https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlVxhQAgXro
Naruto's Background
Orphan: Doesn't know he is the son of a hero that had saved the village from the fox demon in the past.
Low skill: Doesn't know that his body is now possessed by the fox demon which damages his concentration and weakens his magic.
Pain of loneliness: Focuses on "self-cloning" magic - metaphor of learning to love his own company.
Pain of rejection: Doesn't know people fear him because of his inner fox demon.
Transcendent Goal: He aims for becoming the leader of his village, a goal that will force all the people who rejected him to acknowledge and accept him. He aims for the highest ideal - to be the best thing he can imagine - to give him enough meaning and motivation to persevere despite being such a nerfed underdog.
Faith in himself: Even though none of his abilities are impressive, he stubbornly has the faith that he can achieve great goals, even though there is no evidence that he is capable of such things.
Transcendent Power: He doesn't realize that his biggest weakness (inner demon) is also his biggest strength that will end up giving him unlimited power if he can learn to conquer it.
Jungian Individuation: The way towards individuation is to -
1) Become conscious of your shadow (inner demon / unconscious repressed psychology).
2) Explore the shadow with empathy to understand its motivations.
3) Lovingly accept the shadow.
4) Teach the shadow how to integrate itself within your higher-level value systems, effectively learning how to synthesize with it - allowing your conscious mind to work in harmony with these powerful evolutionary drives, rather than accidentally losing control to the "lizard brain". The story of Naruto is a long drawn-out process of Naruto slowly achieving Jungian individuation - and his power-level jumps with each step of individuation.
Empathy: Naruto understands how he could have "gone to the dark-side" if he wasn't lucky enough to have that one person show him love and care. He learns to empathize with every villain. Each battle with a villain is half combat, half trying to understand the villain.
Salvation: Because Naruto feels like he was saved from the dark side, he hopes to save villains from the dark side. He has a stubborn faith that everyone is savable. His most dear friend eventually goes to the dark side. Over 600 episodes, Naruto refuses to give up on saving this friend and finally succeeds in the end.
Revenge: Naruto encounters a series of people with revenge ideologies. He ordinarily sympathizes with them, but his instincts tell him that revenge is wrong. Eventually his own beloved teacher is murdered, setting Naruto on a path of revenge.
Cycle of Vengeance: When Naruto confronts his enemy, he realizes that the path of revenge isn't so simple. Conflict can go back in time over history, and it can get messy deciding how to apply justice. The enemy that killed his teacher claims that the murder was justified, since his village was destroyed in a war that the teacher was a part of. Naruto gets introduced to the concept of a "cycle of vengeance" which is a never-ending cycle of hatred and revenge.
How to Achieve Peace: The villain asks Naruto - "if every time there is a death, it produces a cycle of revenge, how can we stop this cycle?" Naruto is speechless - having no idea. The villain says that his plan for world peace is to generate such powerful magic weapons (analogous to nuclear bombs) that the mere threat of such weapons will deter everyone on the planet from continuing the cycle of vengeance. The only problem is that these weapons require Naruto's demon energy - which will necessitate his death for world peace.
True Love: Naruto is shown what true love really is - when someone is willing to risk their life for you. Hinata was always extremely shy, anxious, cowardly and timid. But when Naruto's life is in danger, she is the only one brave enough to stand up to the strongest villain they could comprehend and die to protect him. True love motivates her to transcend her fears and save that which is precious to her.
Justified Rage: Naruto shows us that there are some situations that are so evil and so unfair that murderous rage is justified. Naruto gives in to the temptation of the demon within and fully unleashes his fury.
Faith in the Good: Naruto starts off with a black and white view of the world. He slowly grows in nuance, realizing how complex things are. He is never very smart, but always has good intuitions. After finally coming to terms with the villain who wants to create world peace with terrorism, Naruto comes up with the answer to the villain's question regarding any alternatives for creating world peace. Naruto remembers that his sensei told him that he believed that one day people would learn to understand each other. In honor of his late sensei Naruto decides to bet on his teacher's words. Naruto essentially says that he wants to have "faith in the good" of humanity, and trust that progress is possible without tyrannical terrorism. With this new ideology, he decides to not exact revenge by killing the villain. Naruto, with his actions, shows the way to break the cycle of hatred. He refuses to take revenge. In return, the villain sacrifices his life to resurrect all the people that he had killed - choosing to have faith that Naruto's path to world peace is better than his own.
Forgiveness: Naruto is quick to forgive which aids everything he does. He always fights from the perspective of love, not hate. He is able to forgive his neighbors for despising him as a young orphan. He is able to forgive the demon that tormented him and murdered his parents. He is able to forgive villains. He is able to forgive his best friend, Sasuke, who was willing to kill him to part ways. With each level of forgiveness, he grows in power. With each forgiveness, he breaks cycles of hatred.
Atone for the Sins of a Friend: But when the great nations declare Naruto's friend, Sasuke, a criminal, Naruto begs for them to give Sasuke a second chance. Naruto is even willing to suffer on behalf of Sasuke. Sasuke had supposedly murdered their friend and they were asking Naruto how they could satisfy their need for revenge. Naruto, now cognizant of the need to end cycles of revenge, decided that he would be willing to take a beating on Sasuke's behalf if that would make them feel better.
Humility: Naruto realizes that power alone isn't going to end the cycles of hatred. He looks for the leader of the nation who was harmed by Sasuke's sins. He bows himself to the earth and begs the leader to give Sasuke another chance. But the Raikage isn't interested in forgiveness. Naruto realizes that getting everyone on board with ending the cycle of hatred isn't going to be easy.
World Peace: After Naruto discovers his inner wisdom in "trusting in the good", he begins to apply it to other situations. He exercises faith in the goodness within the hearts of villains. He exercises faith in the goodness within the hearts of rival nations. His "faith in the good" not only converts villains into friends, but he is also able to unite 5 formerly antagonistic nations into an alliance against a greater evil.
Friendship: The story of Naruto is largely a story about how love is a superpower that can convert any person into a friend. Over and over Naruto uses the secret superpower of friendship to win people to his side. From the beginning of their ninja race, the original father of magic, named the Sage of the Six Paths, desired that their ninjutsu would only be used to connect people together (evolutionary cooperation game theoretic strategy). Of the two sons of this sage, one followed his path to use magic for cooperation. The other weaponized magic for violence (evolutionary competition game theoretic strategy). Naruto embodies the spirit of this son of cooperation, slowly learning how to use his energy to connect with others and even share the power of his fox energy.
Solitude: Naruto's primordial rival embodies the opposite philosophy to Naruto's. The rival believes that ruminating on hatred can motivate him to get stronger in solitude. Sasuke is the yin to Naruto's yang.
Juxtaposition: Over the course of the show, it is unclear which strategy is better. The rival is certainly powerful in his opposite path. But then towards the end, Sasuke finally understands the source of Naruto's strength as he dreams of Naruto surrounded by hundreds of friends and supporters - the powers of cooperation. And then the rival is shown in the darkness all alone - the weakness of abusive anti-social competitive strategies.
Synergy: Just as the Hegelian dialectic looks for the synthesis between the opposing forces of the thesis and antithesis, Sasuke's yin energy is a perfect complement to Naruto's yang energy. As they finally decide to cooperate, their powers magnify each other in ways they didn't predict. Naruto's wind shuriken is able to catch ablaze by Sasuke's inextinguishable black fire and magnify the explosive impact of the fire.
Love Conquers All: Not only does love convert his inner demon into an ally, villains into friends, but it also saves his rival from the path of hatred and solitude. Love is shown to be the secret to breaking the cycle of vengeance.
Synthesis: Not only are Naruto and Sasuke able to synergize their attacks, but they also end up literally combining their energies to construct a larger unit that contains the both of them. This symbolizes how the two of them are able to become completely harmonious as one superordinate integrated whole. This is a model for how opposing sides can reach a new plane of power if they can reach a new level of unity.
Transcendent Love: Multiple characters embody a transcendent love that is willing to sacrifice their life for the things they love, whether it be the people or the village they want to protect.
Transcendent Unity: When enough people embody transcendent love, an emergent phenomenon of social unity occurs that is as powerful as a family bond at the collective level. All of their magic powers synthesize into a synergy that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a parable for how we in our modern societies can achieve a transcendent love for our societies if we can embody these principles.
Destination: After everything Naruto goes through, he is eventually promoted to the leader of the village as he leads the world into a future of peace and prosperity for all. It is largely an epic story of "hard times create strong men, strong men create good times."
Next Generation: The sequel to Naruto's story is the story of his son Boruto. The Boruto series is largely a story of "good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times."
In-Depth Summary of 720 episodes of Naruto
Naruto through the lens of Integral Theory (Spiral Dynamics):
