#Konoha

[krikunjayvoice]

[petricorah]

happy (late) bokuaka day~! [ids in alt]

[uchiha-itachi-amaterasu]

By jumper433

[ultfreakme]

The shinobi of Naruto don't give a crap about the people they're supposed to be defending.

Hidden Villages are the military bases for each land. The people who live there are more loyal to their villages than they are to their lands. None of the characters from Konoha mention the daimyou, the citizens, or the Land of Fire despite being their vassals. This might seem counterintuitive since a lack of loyalty to the Daimyou would make the Hidden Villages more liable to rebellion & attacks.

This is mitigated by two things:

In canon we've been told the Hidden Villages more or less keep each other in check and occupied by constantly spurring internal conflict between countries & each other to be relevant.

The loyalty to the village and its ethos has made them so dedicated to the well-being of the village that none of them give a shit about the world outside of it.

There are many scenes in Naruto where we are shown assassinations and escort missions for civilians, but outside of Land of Waves, no character has given a thought to them. This distance helps desensitize the shinobi to the actions they may take against people.

If you're so caught up in the 'Will of Fire' and 'for the honor of Konoha', you will justify anything. We have seen characters do this. The most glaring example is the Chuunin Exam where these kids mutilate each other out of loyalty to their Village. The social norms of a Hidden Village are distant from civilian life and created specifically to make these people into unquestioning, isolated weapons who can't fathom a life outside of this violent system. Though it exists, likely very very closely.

Additionally, the fact that missions cost money, and the more expensive ones have higher priorities and rankings mean the rich and influential civilians are the ones hiring them. Mainly, nobility. Considering shinobi are used for political manouevering, 9/10 times, our Konoha Ninjas are being used to suppress and control the working class. Not only are shinobi distanced from civilians, they are used to suppress them.

Kishimoto wrote one of the best set-ups to explore dehumanization and the use of the military to control the populous and just did not care to expand on it because lbr, Naruto is Nationalist Propaganda.

[dannyrebib]

[oodearest]

I’ve found myself back into Naruto after being somewhat indifferent to the end of Shippuden. Was not a huge fan of that final arc.

Anyways I remember initially being annoyed and/or disappointed with some of Sasuke’s actions towards the end of the series. Don’t get me started on him immediately trying to fight Naruto after they ended an entire WAR. Grrr!!

But I’m able to articulate better why I found the whole ‘let’s get Sasuke back’ rhetoric in Shippuden so frustrating. This might get long so bear with me, might as well format this as a zany essay while I’m at it.

Mission get Sasuke back — The terrible, no good experience of having your trauma ignored

It’s been a while so I could be wrong, but I feel like team 7 never address how absolutely valid Sasuke’s desire to leave is? Kakashi touches on it when he tries to reason with Sasuke pre-defection but I don’t think it ever got through.

In Sakura and Naruto’s case, they want him back, they say they want to be a team again, but none of them ever considers his perspective?

The inherent racism against the Uchiha

Their approach is pretty tone deaf honestly. Sasuke’s a victim of violence. His people were massacred. At the start of the series it’s only been like 5 years since it happened. Sasuke has no one. He also can’t trust anyone. Prior to the massacre the village ostracised them and feared them. In Sasuke’s lifetime, the village has never been welcoming to his identity as an Uchiha.

To top it all off this hatred was incited YEARS earlier by non other than the village’s own second Hokage. It’s pretty vile how much passive and oftentimes—straight up overt—racism is directed towards the Uchiha and no one ever calls it out?

Honestly after Sasuke learns the truth from Itachi, why would he ever feel at peace in the village again? How could he ever return there knowing what they allowed? Does he even fit in there? Did he belong in the first place?

The loneliness of processing his people’s oppresion

These are some complex issues. Sasuke starts tackling them at 12 when he first leaves and only really process it by the end of the war. He spends his adolescence seeking revenge, when he gets it he spends the remainder of the series grieving. He’s mourning, he’s searching for the truth, he’s trying to grasp anything tangible in this awful world he’s inhabiting.

I cannot stress how MAD I get when Sakura and Naruto are like come back, we miss you, what about our bond 🥺 Like guys priorities?? Sasuke is single-handedly tackling systematic corruption and discrimination, give him a minute.

All things considered, he handles those issues in lik four years. He’s pretty efficient.

Overall I don’t think Sasuke’s problem was ever about losing his morals or succumbing to rage. That played a role of course. But the crux of his issue was him fighting for himself, his people and getting justice for something that was largely brushed aside.

I think it’s disappointing that we don’t see more support from team 7 or the village. No rage on Sasuke’s behalf? Not even a brief acknowledgment that the previous leadership was cooked and unfortunately dropped the ball on protecting his people.

Does forgiveness even apply here?

Naruto is a series about forgiveness and redemption. Which can be so beautiful. However I get the sense they want Sasuke to move on from anger and that’s so not possible given what he experienced. There’s a reason reparations is a big part of reconciliation. Konoha was never going to do that under its current leadership.

Konoha is a system. If Sasuke opposes that system then it’s simply him paving a better way for himself. I don’t get why that concept is hard for them to understand. This village is so cooked that the Sannin peaced out of there as soon as they could. Didn’t even come back post Kyuubi attack.

Naruto is a forgiving character, but as someone who also got done dirty by the village it’s sad that he didn’t understand why Sasuke couldn’t drop all of his grief and plans, to simply return to being one of Konoha’s soldiers.

Anyways there’s a lot of nuance missing here that I didn’t go into detail about. Sasuke objectively did some horrible things. Shippuden is him processing trauma realtime, it’s not a surprise that he’s messy, raw and self-destructive. I switch between being so frustrated with him then feeling so sad about his circumstances.

They could never make me form a one-dimensional opinion on you Sasuke! You’re worth thousands of think pieces.

[captaindelighte]

♥️

[lilmeowchow]

luckily naruto is my specialty, hidden villages are funded by their daimyo's (feudal lords) and it says in narutopedia,

"daimyō is responsible for all decisions concerning their country, from alliances to the annual budget to the privileges allowed to the country's hidden village"

so you were right in saying the villages supporting themselves doesn't make sense, because they don't. and your idea about the samurai system was basically dead on.

this is why theres hidden villages like the hot springs village that straight up disband, because its not really in their control if they're going to get funding.

and honestly im not sure if daimyo's have a huge concern for battle with other hidden villages in that way because they almost never ever actually happen in a hidden village or a capital.

SPOILER: (this is why is was such a huge deal that Pein destroyed the leaf village)

because as far as we know a fight has never reached a hidden village or destroyed one EVER, even when they were being established.

as for the training the next generations, this really varies on the hidden village. kakashi tells us that only a third of the graduating class will pass the genin exam but he's not super reliable source. kakashi did NOT want a genin team, he had purposely failed all the teams he had before to get out of being a teacher. kakashi's team when he was a genin was given the bell test only in the anime iirc. so chances are none of the other teams even had a "genin exam".

the mist village graduation ceremony was for one student to kill their whole graduating class, so they were definitely anti-fodder at least.

we barely know anything about the processes of the other villages so i'm not really sure if they're pumping out ninjas asap.

im not sure what to think about jinchuuriki's, by the time Gaara uses his bijuu to attack, Kishimoto was still working out how chakra could be used. (Sarutobi uses water and earth to create a mud clone which should only be possible if he has a bloodlimit). A lot of people agree that bijuu were an afterthought, which is why we barely know anything about the other jinchuuriki until they're about to be killed.

also im not sure how much of this ramble will make sense because what im talking about is the Konoha Crush Arc after the Chunin Exams Arc

Hey, what are your thoughts on the Naruto hidden village systems?

The Disclaimer

As a reminder, my knowledge of Naruto is hilariously bad. Despite writing a giant fic, I got everything I know from fics, vibes, and shit I made up that is probably WRONG.

I made it to the chunin arc in the anime and just past the bridge in the manga. I got to see Orochimaru once, but he wasn't introduced as Orochimaru yet, just that weird dude in the woods.

That is how much of the source material I actually have familiarity with.

So, with these sorts of questions, I readily admit that there's A LOT I don't know and that asking anyone would probably be better.

But Thoughts Anyway/It Kind of Doesn't Make Any Sense, Does It?

This is a very common criticism, definitely not something I ever came up with, but one thing I've seen a lot of is noting that... it doesn't really make sense.

Where the fuck does the money come from?

We see a few jobs for civilians, many within the village, as well as some higher-ranking jobs for more important clients in the Land of Fire... but many of the jobs, and many of those high-ranking jobs, seem to be internal to the village.

Not to mention that we have the wars between the villages... that seem to have been instigated by the villages competing for resources, and not the nations they're housed in which use them as a mercenary force.

And the thing is... how the fuck are they supporting themselves?

If the primary income of hidden villages is shinobi activity, but those services are paid for by shinobi activity, then money has to be coming primarily from outside the village--but it isn't.

A Hidden Village is not a perpetual motion machine, the civilian population is way too small/doesn't have any major industry other than shinobi that could be used to support the village and make it more self-sufficient.

And villages fighting the way they do in the series is very odd as they're dispersed by land, their primary clients are those local to their own country, and sure they're fighting over bijuu... but the conflicts just sort of fall apart if you look at them too closely. Even after all these wars, it's very rare that territory for villages has changed, and definitely not to villages that aren't already very close.

Also, the countries themselves are left helpless to shinobi destroying landscape, villages, etc. when they gain next to nothing from this conflict happening.

(Disclaimer could be I'm totally mistaken about this, and have no idea what I'm talking about, in which case feel free to tell me because I cannot overemphasize I got pretty much everything from other people talking except the very very first bit of the series, entirely possible I'm misunderstanding shit.)

The argument I've seen made, which feels very reasonable, is that it'd make a lot more sense if it was closer to the samurai system that did exist in Japan for an incredibly long time. The Hidden Village would be on retainer for the provincial lords, warring on their behalf, and whatever internal conflicts occurred would be primarily over jockeying for that position where the money is coming from.

This seems to be closer to what was going on in the Warring Clans Era.

But then we get the Villages and... well... I'm sure the provincial lords were appalled and terrified when suddenly the shinobi aren't having their local skirmishes but burning down entire countrysides witht he shinobi from that desert way over there.

What the fuck, guys?

The only way it sort of fits together, if you squint, is that because all the shinobi banded into these singular vilalges, and what remained are essentially ronin--there's nothing the provincial lords can do to reign these guys in and, well, at least they're sort of still on retainer?

But Back to the Villages

Ignoring all of the above, the militant nature/aggressive recruitment and training does make sense as all the villages have been in an arms race since their creation. They push as hard as they do because they have to outgun one another and the next war is just around the corner, as soon as the losers are done licking their wounds and have enough population to give them a fighting chance.

And since the loser is always shafted at the end of each war, to pay for the losses incurred by the victors, we get this cycle where there it becomes an existential threat to ever consider "maybe we shouldn't start a next war", and of course piling on generations of resentment and hatred.

So, we see every village putting their all into training the next generation, albeit focusing on different strategies. Konoha is just as cold-hearted as the others, the difference is that they don't focus on cannon fodder, but instead on individual shinobi who will last longer and keep themselves and teammates (and thus village resources) alive for the next fight. Other villages focus more on a select few and churn out those with lesser talent as quickly as possible (many of these using this strategy in order to recover from heavy losses in previous conflicts).

(And of course there's the villages that implode after conflicts/heavy losses as well as outside factors like "Obito deciding to make the worst king possible because he can")

And that most of them have bijuu has done absolutely nothing to slow down the arms race or prevent conflict, instead promotes a "how much can I get away with before the bijuu come into play" attitude, and even when the bijuu come into play, well, they're in play now.

It's very easy to see how the village got to where it did by the time we meet Naruto, along with why it's so difficult to break the cycle of violence and just how ingrained it all is in the culture itself at this point.

[hinata-boke]

hyping up your kouhai at his part-time job

[azuree1733]

Silly Ino + Sakura doodle 🥰

[krikunjayvoice]

Shine, my stars

[aleksandracoffan]

The Green Beast of Konoha 😤💗

[snakeaterr]

making my dream of hokage madara come true

[airplanecrashingtowardstheground]

always thinking about kakashi hatake being the epitome of a ninja. he is the leaf villages greatest success. he is proof their indoctrination works, that a person can suffer horrible tragedy and grief over and over and still lay his body down for the same institution that caused his trauma. he is konohas greatest achievement and that is so sad

[dannyrebib]