Itachi is a True Genius!
Disclaimer: Naruto is Kishimoto's property; and as this isn't a story, so I'm not sure why a disclaimer should even be made.
Rating: Language and Humour (my kind).
Warning: Itachi-diehards are to proceed with utmost caution. This is a seizure-inducing content. (I remain unabashed about the pot-shots I regularly take at the 'Solo-King' lovers.) Sensible fans are welcome to read this.
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First, let me start by saying that this, perhaps, is a very volatile topic that is sure to cause controversy due to the classically dreadful Itachi fanboy syndrome or IFBS (you can swap F for W, if you can guess what 'W' stands for) for short.
I, personally, always thought Itachi to be severely lacking in all departments: characterization, itty-bitty wisdom (he doesn't possess any), and logic; and as much as I respect Kishimoto, Itachi's, probably, a true highlight of his narrative's short-comings. His character makes no sense. None.
Let's briefly look at few things in this regard:
Heroism and Self-sacrifice: Many concepts surrounding his "heroism" are morally misguided, simplistic, extreme, and fairly ludicrous; however, the narrative relentlessly shows him in a heroic light and tends to destroy the ambiguous morality in the series.
I think most of his wankers are unaware what this phrase entails. He sacrificed other people's lives, not his own. He took other people's lives, including children, for his own ideals and beliefs. What did he sacrifice of himself? None that I can recall. Tears? Some other leaky-anus syndrome? Can't find it in the manga.
The narrative takes an awful lot of time in explaining to us that he had to leave Konoha, become a criminal, and lead a miserable life ever since that fateful night. He was an ANBU captain before the massacre ever took place—a career as an undercover who spies on enemies would've been highly likely for him even if the massacre never happened. He's a professional assassin, so he's not going to join, say, the Naruto Red-Cross committee and do something meaningful in his (pathetic) life in the first place.
Greater good: The idea that "greater number equals greater good" is pseudo-intellectual dreck, to be honest. (Nietzsche's Nihilism isn't about what an average IFBS sufferer thinks it's about; read it with both eyes open and your Seinen-anime-marathon tab closed!) It utterly disregards minority's rights. Kishimoto used the "there'd be a civil war and other villages would attack them" excuse to justify Itachi's position, in a way. (Though I'd argue that he did present the other side of the argument, as well.)
He tried to justify the genocide with one of the possible eventualities in the wake of a failed coup—such an outcome was shown to never materialize in any situation. The ethos of heroism are about saving the ones you can, not playing God and deciding who should be killed so that others can live. Heroism isn't about the ability to count and decide which group holds the greater number. Heroism isn't about preemptively killing everyone based on personal speculations that hinge upon possible bad consequences of actions or crimes, which were yet to be committed. This is crazier than minority report.
Even if I do go along with this for a moment, then Konoha was absolutely obliterated thrice, with its leaders dead twice. No one attacked. It would've been fairly easy for any village to take advantage of the situation and attack Konoha when, canonically, Akatsuki were just hired-hands for various villages to commit vile acts of terrorism, massacres, genocides (Obito knew Danzo, as evidenced by their interaction right at the beginning of Danzo and Sasuke's decisive battle), random incursions, killing of hard-liners and dissidents, so on and so forth. (Orochimaru had left Akatsuki when he attacked Konoha with the aid of Rasa, the previous KazeKage!)
Why didn't it happen? Well, treaties were in place. Ae was hoarding Jutsus, and a treaty was in place in the wake of the whole "Hinata's kidnapping debacle"; Sand was dealing with Shukaku's rampages, following which Rasa decided to take Gaara's life; Mist was embroiled in the Bloody Mist chaos, Obito's doing; etc. See where I'm going with this? So, even under this lens, the whole thing just falls apart!
Patriotism as heroism: Itachi lives by the philosophy of "Will of Fire" that demands absolute loyalty, no questions asked. Itachi once said, "as Itachi Uchiha of the Hidden Leaf, I will be able to save my homeland once more," when he defeated Kabuto and, "the village does have its dark-side and its inconsistencies, but I'm still the Leaf's Itachi Uchiha," when the matter of the Uchiha massacre was brought up by Naruto. He didn't care if Kabuto was threatening the ninja world on a worldwide scale, nor did he care about the social repercussions of the complete eradication of a race and the precedent it sets in the light of "absolutes" of radical political philosophies: he was just concerned with his village. He only cared about Konoha because that's his homeland. He saw the village's collective interest as the only thing worth protecting and fighting for. That's not heroism—that's just radial Jingoism.
Mistaking forced peace and oppression for pacifism: The narrative tried to portray Itachi as a sensitive and adorable pacifist who didn't know any better. In truth, he's not a pacifist as he believed in preemptive killing to maintain stability. He's a "peace at all costs" radical. Itachi is no different from Danzo. Like Itachi, Danzo believed that the way to achieve peace was to kill everyone who might become a threat to the government due to dissatisfaction with their policies. For him, policy changing and flexible governance weren't the solutions to political matters, massacres and genocides were. Even children had to be killed as they might resent the government for killing their parents (how dare they!): for instance, Nagato and Sasuke. This isn't pacifism; this is an active purging of dissidents and rebels and forced peace maintained through violence and oppression. That's how fascist regimes operate as they rely on violence and fear to silence people into submission, compliance, and obedience.
Another thing I keep seeing in this regard is that the other clans would've sided with Konoha in the wake of the coup allegations. Would they have? Why would the clans side with Konoha, a regime that chooses genocide right off the bat to deal with matters of dissidents, power-imbalances in the ruling sphere, and clan-isolation (when a simple solution is to grant a founding-clan a place in politics and decision-making—hardly an unreasonable claim under the lens of Treaty Politics)? Today it's one clan, tomorrow it'll be another clan's turn if they put a toe out of line. (Would the Branch Hyūga family allow Konoha its lofty ideals of peace when they already live as slaves?) Food for thought. Trust me, an average fan might be blinded by the pearls from Itachi's fecundating, narrative-permeating organ, but most sane folks aren't this stupid.
Intelligence and Wisdom: This is a good one! I've seen this guy being masturbated to till wanker's doom doesn't become an average reader's fate; but, truth be told, his canon self is nothing like his fans would have you believe! How shocking, I know! His supposedly positive personal qualities like intelligence or wisdom are absolutely awful in terms of penning. He's not wise; in fact, his views of the world and ideals are simplistic and extreme; and the narrative just adores turning into a self-actualizing show of monkeys to elaborate on his . . . justifications that remain firmly embedded inside the deep reaches of his hindquarters.
I'm led to believe, through this grandiose wank-a-thon, that Itachi was just so out-of-this-world smart. Let's look at a few of his "smart" choices:
1) Asks Sasuke to kill his best friend. Now, you can argue that Naruto wasn't in the picture when he originally stated that; however, he reiterated the exact same things to Sasuke when he beat him into a coma, with a nice seasoning of the sights and sounds of Uchiha clan's genocide to boot. What a selfless guy! I mean, Sasuke didn't know what Naruto was, but this guy did! He always did!
Imagine that, had Sasuke gone through with this, he would've committed "High Treason" as the Seal on Naruto's designed to kill the Tailed-Beast, too. So Konoha loses two of its most valuable assets, and Sasuke gets this nice bulls-eye on his tight-arse forever! He's never getting pardoned for this. Ever.
Naruto actually deflected the attack, which Sasuke had aimed at his heart whilst he was under the severe influence of the Cursed Seal (CS), at the last second. Had the attack landed, Naruto would've died as we know from Kabuto's incident (when he damaged Naruto's chakra-network-carrying tissues that surrounded his heart) that Kurama can't heal that (Tsunade healed him back then). Naruto survived solely because of sheer dumb-luck: Sasuke's blow didn't land where it was supposed to!
"But he was doing what was the bestest, goodest, cutest thing for Sasuke. Wish I had a bro like him who stuck his cooler-than-ice sword inside my mum and dad's edgy arses, too! Best bro for life!" said one deranged wanker with stage-third IFBS.
2) He was fully aware of the "othering" techniques used by Tobirama and his leftover crew that run the village. Ian Haney-Lopez calls them the "dog whistle". They call the Uchiha "The Cursed Clan", "A Clan Affected by Evil", "Clan with a Curse of Hatred" and "a Power-Hungry Clan". All of these, by the way, are rumours. Tobirama didn't believe in the "cursed clan" accusations for a fact because he had no scientific evidence to back them up; and these aren't my words, but his own. Even Orochimaru disagreed with these methods to corner the Uchiha clan. Imagine a heinous criminal like Orochimaru disagreeing with your political methodology!
Itachi fully endorsed Exclusion and Dehumanization. In fact, Uchiha clan's movement from the village to the outskirts began in Tobirama's era, and it was completed in Hiruzen's era. When the "population movement" was complete, the Uchiha were literally pushed to the outskirts of the village, and here's the real kicker: all of this happened before the Nine-Tails attack ever happened!
Population movement's a war-crime as it's always paved the way for pogrom and genocide, so the Uchiha clan were well within their right to openly revolt, let alone covertly over-throw the regime through a coup. If you recall Madara's conversation with Hashirma, then he predicted that his clan will be massacred if Tobirama ever took charge. Tobirama also abolished democracy after the first election, so nothing less can be expected from him.
Furthermore, what was done to the Uchiha falls under the first stages of genocide: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, and even organization as Itachi was made to be the complicit criminal in the whole situation when, according to Hiruzen himself, everything, literally everything, was left in Itachi's hands! Ultimately, it was Itachi's decision to go along with the plan, or not!
Still more, Leaf was formed on the basis of a treaty that had its roots in "equality". No individual, Tobirama or anyone else, had the moral, ethical, or legal right to go behind the agreed upon precepts of the treaty and remove the clan from the power-structure when it wasn't a part of the agreed upon "terms and conditions" of the treaty itself.
Now, I'm aware that IFBS is a terrible thing, but that's really not how treaties work; and why did I type all of that? Well, Itachi was the agent from Fugaku's side, as well. He was involved in the missions with his father, along with the secret meetings (explicitly stated in the manga), so he was well-aware of the clan's planning in regards to attacking the top echelon. He also partnered up with Obito (whom he thought to be Madara who was involved in causing the original affair) to massacre the whole clan.
So, let me get this straight, he was well-aware of the fact that the Uchiha didn't have a hand in Kurama's attack on the village (this is the sole reason why the coup was even planned that the clan had been unjustly implicated of the crime they didn't commit), and he also partnered up with a man who was directly involved in Kurama's attack. Why did he not tell the council of these things? "So smart! Wisdom of a Hokage's anus at the age of seven, yo!"
3) Shisui gives him an eye, but Itachi doesn't do anything of value with it.
4) What were his plans to stop Orochimaru from taking over Sasuke's body, since he himself told Sasuke that he was weak and useless, and thus, Sasuke leaving the village was inevitable, anyway? What were his plans if Orochimaru did take over Sasuke's body? None that I can recall!
5) Sasuke tried to kill Naruto at the hideout meeting, as well. Orochimaru stopped him. (Keep that in mind that Sasuke didn't know what a Jinchuriki was till after Itachi's death.) Why didn't he do anything about this? Since he's the reason why Sasuke chose all of these paths in the first place, and he's comically idealized for being so far-sighted and smart.
6) Why didn't he know about Obito's Kamui and its Intangibility variation (in ability) when he spent seven years with him? If he did know that Kamui ability, then why didn't he know about Izanagi when he knew about Izanami (both of these are forbidden Uchiha Kin-Jutsus)? It was one or the other technique which Obito used to escape Amaterasu (the Data-book creates mystique in this regard and doesn't state which one Obito used to escape). The funny thing is that he did know about Izanagi. He told Sasuke as much before their battle with Kabuto: He praised Sasuke that he was surprised that he survived!
No matter which way you slice it, his use of planted-Amaterasu is . . . chimp-on-acid stupid. It makes no sense both ways; but this was the best he could come up with, apparently. Under these conditions, Obito's escape was inevitable! The best solution would've been to plant the crow into Sasuke, not Naruto. That way, Obito's killed with a different KA command, and everything's good in the world or whatever this lout thought.
7) Why did he decide to leave a crow with KA's command inside Naruto—his supposed fail-safe plan for Sasuke? What were the odds of Naruto getting killed along the way? Pretty high, actually, as Naruto solely survived because of his narrative protections (for some inexplicable reasons, Naruto was standing outside the fully formed Chibaku Tensai [CT] when Minato's chakra suppressed Kurama, for fuck's sake; and Nagato, magically, didn't decide to make CT bigger); otherwise, Nagato had had enough chakra to bring everyone to life. He could've just used Attraction Force and Human Path to end Naruto's life.
Seriously, why? He didn't know Naruto was on Akatsuki's hit-list? Of course he did! He failed, anyway, which shows how poor his plan was as anything could've happened given the state of affairs at the start of Part II.
Honourable Mentions (yeah, I've got still more):
- Starts talking smack about the clan in front of his father when he's supposed to be undercover. I get that his "Meme-Solo-King side" was at an all-time high at that moment, but good God! What a fucking moron!
- Tells Kisame to make two Jōnins disappear (exact words in the VIZ translation). Gai arrives just in the nick of time. Gai was nowhere in sight at that moment, so don't even bother. Itachi isn't a Sensor.
- Does practically nothing to thwart the assimilation of Bijūs. In fact, actively participates in it.
- Do you remember the "invaluable" Intelligence Reports he sent to Konoha during the seven-year period in which he worked for Akatsuki? Yeah, me neither. (Don't even try and bring up Jiraiya; that lout got murdered because of poor Intel; he didn't even know that Nagato ended the civil war that intimately concerned Konoha and Hanzo.)
- " . . . but now I think that perhaps you could've changed father and mother, and the rest of the Uchiha . . . with me who failed . . . " Dude thinks that a 7-year-old child would've averted a coup, certainly not all the options he'd got at his disposal! It's as if the narrative gave this guy a shovel, and he just keeps . . . digging new lows every single time he appears on the panels! Good God!
I can add more, but do I even need to? Dude's a baboon!
Itachi's deep (cartoon) philosophies on human will . . . and stuff: He once tried to forcibly Genjutsu Sasuke into being loyal to Konoha. He just couldn't deal with the high-brow tragedy that not everyone enjoyed suckling on Konoha's proverbial cock and pressing kisses to its corpulent arse; he either killed everyone or he tried to brainwash them into becoming a "Will of Fire" chanting idiot like himself.
He doesn't even respect truths, government transparency, or clan history. He once begged Naruto not to let the truths about the massacre come out into the open. He thought superficial "reputation" was more important than truth and justice.
Man, Kishimoto tried really hard to make this loopy thumb-sucker look intelligent and humble, but Itachi-Sama-Chama-Chan-Kun-Tun-Dono's "much-o awesome-o" "es-pah-shal" genius was a wee-bit hard to swallow. Let's face it, the dude's a fucking buffoon, and he's arrogant, too (not a good combination). He had the audacity to decide whether the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre should come out or not when he was one of the perpetrators of the massacre; yet he, of all the people, considered that he had the right to sweep the truth under the rug! I'm not even going to touch upon the key-chain accessory Buddha-Naruto's viewpoint on Will of Fire and genocides, but . . . you know what I mean!
Even in the end, he had nothing bright to say: " . . . but now I think that perhaps you could've changed father and mother, and the rest of the Uchiha . . . with me who failed . . . " Look at this guy, admitting that he's a failure, but slipping in that tacit self-masturbation along the way: "Uchiha needed to change, fam—not me!"
Some people might argue and say all Uchiha characters are a bunch of mentally unstable nut-jobs, but that's canonically incorrect as Black Zetsu explains that both clans fought each other for power (and that's when Kaguya's holding Sasuke and Naruto hostage; and since he's as old as Kaguya, his view-point is objective and trumps over all); Hashirama told his father that Senju Clan being the "clan of love" was a joke as they were just as war-hungry as the Uchiha; Tobirama's elaborate rumour mill and that "I've got a black-friend, too, so I'm not like that" racist tirade thingy; etc.
I sincerely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, believe that Itachi was the only Uchiha character in this series who was legitimately mental! But everyone just managed to trip over themselves to suck on the scum he left trailing in his wake. His own father decided to die like cattle in lieu of fighting him: "you're so gentle," he whispered as he took Itachi's sword like a true man!
Itachi, comically, believed everything he did was right even though he said that he was a failure; but "wink-wink" Sasuke and everyone else called him Solo-King every time to keep the humble-brag going. Sasuke wasn't insane because he literally said, "I don't care if you people think I'm a brat—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." He didn't care, but at least he wasn't deluded to the point where he thought he was a righteous hero like his brother. He was self-aware; Itachi wasn't! Where's this cartoon-messiah's self-awareness? Can someone find it for me on this oaf's design? Kishimoto was on that serious kush when he wrote this bell-end!
Such a or what a sad life: Yeah, I don't get it. What's so sad about Itachi's life? Is it because he shed three tears whilst he butchered his parents? Imagine the horror, the screaming and crying, when he butchered the Uchiha children in front of their parents in cold blood. Look at those elderly arseholes who sold crackers, which poor Itachi (the prettiest and tragic-est guy ever!, according to one IFBS suffering moron) had to cut down! Imagine the mothers shielding their small children (Danzo outright states that the clan had "innocent / unknowing" children), begging him to spare their lives whilst he butchered them, anyway. The nerve of the Uchiha for dying on his blade and causing him mental trauma, or something! But I guess he had a pug-faced little girl-friend (canonically incorrect as he had more than one lover at the time of the massacre—Viz translation), so all is cool, projections and self-inserting and all that jazz.
It's like that one Bruce McGruff cigar-smoking thug who pulls a random bystander's eye-balls out through his arsehole; but he sheds a single big fat tear at the end to show us that he truly cares!
Am I supposed to feel sorry for this guy who ended an entire race in front of a small child, tormented him endlessly through the most cruel Genjutsu, and left him to fend for himself? He didn't even stop there as he beat him up and repeated the process one more time to make a good little hero out of him! Keep that in mind that the novels aren't canon (they weren't included in the official time-line released with Boruto: The Movie, and Kishimoto never declared them canon); however, if I do consider them canon, it makes him look even worse: he killed the wife and small child of a coup planner right in front of his eyes, and then proceeded to torment him through a long, long torture session. Speaks volumes about this "selfless" and "great guy"!
Sounds a lot like the thugs employed by Zacapa the Butcher to do away with dissidents, because that's exactly what Itachi's like! Solo-King!
[P.s: A lot of these points are copied from few internet posts; however, I've added my own take on this, as well.]
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Danzo wasn't handsy with Solo-King, which broke him (and he killed everyone)!
Itachi never beat Sasuke up (don't be that fan-fiction loving arsehole!)
Let me begin this small snippet by stating that the novels are non-canon! Not only do they "contradict" a lot of canonical information, but they were never included with the official timeline released with Boruto: The Movie (a movie and its timeline that have been declared canon by Kishimoto); Kishimoto never declared them canon, as well; also, if you consider these novels canon (in the light of the whole Naruto Project thing), then the Naruto Stage Play is canon, too! A lot of the Boruto anime series plucks material from the "original script" written by Kishimoto for Boruto: The Movie. The novels on the other hand? Not so much.
For instance, Kakashi's novel directly references Blood Prison and that's not canon; Fugaku never had Mangekyō Sharingan (MS); Itachi's, apparently and magically and comically, able to cast a Tsukuyomi powerful enough on his "supposed", and highly obnoxious, girlfriend (even this goes against the manga as he had more than one lover at the time of the massacre—the self-inserting fangirls' tragic tears are quite valuable) that makes her live out her entire life in 0.000000001/th of a second—which is fucking mental as Itachi at his peak not only couldn't do much save for repetitions, but he couldn't "recreate" much of the world inside the illusion!
Here's how the first Tsukuyomi introduction went (mind you, Sasuke's flashback comes later):
Itachi: "In the Tsukuyomi dreamscape, I completely control time, space, and even substance. For the next 72 hours, you'll be continually stabbed over and over again . . . "
Kakashi: "Unh . . . three days in that realm and less than a moment passed in this one . . . "
Kisame: "Hm . . . after all that, the fool's spirit is intact. Meanwhile, you've overused those eyes of yours. You know that's dangerous."
And we immediately see Itachi huffing and puffing and sweating after the deed was done. He was clearly out of breath and at his limit after pushing out just three days from less than a moment, which we can safely assume to be a second; so, despite all of this, all he could produce in Tsukuyomi were cheap repetitions of the same act of stabbing against an uninspired backdrop (which is a fairly easy feat compared to the recreation of someone's life down to the very last detail till she died); and that's Itachi at his peak. No one can convince me that that sentimental, and unwittingly caricatural, slop is canonical in any manner because Itachi's never shown to do anything of the sort! Not even close! Three days is literally his limit, because he never could recreate this feat again!
If I count his fight against Sasuke, then even there, he couldn't create any elaborate illusions: the location was the same and so were the parameters. He didn't hold back his Tsukuyomi in any manner as the Databook and Manga confirm Sasuke getting hit by the full blow of the Genjutsu (Zetsu is the best non-Rikudou Sensor in the manga; so I'll gladly take his and the author's words [in the data-book] over a radical Itachi-diehard's ramblings).
Sasuke simply over-came the illusion due to his talent (another fact that's repeated in the Databook and canon); and contrary to the popular belief that Sasuke used his "Cursed Seal" to break free of the illusion . . . well, this is where "basic" elementary-school level comprehension's so essential, because what you see in the illusion, isn't happening in the real world: when Sasuke breaks out of Tsukuyomi, he's standing at the exact same spot from where he was kicked into the wall; so whatever happened from the point the crows showed up, following their Shuriken-Jutsu exchange, till the "glass-like shattering effect" on the panels, never happened in the real world. This includes all the rough-housing Itachi put Sasuke through before this, as well (where he kicked him and threw him aside); all of that, quite literally, is Genjutsu—something that's explicitly stated by Zetsu (who also stated that both of them were casting Genjutsu on each other successfully), even Itachi, and confirmed by the fact that, when the actual fight begins, both of the brothers are at the exact same spot from where the whole conversation begins!
Zetsu: "The two of them haven't budged at all for the longest time. They're exchanging Genjutsu."
The fight actually begins when Sasuke removes the binding around his forehead and his cloak (which is followed by one more Genjutsu) and exposes the seals on his wrists! Before that, everything is Genjutsu!
(It's tragic that people blame Kishimoto for poor writing, which he should be occasionally accused of, but they can't seem to read something as simple as Naruto—a material written by keeping the comprehension level of 12-year-old children in mind!)
Now, why did I type all of this? I did that, because one, I wanted to cover the lower heading and call the people who exaggerate his feats straight-up arseholes; and two, because there's a panel right before the last Genjutsu exchange in which Itachi looks at Sasuke, and we see a very, very blurry image of Sasuke. This is before Itachi casts Tsukuyomi. The image we see of Sasuke after Itachi casts Tsukuyomi is less blurry! We're actually shown Itachi's eyes recovering a bit and ridding themselves of the extra blurriness.
We also know for a fact that when Sasuke used Amaterasu (another highly taxing MS ability), he knocked a glass over because he couldn't ascertain its position with respect to his hand-movement—we even see his casting eye hurting! This "faulty" line-of-sight is the sole reason why Raikage/Ae survived Amaterasu: he dodged behind the materialization of the flame (Amaterasu's initial cast is always a spawn; it materializes wherever the caster's looking!). Then . . . how did Itachi manage to extend the Tsukuyomi to such parodical lengths and not suffer "severe" line-of-sight issues immediately, afterwards? I mean, we know that he tortured people in Tsukuyomi, including Sasuke, afterwards! Come on! Don't be that Itachi-pillow-suckling wanker!
(Coming back to the novels!)
Furthermore, the novels don't ever incorporate or even bother to reference other novels' events that make each of them isolated from the blank-period, and thus, they offer no continuity whatsoever; so the best way to deal with the novels is to acknowledge the canonical material that's referenced in the manga, Data-book, and the subsequent canonical material and disregard the rest.
And it should be better this way because the novels make Itachi's flimsy character look even worse—if such a feat was even possible, but here we are! The whole "torturing people after murdering their families right in front of them" deal? No biggie!
And, honestly, I don't ever remember there being any "child molestation" vibes in Itachi's novels. I get that, despite being a well-written character (who isn't as complex as Sasuke and Nagato), Danzo's considered the scum of humanity, and rightly so (albeit he's missing the company of his kooky-but-not-complex fangirl-bait favourite soldier, Itachi); but, for the love of Jesus's divine anus, he wasn't an Itachi diddler. No, seriously, he wasn't. Of all the things to show outrage over, this is what people go for?
I get that the radicals of the "Church of Solo-King", where they hang Jesus naked upside down and write "Solo-King gotcha" in blood on his stone-cold arse, have to grab hold of the tiniest of things in order to desperately paint him in the light of innocence; but put the blame where it's required. Itachi did everything of his own violation. No one forced that decision upon him. No matter how many times an Itachi wanker states that, it's wrong, non-canon, and made-up every single time! Yes, Danzo did use Sasuke to manipulate Itachi; but, at the end of the day, Hiruzen left everything in Itachi's hands, and he praised him for finishing the job perfectly (his exact same words)!
Danzo putting a hand on Itachi's shoulder (in a non-canon materiel at that) doesn't mean a thing. It seems to me that people are willing to overlook the fact that Danzo was involved in unforgivable crimes, and being a "supposed" molester, somehow, makes him worse. Well, does it? Let's count the things Danzo was directly involved in:
Exploitation of orphaned children by plucking them directly from the orphanage and using them as he saw fit (he got Kabuto killed through the woman he considered his mother; in his mind, Kabuto never survived), pitting them against each other (in a battle to the death, which was Sai's whole story), and brain-washing them to serve Root; Orochimaru served Root, so he did all sorts of heinous experimentation for Danzo (his arm-Sharingans and Hashirama's cells boosts being two of them); you can blame Orochimaru all you want, but he was commissioned by Danzo to do the deeds; eliminating innocent dissidents left and right; killing of the original Akatsuki's leader by partnering up with Hanzo; genocide of a racially segregated group; sitting idle whilst people died on the streets of Konoha; so on and so forth.
I've seen people defend all of the above (believe you me, I have), but this is what pushes them over the edge? So exploitation, random killing, and torturing of children is cool, as long as it serves the nation; but as soon as someone gets handsy, burn him at the stakes? If that's how his fans think in real life, then not only should they be removed from the social-media set-up (I can't personally remove the scum-suckers from the society, now can I?), but I'm also well within my right to roll my car-windows up when they come near me, grimace, and sweat profusely! Who knows what such fuckers are capable of?
I've read posts that call this guy a complex man (he isn't), and bend over backwards to gloss over the abject cruelties of this guy, because it compels them to sugar-coat Itachi's monstrously cruel nature in the same manner! They're almost literally the same people. I see no difference! Itachi did the exact same things Danzo did. He was complicit in their agendas (something he admitted!), and he did everything that was asked of him; and to use the logic that he was just "following orders", otherwise, he was innocent is . . . The Nuremberg Defence. This phrase has been used to defend morally bankrupt war-criminals for eons!
Adolf Eichmann: "I cannot recognize the verdict of guilty. . . . It was my misfortune to become entangled in these atrocities. But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people. . . . Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient, having subordinated myself to my official duties and the obligations of war service and my oath of allegiance and my oath of office, and in addition, once the war started, there was also martial law. . . . I did not persecute Jews with avidity and passion. That is what the government did. . . . At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate."
This might as well be Itachi's words. Danzo's words. What's the difference between the three of them? Is it that the latter "supposedly" tried to grab this former bell-end's bell-end; so he's, somehow, beyond 'redemption' (this fandom's favourite word); but Itachi gets a pass despite being an absolute prick ("but look at his long lashes and pony-tail!" Fangirl-squeal! "The most beautiful-est and tragic-est man, ever!" [actual quote from Kill Your Heroes])? You can't be serious! Are Danzo's actions before or after this "supposed" occurrence defensible? Are people sincerely of the opinion that mass slaughters, cruelties against innocents, and genocides are justifiable as long as the nation flourishes, and molestation is a greater crime? Good God! Itachi fangirls might as well be the truest (and I can't believe I'm about to say this word albeit I loathe it) "cartoon edge-lords" in the whole fandom!
I've seen very few people sling dirt at Danzo when it comes to the Uchiha and Sasuke (victims of genocide), Sai and Kabuto (victims of child exploitation), and Nagato and Ame children (victims of war crimes); but I've seen many fans absolutely sympathize with Itachi as if he's this . . . tragic innocent who did no wrong!
Re-evaluate your lives! This ain't the super-edgy, wrist-cutting cartoon-hill you want to die on, Itachi wanker's shadow-clones. I don't even . . .
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