Naruto 694: Naruto and Sasuke (1)
I'm later than usual, and there's no pictures this week (unless I find a moment to put them in later) but I will try to make up for that with the discussion, even though I feel like I'm rehashing a lot of old issues with it. It also might interest you all to know that Shonen jump has confirmed Naruto will be ending in 5 chapters, so this is ( Read more... )
I used to like Sasuke, but there was a point in the manga when I stopped thinking of him as Sasuke but rather thought of him as a bundle of the author's weird ideas. I mean, when you read a story for enjoyment, not analysis, you take the characters seriously as if they were real persons and feel with them and hope with them as if they were real persons, but with the manga and most of all with Sasuke there was a point where I could no longer do this. (Of course there's still the option to enjoy analyzing a story...)
When I first read the chapter I broke off after a few pages because Sasuke wanting to shoulder all the hatred of the world just did not make sense to me. Why should he want to sacrifice himself? Just because that's what Itachi did and because Itachi was his role model? Now his desire to erase the past makes more sense, even though I don't think it can work, and of course, killing people who in his eyes are symbols of the past is evil. But all in all, the past of the Narutoverse urgently needs some reevalutation, because that world is badly messed up, far worse than our own. Just that erasing the past is not helpful if you want to reevaluate it. But I can understand Sasuke's desire for a fresh start.
Of course Naruto's objections all miss the point because they are about whether or not the past is something we can learn from in a positive way as opposed to learning what we should not do. (This is not about the past in general, but about the past of the Narutoverse.) And then it's again about friendship and bonds and not about politics.
all for the sake of appeasing the type of fan who wants to see Naruto finally kick his butt.
I fear that this is true.
I can understand him wanting to move on from everything that happened with his brother, but he shouldn't be trying to forget about him he should be loudly broadcasting the truth behind the Uchiha massacre!
I am very pessimistic about the truth behind the Uchiha massacre being mentioned ever again in this story. I am not even certain who knows this truth. I think besides Sasuke himself it's just his Team Taka and then Naruto, Kakashi and Yamato. I think part of the problem is that concrete issues as the Uchiha massacre are dissolved in the big soup "the past" which needs to be discarded.
Regarding Itachi, there is a cultural barrier where his actions are concerned, though the value of loyalty to one's lord above loyalty to one's family is a very feudal thing based in Confucianism and not so much the case now.
Well, there's some people who make it a cultural barrier, but I am not certain. Of course every autocratic system will tell you that loyalty for the state is more important than loyalty to your family, the question is whether this works. Just look at the story of Antigone. Also while I am no specialist for Russian history I can imagine that there's some gruesome stories from the stalinist era. On the other hand, my Tai-Chi-teacher's teacher's teacher (two persons between her and me) lost some family members during the Chinese civil and she won't say "well, it's okay, state is more important than family" but refuses to teach Chinese people. Also, we should not forget that for a couple of decades Japan has also a democratic tradition complete with human rights.
Now as I don't comment at the chuunin thread any more, some answers to a point that were raised over there by people I like, namely concering Sasuke acting like Danzou: I guess you are correct. Sasuke still cares about Itachi, but he hates Danzou. The problem is that both acted on the same principle: you act in the shadows, do what you think is right and accept the world's hatred because they don't understand. Sasuke won't be able to see through all this until he understands that what Itachi did was wrong.
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This sums up how I feel about Sasuke, Naruto, and Itachi among others; I'm not able to think of them as, well, as people; they're dictated more by plot or theme rather character consistency. I don't think to myself what will these characters will do but rather what Kishi will have them do. I think the problems for Sasuke happened at the kage summitt when he started going crazy (without curse scroll) while at the same time Itachi was revealed as a secret good guy which is where the manga jumped the shark for me. I actually gave up the manga for a while after that because I found it disturbing that at the time the sole survivor of a genocide who was the only one really concerned by said genocide was being portrayed as crazy, wrongheaded and in need of redemption by the designated hero who promptly forgot about the genocide after learning about it. Someone on the Naruto forums has said there was a panel where Kishi stated "One brother on a path of light, the other on a path of darkness" Guess which was which? On top of that you have Shikamaru's revenge on being shown in a positive light while Sasuke's wish for vengence is always supposed to be seen as dark and damaging. ....I'm venting again aren't I?
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