#it could've caused the uchiha to launch the coup earlier to preserve what little element of surprise they still had

[the-naruto-corner]

Itachi & Emotional Manipulation

The question “Would Itachi Uchiha have been an abusive husband/father?” was asked on Quora, and someone responded with a really neat breakdown of Itachi’s barriers for open, healthy relationships (read under the cut).

“Maybe.

Itachi Uchiha was a severely emotionally damaged individual. He was basically a child soldier twice over, and heavily manipulated by unscrupulous individuals for most of his formative years.

What he did to Sasuke was HIGHLY abusive. People might argue that his intentions were good, but there’s a famous statement concerning roads to hell that pertains to that.

And then we have what Itachi did to Izumi. Other answers bring this up as a reason against Itachi becoming abusive, but I see it as even more evidence of his risk.

Because, merciful or not, what he did to Izumi was just as abusive as what he did to Sasuke. Notwithstanding that he killed her, he basically gaslighted her for a subjective span of decades. If she had survived that genjutsu how do you think she would have felt about being made to experience a lifetime of lies?

And finally we can look at how he dealt with his parents. We learn in hindsight that Fugaku willing submitted to death rather than “fight a death match with his son.” If that was indeed the case, don’t you think it likely that he would have rather called off the coup rather than do the same? If Itachi had simply talked to his father, told him the truth, that Konoha knew about the plot and that if it was going to become shooting match Itachi has resolved to side with the village? If at that point Fugaku was willing to call off the coup (without secrecy it was tactically doomed anyways) and then make open peace overtures to Hiruzen (the openness would forestall any schemes that Danzo might try on his own)? The whole tragedy could have been avoided.

But Itachi did not do that. And that was a recurrent pattern in how he dealt with the people he loved. His intentions were always for the best, (as he saw it, anyways), but Itachi decides what best is. Itachi acts on it. Itachi does not talk. Itachi does not ask. Itachi does not consider what the other person might want.

He went as far as to prepare a plan to use Shisui’s eye to brainwash Sasuke in the event Sasuke turned against Konoha, a brainwashing intended to endure for a lifetime.

This is all consistent with how Itachi himself had been treated and indoctrinated and had his own agency stripped from him.

So we have a history of a young man who suffered abuse as a child, with a history of abusive behaviour to a younger brother, abusive behavior to a potential romantic interest, and abusive behavior towards his parents.

A young man who does not communicate openly or honestly with his loved ones, but instead tries to manipulate them with deception and is willing to use special powers to achieve these aims.

This, in the lexicon, is what we call “red flags”.

If he were a patient in a modern therapy practice, he would be considered at high risk to become abusive to future loved ones.

More likely emotionally abusive than physically.

One must never forget that abusers are usually not cackling villains in their own minds. Most do love, or think they love, the people the abuse. They think, or justify to themselves, that what they do is motivated by love and for the victim’s own good, or they convince themselves that what they do is forced on them by the actions of their victim, that they had no choice.

And that is Itachi to a T.

But of course, high risk does not mean certainty. And perhaps the biggest fact in Itachi’s favor is that when he comes back as an Edo Tensei, we find out that he realizes his mistakes. He tells Sasuke that he was wrong to manipulate him and that he should have tried talking first instead. That’s a reasonable basis for healing, if Konoha only had some decent therapists.

If he had survived and gotten himself a wife and a child, perhaps he could have beaten the odds and overcome his psychological challenges.”

Source: https://qr.ae/pNMh0I