Do you think Madara deserved a redemption? Like, an actual redemption, not just some throwaway line about getting drinks with Hashi in the afterlife. If so, how would you do it?
hmmm... see the thing is i think we’d need to establish what we actually mean by “redemption” before i answer this? because (taking sasuke for example) it seems to me that, in canon, redemption means abandoning everything you fought for and submitting to the iron will of the state, accepting that the village must exist for the village’s sake, and being ready to die at any moment for konoha. if that’s what we mean by redemption, then obviously no - i think that’s a little Fucked Up, and i feel like naruto works much better as a narrative when it’s examined from the starting position that, “although naruto uzumaki and konoha are the main characters of the story, they are not the protagonists, and they are not the Good Guys.”
so, just off the bat, if we’re going to be discussing redemption in any aspect, it can’t be through canon’s framing. redemption with respect to madara can’t involve him sacrificing his ideals, or else it’s just a bastardization of his character. madara’s a deeply driven dude, and while i don’t pretend to know philosophy, i’d think we can easily say that he struggles with both an intense desire to protect people and, simultaneously, his reoccurring and persistent inability to do so. this contradiction is at the core of madara’s character; it’s the entire driving force behind the moon’s eye plan. the mep is his last-ditch effort to actually make substantive change for the better - which, again, is flawed, and misguided, and deeply nihilistic at it’s core - but it is done with the intention of improving things for everyone. if you take away this aspect of his character - this reviled and deeply misunderstood historical figure, who really, earnestly wants the best for the people around him and does the absolute worst fucking job of achieving that - then you’re not dealing with madara any more.
how could madara be redeemed in a way that wouldn’t sacrifice his principles? the world around him would have to change, for start. i’ve actually been toying with an idea for a fanfic - one that i’m probably not going to write, lmao - but, what if madara and hashirama survived after the end of things? what if the sage of six paths pulled all the bijuu back into the moon or whatever it was he did, and released the edo tensei’s, but brought hashirama and madara back? what would they do?
honestly, at the end of it, madara did kind of get his own redemption. not the throwaway line about drinking as comrades - but the part where he admits hashirama was right. ofc, in the context of canon, he’s saying the village system was Good After All, but i’m choosing to interpret it as madara finally accepting an alternative to nihilism; finally accepting the point that hashirama was trying to make, in that, while peace may not be achievable now, it is possible to nurture the conditions for it to grow and raise the next generation to pursue. the material conditions of the world are not inherently hostile; people can be made satiated; there is enough to go around such that a win for one side need not spell desolation for the other.
so to answer your question anon if hashirama and madara survived somehow after the end of the manga i think madara should become hokage
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