when hashbrowns killed madara, that is when i believe he became truly stern. i didn't like how happy go lucky HAHAH he was, how sensitive he was like some big teddy bear underneath, pretty exaggerated and quite pathetic when he bowed and cried during the five kage meeting.
as for tob's, when you think about it, labeling him as the one who invented edo tensei was a very stupid move. as was the FTG, it just screamed unoriginality. Kish knew he wouldn't be able to do much with just water so he later gave him space/time jutsu.
hiruzen.....*sigh* they took a dump on him.
minato, some people call him a marty stu but, he still died and isn't in the story much. i didn't like how he's given sage mode though.
In terms of Hashirama, it was most likely just to force a way to make him and Naruto seem more alike because of the whole out-of-nowhere "Naruto is related to every major powerful Konoha Senju-related figure in history". Heck, wasn't it said at first, in way earlier data books or something that HE was usually the more stern one and it was Tobirama who was the more laid back one? I forget.
In terms of Tobirama, especially when you consider they said someone like Kisame had the strongest Suiton abilities seen since Tobirama, so that already almost negates Tobirama's own prodigious legend of being a Suiton master. I mean, they could have at least had him doing really out-of-this-world styles and moves using water but...nope! Even Edo Tensei I didn't have too much of a problem with. After all, being so pragmatic as he was, Tobirama wouldn't have qualms about violating the realm of the dead if it meant strengthening and protecting Konoha. My main problem was more with Madara just magically knowing how to break it so his Edo self wouldn't disappear when it Kabuto's use was broken without any explanation for how he knew - not even a brief page showing/explaining even as little as something like how he just happened across Tobirama when he was perfecting the technique and Madara copied it with his Sharingan without Tobirama knowing or something like that.
But suddenly hearing about him inventing space-time jutsu and yet never demonstrates anything of the sort during the war...yeah...
In terms of Hiruzen...yeah...sadly, the only time we get to see a small show of why he was called the "God of Shinobi" was the Chunin Exams and how, were it not for the properties of Edo Tensei, he would have killed both Hashirama and Tobirama (simultaneously) several times, and that is when he is a tired old man while those two, as is done with Edo Tensei, were in their prime and, due to the seals Orochimaru used, not holding back against Hiruzen. He could have done a lot more during the war, but instead, he was just dumbed down to, as usual, allow Naruto and Sasuke to look soooooo much stronger and "surpassing the previous generation" and all that.
I mostly had a problem with Minato magically being friends with Kurama's other half and even having his own Kurama cloak. The Shiki Fuin is supposed to have locked them both in the Shinigami's stomach where they would fight for all eternity, so when the heck could they have ever had time to chat and become friends like that? Again, feels like something just to force more similarities with Naruto. And then you have the Rasengan suddenly being directly based on the Biju Dama, but how would Minato ever know what the Biju Dama was/looked like/how it worked at the time he invented the Rasengan? As far as we know, he never faced a Biju before Kurama (and Kurama was sealed and locked deep away in Kushina, so he couldn't just ask, not that Kurama would have shown him anyway), so it's not like it was ever demonstrated, and it can't be because of magically becoming friends with Kurama's other half because, obviously, that was long after Minato had invented it.
Wasn't that one of the things the Jedi warned in Star Wars about Personal Feelings yes you can have personal feelings for someone but there's a line that has to be drawn. Also Hiruzen was one of the one responsible for all the people Orochimaru killed and was one of the reason Sasuke turned to Orochimaru.
Yeah, the prequel movies, in their tendency to not explain things well, made it seem like Jedi were never allowed to love or have much of what makes a person a person (like no fear, anger, etc. whatsoever). It usually required special permission for a Jedi to be married, IIRC (because the attachment could increase the fear of loss and making a Jedi more vulnerable to being seduced by the Dark Side) and it's always been about being in control of your emotions and not letting them control you (which is what Anakin ended up doing much of the time). This was brought up in Episode V, when Luke and Vader began their fight and Vader commenting on Luke being taught well and that he had learned to control his fear.
I wished there were consequences in Naruto but there aren't you know at least Fairy Tail gave consequences to those who had them coming like Jellal one of my favorite characters. Actually Ay is one of my favorite Kages cause he actually was going to do something about Sasuke sure it took longer then it should have, also Ay refusal to not kill Sasuke made me like cause Naruto's TNJ didn't work or cause Ay knows the lives of everyone in the world are more important than one rouge traitor that Naruto and the leaf village go. Also Naruto said that he didn't want a war between leaf and cloud if Sasuke were killed but a don't see how Sasuke dying would star a war if anything it wouldn't since no one cares about a rouge ninja or it's just another moment of Naruto being a dumbass aside from being the most irresponsible manga hero ever.
Any war that would be declared by Konoha would be completely stupid because, as you said, Sasuke was already a missing-nin. The only thing that, in Naruto and others' minds, didn't make him one was merely the fact that Tsunade never labeled him in the Bingo Book (all because of her own attachment to Naruto and Sakura). Ay was basically "if you're not going to do it, then I will" and he would be completely justified because of Sasuke's attack on Bee (which would be both personal and political), so if Konoha declared war on Kumo because of Ay doing what Konoha suddenly lacked the stomach to do, then Konoha would most definitely be the enemy in that case. Even Shikamaru was an idiot there in making the "war" completely personal with the whole "if you kill Sasuke, then we'll want revenge and kill you, and then your people would want revenge and kill us" and all that.
