Godernet
He/Him- 2,752
- 3,667
tbh, we really don't know if it was necessary because we don't know the alternative. what we do know is that Minato was hated by the other villages and considered an unparalleled genius, killing someone like that's son could have been a high priority for some villages, but Minato at least thought it was an acceptable reason to hide Naruto's identity.I’ll be honest, the cover people like to give to Hiruzen (While Valid) isn’t the only way he could have handled Naruto. Not even the “best” way either.
The criticisms of Hiruzen are extremely valid. Hiding Naruto’s Identity wasn’t “necessary”.
agreed.His usefulness as a “Nuke” was worthless until Part 2 (Because duh, he was an infant and child). Etc…
except half of those people didn't exist by the time Naruto was around.There is no “bail” you can give Hiruzen that can’t be argued with. Konoha had the 2nd Strongest Fighting Force in the 3rd Ninja War and the overall strongest individual Ninja (Minato (Eventually Became Kage), Jiraiya, Tsunade, Hiashi, Fugaku, Shisui, etc…). No Nation or “ordinary” individual was getting into the village to attack Naruto w/o starting a War.
- Minato was dead,
- Fugaku and the Uchiha have been under heavy scrutiny since the 2GNW and are thought by the public to potentially have started the nine-tails attack.
- Jiraiya left the village for a while(probably going after Orochimaru as he implied, also why should Hiruzen be responsible for Jiraiya deciding not to watch his student's kids?)
- Tsunade had left the village by this time.
the rest of those people were kinda irrelevant at this time tbh
also, the village had already been infiltrated twice during this time, one of those times was to kidnap Hinata, so the leaf was definitely vulnerable to being infiltrated.
Getting the nine tails was also def worth the infiltration if they could.
I'm ngl I don't think that's what would happen.Naruto “could’ve” been the recipient of the love and Good Will Minato & Kushina built up in the village.
Because most of the important Shinobi in Konoha were aware of who Naruto was to Minato but still didn't care or still avoided him.
I doubt the average person in Konoha's perception would change much considering how much damage was caused by the nine tails.
It would be a lot of yeah "you're Minato's son but you also killed X person so I hate you."
the bad tends to outweigh the good for people most of the time.
Shinobi Culture, in general, was immoral and toxic, this wasn't a Hiruzen-only thing.The fact is, while Hiruzen’s method was “valid”, it was also immoral given his other options.
tbh, he did more for Naruto than most Kage in his position would have (with the exception of Hashirama, who laid the foundation of the Will of Fire, and any Kage during Naruto's rise in influence as he motivated a lot of Shinobi out of their jaded world views.)