#I don't know how cohesive or readable this is since I didn't write it all in one go like my other posts

[watermelonsloth]

No, Sasuke Did A Lot Wrong

(Disclaimer: There's nothing wrong with liking Sasuke as a character or sympathizing with his backstory. I'm also not talking about all Sasuke fans, only the extreme "pro-sasuke/anti-konoha/anti-itachi" fans.)

I'm getting pretty sick of the defenses used by Sasuke fans to justify his behavior throughout shippuden. The defenses themselves are fine enough, Sasuke did have plenty of reasons for his anger and resulting actions, but his fans always seem to be trying to absolve him of blame. The worst of them even act as if you're some morally reprehensible monster if you dare say Sasuke made a lot of terrible decisions that hurt a lot of people. God help the poor soul who dares to like Itachi or Tobirama.

I'm not going to defend Konoha or their actions here and, from what I can tell, no one else is. The entire shinobi world is fucked up in a frustratingly realistic way, so it makes sense that anyone trying to do something to fix it would immediately earn audience sympathy and relatability. However, most of those characters are villains. Why? It's not because the Naruto series is pro-violence, authoritarianism, war, or complacency. It's because they're terrorists. They react to personal wrongdoing, sometimes perceived but often not, by creating violent plans that are undeniably extremist. Madara and Obito basically wanted to hard reset the world by placing everyone into an eternal genjutsu and Nagato wanted to nuke the planet every time a country asked for war until all conflict disappeared. Those are objectively bad plans that would put the world into an even worse state and I hope I don't have to explain why.

Sasuke's "revolution" was no better. As a quick reminder, these were Sasuke's plans to "fix" the shinobi world: first he wanted to destroy Konoha, then he wanted to become a tyrant over Konoha, and lastly he wanted to act as a threat so dangerous that the world was forced into cooperation to fight him off. Not one of these plans is good. All of them would catch many innocent lives in the crossfire and none of them would build a better world. The best argument to defend Sasuke's goals is "complacency to wrongdoing makes you just as guilty as the wrongdoer." Ignoring that that argument is flawed, especially in the context it would theoretically be used, that argument still wouldn't change the fact that his methods are violent and extremist.

What makes all of this worse is that Sasuke's goals are also extremely hypocritical. Tell me if this sounds familiar: to prevent future conflict, one Uchiha erases a group of people because select members of that group were a potential risk. That Uchiha, in this process, agrees to take on all responsibility for this action and all anger resulting from the fallout. Was I talking about Sasuke's initial goal to change Konoha? No, I was talking about the Uchiha Massacre. His goal to become a feared tyrant over Konoha to reform it into a more peaceful state according to his image bears a striking resemblance to Danzo Shimura, of all people. His final plan is the only one that can be considered uniquely his, but if you simplify it to its core(an individual taking the burden of all of the world's hatred onto their shoulders), then it mirrors the intention of Madara(and sort of Obito, but mostly Madara). Sasuke is repeating history by mimicking the solution that he's already experienced being in the crossfire of, the goals of a monster he scorned for his morals, and the plan he personally watched fall to pieces.

Of course, this is a post about Sasuke's actions, not the plans he never enacted. The most he could be punished for is conspiracy. So, let's talk about what he did. I'd say for all of part 1 and the start of shippuden, Sasuke's worst offense is being a bit of a snarky jackass. He wasn't cruel, he had a set of morals that he consistently held himself and others to, and he deeply cared for his friends and allies. His interactions with Itachi were upsetting, Orochimaru manipulating him was tragic, and his struggle to decide between his friends and revenge was interesting. The most morally skewed thing he did was his fight with Naruto, but even that was forgivable. The start of shippuden maintains him being mostly in the clear: he nearly kills team Yamato, he kills Orochimaru, he starts traveling with some morally questionable people(scaring the crap out of some civilians and stealing a sword in the process), and he fights and kills Itachi. Again, he's not exactly a stand up citizen, but he remains just and easily forgivable. The Five Kage Summit arc is where this changes.

After learning the truth about the Uchiha Massacre and Itachi's true role in it from Obito, the Five Kage Summit arc begins with Sasuke joining the Akatsuki(a.k.a technically a mercenary group, but better called a terrorist organization considering their, at this point known, goals). The arc is easily a shift in the story's direction(for better or worse), meaning a shift in the main characters, and easily an arc I'm going to discuss in more depth in the future. Sasuke's character shift is revealed to be downward when he and the rest of team Taka attack and "kill" Killer Bee. I don't care how much you like Sasuke or how much you agree with his anger, you cannot justify him attacking and attempting to murder someone who has done nothing but be a jinchuuriki. Soon after Sasuke's role in the attack is revealed, Karui, Omoi, and Samui leave to Konoha to tell the Hokage about the planned five kage summit and that Kumogakure is taking the responsibility of Sasuke's punishment out of Konoha's hands. This is the arc where Sasuke undeniably becomes a criminal and his crimes have victims. Say what you want about Konoha and complacency and injustice, but let's make some things clear.

Killer Bee had nothing to do with the Uchiha Massacre.

Kumogakure had nothing to do with the injustices Sasuke was fighting against.

The samurai of the Land of Iron had nothing to do with shinobi affairs.

Team Taka didn't deserve to be betrayed for being "too weak."

I didn't make this post to complain about Sasuke or make him out to be a bad character. Actually, I think he's one of the best written within the series and he's among my favorites. Sasuke is a morally complex character, a fantastic foil to Naruto, an impactful warning on what happens when someone is consumed by hatred and abandons their humanity in pursuit of their goals, and the end of his arc was really nice(until Boruto ruined it, but that's another rant for another day). I get so upset about people making Sasuke out to be an innocent or wholly justified character, not only because those same people often take an undeserved moral high ground and talk down to/shame people for having problematic favorites as if Sasuke isn't problematic, but because it doesn't give his character the credit it deserves. Sasuke is such a good character because he and his actions are imperfect. He's good because he is morally complex.

The Naruto series is about a boy who is ostracized by his home and targeted by a terrorist organization for something he has no control over. He responds to his circumstances by building connections, finding peace, and making an attempt to change both himself and the world around him rather than giving into his anger and lashing out. Naruto and many other characters struggle to maintain their humanity in a world that seeks to destroy it. Sasuke's story is not one of a tragic hero burning his perpetrators and the world that allowed them to the ground. His story is about a hurt and manipulated child abandoning more and more of his humanity under the assumption that it'll somehow help him do good in a bad world until he becomes the bad. His story ends with him confronting that humanity and coming to terms with it because there was still someone waiting for him with a hand held out.

[hikaritranslations]

Hello :0c, I love your translations! I was wondering what program you use to translate them. (Or does someone else translate it?)

I actually use several to double check work! Funny enough, though I recently discovered another rather amazing site that does this for free as well as one I do plan to use to pay for to help further my studies! (Kanji still trips me up but the break didn't help xD)

I'll start with the latter first, I'm currently studying under WaniKani.com, an AMAZING site that works with you online to really get the kanji down and explains them in such simple terms that it's actually been fairly easy for me to understand! They do a rather reasonable amount of teaching for free so you can do the trial and see if it's something that will stick with you before paying for the full amount.

You get to use it for free up until Level 4 but even lessons 1-3 are very useful for someone learning the language! To equivalate that it's a full school year's worth of Kanji and for the JLPT N5 test about 55% needed to know for it. Quite a helpful source if I say so myself! (NOT sponsored by the way! Just really impressed with the program so far!) Next would be actually using Google translate to draw out the sentences so I have a better understanding in writing them, if I write them down, they tend to stick better for me so I use this method quite frequently. There are occasionally some that are VERY complex, as I'm sure you as a reader would be aware of if you have seen the originals in their beautiful form, from there I go to Jisho.org! A completely free site that let's you narrow down the kanji via stroke order and even look further into sentence structures/ words that have that specific kanji, ect. It's been a GODSEND for years in my work and research. Finally, last one is a recent addition to my help links in referencing and understanding the structure of sentences completely. How to make them appear more fluid and readable to those of us who understand English easier. This wonderful site is known as DeepL Translate. Now, there are two versions of it that I'm aware of and so far it has been 100x's more intuitive compared to Google in translation and sentence wording! Impressive since it was designed by a much smaller company in EU. You can use either free or if you find it's worth the price, Pro depending on your situation. I'm only operating on the free version so far and I'm finding that this is currently all I need to help reword and restructure sentences to make them more cohesive to English speakers/readers. So, to recap, I write down what I know in Google translate, research what I don't on Jisho, copy and paste those into GT and once I have the complete sentence, I move over to DeepL to double check my findings along with wording of the story so it shows the same fluidity that it would in the original creation! It's VERY time consuming but a HUGE amount of fun for someone like me who desperately wants to keep the integrity of the artist's work intact but ensure others in the audience can experience it first hand! I do plan to implement these and other methods as I go from here since it's been quite some time since I've been able to return due to circumstances beyond my control but hopefully this will give you a small idea to what I use primarily for translating assistance. And yes, unfortunately I am but one person doing all of the editing, translating, and polishing for each one individually so it does take quite a bit of time to accomplish xD