Why Naruto isn't stupid

[CapsuleCorpJX]

I don't get why people still assume Naruto is stupid. He's not. Just because someone acts goofy and is carefree, doesn't mean he isn't talented at least in the heat of battle.

In almost every fight, he's shown resourcefulness and comes up with on-the-spot strategies to fill in the holes of his weakness. Granted his shadow clones is used in every fight, but it's the primary way he can fool and misdirect his opponents.


He's rescued Kakashi from Zabuza's water prison with his indirect knife attack.

He beat Kiba with a brilliant strategy that got Kiba to PUNCH HIS OWN DOG.

In the Forest of death, he used his shadow clones to fool the enemy Rain ninja, and got his team out of the trap where they were walking in circles.

He beat Neji by pretending to lose.

He beat Gaara initially by sticking an exploding tag in the only weak-spot of his sand-armor, his ass.

He beat Kabuto with the Rasengen, even though the Rasengen was too slow. He came up with the idea to get himself stabbed so he can keep Kabuto still.

He beat Kakuzu by attacking him with seemingly the same attack twice, except the second time Naruto predicted accurately that Kakuzu would attack the one in the back with the Rasengen, which turned out to be a shadow clone. Even the first failed attack of that fight was just to setup Kakuzu into his mistake in the second attack.

Really the only other ninja that has used as much strategic deception is Shikamaru himself.

[February]

You give lots of examples where he outsmarted the opponent, but there were so many situations you didn't mention where Naruto just got fooled by the opponent/his strategys didn't work. Each character that is important to the story has lots of accomplishments; you can't prove that Naruto isn't stupid by trying to list all the situations where he accomplished something.

I won't try to say Naruto is stupid or not stupid because its going to take a lot of time but no one shouted out that he isn't talented because he is carefree and goofy.

We all know that goofy + carefree characters can be very talented, for example, Tobi.
But take some time to look at the difference between Tobi and Naruto. The difference is there and its immense. Yet, I don't think I've seen anyone post complaints about Tobi's talent because of his goofy and carefree characteristics.

Oh, and there was another thread for this. Why make an entire new thread?

EDIT: To the guy who de'repped me for double posting: I'll keep my double post and you can't do anything about it, thanks.

[joker-kun]

Oh, and there was another thread for this. Why make an entire new thread?

EDIT: To the guy who de'repped me for double posting: I'll keep my double post and you can't do anything about it, thanks.

hahahahahaha
ahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahaha

Nice one.

And umm no I don't think Naruto is stupid~

[dimitris127]

if naruto was stupid i don't think any of his opponents would let him win...except if they were even more stupid

[Abdula]

There really was no need for you to make another thread, you could have simply posted in the Naruto is an idiot thread. There was no need for that other thread either since it would've been more productive for that point to be discussed within each individual chapter's thread, but since its there you really should have posted in there since you are talking about the same thing.

First off no one is saying that Naruto is stupid the argument was whether Naruto is an idiot or not. The examples you gave really don't make any sense because him being an idiot or not won't affect the outcome of his battles since he is the protagonist anyway. Secondly none of those examples proved anything because some of the most idiotic people I know are the best fighters I know. I think its insulting that you compared Naruto to Shikamaru because there really is no comparison. Naruto is not Shikamaru, Shikamaru is intelligent Naruto isn't.

Another thing that bothers me about your examples is because you seem to think that someone doing something "smart" means that they aren't dumb. Naruto’s battle sense, is all about instincts. He is very emotional and he goes with whatever his instincts tell him to do whether it is the right decision are not, it really doesn't have much to do with strategy.

Resourcefulness does not equal intelligence and it is far more likely that someone who relies on instincts like Naruto would end up doing some seemingly intelligent than it is for someone like Shikamaru to do something stupid.

The biggest differences between Naruto and Skimaru are planning, observation skills, acquiring and processing information, taking calculated risks and correctly assessing situations and opponents and being able to predict foreseeable outcomes. Naruto has none of these abilities like I said he runs on instincts, which is why he needs protecting. Instincts are great and all but every one has them and when you rely on them too much you have a tendency to fall for simple tactics and taunting which Naruto does consistently.

Anyway I've lost my train of thought and this post seems far more malevolent than I intended. Anyway my point was that the outcome of those battles doesn't really say much as to whether Naruto is an idiot or not. Goku was an idiot and that didn't stop him. I haven't seen anything thus far that suggests that Naruto possesses any exceptional talent. Sure he has a lot of chakra but he is not responsible for that and if he hadn't accidentally learned the shadow clone he would've been completely useless. Naruto has no talent in ninjutsu, taijutsu or genjutsu and he doesn't have any strategic skills to overcome his lack of talent.

[dimitris127]

naruto doesn't have exceptional talent then please go ahead and explain me how he learned the rasengan and even more completed it

[Abdula]

You're an idiot aren't you. Learning something or doing something doesn't mean that you have any talent for it. You've never seen someone succeed at something even though they have no talent or affinity for it because I have. Its called effort, look at Lee for example.

[Death13a]

naruto doesn't have exceptional talent then please go ahead and explain me how he learned the rasengan and even more completed it

Steroids (aka Fox demon). And the only way he defeats his opponents are due to plot holes.

[Death BOO Z]

Naruto is stupid, but that's not the point of disscusion.
we all know he'll never be as smart and knowlegeable as Shikamaru or Kakashi, we don't expect him to be.
the problem is, however, that when it comes down to fighting (which is the only thing that counts in Naruto), he can't do anything right, and it seems that his battle senses are decreasing, rather than getting better.

Shonen hero-charecters are dumb, as a rule, and have a super power plot device to keep them alive through the first stages of the story. Naruto isn't diffrent, in most cases, but it's been 400 chapters and we have yet to see him "win" against an enemy in a 'clean' fight.

Goku was a bonehead (from head to bones), but he knew to keep his head clear in a fight (even as a super saiyan) and make a reasonable decision, not to mention that he had his own moments to shine as a fighter.
Luffy is a naive bonehead that can't tell left from right, but he still has amazing fighting insight and knows his abilities to the core - when was the last time we saw Naruto coming up with a startegy to kick ass? he only knows how to poke ass.
Ichigo is dumb as a rock, but he tries to understand his own power, and he is worried about the concenques of what's going on.
Gon is so straight minded that it hurts other charecters, but he has battle instics, experience and insight, and each time he fights, he improves his skills and developes.

Naruto is now (chapter 380) the same charecter he was when he fought Kimimaru (215), he fights like an old crpg boss fight, he buffs up with haste (kyuubi) and starts throwing the flare spell around. it makes for a poorly drawn battle.

[Abdula]

I thought that Kishimoto would have changed Naruto's character after the time skip since he seems to have changed almost everyone else's but that didn't happen. Naruto was one of the characters that needed some major development but sadly he chose to only give him more power ups.

[mafrek]

you are so right. naruto is very clever, and hes 'stupid' when it comes to not knowing about terms but thats because so that his teacher will tell him and the reader/audience will know about it too. a lot of smart people act stupid too.

[¥»»ÄzäzëL««¥]

this is a great point, naruto really isnt stupid, so why do people keep thinking he is. he's proven himself plenty of times, even know he is spontaneous, he still comes up with good ideas and plans. like CapsulCorp said, he outsmarted kiba, and tricked him into punching his own dog. and sometimes he does do stupid crap, but that doesnt mean he's stupid, he did summon gamabunta to save himself from falling to his death.

[Death BOO Z]

each of those 'smart' moves (gamabunta summon doesn't count as smart) happened before chapter 100. it's been about 300 chapters since then. Zero development.
show me a 'smart' move that he has done since the time-skip.
only the mid-air movement in the test against Kakashi.

[kpxiceboi]

Yea, Naruto is kind of stupid. However, I feel that Naruto just gets lucky. I mean, i still think that he is catching onto more stragetic moves. But naruto just seems to get more powers but not more intellegence to complement his powers.

[¥»»ÄzäzëL««¥]

each of those 'smart' moves (gamabunta summon doesn't count as smart) happened before chapter 100. it's been about 300 chapters since then. Zero development.
show me a 'smart' move that he has done since the time-skip.
only the mid-air movement in the test against Kakashi.

yeah, the summoning thing was quite a while ago, but it was still better than like trying to grab onto one of the spikes or rolling when he hit the ground, if he had tried those, he'd probably be stupid. i mentioned it because characters generally dont get dumber, and if he did that when he was like 12, it's pretty good thinking for someone who's mind is probably clouded with images of their death. i'll revise my ''naruto is smart'' theory, naruto is able to handle certain situations quite well. also, the kakashi fight is a good example too, i didnt even think of it.

[Death BOO Z]

nope, sorry. doesn't count.
the summonning was done by survival instincts, it was there to show that Naruto could bring out an insane amount of power without going completly nutts.
if he had done the trick from Kakashi test#2 i'd be impressed, (side note: the Kakashi test#2 trick was first displayed during the river fight with Sasuke, and perhaps even during the hospital fight).

We know that Naruto can pull out a bigass new trick from time to time, but nobody cares about those. if this was an arcade, then Naruto would have been the stupid kid that keeps doing the A+B life drainning combo on the weak underlings, while everyone else are exploting the stupid A.I to score easy hits.

bad example. but still. Naruto can't be cool when his kicking the asses of people he should beat, how is he expected to be cool when his winning over someone important?

I can't root for a charecter that fights in such an ugly way, he's cheaping out every skill he learned and makes it useless.


last thing, in general speaking, Charecters get dumber over the year, they act according to thier stereotype rather than being actual charecters.

examples: (just becuase it's always fun to bring in other animes to the disscusion)
Ranma & Akane (Ranma 1/2) could converse in the first season, and they had inner monolouges, after that, they just started saying their catch-phrases more and more and doing the shticks.
Kyomaru (konjiki no gash bell) had issuses with his class and society at the beginning of the story, and after the third episode, it all dissappeared and he became billy-everyteen.
Gon was far less stupid (intellgence, not battlewise) when HxH began, and accordingly, Killua and Kurapica weren't as smart.
Ginta (MAR), when in started, he was a geeky boy finding out that wonderland was going bad, then he just became a noraml shonen kid.
Jun (Rozen maiden) had a big share of issuses with his family at the first episode, but everything magically dissappeared.

the writers sterch out the 'easytowrite' sides of the charecters perssonality, becuase its simply easier to write.

[CapsuleCorpJX]

each of those 'smart' moves (gamabunta summon doesn't count as smart) happened before chapter 100. it's been about 300 chapters since then. Zero development.
show me a 'smart' move that he has done since the time-skip.
only the mid-air movement in the test against Kakashi.

I mentioned it earlier. What about Naruto's fight with Kakuzu? Naruto's first attack's failure sets up Kakuzu to make a mistake in Naruto's second attack.

[¥»»ÄzäzëL««¥]

I mentioned it earlier. What about Naruto's fight with Kakuzu? Naruto's first attack's failure sets up Kakuzu to make a mistake in Naruto's second attack.

well the fact that his rasen-shuriken failed wasnt naruto's fault. he had never used it in battle before, the proper use was never explained to him, and like he said, the name does indicate that it should be thrown, rather than used to strike an opponent.

[bagandscalpel]

well the fact that his rasen-shuriken failed wasnt naruto's fault. he had never used it in battle before, the proper use was never explained to him, and like he said, the name does indicate that it should be thrown, rather than used to strike an opponent.
But, in the end, he DID use it to strike Kakuzu before launching it.

That reasoning is moot since the technique was used exactly like a sharingan should.

[SilentSnake]

Naruto is not stupid.

proof :

stupidity multiplied thousands of times is still stupidity.

Naruto multiplied thousands of times is rasen-shuriken, which is a move that could not be mastered (created?) even by 4th.

Naruto just pretends to be goofy cause it's easier for him, he likes to be underestimated and surprise his enemies, who would expect him to be dangerous at first sight? pretty much nobody :p