#ENOUGH BRTO ANALYSIS!

[cartoonrival]

like sasuke is clearly deeply unhappy in boruto which is fine, i honestly think its GOOD that he's not just like suddenly content with his life and himself after the finale of shippuden, its just also sort of insane that the post canon where he is no longer the focus is one where he's so potently miserable. he's clearly still reluctant to really face konoha. he still feels like an outcast or a bad apple, he still thinks he needs to atone for what he did as a teenager, despite the fact that he's been actively atoning for like a decade. but it'll never be enough. the only person he is not afraid to face and does not think he has failed is naruto, but even then he is still eager to isolate himself again, and i KNOW that its isolating and not just "being by himself" (sasuke has never been an outwardly emotional person (except under major duress), and while i believe a lot of this is repression its also just how he is, so no amount of healing would make him as open as, say, naruto, but i digress) because these are not the words of a happy man. "if she hates me its fine, because at least the future will be bright". "this is also a journey of atonement." naruto WANTS him to stay, believes its been long enough, the people of konoha don't hate him anymore (not sure how true this is but it's what naruto believes/wants to be true), but sasuke says they should stick to what they're meant to do, which means naruto as the hokage, because he is well loved and good with people, and sasuke in the shadows, because he is meant to be alone and unrecognized.

tbc i don't think that sasuke could be happy "settling down," i don't think he DOESNT like being on the move all the time, but the scene with naruto where he leaves konoha without saying goodbye to anybody is clearly not a scene where sasuke is content with his life in the way naruto is. he isn't doing this because he wants to, its because he thinks that he has to suffer in order to be good, and that the people of konoha wouldn't accept him any other way. it IS TRUE that sasuke has always been a big believer in sacrifice for the greater good and wouldn't consider his own happiness to be important compared to the missions he needed to go on, regardless of how deserving of happiness he considered himself to be, but i absolutely refuse to believe that, if he DID believe he deserved it, there has been NO TIME EVER that he could come home and just be regular. just for a little. there is absolutely something that is pushing him out of konoha, unrelated to "i have a mission to go on." there's still a disconnect.

WHICH. unfortunately. brings me to. end of shippuden. he receives a letter from naruto praising him for protecting the village even without being there, he thinks, "maybe it's time to come home." sometime before he comes home, he catches wind that naruto is getting married. he sends a letter with nothing on it other than "congratulations," and he does not come home. for like 4 more years. next time he's home for an extended period of time it's when sakura has already giving birth to sarada and he's helping raise her until she's juuuust old enough to start retaining memories before he fucks off again.

he doesn't want to be around sarada and sakura. he doesn't want them to worry about him or concern themselves with him. he doesn't want to be affectionate with sakura, who clearly DOES want to be affectionate with him. he considers the fact that he and sakura had a kid together to be the thing that most connects them, which is only significant in this case because anyone with eyes can tell that they are not really connected in basically any other way. it's like the ring he gives her in that dino arc. clearly since you wear a ring now to show we're married it means that we're married even though i'm not doing any of the other things a husband should do, but this ring makes up for that. clearly since we have a kid our hearts are connected and we really do love each other, even though i'm not doing any of the other things someone who really loves you would do. you could argue that his refusal to make any contact with sarada and sakura IS out of love, that he's afraid of hurting them and thinks he's protecting them by staying out of their lives (this is most likely what kishimoto intends), but this claim doesn't have any actual PRECEDENT outside of the fact that i'm being told that sasuke apparently loves her, the evidence for that being well they got married and had a kid. off screen.

i think he feels guilty that sarada even exists, because it's his fault she has no dad and it's his fault she inherited the uchiha's massive capacity for grief and love, it's his fault that sakura is raising her alone, and he's running from this because hopefully he can make up for it by doing good for the whole world since he cannot bring himself to make up for it by being there for his wife and daughter. "she has sakura, she'll be fine" because sakura is more her parent than he will ever/could ever be. he doesnt HATE sakura or sarada, to be very clear. he cares about them both as people, he fully respects sakura's strength, is proud when he sees sarada fighting well, he wants her to be happy and wants her to like him, he wishes he could be a better father and husband to her and sakura. just without having to be their father and husband.

boruto is not good unfortunately but due to the fact that naruto IS good and sasuke's characterization is very lovingly done in the original series it's critical to me (because i am not normal) that i figure out how to connect pieces that kishimoto could not be assed to properly connect. he seems to RECOGNIZE that he's betraying sasuke's characterization by making him have a kid w sakura due to the fact that everything sasuke does after that is p much exactly what i would expect him to do if, through some freak incident, he ended up having a kid with sakura. Anywho