Essay on Writing KakaIru Fanfic
This was originally published on my author bio page on my FanFiction.net account. I decided to move it here and simply link to it on my profile, so as to have a cleaner profile there.
I originally wrote this in early 2005, the year I started writing fanfic.
Why I like to write about Umino Iruka and Hatake Kakashi from Naruto
by Nezuko, Prince of Rats
The thing that inspires me about these characters is their contradictory mixtures of strength and weakness. They are both complex, capable men, who have chosen to do absolutely horrific things for a living. Both have clearly had scarring pasts full of loss and pain, yet both are extremely kind, moral, good people. Probing their strengths, weaknesses, and interactions and interdependencies offers a wealth of possibilities for an author interested in human psychology to explore.
I feel that Iruka and Kakashi are at the same time strong and weak in different and complimentary ways - it bugs me a little when writers make Iruka a milquetoast or secret superhero, and Kakashi a monster or a shattered man. I think some of that comes from wanting to somehow make these two differently skilled men more equal to each other, but partners in a relationship are rarely true equals. There are always areas in which one partner outshines the other, and it is having these different strengths and weaknesses that makes them real human beings.
Iruka and Kakashi and their comrades are ninja, but really they function much more like military soldiers. Because in their world they employ individual, one on one methods of combat, it makes the act and nature of war and killing both more personal and more directly related to their individual moral sense and choice of action. These are not vicious killers, but fighters for a greater good, doing unspeakable things in the name of that goal. And what's even more interesting to me, is that in each of the hidden villages, there are shinobi who are acting with exactly the same motives, yet in pursuit of the supposed greater good, these men and women would fight each other to the death. (Of course, there are also the psychopaths like Itachi and Kisame, but even Zabuza was acting on politically motivated goals. We don't know why he and his cohorts were attempting a coup d'etat, but they weren't just killing for kicks, it would seem.)
So that's why I like to write about them. And read about them.
I originally wrote this in early 2005, the year I started writing fanfic.
Why I like to write about Umino Iruka and Hatake Kakashi from Naruto
by Nezuko, Prince of Rats
The thing that inspires me about these characters is their contradictory mixtures of strength and weakness. They are both complex, capable men, who have chosen to do absolutely horrific things for a living. Both have clearly had scarring pasts full of loss and pain, yet both are extremely kind, moral, good people. Probing their strengths, weaknesses, and interactions and interdependencies offers a wealth of possibilities for an author interested in human psychology to explore.
I feel that Iruka and Kakashi are at the same time strong and weak in different and complimentary ways - it bugs me a little when writers make Iruka a milquetoast or secret superhero, and Kakashi a monster or a shattered man. I think some of that comes from wanting to somehow make these two differently skilled men more equal to each other, but partners in a relationship are rarely true equals. There are always areas in which one partner outshines the other, and it is having these different strengths and weaknesses that makes them real human beings.
Iruka and Kakashi and their comrades are ninja, but really they function much more like military soldiers. Because in their world they employ individual, one on one methods of combat, it makes the act and nature of war and killing both more personal and more directly related to their individual moral sense and choice of action. These are not vicious killers, but fighters for a greater good, doing unspeakable things in the name of that goal. And what's even more interesting to me, is that in each of the hidden villages, there are shinobi who are acting with exactly the same motives, yet in pursuit of the supposed greater good, these men and women would fight each other to the death. (Of course, there are also the psychopaths like Itachi and Kisame, but even Zabuza was acting on politically motivated goals. We don't know why he and his cohorts were attempting a coup d'etat, but they weren't just killing for kicks, it would seem.)
So that's why I like to write about them. And read about them.