#Sasori - orphaned at a very young age by war

[waffliesinyoface]

see, the thing about Hidan is he is presented as kind of a one note character. Funny murder man who yells a lot and screams about his death cult. Fantastic. Love that for him.

but the other thing about Hidan is that the akatsuki is almost* entirely composed of people who were fucked over by the system in some way, so if he was JUST a funny murder man, he would be an outlier. (*zetsu does NOT count)

and the other other thing about Hidan is that Jashinism is explicitly about shared suffering. Hidan feels all of it. Hidan revels in all of it. Hidan believes that the bond of suffering is where humans truly understand one another on a fundamental level. He's not just killing and sacrificing people, he's sacrificing himself. He just gets back up.

And given that Pein & Konan's goals as the akatsuki are to crush the world with war the same way that Ame was crushed by war, and Yugakure went from a shinobi village to a hot springs town, implying they lost so much manpower that they literally couldn't function with a ninja-based economy anymore... hey, Hidan? What suffering have you experienced, that you want to share with others?

I want to understand you, Hidan.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

TBH I think Orochimaru's obsession with developing and discovering new jutsu is just a byproduct of his desire for immortality at any cost, and that his views of self-serving immortality was a gradual logical conclusion for him than an innate one.

Early Years

He was orphaned as a child and showed a desire to see his parents again. Hiruzen commented that the shed snake skin on his parents' graves is a symbol of rebirth and rejuvenation, and so Orochimaru naturally took that to heart and it became a motif of his fighting style and abilities. He grew up to see Jiraiya, despite being a fool, as a comrade, and he greatly respected Tsunade's chakra control and spirited nature (Orochimaru is far from a misogynist in any respect) as well as her ability to put Jiraiya in his place when he got too goofy. Orochimaru took Tsunade's little brother Nawaki under his wing, or at least doted on him as a friend of the Senju family or like an uncle. He was his sensei, so at least in an official capacity he had responsibilities toward him, responsibilities that were not inherently self-serving. And so he had at least four people (Hiruzen included) upon which he could say he was close to. 

Nawaki's Death

While Orochimaru was a quietly confident, reserved, and cagey individual in his early years, Nawaki's horrible death shook him as much as it did Tsunade. For the first time since the death of his parents, he felt an emptiness and sorrow that he was unable to properly fix the source of. He was powerless to reverse death then as a child as he was in that moment while watching Tsunade sob uncontrollably over her little brother's body. He was not one for tears, he was not one to feel despair in the capacity that everyone around him seemed freely able to do, but in his own way he felt it. The fragility of life, the ease in which people can pass away, and the finality of mortality -- pointless, it was pointless. And so his heart hardened more that day.

Dan's Death and Tsunade

Upon Tsunade's second tragedy with the death of her lover Dan (during the Second Shinobi World War), I feel like Orochimaru had by then developed his views to the point that love was not enough to shield people from their ultimate expendability in life. Tsunade loved Nawaki fiercely, and he died. Tsunade loved Dan fiercely, and he died. Orochimaru was orphaned at a very young age but he doesn't recall hating his parents, and they were dead.

He admired Tsunade's concurrent crusade to train medical nin and place them in team cells so as to significantly lower the mortality rate during missions--now pushed even more fiercely after Dan's death, but deep down inside he knew it was staving off the inevitable. Still, he did not find her contemptible for such efforts because they were driven by logic and strategy as well as passion.

Ame Orphans

Another thought: Before the Sannin split up to do their own thing (Jiraiya to travel; Tsunade to train medic nin, at least initially; Orochimaru to work with Danzo, I guess), the Sannin met Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato in the Rain village, again during the Second War. Orochimaru's first instinct was to kill them, but the line delivery of his suggestion was not one of malice or sadism but pity, and not even a mocking pity. The war with Hanzo and the destruction that they the Sannin had caused was not unknown to Orochimaru since he had a huge part in it, nor did he feel guilt about it, per se. He was realistic about it, just as he was realistic in claiming that the trio of kids would likely suffer from starvation and disease before dying cold and alone in some burned-down house. This was a very accurate assessment of the situation before Jiraiya intervened and decided to train them for a spell. This was perhaps one of the final times that Orochimaru displayed genuine sentiment at the thought of death as a form of personal loss and suffering rather than the individual as a unit/pawn that can be cultivated, manipulated, and ultimately broken or discarded when it can no longer be used.

Sakumo Hatake and Disaffection with the Leaf

While Tsunade has clearly shown that tragedy and death do not necessarily break an individual, shinobi are successful partly because that is one of their most enduring rules -- no emotion, get the mission done. This is just conjecture, but it is unlikely that Orochimaru had not at least had a passing conversation with Sakumo Hatake, given how much renown he accumulated as the “White Fang of Konoha” during the Second War, and the news of his suicide after being branded a disgrace for choosing to put the lives of his team over the success of the mission may have further solidified Orochimaru’s growing conviction that people fear death so much that they are willing to act irrationally and forego what is logically most beneficial for the group because death’s severing of peoples’ close bonds is more detrimental and dangerous than the potential for failure. 

And even though Sakumo succeeded in preventing the deaths of his comrades, his very human decision--a decision he was able to pull off because he was strong enough and capable enough to do so, an ability that Orochimaru did not possess in the moment when Nawaki died, an ability Tsunade did not possess when Dan died in her arms--still led to his death by his own hand. Tragic irony by this point was only becoming somewhat comical to Orochimaru, something that you can't help but laugh at because it is so ridiculous and yet the people around him are so blind. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch that this scandal, if Orochimaru had paid attention to it at all, wouldn’t have furthered his graudal dissatisfaction and contempt of the Leaf for their circumstantial and hypocritical war time politics. Orochimaru always operated in shades of gray, but the Leaf's inability to reconcile the psychological anchors of their soldiers with the requirements of a shinobi must have read to him as being foolish and wasteful and a futile attempt at denying human beings' true nature, a nature that he himself had begun to gradually shed over the years.

Little Side Note of Orochimaru's Ability to Connect with Others

To say "camaraderie" and "friendship" would sound too Shonen, because Orochimaru did not grow up without enjoying the company of his sensei and teammates, but he was someone who either had the willpower to cut those ties and find satisfaction in his own company (like how some people just prefer to be alone and never report feeling 'lonely'), and thus psychically fulfilled with his own person (arguably, like Sasori, or Kakuzu to a certain extent) or he was born with something that allowed him to form bonds with others but those bonds were separate from his Self. He could live and thrive without them, sever them if he had to when he pleased if they furthered his own goals. Opportunistic and self-sufficient, independent but not the point of being incapable of working in tandem with others. Mentally, he was more than versatile and can not be be placed squarely in either the "Does Not Play Nice With Others" or "A True Team Player" boxes. Whatever is best for the situation and the long run is good enough for him, and he is not someone who does not clutch his chest in pain when his actions unintentionally benefit another, unless that benefit interferes with his own net gain.

Tanzaku Town and the Offer of Resurrection

When Orochimaru and Tsunade finally met again in Tanzaku, I honestly don't think that Orochimaru was kidding when he said he would resurrect Tsunade's loved ones in exchange for her healing his arms. He had been working on this technique for a long-ass time, upgrading it from Tobirama's original jutsu, and he was more than willing to show it off and give her a taste of it in return for her services. This here is where Orochimaru's demented way of thinking seems to reveal itself most clearly, though: For Orochimaru, the most powerful driving force that can encourage or break someone is grief and love. He saw how Dan and Nawaki's deaths ruined Tsunade for a time and changed her to the point that she developed a severe phobia of blood after the former died of blood loss (something he used to shake her up to compel her to agree, what an asshole). Playing with her head aside, I think that in that moment, him offering her her loved ones back seemed logical to him. She had been pining for them for so long beneath all that brassy exterior and gambling and medical ninjutsu, so why would she not jump at the chance to see them again?

But he underestimated Tsunade's grudge factor and her own maturity. She was able to throw away the ability to see them because of what he had done to the Leaf Village, the place that all three Sannin had grown disillusioned with in their own way, and that surprised him big time because on top of him having been one of her closest companions for a long time and seeing how their deaths wrecked her he had also become a master at manipulation and human psychology to Hannibal Lecter-like levels.

Aaaand that's all I got. At what point he went all Dr. Machiavellian Mengele, I have no clue, but he wasn't a completely heartless bastard in the beginning.

Edit: Added a few more ideas cuz my thoughts were running in every direction when I first wrote this and I wanted to get them down as soon as possible. P.S. If you have any more insights or want to debate with me on any of the characters or backstories I have mentioned, please do. I am not an Orochimaru, Tsunade, Jiraiya, or Sakumo stan, so any of your insights would be coolio. Also, apologies for long-winded sentences. I don't breathe sometimes when I'm trying to make a thought and it reflects in how I write :O

[konohaaintshit]

"Let's hate together

Some of them had a goal but it was more for themselves than anything for a greater majority and some just did shit for the fun of it. I don’t criticize them as harshly as I do the “protagonists” because they are simply doing what they are written to do. Be a villain.

Kakuzu was the result of a village sending a kid to fight the god of shinobi and when he failed to do so, exiled him. And now he is practically immortal and the baddest piggy bank in town.

Sasori losing his parents at a young age manifested a fixation on puppets when Chiyo introduced it to him and being just a child, of course he yearned for his parents touch. But later grew numb to it and even made himself a puppet as a show of his artistry. Though judging by how he died, he truly wasn’t devoid of emotions.

Deidara. I love him. He was introduced as a guy who wanted people to appreciate his art. Yet despite him and Sasori having different angles on art, he implemented Sasori’s puppetry with his own and I think that’s beautiful development right there.

Pein/Konan/Nagato were orphans of war. They wanted to make the hidden rain a better place which then moved on to a making the world a better place with Yahiko’s death. Removing the Bijuus is like removing nuclear bombs a country has. Although it might achieve some peace. It won’t last. Even without the Bijuus, ninjas will still kill each other. It’s still a better plan than what Naruto settled with. Naruto is a damn scam and the very definition of a scumbag he used to loathe.

Itachi—yeah I think this has already been discussed to death and I feel there’s a lot of aspects to take from how he was written but I will say this. Whatever Kishimoto envisioned for Itachi, he was no hero. Whatever “hero” his fans may call him, to me is the image of slaughter of innocent children and adults who, with a select few having sharingans, probably had nothing to do with the coup. Yes he was blackmailed but for a character that Kishimoto revered to be so intelligent, he fell through with providing himself options. A prodigy would have seen a loophole but Itachi just settled for what is, technically, the easiest option. He may have did it to save Sasuke and “give him purpose” despite Sasuke already having that potential when Itachi slaughtered the Uchiha. It was overdone and unecessary for him to torture his own brother. And leaving him in the same village that threatned his little brother was not the best course of action. Did he really envision Sasuke having a normal childhood where he was left alone to care for himself in the remnants of his clan? What could sasuke have gained from it? More trauma? p>

But I digress Itachi isn’t a complicated character. Kishimoto just made his character vain and utterly a mess, regardless if your into that type of characterization, then by all means but I am not and i’m sure im not the only one.

Kisame was a ninja who learned just how corrupt the system is and went rogue. If anything, Kisame is the ninja Naruto aspired to be. Unyielding and immovable both in mind and body.

Hidan was given little information. It said somewhere that a ritual is done for him to participate in jhanism? Yeah I can’t really say a lot about him other than he was an extreme masochist, a little coocoo but a sinammonroll I appreciate.

Aloe vera? Obito? I don’t really care for them much. Obito just turned out to be a darker Naruto parallel and that really put his character to moot.

We get people butthurt over us liking the villains because of their roles yet these people claim Orochimaru is a reformed guy and whose actions are forgiven just because he had a change of heart. They either refuse to grasp the morality that is Orochimaru or don’t care at all because they’re only here for the ships. Don’t they call him Uncle Snake? Lol.

And as for collectively, they really could care less for the Bijuus. They were only there because Pein and Konan recruited them. The only outlier is Itachi I guess but that’s a whole other topic.

I wish I could say more but Kishimoto rushed through and wrote them in a simple timeline to fit his narrative.