#temari stans be like: here's an analysis of this scene explaining

[bright-hope-spot-19]

You know, I was just chilling when I remembered something I saw a long time ago. Now, for context, I was scrolling through YouTube one day, as one does, until I stumbled across a very peculiar Naruto short. Now, the channel this short belongs to is an ATLA centric one. As in: the guy has very interesting videos analyzing every episode of Avatar: the last Airbender. That's why it struck me as weird when I saw he'd made a Naruto short cause he'd never made any Nart content before. His channel was purely ATLA. The short was kinda analyzing the scene where Kankuro and Temari were introduced. As you can imagine, it was less of an analysis and more centered on this guy praising Temari and saying, "She had a better role than Kankuro" or something along those lines.

That surprised me, cause? Anyone who's watched the scene can tell that, before Gaara showed up, the scene was completely centered around Kankuro. He was the focus of attention. He was the one who got into a fight with the Konoha kids, starting the conflict. He was the one who threatened to murder both Konohamaru and Naruto. He's the one who first got his abilities foreshadowed by making Nart trip on his strings. He's the reason Sasuke and Gaara even showed up in the first place. He's the one who also starts a conflict with Sasuke cause he doesn't back down from Sasuke's warnings. He stands up to him, making Temari even more worried. He's the one who immediately gets a duality added to his character when Gaara shows up, and he immediately starts apologizing, showing more facets to him. Kankuro's not a coward cause we've seen him stand up to Sasuke, but he shows fear towards Gaara. It just makes you more curious about Gaara and Kankuro.

What did Temari do in their introductory scene? Shrug her shoulders and stand in a corner while Kankuro created the conflict with the Leaf kids, absolving herself from it. Kankuro was the center of that conflict, while Temari stood outside of it. Blush at Sasuke when he showed up. Be used as a plot device to explain the chunin exams (which literally, anyone else could've done). Then, she started begging when Gaara appeared, which doesn't make sense for her. Kankuro got into trouble. He was the one beating these kids and making death threats. It makes sense for him to be scared. Temari was just minding her business. She'd done nothing wrong to really warrant Gaara's anger, yet she's as terrified as Kank. Now, we can say it's because knowing Gaara and how unstable he was, he really could've killed her too, for just existing. So, it makes sense that she was scared. But you see, that only makes sense when you're doing a re-watch and already know Gaara's backstory. For a first-time viewer who doesn't know who Gaara is or why they're so scared of him, Temari's fear is unwarranted. It just paints a negative image of her, that she's easily scared. Unlike Kankuro, she didn't get a 'moment of courage' confronting the Konoha kids before showing her being terrified of Gaara. Of course, that notion of Temari being a coward would be disproved later on in the arc, but overall, it's not a good 1st impression. So, it baffles me when her fans not only imply but affirm with their whole chests that of her and Kankuro, she's the one with the superior introductory scene.

Kankuro got to show the main traits of his personality at the moment: irritable, mean, cruel, takes joy in the suffering of others, kinda selfish, but also proud, confident, stubborn, and cocky. It also shows a strained bond with Gaara that makes you curious to know more bout them cause, as I've said: Kank had a reason to be scared, Tem really didn't. The fact she was so scared with no real reason, immediately joining Kank in appeasing Gaara, just does one thing: show her as a peacemaker. It's not a good role to be stuck with cause all it means is that other people around her (her brothers in this instance) create the conflict, and she has to assuage it. It means she's more of a reactor than an actual active participant of the plot.

It tracks cause it happens again in the forest of death. Now, another thing I wanted to mention is that Gaara is never shown actually threatening her. The two times the sand sibs were caught in an argument (their introduction and the fod), he's threatening Kankuro, not her. Now, people just took this and wrongly assumed that it points out to him loving her more than Kankuro or favoring her in any way. Which is simply not true, lol. Not getting death threats doesn't mean he loved her any more than Kankuro cause there's also a lack of any positive interactions between them to point to a possible less toxic bond they could share. It's like, to give an example, when there's students in a class, and one of them is sent by the teacher to the headmaster office for misbehaving. We can't just assume this means the teacher loves all the other students more than the misbehaving one, cause that one got punished and the others didn't. Of course, teachers will have their favorites, but to ascertain who the favorite is, we'd need to first see the teacher showing that favoritism. Like, giving extra points, being gentler with, and always siding with one particular student. That's when we can assure the teacher has a fave. This simply doesn't happen with Gaara and Temari: yeah, he only ever threatened Kankuro onscreen, but at the same time, he never showed Tem any favoritism. So, the notion he loved her more or she was his favorite and understood him the most is utter bs.

It's also skipping over the fact that this was all done to show a particular tension between the brothers. One she was excluded from as the peacemaker. As well as the fact, Kank was the one chosen to stand next to the main character and narrate the entirety of the Gaara vs. Lee fight. It's not similar to Temari explaining the chunin exams, as narrating Gaara's abilities is something only him or Tem could've done while explaining the chunin exams could've been done by anyone else, cause it's more general information. Kank was chosen for the narrator role to show he has more private knowledge of his brother's techniques and abilities. Temari has almost no shots pan towards her, except for when Lee took off his weights and started kicking Gaara's behind, we get a shot of her surprised face with the others. Outside of that, Gaara and Lee were the active players, Naruto, the reactor, and Kankuro, the narrator. By the end of the arc, he's also the one picking Gaara up, commenting on his beat-up state after the fight with Naruto, and the first to react to Gaara's apology, while Temari says nothing.

This is all to say: Temari was indeed a 3rd wheel. Some of her stans are right when they note the fact that the two brothers seem to have a special bond she just seems to be excluded from. Even the anime studio seems to have picked up on it, as her whole infinite dream revolved around her, wishing they'd care more about her opinion. Yeah, people can interpret that as the distance that comes with being the elder and only girl, who just naturally grows to see her brothers form a closer bond. But the truth is: she really isn't better written than Kank in any way, shape, or form. That's a fact you gotta live with sweeties.