Okay, I gotta drop this take that’s been swirling in my head forever. I think people get so hung up on Naruto being the ‘chosen one’ that they miss how his whole arc, especially with that god-level stuff at the end, is actually a pretty brutal subversion. Yeah, he’s got Ashura and Kaguya in his bloodline, but the series spends way more time showing us that his power comes from the connections he made when he was still the village idiot, not some divine mandate.
Look at how he handled Kaguya. That final battle wasn't a showcase of his godly heritage wiping the floor with her; it was a messy, collaborative scramble with Sasuke and Sakura, using the trust and tactics they built as Team 7. That’s the real ‘god’ power, if you ask me. It wasn't about being the reincarnation of a celestial being, but about becoming the nexus point for every bond in the ninja world. The tailed beasts, the other villages, even his enemies—he pulled all that energy together, which is a totally different kind of divinity than what Kaguya or Hagoromo represent.
Honestly, the god-tier stuff almost feels like a narrative shortcut Kishimoto used to raise the stakes high enough to justify Sasuke’s final challenge. It gave Naruto a power baseline that was equal to Sasuke’s, so their final showdown could be purely ideological. Without it, Sasuke's Rinnegan would have wiped him out. So the ‘god’ role was less about destiny and more about creating a balanced stage for the real thematic climax.