Again with the simplistic argument of how strength is the only thing that matters. I thought you were done with your endless and repetitive blathering about Darwinism. Stupid people are always useful to smart people, regardless of time in history... which disproves the 'strength is everything' theory entirely. Look at almost any organized society in history, and you will almost NEVER see the most powerful fighter as a ruler of a country. You may see competent fighters, but what you will really see are masters of manipulation, control, and communication.

'Of course you need minions to follow your orders. But who's going to follow a weak leader. They'd be like I don't want to go because I'll die. But if your leader's strong and he's fighting right alongside you, your morale is automatically better because you believe in your leader abilities.'

This is the perfect example of how dumb your argument is : Look at Hitler & Himmler during WW2, he had MILLIONS of soldiers who fought to the bitter end, even old men and children were mobilized and put into infantry positions on the front lines, and they followed orders even when defeat was obviously inevitable. Hitler and Himmler were both skinny, short, pale, weak people physically, but MASTERS of command and manipulation. Thankfully they chose to go too far too fast with their invasions, and divided their power to the point of destruction. Even if you go back over a thousand years to the times of the Vikings who were raiding Europe, there was no 'Leif is the leader because he is the strongest' kind of idea .. as a matter of fact the most ferocious were the celebrated but often socially removed berserkers. These were the guys who just went totally bananas during the fight, killing and maiming and screaming in a bloodthirsty rampage .. they totally put the fear of god into whoever they came across, even their fellow fighters, but they were NOT LEADERS whatsoever. Or look at Egypt, back up to 5000 years ago, ruled by child pharoahs and spiritual elders .. not warriors whatsoever. If 5,000 years ago is too far, how about Japan during the time that Ninja and Samurai were common? Hmm, ok .. the Edo period began around 1600, with the ambitions of the Tokugawa shogunate controlling political and military power through the pretension of having an emperor who 'appointed' them. Who were the shogun? They were politicians and manipulators, old men with ambition and greed. Classic [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

You're not going to change my mind into some overly simplistic formula for the rules of leadership that does not follow any logic, no matter HOW many times you post it. To truly reach the closest 'strength is everything' situation, you would have to go to the time before language, when cave-dwelling early humans and neaderthals organized small groups to find food and shelter. Even recent research suggests that their primitive societies were more complex than first thought.

In closing, Naruto is of course, just a fictional show based on a collage of Japanese history and modern influence, but yet it remains somewhat logical on a societal level. Kishimoto endows the characters with characteristics of intelligence, compassion (or contempt, in some cases), ambition, regret, a full range of personalities and possibilities. This is why most anime/manga surpasses any other animated work in the world, because the writing and scope of the work is not automatically expected to be less complex or thought-out than live-action fiction. In this world of Naruto, they do not exist as animals living in a pure state of war, where strength is the only thing that ever matters, they exist in a microcosm of history, imagination, and mystique. That's what makes it fun ..