Originally posted by: CmDr_RavEn
Originally posted by: hiten mitsurugi
If you were the strongest person in your village and there is no term for being hokage. Would you select a successor just because they met a certain criteria? Keep into consideration that fact that there is no time restraints for being hokage. I don't see someone as strong as the third selecting a successor unless he was stronger than himself. He has shown us how much he loved the village. If the fourth wasn't stronger than third why didn't the third just remain hokage. The third remained hokage and didn't announce a successor since the fourth's death, because unless he finds someone stronger than himself. He can defend the city better than anybody else can. And remember what the title of Hokage stands for, it is given to the strongest in the village.
Sometimes people just retire, either because they're too old, they've had enough, or whatever. I'm just saying that the 4th wasn't necessarily stronger than the 3rd, in fact there's more evidence proving that he wasn't (if you consider the 3rd's nickname).

Just because the 3rd picked a successor, doesn't mean that successor was better or stronger than him. He was just finishing being the Hokage, that's all, and he picked someone to take his place. After the 4th died, there wasn't anyone suitable to take his place, so the 3rd had to take up the title again, most likely on the constant search of the 5th. Then Oro, Jiraiya and Tsu rocked up, and changed everything.
Let's use your example of the nick name. If they gave the nick name (god of all shinobi) to the third, then the fourth came along and was way more powerful than the third. Obviously the fourth deserved the nick name more than the third, but since the third came before the fourth, he got the nick name. The village can not take away such a name once bestowed upon someone of the thirds caliber. Even if the fourth deserved it. That's why the nick names don't mean anything.

Do you guys know what the term successor means. We're not talking about a royal family, who because of lineage becomes hokage. We're talking about the strongest person in the clan, not best suited as you suggest. Retirement was my whole point. The third was indeed strong, but because the fourth came along, who was stronger; he felt like he could retire. Notice how after the fourth died, there wasn't anyone stronger than himself to be named hokage, therefore he remained hokage, even to old age.

Dazzz, when printers are manufactured lets say an HP laserjet 2000dn. It prints 10 pages black per minute. Then it's successor is introduced, an HP laserjet 5000, and it prints 21 pages black per minute. Do you see how a successor has to be stronger or better than it's predecessor, or else it will be quickly replaced by another.

Dazzz, you can't simply pick parts you say has no value and other parts that have extreme value. For example, when Oro says that Itachi is stronger than himself. You cling to that as if it's the life of the Naruto manga. Yet it was just something that occured in the manga. Are you over-analyzing this qoute? To someone like me that qoute really doesn't have any meaning because nothing has happened to support anything yet. No one know how to use a jutsu better than the person who invented it. For Example, no one know how to use the sexy no jutsu better than Naruto. There is a difference between being to old to complete a jutsu and complete knowledge of a jutsu.