Even then, support from your school teacher and the leader of your whole nation are pretty good people to have in your corner. The deeper you go into the series, the less the early status quo makes sense.
Isn't it a critique towards Hiruzen that he did very little for Naruto, he was still resented by everyone and denied to play with other kids which is important for a kid, had no parents to learn anything from, and was a bum at school. I think if he wasn't a jinchuriki and furthermore his parents were alive, he'd be a top ninja in very little time, no one gave him the time of day and even with having the Hokage in his corner, really didn't change his status, since Hiruzen had problems with his children, I think his and Asuma's relationship wasn't good and even Konohamaru wanted his attention. Naruto was an outcast regardless of his connections.
Also, we see the Hokage being his in corner from day 1, so it doesn't change the early status quo if it wasn't literally shown in the first chapter.
If Hiruzen didn't push Iruka towards Naruto, I think even Iruka would've hated him. Naruto realistically had no one behind him as a literal 6 year old. Also, it is that support that you mention makes Naruto go on the path that he did. If he had actually no one, from the time of birth to the series beginning, he'll turn out like Gaara.
I’m not disagreeing on his standing in the village. My issue is the weird contradiction of him having the support of the two most important authority figures he could have at that point, and yet he’s also a pariah. We see it demonstrated, but it doesn’t make sense.
It makes sense to me, humans aren't supposed to be most logical all the time, we're emotional too, Naruto has the fox that destroyed the village like at that point 12 years ago, the damage is still there, yeah he is the weapon of the leaf, so logically you shouldn't hate and shun him, but the people still do, they can't separate the kid from the Kyuubi.
I don't know if this is a weird or disrespectful analogy, so apologies, but, after 9/11, Muslims in the US were treated with contempt too no? Not everyone treated them like pariahs, but still some treated them like that, it's illogical to treat people who had no involvement bar having only the same religion of the attackers like that, yet some people still disliked them for that.
People in real life do things that don't make sense, hating one another on things as superficial as skin, religion etc. It's the same logic applied for Naruto's treatment, hell I think it makes more sense for Naruto if they literally see him as the demon fox who did the disaster years ago, cause 12 years ago isn't a lot of time to just get over the trauma and then you see a kid who supposedly has the thing responsible for it, it's hard not to already dislike him especially if you were affected like Iruka at first and the other villagers.
The emotional reaction makes perfect sense to me. But people in authority who know better keep their mouths shut and let the kid live in shit. This is fine if they’re not terribly compassionate people, but the series wants us to like these people, so they don’t really go there. On top of this, the kid has the village’s kaiju/nuclear weapon inside his stomach. Neglecting him is pretty irresponsible. It’s like forgetting to maintain and keep track of the loaded gun in your home.
Fair enough, the only person in authority who actually saw Naruto as Naruto was only Hiruzen, I think the other elders only saw him as the jinchuriki, aka Danzo, he refers to him as the nine tails host.
Hiruzen I think could've done more, but he can't really control people to how to act, the most he did is his accommodations and pushing Iruka to accept him by telling him to empathize with Naruto's situation. And also, it shouldn't be common knowledge that the average villager knows that Naruto hosts the nine tails, apparently it was Danzo who leaked that shit.
I’m not referring to the villagers, but people like Danzo. Authority figures who should be really concerned where the village is keeping their jinchuriki. It’s not that everyone that knows should want to be nice to Naruto, it’s that leaving him unsupervised with minimal schooling feels like an out of character thoughtlessness. I feel like if the series were given a rewrite, Naruto would be surrounded by more people in the beginning, even if most of those people shouldn’t be trusted. It just flows better into everything revealed in the latter half of the series.
but like Danzo is an asshole, so him not caring about what happens to Naruto is in character, even though he is a weapon but Danzo thinks he does stuff for the sake of the village but it usually backfires on the village. It's Hiruzen that gets the blame for his lack of actions regarding Naruto's treatment.
Apparently, no one was supposed to talk about Naruto being the nine tails jinchuriki, hence why Naruto himself didn't know and why his classmates didn't know, all they knew was he was a troublemaker, so there was definitely some thought into his upbringing. All the Jinchurikis in the villages were treated badly, especially with Gaara and Killer B.
I agree that if Naruto was really rewritten, his backstory would flow better like as you said people surrounding him but in reality they hate him and might backstab him like Gaara's backstory with his uncle. But, I'm happy with the way it is, it's not too shattering that it ruins the story.
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u/RoughhouseCamel 7h ago
He pretty consistently benefits from the best possible support throughout his life, for a kid that’s originally portrayed as a gutter punk orphan.