"Haku is just more tragic and a better person than Sasuke; and so is Batman!"
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Is he, though? dot gif
God, the dreaded "selfless versus selfish" debate and all the stinky discourse that surrounds it.
For starters, bogging things down to the simplistic selfish versus selfish does a disservice to Sasuke's character that's got many crests and troughs to formulate an entire characterization; and he'd have to be selfish and selfless at the same time to make this work: what's more selfless than returning the lost honor to the dead; what's more selfish than assuming godhood? It's between these questions that Kishimoto locates Sasuke's character who's ever bit 'pure' as he defines him to be: he's neither here nor there and swings to the extremes over and over again. And without these extremes, you can't challenge a system of extremes.
The truth of the matter is, the world's always forced to change with violence and devastation; and Sasuke's only one who doesn't let go, doesn't forgive, and doesn't back down; and it's because of that you get these two extremes. Sasuke is a character of extremes. He's never mild. That's how he's meant to be. I get the feeling that the Sasuke fandom, with their "he was so noice!" dissertations, does his character more harm than good as, in their desperation to match the other characters' "niceness", they lose the extreme a revolutionary is meant to occupy as an opposition to the status quo-another extreme. The sooner the fandom realizes this and embraces the Sasuke canon shows, the better. As mild reason would dictate, it's fine to point out the hypocrisy, but a Sasuke that's nice ... doesn't exist in canon. I'd go as far as to state that Sasuke's good isn't what most would call good, though it is what you can call "good for the great good". Take it as you may.
First, we've got the "batman" wankers and their sensible bits about letting things go, pulling up the justice underwear when the blinky light comes on, and watching the rest from an ivory tower-almost literally. These posts have no point. The reason is that Sasuke's got no reason to let the genocide go, no matter how many "perfect victim" decorum many a guy demands; the reasons are just not good enough. And frankly, is that all what characterization amounts to, sympathy versus lack of sympathy? Such a middle-school mentality to hold. The fact that many also use Haku as a model ninja to emulate, a kid who was helping Zabuza in starving an entire population to death, alone proves that the criterion isn't morality; it's simply decorum, civility politics, and other surface-level social niceties. That's why criticism of Sasuke's character has always been laughable to me as, even on morality grounds, Sasuke still triumphs-it isn't till you drag in the "but he was mean to them, though?!" mentally deficient look at societal fracturing that he falls short. Well, then, it's not the character's fault, now, is it?
Besides, if people can't sympathize with genocide, then they need to self-reflect as, like most people from imperialist nations, they demand the victims to experience misery passively; as the moment they react actively, they lose their sympathy. It speaks volumes about them than it does about these characters. And whilst I'm at it, fuck batman, yet another obscene caricature of America's design, a billionaire whose other persona wants to make things right. It's absurd as to how transparent it is; and there's no equilibrium to be found between a billionaire vigilante and a victim of state-backed genocide. His parents died to a thug whilst Sasuke's entire culture, family, and identity were mowed down in a single night at the state's behest. Sasuke's narrative is rooted in social isolation, marginalization, and oppression (gateways to their eventual massacre); Batman's parents fell victim to an unfortunate event. How are these two the same?
The caretaker and therapy argument is another odd one. Even if Sasuke was given a caretaker, what then? Does it erase state-sectioned brutality practiced against his people? I feel that people go at this from a very weird angle: therapy is a magic pill that makes all your troubles go away! Its as if, as long as you get therapy, justice isn't important, which is why the insistence of Sasuke fandom in this regard that he needed therapy is bizarre to me; it's the way I'd said in "The Good Girls of Naruto": therapy serves as a course-correction for people wronged by the state body; that if they received mental and emotional support, they'd stop their "meaningless" vengeance and work for the state, not against it; it's as if, if you're against the state and not for it, you're irrational, crazy, and don't have a grip on your psyche. The entire discourse can be distilled down to dog-whistling of anti-state actors when it's seldom that cut and dry. It never is; and for this reason, I'm glad that there wasn't any therapy in canon; its romanization in the western world, irrespective of context, is bonkers to me.
And to finally drag this to Haku, he was far from "good", and he was doing exactly what Sasuke was doing. Crazy, right? Who would've thought?! The reality is, his theme got transferred to Sasuke and Kimimaro's association with Orochimaru and Jugo's reverence of him also got passed on to Sasuke, as well. That's why Kimimaro had the earth seal and Sasuke, the heaven. (Look into the Heaven and Earth references in Japanese mythos; they might blow your mind.) This couldn't be more blatant.
Furthermore, Haku was blockading Waves so that he, together with Zabuza, could collect funding for Kiri's overthrow, which Mei crushed sometimes later after they both died. Seriously, what the fuck do you all keep going on about? Haku's character didn't end because he thought, "wow, Kiri is so fucking cool, so I should just, like, die now!" No, it ended because he gave his life up for his master and their cause. Ya know, Konoha fucking up another uprising? And Gaara? He was always a shite character that was mildly interesting in Part I, so like I give a damn as to what the many buffoons think in this regard.
And the most interesting thing about all is is that Haku was directly challenging Kiri. He was being paid by the dude, Gato, for blockading Waves and funding dissidence. This is yet another one of the intellectually bankrupt criticisms of Sasuke: he's doing the exact same thing as Haku; in fact, a lot better as he freed the poor whilst Haku starved them; but he's still bad, because he was so mean to poor lil' Naruto and Sakura! This has always been about self-inserting. Don't fall for this.
Here's my point: Sasuke practically ate up Haku's theme; he was its continuation; yet Sasuke was hated in Part I, well before Shippuden ever happened. We see Haku outright state that Sasuke is just like him-another dead giveaway of the thematic transference that's working at middle-school level. Then why's Sasuke hated and Haku isn't? Sasuke threatened Naruto and Sakura; Haku didn't. That's what makes him stand out. Direct threats and all that? Sure, but at its core, it's just another one of the reasons that serve as an add-on to their raging hate-boner for a character that, for all intents and purposes, is a lot more benign that Haku ever was-in actions; however, as Haku is mild mannered, he doesn't stick out. Oratory is important to these maggots; you'd best believe when I tell you this. (Neoliberals felating Obama for his oratory skills isn't just a joke; it's how it goes.)
To elaborate further on this: it's the scope of the threat; Sasuke's a bigger threat to their world; Haku isn't, albeit the former has the latter as the first stepping-stone in the journey; they're, from a thematic stand-point, the same characters.
However, as Haku never antagonizes Naruto and Sakura personally (on the contrary, he's beaten quite brutally by the former), he never reaches that level Sasuke does who pummels Naruto's shovel-in-the-face mug into the dirt every time they come face to face. Sakura is the same. Sasuke humiliates Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi, with his words and deeds and he's never ashamed of these actions, whilst Haku was humiliated at Naruto's hands.
As a result of that, Sasuke becomes an object to chase, match, and covet, not one to leave behind in the dust. Naruto and Sakura catch Sasuke's leftover dust, and with it come the political shenanigans. Their egos, political and/or social, are just rent asunder every single time by Sasuke; and as most people survive by attaching their smaller egos to the larger egos of the state, Sasuke's taunts become deeply personal.
It isn't that Haku's a better person (give me a fucking break!); it's that his ego is ruined by Naruto's and Sakura's; so theirs remains intact. As Sasuke is confrontational by nature, they're always on their toes, unable to destroy his ego for themselves. It happens the other way around: Naruto gets his mug punched in by Awa Shinobi over Sasuke; he hyperventilates; his every ability is learnt for Sasuke (yes, every single one; he didn't even befriend Kurama without his drive to stand alongside Sasuke as his equal); and Sakura is no different, who gets nearly offed by him at every turn; whose words are thrown back at her with added mockery; and who becomes a medic shinobi so that Sasuke would get impressed enough to finally get with her; Kakashi's every Jutsu is refashioned and made a million times better by his own student, an unprecedented feat; so on and so forth. Their ego-validation entirely hinges upon Sasuke's acceptance of them, not the other way around; and as he never accepts them, they're never validated on any level and on their terms. Their chase continues-volume after volume, chapter after chapter, panel after panel; when one round of this mad chase ends, another begins, a never-ending game of humiliation (you gotta laugh at the simplicity of it all)! And on and on they go, getting shamed by their peer and the student at every turn. Sasuke shows them up, and that, my friends, makes it hard for the "that character's so me!" lot to process through, live with it, ya know? It's psychological (manga) trauma at every turn, a lack of the MC-syndrome's culmination; and boy, does it sting! (If the Lord-awful fix-its and "Sasuke's a bad, man, so feminists, rise up!" dissertations don't tell you as much, nothing will.)
Why else do you lot think they write fix-its whose sole purpose is to best and move on from Sasuke? It's a joke, and it's always written itself. This fandom is filled with pathetic fucks and none lays this bare more than Sasuke: he doesn't just show up the rest of the dreadful Team-7, chasers of the characterization morsels he drops in their paths; he shows up the average relatability chaser, as well; and that is very clearly ... unforgivable!
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