Anyone else feel like a decent number of fics are better than the original?

I’ve been curious about this for a while now and had to ask. Because in my genuine opinion. After having read a fair few fan fictions, I’ve started to realize that the idea of ninja with cool powers was awesome. But it feels more and more like that potential was genuinely wasted.

The world of Naruto wasn’t fleshed out enough. The story was pretty bad when I genuinely look at it. And the supporting characters were tossed into the dirt, but none of them were ever really killed off. Plot armour, and making it feel like all that really existed was Naruto/Sasuke made it feel pretty unfulfilling. There was never really any high stakes situations, no real losses or moments that made the world of Naruto feel alive. No moments where it felt like Naruto was the definite stronger player in a fight or battle. He always struggled to win, but never really lost either. And I think that sucked the life out of it. The only “loss” he really had was when Sasuke defected.

The sides characters were somehow shown to keep up with them, but were also somehow fodder. Fodder that never got grievously wounded, or killed. It made everything feel cheap. No one had any character development. No one genuinely tried to get stronger till it was already too late, and somehow every single time they’d have some power up that was never there before to fall back on. They went through so many instances that should have made them realize that “this is life or death” and yet not one thought “I need to take this seriously if I’m going to survive next time.” It really feels like part of what was missing. Was either some of the supporting group should have died, or somehow of the group should’ve been crippled. And those instances should’ve put the rest into the needed mindset for that not to happen again.

We barely saw injured, crippled, or killed random characters till the war. Until then somehow damn near everyone we saw was fine. Hell the entire village was resurrected after the pain attack. And that I feel like rounds back into the “there are no stakes” part of this discussion. After the amount of chakra Pein used the least they could’ve done was make it so he didn’t have enough juice to revive everyone so it had to be randomized. And I feel like that would’ve been the perfect time to cripple or kill at the very least a weaker character as well. Ebisu, Iruka, Moegi, or Udon should’ve been crippled or killed in the attack.

Naruto himself. Some of his fights should have shown us that he was improving. He should’ve been able to do far more after returning from his training trip. And the fire to jumpstart him for that training trip, should’ve come in the form of a death and someone being crippled during the retrieval arc. Whether it had been one of his friends or one of the Jonin (should’ve been highest Chunin) they should’ve had a casualty to push home the realization that they ‘WILL DIE’ if they don’t take the life they’re in seriously. They need to be aware, smart, and strong if they want to keep themselves and eachother alive.

I’m off to bed. Just thought I’d start the discussion that I haven’t really seen anyone bring up.