Everybody has some darkness in them.
Consider how Naruto flipped out and let the Kyuubi free when Pein "killed" Hinata. The Kyuubi latched on to his negative emotion and convinced Naruto to unbind him. Same thing when he fought against Orochimaru. He didn't free the Kyuubi, but his body was under the Kyuubi's control. Naruto explicitly said the Kyuubi took over because he was so angry at Orochimaru.
This is actually a pretty well thought out plot point...
"After all, I am strangely colored."
Those examples though, they seem more like righteous indignation than 'darkness' so to speak. Seems like the kyubi latched on to Naruto's anger at the death of a friend, or at the shit talk of a hated foe. What seems artificial, is something different from that. It's Naruto's persistant even if well tucked away, resentment towards the village. Ever since Iruka hugged Naruto in that first episode, there's been very little if anything at all to show that he was harboring such emotions. He's always come across as friendly, loving, and most importantly, genuine. To now try and say Naruto's actually been a little phony all this time is going to require more suspension of disbelief than should be necessary.
If mastering the demon is going to require mastery of anger, as a general emotion, I can accept that. It'd be nice to see Naruto as a zen master. But if it's 'darkness', as in the petty things, the secret things, the weaknesses that lead to evil, then it just seems to me like another breaking of an established fact in the Narutoverse. Naruto is genuine and good. TBH, that's always been kind of a bore, but to try and change that NOW requires far more than it looks like we're going to get.
"You are not free whose liberty is won by the rigour of other, more righteous souls. Your are merely protected. Your freedom is parasitic, you suck the honourable man dry and offer nothing in return. You who have enjoyed freedom, who have done nothing to earn it, your time has come. This time you will stand alone and fight for yourselves. Now you will pay for your freedom in the currency of honest toil and human blood."
- Inquisitor Czevak
I was trying to get at your first point: requiring a mastery of his anger. I think the Kyuubi will latch on to any negative emotion and cause it to grow into something uncontrollable. Indeed, way back when, "somebody" (in the manga) said that the Bijuu appear (as natural disasters) in places where hatred festers. I guess I am trying to retroactively defend Kishi, but maybe that's because Jinchuuriki who don't master their anger end up blowing up -- like Gaara basically did. Naruto had to deal with some shit over being the Konoha Jinchuuriki, and I guess Bee did too. Gaara got shafted.Originally Posted by Uchiha Barles
On the other hand, I do understand where you're coming from. Why should Evil Naruto be anywhere near as strong as regular Naruto? He definitely has some things to be angry about, but they are not major forces in his life. It would be more "realistic" if Hinata had died, and Naruto still hated Pein for it, for example. Sam had some good points to this question though.
And to answer my own question (why should Evil Naruto be as strong as regular Naruto?)... maybe the Kyuubi has already influenced Naruto's negative emotions and magnified them. Maybe the lesson Naruto needs to learn is that he's had a pretty damn good life, all things considered. And that the Kyuubi is trying to blow shit out of proportion, just to take over him. Under this interpretation, the fight against Evil Naruto is figuratively a fight against the Kyuubi's influence.
On a similar topic: if you "merely" need to get rid of negative emotions to control the bijuu, then the Sage of the Six Paths was an awesome badass of goodness. And Madara will (presumably) be taken over by the Jyuubi very quickly. And I doubt the Jyuubi will want to make world peace through Sharingan hax.
"After all, I am strangely colored."
Except in Madara's case, he doesn't need to be nice because the Sharingan hax also grants him the ability to control the bijuu against their will (well, the Kyuubi at least).
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