Ngl, the Itachi was retconned to be stronger in part 2 take never made sense to me
Since part 1, we knew that beating Itachi was Sasuke's goal, unless you think that Sasuke wasn't supposed to be important in part 1 or something. The Orochimaru stuff was mentioned in part 1 and even if you think about it
In Shippuden:
He was revealed to be severely ill
His MS could lead to blindness, there was no way for him to actually get the last stage of sharingan
He wasn't wiping out clans to test his strength
He didn't even beat any of the notable Uchiha in an actual fight: Shisui/Fugaku
He collected a special blade to deal with Orochimaru
So when did the Jiraiya retcon even happen? Was Kishi retconning the story by making even Pain saying he got lucky Jiraiya couldn't figure out his secret?