Chapter 449: Moron Ex Machina
Last time I did this we were right in the middle of the Pein fight, right before Hinata jumped in front of a bus thanks to plot-induced stupidity. I think it's only fair that at this point I recap the entire fight, just so we can all remember how very, very pointless this all was.
Sasuke failed to capture 8-Tails and I laughed a lot. After that, Pein decided it was time to move out. The invasion of Konoha went of with nary a hitch, thanks to plot-induced incompetence. You'd think a village full of ninjas would set up some damn security cameras or something. Rather, they put up a relatively flimsy chakra barrier that never seemed to stop all the other seven thousand times the village was invaded throughout the course of the series.
Anyway, Pein drops in, slaughters a bunch of random dudes and Kakashi and then nukes the village. The only people able to do anything about all this crap were Sakura, who punched a caterpillar or something, and Konohamaru, who took down one of Pein's six bodies all by himself while another is off killing Kakashi in a rather embarrassing and unlikely way. Everyone else just sat around and whines about how Naruto, the delinquent idiot who was never respected by anyone before this point, was their only salvation.
This whole time, Naruto's up in the mountains training. The village tries to contact him, but the messenger is killed by Danzo, who is a gigantic douchebag and pretty much the evil behind all that is wrong with the world and the reason we can't have nice things. Apparently it will be easier to usurp the position of Hokage when the village has been annihilated and all its residents killed.
Naruto finally arrives. He's wearing a red coat over his orange jumpsuit, which somehow makes him look even more hideous than the jumpsuit alone ever could.
The fight commenced at this point, shortly after Naruto gained a slug that functions roughly in the same manner as Navi from the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Except more annoying. Naruto managed to take out several Peins several times, expending his sage chakra reserves a couple of times in the process. Eventually he figured out why they kept getting up and took down the healer, which is the first rule of any RPG. It was down to him and Sith Pein.
Then Hinata entered.
She stupidly declared her love, then jumped in front of the Ninja equivalent of an oncoming train. This managed to accomplish pretty much nothing, but it got Naruto riled up and shifted him into 8 Tails mode. 8 Tails is horrifically stupid-looking, by the way.
Then Naruto blacked out and let the fox rampage a bit. This gave him time to meet his dad, who set up a safeguard that would summon him back to reseal the fox if it reached 8 tails. Seeing as how there are only 9 tails, this is basically the most impractical safeguard ever. It also only works once. Naruto then punched his dad, cried a little and regained consciousness, Fox mode disabled once again.
Fox mode ended up being completely pointless. Naruto went back into sage mode, expended his chakra once more, then pulled off some convoluted bullcrap that ended with a bunch of rocks turning into shadow clones and gang-raping Pein while Naruto pulled off a final Rasengan.
JUST LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES. Screw his new arsenal, Kishi hates you.
Which brings us to his confrontation with Nagato, the man controlling Pein. They went all diplomatic and Nagato launched into a long, boring flashback explaining his origin. Long story short, his parents idiotically attacked some non-hostile Konoha Ninja, who stupidly tried to apologize to a newly orphaned and extremely traumatized child. Nagato, of course, has magic eyeballs. Just like every other overpowered emo loser in this series. He kills them. Then he meets more orphans and a dog. Then the dog gets killed. Then they get ninja training. Jiraiya preaches about peace, because that's what ninjas do. Peace. Assassination is all about peace.
This was the point where I started drawing parallels between Naruto and Twilight.
Both are damn horribly written.
Both bastardize their subject matter unforgiveably.
Both feature budding romance between a Mary Sue who can't lose no matter what and a bland, superpowered, angsty idiot.
And both have are highly supported despite being crimes against literature.
Moving on. Jiraiya leaves and the leader of Rain Village sets a trap for Nagato and friends. He does this with the help of Danzo. Danzo apparently just does all this because he gets his kicks from being a bastard. Yahiko dies, a bunch of incomprehensible garbage goes down and everyone dies except Danzo and Team Nagato.
This entire flashback served only to make me feel sorry for the dog.
Nagato then asks Naruto for his answer, after detailing an entire life experience that basically proves that Jiraiya was wrong and no peace will ever happen.
Naruto's answer?
He agrees with Jiraiya anyway, just to piss of Nagato. On the internet, we call that trolling.
Anyway, Nagato asks why, and Naruto presents Jiraiya's stupid book. Naruto's named after the main character. That changes everything.
Nagato then decided, completely against any logic seen to this point, to believe in Naruto. He prepared a new jutsu.
That brings us up to the current chapter.
Nagato gives a few more vaguely inspirational words that make no sense at all and proceeds to sacrifice himself to bring all the dead Konoha villagers back to life.
This would be the perfect time to give a vocabulary lesson.
Deus Ex Machina is a latin term meaning "Machine of the Gods". It's a term used to describe a sudden and unexpected plot device used to tie up a loose end or resolve a conflict easily and cleanly. These usually come from absolutely nowhere and make little to no sense. As such, there is very little practical use for them in the literary world outside of parody works, since easy, clean resolution is often frustrating and dull to read.
Kishi has been coasting on these since the beginning of Part 2, but none as awful as this one.
Another term, this time borrowing from Fullmetal Alchemist.
"Equivalent exchange". This one is a phrase describing the basic rule of barter. If you want something, you need to give something of equal value in order to obtain it.
I think you know where I'm going here. Pein just revived half a village using his own single, nearly expended life. That goes against anything we've learned in this or any other series. This move also effectively makes it as if everything after Pein's invasion never happened. It also makes you wonder why Kishi bothered leaving Chouza and Hinata were revivable when everyone was just going to cheat death anyway.
Oh and Konan seems to imply that Nagato would survive this move at full strength. Stupid.
Konan gives Naruto some crappy paper flowers and goes on her way. Every time he looks at them, he'll no doubt remember how depressingly pointless hours of his life spent defending his home and friends ended up being.
Back to Craterha, where everyone wakes up. That's right, everyone. Even Shizune (craaaap.)
Kakashi, however, is spending his time with his pa, forgiving him for abandoning a mission in favor for his friends. No doubt they'll soon start exchanging wisecracks about how the only thing worse than a lame death is a lame resurrection.
DAMMIT.
Yeah, that's everyone. That last arc was officially pointless. I can't possibly imagine how this could get any wor-
