#Uchiha Sasuke analysis

[watermelonsloth]

I think the reason why Naruto fans get so passionate and upset about the series is because of how real it can be. Naruto isn’t about paragon heroes outdoing dastardly villains. It’s about human beings fighting tooth and nail to survive in a world surrounded by death. It’s about broken systems made and perpetuated by broken people.

The Hyuga clan isn’t just antagonistic or pretentious, they practice slavery.

The Uchiha clan weren’t just killed by some raging psychopath, they were systematically massacred.

Itachi isn’t just cruel to Sasuke because he’s a bad brother, he’s cruel because he’d been told time and time again that you can only survive by being cruel and he wants nothing more than for Sasuke to survive.

Nagato isn’t trying to take over the world just for the sake of power, he’s trying to take over the world because it beat him down to the point of believing that the only chance at peace there is is the world being forced into compliance through fear.

Iruka isn’t hard on Naruto just because he’s a strict teacher, he’s hard on Naruto because he knows from experience how unforgiving the world is towards orphans.

Kakashi isn’t just some silly and slightly lazy teacher, he’s a contract killer still grieving his loved ones and struggling to do better without knowing how he’s supposed to.

Sakura isn’t just a fangirl, she’s a normal girl in a very dangerous and abnormal world constantly being made to choose between what she’s supposed to do and what she feels.

Sasuke isn’t just some edgelord, he’s a survivor who lost everything then gets repeatedly told that he has to choose between keeping what he’s gained and doing better than his brother.

Naruto isn’t just trying to be the best Hokage there ever was, he’s trying to prove his worth to a society that abandoned him just for existing and, in a way, confirm his worth to himself.

The Naruto story is about humans trying to force themselves into the role of weapons because that’s what they were told they had to be. It’s a story where everyone is a perpetrator but no one is trying to do wrong. It’s a story where everyone is a victim but no one is a perfect victim.

The world and the characters aren’t simple and trying to simplify them only takes away from them. So of course we get passionate about showing off all the reasons why they shouldn’t be simplified and all of the ways they’re complicated. Of course we get upset when we see others simplifying them or selling certain aspects of their characters short. Of course we get upset when the series itself simplifies them. Of course we get upset when the series chooses to abandon them. Because it not only feels like the characters are giving up, it feels like the series is betraying anyone who chose to get invested in its complexities.

[mochiajclayne]

Okay we all know that I love Five Kage Summit arc but what's interesting is about what happened NEXT after Naruto and Sasuke talked under that bridge. Naruto went ahead and told his friends that he'd handle Sasuke alone and naturally their reactions were how can you expect us to agree with that, we can't give in to your stubbornness, and it's pretty much an issue for the village and Naruto is like nope I'm not being stubborn and Kiba really called him out like thought you'd give us the details but I did not expect it to be this, we all made up our minds to kill Sasuke then Shikamaru really hit the nail in the coffin like you say that you'll take Sasuke alone when you're actually planning on protecting him. Naruto is like no intentions to protect Sasuke here and Neji is like Sasuke was weak at the time so why didn't you take him out and Sakura defended Naruto by saying that Madara was there then Kiba says you're a hero dude you can take him down like you did with Pain and Naruto sullenly replied that he wouldn't be able to defeat Sasuke the way that he currently is and then Choji is like what is it that you found out then Naruto fucking proceeds NOT TO EXPLAIN FURTHER and persistently says that no one should take Sasuke on and HE'S THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN FIGHT HIM as if that explanation would satisfy everyone (it doesn't) and keeps on giving them the runaround as he would tell them when the time comes. Even Sakura who was there when it happened has been mentally deliberating about what's Naruto has been hiding.

Now the interesting part is Naruto could've just explained WHY. Neji would've understood where he's speaking from as he also dealt with darkness, Shikamaru would at least try to see his point in sheer rationality making the others see his perspective but HE DOESN'T. It was a choice. Might be speaking out of the box here but with the way that everyone collectively decided to kill Sasuke behind his back, it was like a slap in the face realization for Naruto that no one really understands Sasuke like he does. And no amount of explanation would convince them otherwise--he wasn't exactly protecting Sasuke but he won't let them kill him either because killing him won't save Sasuke from his hatred. Naruto never intended to exist in a world where Sasuke dies and he made that clear in the bridge. People around them would look at their relationship like they're fucking insane but what's amusing about it is they never explained their bond to others--how can you even put into words the connection that transcends even the ninja system that fosters hatred and pain? And how can you expect the same people that unconsciously adheres to the same system to understand that?

[twomiddlefingersforthehaters]

Sasuke is a great example of a character who had this amazing ability of his observation skills. (I'm not talking about how attentively he analyzes his enemies during battles)

When Kakashi tells them not to worry about any danger since this is only a C-rank mission, but only Sasuke notices that something is off with Tazuna's behavior.

Sasuke suspected that Sakura was acting strange when she said 'good morning' with some hesitation. Sakura was really depressed about the chuunin exam because she felt useless compared to Naruto and Sasuke and didn't think she was good enough or skilled enough. Sasuke was the only person who noticed that Sakura wasn't acting like her usual self or something off about her behavior, while Naruto was completely unaware of this.

Sasuke can recognize Naruto without even talking to him. Sasuke was sitting somewhere far behind Naruto, yet he could notice that Naruto getting freaked out without seeing his face.

Sasuke can immediately find the fake Naruto. This shows that Sasuke is very obervent towards Naruto's appearance and his fighting skills (the way he dodges attacks). Sasuke quickly noticed that it was a fake Naruto coming towards them, but Sakura didn't notice.

It happens twice under completely different circumstances. And yet, Sasuke knows without a doubt who is the real Naruto and who isn't.

Sasuke was the only one who felt something was off about Kabuto, but Naruto and Sakura didn't notice as they accepted and trusted him.

Sasuke can tell Naruto's mood just by looking at him. He saying himself 'this is not how Naruto usually fight. (Naruto was literally confused on how to save his friends from the much stronger Gaara)

After seeing his fight with Gaara Now he knows the usual Naruto is back.

No one realized how selfish she is, but Sasuke did. Sakura started talking about 'this revenge won't make you happy...nor me', and making it all about herself and her feelings. The moment he hears this, he uses the word 'yappari'. Yappari means "just like I thought", "I knew it", "As I suspected".やっぱり(yappari) uses to expresses the fact that your assumptions and predictions are proven correct. It also means that you are not surprised.

Sasuke calls Naruto 'Usuratonkachi' in Part 1 and at the end of Part 2. It wasn't a word that Sasuke had made up on his own….he had heard it from Naruto and started calling him by that name, creating his own meaning from it.

Sasuke was observant enough to listen intently to the nonsense Naruto spewed out at the age of 8 and began to make it his own….despite suffering a tragedy and consumed with hatred and revenge……

[sassykinzonline]

when people talk about naruto's repression they kind of miss a crucial element which is that it actually makes complete sense.

firstly from the power perspective, simply put, by its very nature he requires repression to function on a most basic level. this is opposite to the sharingan, which thrives on huge displays of emotion. im going to assume that the reason this is missed is because it runs counter to the personality traits each character is known for: the "emotionless, calm and cool" one actually is constantly accessing and expressing the most powerful of emotions, and the "expressive, empathetic and emotionally honest" one is actually warring with letting true emotions come to the surface. comparatively, when you look at starfire and raven from teen titans, you see that their personalities reflect their power. starfire is bright and expressive because thats how she best accesses her powers, and raven is subdued, controlled and calculated in order to control her powers. this means that contrary to popular belief, naruto isnt starfire-- naruto is raven. there are actually a few moments where you are subtly shown just how calculated naruto's displays of emotion are, and how they are reinforced in such a way (context is naruto being saddened that his request for parental affection was rebuffed):

which brings me to my second point: socialization. this part is straightforward. from itachi actively causing and incentivizing hatred and anger, to various mentors/people of influence (eg. kakashi) remaining silent at clear expressions of violent anger-- these negative emotions are not punished or discouraged when it come to the context theyre in. why? they are beneficial to the agenda of various characters. the revenge plot only starts being punished when its disadvantageous to the state. remember that there is a monetary value attached to the murder of itachi uchiha, and this is actually a common way to earn money. when you look at naruto, there is never a single instance when naruto is encouraged or even tolerated for having these emotions. the only exception who does this leaves him due to their own parallel struggle (side note: this is why naruto distinctly says the reason for his obsession is that this person accepted him more than anyone else, given this person is the only one who saw naruto's pain and anger and actually blamed his aggressors for it). naruto, raised implicitly to know that everyone seeks to be a tool of the state, and that in his case this is not just a choice but a requirement for his humanity. iruka's acknowledgment of naruto comes with an indication of possession, implying conditionality. people like kakashi, hiruzen, and others in positions of influence witness the abuse he faces, and ignore it or groom him into accepting the idea that he should appeal to his abusers for eventual acceptance. naruto meets gaara, someone with the same condition as him, but with radically different circumstances. whereas naruto's condition symbolically papers over his pain over time, gaara's is self-protective and defensive against his pain. gaara also occupies a position of power as the member of a royal family, and has siblings who are afraid of him but do hold some level of affection towards him. gaara's feelings of loneliness, while rational, come from a different place than naruto's. for gaara, he is surrounded by community that he doesnt know how to access. naruto has no community, he needs to find a way to forge one, but even when he does it is superficial. this dynamic is repeated in his introduction to killer bee, who from an early age is granted family and institutional protection. this isnt to say that the treatment of jinchuriki is ethical or healthy, but that naruto's situation is actually uniquely oppressive. kushina is the closest naruto gets to someone who validates this pain, but she cannot truly relate to him because she is never cripplingly alone (again, not to say her life was not difficult or oppressive or traumatic) and the object of her affections returns those feelings consistently and early on. naruto's trauma is thus compounded over and over by the conflict his need for his specific love interest causes: naruto is only tolerated as a weapon of the state, and in order to be an effective one he needs to love and be loved, but his love interest who allows him these negative emotions is an enemy of the state, leading to further isolation/tension from the state and pushing him towards the love interest.

as such, i actually think naruto does remarkably well at balancing this conflict and tension in a way that keeps him functional. though, obviously and eventually the compounding of his trauma and the repression of his pain is something that needs to be addressed. the only person who is capable of doing this in a way that puts naruto's wellbeing first ("when i saw you in pain...i also felt pain" and the subsequent frequent moments of protection and defence) only reunites with him at the end of the manga, so you never get to see that actually happen.

im assuming the reason why a lot of this is missed is partially because through framing this repression as positive through the majority of the manga (aside from naruto's own personal thoughts), the reader is never really forced to decide how they feel about the concept unlike the inherent conflict of the radical revenge plot. the other part is the grander, underlying allegory in the naruto story which is the varied manifestations AND expressions of trauma. through readers' responses and attention to certain individuals in the naruto story, you can learn how they relate to and look at trauma. to me, naruto himself is actually the example of a trauma victim who shows a brave face and thus isnt recognized. naruto is the woman who puts on makeup to cover the bruises to go to work a day after she is assaulted. who tells herself that she must have some part in it, so it isnt abuse. maybe she grew up in a family where no one answered when she cried, so she learned to keep it moving and stop crying.

lastly, on a greater scale, people also forget a crucial aspect of "yin/yang" is that things with a large properties of one, by nature will also come with a small amount of the opposite. thats what the smaller inner dots represent.

a more surface level example of this is that naruto's face is brash, large, and masculine-- these are yang traits and they are predominant in his appearance. however, looking closely at his rounded cheeks and eyes and the soft nature of his eye colour, there are subtle yin elements. naruto's "positivity" or "optimism" is fueled by a certain level of negative repression.

[fruitchakra]

[mostly-just-sasuke-blog]

The conversation around Sasuke leaving Konoha needs to change. It's true that the in-story narrative by those who don't know Sasuke is that he is a traitor that betrayed Konoha. Unfortunately, too many in the fandom take this narrative at face value. But neither Naruto or Sakura endorse this view. Although they are confused by Sasuke's choice they both know Sasuke too well.

People talk about Sasuke choosing to leave Konoha...

But no one talks about how Itachi told Sasuke he'd come back to kill him someday. And Sasuke had very good reason to think that Itachi would target anyone Sasuke got close to.

Or how about how the curse seal would have killed Sasuke if it wasn't fully activated?

Or how Orochimaru made it clear he wasn't going to stop pursuing Sasuke? How long do you think it would have been till his patience ran out and he got tired of asking nicely?

Or how about the fact that he was found and targeted while he was in the village. The village couldn't protect him. Kakashi couldn't protect him. It's even the whole reason Naruto left to train, because the village wasn't safe enough. Naruto had people looking out for him. But Sasuke didn't. He is targeted multiple times and the village didn't take any action to protect him.

Yeah, Sasuke did make a choice. The right choice. He made the best choice he could make under the circumstances and no one-- not konoha, not Naruto, not Sakura--no one was hurt more by Sasuke's choice than it hurt Sasuke to make the choice to leave and live with one of his abusers. Yet he was the only person who offered to do anything to help him deal with his other abuser. It was horrible that Sasuke had to put himself through this second trauma... And yet the fandom has the audacity to make Sasuke's trauma about Naruto?? Or about Sakura?? Sometimes it really seems like no one in this fandom gives a crap about Sasuke unless it's to prop up their stupid ships. The fandom literally treats Sasuke like crap. Sasuke didn't leave because he wanted to. He wasn't being selfish or greedy. He just took stock of his situation and made the most viable choice he had. He wasn't happy that it was. He was willing to die for Naruto and Sakura. He valued them more than than his own life. Of course he wanted to stay. But he couldn't.

Ironically the fandom has compassion for Itachi for doing what he felt like he had to do, even though he actually killed people, and when he torments Sasuke, of course even then people actually focus on Itachi. But Sasuke did something that incidentally hurt Naruto and Sakura, do he's a selfish traitor. Sasuke didn't owe Naruto or Sakura. Yes, we see Naruto cared about Sasuke, but to Sasuke's face Naruto had treated him like he was a rival he wanted to overcome more than as a friend. And Sakura? He never started a relationship with Sakura. He may have felt guilty because he was abandoning his duty to Konoha.... the irony.

Sasuke lost everything once, and then he lost everything again when he was forced to leave it all behind. And it killed him. That Sasuke, the part one Sasuke who sometimes acted his age, he died. Sasuke killed him, so he could survive. It was yet another traumatic experience in his life.

That's the conversation we should be having about Sasuke leaving.

[sasukesharingan]

Sasuke Video Masterpost

You thought YouTube was only for dudebros who post "Who would win: Naruto or all Akatsuki?"

FORTUNATELY not. Here are some gems I found on YouTube. Great analyses.

Why Sasuke Uchiha Is The Best Naruto Character*

SASUKE WAS RIGHT*

Dissecting Sasuke Uchiha*

In Defense of Sasuke Uchiha | Naruto Analysis

The Conflict and Compromise of Uchiha Sasuke

In Defense of Naruto and Sasuke: A Misunderstood Dynamic (Part 1)

In Defense of Naruto and Sasuke: A Misunderstood Dynamic (Part 2)

Naruto is a Story About Love

SASUKE GOT THAT DAWG IN HIM

*Best videos, MUST watch.

I'm probably definitely missing some more but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head. Will update this over time.

[sasukesun]

something about having tattoos on your hands that symbolise how you are connected by fate in an endless fight and something about blowing up those hands specifically when you reconcile because you are different from those who came before you and you defied fate because the love you feel for each other is much bigger than that. makes you think.

[skykashi]

Check this 👇 out

Now, these are the same ppl who keep swearing of Gai's huge thicc juicy ass, you'd see them going on and on about how enormous Gai's butt is that you can hear his butt cheeks clapping from 100 Miles away as he's doing his daily laps around the village, while they keep talking about Kakashi's butt being as flat as a board. Now let's see the picture of Kakashi they "saw" and still deemed as flat/assless, next to Gai's huge cakes they always talk about

I have one thing to say to you, fandom...

I don't really mind ppl giving their favorite characters more than they canonically have, my issue here is that they give all the other characters more while downplaying Kakashi, I just wish that ppl would be more fair to Kakashi and treat him the same way they treat the other characters, it's just so unfair.

[bluebobatea]

if sasuke was the main character then he probably would've been a LOT more sympathised with than he is now (which is to say rarely). like the narrative wouldn't even need to change to show his pains or 'his side of the story', bc it does that plenty. it's just that he is not the main character. and idk what it is about our human minds but we tend to sympathise with main characters automatically (unless ofc you go off the rockers insane and do something like obliterate almost everyone from the planet *cough* eren yeager *cough*)

an instance that comes to my mind where this does happen is with lelouch from code geass. while i don't agree with his character motivations, people generally do sympathise with him as he is the mc and as viewers we know he isn't inherently evil. sasuke's goal towards the end is slightly similar but ofc people love to hate him so they don't even try to understand where he is coming from.

my point is, most people while engaging with the naruto story don't read between the lines and so don't see how traumatised and in pain sasuke is and hence don't understand his character motivations. heck, they don't understand a single bit about him and so they automatically hate him, as he is supposedly going against the main character's goals.

which is really sad given all that he has been through.

[bananaman-mp3]

[ID: A screenshot of a reblog with the blog's url and profile picture scribbled outin red that reads: "...conditionally and only if you never disagree with them? O.o"

the tags underrneath read: "#it never stops baffling me #how fandom turned these two into some idea of love #when the story is literall Naruto obsessign over Sasuke who is not interrsted #and then beating him almost to death because Sasuke doesn't think genocide is good pooitcal move actually #like FFS pls read more mangas people" End ID]

are you serious... if naruto only loved him conditionally why did he risk everything to save him, even when everyone else was set on killing him for being a traitor to konoha?

the guy threw his dignity away, in the eyes of everyone, to defend public enemy #1

he always called sasuke his friend, he never stated that he would only consider him a friend only if he returned as a konoha ninja.

loves him conditionally my ass.

and like- the idea that naruto can only love people that never disagree with him is so fundamentally against his character it's almost comical. if that were true naruto wouldve simply killed nagato. he wouldn't have tried to understand him or talk him out of it the way he did, once he heard his story. he wouldn't have tried talking to obito either. or even neji, konohamaru and inari, as small as those moments look in comparison.

the obsession part would make more sense, given how much he thought about him and wanted him back, to the point even his friends and the girl who was in love with sasuke thought it was too much.

yet the part about naruto beating sasuke up is... weird. they do realize naruto was fighting him because sasukes idea of a revolution meant to martyr himself for the sake of peace, the way his brother did, right?

they do realize that sasuke wanted to kill him at that point too, right? that it wasn't naruto beating a defenseless sasuke, right?

if anything, naruto was leaning on the defensive side and sasuke was the one trying to beat him up. but the were pretty fucking tied in terms of power. thats why he came close to killing sasuke (and viceversa. stop treating sasuke like a weakling.)

now, that doenst mean naruto is completely in the right to simply undermine or ignore konohas wrongdoing just because it only fuels the cycle of violence. naruto himself is victim of konohas shit system, and he has acknowledged many of the problems it caused. he promised to nagato that hed help amegakure when he became hokage.

of course you could argue that narutos methods may not be as effective for change as sasukes more aggressive plan, since systemic change is rarely if ever achievable by working within it. but im not that good with politics so i dont think im the best to talk about it, and that already goes beyond the topic here.

sasukes violent reaction to konohas mistreatment of the uchiha was completely understandable and anyone in his place wouldve don the same. lets make that clear here. i think saying he was highly justified is not a controversial take, at least here. konoha and the shinobi system ARE fucked up.

also, love that 'sasuke is not interested' bit. op, why did sasuke want to kill naruto? tell me.

me when im not interested:

so yeah i think that's a pretty inaccurate take on sasukes feelings towards naruto.

[shinoposting]

All I can say is What A Weird Thing To Lie About.

[celticcatgirl2]

It’s funny to contrast for magical girl animes the rival is just like kinda rude and tsundere-ish and sometimes not even consistently to everyone and just only towards the protagonist specifically but overall a good person

while in shonen animes the rival regularly is like a genocidal war criminal but he’s chill now OKAY lmao

I just think it’s a REALLY funny contrast🤣

[sassykinzonline]

ok i saw the post you guys meant when you were asking about platonic SNS aka "SNS should be platonic because that makes it selfless", heres what i'll say (some of these sort of rehash the ask, but with a more direct rebuttal to the specific point):

the manga explicitly shows how various types of love (platonic, familial, professional, romantic, sexual) can be "imperfect", therefore, the manga rejects the idea that one sort of love is implicitly "correct" or "selfless" or whatever ontological good you want to attach to the love of your choice

action/shounen's propensity to pose the love interest as the "reward" for the hero's journey not only doesnt apply to SNS (nor the naruto manga from an SNS lens), but this is also another example of attaching an ontological idea that is irrelevant to a concept. tropes are not what define a genre nor a story archetype, theyre simply a common device used within these things. for example, the "heroine as a reward" trope for the hero may be a device used to exemplify success, honour, or nobility. it likely stems from cultural patriarchal norms where what was "desirable" was a "brave" man with deeds to his name. the point of this trope is likely to inspire a reader to emulate the hero, thinking that they will also ~get the girl at the end of their "journey". but the trophy doesnt have to be the girl. the trophy can be riches. the trophy can be a title. the trophy can be peace itself. it can be all those things. why? because the core of a hero's journey is literally the hero's journey, how and why they get from point A to point B and what the effects of that are. and thats typically how you choose what trophy to give your hero at the end.

the naruto manga subverts this trope by making the "journey" the feelings themselves: do you have them, how to express them, are they enough, are they even appropriate to have, what does the other person feel, what can be done about that? thats why i said the trope doesnt exactly apply to SNS. by making the journey about the feelings, the "reward" of the heroine at the end is no longer a patriarchal holdover but a logical conclusion to a conflict. this is why i joke that naruto the manga works better as a YA novel from the twilight/hunger games era, because typically those kinds of books have room for this kind of complexity. this is also why "sasuke" is not primarily an antagonist, he is a deuteragonist. he is tangentially going through the same journey as naruto, he is not running counter to naruto's journey intentionally.

even if you wont agree that the feelings are the journey, and instead the journey is becoming hokage or uniting the shinobi world or whatever, by definition naruto's feelings have to change for the journey to be possible. otherwise theres no point in the journey, hed be able to be hokage at the start of the manga and everyone would agree on that despite him being weak. there is a reason why naruto's power-ups also come with some sort of emotional lesson, and that emotional lesson is what gets people on his side. every arc in the manga is naruto has to do something -> naruto has an idea -> someone tells him that his idea is immature -> he trains while pondering the idea -> he needs to use the idea to complete his training -> he voices his revised idea that he learned from the someone -> he wins. theres only one exception to this. i'll let you figure out why that is.

many people who make this argument about how "platonic love is better" are both understanding the point and not understanding the point. these people are taking platonic love to mean "friendship" and thats not what it means in the sense its used in the manga, nor in a classical sense. platonic love according to plato (the one its named after), is the idea that it is a love that transcends earthly ideas like carnal desire and physical unity and instead becomes desire for one's true essence and unity in the "truth" of one's being. this means platonic love isnt "love without sex" but "love that can be more than just sex". so these people understand that "platonic love" is above any other type of love, but not because its "friendship". platonic love is "better" because it is permanent and unchangeable. truth is inherent. a soul is inherent. thats why within SNS there are themes of reincarnation of souls, of sharing of pain, of cosmic unity, of reuniting after death, of inexplicable yet unavoidable attraction, of the recognition, understanding and acceptance of someone else's truth.

in summary: SNS' souls are having cosmic sex and thats what saves the world.

[purpleajisai]

Uchiha Observation n°1: Sasuke’s lineage - headcanons, storyline and hints in canon

This post is part of the worldbuilding process for a fanfic idea that I’ve been maturing over the past year, so I will update this if needed. I have wondered about the relationship between Madara and Sasuke for a long while now, and I knew there has to be a deeper connection than just reincarnations of Indra. The moment that piqued my interest was the point that Hashirama made about Sasuke looking like Izuna, implying that if Madara saw someone so similar to his beloved younger brother he could listen to what Sasuke had to say and perhaps change his mindset in regards to the war.

This cannot be a coincidence. Today, I’m going to share my headcanon regarding Madara and Sasuke’s kinship: Sasuke is Madara’s great nephew, connnected through Izuna. Here is the genealogical tree:

First of all, let’s explain Izuna’s generation. Of course, you can see Madara represented there as an older brother as well as the 4 unnamed younger siblings mentioned in the river flashbacks. The language used by Madara suggest that there were 5 other siblings aside from him, not 5 in total and including him. In the case of Izuna, according to the databooks he died at age 24, which is definitely old enough to be married and have a child.

And perhaps the readers are wondering why I’m not considering Madara to be married as well since he’s not only older than Izuna but also the clan leader. The only reason why I’m not giving him a wife and kids at the time of Izuna’s death is because I want to adhere to canon in this regard (no spoilers about the fic’s plot).

In the storyline I’ve planned, Izuna would die and leave behind a little baby or even a pregnant wife. The exact moment is yet undecided. However, it is through this only son of Izuna from which we can connect him to Sasuke. Once Izuna’s son grows up, having the pressure of being the last surviving heir to the clan, it’s not far-fetched for this man to have more than 2 children to ensure his legacy and prevent the clan from descending into anarchy. The reason why his firstborn son, who would be Izuna’s eldest grandson, is marked as “disgraced” in this chart is because the existence of this generation collides with the 2nd Great Ninja War. A possible reason I may consider to add for his fall into disgrace and shunning by the clan is that he would’ve left some Uchiha comrades to die in order to protect important Konoha intel, therefore gaining the reputation of a traitor and not being suitable for inheriting the clan’s leadership.

With the eldest son banned from the position of clan heir, the younger son would immediately take his place. From the disgraced eldest brother, we get Obito’s ancestry, and from the younger brother we get Mikoto’s generation. For Obito’s case, I theorize a normal Uchiha picked at random wouldn’t be able to handle the toll of Madara’s eyes, whether in EMS or Rinnegan form. Technically speaking, these eyeballs are actually Izuna’s, reinforcing his importance for this lineage. Please consider the importance of genetics in handling kekkei genkai in the Naruto universe. For Mikoto’s case, I added an older brother for her. Why? Because it used to be a custom in the Sengoku period and the subsequent Edo period to follow agnatic (male-only) succession for leadership. The death of Mikoto’s brother would put Fugaku as a leader, given that he’s the husband of a bearer of the lineage of clan leaders.

Finally, we get to Itachi and Sasuke. Neither one nor another were “normal” Uchiha: both unlocked the mangekyo sharingan and handled the toll of the Susano’o, among other remarkable feats. If Sasuke is connected to Madara through Izuna’s descendants, it would imply the existence of a direct line of ancestry that starts with Indra himself. The headcanons regarding the internal structure of the Uchiha clan will be discussed in a future post. The direct family line from Izuna to Sasuke can therefore explain why both looked so similar (recessive genetics) and why Madara felt nostalgic or touched at the sight of someone who resembled his beloved little brother so much.

Thanks for reading thus far, and if you have any questions plkease use the blog’s ask box.

[mostly-just-sasuke-blog]

People hate Sasuke for not being the rival character they expect. Even from the start Naruto is jealous of Sasuke. Naruto is chasing Sasuke (metaphorically). And even from the start Sasuke really is better than Naruto in all areas, including morally. In other shonen it's always the opposite. Bakugo is jealous of Deku. Bakugo is chasing Deku. Deku is pure and kind; Bakugo is mean and off putting. But in Naruto, it at first appear as if they are reenacting the old song and dance. Why shouldn't we believe What Naruto tells us about Sasuke? Because the narrative keeps hinting it's not true. That actually Naruto is jealous and inferior and defensive and mean and initiating fights. And Sasuke does respond... but when it counts, he is actually always acting to protect and defend Naruto. And people hate Sasuke for it. Sasuke was actually the one who better fit the hero archetype than Naruto at the start. So when Sasuke falls from grace... (When he starts acting more like Naruto) The fandom breathed a collective sigh of relief because they thought the proper balance was finally being restored. Of course Sasuke would act like that. He was created to be the rival after all. He is made that way. They knew it all along. Internally, they felt gratified. All is right with the world. The story makes sense once again. Except the story keeps on making odd choices. Choices that are frustrating. That don't fit the meta paradigm they've already subconsciously applied to the story. Underlying assumptions most people aren't even aware of. Like a key that sort of fits, but doesn't open the door. People throughout the fandom use different keys to try to make sense of the story. And they sort of fit... But they can't unlock the door. They can't quite make sense of the story. Must be bad writing they conclude. Only the story is still so powerful and resonates with so many.