#for someone who resents being a pawn she sure cannot handle not being told what to do

[housewarningparty]

okay i'm finishing up my s1 rewatch and this moment with lilith and the explosives was actually very funny and also wholesome like okay! we're working together now! lilith is a type A proactive control freak on a good day and right now we're also dealing with some brain interference vis a vis magical brainwashing from the otherside SO! it's a little complicated. but she's been talked off the ledge and she wants to help!

HOWEVER. probably not actually a great idea to let her impulsively blow through a bunch of rock with all those explosives! BUT THE GIRLS RECOGNIZE AND RESPECT THE INTENT. AND THEY ALSO KNOW THAT IF THEY DON'T REDIRECT LILITH'S MANIC ENERGY SOMEPLACE THINGS WILL GET BAD AGAIN. so they take her explosives away and she lets them bc she's On Their Side now but she's SO SAD about it and then bea lectures her quite gently and asks her to help drill a hole! A TASK! FINALLY! A PURPOSE!

LOOK AT HER SHE'S HELPING AND SHE'S SO SO SERIOUS ABOUT IT

[lazuliblur]

Obirin manifesto

1) A disclaimer:

I have a huge soft spot for Rin and Kakashi, but Obito is my precious baby. I feel like the manga mishandled him at times, but whatever, that does not change the person he revealed himself to be throughout the series. I have spent a lot of time pondering the dynamics between these three and their individual personalities and I will try to be objective, but my views on Obirin are inevitably colored by my personal interpretation of them.

2) The facts:

Obirin was never unquestionably confirmed in canon. One-sided Obirin (or unrequited Obirin on Obito’s part) was unquestionably confirmed in canon. Mind the distinction. These facts are more or less set in stone and the lack of indisputable confirmation does not make the ship incompatible with canon.

3) Rin is an important person in Obito’s life and has been since very early on.

Chapter 599 shows the tail end of their entrance ceremony at the Academy. Kakashi is there too, so they were, at most, five years old. Did Rin know Obito before this point? If you want to speculate, then there is a chance that yes, she did, since she seems to know who he is when he shows up. Whether this was their first meeting or not, however, matters little. Rin took it upon herself to hold on to Obito’s Academy entrance papers, something that she was under no obligation to do (she could have left it up to the teachers) and that no one else seemed to have any interest in doing (the other children walk past Obito when he arrives, without pausing to greet him or tell him anything about what he missed). Rin does worry about filling him in and the joy in Obito’s face makes it clear that he appreciates the attention and the trouble that she has gone to.

4) Obito’s interest in Rin stems from the fact that she sees him.

Here is a lonely kid, a bit of a screw up, who suddenly meets a pretty girl who was kind and helpful when she didn’t need to be. She did not scold him for being late or resent the task of delivering the papers to him. Rather, she acted like there was nothing wrong about his being late and worked with it: “you weren’t here, so here are the things you missed.” Of course he liked her instantly.

Let’s face it, the Leaf is not a shining example of a tolerant society that protects those that are less fortunate. Obito was an orphan who lived alone and apparently had no caretaker or guardian or adult supervision of any kind (do not talk to me about his anime grandmother, that arc directly contradicts the story and is rubbish). He did not have a lot of sources of affection. We are not even sure if he had any real friends besides Rin and his rival Kakashi.

His love evolved from that foundation of friendship in the purest, most natural way: Rin was nice to him and treated him decently when others would not, so she became important to him. She eventually became his favorite person in the world. Call it a self-centered love if you want, but what love isn’t just a little bit selfish? At the end of the day, you can’t help but love people that somehow make you feel good.

5) Is it a healthy kind of interest? Kind of.

I have seen people call Obito’s love abusive and manipulative. I do not see it. I cannot even understand where the idea came from. Whenever they are seen together, he is nothing if not gentle and supportive of Rin and doesn’t press her to do anything. Just consider operation “give Kakashi a present” (chapter 599). When Rin’s invitation to meet alone turned out to be about Kakashi, Obito pushed down his disappointment and did not get mad at her. He might have been upset that Rin only wanted to do something for Kakashi, but deep down he could recognize that her idea was a good one, that it was something a good friend would do and he didn’t make the slightest effort to change her mind or undermine her plan. Proof of that was that he admits to having spent a long time thinking about what would be an appropriate gift for the great Kakashi himself, before deciding that nothing short of a sharingan would do (chapter 243).

Her friendship was freely given and Obito cherished it. He probably often wondered what he had done to deserve it (he even cries when he realizes that Rin actually listens to him and cares about his safety – see chapter 653). He does, however (and unfortunately for the whole Naruto world), have a tendency towards exaggeration and obsessiveness.

Rin was possibly Obito’s only friend, definitely his best friend, one who showed him kindness and who made him feel like there was nothing wrong about who he was. It’s only natural that he’d want to hold on to that connection and, given his obsessive nature, he held on to it hard. He clung to “the one beam of light in his dark world”. That makes him flawed, but it does not make him an offender. He did not manipulate or blackmail Rin into becoming his friend, nor did he force her to do anything that she was unwilling to do.

5) How interested in her is he then?

Before falling into Madara’s hands, I almost hesitate to qualify Obito’s love for Rin as romantic. He was under thirteen years old and they had a war on their hands. I doubt he had even entered puberty, despite the very deep voice he was initially given in the Kakashi Gaiden animation (wtf), so how could he comprehend all the dimensions that exist in the love one adult feels for another? No, I am convinced that his was a young type of love. He was probably just leaving that stage where “love is gross” and discovering that it would be kind of nice if he could have Rin all to himself. He wanted to kiss Rin’s photograph, not masturbate to it. Those feelings would have only developed as he grew older and matured.

What happened afterwards is a different story. His innocent and straightforward nature coupled with his less than stellar intellect made Obito an easy target for Madara, who used his connection to Rin to break him and reshape him as he pleased. If Rin wasn’t already the center of Obito’s universe, Madara would have had everything to gain by making her just that. He wanted Obito’s feelings to run as deep as they could, his obsession with Rin to be as intense as possible, before snatching her away – and Obito, as innocent and dim as he is (bless him), saw no reason why he shouldn’t run with his obsession. Madara exacerbated what was already there. Obito was the pawn in that relationship, not the chess master, even when Obito believed that he was calling the shots.

6) Rin’s interest in Obito is not like Obito’s interest in Rin.

In chapter 653, you can tell that Obito is already head over heels about Rin. He tries to make himself look cool, like he would be a good catch, coming up with the ludicrous idea that saving him is the same thing as saving the world. And what does Rin do? Well, she finds it as ridiculous as any normal person would but, once again, she accepts his actions and works with them: “I believe in you and in your dream, so I’ll stand by your side to make sure you don’t do anything stupid and are well enough to accomplish it,” is what she basically tells him. She is his friend.

Was Rin aware of Obito’s feelings? It’s possible that she was and never acknowledged them so she wouldn’t have to hurt a friend, but most likely not, given the way she reacted when Kakashi told her about it after they believe they have lost Obito (chapter 244). She may have known it subconsciously, but her infatuation with Kakashi blinded her to what other boys thought. Does this “blindness” make her a bad person? Absolutely not. There was a lot about prodigy Kakashi for a young girl like her to be fascinated about.

She does, however, deserve kudos for the extremely mature way in which she handled her crush. She could so easily have neglected Obito to endear herself to Kakashi but did not. Kakashi was constantly criticizing Obito for his failings, but, rather than automatically agree with her crush and put Obito down, Rin played the peacekeeper instead. She tried to convince the boys to get along and cooled their tempers when they started arguing. She continued to watch over Obito and spoke on his behalf (see: “saving you is the same thing as saving the world”), regardless of the impression that this might give Kakashi about her. She was a true friend to Obito and showed real character and self-possession in how unconcerned she was that supporting a male friend might hurt her chances of becoming another boy’s girlfriend (especially one with such an intense dislike of said friend).

7) So... Obirin?

At the time of the Kannabi Bridge mission, Obito was crushing on Rin and Rin was crushing on Kakashi. It is possible that her love for Kakashi took a hit when he admitted that he would have left her in enemy hands if not for Obito’s insistence, but who knows? Who cares? It has nothing to do with her feelings for Obito, which did not go beyond a very solid friendship. At this point, we have a one-sided Obirin.

Did that ever develop into a “two-sided” Obirin? The thing is, we don’t know anything about what happened in the months between Obito’s apparent death and Rin’s suicide. It’s possible that nothing at all changed in how she felt about Obito. She believed him dead, after all, and it would not exactly have been a healthy response to fall in love with someone after they had just died. On the other hand, it’s also possible that she had some sort of epiphany and realized that she had never loved Kakashi at all, but had merely been attracted to him – that she had been star-struck because of his genius and that Obito had been the true, good friend who had been at her side all along. Who is to say that she could not have realized that those strong feelings she had always held for Obito were, in fact, not platonic, but romantic in nature?

We see Rin again only in the afterlife, as she welcomes a redeemed Obito. I do not see here proof of anything either way. She might be the friend who has come to extend Obito a kind hand, knowing that no one else would be there for him and knowing all the hardships that he has endured (she was there for Kakashi too, when he died at the hands of Pain), or she might be there as the girl who is finally ready to return the love that she knows Obito feels for her. Both interpretations work and are consistent with what the manga shows us. The readers can choose which one they prefer to see. It is entirely open-ended. (I lean more towards the first.)

Obito’s love for Rin is not abusive or gross. Before Madara entered the picture, it was actually a very pure and sweet story about two kids trying to hold on to something good in the middle of a bad situation. Obito never spoke against Rin, to her face or otherwise, never took advantage of her and never raised a hand against her. He was manipulative and dishonest about a lot of other things, but not this – never this. Rin was sacred to him. When it came to her, he was the one who was manipulated.

tl;dr: Facts are facts (but they are not the alpha and omega of anything). Rin is awesome (but kind of blind) and Obito is obsessive (but not abusive). No one is perfect.