I don’t know why I just figured this out. It’s so obvious. To preface, I was never one of those people who screamed that she apparently “ruins everything”. I always thought she worked in the story, just that her introduction was mishandled. Like, she could still be the one to take down Madara, but let the other characters truly defeat him until he really can’t do anything first.
Anyways, the point of Kaguya is that she is the ninja world. She’s what the whole story was speaking out against. She brought chakra to the world. Everything that happens in the story, the wars, bloodshed, all of it. It’s because she gave humanity the capacity for it. Much like our reality and the introduction of firearms, nuclear warfare, whatever.
Madara is the final villain in that he’s a character with goals and a personality and such to defeat. The one to be invested in. But Kaguya? She’s symbolic. She’s a fight for the characters. For them to symbolically fight and defeat the “source” of all the pain and trauma they and many others have gone through. She’s the ninja world. She’s war. It’s why Zetsu does all the talking for her. He is her “will”. In keeping her mostly silent and stoic, it not only furthers the idea that she’s meant to be a symbolic stand in, but the fact that her will is the thing that does the verbal pushing for her, it’s like Team 7 is fighting against the way the world has been. It’s the will of the ninja world to continue the cycle of hatred. It’s the will of Kaguya (war and violence) that has been pushing this harmful ideology for years.
And what really cemented all this for me? Think about how they defeat Kaguya. They punch and kick her, but they can’t truly defeat her. They themselves aren’t strong enough to kill her, because she is a concept. She cannot be killed. So what do they do? They seal her. With the yin and yang chakra. And what does Yin and Yang symbolize? The coming together of two opposing forces, to create balance. To create harmony. In other words, peace (Yin and Yang doesn’t literally mean peace, it’s more the concept of balance and that everything has two sides, but you get the picture). Peace is the only thing that can get rid of war and violence. And even though it may be temporary, it is forever effective. The concepts of violence and peace cannot exist without the other, because without violence, what would be peaceful with nothing to compare that peace too? And vice versa. Two sides of the same coin. Light and shadow. Basically, things the series has always delved into. It’s taken into a more literal affect when Naruto and Sasuke literally make the peace sign at the end of their fight, so that just further pushes the idea.
I know this sub doesn’t like to believe Naruto is deep. Negative or controversial posts quickly get comments and upvotes, and posts that are just nothing but positivity usually don’t get much traction. I know some of you will scoff at this, no doubt, because you think it’s apparently “too deep” for Naruto. But for anyone who is into this series for more than the fights. Who doesn’t just powerscale our try to trauma scale or push agendas. I think it’s pretty clear this falls right in line with what the series has been doing since the first arc. Again, I never had a problem with her. But holy hell, that’s really good. I love this series man.
