- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
It's remarkable how most of your examples of 'hints' are 'later canon retroactively claims it is true'.Yeah wrong. We were given several hints.
Orochimaru had to assume direct control and his version of Edo Tensei wasn't as strong as later uses. Technique use is less potent when the zombies have their personalities all the way under. This is backed up all the way when the same zombies with a more potent version of ET and better mediums go ham with extra cheese in the final arc.
Hashirama jammed the barrier full with one tech in the Leaf Crushing arc. We see Yamato going nuts with Wood Release. Hashirama was stated to be wilder than even that repeatedly.
Hashirama and Madara created the VotE in one fight, stated.
Hashirama subjugated all nine tailed beasts, stated.
Meanwhile, in the actual attack on Konoha, we're hearing about how Sarutobi Hiruzen was 'the god of shinobi' and the, like, greatest Hokage ever (save possibly the fourth, who was his successor; critically, Hiruzen explicitly notices what is implied to be a coffin for the Fourth, and chooses to stop it over either the first or the second, implying that the first and the second are lesser threats than the fourth). Who knew every technique of the leaf and blah.
Like. 'Impure World Resurrection is later depicted as stronger, with a justification provided' isn't an example of a hint. It's an example of these things getting changed in often baffling ways, that could not be reasonably predicted as even plausible from the early arcs. Nobody is acting like the First and Second Hokage would be too much for Hiruzen at his peak- they're pretty explicit that if he wasn't over the hill, he'd have the chakra to use Shadow Clones to, you know, fight them three on one.
One can assume that they were stronger, but it's hugely inconsistent with everything we're told at the time and the themes of the next generation surpassing the old that were very consistent until some time after the timeskip. It basically requires you pay no attention to any part of the sequence to conclude that the Hokages essentially descended in power as you went up through the numbers.
'coincidentally', Naruto goes from consistently saying that The Youth Will Surpass The Old Guard to saying The Old Guard Is Eternally Better Than These Whippersnappers Who Just 100% Can Never Match Up as Kishimoto moved from an up and coming young whippersnapper to the old guard himself. Imagine that.
(like again post timeskip we were initially getting stuff like Kakazu praising himself as Older And Better and the story kicking his teeth in with 'no you aren't, you are a fossil, obsolete, already surpassed by the youth because you are old', and it's not til the general range of the Shinobi World War Arc that we reverse to 'yes actually all older ninja are better including that everyone is just a pale shadow of mega old ninja/ninja-like beings such as Kaguya'.)