Madara Uchiha is one of the most renowned characters in the Naruto world. Introduced properly in the second half of the series, Madara was built up to be the ultimate villain in the story. Everything about him, from his power to his personality made him Kishimoto's greatest villain in Naruto.
While Madara's introduction as the main villain during the 4th Great Ninja War was certainly hyped up quite a lot, things didn't quite go his way in the end. Expectedly, Madara was supposed to fall at the hands of the heroes, otherwise, the story wouldn't make much sense. However, Madara's character was treated quite harshly and to this day, remains to be one of Kishimoto's biggest mishandling in the story.
The Rise Of Madara Uchiha
Born during the Warring States Era, Madara Uchiha grew up on the battlefield. At a very young age, he had already mastered all the ways of war and was supposedly his clan's genius ninja. Fighting the likes of the Senju, among other powerful clans, He grew up to be a monstrous shinobi. However, Madara wasn't monstrous at heart. In fact, his dream aligned with that of Hashirama Senju, and the two planned to make a safe space where children would not have to die in wars in the future. Not knowing that they were fighting on opposite sides, Hashirama and Madara became great friends.
However, it wasn't long until the truth was out and they were at odds with one another. Decades of fighting later, the two eventually joined hands after becoming the leaders of their respective clans by acquiring great power. Finally trusting each other, Madara and Hashirama created Konohagakure, with the former being the one to name the village.
While things certainly looked perfect at this point, fraught was brought between the two when the villagers chose Hashirama to become the Hokage with an overwhelming majority and Tobirama plotted to keep the Uchiha away from power. Realizing that there was no hope for his clan, Madara left the village with the aim of achieving true peace his way.
Evidently, Madara's goal wasn't all that different from Hashirama or Naruto's in that regard. However, the paths they took to achieve peace were drastically different. Madara followed the tablet of the Sage of Six Paths and plotted to collect all Tailed Beasts and revive the Ten-Tails for the purpose of becoming its Jinchuriki and putting the entire world under the influence of a genjutsu known as the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Madara's Invincibility
Madara fought Hashirama Senju at the Valley of the End for one last time and while the two were practically even for the majority of the fight, Hashirama barely edged him out. However, that was Madara's goal, to begin with. Having succeeded in taking Hashirama's flesh, Madara combined its powers with his own and ended up awakening the Rinnegan close to his death. By creating a plan for his own return to life later, Madara was brought back during the 4th Great Ninja War, where he became the ultimate enemy of the Ninja. Kishimoto wrote Madara to be an invincible villain. In fact, at one point Kishimoto himself stated that he had no idea how to deal with the threat that Madara posed.
He was simply too overwhelmingly powerful. With the power of the Rinnegan at his side and, later, acquiring the power of all the Tailed Beasts, Madara was simply impossible for anyone to defeat single-handedly at the time. Even Naruto lacked the skill and the experience to take him down and nearly died attempting to fight Madara. At the same time, Sasuke was defeated by the Uchiha legend without even having his eyes, which further proved that they were miles apart in terms of power and skill. Despite everything that Kishimoto did to paint Madara as the ultimate enemy, he simply wasn't.
The Fall Of Madara Uchiha
Towards the end of the Fourth Great Ninja War, Kishimoto completely flipped the script. Instead of having Madara as the main villain After giving him years of buildup as the ultimate enemy, he decided to introduce yet another powerful entity, Kaguya Otsutsuki. While Kaguya's introduction as the main enemy in itself wasn't a problem, her coming to life at Madara's expense certainly was. Black Zetsu, who everyone knew to be Madara's will reincarnate, stabbed him in the back and revealed that, all along, he was manipulating him to bring his mother, Kaguya, back to life. Madera's body was used as a vessel to accumulate all the chakra from those trapped in the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Unfortunately, Naruto's greatest villain ended up being sacrificed to bring in a questionable enemy who fans had little to no care about. In the end, Kishimoto didn't know how to deal with Madara and failed to do justice to the character he crafted beautifully up until his conclusion. Nonetheless, Madara still goes down as Naruto's most fearsome and compelling villain and remains to be a fan favorite to this day.