Once, I read a beautifully made essay. I shall post it here. It explains a lot, and made me closer to Sasuke then ever..
Quote:
Picture this.
You’re an eight year old child. You’re in school. You do well. You’re at the head of your class, you receive a great deal of praise, but your family still doesn’t think you measure up to someone that you idolize. So you use your idol as a goal to reach, something to strive for. “I want to be like him,” you tell yourself. “I want to do that.”
Imagine this idol is strong and smart and perfect, to your eight-year-old intuition. Everyone looks up to him. You want to be like that, so you can protect all of the people that matter to you, because you think that’s what he’s doing with his strength.
And then one day, you come home to an unsettling scene. The streets are empty. The lights are out. You turn a corner, and bodies are everywhere. Bodies of people you know, people you cared about.
Now imagine that your idol, deliberately and emotionlessly, went to your house. He would be welcomed, of course, because he is trusted. Imagine that man killing your mother, your father, your friends.
Imagine coming home to that and wondering, why…?
-
Uchiha Sasuke is a prodigy child. But he’s worked for it. Mastering the katon jutsu took time, and he devoted every spare moment he had to learning it, to improve, to impress. He wanted his father to look at him and smile and say “You are my son.” He wants to be claimed. He wants to feel like he belongs, in a world where excelling is expected, where genius is generic.
And in a single day, all of that is taken away. By someone that he loved and respected and looked up to. People don’t just recover from that. They bleed, silently, on the inside where no one can see it if they aren’t looking hard enough.
And then the prodigy, the boy genius, graduates and becomes a ninja. He’s flung into life or death situations, and he excels. He protects the people he wants to protect and is willing to sacrifice himself for them, though he himself doesn’t know why. “My body moved on its own,” he says. From that point on, in the eyes and hearts of three different people, he was student, rival and first crush.
Kakashi looked at Sasuke and saw himself. Saw a boy who watched his family fall apart and decay. Kakashi looked at Sasuke and saw a chance that he was never given.
Naruto looked at Sasuke and saw a jackass. A stuck-up, self-centered arrogant p***k, but one that would have died for him. Naruto looked at Sasuke and saw the first friend he ever had.
Sakura looked at Sasuke and saw a hero. A knight in shining armor who stood in front of her in a fight, who was cool and calm and collected. Sakura looked at Sasuke and saw someone she could love.
All three of them see bits and pieces of Sasuke, but only together do they see the whole of him. And that whole is a broken, fragile boy that none of them on their own can save.
-
Uchiha Sasuke thinks he’s worthless.
This is a canon fact. It’s not out and out stated, but boy is it implied. He’s strong, but never enough to save his precious people; he fights, but never succeeds. He deals with his demons on his own turf in his own time and he fails.
This doesn’t make him a monster. It makes him human.
That’s the part of himself that Sasuke most wants to kill. The part that cares, the part that cries, the part that smiles. Why would any sane person want to do that, you ask? They wouldn’t. Sasuke is not sane. Not entirely. He watched his family die. He watched his brother do it all. His brother who then crammed the fact down his throat with the unforgettable words, ‘If you wish to kill me, hate me, detest me, and survive in an unsightly way. Run. Run and cling to life.’.
Sasuke wants to kill that part of himself because it’s not necessary. Because compassion isn’t going to kill Itachi, nor crying nor cracking a smile. Power is the only thing capable. Power only Sasuke can achieve. Being human means he can be hurt. Risking his life for Naruto, smiling for Sakura, that endangers them. It makes them targets. The last time Sasuke loved anyone, he watched them die and was powerless to do anything about it.
He lived through that once, and he would go through hell before he’d have it happen again. He proves this. He runs away. He knows he could stay in Konohagakure no Sato. He knows he could grow up and grow old and learn to laugh and to love.
But Sasuke lives in a world of ghosts, and they will not let him go so easily. Ghosts that were almost quiescent, ghosts like wounds almost healed. And then what happened? Itachi showed up. Itachi showed up for Naruto. Someone whom Sasuke had come to regard tentatively as a friend. The man who took everything from him was back in his life and again in the vicinity of someone Sasuke cared about, however grudgingly.
What did he do then? He panicked. Part of it was resentment (why isn’t he here for me?) part of it was terror – not for himself, but for Naruto (why is he here for him?) He ran off, recklessly, endangering himself and not caring. Looking for Itachi – looking for Naruto. He had every intention of killing the one to save the other.
It’s doubtful he expected he could beat Itachi. Maybe he thought he’d die trying, but damn, he was going to try. He formed the hand-seals for chidori, and went immediately on the offensive.
Itachi all but ignored him. And when challenged, brought him down without breaking a sweat. “Even now, the gap hasn’t closed at all…”
And then, everything that Sasuke had overcome, everything that he had fought for, his memories, his past, and those ghosts that lingered still, in the blink of an eye it was all brought back. The wounds were no longer four years old and fading. Itachi dug his claws into Sasuke’s fragile, broken mind and he undid all of the good that team seven had done for him. It was, quite bluntly, a psychological rape. It was Itachi showing just how much power he still had over his little brother. It was Itachi using that power, cruel and cold.
Sasuke is not a strong person. Somewhere in his mind, there is still a lost eight year old child, asking again and again, why did all of this have to happen? Sasuke is not a strong person, and the fragile threads he’d been building up, the tentative friendships and all those bonds were not enough to anchor him.
He ******** snapped.
Maybe if he hadn’t been so badly beaten. Maybe if Naruto had actually needed his protection. Maybe then he would have survived that encounter with his personality intact. He didn’t. It tore him apart and once again showed him how he powerless he was.
-
Sasuke isn’t a hero. He isn’t a shining paragon of perfection. He’s not the sort of person you want to become, because he is flawed and because he is broken and because of all the things that made him that way. He carries himself with a sort of desperation, like someone who has dug their own grave and resigned themselves to the fact that one day they will fill it. And in many ways he has.
He walked away from his old life. It was a conscious decision, sparked by Itachi, fuelled by Orochimaru and although all of his precious people tried desperately to save them, they forgot that the theme and heart of the series Naruto is ‘teamwork’. They tried on their own. They failed the same way. Kakashi tied him to a tree and tried in his quiet, damaged way to appeal to his intelligence. Sakura appealed to his emotions. Naruto appealed to everything else.
Sasuke wants them to stop believing in him. He’s not a knight in shining armor; he’s not a very good friend. He wants to be a weapon, and they’re getting in his way. He doesn’t understand what they see in him, why they aren’t willing to let him go. He sees only what’s wrong with him. How many times he’s failed, how frequently he’s fallen down. He doesn’t realize that when he fails, they’re there to pick up the pieces, and when he falls, they’re there to get him back on his feet. He doesn’t realize that he doesn’t have to be perfect to be loved. Sasuke has tunnel vision. At the end of that tunnel is Itachi’s death. Along the way is everything he is going to have to sacrifice to get there. But Itachi is in stark color, black and white and red, and everything else is just shades of gray.
Sasuke is single-minded. He is determined. He wants power and he is willing to do anything for it. Why? So he can rest. So he can be at peace. So the ghosts in his mind can go back to their graves, so he doesn’t have to live in fear every day of his life that Itachi is still alive. He lives in the past. He’s frozen in time, still eight years old, still asking that same damn question over and over again. He desperately wants to hear an answer from Itachi’s own lips.
He’s selfish, in that regard. He’s willing to make a martyr of himself. He’s strung himself up on a cross and waiting for the end, hoping it will come in fire and fury and Itachi’s bloody death at his hands. He doesn’t want help. He needs it, and it’s possible he even knows it, but he doesn’t want it. Why? Because he’s seen what Itachi can do. He’s seen him kill, seen him inflict horrors that no one should ever have to live through. If he goes alone, he’s only risking himself. That’s what he wants. That’s the way he thinks it should be.
-
Sasuke can’t save himself. This is also canon. He’s never tried, and doesn’t understand why he should. He’s not worth the effort.
Kakashi wants to save him because it would be like saying, ‘I told you so,’ to a stubborn fourteen year old boy who got his best friend killed.
Naruto wants to save him because he needs to. Because Sasuke was his first friend and his only rival. Because Sasuke is the one person he couldn't save, and if he can't save Sasuke, he might as well not be able to save anyone else, either.
Sakura wants to save him because she knows just how broken he is, how lost and young, and she desperately wants to protect that part of him, and love the rest of him.
And they’ll only ever do it together. As a team. As a family.
One day, even if it takes them the rest of their lives, they’re going to bring Sasuke home.
You’re an eight year old child. You’re in school. You do well. You’re at the head of your class, you receive a great deal of praise, but your family still doesn’t think you measure up to someone that you idolize. So you use your idol as a goal to reach, something to strive for. “I want to be like him,” you tell yourself. “I want to do that.”
Imagine this idol is strong and smart and perfect, to your eight-year-old intuition. Everyone looks up to him. You want to be like that, so you can protect all of the people that matter to you, because you think that’s what he’s doing with his strength.
And then one day, you come home to an unsettling scene. The streets are empty. The lights are out. You turn a corner, and bodies are everywhere. Bodies of people you know, people you cared about.
Now imagine that your idol, deliberately and emotionlessly, went to your house. He would be welcomed, of course, because he is trusted. Imagine that man killing your mother, your father, your friends.
Imagine coming home to that and wondering, why…?
-
Uchiha Sasuke is a prodigy child. But he’s worked for it. Mastering the katon jutsu took time, and he devoted every spare moment he had to learning it, to improve, to impress. He wanted his father to look at him and smile and say “You are my son.” He wants to be claimed. He wants to feel like he belongs, in a world where excelling is expected, where genius is generic.
And in a single day, all of that is taken away. By someone that he loved and respected and looked up to. People don’t just recover from that. They bleed, silently, on the inside where no one can see it if they aren’t looking hard enough.
And then the prodigy, the boy genius, graduates and becomes a ninja. He’s flung into life or death situations, and he excels. He protects the people he wants to protect and is willing to sacrifice himself for them, though he himself doesn’t know why. “My body moved on its own,” he says. From that point on, in the eyes and hearts of three different people, he was student, rival and first crush.
Kakashi looked at Sasuke and saw himself. Saw a boy who watched his family fall apart and decay. Kakashi looked at Sasuke and saw a chance that he was never given.
Naruto looked at Sasuke and saw a jackass. A stuck-up, self-centered arrogant p***k, but one that would have died for him. Naruto looked at Sasuke and saw the first friend he ever had.
Sakura looked at Sasuke and saw a hero. A knight in shining armor who stood in front of her in a fight, who was cool and calm and collected. Sakura looked at Sasuke and saw someone she could love.
All three of them see bits and pieces of Sasuke, but only together do they see the whole of him. And that whole is a broken, fragile boy that none of them on their own can save.
-
Uchiha Sasuke thinks he’s worthless.
This is a canon fact. It’s not out and out stated, but boy is it implied. He’s strong, but never enough to save his precious people; he fights, but never succeeds. He deals with his demons on his own turf in his own time and he fails.
This doesn’t make him a monster. It makes him human.
That’s the part of himself that Sasuke most wants to kill. The part that cares, the part that cries, the part that smiles. Why would any sane person want to do that, you ask? They wouldn’t. Sasuke is not sane. Not entirely. He watched his family die. He watched his brother do it all. His brother who then crammed the fact down his throat with the unforgettable words, ‘If you wish to kill me, hate me, detest me, and survive in an unsightly way. Run. Run and cling to life.’.
Sasuke wants to kill that part of himself because it’s not necessary. Because compassion isn’t going to kill Itachi, nor crying nor cracking a smile. Power is the only thing capable. Power only Sasuke can achieve. Being human means he can be hurt. Risking his life for Naruto, smiling for Sakura, that endangers them. It makes them targets. The last time Sasuke loved anyone, he watched them die and was powerless to do anything about it.
He lived through that once, and he would go through hell before he’d have it happen again. He proves this. He runs away. He knows he could stay in Konohagakure no Sato. He knows he could grow up and grow old and learn to laugh and to love.
But Sasuke lives in a world of ghosts, and they will not let him go so easily. Ghosts that were almost quiescent, ghosts like wounds almost healed. And then what happened? Itachi showed up. Itachi showed up for Naruto. Someone whom Sasuke had come to regard tentatively as a friend. The man who took everything from him was back in his life and again in the vicinity of someone Sasuke cared about, however grudgingly.
What did he do then? He panicked. Part of it was resentment (why isn’t he here for me?) part of it was terror – not for himself, but for Naruto (why is he here for him?) He ran off, recklessly, endangering himself and not caring. Looking for Itachi – looking for Naruto. He had every intention of killing the one to save the other.
It’s doubtful he expected he could beat Itachi. Maybe he thought he’d die trying, but damn, he was going to try. He formed the hand-seals for chidori, and went immediately on the offensive.
Itachi all but ignored him. And when challenged, brought him down without breaking a sweat. “Even now, the gap hasn’t closed at all…”
And then, everything that Sasuke had overcome, everything that he had fought for, his memories, his past, and those ghosts that lingered still, in the blink of an eye it was all brought back. The wounds were no longer four years old and fading. Itachi dug his claws into Sasuke’s fragile, broken mind and he undid all of the good that team seven had done for him. It was, quite bluntly, a psychological rape. It was Itachi showing just how much power he still had over his little brother. It was Itachi using that power, cruel and cold.
Sasuke is not a strong person. Somewhere in his mind, there is still a lost eight year old child, asking again and again, why did all of this have to happen? Sasuke is not a strong person, and the fragile threads he’d been building up, the tentative friendships and all those bonds were not enough to anchor him.
He ******** snapped.
Maybe if he hadn’t been so badly beaten. Maybe if Naruto had actually needed his protection. Maybe then he would have survived that encounter with his personality intact. He didn’t. It tore him apart and once again showed him how he powerless he was.
-
Sasuke isn’t a hero. He isn’t a shining paragon of perfection. He’s not the sort of person you want to become, because he is flawed and because he is broken and because of all the things that made him that way. He carries himself with a sort of desperation, like someone who has dug their own grave and resigned themselves to the fact that one day they will fill it. And in many ways he has.
He walked away from his old life. It was a conscious decision, sparked by Itachi, fuelled by Orochimaru and although all of his precious people tried desperately to save them, they forgot that the theme and heart of the series Naruto is ‘teamwork’. They tried on their own. They failed the same way. Kakashi tied him to a tree and tried in his quiet, damaged way to appeal to his intelligence. Sakura appealed to his emotions. Naruto appealed to everything else.
Sasuke wants them to stop believing in him. He’s not a knight in shining armor; he’s not a very good friend. He wants to be a weapon, and they’re getting in his way. He doesn’t understand what they see in him, why they aren’t willing to let him go. He sees only what’s wrong with him. How many times he’s failed, how frequently he’s fallen down. He doesn’t realize that when he fails, they’re there to pick up the pieces, and when he falls, they’re there to get him back on his feet. He doesn’t realize that he doesn’t have to be perfect to be loved. Sasuke has tunnel vision. At the end of that tunnel is Itachi’s death. Along the way is everything he is going to have to sacrifice to get there. But Itachi is in stark color, black and white and red, and everything else is just shades of gray.
Sasuke is single-minded. He is determined. He wants power and he is willing to do anything for it. Why? So he can rest. So he can be at peace. So the ghosts in his mind can go back to their graves, so he doesn’t have to live in fear every day of his life that Itachi is still alive. He lives in the past. He’s frozen in time, still eight years old, still asking that same damn question over and over again. He desperately wants to hear an answer from Itachi’s own lips.
He’s selfish, in that regard. He’s willing to make a martyr of himself. He’s strung himself up on a cross and waiting for the end, hoping it will come in fire and fury and Itachi’s bloody death at his hands. He doesn’t want help. He needs it, and it’s possible he even knows it, but he doesn’t want it. Why? Because he’s seen what Itachi can do. He’s seen him kill, seen him inflict horrors that no one should ever have to live through. If he goes alone, he’s only risking himself. That’s what he wants. That’s the way he thinks it should be.
-
Sasuke can’t save himself. This is also canon. He’s never tried, and doesn’t understand why he should. He’s not worth the effort.
Kakashi wants to save him because it would be like saying, ‘I told you so,’ to a stubborn fourteen year old boy who got his best friend killed.
Naruto wants to save him because he needs to. Because Sasuke was his first friend and his only rival. Because Sasuke is the one person he couldn't save, and if he can't save Sasuke, he might as well not be able to save anyone else, either.
Sakura wants to save him because she knows just how broken he is, how lost and young, and she desperately wants to protect that part of him, and love the rest of him.
And they’ll only ever do it together. As a team. As a family.
One day, even if it takes them the rest of their lives, they’re going to bring Sasuke home.
