 I just want to quickly take this time to shout out everyone supporting me on Patreon. I couldn't be more grateful. If you're interested in supporting the channel, you can at patreon.com slash sagesrain. Hashirama Senju's dream and life purpose were formed during the warring states period. Rival clans Uchiha and Senju battled, seemingly to no avail. Kids were never allowed to be kids. Instead from as early as 7 years old, kids were shinobi, and their parents treated them as such. They were not children, and nor were they innocent. They were warriors, whoever could hold a weapon, even if it was an infant, was a warrior. The greatest form of love from a parent was raising a child to be a capable shinobi. And that is because life expectancy was around 30 years old. Children fought each other, adult shinobi ganged up on, and prayed on these child soldiers, and the remaining children, like Hashirama and Madara, were both forced to bury their siblings, time and time again. From such a young age, Hashirama detected the cruelty of the shinobi world. Even clashing with his father about the way he and the other adults in shinobi viewed the madness of battle. One thing was certain is that he knew that both Senju and Uchiha were in the wrong, and that no children should die or even be implicated in the matters and the wars of adults. The Senju clan was supposed to be the clan of love, and yet here they were killing off children, the young Senju argued. It was this line of thinking and his friendship with Madara Uchiha, the rivaling clan, that made him into a dreamer. He dreamed of a land of peace, of his own village. Young Hashirama proclaimed that this village would be a place where kids would never have to kill each other again, that no kid will ever have to experience the horrors of the battlefield ever again, the horrors of war. He dreamt of a place where neither side had to die and where they drank like brothers, Uchiha and Senju alike. A place where truth and honesty were paramount. Madara was in agreement with everything, and yet as they got older they became the heads of their respective clans and became locked into the seemingly eternal battle of Uchiha vs Senju. Only to be concluded once one side completely wipes the other, and in time the Senju gained an advantage over the Uchiha. When it came time to deliver the final blow against Madara Uchiha, Hashirama holds back and decides to call a truce between the two rivaling clans, a truce that he was willing to sacrifice his own life for. Having just lost his last blood brother, Madara decides to go forward with the vision that he and Hashirama had so many years prior, accepting the truce and creating the village hidden in the leaves. It's really here once the village has been settled and once the roles have been set, where Madara and Hashirama's differing views become interesting. Hashirama rightfully so gets a lot of praise. I think he has a case for being the greatest hokage ever, for the simple fact that this village, that this truce was his idea. It was a truce at the time that no one could even fathom Uchiha and Senju working together. It was the village that he built and he crafted in a way that benefited everyone. When Konoha was built, life expectancy rose. Children went to school and lived to adulthood. Lives were not sacrificed without meaning. This was his dream. However, Hashirama's dream became sort of an obsession. But it's important to know why. The first hokage got a taste of his vision. He saw life flourish. He no longer had to see his own brothers, his own siblings, his own people die. He finally had enough power to prevent people from dying. He then associated the protection of the people and the children with the protection of the village. Because he had enough power to create the village, then nobody would die. Again it has to be restated that Hashirama was horrified by what he saw in his youth. Only the Senju leader was an emotional child, an empathetic one. He felt so many emotions strongly. Whether that was happiness and joy or bouts of sadness, he was so sensitive to it all. And so the war and the amount of corpses he would see every day, whether it was rivaling children's, his own clan members, his own brothers, he was so scarred by this war. So afraid, so against returning to that kind of conflict. To that kind of powerlessness. Afraid of losing another brother. We saw his outburst when Kawarama died and then later his tears when Itama died. So whatever he could do to prevent that, to prevent those feelings, those emotions, he would do it. Hashirama Senju became the strongest shinobi ever in order to prevent that from ever happening again. Creating the village was a child's dream come true. It was his way of making it up to all the children, to all his siblings, who sacrificed themselves to war. Whose childhoods were ripped away from them, robbed. So he did whatever he could to protect that. And over time he became obsessed with that peace. He would do anything to protect the village, even if it meant waging war. Hashirama was once a man who placed the individual on par with the collective. He would not choose one man over the village, nor would he choose the village over one man. The leaf was created because he was willing to die, then choose between Tobirama or Madara. But over time he changed. With Tobirama buzzing in his ears, fueling rumors about the quote-unquote true nature of the Uchiha, and what the people wanted, things began to change. Hashirama was an immensely powerful man, but he was naive, easily persuaded, intensely loyal. So things began to change, which is a good place to really introduce Madara. The selection of the Hokage was meant to be a democratic process, chosen by the people. Initially Hashirama wanted Madara to be Hokage, which at first glance is puzzling. But this was Hashirama's love and his compassion on full display, knowing that Madara had just lost his world. Looking back to a young Madara, when Hashirama wanted to build this country to protect all these children, Madara was solely focused on protecting the last brother he had, Izuna, the brother he swore to protect no matter what, the same brother that Tobirama cut down many years later. Hashirama was fully aware that Madara had no real tether to the village, and he was feeling powerless and weak. Hashirama suggests Madara become Hokage because he wanted Madara to feel the village's warmth, to feel the embrace, to replicate the great love that he had for his brothers, for his siblings, for Izuna. He wanted to uplift the Uchiha leader and to make him feel useful, to make him feel included. For appropriate reasons, Tobirama was against it. But when he began listing the rumors about the Uchiha, that's when things turned and we know that Madara was listening to what Tobirama was saying. Madara understood that with Tobirama around, he could never become Hokage, and that he and the Uchiha would never find peace in that village. He knew the depth of Tobirama's hate, with the Senju clan of love though, right? But that alone was a great reason for him to turn to more extreme measures. The one famous proverb states that, the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. It's this very fury that Madara was capable of, that Hashirama tried to prevent, but he didn't try hard enough. It's not an easy life for the god of Shinobi. He was pulled by his blood brother Tobirama in one direction, and pulled by his brother Madara in another. But listening to Tobirama seemed to be great for the ecosystem of the village and for political power, but would have terrible repercussions in the future for his country when he decided to end Madara Uchiha, presenting the will of fire for the first time. Shinobi are people who must make impossible decisions, that's what makes them interesting. I think killing Madara was a questionable decision. On one hand, the first Hokage knew exactly how stubborn and how unrelenting Madara got when his mind was set on a goal. And perhaps Madara could have one day gotten the upper hand, potentially killing Hashirama and later maybe even causing harm to the villagers in his anger, that their blood would be on Hashirama's hands at that point. That alone is a valid enough reason to take him down, right? But at the same time, killing Madara turns Hashirama into someone he never wanted to be. Remember it was Hashirama himself that once reprimanded his father for saying the Senju was the clan of love and compassion, because I think true compassion would have had Hashirama refuse to kill Madara, and instead find a solution by any means necessary. Killing Madara proved that he changed. After finishing Madara off, the Uchiha tells his friend that he had changed, and that his priorities are backwards, that the change will one day lead the village into darkness. Madara says that Hashirama's nation building bore a paradox, and Madara was right to a degree. Hashirama has become much of a contradiction. Hashirama was once so opposed to the blood of innocent children being spilled, and yet when reincarnated, he commends Itachi, claiming him to be an even better shinobi than he was. A man who slaughtered countless innocent Uchiha children for the village, right? The very dream he desired was a place where children would never have to face the horrors of war. And yet Naruto, Sakura, Shikimaru are the most counted on shinobi when it comes to the 4th ninja war. All aged 16. Children. You have Konohamaru fighting off pain. Because of the dedication to protecting the village as a whole over individuals, the Hukaklan side branch acts as slaves to the main branch, with no intervention from higher ups. Innocent children, innocent people, subjugated to this life with no choice in the matter. Neji received his curse seals at 4 years old. She never got to see past the age of 17 or 18, another child soldier dead because of the war. Sasuke, a leaf shinobi whose entire clan was slaughtered when he was 7 years old, and we see what he has become, a traumatized kid. All in order to quote unquote protect the village. The very will of fire that the first Okage proclaims created people like Danzo Shimura under the guise of protecting the leaf, the will of fire has let him become a war monger, a war profiteer, a child abuser, all in the name of protecting the village. If the village is protected then they have free reign to do whatever they please, to kill whoever they want, to groom child prodigies into machines. Hashirama once admonished the shinobi world and his father calling it messed up because his father claimed that the path to a battle free world is not easily paved, that it's not paved without blood or without the sacrifices of children. These were the words that a young Hashirama could not believe, he could not fathom. And yet here he is, the first Okage has slowly adopted his sort of philosophy. He now understands that sacrifices must be made to achieve a dream, to achieve a world that he believes is attainable. But that dream fundamentally requires contradiction, can man truly find peace without spilling blood? With tailed beasts, with rivaling shinobi and other warring countries foaming at the mouth to try and gain power, is there any true way that their dream of peace could be achieved without war? It was this kind of reasoning that Hashirama had to ignore, that he had to look past to achieve some semblance of a dream, some semblance of peace. Madara says that humans are the only people who can yearn for peace while seeking conflict, while seeking war. And that is the reason why Hashirama's country is a shameful contradiction, because he kills and he is willing to kill even his own offspring, his own blood for quote, peace. But Madara's world, his infinite Tsukuyomi, was not any better. That is the dilemma of the shinobi world. Their visions of peace and their dreams and their methods of achieving it all have fundamental problems. That's what makes these two characters interesting. When it comes to the conflict between Madara and Hashirama, we know that they get reincarnated and reimagined into Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto once mentioned when approaching the Sasuke situation, that he could not be Hokage if he couldn't save one person, one friend. He valued an individual, a brother, just as much as his dream. His dream had Sasuke in it, and he made it come true. He never gave up on the young Uchiha. What Hashirama did, the collective became more important than the individual. And that is the philosophy of Hashirama Senju, plain and simple. No man, no individual, no clan, is greater than the collective. Nobody is greater than the village. He believed that if the village thrived, then peace would follow. Madara and Hashirama were two shinobi who understood each other so well. Two friends who had the same goals and dreams, and ultimately ended their lives with opposing journeys to reach the same goal. Rarely do you meet somebody who understands you so well. Hashirama knew Madara's one weakness, the weakness of both the man and of his all powerful eyes. And he killed him using that very weakness. One that Madara showed him time and time again, a weakness that he never even covered with his own armor. I think it's a bit poetic. And then when Hashirama was revived, there was this joy between the two of them. Even after being killed by him, there was no hatred. As Madara was taking his final breaths, he calls out for none other than his best friend. It was Hashirama who stood by his side, and the two spent their final moments talking. A truly transcendent rivalry and love. Hashirama was a kind man at heart. That I truly do believe, because he shows it to us. When he was young, he shows us his compassion, his love, his desire for peace, his desire to unite through Uchiha and the Sendhu. He shows us that hate is something that we are not born with, but that we are taught, and he refused to hate the Uchiha like his father did. This is a man who was ready to sacrifice himself to save Madara's life. But with a country to lead, and with a strict right hand, he had to leave Madara and his younger self behind, in order to become a new man. But he made mistakes, he turned a blind eye to his brother's biases. I mentioned how the Hokage was supposed to be chosen by the people, a democratic choice, but we are never shown the circumstances of Tobirama's election. But Hirazan was not chosen by the people. He was chosen by Tobirama, his mentor, and the council that would be made to select future Hokage were all made up of Hirazan's teammates, Tobirama's students, potentially people who carry Tobirama's biases, one of which Danzo Shimura. No Hokage was chosen by the people. But it's these small holes in Hashirama's armor, it's these holes in the will of fire that make Hashirama send you human. He's a flawed individual with a good heart, hailed as the God of Shinobi for his immense abilities. But these errors show us that even the God of Shinobi is not above any man.