What an Idiot!/Anime and Manga/Naruto

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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  • In Naruto The Dragon, Pain, has attacked Konoha and is destroying everything in sight. He wants to capture Naruto. One problem: Naruto is away training. Tsunade has to decide what to do.
    You'd Expect Tsunade to keep Naruto away from this mess. He has not finished his training yet and Pain is the person who killed Naruto's mentor, Jiraiya.
    Instead Tsunade asks a frog messenger to get Naruto back to the village! The village where a death machine wants him and will probably kill him if he engages him.
    • Then, Naruto fights Pain.
      You'd Expect Pain to pull the Naraka Path away from battle. The only combat-efficient move that Path could do would result in his opponent's death. And it's an interrogation move. Considering Naruto is a Jinchuriki, that would majorly screw up Akatsuki's plan. Plus, the Naraka Path could revive any of the other paths should they be disabled in battle. So, pull him from battle, and as soon as Naruto kills one of the other paths, have the Naraka Path recover the body behind Naruto's back, go into hiding, and ressurect the body there.
      Instead He's out in the open doing fuck-all except for reviving one path! And then he gets killed off rather easily.
    • This trope retroactively applied to Jiraiya when we learned that Pain/ Nagato and Konan were trained by Jiraiya when they were kids. Pain had the Rinnegan, supposedly the strongest of the Eye powers, first used by the creator of ninjutsu, ninja philosophy, and, supposedly, the freakin' moon!!
      You'd Expect Jiraiya would take the kids back to Konoha with him so the village could have all three Eye powers, getting major bragging rights in the ninja world.
      Instead Jiraiya leaves them to own devices, and gives nothing to let them get in touch with Konoha. Eventually, Nagato loses one too many best friends to the violence of the ninja world, and gets manipulated by Madara Uchiha and plans to use the Tailed Demons to make the equivalent of an atomic bomb. His quest for the Demons is what brought him to Konoha's doorstep.
    • Also, pre-timeskip: Naruto is having trouble hitting Kabuto with his new uber-move because Kabuto's too good at dodging and is kicking the snot out of Naruto despite only having one working arm. Employing desperation tactics, Naruto manages to grab Kabuto's good arm.
      You'd Expect: that Kabuto might remember that he still has legs, and kick Naruto in the face.
      Instead: He spends almost half a minute doing nothing but standing there tugging ineffectually at his trapped arm, watching as Naruto charges up his uber-move and smacks him in the chest with it.
    • Anytime that Naruto leaves the village, ever, and is either alone or with only a few people who aren't expecting immediate danger. Special mention to the battle with Sasuke at the Valley of the End
      You'd Expect: Tobi to appear in front of him and use his Time Space attack to capture him instantly. We've seen him sense people and teleport right to them, after all. At the battle with Sasuke, not only was Naruto especially vulnerable, but Zetsu was watching and has been shown to be good at contacting Tobi.
      Instead: He doesn't. Honorable mention goes to anyone who thought him leaving the village was a good idea, especially after Itachi's visit confirms that Akatsuki is after him. On multiple occasions, Naruto is with only a few people while actively seeking out Akatsuki members who are after him. Idiots indeed.
    • A related one the Danzo fight: Sasuke is confronting Danzo for ordering Itachi to slay the Uchiha clan. Sasuke, not fully trusting Madara's story, asks Danzo if this is truly the case. Danzo's mind control eye has not fully recharged yet
      You'd Expect: Danzo would stall for time until the eye is usable again and use it to bring Sasuke back under control.
      Instead: He confirms Madara's story, fueling Sasuke's rage.
      However: Before even asking for confirmation, Sasuke assures Danzo that he has already settled on killing him and restrains Danzo with Susanoo. Danzo realizes there is no time to stall and there is no perceptible disadvantage to telling Sasuke the truth.
    • Sasuke has just given Karin the nth degree when Sakura shows up, wanting to join him in his nefarious plans like she proposed in Part I. Sasuke is still standing over the prone, bleeding, barely conscious Karin and there's a good chance Sakura saw the end of his fight with Danzo. Sasuke demands that Sakura Shoot the Medic First before she joins him.
      You'd Think: Since one of Sakura's most noted traits, before being The Load and then Action Girl, was being the Smart Girl that she would think that something's up with Sasuke and at least not show her back to him.
      Instead: She does and Sasuke promptly tries to knife her In the Back, prompting a Big Damn Heroes from Kakashi.
    • In the Forest of Death during the Chunin Exams, Sakura is left fighting 3 sound ninja all by herself. She tricks one of them through an admittedly tricky series of substitutions, getting him to assume she's a substitution when she isn't, giving her a window of opportunity as she jumps down on him with a kunai in her hand.
      You'd Expect: She'd jump on top of him and stab him with the kunai either to kill or disable him so he couldn't fight her anymore.
      Instead: She lands on him and bites his arm, doing nothing while he repeatedly punches her on the head.
    • Kabuto has now managed to capture both Naruto and Killer Bee with the rejuvenated Nagato.
      You'd Expect: Knowing that Itachi is still out there, he'd keep Preta Path ability up, as well as create more summons to widen the field of Shared Vision. Thus, when Itachi begins his counter attack he'd be able to easily retort and capture Itachi too.
      Instead: Instead, he turns off Nagato's Preta Path ability thus enabling him to be blindsighted by Itachi in Susanoo, and Naruto and Bee get freed. Adding insult to injury, he uses Nagato to create the Chibaku Tensei and just stands there instead of you know, summoning another bird or one of the Rams or Rhinos in his disposal. He doesn't even keep the Preta Path ability up in the little chance that the Chibaku Tensei gets destroyed. Thus, Nagato gets sealed. \\
    • Naruto is facing Tobi's Jinchuriki Six Paths. They have taken their V2 forms, while he and Bee are standing in front of them.
      You'd Expect: Tells Bee to quickly launch a Bijudama before they can attack, or at least enter V2 himself to get back his mobility. And if they got close? Start using his fabled speed and reflexes.
      Instead: Naruto and Bee stand there, doing nothing as Tobi orders the Six Paths to attack. Bee gets his hand melted slightly, Naruto is hit by three of the Jinchuriki Paths and incapacitated since he forgets about his speed and needs to be saved by Kakashi and Gai.\\
    • The fillers did this with Neji in the Star saga. Big Bad Akahoshi hires the heroes to protect the village's secret weapon, but then takes measures to recover it himself, then declares them enemies of the Hidden Star Village, in front of a large crowd because they know of their motives. In the finale, everybody comes together, Akahoshi's plan to mutate the children of the village with the power of the meteorite into an army that will help him conquer the other nations is exposed, and he decides to use the meteor by himself to slaughter his own people and the Leaf genin present.
      You'd expect for Neji to recognize an open declaration of war, and coordinate a joint attack taking out the bastard.
      Instead he forbids his team to interfere in another country's internal affairs - basically condemning an entire village and his own teammates to certain death.
    • Filler Neji again. During the penultimate filler arc of the original series, Naruto escorts an amnesiac ninja to the Land of Rice Fields, to help him recover his memory. Neji is ordered to follow them and keep an eye on the later, due to strong evidence of him being a sound ninja, and his possible connection with the man who attacked the village. They arive to a village near the Land of Rice Fields that has been burned to ground by sound ninjas, and there's a good possibility they might return at any moment, killing many innocents. The amnesiac Menma decides to stay and help the people defend themselves.
      You'd expect Neji to agree, seeing how his mission was to keep an eye on Menma, and not much else, also considering the possibility that there might be a connection between the ninjas who attacked the village and the one who was after Menma, not to mention that Menma was found shortly after the attack on the village took place.
      Instead He refuses to stay and urges Menma and Naruto to carry on with the mission, even after Menma tells him that helping the villagers might trigger some of his memories and refuses to even look into any possible connection between Menma, the village, the attackers and the man who attacked the leaf village earlier, effectively defying the Hokage's orders because of a minor technicality.
    • Kabuto is now confronting Itachi and Sasuke.
      You'd Expect: Knowing what Itachi is capable of, you'd expect him to set up a trap to catch him unawares. Either a new type of clone, summoning a few of his back up Edo Tensei's, or even hiding under ground since the Sharingan can't see through the earth.
      Instead: Instead, he continues sitting around and lets Itachi break through his barrier. Note, he could have already been in his Sage Mode by then and hit him with his blinding Gatsugei or have the entire earth attack him with Mushi Tensei. No, instead he sits there, bragging on how Edo Tensei can't be stopped and let Sasuke come to back Itachi up.
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