Naruto’s ending is really flawed because there’s really salient critiques of shinobi society all throughout the story, and it is actually the crux of the main conflicts of the show, but in the end they are simply dismissed for a sort of disappointing ending. It’s realistic in that revolutions tend to be dissatisfying and lead to marginal change in the actual conditions on a global scale, but I mean, Naruto is power of friendship shounen fiction. Forgive me for having unrealistic expectations.
Society failed everyone. Shinobi society failed Madara, which motivated him, which then drove him to illustrate to Obito the failures of shinobi society (which had already been failing him), who then went on to cause a lot of pain in the world to both illustrate the horrors brought and simply accepted by shinobi society, and also to obtain the necessary pieces to finish Project Tsuki no Me. Society failed Naruto, and it really really really failed Sasuke.
Naruto has a more optimistic outlook of the system because he has faith in the human behind these systems, but the way shinobi society is structured incentivizes the un-humaning of the self and occupation. We see in Kakashi’s story, and also in the Land of Waves arc, that shinobi society values “tools” more than people. Naruto is right in finding this abhorrent, but other shinobi simply accept it as reality. Like Obito, Naruto had this rejection of the removal of the “person” from a person, and Kakashi sees that in at the end of the arc and seems to envy him. Some characters seem to simply accept this as an aspect of shinobi life, and they are absolutely right.
Sasuke seems to have very little faith in people, and for a time thought he would thrive in a system that values power. He needed power to kill Itachi, so it makes sense. Even when society has failed him, he still adheres to the truth of power, and sought to end conflicts in shinobi society by directing all ire towards himself. He felt that he needed to become the one people all hated to end this.
Personally, I feel like a better ending would’ve been a synthesis, in a way. The acceptance that shinobi society is intrinsically flawed, and that society would benefit from treating people as people rather than “tools.” Like with what the Sage of the Six Paths was hinting at about Ninshu; one should use their power to connect with and help others. Perhaps the ending is realistic in that the lessons are not learned so easily, but it’s still disappointing to think about. Or perhaps leaving the ending ambiguous with a hopeful message would’ve simply been better.
