirely subjective. As Naruto got older he likely learned the importance of other factors such as wisdom and "will of fire" and placed less emphasis on "cool" whatever that means.
Even if his idea of what constitutes "greatest" evolved, Naruto's Nindo (Ninja way) includes that he never goes back on his word. The fact that Naruto said he would be the greatest Hokage, means he will always strive towards that goal unless he breaks his Nindo or dies.
When I say greatest I mean a combination of factors. This includes fighting ability, wisdom, intelligence, specific feats, and upholding the philosophy behind what it means to be Hokage.
- This means comparrisons to other Hokages are irrelevant, since surpassing the first Hokage means surpassing all the others.
Not necessarily, because it could be argued that being the greatest Hokage mostly comes down to intelligence once you have a baseline of "will of fire" and whatnot. I think Hashirama was the greatest in general but alternatively you could say Minato or Shikamaru was the greatest because of their capacity to make good decisions alone. Even though strength is considered important for Hokage, being Hokage is more like being a general or a president than it is like being a soldier.
- He also conceeded that Naruto is just as smart and talented as Hashirama. But also that unlike Hashirama, when Naruto needs to be, he becomes a creative genious.
It's spelled "genius" and no, you're misrepresenting what I said. Hashirama and Naruto are equal in creativity and tactical ability but Naruto appears more stupid than he is because of his ADHD (and because he's a very young kid throughout most of the series).
- He also did not dispute that compared to Hashirama, Naruto has way more wisdom, empathy, battle IQ and a stronger will of fire.
I do dispute this, I think Naruto and Hashirama are equal in all those respects. Naruto and Hashirama are both incarnations of Ashura, which means they are likely to be very similar in their attitudes and mental-makeup.
- PRO has also not provided any argument to demonstrate that Hashirama creating the leaf village is a greater feat than Naruto SAVING THE WORLD multiple times.
Naruto has only HELPED save the world, and there is no evidence that Hashirama couldn't take his place and do everything he did.
Madara and many other people also created the leaf village
Hashirama was the one who spearheaded all of it, it never would have happened without him but may have happened without the others including Madara. This was the very thing that made him Hokage, but regardless of saving the world Naruto was still far from ready to be Hokage at that point.
Arguably, the establishment of the leaf village was not a big change.
It made peace between 100 different clans and without establishing Konoha, the foundation would have never been laid for greater peace.
It was at that point that other clans started to flock to them, since being allied to the two strongest clans is massively beneficial.
Ok, I'll concede that this is a good point but just because they came to Konoha to benefit themselves doesn't mean it didn't make peace between many rival clans.
- Established and maintained peace between the villages
Naruto did not establish shit, the villages and nations united for selfish reasons just like the clans did when Konoha was established and this was 0% done by Naruto and maintained only because he was friends with the other Kage.
- Helped grow the village economically, technologically and culturally.
This was due to the peace that Naruto himself didn't create.
- Revamped the ninja academy and chunin exams to be way safer
In other words he pussified them to allow weak bitches to be Ninja.
Nothing in the show implies Madara is a sociopath.
Except for the raging boner in his pants at the thought of killing people and fighting.
- Obito is almost excactly like Madara in terms of backstory, motivation and methods. Naruto turning this guy is proof that Madara was not beyon saving like PRO claimed.
Then why couldn't Naruto save Madara? The truth is that Obito was a massive pussy who lost hope for the world because one person died, but deep down he still wanted to believe and have hope for what he did before. Madara had no such desire to believe, he genuinely thought the world was fucked and his answer was to take away everyone's free will and turn them into cocoon slaves.
- Zabusa was a cold-blooded assasin who took a random child and used him as a weapon, and was willing to murder innocent bridge builders for cash
Deep down Zabuza had homosexual love for his femboy companion, it was more Haku than Naruto that revealed Zabuza's softer side.
- Sai was by his own admission a mere tool for the evil Danzo, with all emotions systematically removed. He was by definition a sociopath. Naruto reversed that process.
If he was a Sociopath, he would still have emotions and severe anger issues. Sai is pretty much never angry. If Sai had ASPD he would be a psychopath, but if he was a psychopath he wouldn't be able to be rehabilitated. What Sai suffered from was a severe form of dissociation and merely needed to reconnect to his emotions.
- Pain's plan for world peace involved creating the 10-tails, not to create genjutsu utopia, but to cause a war of untold destruction specifically to make the world suffer.
If this makes him more difficult to change than Madara, then why didn't Naruto talk no jutsu Madara? The fact is that Pain was way easier to convince than Madara, all Naruto had to do was forgive him and show him that he had the same name as a character in Jiraiya's book.
- Gaara was literally going around murdering innocent kids just because it "gave him a reason to live"
Gaara believed that everyone was an enemy who hated him just for being alive, Naruto was an example of someone like him who not only had friends but drew strength from protecting them while Gaara believed that hatred/loneliness was the source of true strength.
- Sasuke wanted to commit mass genocide just to feel better
If Sasuke was really on Madara's level he would have played the long game, said "ok Naruto I'll do things your way" and then stabbed Naruto in the butt hole 10 years later.
- Even Kurama himself, the being consisting of PURE HATRED that nobody had connected with before, was swayed by Naruto's talk-no-jutsu.
The half inside Naruto was more capable of reason than the other half which was literally pure hatred combined with chakra.
Meaning Hokage Naruto with 100% of his chakra could defeat Kagya single-handedly even without his so6p powers.
This is an absurd claim that requires sources.
- Naruto without Kurama would have had 100 x Kakashis chakra AS A KID, and as an Uzumaki, this number inceases exponentially.
Wrong, the chakra that Naruto had with Kurama, although most of it is much harder to tap into by default, is greatly amplified by Kurama's presence because his chakra is pushing against Kurama's to reinforce the seal which creates a passive work out for his chakra network. The whole reason he has so much difficulty tapping into most of his base chakra is because it is constantly wrestling Kurama with the help of the 2 seals for control of Naruto's body but this also means his chakra has been strengthened throughout his life by constantly battling Kurama's.
Thank you, FishChaser.
First up, PRO wants evidence that full strength Hokage Naruto can beat Kagya on his own.
- Momoshiki is an Ototsuki, and he absorbed another of his kind, which put him on the same tier of strenght as Kagya.
- But Naruto had lost half his chakra, and Sasuke had used half his chakra to portal there, so both of them were at half strength, while Momshiki was at full strenght.
- Hokage Naruto and Shaddow-Hokage Sasuke were able to bitch-slap this Kagya-level guy with low difficulty
- Naruto is at least equal to Sasuke, so that means:
- 100% Naruto = (50% Naruto + 50% Sasuke) > Momoshiki = Kagya
If PRO is right that Naruto never used so6p mode as Hokage, then his easy victory over Momoshiki scales his KCM2 to Kagyas level. But PRO is wrong, Hokage Naruto retained so6p.
Greatest Hokage
When I say greatest I mean a combination of factors. This includes fighting ability, wisdom, intelligence, specific feats, and upholding the philosophy behind what it means to be Hokage.
Naruto has nearly perfect scores on all of the factors you stated were important for a Hokage:
- Naruto had by far the greatest fighting ability of any Hokage.
- Naruto showcased more wisdom at 16 than many Hokage did their entire screentime appearance.
- Naruto has by far the greatest feats in the entire series, and has more of them than any other Hokage.
- Naruto cannonically had the greatest will of fire of any Hokage. He was also the most fair and efficient Hokage with both small and big decisions.
- Naruto did more to both protect and develop the leaf village than any other Hokage.
But even if we ignore the facts and just blindly accept PRO's claim that he failed some of these criteria, that is irrelevant. PRO did not deny that we should judge whether Naruto fullfilled his goal based on what Naruto himself meant by "greatest Hokage", which he conceeded was the most cool and badass Hokage, not the most intelligent and book smart.
These criteria play into Naruto's greatest strenghts:
- went from being mocked and feared by the entire village to being history's most respected Hokage
- when he was still a child, were the one the entire village hoped would save them from a godlike enemy
- teleported into the ruins of their village with the most badass entry with perfect drip and proceeded to kick the bad guys ass while everyone watched
- convinced a bloodthirsty enemy to perform suicide to revive the people he had just killed, and had everyone revived instantly know who saved them
- won an entire war on 5 different fronts at the same time, with just his shaddowclones being able to one-shot legendary kages from other villages
- saved every single ninja in the world numerous times with chakra he got after taming the most untamable tailed beast
- threw hands with the different 10-tails Jinchuriki in front of the entire shinobi alliance, which the next most powerfull Hokage admitted he could never have done
- was deemed worthy by Sage of six paths, a literal god, to receive his power, then proved this was the correct call by teaming up with Sasuke to seal Kagya in like an hour when the Sage of Six paths and his brother took literal days to do the same. He then defeated tailed beast boosted Sasuke and turned him, thus saving the entire world.
This entire list filled only with things that no other Hokage ever did. Each entry on this list is individually cooler than everything Hokage like Hiruzen could achieve in an entire lifetime.
you could say Minato or Shikamaru was the greatest because of their capacity to make good decisions alone
Naruto has made better decisions than Shikamaru:
- Sparing Gaara led to good relations with the sand village
- Talking to Nagato led to his village being revived
- Going to the battlefield against his orders was crucial for the victory in the 4th great shinobi war
- Trusting Obito enabled Sasuke and Naruto to rejoin from seperate dimensions, enabling the sealing of Kagya
- Forgiving, trusting and letting Sasuke go free allowed Konoha to have a shaddow Hokage and defend the world against an invasion by Gods
Intelligent leaders would have made the cold logic choices. But Naruto's empathy and gut feelings is more accurate in crucial moments than any deductions.
Hashirama and Naruto are equal in creativity and tactical ability but Naruto appears more stupid than he is because of his ADHD
Kid Naruto was equal in creativity and tactical ability to Hokage Hashirama. In the very first arc he outsmarts Zabusa, the guy who outsmarted and caught Kakashi lacking, more impressive than any battle IQ feat from Hokage Hashirama. In shippuden, the two interact, and Naruto is arguably much smarter than the first Hokage at that point, just with less miscelanious knowledge. But Hokage Naruto is way smarter and more experienced than we ever see him in Shippuden, plus we see none of the symptoms of his ADHD which is what was holding him back. We see him effectively arguing with Shikimaru at multiple occasions about what decisions to make, with very good points and clear logic, which shows he has improved his decison making process massively.
We see some of the smartest characters in the series do some of the stupidests shit:
- Madara and Obito get manipulated into thinking that killing almost everyone and forcing the rest into genjutsu utopia is morally justified
- Itachi gets told by Danzo to massacre his entire clan unless he wanted every single Uchiha dead. This makes no sense, the Hokage wants diplomatic solution, and reporting Danzo's threat gives them the leverage to have him removed and give the Uchihas the rights they deserve. But Itachi, despite his intellect, falls for this nonsense threat.
- Nagato thinks creating mass-nuclear war will somehow bring peace to the world because feelign pain makes you unwilling to inflict pain, which if he thought about it for more than 2 seconds makes no sense, since he is literally an example of someone whose experienced pain and still wants to harm others. His existence disproves his philosphy.
- Adult Shikimaru is still convinced that Hawaki is a spy after Boruto explains that Jigen, the guy who he would be spying for, came and tried to kidnap him, but met violent resistance.
- Hashirama was willing to commit suicide in front of the Uchihas just to show that he still cared about Madara. That is possibly the most stupid decision in the entire of Naruto.
- Madara stated he wanted Tobirama killed to mend their friendship, because Tobirama killed Madaras brother
- Hashiramas bright idea was to kill himself instead to protect his brother, completely forgetting that Madara could just kill Tobirama afterwards
- He did not even have a guarantee that Madara could and would make peace and establish the leaf, or that Tobirama who hated the Uchiha would survive and cooperate.
- He did not even consider that a village based on Madaras and Tobiramas ideals, with no input from him, would be a catastrophy doomed to fail.
- Minato the genious thought it wise to sacrfice his life just to seal half of the nine-tails into Naruto.
- He thought Naruto meeting himself and his wife for just 2 brief moments was more important than having a living breathing father
- 2 moments that required the 10 tails to almost break free, guaranteeing he could not meet or help Naruto before he had already gone on a rampage in the village
- Not to mention he did not take into consideration the guy he just fought:
- He knew the legendary "Madara" would come after the 9-tails and his village.
- He also knew he barely won that fight, and only because of his very specific fighting style, anyone else would have lost
- So he left his own son, the 9-tails, the safety of the village and the entire world, in the hands of an old retired Hokage he knew was not nearly strong enough
- The most ergregious part is that he could have sealed the entirety of Kurama into Naruto without dying, thus preserving the strenght of their greatest asset,
- And controlling the beast at twice the strenght would not be an issue for Naruto if he had Minato around to help him, train him, and strengthen the seal.
- And all the previous Hokage failed to deal with Madara, Danzo, Orochimaru and Sasuke. Naruto's plan of forcing Sasuke back to talk to him makes way more sense than not being willing to kill your student or friend, and therefore just letting them go on holding political power in the village or run away and be a rogue ninja.
- Tsunade sent 5 children to retrieve Sasuke from Orochimaru which was her own fucking responsibility as Hokage. If not for plot armour all of them would have died.
- Plus she is basically giving Orochimaru the 9-tails on a silver platter.
Most of the geniouses in the series also make the most stupid decision. But Naruto, even as a child, consistently makes intelligent decisions that have overwhelmingly positive impact.
Naruto has only HELPED save the world, and there is no evidence that Hashirama couldn't take his place and do everything he did.
Their track records proves he could not do what Naruto did:
- Everything Hashirama tried to achieve failed:
- tried to build a stable village where no clan was oppressed => failed
- tried to build lasting world peace by giving tailed beasts => failed
- tried to stop children from going to war => failed
- tried to stop Madara from becomming evil => failed
- tried to kill Madara to protect the village => failed
- While everything Naruto intended to do he succeeded in, even the things far more ambitious than what Hashirama wanted -- like saving both the world and his Uchiha friend.
just because they came to Konoha to benefit themselves doesn't mean it didn't make peace between many rival clans.
- What it means is that Hashirama only had to deal with Madara, he did not have to do any complicated diplomacy with 100 clans and end their hate cycles like you claimed
- Nor did he actually do anything helpfull. The Uchiha were oppressed in the village, and had no political power, but because Madara left they had no leader but Hashirama
- It did not even lead to broader peace. He even failed to stop the practise of child soldiers, which was his original goal. He could not convince them to stop that.
- Making the creation of Konoha not the greatest diplomatic feat in all of Naruto, which was your only argument for why this deserves to be weighed higher than saving the world
this was 0% done by Naruto and maintained only because he was friends with the other Kage.
So Naruto becoming friends with the other Kages, and the first real friend of Gaara, proving with his entire life that he was a trustworthy ally and an honest man, saving the world by defeating Kagya, saving their lives specifically by stopping his best friend from killing the 5 Kage, showing mercy and empathy to everyone, respecting the other villages's borders, laws, histories and traditions, building trade networks and sharing crucial intel and entrusting his own children to visit their villages with no escort. All of this had nothing to do with the world peace that he maintaned? That sounds like a ridiculous argument. You can never expect to have peace if war and conflict is the rational decision. Naruto turned world peace from something inconceivable into a no-brainer. Plus, he was also the nuclear deterent.
In other words he pussified them to allow weak bitches to be Ninja.
- Hashiramas system for training children for war by throwing them into the forrest of death with no supervision is just as dangerous as being in a war. At that point just send children directly to war and have your weak bitches die killing the enemy's weak bitches. Or better yet, be smart like Naruto and give the weaker ones extra training instead of letting them die.
- Plus, maybe don't kill children because that is, ya know, evil.
CONLUSION:
Thank you for this debate, but your argument makes no sense. Naruto is clearly the greatest Hokage, far ecclipsing Hashirama in every respect.
ROUND 3 Notes:
PRO gives his description of “greatest Hokage” which is combination of factor but admits that Naruto is likely “the most baddas or most powerful” .
PRO argues that CON still needs to prove Naruto is better Hokage than all of the others because right after Hashirama there’s Shikamaru and Minato who are way more intelligent than Naruto and thats one of the most important qualities.
PRO says he agreed that Naruto and Hashirama are generally similar regarding intelligent (creativity and tactics) and other characteristics (bc both are Ashuras reincarnation) but Naruto still appears dumber because of his “ADHD”
PRO states that Naruto only helped save the world not save it on his own and also that Hashirama couldve done it too.
And possibly argues that it doesn’t count because Naruto was not a Hokage yet?
PRO argues that establishing the Leaf was significant because it brought peace and that laid foundations for greater peace.
PRO admits that other clans being united and coming to Konoha is because it benefits them but that still doesn’t discredit Hashirama’s created peace.
PRO says that villages being united in Naruto’s time is because they were selfish and Naruto didn’t establish the peace.
PRO argues that Naruto “pussified” the chunin exams and Madara had a “raging boner when he was killing people” (???)
PRO states that even Naruto couldn’t talk no jutsu Madara and he was much different than anyone Naruto met
PRO gives psychological analysis of the people Naruto saved
PRO wants sources for “Meaning Hokage Naruto with 100% of his chakra could defeat Kagya”
CON gives an example of half powered Naruto and Sasuke defeating Momoshiki as an evidence that full strength Hokage Naruto could beat Kaguya on his own (sufficient example but still questionable because I didn’t see Kaguya=Momoshiki being firmly established anywhere, it is common knowledge that they’re pretty close tho)
CON shows that Naruto fits PRO’s definition of “greatest Hokage” better than Hashirama (which is technically the most important thing that matters)
CON argues that we should look at Naruto’s definition of “greatest Hokage” ( this is a new argument in the final round so I would count it ). If that was also the case why even ask for PRO’s definition.
CON argues that better decision making requires empathy which Naruto is better at, and not only intelligence.
CON argues that smart characters have done stupid things also (not necessarily at this point)
CON goes on to defend some of the claims PRO made like “Hashirama couldve done everything Naruto did” which is not necessarily to me since PRO never proved that in any way and its just assumptions based on an imaginary script.
CON gives another argument why creating Konoha is not as big of a deal
(or at least bigger achievement than saving the world)
CON gives examples of how Naruto maintained the peace
Debate Summary:
Both made good points, both made some contradictions, debate could’ve been way shorter (my notes too).
All that was needed was the definition for the “greatest Hokage” first. After PRO provided his description CON made better arguments that make Naruto fit the description better than Hashirama. CON identified Hashirama as the greatest Hokage so Naruto>Hashirama means Naruto=greatest Hokage. If greatest Hokage was defined as something specific and not overall combination of factors CON could’ve argued for someone else but that was not the definition he provided. CON admitted he thinks Hashirama is overall the best and his definition of greatest Hokage was whos the best overall. So overall both PRO and CON were right about some stuff, wrong about others but most importantly CON showed Naruto fits the description PRO gave better.
Round 2 Notes:
PRO states that Hashiramas feat (creating the Lead Village) should be counted because that’s what made him Hokage.
PRO argues that Narutos source of power is always from somewhere else and not his own (Kurama, SoSP…)
PRO does not accept the assertions that Hashirama didn’t have to deal with a lot of people (there were many fighting clans)
PRO argues that Hashirama would’ve been able to “talk no jutsu” too and Naruto didn’t do anything special
(*Some back and forth about diplomatics*)
PRO argues that CON’s powerscale is wrong because Naruto always had help defeating those Gods, Obita, Madara, etc
PRO argues that Madara’s and Obito’s new forms were weaker than their old forms??? (No back up given for this controversial claim)
PRO states that if they look only at “most powerful version of the character” in their life then Kakashi has the best form for a small amount of time.
PRO is questioning the validity of CONs claim that Naruto was still able to use SoSP when he was Hokage (sources need to be provided)
PRO argues for Hashirama’s social intelligence (empathy, etc..) by stating that he brought numerous clans together and made peace
CON requests a definition of “greatness Hokage”and points out that theres no point comparing to other Hokages since PRO already identified Hashirama as that and Naruto only needs to surpass him.
CON argues that saving the world is a bigger feat than creating the village.
CON argues that “Establishing the leaf village is not a very great feat. It was not that hard, not that big a deal, and not that positive. It's more important what Hashirama did after becoming Hokage.”
CON argues that Hashirama is not a great leader because failed to protect the village by putting it in danger from poor decisions.
CON also gives more reasons he thinks Hashirama was a bad leader and Naruto good.
(*Some back and forth about saving friends*)
CON defends his power scales successfully showing Naruto’s power is still greater on his own since he is able to fight gods alone or with just Sasuke (which means at least 50%)
CON shares a moment from the show as his evidence for Naruto using SoSP while Hokage (no links provided)
CON kinds of doesn’t deny that “Naruto would’ve been ass raped by Pain if it wasn’t for Minato or Kurama” but says that Naruto still did more dmg than Jiraya and rest of the village (which doesn’t help his case because the comparison is with Hashirama now)
CON argues that Hashirama is not vastly more powerful than Naruto without his boosts since Naruto is Uzumaki and Naruto was also able to fight Momoshiki in his base form.
CON argues that Hashiramas powers are also not his since he’s a reincarnation and all of chakra is Kaguya’s. (Not the same as what PRO argues for imo)
He also mentions that thats all irrelevant since the power still belongs to Naruto and can still be attributed to his feats. Even if it comes from Kurama or somewhere else.
CON also supports his claims that thats Narutos power now because he worked for it and earned it by taming Kurama, etc..
Which is more impressive than having a default power like Hashirama.
Summary:
Both make good points, Naruto would’ve been indeed “ass raped” without Kurama but later on he becomes way more powerful and his base form is allowing him to go against Momoshiki who is kinda a god.
CON points out a lot of diplomatic issues with Hashirama.
There’s an argument about Naruto’s sources of power.
Round 1 Notes:
PRO argues that Hashirama is the greatest Hokage in general by pointing out that :
1.Hashirama is more powerful than Hokage Naruto who couldn’t use SoSP Mode
2. Hashirama already defeated Kurama with Madara’s Susanoo
3. Hashirama invented the Leaf Village and the “will of fire”
4. Hashirama had to do more for the peace and wasn’t lucky like Naruto to have friends in position of power
PRO also argues that the other Hokages also surpassed Naruto in different aspects such as:
1. Intelligence (all of them)
2. Inventions (Tobirama)
3. Strategy (Herozen)
4. Leadership / Medicine (Tsunade)
CON states that he only has to prove that Naruto is greater than Hashirama now since PRO identifies Hashirama as the greatest Hokage
CON points out that if SPSM doesn’t count as a feat for Naruto because he did not do it while being Hokage then Hashirama’s feat (creating the LV) doesn’t count as well.
CON argues that kid Naruto has not heard about who Hashirama was therefore did not copy his “will of fire” philosophy from him
CON gives a list of feats / achievements
CON argues that Hashirama actually had it way easier than Naruto when it comes to bringing peace because of less people to deal with and Hashirama’s failure to actually be at peace with Madara at the end. Naruto on the other hand made peace with multiple people.
CON argues that Naruto fought enemies much stronger than Hashirama, like Gods (later on even in his base form)
PRO and CON generally agree that H and N are on the same intelligence level
CON argues that N is more socially intelligent by giving examples of Naruto being able to figure out and connect with different people.
CON tries to argue that Naruto is wise by surrounding himself with intelligent people (Shikamaru) but sees it as a negative when pointing out that Hashirama counted on his more intelligent brother (Tobirama) for advises?
Summary:
PRO makes some good points that H. Invented the Leaf Village, will of fire and overall his significance as the first Hokage is what makes him the greatest plus that he has beated versions of Kurama already.
CON replies successfully to most of this even tho he slightly contradicted himself imo.
CON examines the powerscales as evidence that Narutos power is tiers above what Hashirama faced in his time and makes good points about Naruto saving the World and bringing peace in a much more difficult situation.
Counterpoint, I am a European confused by British and American spelling. Color and Colour are both valid, so in my discombobulated mind, Genious sounds correct also. This must be remedied.
YOUR POINTS ARE NEGATED BY THE FACT THAT YOU KEEP SPELLING "GENIUS" AS "GENIOUS"
Another issue. You never established their administrative competancy. Like, you cite their intelligence and show feats of their battle intelligence, but those are not as important. Naruto's strenght makes him a better fighter than anyone who is not god level like he is, even if they had a gazillion IQ points. The only character you actually tried to argue had good political skills were tsunade, you said it was impressive she understood the assignment so quickly. But you never point out a single political decision any of the others made while acting as Hokage. Like, take Boby Fisher. You could make an argument like you did that he was smarter than all the presidents. But that genious has only ever expressed itself in chess. You can see he had some very bonkers political opinions. My point is that next time you want to make an argument about characters being good politicians, you have to back it up with political feats, not just statements about their general intelligence, book smarts or battle-prowess.
If you compare Teddy Roosevelt with another politician, but then you only talk about the other guy's badassery rather than his politics, Roosevelt will always come up on top in that comparison.
Ok you’re right, you can interpret greatest Hokage in many ways in a normal situation (I see that logic, thanks for asking) BUT not in a debate after you have already identified it and gave definition for it. Your definition of “greatest Hokage” is combination of all, not who leads the village intellectually. Which is good, this is the debate anyway. I know why you’re going back on it now but I think its kinda late. Different interpretations are not important anymore.
Also comparing Hokages and Mayors is fallacious. Just because Hokages have some of the job responsibilities that mayors have doesn’t mean mayors or the president can be a hokage. They are not the same, mayors dont have responsibilities like BEING ABLE TO PHYSICALLY PROTECT A VILLAGE FROM NINJAS WITH MAGIC. The job of the president doesn’t require for him to be able to fight at least decently.
Hokages are not only diplomatic figures like mayors from the real world. In the description of a greatest Hokage there is multiple criteria (like you said) so can’t take into account only intelligence or leadership.
The debate is about "greatest Hokage" and you can interpret that multiple ways. Hokage is a position similar to "mayor" or "president". You can look at it in a very broad general sense, or you can look at it in terms of what makes someone a better "mayor" specifically. Would you say that Teddy Roosevelt was the best president just because he was the most bad ass? Probably not, but maybe he was the greatest when you combine other factors. At the same time some nerdy, scrawny president would arguably be better because he was the smartest decision maker and making decisions is what the job is about.
If you pretend not to see the logic here, it's because you want me to lose and not because of the validity of the point itself.
Wait, so isn’t the title of the debate about ”the greatest Hokage” and not about “stuff that helps you lead a village”? You just said again basically “yea if you include everything (which is what you’re supposed to do) the “greatest” (debate title) is Hashirama BUT IF YOU ONLY LOOK AT who is more intelligent its someone else. In this case why both of you are debating and arguing about power, strength and other stuff? You made plenty of arguments outside of intelligence and leading a village didn’t you?
I'm saying that if you combine everything Hashirama is the greatest Hokage but if you only include stuff that helps you lead a village and not stuff that helps you fight or be respectable in general, then Shikamaru and Minato are the best a Hokages.
Either way you don't have to vote Con even if it turns out Naruto is better than Hashirama, and if you do it can only mean that you hate me and want me to kill myself.
So you would not say that Hashirama is the greatest Hokage of all time overall? In which way are you interpreting “greatness Hokage “ that Im missing? I thought you defined it as “combination of factors. This includes fighting ability, wisdom, intelligence, specific feats, and upholding the philosophy behind what it means to be Hokage.” This is what you described Hashirama as. Now are you saying Minato or someone else is better Hokage than Hashirama?
The fact remains that there is an alternate way to interpret what "greatest Hokage" is even if I didn't think about and use it enough in the debate.
Well I see a couple problems with what you just said, I might be wrong tho idk. So one of them is that you started the debate by stating that Hashirama is THE GREATEST in general Hokage of all time, named your reasons and then defined “greatest Hokage” as a combination of multiple different factors. That means that even if Minato was better politician or more intelligent you already knew that but placed him below Hashirama because of his other feats that mentioned and labeled as more significant.
Whatever the other Hokages strong sides are is irrelevant because you weighed them out for him and proclaimed Hashirama as the best of them overall. You didn’t just say Hashirama is better than Naruto (leaving you the door of later saying “well yea naruto is greater than hashirama but I didn’t say hashirama is the greatest so that doesn’t make naruto the greatest…etc..) , you said Hashirama is greatest, the biggest Hokages from all Hokages.. So… if Naruto replaces the Number 1 Hokage he becomes a what?
No, even if Naruto is greater than Hashirama con loses because Naruto is an inferior leader to every other Hokage. Naruto and Hashirama are actually the least intelligent Hokage and every other Hokage is a better decision maker. Think about it, would you choose someone to be a political leader based on how strong a fighter they are or how intelligent and politically-minded they are? Minato is the greatest Hokage if Hashirama isn't because Minato is as intelligent as Shikamaru and stronger than the other Hokage besides Naruto and Hashirama.
To me if CON proves Naruto is greater Hokage than Hashirama he wins since PRO already identified him as the greatest of all. So theres no point comparing with others, even if there are some aspects in which someone is better than Naruto, overall they (other Hokages) are not greater than Hashirama (from what PRO stated in round1).
So if Naruto is greater than Hashirama he is greater than all of the rest also.