I've got some thoughts on Sasuke: Part I
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1: How in the fresh living Sage-fuck is Sasuke responsible for the 4th Ninja War?
The manner in which people throw the 4th Great Ninja War (GW) on Sasuke's shoulders is laughable as all fuck! Can you people even read? Even if Sasuke had been killed at the Kage Summit (KS), it wouldn't have changed a damn thing! Danzō had attacked (to kill, might I add) Ao, Mizukage's right-hand man, a political official who had the second most important post in Kiri; and he survived to tell the tale. You think Kiri would've just let this go, simply because KS had come to an end? Really?! Also, Mifune had been brainwashed, a seemingly neutral party (casting doubt on the impartiality of all meetings that had happened there before whether they involved Danzō or not), and Danzō was exposed to be the sole culprit; or rather, Konoha was the sole culprit as he was elected through an official process; he didn't take over anything. Ae directly threatened everyone, literally everyone, over Akatsuki's recruitment. And Onoki didn't take that well. All of these are not "posturing"; they were direct threats that'd lead to war; and most of this happened before White Zetsu ever revealed Sasuke's location!
Where do you all think this was heading had Sasuke not been revealed by White Zetsu on Obito's order to be in the summit? Had Obito sat back only for two seconds, the Fouth Great Ninja War would've been declared, anyway; however, Obito was impatient and wanted to desperately accelerate Sasuke's blindness (for EMS, so that he could be synced to the Gedō Mazō and the Infinite Tsukuyomi could be brought about), and he didn't know that Danzō had already done what he wanted to do: he'd practically granted Obito a war on a gold platter! (This detail adds more depth to this arc: desperation and the profound consequences of that.)
The thing that makes this arc even better (if it wasn't the best fucking arc by a long-shot already) is that they did unite only because they perceived Madara (Obito) to be a bigger threat, not out of the goodness of their hearts. How right was Sasuke, a mere kid, about their courage, conviction, and camaraderie that sprung from this fact alone: a threat that stood up against their hegemony? This brought the sort of "food for thought" that many don't think about-too busy dunking on Sasuke to ever engage with the context at hand.
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2: Why are Sasuke and Kurapika (even Killua) comparisons even made? They're beyond idiotic!
I just don't get the Kurapika and Sasuke comparisons, especially when they're used to glorify the former and put down the latter in regard to the "characterization" debate debacles. They're nothing alike save the massacre and revenge tropes; but what goes on behind the tropes, or the manner in which they're elaborated on, is so ridiculously different that you can't tell me with absolute honesty that your penchant for putting down Sasuke is not just you being a fucking twat.
For one, revenge stories are dime a dozen in Japanese history; and when I say that, I truly mean it. Their whole 'unification' period, starting from Oda, continuing on with Hideyoshi, and ending on Ieyasu is rife with bloodshed of clans, families, and alliances. There are just so many till the decisive battle of Sekigahara that it'd make your head spin; and even afterwards when Ieyasu, taking the Toyotomi legacy away from Hideyoshi's son, had over 10,000 people (entire families, including men, women, and children who so much had the misfortune of being even remotely associated with the Toyotomi heir) slaughtered to thwart all opposition against him; only then, he felt that the unification of a state in constant turmoil could ever be achieved. A peace that'd last.
Who aligns more closely with all this political upheaval and all the messiness that ensued? Kurapika? Don't make me laugh! His clan was massacred by a group of fucking hooligans (Phantom Troupe) whose alignment with politics is about as threadbare as characters like Sakura, Lee, and what's his face's. (Yeah, yeah, I'm aware of the whole "tossed aside by the cold, cruel soh-sai-tee!" bits which Togashi seldom bothered to elucidate, in a manner that'd mean something-fucking anything!) That's it.
That's not the same as state-sanctioned massacre of a boy's entire family and then the subsequent tortures at the hands of the familial perpetrator, who aligned deeply with the very same philosophy that brought about his family's ultimate and entire fall. You really, with complete honesty, think that Nagato, through Pain, culling all those associated with Hanzo is a mere coincidence and not what Ieyasu did against Toyotomi's heir (he wanted to do for Ame what Iyesau did for Japan)? You think it's a coincidence that Itachi's actions are based directly ... on lord knows how many take-downs of clans on the so-and-so Lord's order? It's almost as if Sasuke's a broader commentary on Japanese history itself, a scrutinization of actions and the sociopolitical and the deeply emotional and personal consequences of the said actions. It's almost as if Sasuke's absurdly more complex as a character than Kurapika ever was; hence, the reason why he's so controversial as history and its actors and their actions always are a matter of moral divide, of absolutes, and of cultural schisms that shift the present's opinion of them-at every fucking turn!
The fact that people can't see something so simple, that it has to be broken down for them in childish terms, and that they can't seem to piece this two and two together is yet another reason why media discourse stinks and its proponents stink even more. I mean, how in the fresh living fuck does Hunter x Hunter have dedicated fans that sing praises of this manga's "unmatched" Shonen writing? Seriously?! I get it that it's cool to hate on Naruto and Kishimoto, hyperbolize the heck out of his mistakes, because the ships you coveted night and day, sticky sheets and all, never sailed the oceanic gutters of your tightest imaginations; but you don't have to cling to this one just to one-up through this pathetic discourse. Find a better manga; or better yet, a better hobby.
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3: "I'm gonna ship myself with Sasuke and hide it as SNS, SS, or SH!" fuckery!
The greatest issue with shipping Sasuke or Ships that involve Sasuke isn't that he's shipped: no, it's that his sexual orientation becomes his entire character; so either he's pulling all stops to please his "woman" and be a model heterosexual man; he's making heaven and earth meet to please his "man" and be a role-model gay man; or if he's not accomplishing that, he's actively scheming to come between Sakura's other "potential" heterosexual/homosexual ships, and that's just bollocks (no, Sakura Fandom, Sasuke's never going to care who she sleeps with; it's just you wanting very desperately for this character to give even the slightest bit of damn.) And in both the cases, it's his sexuality that's the whole character, not his political philosophy that ought to be front and center and with everything else in the background. (They don't even use his sexuality in any creative manner; it's just a bunch of clichés that they like and tropes that you can count on your single finger.) Basically, the second you make his beliefs secondary to the character, you've not only lost the plot but that's also not Sasuke; and it shouldn't surprise anyone that we state that, because it's very true!
In fact, I challenge you all to unearth a ship-focused fan-fiction where there's some semblance of plot structure and everything else, without homosexual/heterosexual shipping being the focus and shame not being attached to Sasuke's canon decisions. You can't because these stories are fashioned in a way that, if you take away that one "personality trait", nothing else is built, works independently off it, or gets off the ground to establish anything else that's important to the said character's varied dimensions.
So don't act shell-shocked when we tear down these lesser versions of the character that purely exist to drive some wish-fulfillment fantasy, and not an exploration of his belief system. They're terrible from the ground up, and you can't stop people from stating otherwise. Get used to this very valid criticism; because if you're free to write them out, obscenely derivative works of an original work, we're more than free to offer reasonable criticism as to why they don't work. It isn't that complicated to grasp any of this.
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