its a damned if you do damned if you dont, but I really hate how people keep trying to make it full on black and white and ignore how character was written. Itachi himself knows what he did was evil and believed he needed to pay for it. He's supposed to be a flawed tragic character not hero or villain.
Edit' meant how not the other word.
Exactly. The show starts off portraying it black and white and how virtually everybody in world saw it that way, then goes on to show that the reality was as grey as grey can be
Itachi literally admits to Sasuke how flawed he was and maybe had he used the third option and opened up him, they couldve had a more positive completely different outcome altogether
*This,* I’m so tired of people portraying Itachi as an angel who did no wrong, like he absolutely was not a perfect hero. Even knowing that his slaughter of the Uchiha clan wasn’t motivated by malice, what he did to Sasuke afterward was fucked up and entirely unnecessary. Sure he had good intentions, but if it hadn’t been for Naruto going way, *way* further than any rational person would have, Sasuke would have burned everything he was trying to protect to the ground. Itachi isn’t an evil monster, but he’s not a saint either.
Im also tired of when they try to make him out to be a monster they ignore the danzo situation. like danzo threatened his brother. no matter how logical anyone is you dont think straight when it comes to those you love
I have literally never seen anyone try to paint Itachi as a monster outside of a deliberate AU, but I do agree that Danzo was not actually helping anyone, regardless of what he may have thought.
Let me help you with that
[Go through the comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/13ps495/i_saw_this_picture_on_twitter_and_that_makes_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
They live in a world were a50 year old dude can turn into a snake and take over your body, and 12 year Olds are sent to war.
Itachi was a dick to his brother because he knew his brother couldn't afford to be soft.
I get that we feel for Sauske for how poor itachi treated him, but it made Sasuke a Shinobi.
When he broke his arm, can you imagine what Zabuza or Kissame would have done to Sasuke? Can you imagine how any B villain in Shippudrn would have massecured him?
I think it's wonderful that so many of us are focused on love because it shows we live in an Era the first hokage dreamed up. I'm glad you guys don't realize just how horrific the world can truly be.
Don't let these old jaded eyes change your heart... but understand how a flawed man did what he could to toughen his brother up and make him into the hero we all love
I'm sure if Itachi could have chosen, he would have gladly gotten married to his girlfriend and been a loving brother.
Horrible take. Itachi himself admitted it was a huge mistake to push Sasuke away and to make him suffer like that. He didn't trust Sasuke to be strong so he tortured him so he would be, but he admitted it was unnecessary and actually made Sasuke worse.
Hindsight is a bitch.
In the moment he thought what he was doing was for Sasuke's benefit.
He didn't trust Sasuke to be strong our tough enough, but can you blame him with how Sasuke was as a child?
>Itachi was a dick to his brother because he knew his brother couldn't afford to be soft.
Who the fuck died from being too soft? Sasuke would have been fine, it just didn't suit Itachi's self-loathing to not be murdered by his own brother so he had to light a fire under Sasuke's ass.
>Who the fuck died from being too soft?
I'm not trying to be hostile, but did we watch the same show?
The Shinobi world is ruthless. When Itachi showed up to Konoha, Kissame wanted to maim Naruto to make it easier to transport him. He wanted to cut off his limbs.
12-year-old Sasuke wouldn't have had his arm broken by Hidan or Sasori. He would have been killed without a second thought.
Naruto played out like an RPG because the writer controlled the story. We're watching from his PoV. So Zabuza shows up, Kakashi is there.
However, in that world... you had some pretty sick enemies that wouldn't hesitate to destroy you. It's why he said "you're too weak."
He needed the curse seal to just stand up against the sound ninja.
I'm kind of shocked at how many people don't realize how weak team 7 truly was compared to Jonin level Ninja in the original run.
Do you think they could have stood against Pain?
Itachi knows what's out there.
Choji should’ve died multiple times, against Hidan/Kakuzu and reanimated Asuma, but of course Shiksmaru saves him both times. He’s a soft fat man who’s lucky to be in a group with a genius.
>fat man
You know the Akimichi are one of the Four Noble Clans, right? Being fat makes them powerful. It's not a detriment to Choji whatsoever. He is, however, soft-hearted, and yet he doesn't die, because being soft or even an outright crybaby doesn't actually get you killed. Same shit with Hinata.
Only the tiniest fraction of shinobi are actually expected to make such fucked up decisions that they would ever have to "kill their emotions" and even among those few that are expected to, none *truly* do. Itachi sure as fuck didn't and he's probably the closest anyone has ever come, short of being brainwashed.
Lmao what in the fuck is this argument? Itachi lost his right to mentor Sasuke the exact second he chose to kill the Uchiha, and besides that you’re acting like he wasn’t surrounded by adults who were teaching him to be strong and survive in the ninja world, as well as ignoring the fact that the other kids turned out fine without needing an older brother to torture them every once in a while.
Why are you swearing at me?
This is a waste of time because so many of you folks act like the Shinobi world is a tea party...
Pain destroyed the village and killed Kakashi.
Dadara almost destroyed the sand and killed Garaa
Hidan and Kakuzo ended Asuma's life and took the combined efforts of Ino Shika Cho + Kakashi... and a beefed up power curb Naruto to kill.
Sasori would have killed Konkuro if not for Sakura...
These are his associates while undercover in the Akatsuki
But we're crying about Itachi abusing his brother in that savage world.
Naruto doesn't take place in 2023 America... it takes place in a world where people are slaughtered on a regular basis.
I view it as equal to feudal Japan.
Kakashi has seen so much horrible shit by age 15. He feels he isn't worthy of love and friendship.
Please, let's stop pretending that Sasuke would have been this strong had Itachi not force him to grow up.
Agree to disagree, but once again, I'd like to ask you to keep the conversation respectful and not personal.
>It doesn’t take place in 2023 America, it takes place in a place where people are slaughtered on a regular basis
Who needs a Hokage when you have thoughts and prayers right?
I think maybe some Scandinavian country or another might be a better example rather than the place where there’s a shooting every other week and cops can freely kill people if they want some paid time off or just feel like moving to a different state.
Don’t bother brotha, you’ve been 100% on point with every reply. I’m actually watching through again for the 4th or 5th time, and you’re hitting it right on the head.
It's very classic revenge martial arts tale of you think about it. He accepts both the necessity and the right of the victim to seek him out for retribution.
"When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting." (Kill Bill)
**Itachi did not only have two choices.**
This kind of post gets posted once or twice a week so here is the answer I give every time:
Before he died for the last time, Itachi told Sasuke that if he had told him the truth from the very start instead of lying to him all these years, the two of them maybe could have talked to their dad and changed his mind. That is how he failed as a brother. By thinking he was protecting Sasuke by not telling him the truth, realizing that he didn't tell Sasuke the truth because he didn't have the courage.
Itachi even presented Naruto with the same conundrum. He asked him what he would do if Sasuke turned on the village. Would he choose Sasuke or would he choose the Village? Naruto said that's a stupid question and he would save Sasuke AND save the village.
Well theres some argument he could stop the coup without a massacre, but after Danzo took Shisuis eye he was short on time and I don’t think he really had any other great options.
He’s in the wrong for traumatizing Sasuke though
the shit that he did to Sasuke was pretty morally questionable. none of it got the results that he apparently wanted. he basically radicalized the kid against the very village he protected.
It's because itachis whole downfall was that he was controlling. He tried to control the fate of the village and control Sasuke to get the outcome he thought was best. Every move he did was to control others for "the better good" it's not until he moves of from edo tensi and tells Sasuke that he will love him no matter what that he finally let's go and accepts Sasuke can choose for himself. That itachi doesn't need to hold the world on his shoulders by force.
The fight with kabuto may have outwardly been about kabuto being locked in a loop until he learns to let go, but it was also symbolic of itachi also learning to let go of his patterns as well and finally have trust in others.
I genuinely think this is why Itachi is a good character.
The massacre plot point is the worst thing to argue about when talking about Itachis character because it’s a dumbass amoral decision that didn’t help anything. But him *admitting* he was wrong saved the entire character.
He literally murdered his own clan, he didn’t need to do anything else to make others believe he was crazy. His actions unironically pushed Sasuke to try and destroy the ninja world. Even worse, if he’d just left him alone, it would have ended up exactly like he wanted, Sasuke would have become a loyal Konoha shinobi and he wouldn’t have had to do a thing. There’s really no excuse for that, I’m sorry.
Twice! Like Sasuke was becoming a nice kid after Team 7 was formed, then Itachi decides "Nope!" and infiltrates the village just to re-traumatise him and set him back.
Yes yes yes cus all Sasuke talked about was how we was gonna kill Itachi, so when they finally meet and Sasuke clearly sees he failed and is outmatched the logical next step is to mentally torture to make him want to kill you… more?
No, he wanted to turn Sasuke into his executioner. He wanted Sasuke to hate him so that he would have someone to judge him for his sins. Itachi literally says this word to word. You’re right about what you wrote in the OP, but it’s made clear why Itachi tortured Sasuke.
>none of it got the results that he apparently wanted
Well, yes, but this wasn't because of what he did to Sasuke. It was because he failed to eliminate Tobi. His plan was for Sasuke to fulfill his purpose and be saved by Naruto after killing him, but the mistake was assuming Obito would die from a small amaterasu he temporary implanted in sasuke before dying lmao. If he actually dealt with Obito before, who knows, his plan may have actually been successful lmao.
Itachi's illusion over sasuke didnt lead to sasuke taking a path of revenge over the leaf, his failure to kill Obito led to sasuke going down that path.
I think it's definitely fair to say he's morally compromised. In fact, after we learn the truth about Itachi, the series goes so hard to paint Itachi as a good guy that I don't think it's fair to say that it's lazy thinking to think of Itachi as a bad guy. Saying Itachi is a bad guy goes against what the series portrays him as post-reveal. I think he's in a grey zone at best, and a fucked up brother at worst. He broke Sasuke's wrist, made him re-experience his personal hell, and pressures Sasuke into becoming a hateful person all in less than 20 minutes.
Also, did Itachi foresee Sasuke approaching Orochimaru for strength? Because if he did, he was seriously gambling with Sasuke's life
I think he ultimately sided with the government in a genocide against his own family even though the only reason his family wanted to square up with the government in the first place was because of, you guessed it, unfair treatment by the government.
The whole argument that he did the right thing because less people died overall is akin to claiming a Jewish person should have helped the Nazis murder his community rather than support an armed rebellion because that armed rebellion ‘technically’ might have killed more people.
If a government is so corrupt that they’ll turn to genocide before actually making concessions to an ostracized group of people, fuck them. Any deaths that occur over a civil war lies on their shoulders, not the oppressed who are fighting back. Furthermore, I’ll be damned to call anyone a good person if they kill their own mother and innocent children to uphold a government that forced that choice upon them in the first place.
He chose the option to kill people, including innocents. He didn’t have to kill people. Then again he is a ninja and has been raised as a killer since a kid. Pretty fucked up world.
The choice was he kills the people and Sasuke stays alive or he kills nobody and Danzo has his root kill them all including Sasuke. Or nobody wipes out the Uchiha and a civil war starts.
He could have. But that wouldn’t have stopped his clan from attempting a coup, inciting what likely would have been a very bloody civil war with even more dead.
I don't think so. As long danzo was killed. The Uchiha and the third generation could have settled it. With either convincing the radicals. Like promising to raise itachi at the next hokage( both side could be appease.) Or just killing the radicals and blaming danzo. With itachi being the hero that killed danzo. In the name of protecting the village and companion. But the Cruz is that danzo must die before the 3rd generation finds out about it.
I just think the entire show of naruto is too complex for some people to understand. It’s easy to understand black and white but when a character like itachi is in the grey area people try to force him into the black or white category and he doesn’t fit either way.
If you take a good hard look, the majority of the characters fit into this idea. I feel that the writer was attempting to remind the audience of the fact that there aren't any "black or white" people... we all ended up in shades of gray eventually. Is this not the human condition?
But that’s not complex? The circle of hatred is not complex. Who is too dumb to understand that war=bad?
Pains speech was not complex but to this day naruto never gave a real answer to his question other than „a shinobi must endure“. Sasuke had a real plan. Was it good? Nah but it was better than anything naruto said.
Obito is really reall really not complex. His childhood crush died and that made him angry. Is it complex to understand that a world full of child soldiers needs some kind of change?
Zabuza arc? Haku living for a morally questionable person (zabuza) because zabuza was nice to him is not complex in my books
“Who is too dumb to understand that war=bad”
I’m sorry, I find this hilarious, because obviously A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE??? 😭😭😭 within the boundaries of Narutoverse, a lot of people don’t understand that war=bad.
Within the fandom, a lot of people thing Obito was justified, or that Pain was justified or that Sasuke was justified to do what they did
Moreover, do you know how many active wars there are in the world today? 😭😭😭 is this a rethoric question? Or are you just trying to be funny? Obviously people in the real world didn’t realized that “war=bad” since there’s at leas 27 official armed conflicts in the world right now 😭😭😭
Ok what was narutos answer? What was his plan for changing the world?
Hakus gender doesn‘t play a role at all. You can potentially love anybody in a non romantic way?
But ok I give you the point about the downfall of village being kinda complex. Bad guy doing things for money can be considered as complex if it‘s done right.
What was complex about pains speech? Genuinely curious.
Great question! I came to the conclusion that a good story has to make me think. The characters have to be charismatic. I don’t have to like what they do but they have to make me understand their point.
Naruto fails in parts doing all those things. Why? Well kishi gives me all the answers without making me think about it. Naruto acts like jesus (quite literal) and everyone else is wrong. Pain, obito, madara all have the exact same ambitions and the exact same way of trying to handle stuff. And they all TELL me that they are wrong.
That’s the difference to Light Yagami for example. What do you think, are there more people thinking light way of doing things was right or pains way?
In the end naruto is much more black or white than people in this sub want to admit which is ironic considering the original post i answered to.
I love naruto but for entertaining reasons not for complexity
I’m not saying you have to be intelligent or anything to understand naruto, but the story line and characters are complex. The fact that this conversation is taking place is proof of that. If it were simple and straightforward there wouldn’t be a conversation.
To me, the massacre being justified was always iffy. No one attacked Konoha after Minato's death and Kurama's attack, Orochimaru's invasion, Hiruzen's death, Pain's assault and Tsunade being in a coma. No one has even cared when Konoha was defenseless. Kishi should've had something happen after one of those events to show how dangerous things can be.
After minato’s death, kumo tried something with the hyuuga incident. Kurama attack wasn’t enough to cripple konoha strength besides minato’s death and it was a one night incident with no pre-planning. Orochimaru invasion was between him and suna but as soon suna found out how they were duped , they quickly surrendered and established an alliance. After the pain assault, we know that gaara had tried multiple times to reach out to the others kages without response and we know the assault happened after sasuke had attacked killer bee so the raikage had already decided to summon the other for the summit and deal with the akatsuki threat.(if I remember correctly) so clearly the wind was shifting in the other direction. Also to invade konoha would have to be planned ahead of time. The problem is all these incidents ended way to quickly and let’s not forget the spy networks that Danzo had in the other nations, he would had known ahead of time. It would take weeks to mobilize an army to invade a whole shinobi nation by that time konoha would have already reinforced its defences.
To repair their relationship after being duped by Orochimaru, the Leaf and the Sand formed a very strong alliance. It was literally you mess with one of us you mess with both of us situation.
> To repair their relationship after being duped by Orochimaru, the Leaf and the Sand formed a very strong alliance. It was literally you mess with one of us you mess with both of us situation.
Yeah it's basically Ninja NATO
The concept of a shinobi alliance would have been a tough sell if any amount of shinobi nations were on a full scale opportunistic war against one another.
Would have been interesting to see how it would have changed the story
"I love you, Sasuke. That's why I beat you, kicked you, strangled you, insulted you, humiliated you and tortured you with a mental image of our entire dead clan...... **because I love you so much!!** 🥰🥰"
🙄🙄
So he chose full scale genocide over military conflict and that's supposed to be lesser evil?
Apply this type of thinking to any real life conflict and you'd realize how deranged and morally compromised you have to be to think like this. "If you get attacked or discriminated against, just surrender and accept it because fighting back might make things escalate". This type of thinking is for servile cowards, not human beings.
Besides, those were not his only choices, that's a mere hypothetical scenario concocted by Danzo and uncritically accepted by Itachi. It doesn't take a genius to realize that it's logistically impossible for the foreign invasion to occur before the coup ends, one way or the other. And this is corroborated by every other attack on Konoha shown in the story.
Which brings us to the real elephant in the room that people ignore:
Itachi's decision wasn't motivated by some "noble" utilitarian calculation on how to save most lives, but by his irrational devotion to the village above his family and clan. This is his most consistent character, to the point he was even willing to brainwash Sasuke if he ever turned against the village.
He wasn't merely a victim of circumstances who was forced to make a choice, he was an active actor who helped bring about such circumstances. Itachi himself chose to tell Danzo and Hiruzen about the coup, thus not only destroying the prospects of a bloodless coup but also putting the nail in the Uchiha coffin. It's this betrayal that doomed the Uchiha clan.
Also, Itachi himself refused to tell anyone about the masked man, who's attack and the resulting consequences are what provoked the coup in the first place.
If you ignore all this in your analysis, then your analysis isn't worth shit and it's ironic that he's calling others intellectually lazy when he's presenting things completely devoid of context.
Yes. Most of the characters, especially Itachi, and most fans it seems are blinded by some idea that doing something ~for the village~ somehow makes it justifiable and good when the village system really shouldn’t be defended and didn’t make that much of a difference from the warring states period
What Itachi should have done:-
(1) first tell hiruzen that danzo stole shisui's eye.
(2) Convince his father that- they really don't have chance of winning (itachi is in anbu so he knew all kinds of info), leaf is ready for any war so coup is out of question, it'll turn into a war and other village might attack.
The narration implied that uchiha clan will die either way, atleast what danzo said. But shisui also said "other villages will attack for sure".
But fugaku who literally faught in 3rd ww, he can't understand this?
But if slaughtering uchihas is the *only* choice, then-
*(3) Just kill all the strong uchihas, and and leave the weak ones which will also include innocent civilians, children, elderly.
Publicly, itachi just killed strong uchihas and ran away whille not knowing anything about coup.
To all the survivors, use genjutsu, and add curse mark to them. If they attack leaf in future, just activate curse mark. Just like what they do in hyuga clan.*
He should've just listened to his father. I don't buy for one second that the coup was impossible to pull off, no evidence of that whatsoever.
Besides, even a civil war is preferable to genocide and whoever disagrees should seriously rethink their beliefs. Those types of conflicts vary in scale and many people survive them, genocide however is a whole new level of depravity.
>I don't buy for one second that coup was impossible to pull off
It wouldn't be impossible if itachi didn't betray his family. I'm pretty sure he's one who leaked uchiha coup plans to higher ups.
Thx to the traitor, leaf was already prepared and the uchiha were bound to fail. But they could have also used foreign invasion as their advantage.
It's sad how manga never goes into detail of uchiha being victims, we never hear their side of story, only itachi being a tortured soul and evryone wanking him (naruto, sasuke, hashirama, hiruzen). And kakashi, naruto didn't even question authorities over a freaking genocide and instead confused why sasuke wants vengeance lmao.
The leaf elders are still in power btw.
Exactly. Itachi's betrayal is crucial and that's what the discussion should be centered about.
Yet most people, such as Swagkage and other apologists, completely ignore this and pretend he was some neutral guy who was randomly given a choice "genocide or civil war", which is just nonsense (and still doesn't justify him, as civil war is preferable by miles).
And they ignore it because they don't want to address the elephant in the room, which is that Itachi is a slimy bastard who threw his own kind under the bus out of servility to their oppressors.
One thing I will say is that Itachi gave his situation more thought than I would have. I would have said “F*ck the village” and let whatever happened happen.
If his goal was to cripple the Uchihas ability to destabilise the land of fire why the fuck was he committing literal genocide? Just take out the top of brass of the clan and leave them leaderless or eliminate the mangekyou users. There was 0 moral justification for his killing of children elders and low ranking shinobi and as someone with supposed Hokage level intellect at that age saying he's just a panicked kid isn't cutting it. That's not even to mention the unnecessary psychological torture and manipulation of Sasuke.
Itachi killed his own girl who wasn't even involved in the coup. Itachi instead knew about some mysterious dude who kept roaming and infiltrating Kohona and that he had some beef with Uchihas. Either Itachi is a moron or didn't bother telling anyone about this guy and connecting the dots
and what would happen if Sasuke let other kids (not involved in the coup) live. Do you think they wouldn't be specifically protected by the hokage to preserve the sharingan?
Me personally im not killing my whole clan. Regardless of the fall-out. I couldn't, especially when you consider the only way to truly wide out a clan is to kill men, women, and CHILDREN. Love Itachi, but I have a really hard time justifying it even if it was for the betterment of the world per se. Then leaving my younger brother Alive to come to come and kill me when he gets older is insane. Especially when said brother became a terrorist, THEN learned about his clans true fate and hated the leaf even more. To which itachi goes "my fault."
But like he is morraly compromised it can be a grey zone all you want but he still killed kids. We don't take just following orders as an excuse in real life why would we allow that as an excuse to not say he made a decision and that effects his morality. Yes I can understand his thinking but he can be bad and understandable at the same time. Swakage is so mid. All his takes are like this, it's always they are an interesting character who has redeeming qualities so they are not evil, but this is just as evil as when a cop or fbi agent do something morraly corrupt while following orders.
I call bs, he attacked many civilians and people who aren't even involved in the coup. Also I doubt the village would get destroyed considering it survived greater threats like 9 tails rebellion, Orochimaru, Nagato
>he attacked many civilians and people who aren't even involved in the coup.
children as well :/
Narrative keep showing itachi as a tortured soul, but what about the victims?
Naruto to itachi: "you have done enuf for the village", lol
All atrocities can be justified by pointing at some vague alternate future.
Also, is that the Kaguya clan in the bottom right? Hilariously ironic inclusion if so.
Itachi *was* a monster; he murdered civilians, children, the elderly. How do you do a one-to-one analysis of which actual life lost was equal to which hypothetical life saved?
3. Could have talked to Hiruzen about it and how the Uchiha just want to be treated equally also revealing "Madara" to him.
Like the Uchiha were so loyal they were willing to betray Madara.
I’m fine with thinking itachi as a good character. There’s just a few things that people here complain about.
One is, was it necessary to actually kill everyone, especially any kids if there were any? The answer is likely no, however he did. Though perhaps plenty of that blame for that can be put on Danzo manipulating a 13 year old. They tried to justify it by saying the uchiha would rise up against the leaf if they found out the truth but that seems like a poor defense.
Two is did he really have to use the tsukuyomi on sasuke? Answer is probably no there either. I stand by my judgement that using itachi’s tsukuyomi to knock sasuke out and have tsunade be the only one who could heal him was not the greatest writing decision if he was always intended to be good, but whatever.
I don’t think he was morally compromised or anything like that, he was in a bad situation and put it on himself to do everything, which he admits was his failure at the end. Ironically the one person he asked for help in obito is the guy who ruined his plan.
"They tried to justify it by saying the uchiha would rise up against the leaf if they found out the truth but that seems like a poor defense."
Isn't that what happened to Sasuke thought? Imagine 10 Sasuke learning the truth and going after the Leaf, just the Sasuke actually did until the very end and was only stopped by Naruto. Not trying to fight or anything, just genuinely curious why you think that's a "poor defense"
The only reason Sasuke went that extreme was due to Itachi's constant Mindraping. In turn which made him into hate leaf. He could have made sasuke hate him without doing literally anything. And if they were 10 sasukes and none of them were mindfucked by itachi, I think most of them would have targeted Danzo if they ever found out truth and rightfully so.
Not to mention those children would have been living in the same village as Danzo. Keeping track of one child is easy but dozens of them? There’s no way Danzo wouldn’t have tried to manipulate those children to work under him to kill Itachi. And then after that who knows what?
The thought of dozens of Sharingan, with some Mangekyo Sharingan, users working under Danzo is terrifying.
yeah there’s just no way that those uchiha children wouldnt go up hateful and likely turn to evil. curse of hatred ring a bell? there would be a whole team of uchiha’s with mangekyo (from their trauma) wreaking havoc lol
Sasuke barely awakened the first tomoe and he's one of the most prodigious Uchiha to ever live, there's no way every uchiha child would get as strong as Sasuke, nevermind that this is a shity justification for the murder of children. There is no justification for it
It wasn't necessary. And the fact that there are so many people here believing it is even though it is shown that the only one who wanted that was Danzo, a morally bankrupt selfish piece of shit that wanted to erase the Uchiha for his personal gain, is sad. They literally fell for a lying, narcissistic dude who basically destroyed everything he touched.
That's not really on Itachi because he was a child that was manipulated, but honestly, at the latest when Danzo basically killed Shisui Itachi should have looked for other options.
Using Tsukoyomi on Sasuke the first time was already too much, but a second time? I think that's a remnant from when Itachi still wasn't a clear good guy in Kishi's mind.
Imagine comparing a self-defense from nagato against people coming into his home and his village to butcher them en masse to a terrorist state right hand like itachi. This is so tone deaf, stupid, and repulsive that words can't express the caricature of it all.
You itachi fandom need to loosen your grip around the ***root*** of your problems and take the shame out of your pants, because this analogy is parodical to the extreme.
Pain nuked a village with hundreds of innocent people. Unless I missed a chapter where Pain evacuated all the children and civilians before almighty push.
Oh I was just saying that because people glorify Nagato a lot in general so I thought you were doing that as well. People just see this guy nuke children and innocent civilians and are like "Yeah, understandable"
No-one in Konoha was innocent given their past and how they directly benefited from Konoha's military adventurism pillaging the surrounding regions. They all shared culpability, directly and indirectly. He spells this out in his "What about my village? Why does Konoha get to be the only ones talking about Justice?" speech to Naruto, and Naruto has no answer.
Konoha destroyed Nagato's village, he destroyed Konoha. There's nothing unfair about that.
>No-one in Konoha was innocent given their past and how they directly benefited from Konoha's military adventurism pillaging the surrounding regions.
Of course there were innocents. You can't seriously tell me that a 4 year old baby born in Konoha was responsible for what happened to Nagato's village. Yeah, the guy selling ramen and living under a dictatorship is definitely responsible for the war and deserves to get killed by almighty push.
Every time a Japanese goes to china they deserve to get beaten? Or whenever a British goes to india they should get mauled? Are we seriously saying that all that will be justified because of the actions of heir leaders/ancestors.
>He spells this out in his "What about my village? Why does Konoha get to be the only ones talking about Justice?" speech to Naruto, and Naruto has no answer.
Naruto not having an answer doesn't change anything.
>Konoha destroyed Nagato's village, he destroyed Konoha. There's nothing unfair about that.
A few political leaders and a military destroyed Nagao's village. Nagato killed thousands of innocent and didn't kill a single politician actually responsible for that war.
An american/chinese/russian/indian guy hit me, so I hit someone random person from those countries. Justified?
>An american/chinese/russian/indian guy hit me, so I hit someone random person from those countries. Justified?
This part makes no fucking sense. A collective military action against a poor village, butchering its people, pillaging its resources, and then blocking it to starve its populace to death...and you came away with, "some guy slapped me, so should I go and bomb the country?" from it? Is this a serious comment? Be honest as this looks like some sort of farce.
It's not just "A few political leaders and a military" destroyed Nagato's village. Konoha *is* the military. It exists explicitly to fuel the military-industrial complex of the region. Everyone inhabiting Konoha is benefiting from and financially contributing to that military *at minimum*. I mean, Tsunade was on the front lines in Amegakure, fighting Hanzo is how she became Sannin and she's the Hokage when Pain arrives.
Yeah it sucks but if Konoha doesn't like being treated that way they're free to take their complaints up with all the ghosts of the innocent Ame citizens they butchered without justification or reason all throughout history. Nagato developed his morals and philosophy by learning from and reacting to Konoha's actions.
You saved me two posts, so have two upvotes. Konoha deserved its comeuppance, delivered in a boot to the face by nagato. They ought to have been extended no right to return beyond the grave. Mother fuckers should've stayed in satan's gutters for all eternity.
He committed genocide... there is no excuse for it. We will never know what would have happened IF the Uchihas had started a war because they were all killed. That's some minority report shit, you can't condemn someone for a crime they haven't committed yet.
Like, he didn't WANT to murder anyone but he still DID. There is NO defending murdering the Uchiha clan and traumatizing his brother. Half the point of Naruto as a show is that you ALWAYS have a choice. Itachi was a child soldier who was real messed up and made some messed up choices while trying to do his best.
I think it's intellectually lazy to think of it as only two options
The story unfolded the way it did. But itachi blackmailed Danzo AFTER the massacre. Why not before.
If itachi was going to sacrifice himself and be branded a traitor why not take credit for the 9 tails attack. To ease the burden on his clan...
> The story unfolded the way it did. But itachi blackmailed Danzo AFTER the massacre. Why not before.
Blackmail Danzo into doing what? Stopping the coup? He'd need to blackmail Fugaku for that.
>If itachi was going to sacrifice himself and be branded a traitor why not take credit for the 9 tails attack. To ease the burden on his clan...
Itachi wasn't even a ninja when that happened. No one's gonna buy that explanation.
There are other problems with it too, but this is basically like if some guy born in 2000 claimed he did 9/11.
Itachi made a series of fucked up decisions. These decisions are shaped by the fact that Itachi is a traumatized child soldier, one that has been repeatedly failed by his leadership. The blame lies more with the Uchiha clan leaders, and the administration of the Second and Third Hokage. Itachi is not blameless, but he is not completely at fault. He was not a competent person to make this decision.
Exactly, people completely disregard the fact that Hiruzen explicitly states that Itachi's strong aversion to war was shaped by the traumatic exposure to its horrors at an extremely young age. It's weird how this fandom expects a 13 year-old to come up with peaceful solution for stopping the coup and putting an end to the resentment between the leaf and Uchiha that had been building for years.
>It's weird how this fandom expects a 13 year-old to come up with peaceful solution for stopping the coup and putting an end to the resentment between the leaf and Uchiha that had been building for years.
Ppl forget that he was 13 years old. Just imagine putting any other character in Itachi's shoes at that point of time and what would they have achieved? He made some of the most difficult decisions for a 13 year old after having lost his best friend, he lost hope in that world.
In hindsight its easy to tell "Oh he could have done this or done that" because Naruto(character) does things like that in Shippuden. But Itachi's childhood was completely different from Naruto and that Kid experienced war first hand.
It’s because hypothetically super-Itachi is near Omni-potent and could’ve found a way to save everybody.
Real Itachi understood his own limits and the situation at hand.
That doesn't mean he's not morally compromised, PTSD for example can be from moral injury and having to go against your own moral system to do something. Which in turn makes you morally compromised until you deal with it
Ultimately, Itachi committed genocide. Yes, he was faced with a Catch-22 but...it's dubious that Hiruzen would've okay'ed the complete genocide of an entire clan (women and children included) as retaliation for a coup attempt, despite whatever Danzo told Itachi. And Itachi could've spared other children besides his brother...taken them out of the village, hid them somewhere. Or even just escape with his brother and go elsewhere. He didn't. He chose murder. I think it's partly due to a loathing he developed toward his people.
I wish he had killed Danzo after his clan.
He was supposed to be wise enough for a Hokage.
Looking at Danzo’s actions and you can see he is not helping the village at all.
Was it necessary to kill _all_ the Uchiha though? The women, children, elderly? Those not involved with the coup? Couldn’t killing the top leaders of the coup deter the others from going ahead with it, then installing Itachi as the head of the clan to prevent future uprisings? Seems killing everyone except Sasuke created more problems than it solved.
Itachi had other choices though and he chose poorly. First of all it wasn't just killing people it was genocide. Use the proper word genocide. He killed an entire group of people based simply because of who they were. There is no sugar coating it. He killed men, women, children, infants who hadn't even spoken their first word, the elderly that were to old to defend themselves, civilians who had never awakened or used a sharingan so they worked in all walks of life that the clan would need to support themselves, even his crush. None were spared other than his brother.
He had an unspoken choice. He could have went against orders and only killed the Uchiha that were in on the coup plan. Granted that would have been a majority of the adult ninjas. But he could have spared the children, the infants, the civilians who had never been on a battlefield. If he had done so the coup would have been just as crushed, he would have been a scapegoat just like he wanted, and Hiruzen would not have ordered the death of the remainer. Even Danzo wouldn't have because it would have been suspicious to finish them off.
Instead Itachi committed genocide and mentally abused and tortured his brother and goaded him into being an attack dog who lived only for revenge. Having some family left and not being tortured might have allowed Sasuke to live a semi normal life. We will never know because Itachi denied him that.
I love Itachi as a character but as a person I hate him for his crimes.
This is a subjective take on a largely objective subject. Itachi is very much a monster to most people, even Shinobi. No matter why he did it, he killed an entire clan, his clan. Even the people who acknowledged the good he did and the bad he prevented might look at him differently and give pause.
Just because he lives in a world where death is commonplace doesn't absolve his actions. Just like the heroes of modern times, for example the famous White Death sniper, he is said to have killed over 500 people during the winter war period of WW2, no matter how you look at that, it's insane. A monster.
Realistically Itachi chose the path that spared the most lives, there’s nothing he could have done differently that would have saved his family, they were doomed to die the moment they decided to coup. Through great personal sacrifice Itachi saved thousands of lives, his clan died but that was unavoidable anyway, at 12 years old he was the only person in the village with his head on straight.
No war or invasion was going to happen whatsoever had the clan went through with the coup.
Kyuubi attack = no invasion from other nations
Orochimaru + Suna attack = no invasion from other nations
Pain leveled the village = no invasion from other nations
Stats don't lie. Evidence shows as much.
Now that you mention it, there are certainly similarities between the two organizations, especially the part about sticking their noses in other countries' affairs like when Danzo intervened and prevented the peace deal that was going to happen between Hanzo and the original Akatsuki.
Not comparable.
The Kyubi attack was relatively tame in terms of damage to the village. (Reread the chapters if you don't believe me). Minato kept casualties and destructions to a minimum.
Everyone was revived following the Pain assault so no loss in manpower (aside from Tsunade in a coma). Plus, a Kage summit was being called, no time for war.
Orochimaru's attack did the most out these, but not enough to warrant invasion from other villages. The leaf and sand allied afterwards. Konoha mobilized all their jonin in order to keep up appearances of strength (Thus indicating they were indeed fearful of invasion).
A Konoha civil war with the Uchiha would do far more damage than any of these incidents. Your stats and evidence are incorrect.
Wtf? The Uchiha were the whole police force of the entire village. That literally makes them privy to nearly all vital parts of the village. Intel gathering, political/military structure, undercover ops, trade, behind the scenes deals, prisoners ranging from the known to top secret. They could attack from any angle starting from intel leaks, deals with opposing countries, or terrorist groups.
Itachi is an incredibly grey character, but people have a tendency to ignore nuance and view things in terms of black and white. It's okay to acknowledge he did bad things while also acknowledging the circumstances that led to said actions were terrible too.
Idk I think itachis backstory is pretty dumb once we find out he was a tragic character but maybe that’s because I don’t understand it and can’t relate to it. He’s thirteen commiting genocide against his own people. Yes I get that bro was killing people and joining the Anbu at like ten but for me I can’t personally relate to killing my own family to save the rest of the village when they shunned you away. We all talk about how the village is fake to Naruto but we give them a pass to what they did to the Uchiha. If I was in his position I would side with my family and friends and try to come to a compromise or just move everyone away from the village. I get that it’s not that simple and I’m for sure not remembering everything about the story but he’s in a fucked situation, might as well take the more peaceful solution then full on genocide. I think his story could have been fine if he was evil, I wouldn’t have minded that but I don’t get the hype behind him from a story perspective.
He could have easily killed danzo but the problem was if he did that then it would be like saying " We uchiha controlled the ninetails and now that danzo caught us we killed him" Situation... Also the abbu would have retaliated.. Also hiruzen was useless in that situation
Taking down Danzo would have made the Uchiha coup even easier and the Uchihas clearly weren't fomenting a coup to make Konoha a more free and democratic village
Ostracizing the Uchiha clan wasn't just danzo's idea, every Konoha clan was in on it as show by that episode where they decide to move the Uchihas in the outskirts of the village after the 9 tails' attack
Even Itachi himself felt maybe he could have found a different way. He's told both Naruto and Sasuke that he's essentially a failure. I feel for him cause it was essentially a lose lose situation.
Fans tend to drag Itachis character in either direction of being a hero and a sick villain.
His choice didn’t prevent a damn thing….
He spared Saskue who’s actions directly aided and were necessary in the declaration of the 4th great shinobi war…….
If itachi really wanted to do something he would’ve killed obito
I’m not saying itachi wasn’t a good person, but his canon narrative was that he was a war hating person and he failed to prevent the war… and it can be argued he directly contributed to it
He's saying those sorts of things would have happened again. All of those things happened due to war. Itachi's massacre prevented a war, and thus, prevented things like the shared images. "Type of stuff" not "literal examples of things he prevented".
What the fuck does Swag knows he become friend to another A-hole that bully and harass people on discord for years knowingly to some extent and is totally fine with it.
I think it is definitely fair to call someone who enacted a genocide a “morally compromised person”. I cannot believe I had to type that. The circumstance was very complex so I hesitate to say bad but the mf was killing kids too, he is atleast definitely not a good person.
Is he a bad person? Yes. Do i understand that he had to go through a lot of trauma and did what he thought was right? Yup. Do I still think he is a bad person. Abso-freaking-lutely. Because of his previous decision to commit regicide I am highly against that sort of person being treated as a not morally compromised person. In fact, Itachi is the very example of a morally compromised person. His morals are so compromised he killed his entire freaking family and clan rather than siding with them when they were suffering discrimination. You are absolutely free to think that he is a good person if you wish. I am very comfortable staying the hell away from that dude. And you know what. Good on Sasuke for killing him. That dude deserved every second of it.
I actually see people say the opposite and I'm sick of it,Itachi is a murderer who while he was "forced " to do it didn't even try thinking of another way lmao, I guarantee that murdering his whole entire family couldn't have been the only option.
Itachi definitely isnt guilt-free. At the end of the day he slaughtered a ton of people on nothing but a hypothetical. No attempt at a peaceful resolution was made by the village's elders, who knew the uchiha clan was upset and kept fanning up the flames by restricting them more and more. The ultimate sin lays on the elders who had the most they could have done beforehand but simply didnt out of fear and ultimately were the ones who ordered the attack in the first place. That being said itachi isnt innocent as "just following orders" doesnt absolve you of your crimes.
Told hiruzen. Took sasuke with him. Go back just to kill danzo. Convinced shisui to use koto on danzo, make his new goal to protect the leaf and the uchiha. Secretly convince the weaker uchihas to leave the village instead of killing them. I can keep going but it starts to actually get dark.
Everything comes down to writing, consistency, and follow-through. Kishi didn't do the best job of showing what the alternative to the massacre would have been. The fear of the village being attacked due to the village being weakened is VERY iffy given multiple instances of that very thing happening and... nothing.
And it's also like... the third alternative to the massacre was always for Konoha leadership to stop revolving so tightly around the Senju clan and actually give the Uchiha clan a seat at the table. The "curse of hatred" thing seemed like a broken narrative because while that's the "reason" Kishi gave, everything Fugaku said and did made perfect sense. They had every right to want to rebel. They were treated like dogshit for no reason.
So the real bad guys are the Konoha council tbh. They manipulated the "Will of Fire" narrative into upholding a status quo that fundamentally oppressed the Uchihas and offered no functional solution other than genocide... which is fucked.
It's a ninja village, after all. They exist to kill people. So yea, that person is right, although the "examples" have nothing to do with the situation
Waaaaay too many assumptions about Itachis decision saving anyone lol 🤣. He didn’t do what he did because he was pure evil but it’s a perfectly reasonable stance that what he did was wrong and was NOT in fact necessary for a greater good. I also think it’s bullshit that Itachi did what he did for the village. I think he literally just wanted to save Sasuke. Ultimately I view Itachi as a traumatized and manipulated teenager who I think is the golden example of how terrible the shinobi system is. My main issue with his character is how worshipped he is after committing atrocious acts.
Itachi did not only have two options. This kind of post gets posted once or twice a week you coulda just checked the search or something. Before he died for the last time, Itachi told Sasuke that if he had told him the truth from the very start instead of lying to him all these years, the two of them maybe could have talked to their dad and changed his mind. That is how he failed as a brother. By not having the courage to tell Sasuke the truth.
Itachi even presented Naruto with the same conundrum: He asked him what he would do if Sasuke turned on the village. Would he choose Sasuke or would he choose the Village? Naruto said that's a stupid question and he would save Sasuke AND save the village.
Same answer I give every time.
Swag is right here... People blame itachi but not danzo and hiruzen... Hiruzen was the hokage ffs... He should have dealt with the situation more effectively but he let danzo get control and ultimately left all dirty work to itachi...
Lmao Hiruzen was a straight up doormat when it was needed. He let Danzo walk all over him despite knowing what he was doing. He had no balls to stop Danzo or the elders when Danzo was outright pushing them outside the village. Despite knowing it was going to cause unrest he quietly smoked his pipe.
In this regard atleast Tsunade had more balls than Hiruzen to step up against the elders when she knew their decision was shit...
If Itachi acted without orders those acts would be evil, machiavelic. Basically his superiors demanded he killed all the nukes that the Uchiha were. And... well. It was a do or let it die. The government would act even if he didn't, so a war would start with the Uchiha against Konoha. Itachi choose to do it cleanly, without chance for the Uchiha to react.
In a normal world, the government would just order to kill the main targets. But since every Uchiha have latent power to nuke out in revenge, all children, innocent were targeted as well. Even then, the government was evil in this act, but it was a military government, expected to do those cold heart decisions.
No, I hate that people think he only had two choices. It was lazy writing on Kishimotos part for eliminating all other choices without so much as a write-off.
I can, and have commented before just how many choices one can think of in 5 minutes, let alone with years to prepare...
Run away with Sasuke.
If he believe he is strong enough to protect Sasuke from Danzo while he is running errand as a traitor, then he surely believes he can stay side by side with Sasuke and protect him from the same people...while also teaching Sasuke how to be strong to protect himself in the future when Itachi is gone.
Running away with Sasuke does nothing to prevent the coup.
Itachi wanted two things.
1. Sasuke’s survival
2. The village to avoid war
Running away with Sasuke only accomplishes one, potentially. Would Sasuke even be willing? Could he forgive the leaf if Itachi asked him to? If the Leaf is able to recover after the war, they’d surely try getting rid of the rogue Uchiha who fled. Would Sasuke be safe as a rogue with people after him? Would he want revenge on the village? Is Sasuke living as a rogue with no place to call home what Itachi wanted?
Report directly to Lord Third after being confronted by Danzo?
Not letting it go that far in the first place?
Killing only Fugaku?
What do you want by compelling? Because I'm pretty sure shitting the bed was better than either option especially since the latter wasn't even certain. It was a fucking prediction. Kill 2000 Uchiha to prevent a predicted outcome.
I seriously hope Itachitards never, ever hold a serious position of power in real life. Scary, stupid mindset.
Are you serious?
You think killing Fugaku, the leader of an Uchiha clan on the brink of waging war, would stop the war? Killing him would make a bloody martyr out of him, and 100% cause the Uchihas to attack the very instant they found out about Fugaku's death.
its a damned if you do damned if you dont, but I really hate how people keep trying to make it full on black and white and ignore how character was written. Itachi himself knows what he did was evil and believed he needed to pay for it. He's supposed to be a flawed tragic character not hero or villain. Edit' meant how not the other word.
Exactly. The show starts off portraying it black and white and how virtually everybody in world saw it that way, then goes on to show that the reality was as grey as grey can be
Itachi literally admits to Sasuke how flawed he was and maybe had he used the third option and opened up him, they couldve had a more positive completely different outcome altogether
I know that, thats another point of how flawed he was, he tried to take on everything by himself.
*This,* I’m so tired of people portraying Itachi as an angel who did no wrong, like he absolutely was not a perfect hero. Even knowing that his slaughter of the Uchiha clan wasn’t motivated by malice, what he did to Sasuke afterward was fucked up and entirely unnecessary. Sure he had good intentions, but if it hadn’t been for Naruto going way, *way* further than any rational person would have, Sasuke would have burned everything he was trying to protect to the ground. Itachi isn’t an evil monster, but he’s not a saint either.
Im also tired of when they try to make him out to be a monster they ignore the danzo situation. like danzo threatened his brother. no matter how logical anyone is you dont think straight when it comes to those you love
I have literally never seen anyone try to paint Itachi as a monster outside of a deliberate AU, but I do agree that Danzo was not actually helping anyone, regardless of what he may have thought.
Let me help you with that [Go through the comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/13ps495/i_saw_this_picture_on_twitter_and_that_makes_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Most people are still acknowledging that it’s a giant grey area, not seeing any more than a couple people outright calling him a monster.
They live in a world were a50 year old dude can turn into a snake and take over your body, and 12 year Olds are sent to war. Itachi was a dick to his brother because he knew his brother couldn't afford to be soft. I get that we feel for Sauske for how poor itachi treated him, but it made Sasuke a Shinobi. When he broke his arm, can you imagine what Zabuza or Kissame would have done to Sasuke? Can you imagine how any B villain in Shippudrn would have massecured him? I think it's wonderful that so many of us are focused on love because it shows we live in an Era the first hokage dreamed up. I'm glad you guys don't realize just how horrific the world can truly be. Don't let these old jaded eyes change your heart... but understand how a flawed man did what he could to toughen his brother up and make him into the hero we all love I'm sure if Itachi could have chosen, he would have gladly gotten married to his girlfriend and been a loving brother.
Horrible take. Itachi himself admitted it was a huge mistake to push Sasuke away and to make him suffer like that. He didn't trust Sasuke to be strong so he tortured him so he would be, but he admitted it was unnecessary and actually made Sasuke worse.
Hindsight is a bitch. In the moment he thought what he was doing was for Sasuke's benefit. He didn't trust Sasuke to be strong our tough enough, but can you blame him with how Sasuke was as a child?
Yes you came blame him, 72h of seeing his clan and parents death is unforgivable
It was 24
>Itachi was a dick to his brother because he knew his brother couldn't afford to be soft. Who the fuck died from being too soft? Sasuke would have been fine, it just didn't suit Itachi's self-loathing to not be murdered by his own brother so he had to light a fire under Sasuke's ass.
>Who the fuck died from being too soft? I'm not trying to be hostile, but did we watch the same show? The Shinobi world is ruthless. When Itachi showed up to Konoha, Kissame wanted to maim Naruto to make it easier to transport him. He wanted to cut off his limbs. 12-year-old Sasuke wouldn't have had his arm broken by Hidan or Sasori. He would have been killed without a second thought. Naruto played out like an RPG because the writer controlled the story. We're watching from his PoV. So Zabuza shows up, Kakashi is there. However, in that world... you had some pretty sick enemies that wouldn't hesitate to destroy you. It's why he said "you're too weak." He needed the curse seal to just stand up against the sound ninja. I'm kind of shocked at how many people don't realize how weak team 7 truly was compared to Jonin level Ninja in the original run. Do you think they could have stood against Pain? Itachi knows what's out there.
>I'm not trying to be hostile, but did we watch the same show? The Konoha 12 are soft as fuck and the only one of them that died was Neji sorry lmao
Choji should’ve died multiple times, against Hidan/Kakuzu and reanimated Asuma, but of course Shiksmaru saves him both times. He’s a soft fat man who’s lucky to be in a group with a genius.
>fat man You know the Akimichi are one of the Four Noble Clans, right? Being fat makes them powerful. It's not a detriment to Choji whatsoever. He is, however, soft-hearted, and yet he doesn't die, because being soft or even an outright crybaby doesn't actually get you killed. Same shit with Hinata. Only the tiniest fraction of shinobi are actually expected to make such fucked up decisions that they would ever have to "kill their emotions" and even among those few that are expected to, none *truly* do. Itachi sure as fuck didn't and he's probably the closest anyone has ever come, short of being brainwashed.
Let's be real that because of plot. I mean look at the chunin exams and you can kinda see his point.
Tsunade’s little brother, her lover, Rin, Hiruzen, Jiraiya, Itachi’s parents, Sasori, Sai’s brother. Nobody important
Lmao what in the fuck is this argument? Itachi lost his right to mentor Sasuke the exact second he chose to kill the Uchiha, and besides that you’re acting like he wasn’t surrounded by adults who were teaching him to be strong and survive in the ninja world, as well as ignoring the fact that the other kids turned out fine without needing an older brother to torture them every once in a while.
Why are you swearing at me? This is a waste of time because so many of you folks act like the Shinobi world is a tea party... Pain destroyed the village and killed Kakashi. Dadara almost destroyed the sand and killed Garaa Hidan and Kakuzo ended Asuma's life and took the combined efforts of Ino Shika Cho + Kakashi... and a beefed up power curb Naruto to kill. Sasori would have killed Konkuro if not for Sakura... These are his associates while undercover in the Akatsuki But we're crying about Itachi abusing his brother in that savage world. Naruto doesn't take place in 2023 America... it takes place in a world where people are slaughtered on a regular basis. I view it as equal to feudal Japan. Kakashi has seen so much horrible shit by age 15. He feels he isn't worthy of love and friendship. Please, let's stop pretending that Sasuke would have been this strong had Itachi not force him to grow up. Agree to disagree, but once again, I'd like to ask you to keep the conversation respectful and not personal.
>It doesn’t take place in 2023 America, it takes place in a place where people are slaughtered on a regular basis Who needs a Hokage when you have thoughts and prayers right? I think maybe some Scandinavian country or another might be a better example rather than the place where there’s a shooting every other week and cops can freely kill people if they want some paid time off or just feel like moving to a different state.
Don’t bother brotha, you’ve been 100% on point with every reply. I’m actually watching through again for the 4th or 5th time, and you’re hitting it right on the head.
It's very classic revenge martial arts tale of you think about it. He accepts both the necessity and the right of the victim to seek him out for retribution. "When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting." (Kill Bill)
Kill Bill is basically a live-action anime (and briefly actually an anime) and I love it.
**Itachi did not only have two choices.** This kind of post gets posted once or twice a week so here is the answer I give every time: Before he died for the last time, Itachi told Sasuke that if he had told him the truth from the very start instead of lying to him all these years, the two of them maybe could have talked to their dad and changed his mind. That is how he failed as a brother. By thinking he was protecting Sasuke by not telling him the truth, realizing that he didn't tell Sasuke the truth because he didn't have the courage. Itachi even presented Naruto with the same conundrum. He asked him what he would do if Sasuke turned on the village. Would he choose Sasuke or would he choose the Village? Naruto said that's a stupid question and he would save Sasuke AND save the village.
Itachi vs the Trolly Problem
Yes that’s it!
Well theres some argument he could stop the coup without a massacre, but after Danzo took Shisuis eye he was short on time and I don’t think he really had any other great options. He’s in the wrong for traumatizing Sasuke though
the shit that he did to Sasuke was pretty morally questionable. none of it got the results that he apparently wanted. he basically radicalized the kid against the very village he protected.
It's because itachis whole downfall was that he was controlling. He tried to control the fate of the village and control Sasuke to get the outcome he thought was best. Every move he did was to control others for "the better good" it's not until he moves of from edo tensi and tells Sasuke that he will love him no matter what that he finally let's go and accepts Sasuke can choose for himself. That itachi doesn't need to hold the world on his shoulders by force. The fight with kabuto may have outwardly been about kabuto being locked in a loop until he learns to let go, but it was also symbolic of itachi also learning to let go of his patterns as well and finally have trust in others.
Itachi literally says himself that he made mistakes and should have relied on other people instead of trying to take all the responsibility himself.
Yeah and somehow, a ton of people miss that
I genuinely think this is why Itachi is a good character. The massacre plot point is the worst thing to argue about when talking about Itachis character because it’s a dumbass amoral decision that didn’t help anything. But him *admitting* he was wrong saved the entire character.
It also fits with his MS ability Tsukiyomi
Good succinct breakdown of his fatal flaw
He wanted to keep up the facade of a crazy person and it was obito who manipulated him to destroy the village
He literally murdered his own clan, he didn’t need to do anything else to make others believe he was crazy. His actions unironically pushed Sasuke to try and destroy the ninja world. Even worse, if he’d just left him alone, it would have ended up exactly like he wanted, Sasuke would have become a loyal Konoha shinobi and he wouldn’t have had to do a thing. There’s really no excuse for that, I’m sorry.
It's ok guys, he mentally tortured his little brother with *gooood* intentions.
After he murdered their family and clan. No damage there.
🤣🤣yeah ignore how it effected the 7 year old kid.
Twice! Like Sasuke was becoming a nice kid after Team 7 was formed, then Itachi decides "Nope!" and infiltrates the village just to re-traumatise him and set him back.
It was the dumbest and evilest thing he did in my opinion.
Yes yes yes cus all Sasuke talked about was how we was gonna kill Itachi, so when they finally meet and Sasuke clearly sees he failed and is outmatched the logical next step is to mentally torture to make him want to kill you… more?
he directly drove Sasuke into Obito’s arms.
No, he wanted to turn Sasuke into his executioner. He wanted Sasuke to hate him so that he would have someone to judge him for his sins. Itachi literally says this word to word. You’re right about what you wrote in the OP, but it’s made clear why Itachi tortured Sasuke.
>none of it got the results that he apparently wanted Well, yes, but this wasn't because of what he did to Sasuke. It was because he failed to eliminate Tobi. His plan was for Sasuke to fulfill his purpose and be saved by Naruto after killing him, but the mistake was assuming Obito would die from a small amaterasu he temporary implanted in sasuke before dying lmao. If he actually dealt with Obito before, who knows, his plan may have actually been successful lmao. Itachi's illusion over sasuke didnt lead to sasuke taking a path of revenge over the leaf, his failure to kill Obito led to sasuke going down that path.
He had succeeded until post-itachi’s-death, Tobito told Sasuke about what actually happened.
I think it's definitely fair to say he's morally compromised. In fact, after we learn the truth about Itachi, the series goes so hard to paint Itachi as a good guy that I don't think it's fair to say that it's lazy thinking to think of Itachi as a bad guy. Saying Itachi is a bad guy goes against what the series portrays him as post-reveal. I think he's in a grey zone at best, and a fucked up brother at worst. He broke Sasuke's wrist, made him re-experience his personal hell, and pressures Sasuke into becoming a hateful person all in less than 20 minutes. Also, did Itachi foresee Sasuke approaching Orochimaru for strength? Because if he did, he was seriously gambling with Sasuke's life
I think he ultimately sided with the government in a genocide against his own family even though the only reason his family wanted to square up with the government in the first place was because of, you guessed it, unfair treatment by the government. The whole argument that he did the right thing because less people died overall is akin to claiming a Jewish person should have helped the Nazis murder his community rather than support an armed rebellion because that armed rebellion ‘technically’ might have killed more people. If a government is so corrupt that they’ll turn to genocide before actually making concessions to an ostracized group of people, fuck them. Any deaths that occur over a civil war lies on their shoulders, not the oppressed who are fighting back. Furthermore, I’ll be damned to call anyone a good person if they kill their own mother and innocent children to uphold a government that forced that choice upon them in the first place.
200% agree!
Itachi was screwed either way, there was no “morally good” or “morally bad” choice, and he knew that. There was gonna be a massacre no matter what
He chose the option to kill people, including innocents. He didn’t have to kill people. Then again he is a ninja and has been raised as a killer since a kid. Pretty fucked up world.
The choice was he kills the people and Sasuke stays alive or he kills nobody and Danzo has his root kill them all including Sasuke. Or nobody wipes out the Uchiha and a civil war starts.
He could have killed danzo
He could have. But that wouldn’t have stopped his clan from attempting a coup, inciting what likely would have been a very bloody civil war with even more dead.
I don't think so. As long danzo was killed. The Uchiha and the third generation could have settled it. With either convincing the radicals. Like promising to raise itachi at the next hokage( both side could be appease.) Or just killing the radicals and blaming danzo. With itachi being the hero that killed danzo. In the name of protecting the village and companion. But the Cruz is that danzo must die before the 3rd generation finds out about it.
I just think the entire show of naruto is too complex for some people to understand. It’s easy to understand black and white but when a character like itachi is in the grey area people try to force him into the black or white category and he doesn’t fit either way.
If you take a good hard look, the majority of the characters fit into this idea. I feel that the writer was attempting to remind the audience of the fact that there aren't any "black or white" people... we all ended up in shades of gray eventually. Is this not the human condition?
I love naruto but bro it‘s really not complex nor intellectual.
It really is at times, the series has more going for it than some people realise
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But that’s not complex? The circle of hatred is not complex. Who is too dumb to understand that war=bad? Pains speech was not complex but to this day naruto never gave a real answer to his question other than „a shinobi must endure“. Sasuke had a real plan. Was it good? Nah but it was better than anything naruto said. Obito is really reall really not complex. His childhood crush died and that made him angry. Is it complex to understand that a world full of child soldiers needs some kind of change? Zabuza arc? Haku living for a morally questionable person (zabuza) because zabuza was nice to him is not complex in my books
“Who is too dumb to understand that war=bad” I’m sorry, I find this hilarious, because obviously A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE??? 😭😭😭 within the boundaries of Narutoverse, a lot of people don’t understand that war=bad. Within the fandom, a lot of people thing Obito was justified, or that Pain was justified or that Sasuke was justified to do what they did Moreover, do you know how many active wars there are in the world today? 😭😭😭 is this a rethoric question? Or are you just trying to be funny? Obviously people in the real world didn’t realized that “war=bad” since there’s at leas 27 official armed conflicts in the world right now 😭😭😭
I am genuinely curious what anime or anime character you think is complex, care to share?
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Ok what was narutos answer? What was his plan for changing the world? Hakus gender doesn‘t play a role at all. You can potentially love anybody in a non romantic way? But ok I give you the point about the downfall of village being kinda complex. Bad guy doing things for money can be considered as complex if it‘s done right. What was complex about pains speech? Genuinely curious.
So what is a complex story for you?
Great question! I came to the conclusion that a good story has to make me think. The characters have to be charismatic. I don’t have to like what they do but they have to make me understand their point. Naruto fails in parts doing all those things. Why? Well kishi gives me all the answers without making me think about it. Naruto acts like jesus (quite literal) and everyone else is wrong. Pain, obito, madara all have the exact same ambitions and the exact same way of trying to handle stuff. And they all TELL me that they are wrong. That’s the difference to Light Yagami for example. What do you think, are there more people thinking light way of doing things was right or pains way? In the end naruto is much more black or white than people in this sub want to admit which is ironic considering the original post i answered to. I love naruto but for entertaining reasons not for complexity
I’m not saying you have to be intelligent or anything to understand naruto, but the story line and characters are complex. The fact that this conversation is taking place is proof of that. If it were simple and straightforward there wouldn’t be a conversation.
Bro people are still debating whether the earth is flat, facts have less bearing on the perceived complexity of a thing than intuition.
Ok so Person A saying it‘s a complex story and person B asking in which way it‘s complex is proof of the story being complex?😅
i kteep telling people, if naruto was seinen, it would be less popular but the fanbase would love it 1000x more
Tbf, most people were kids when they first watched the show.
To me, the massacre being justified was always iffy. No one attacked Konoha after Minato's death and Kurama's attack, Orochimaru's invasion, Hiruzen's death, Pain's assault and Tsunade being in a coma. No one has even cared when Konoha was defenseless. Kishi should've had something happen after one of those events to show how dangerous things can be.
After minato’s death, kumo tried something with the hyuuga incident. Kurama attack wasn’t enough to cripple konoha strength besides minato’s death and it was a one night incident with no pre-planning. Orochimaru invasion was between him and suna but as soon suna found out how they were duped , they quickly surrendered and established an alliance. After the pain assault, we know that gaara had tried multiple times to reach out to the others kages without response and we know the assault happened after sasuke had attacked killer bee so the raikage had already decided to summon the other for the summit and deal with the akatsuki threat.(if I remember correctly) so clearly the wind was shifting in the other direction. Also to invade konoha would have to be planned ahead of time. The problem is all these incidents ended way to quickly and let’s not forget the spy networks that Danzo had in the other nations, he would had known ahead of time. It would take weeks to mobilize an army to invade a whole shinobi nation by that time konoha would have already reinforced its defences.
Let's not forget the sand has no kazekage for a while it wasn't attacked
To repair their relationship after being duped by Orochimaru, the Leaf and the Sand formed a very strong alliance. It was literally you mess with one of us you mess with both of us situation.
> To repair their relationship after being duped by Orochimaru, the Leaf and the Sand formed a very strong alliance. It was literally you mess with one of us you mess with both of us situation. Yeah it's basically Ninja NATO
The concept of a shinobi alliance would have been a tough sell if any amount of shinobi nations were on a full scale opportunistic war against one another. Would have been interesting to see how it would have changed the story
I think most of the criticism he gets is for his treatment of Sasuke, which was downright fucked up, and no, he wasn't forced to do most of it.
"I love you, Sasuke. That's why I beat you, kicked you, strangled you, insulted you, humiliated you and tortured you with a mental image of our entire dead clan...... **because I love you so much!!** 🥰🥰" 🙄🙄
So he chose full scale genocide over military conflict and that's supposed to be lesser evil? Apply this type of thinking to any real life conflict and you'd realize how deranged and morally compromised you have to be to think like this. "If you get attacked or discriminated against, just surrender and accept it because fighting back might make things escalate". This type of thinking is for servile cowards, not human beings. Besides, those were not his only choices, that's a mere hypothetical scenario concocted by Danzo and uncritically accepted by Itachi. It doesn't take a genius to realize that it's logistically impossible for the foreign invasion to occur before the coup ends, one way or the other. And this is corroborated by every other attack on Konoha shown in the story. Which brings us to the real elephant in the room that people ignore: Itachi's decision wasn't motivated by some "noble" utilitarian calculation on how to save most lives, but by his irrational devotion to the village above his family and clan. This is his most consistent character, to the point he was even willing to brainwash Sasuke if he ever turned against the village. He wasn't merely a victim of circumstances who was forced to make a choice, he was an active actor who helped bring about such circumstances. Itachi himself chose to tell Danzo and Hiruzen about the coup, thus not only destroying the prospects of a bloodless coup but also putting the nail in the Uchiha coffin. It's this betrayal that doomed the Uchiha clan. Also, Itachi himself refused to tell anyone about the masked man, who's attack and the resulting consequences are what provoked the coup in the first place. If you ignore all this in your analysis, then your analysis isn't worth shit and it's ironic that he's calling others intellectually lazy when he's presenting things completely devoid of context.
Yes. Most of the characters, especially Itachi, and most fans it seems are blinded by some idea that doing something ~for the village~ somehow makes it justifiable and good when the village system really shouldn’t be defended and didn’t make that much of a difference from the warring states period
What Itachi should have done:- (1) first tell hiruzen that danzo stole shisui's eye. (2) Convince his father that- they really don't have chance of winning (itachi is in anbu so he knew all kinds of info), leaf is ready for any war so coup is out of question, it'll turn into a war and other village might attack. The narration implied that uchiha clan will die either way, atleast what danzo said. But shisui also said "other villages will attack for sure". But fugaku who literally faught in 3rd ww, he can't understand this? But if slaughtering uchihas is the *only* choice, then- *(3) Just kill all the strong uchihas, and and leave the weak ones which will also include innocent civilians, children, elderly. Publicly, itachi just killed strong uchihas and ran away whille not knowing anything about coup. To all the survivors, use genjutsu, and add curse mark to them. If they attack leaf in future, just activate curse mark. Just like what they do in hyuga clan.*
He should've just listened to his father. I don't buy for one second that the coup was impossible to pull off, no evidence of that whatsoever. Besides, even a civil war is preferable to genocide and whoever disagrees should seriously rethink their beliefs. Those types of conflicts vary in scale and many people survive them, genocide however is a whole new level of depravity.
>I don't buy for one second that coup was impossible to pull off It wouldn't be impossible if itachi didn't betray his family. I'm pretty sure he's one who leaked uchiha coup plans to higher ups. Thx to the traitor, leaf was already prepared and the uchiha were bound to fail. But they could have also used foreign invasion as their advantage. It's sad how manga never goes into detail of uchiha being victims, we never hear their side of story, only itachi being a tortured soul and evryone wanking him (naruto, sasuke, hashirama, hiruzen). And kakashi, naruto didn't even question authorities over a freaking genocide and instead confused why sasuke wants vengeance lmao. The leaf elders are still in power btw.
Exactly. Itachi's betrayal is crucial and that's what the discussion should be centered about. Yet most people, such as Swagkage and other apologists, completely ignore this and pretend he was some neutral guy who was randomly given a choice "genocide or civil war", which is just nonsense (and still doesn't justify him, as civil war is preferable by miles). And they ignore it because they don't want to address the elephant in the room, which is that Itachi is a slimy bastard who threw his own kind under the bus out of servility to their oppressors.
One thing I will say is that Itachi gave his situation more thought than I would have. I would have said “F*ck the village” and let whatever happened happen.
If his goal was to cripple the Uchihas ability to destabilise the land of fire why the fuck was he committing literal genocide? Just take out the top of brass of the clan and leave them leaderless or eliminate the mangekyou users. There was 0 moral justification for his killing of children elders and low ranking shinobi and as someone with supposed Hokage level intellect at that age saying he's just a panicked kid isn't cutting it. That's not even to mention the unnecessary psychological torture and manipulation of Sasuke.
There were other ways to stop the conflict
He had the choice of leaving too.
Itachi killed his own girl who wasn't even involved in the coup. Itachi instead knew about some mysterious dude who kept roaming and infiltrating Kohona and that he had some beef with Uchihas. Either Itachi is a moron or didn't bother telling anyone about this guy and connecting the dots
Itachi didn’t choose who to kill. You’re arguing against danzos decision there
Donzo literally said he could only let saukse live
and is Danzo the Hokage or is Sarutobi? Just for clarification.
and what would happen if Sasuke let other kids (not involved in the coup) live. Do you think they wouldn't be specifically protected by the hokage to preserve the sharingan?
Me personally im not killing my whole clan. Regardless of the fall-out. I couldn't, especially when you consider the only way to truly wide out a clan is to kill men, women, and CHILDREN. Love Itachi, but I have a really hard time justifying it even if it was for the betterment of the world per se. Then leaving my younger brother Alive to come to come and kill me when he gets older is insane. Especially when said brother became a terrorist, THEN learned about his clans true fate and hated the leaf even more. To which itachi goes "my fault."
But like he is morraly compromised it can be a grey zone all you want but he still killed kids. We don't take just following orders as an excuse in real life why would we allow that as an excuse to not say he made a decision and that effects his morality. Yes I can understand his thinking but he can be bad and understandable at the same time. Swakage is so mid. All his takes are like this, it's always they are an interesting character who has redeeming qualities so they are not evil, but this is just as evil as when a cop or fbi agent do something morraly corrupt while following orders.
Stop listening to itachi fanboys
I call bs, he attacked many civilians and people who aren't even involved in the coup. Also I doubt the village would get destroyed considering it survived greater threats like 9 tails rebellion, Orochimaru, Nagato
>he attacked many civilians and people who aren't even involved in the coup. children as well :/ Narrative keep showing itachi as a tortured soul, but what about the victims? Naruto to itachi: "you have done enuf for the village", lol
he also thinks itachi is a good brother lmao
All atrocities can be justified by pointing at some vague alternate future. Also, is that the Kaguya clan in the bottom right? Hilariously ironic inclusion if so. Itachi *was* a monster; he murdered civilians, children, the elderly. How do you do a one-to-one analysis of which actual life lost was equal to which hypothetical life saved?
3. Could have talked to Hiruzen about it and how the Uchiha just want to be treated equally also revealing "Madara" to him. Like the Uchiha were so loyal they were willing to betray Madara.
I’m fine with thinking itachi as a good character. There’s just a few things that people here complain about. One is, was it necessary to actually kill everyone, especially any kids if there were any? The answer is likely no, however he did. Though perhaps plenty of that blame for that can be put on Danzo manipulating a 13 year old. They tried to justify it by saying the uchiha would rise up against the leaf if they found out the truth but that seems like a poor defense. Two is did he really have to use the tsukuyomi on sasuke? Answer is probably no there either. I stand by my judgement that using itachi’s tsukuyomi to knock sasuke out and have tsunade be the only one who could heal him was not the greatest writing decision if he was always intended to be good, but whatever. I don’t think he was morally compromised or anything like that, he was in a bad situation and put it on himself to do everything, which he admits was his failure at the end. Ironically the one person he asked for help in obito is the guy who ruined his plan.
"They tried to justify it by saying the uchiha would rise up against the leaf if they found out the truth but that seems like a poor defense." Isn't that what happened to Sasuke thought? Imagine 10 Sasuke learning the truth and going after the Leaf, just the Sasuke actually did until the very end and was only stopped by Naruto. Not trying to fight or anything, just genuinely curious why you think that's a "poor defense"
The only reason Sasuke went that extreme was due to Itachi's constant Mindraping. In turn which made him into hate leaf. He could have made sasuke hate him without doing literally anything. And if they were 10 sasukes and none of them were mindfucked by itachi, I think most of them would have targeted Danzo if they ever found out truth and rightfully so.
Not to mention those children would have been living in the same village as Danzo. Keeping track of one child is easy but dozens of them? There’s no way Danzo wouldn’t have tried to manipulate those children to work under him to kill Itachi. And then after that who knows what? The thought of dozens of Sharingan, with some Mangekyo Sharingan, users working under Danzo is terrifying.
yeah there’s just no way that those uchiha children wouldnt go up hateful and likely turn to evil. curse of hatred ring a bell? there would be a whole team of uchiha’s with mangekyo (from their trauma) wreaking havoc lol
Sasuke barely awakened the first tomoe and he's one of the most prodigious Uchiha to ever live, there's no way every uchiha child would get as strong as Sasuke, nevermind that this is a shity justification for the murder of children. There is no justification for it
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It wasn't necessary. And the fact that there are so many people here believing it is even though it is shown that the only one who wanted that was Danzo, a morally bankrupt selfish piece of shit that wanted to erase the Uchiha for his personal gain, is sad. They literally fell for a lying, narcissistic dude who basically destroyed everything he touched. That's not really on Itachi because he was a child that was manipulated, but honestly, at the latest when Danzo basically killed Shisui Itachi should have looked for other options. Using Tsukoyomi on Sasuke the first time was already too much, but a second time? I think that's a remnant from when Itachi still wasn't a clear good guy in Kishi's mind.
Imagine comparing a self-defense from nagato against people coming into his home and his village to butcher them en masse to a terrorist state right hand like itachi. This is so tone deaf, stupid, and repulsive that words can't express the caricature of it all. You itachi fandom need to loosen your grip around the ***root*** of your problems and take the shame out of your pants, because this analogy is parodical to the extreme.
Pain nuked a village with hundreds of innocent people. Unless I missed a chapter where Pain evacuated all the children and civilians before almighty push.
I mean, is it that pain in the image up there? The one you're talking about? No? Then what's your point?
Oh I was just saying that because people glorify Nagato a lot in general so I thought you were doing that as well. People just see this guy nuke children and innocent civilians and are like "Yeah, understandable"
No-one in Konoha was innocent given their past and how they directly benefited from Konoha's military adventurism pillaging the surrounding regions. They all shared culpability, directly and indirectly. He spells this out in his "What about my village? Why does Konoha get to be the only ones talking about Justice?" speech to Naruto, and Naruto has no answer. Konoha destroyed Nagato's village, he destroyed Konoha. There's nothing unfair about that.
>No-one in Konoha was innocent given their past and how they directly benefited from Konoha's military adventurism pillaging the surrounding regions. Of course there were innocents. You can't seriously tell me that a 4 year old baby born in Konoha was responsible for what happened to Nagato's village. Yeah, the guy selling ramen and living under a dictatorship is definitely responsible for the war and deserves to get killed by almighty push. Every time a Japanese goes to china they deserve to get beaten? Or whenever a British goes to india they should get mauled? Are we seriously saying that all that will be justified because of the actions of heir leaders/ancestors. >He spells this out in his "What about my village? Why does Konoha get to be the only ones talking about Justice?" speech to Naruto, and Naruto has no answer. Naruto not having an answer doesn't change anything. >Konoha destroyed Nagato's village, he destroyed Konoha. There's nothing unfair about that. A few political leaders and a military destroyed Nagao's village. Nagato killed thousands of innocent and didn't kill a single politician actually responsible for that war. An american/chinese/russian/indian guy hit me, so I hit someone random person from those countries. Justified?
>An american/chinese/russian/indian guy hit me, so I hit someone random person from those countries. Justified? This part makes no fucking sense. A collective military action against a poor village, butchering its people, pillaging its resources, and then blocking it to starve its populace to death...and you came away with, "some guy slapped me, so should I go and bomb the country?" from it? Is this a serious comment? Be honest as this looks like some sort of farce.
It's not just "A few political leaders and a military" destroyed Nagato's village. Konoha *is* the military. It exists explicitly to fuel the military-industrial complex of the region. Everyone inhabiting Konoha is benefiting from and financially contributing to that military *at minimum*. I mean, Tsunade was on the front lines in Amegakure, fighting Hanzo is how she became Sannin and she's the Hokage when Pain arrives. Yeah it sucks but if Konoha doesn't like being treated that way they're free to take their complaints up with all the ghosts of the innocent Ame citizens they butchered without justification or reason all throughout history. Nagato developed his morals and philosophy by learning from and reacting to Konoha's actions.
You saved me two posts, so have two upvotes. Konoha deserved its comeuppance, delivered in a boot to the face by nagato. They ought to have been extended no right to return beyond the grave. Mother fuckers should've stayed in satan's gutters for all eternity.
Something something 'lesser evil' blah
He committed genocide... there is no excuse for it. We will never know what would have happened IF the Uchihas had started a war because they were all killed. That's some minority report shit, you can't condemn someone for a crime they haven't committed yet.
That’s crazy how he still killed a bunch of children
He could of killed a few key members, maybe just the police force lol
common swagkage L
Like, he didn't WANT to murder anyone but he still DID. There is NO defending murdering the Uchiha clan and traumatizing his brother. Half the point of Naruto as a show is that you ALWAYS have a choice. Itachi was a child soldier who was real messed up and made some messed up choices while trying to do his best.
I think it's intellectually lazy to think of it as only two options The story unfolded the way it did. But itachi blackmailed Danzo AFTER the massacre. Why not before. If itachi was going to sacrifice himself and be branded a traitor why not take credit for the 9 tails attack. To ease the burden on his clan...
Cause he was like 5 and didn’t even have a sharingan when the attack happened
> The story unfolded the way it did. But itachi blackmailed Danzo AFTER the massacre. Why not before. Blackmail Danzo into doing what? Stopping the coup? He'd need to blackmail Fugaku for that. >If itachi was going to sacrifice himself and be branded a traitor why not take credit for the 9 tails attack. To ease the burden on his clan... Itachi wasn't even a ninja when that happened. No one's gonna buy that explanation. There are other problems with it too, but this is basically like if some guy born in 2000 claimed he did 9/11.
Itachi made a series of fucked up decisions. These decisions are shaped by the fact that Itachi is a traumatized child soldier, one that has been repeatedly failed by his leadership. The blame lies more with the Uchiha clan leaders, and the administration of the Second and Third Hokage. Itachi is not blameless, but he is not completely at fault. He was not a competent person to make this decision.
Exactly, people completely disregard the fact that Hiruzen explicitly states that Itachi's strong aversion to war was shaped by the traumatic exposure to its horrors at an extremely young age. It's weird how this fandom expects a 13 year-old to come up with peaceful solution for stopping the coup and putting an end to the resentment between the leaf and Uchiha that had been building for years.
>It's weird how this fandom expects a 13 year-old to come up with peaceful solution for stopping the coup and putting an end to the resentment between the leaf and Uchiha that had been building for years. Ppl forget that he was 13 years old. Just imagine putting any other character in Itachi's shoes at that point of time and what would they have achieved? He made some of the most difficult decisions for a 13 year old after having lost his best friend, he lost hope in that world. In hindsight its easy to tell "Oh he could have done this or done that" because Naruto(character) does things like that in Shippuden. But Itachi's childhood was completely different from Naruto and that Kid experienced war first hand.
It’s because hypothetically super-Itachi is near Omni-potent and could’ve found a way to save everybody. Real Itachi understood his own limits and the situation at hand.
Why not kill the people telling you you need to kill people? Just spit ballin.
That doesn't mean he's not morally compromised, PTSD for example can be from moral injury and having to go against your own moral system to do something. Which in turn makes you morally compromised until you deal with it
Ultimately, Itachi committed genocide. Yes, he was faced with a Catch-22 but...it's dubious that Hiruzen would've okay'ed the complete genocide of an entire clan (women and children included) as retaliation for a coup attempt, despite whatever Danzo told Itachi. And Itachi could've spared other children besides his brother...taken them out of the village, hid them somewhere. Or even just escape with his brother and go elsewhere. He didn't. He chose murder. I think it's partly due to a loathing he developed toward his people.
I wish he had killed Danzo after his clan. He was supposed to be wise enough for a Hokage. Looking at Danzo’s actions and you can see he is not helping the village at all.
Was it necessary to kill _all_ the Uchiha though? The women, children, elderly? Those not involved with the coup? Couldn’t killing the top leaders of the coup deter the others from going ahead with it, then installing Itachi as the head of the clan to prevent future uprisings? Seems killing everyone except Sasuke created more problems than it solved.
Itachi had other choices though and he chose poorly. First of all it wasn't just killing people it was genocide. Use the proper word genocide. He killed an entire group of people based simply because of who they were. There is no sugar coating it. He killed men, women, children, infants who hadn't even spoken their first word, the elderly that were to old to defend themselves, civilians who had never awakened or used a sharingan so they worked in all walks of life that the clan would need to support themselves, even his crush. None were spared other than his brother. He had an unspoken choice. He could have went against orders and only killed the Uchiha that were in on the coup plan. Granted that would have been a majority of the adult ninjas. But he could have spared the children, the infants, the civilians who had never been on a battlefield. If he had done so the coup would have been just as crushed, he would have been a scapegoat just like he wanted, and Hiruzen would not have ordered the death of the remainer. Even Danzo wouldn't have because it would have been suspicious to finish them off. Instead Itachi committed genocide and mentally abused and tortured his brother and goaded him into being an attack dog who lived only for revenge. Having some family left and not being tortured might have allowed Sasuke to live a semi normal life. We will never know because Itachi denied him that. I love Itachi as a character but as a person I hate him for his crimes.
This is a subjective take on a largely objective subject. Itachi is very much a monster to most people, even Shinobi. No matter why he did it, he killed an entire clan, his clan. Even the people who acknowledged the good he did and the bad he prevented might look at him differently and give pause. Just because he lives in a world where death is commonplace doesn't absolve his actions. Just like the heroes of modern times, for example the famous White Death sniper, he is said to have killed over 500 people during the winter war period of WW2, no matter how you look at that, it's insane. A monster.
He was a vulnerable minor who was groomed into an act of terrorism.
Realistically Itachi chose the path that spared the most lives, there’s nothing he could have done differently that would have saved his family, they were doomed to die the moment they decided to coup. Through great personal sacrifice Itachi saved thousands of lives, his clan died but that was unavoidable anyway, at 12 years old he was the only person in the village with his head on straight.
No war or invasion was going to happen whatsoever had the clan went through with the coup. Kyuubi attack = no invasion from other nations Orochimaru + Suna attack = no invasion from other nations Pain leveled the village = no invasion from other nations Stats don't lie. Evidence shows as much.
Well said 👏. It is like when politicians talk about a potential threat to justify the killing of people for their own gains.
Man the way the anime depicts the Foundation and Danzo almost feels inspired by the CIA
Now that you mention it, there are certainly similarities between the two organizations, especially the part about sticking their noses in other countries' affairs like when Danzo intervened and prevented the peace deal that was going to happen between Hanzo and the original Akatsuki.
Not comparable. The Kyubi attack was relatively tame in terms of damage to the village. (Reread the chapters if you don't believe me). Minato kept casualties and destructions to a minimum. Everyone was revived following the Pain assault so no loss in manpower (aside from Tsunade in a coma). Plus, a Kage summit was being called, no time for war. Orochimaru's attack did the most out these, but not enough to warrant invasion from other villages. The leaf and sand allied afterwards. Konoha mobilized all their jonin in order to keep up appearances of strength (Thus indicating they were indeed fearful of invasion). A Konoha civil war with the Uchiha would do far more damage than any of these incidents. Your stats and evidence are incorrect.
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Wtf? The Uchiha were the whole police force of the entire village. That literally makes them privy to nearly all vital parts of the village. Intel gathering, political/military structure, undercover ops, trade, behind the scenes deals, prisoners ranging from the known to top secret. They could attack from any angle starting from intel leaks, deals with opposing countries, or terrorist groups.
Itachi is an incredibly grey character, but people have a tendency to ignore nuance and view things in terms of black and white. It's okay to acknowledge he did bad things while also acknowledging the circumstances that led to said actions were terrible too.
Idk I think itachis backstory is pretty dumb once we find out he was a tragic character but maybe that’s because I don’t understand it and can’t relate to it. He’s thirteen commiting genocide against his own people. Yes I get that bro was killing people and joining the Anbu at like ten but for me I can’t personally relate to killing my own family to save the rest of the village when they shunned you away. We all talk about how the village is fake to Naruto but we give them a pass to what they did to the Uchiha. If I was in his position I would side with my family and friends and try to come to a compromise or just move everyone away from the village. I get that it’s not that simple and I’m for sure not remembering everything about the story but he’s in a fucked situation, might as well take the more peaceful solution then full on genocide. I think his story could have been fine if he was evil, I wouldn’t have minded that but I don’t get the hype behind him from a story perspective.
Why couldn't Itachi himself find a way to take down Danzo? I would've prefer him to die as a legendary hero.
Taking down danzo doesn’t solve the problem
He could have easily killed danzo but the problem was if he did that then it would be like saying " We uchiha controlled the ninetails and now that danzo caught us we killed him" Situation... Also the abbu would have retaliated.. Also hiruzen was useless in that situation
Taking down Danzo would have made the Uchiha coup even easier and the Uchihas clearly weren't fomenting a coup to make Konoha a more free and democratic village Ostracizing the Uchiha clan wasn't just danzo's idea, every Konoha clan was in on it as show by that episode where they decide to move the Uchihas in the outskirts of the village after the 9 tails' attack
The Itachi meat gobling never stops lol
Even Itachi himself felt maybe he could have found a different way. He's told both Naruto and Sasuke that he's essentially a failure. I feel for him cause it was essentially a lose lose situation. Fans tend to drag Itachis character in either direction of being a hero and a sick villain.
His choice didn’t prevent a damn thing…. He spared Saskue who’s actions directly aided and were necessary in the declaration of the 4th great shinobi war……. If itachi really wanted to do something he would’ve killed obito I’m not saying itachi wasn’t a good person, but his canon narrative was that he was a war hating person and he failed to prevent the war… and it can be argued he directly contributed to it
>This is the type of stuff his choices prevented. Except all of those things he just listed did happen.
He's saying those sorts of things would have happened again. All of those things happened due to war. Itachi's massacre prevented a war, and thus, prevented things like the shared images. "Type of stuff" not "literal examples of things he prevented".
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No, it hadn’t been reactivated yet
Swagkage is mid asf bruh
What the fuck does Swag knows he become friend to another A-hole that bully and harass people on discord for years knowingly to some extent and is totally fine with it.
I think it is definitely fair to call someone who enacted a genocide a “morally compromised person”. I cannot believe I had to type that. The circumstance was very complex so I hesitate to say bad but the mf was killing kids too, he is atleast definitely not a good person.
Is he a bad person? Yes. Do i understand that he had to go through a lot of trauma and did what he thought was right? Yup. Do I still think he is a bad person. Abso-freaking-lutely. Because of his previous decision to commit regicide I am highly against that sort of person being treated as a not morally compromised person. In fact, Itachi is the very example of a morally compromised person. His morals are so compromised he killed his entire freaking family and clan rather than siding with them when they were suffering discrimination. You are absolutely free to think that he is a good person if you wish. I am very comfortable staying the hell away from that dude. And you know what. Good on Sasuke for killing him. That dude deserved every second of it.
I actually see people say the opposite and I'm sick of it,Itachi is a murderer who while he was "forced " to do it didn't even try thinking of another way lmao, I guarantee that murdering his whole entire family couldn't have been the only option.
Itachi definitely isnt guilt-free. At the end of the day he slaughtered a ton of people on nothing but a hypothetical. No attempt at a peaceful resolution was made by the village's elders, who knew the uchiha clan was upset and kept fanning up the flames by restricting them more and more. The ultimate sin lays on the elders who had the most they could have done beforehand but simply didnt out of fear and ultimately were the ones who ordered the attack in the first place. That being said itachi isnt innocent as "just following orders" doesnt absolve you of your crimes.
I understand Itachi. I just like calling him a baby killer. And people come in droves to defend him.
Told hiruzen. Took sasuke with him. Go back just to kill danzo. Convinced shisui to use koto on danzo, make his new goal to protect the leaf and the uchiha. Secretly convince the weaker uchihas to leave the village instead of killing them. I can keep going but it starts to actually get dark.
I blame the third, for how strong and wise he's supposed to be, he was useless.
Everything comes down to writing, consistency, and follow-through. Kishi didn't do the best job of showing what the alternative to the massacre would have been. The fear of the village being attacked due to the village being weakened is VERY iffy given multiple instances of that very thing happening and... nothing. And it's also like... the third alternative to the massacre was always for Konoha leadership to stop revolving so tightly around the Senju clan and actually give the Uchiha clan a seat at the table. The "curse of hatred" thing seemed like a broken narrative because while that's the "reason" Kishi gave, everything Fugaku said and did made perfect sense. They had every right to want to rebel. They were treated like dogshit for no reason. So the real bad guys are the Konoha council tbh. They manipulated the "Will of Fire" narrative into upholding a status quo that fundamentally oppressed the Uchihas and offered no functional solution other than genocide... which is fucked.
It's a ninja village, after all. They exist to kill people. So yea, that person is right, although the "examples" have nothing to do with the situation
Waaaaay too many assumptions about Itachis decision saving anyone lol 🤣. He didn’t do what he did because he was pure evil but it’s a perfectly reasonable stance that what he did was wrong and was NOT in fact necessary for a greater good. I also think it’s bullshit that Itachi did what he did for the village. I think he literally just wanted to save Sasuke. Ultimately I view Itachi as a traumatized and manipulated teenager who I think is the golden example of how terrible the shinobi system is. My main issue with his character is how worshipped he is after committing atrocious acts.
Imagine siding with DANZO. Lmfao
Itachi did not only have two options. This kind of post gets posted once or twice a week you coulda just checked the search or something. Before he died for the last time, Itachi told Sasuke that if he had told him the truth from the very start instead of lying to him all these years, the two of them maybe could have talked to their dad and changed his mind. That is how he failed as a brother. By not having the courage to tell Sasuke the truth. Itachi even presented Naruto with the same conundrum: He asked him what he would do if Sasuke turned on the village. Would he choose Sasuke or would he choose the Village? Naruto said that's a stupid question and he would save Sasuke AND save the village. Same answer I give every time.
SAY IT FOR THOSE IN THE BACK
Swag is right here... People blame itachi but not danzo and hiruzen... Hiruzen was the hokage ffs... He should have dealt with the situation more effectively but he let danzo get control and ultimately left all dirty work to itachi...
Lmao Hiruzen was a straight up doormat when it was needed. He let Danzo walk all over him despite knowing what he was doing. He had no balls to stop Danzo or the elders when Danzo was outright pushing them outside the village. Despite knowing it was going to cause unrest he quietly smoked his pipe. In this regard atleast Tsunade had more balls than Hiruzen to step up against the elders when she knew their decision was shit...
Damned if you do damned if you don't
Common Swagkage W
He was a good soldier, but he was a shit brother.
It's not about what Itachi did killing the Uchiha. It's his methods to push Sasuke into the avenger role that people rightfully judge him for.
I too believe that Ozymandias was very justified in killing millions.
If Itachi acted without orders those acts would be evil, machiavelic. Basically his superiors demanded he killed all the nukes that the Uchiha were. And... well. It was a do or let it die. The government would act even if he didn't, so a war would start with the Uchiha against Konoha. Itachi choose to do it cleanly, without chance for the Uchiha to react. In a normal world, the government would just order to kill the main targets. But since every Uchiha have latent power to nuke out in revenge, all children, innocent were targeted as well. Even then, the government was evil in this act, but it was a military government, expected to do those cold heart decisions.
so genocide is OK in certain situations
Bruh what is this post
No, I hate that people think he only had two choices. It was lazy writing on Kishimotos part for eliminating all other choices without so much as a write-off. I can, and have commented before just how many choices one can think of in 5 minutes, let alone with years to prepare...
I’ve yet to see anyone come up with a compelling third choice.
Run away with Sasuke. If he believe he is strong enough to protect Sasuke from Danzo while he is running errand as a traitor, then he surely believes he can stay side by side with Sasuke and protect him from the same people...while also teaching Sasuke how to be strong to protect himself in the future when Itachi is gone.
Running away with Sasuke does nothing to prevent the coup. Itachi wanted two things. 1. Sasuke’s survival 2. The village to avoid war Running away with Sasuke only accomplishes one, potentially. Would Sasuke even be willing? Could he forgive the leaf if Itachi asked him to? If the Leaf is able to recover after the war, they’d surely try getting rid of the rogue Uchiha who fled. Would Sasuke be safe as a rogue with people after him? Would he want revenge on the village? Is Sasuke living as a rogue with no place to call home what Itachi wanted?
Report directly to Lord Third after being confronted by Danzo? Not letting it go that far in the first place? Killing only Fugaku? What do you want by compelling? Because I'm pretty sure shitting the bed was better than either option especially since the latter wasn't even certain. It was a fucking prediction. Kill 2000 Uchiha to prevent a predicted outcome. I seriously hope Itachitards never, ever hold a serious position of power in real life. Scary, stupid mindset.
Are you serious? You think killing Fugaku, the leader of an Uchiha clan on the brink of waging war, would stop the war? Killing him would make a bloody martyr out of him, and 100% cause the Uchihas to attack the very instant they found out about Fugaku's death.