 When a man learns to feel love, he must also bear the risk of feeling hate. From the first moment the statue of Hashirama and Madara was shown at the waterfall, it was hinted that Madara, whoever he was, was special. For us the audience, the name brought curiosity and a heap of questions. Regardless, that name was one we were sure to never forget. Before we get into Madara's story, I want to look at the reveal of the self-proclaimed Savior of the Shinobi. As noted, the time between when Madara was first hinted at and the time that he was revealed was over 300 episodes. During that time, his name had been thrown around, but when the true Madara Uchiha appeared, it paid off. He was the epitome of presence and confidence. His build-up to such an imposing figure paid off as we watched the Madara Uchiha effortlessly dispatch the allied Shinobi forces, displaying an absolute mastery of the Sharingan that evolved into the Rinnegan in real time, and showed the difference between a Shinobi and a god. When Madara pulled down meteors and reversed the Erotense, this was a man on a mission, one that was carefully plotted in his younger days. The reason why Madara became the self-proclaimed Savior of the World. Madara was born during the warring states period, a time period where individuals only knew war as survival and the oldest lifespan was about 30 years of age. At the time, the two legendary and most powerful clans of the land, the Uchiha and the Senju, were constantly at battle with each other. In Madara's youth, he would meet a young Hashirama Senju. This friendship lasted a short while as they would discover each other as the sons of the feuding clans. The two would go on to become leaders of their clans, as Tobirama, younger brother to Hashirama, killed Madara's last brother Izuna. Hashirama offered his own life in exchange to spare Madara's, a sacrifice he was willing to make in order to end all conflict between Uchiha and Senju, something that would have a ripple effect on all the surrounding nations. Madara and Hashirama sought the same goal since their youth, that goal was peace. Their friendship was forbidden, there wasn't a way Uchiha and Senju could coexist with both sides having killed each other, and worst of all, the children of both sides were the most common victims of these battles. Both Madara and Hashirama started off with an entire family that was dwindled down to two, and Tobirama took Madara's last. The Uchiha were known to be an emotional clan, and they seemed to have a deep-rooted sense of loyalty and family. Madara was skeptical and didn't trust any other village, and so he was interested in submitting the other nations to Konoha's will, whereas Hashirama sought peace through cooperation and trust of the other villages. Keep in mind, Madara was an Uchiha in solitude. With Izuna killed, he decided to pursue the Sharingan in its most evolved form. In that pursuit and in his loneliness, he would learn about the history of the Shinobi, and the seemingly endless cycle of failure and the perceived destiny of conflict between the Uchiha and Senju that seemed eternal. On that stone tablet, Madara saw a life of endless suffering, conflict, and he saw peace that could never be achieved. So he challenged the now elected First Hokage, and died by his former friend's hand. But Madara planned ahead. He would awaken the Rinnegan by using a piece of Hashirama's flesh that he removed himself, to begin perfecting what was known as Madara's Eye of the Moon Plan, or the infinite Tsukuyomi. Madara's current body grew older, and so he sought out a young Obito Uchiha to do his bidding for him. The child alone and whose body was broken, Madara nursed him back to health and began plotting Obito's downfall, which was him watching the death of Rinne by the hands of Kakashi, something that Madara orchestrated. The ghost of the Uchiha knew first hand what pain and what darkness could lead a person to do, and Obito was the perfect candidate to carry out Madara's eternal dream, which led to his resurrection. The personality and later the philosophy of Madara Uchiha was something that was hardened and mainly built as a result of his childhood. Being surrounded by war and by conflict, Madara was already advanced as a shinobi, as he had already killed many adults senju at such a young age. In his later years he would find peace in combat. Throughout the endless conflict he witnessed, he and Hashirama quickly realized that the shinobi world didn't respect much. But the one thing it had no choice respecting was power. With strength and with power he and Hashirama would achieve the peace that they sought. Madara was competitive and this would only grow as a result of Hashirama's equal competitive nature. And in his later years we see that Madara came to revel at the idea of combat. The sights and the sounds of battle invigorated him. The ghost of the Uchiha was charismatic and to those who he saw as weak he was disrespectful, brushing his shoulders off at attacks aimed at him. Madara only respected those who were strong and when Hashirama entered the fray during the 4th ninja war, Madara was evidently overjoyed by the presence of his rivals Chakra. The first Hokage was someone who pushed him to be better. And so he would build up an impressive repertoire of jutsu and physical skills. Madara would become a force and one of the most powerful shinobi of all time. Again though loneliness left the self-proclaimed savior of the world untrusted. Upon reading about the failures of the shinobi he would quickly lose hope for mankind, believing that Hashirama failed. This hopelessness really displayed the solitude that he caused himself by distancing himself not only from Hashirama, but from the rest of his clan. The first Hokage stood as the perfect foil to Madara and highlighted Madara's worst traits. Hashirama was filled with hope and with positivity and especially hope for the new generation. Conversely, Madara was so convinced that the cycle couldn't be broken. So he decided he wouldn't let anyone get the chance to even try and break it. Madara was incredibly controlling. He wanted to do things by his own hand, never letting anyone stand behind him. Which enters his eye of the moon plan. A plan that in short would place the world under a dream, under an eternal genjutsu, which creates a new world that would be molded by Madara Uchiha. He tells it as this. But it wasn't as though his plan was thoughtless. Through his time spent alive, he seemed to be studying the individuals around him and their motivations. People desire peace, and yet on the other hand they crave conflict as well. That duality is mankind for you. Madara speaks to it by calling it the world that Hashirama created. Which is one that is inconsistent and incongruous. Which he in turn is describing human nature. Madara did have Konoha's best interest at heart. At its core, his philosophy was geared towards achieving true peace. And that at one point was where his heart was focused towards. But during his time alone, with Hashirama as its current leader, and Tobirama groomed to be next in line, he saw the Uchiha's safety in jeopardy. As stated, loneliness plagued Madara's perfect vision, and so he would detach himself from the village and from his clan, and from Hashirama to search for that peace. He decided that he would come back and achieve that peace through brute force. But the difference between Hashirama and Madara's peace was that Madara's peace looked backwards, whereas Hashirama's looked forward. Yes, Madara's plan undoes what he read on the stone tablet. The endless fighting and suffering would cease, but free will, hope, the ability for the shinobi to grow and evolve as people would have been lost. His dream looks backwards because for him it brings back Izuna and all of his family, and undoes all of the work done towards achieving peace. Itachi and his selfless sacrifice and everything that the Hokage have done would have been for nothing. His plan is artificially created peace, or as Gaara calls it, peace born of illusion. Gaara continues to say that peace only holds true meaning if it is created in reality. Free will, the ability to make choices and to live how one wants to, with the burden and responsibility of each choice, is one of the core aspects of humanity. With Madara's plan, he takes away the very essence of humanity and freedom in the shinobi world. Hashirama says that is not his choice to make. Hashirama's dream looked forward as his philosophy of the will of fire set the future generations of shinobi, not only of the leaf, but he inspired other villages. The god of shinobi gave konoha the tools to succeed, and to be better than they were. He gave the future generation the ability to choose what it is that they want to do in that world. It would later be revealed that Madara was taken advantage of by Black Zetsu, who kills him in order to revive Kaguya Otsutsuki. I think one of Madara's best moments comes right before his death, where he lays alongside Hashirama as the ones conflicting ideologies of the village hidden in the leaves, the will of fire against the eternal dream. This moment is great because Madara is a character who has become truly alone in all aspects. I stated that Madara studied people, and learned about their motivations and thoughts. He was the one who told Obito how to control people. He understood the impacts of loneliness combined with darkness, and failure. But he too was a victim of it. Itachi once stated that people live their lives bound by what they see as right and as true based on their reality. Madara was someone who was bound by this, and he was not able to see a world outside of him being right. Having been shaped by the constant state of war and of death, and especially having lost his family, and Izuna especially in battle, his reaction of wanting life to be an eternal dream is normal. His plan reflected his current state of mind. But the idea that Madara needed to impose what he thought as right onto the rest of the world, especially one that didn't agree with him, is where Madara begins to lose himself. His mind was so warped and so focused on this one goal in a period in time that no one from his lifetime should be alive. All of the connections he made were all pawns in his plan, which is ironic because he was the pawn in a bigger plan. In their death, Hashirama tells the ghost of the Uchiha that he should have been able to come to terms with the fact that there were things he couldn't achieve. He was so controlling in the sense that he wanted to do everything, by his hand alone. But the Uchiha ancestor was never one to accept failure. He failed in saving his brother, failed in creating the village and the country the way he wanted, and he just couldn't accept that. At least Hashirama had the level headed Tobirama behind him, to inform and to calibrate his every single decision. Madara hated having anyone behind him, and this was ultimately his downfall. And so he waged war on the one person that genuinely trusted him, and that same person was the last person to be by his side, to be behind him, even in death. Hashirama alone understood the true Madara, a once good individual who had a kind and good heart, but was a victim of circumstance and of loneliness. A person who was motivated by peace, but who lost his way, and in losing his way Madara would do unspeakable things to the world at large. But at least in death they wouldn't be enemies, only friends. The tragedy and irony of it all is that he did create peace in the ninja world. All through a pursuit of said peace. It was a war against Madara that brought the nations together, which effectively broke the cycle that he wanted so badly to end, but they did it in the right way. Madara Uchiha was a man who could not trust, a man who had an eternal dream, and even with perfect eyes couldn't see anyone else fulfilled.