return of the Sasuke partisan

[edenfalling]

They strike again! (This time I copied the full text from ff.net itself so there should be no weird asterisks, even if there are *gasp* instances of profanity. *shakes head at ff.net*)

The previous 'review' and response, for reference.

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Not really. My point to that whole ramble was that the story was biased (As most of them are), with Sasuke being the 'bad guy' for hurting a few peoples feelings. Personal standards aside, Naruto had simply said "That won't happen again." For Sasuke's family being murdered, and Itachi being manipulate/coaxed/forced to do it. Biased. For one, it is darkly obvious how far Sasuke would go for his family, dead or not. From the very beginning it had been obvious.

The problem is that no one ever considered that Konoha had been in the wrong (you mentioned it briefly by them giving Sasuke a 'safe' card) , or even Naruto (Sakura and Kakashi) should have tried harder to understand a boy who declared to kill his own brother. Sasuke may have been born in Konoha, but they pretty much destroyed all rights to him when they killed his clan, via his brother, and destroying any chance for Sasuke Uchiha to be a normal boy. While not entirely there fault, it all began with them.

In the story, all these events have the weight of paper. As if none of it really mattered (much less given proper thought) as long as Sasuke was back in the village, eventually realized he was in the wrong, and lived the Happily Ever After that many see no chance of without the village (Naruto). This is a very narrow minded view. Made even more, by many people actually believing it.

Either way, I would have likely had No problem with this story (Or gone into full blown rant mode) if those past event had been weighed properly, with everyone getting the justice they rightly deserved, and THEN working through it afterwords.

Another way to view it: Take away the ninja verse, and place it into a modern setting. With the government being Konoha. Someone above turns a blind eye, others becomes suspicious, the next moment, a huge family is wiped off the map with the blame resting on the heir. The heir escapes, leaving behind a child survivor. His little brother, who he challenged to come chase after him and kill him. His own brother, and last family member. Two years (more or less) later, everyone is shocked when he eventually does. Sasuke Uchiha becomes a rebel when everything is revealed. In that scenario, from his P.O.V. I bet a lot more people would be rooting for him.
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...

...

*dies laughing*

*sends reply*

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I still fail to see why you feel a desperate need to expound at length to me upon issues where you have already decided I will never agree with you. This is only wasting your time and making me laugh.

As for your modern update, it sounds like you have a nice line in paranoid conspiracy thrillers there. Why not go write it yourself?

Wishing you all the best in your literary endeavors,
Liz
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Comments

[askerian]

*eyerolls forever*

[edenfalling]

Yeah, pretty much. *sigh*

[branchandroot]

Fans. Crazy. It's just in the water.

[edenfalling]

Which is funny, see, because I didn't think you could actually transport water via the intertubes... but I guess that shows what I know. *wry*

[lexicology]

Woooooooooow. I especially like how they ignore that Naruto had no idea that Sasuke wanted to kill his brother (Sasuke just said, "a certain person"), that Sakura--and presumably many of their other classmates--didn't even know he was an orphan, and that nobody in the village knew that Itachi told Sasuke to kill him. Because Sasuke never told anybody these things. Even when people asked about it or they otherwise came up.

I'm going to assume this person must be like 13-15, because that's really the age when you expect everyone around you to develop psychic powers, so that you don't have to make any actual effort to develop relationships.

[edenfalling]

I think if one works from anime canon rather than manga canon, one could make a case for people ignoring Sasuke's issues between the hospital roof fight and his departure with the Sound-nin -- I believe a bunch of filler episodes were inserted between those incidents -- but in the manga he leaves only a day or two after that fight. So no, nobody ignores Sasuke's finally stated desire to leave, seek power, and kill Itachi, especially now that they know Itachi himself is encouraging that obsession. In fact, Kakashi and Sakura both realize he's in a terrible state of mind and make unsuccessful attempts to talk him out of his plans.

I don't understand how this person has translated that into them being in the wrong. Like, how is it bad to say, "Revenge will eat you alive, especially if you go it alone. If you have to kill Itachi -- and he seems like a psycho, not to mention Akatsuki is dangerous as fuck, so okay, whatever -- then do it with your team. You'll have a much better chance of succeeding, and who cares about making it a contest of pride and strength? You're a ninja! Cheating is what we do! Don't let your enemy dictate the terms of your struggle or you'll be fighting from a disadvantage before any blow is struck."

Yet apparently Naruto and company need to receive JUSTICE before Sasuke can forgive them and come home. Uh-huh. But Sasuke doesn't need to apologize for running out on them, attacking their home, and all the other shit he pulled? Yeah right, pull the other one; it has bells on.

[lexicology]

I could even understand it a little if it was just Sasuke's anger at the village that was meant to be justified. I don't think anybody can argue that a decidedly non-transparent military-state that leaves orphans to raise themselves is a little fucked-up. But even then, Sasuke's desire to destroy the entire village is, to borrow the fanthing's choice of metaphor, like saying it's not wrong for someone to want to bomb New York because of Guantanamo.

[edenfalling]

Ha. Yeah. I mean, I completely understood why Sasuke wanted to kill Danzo. I think most readers even sympathized. If Sarutobi hadn't died in Orochimaru's attack, I would've loved to see him have to explain himself to Sasuke; that would have been a fascinating scene. But to treat everyone in Konoha as equally guilty -- to treat Sasuke's friends as guilty -- is just bizarro-world logic.

[krait]

Take away the ninja verse, and place it into a modern setting. With the government being Konoha.

Ahahahahaha. I'm sorry, but if your modern analogy for explaining a 'perfectly reasonable' viewpoint involves substituting THE GOVERNMENT for ONE PERSON, your analogy needs serious reworking.

[edenfalling]

It's not quite as loony as that. Konoha is short for Konohagakura no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves -- aka Hidden Leaf -- and as such is a semi-independent city-state in the middle of Fire Country. But the way this person is convinced that everyone in Konoha is guilty of crimes against Sasuke's family and must be punished for the sake of JUSTICE, when really the decision to execute the Uchiha family was made by a tiny group of people in response to knowledge of the Uchiha family's imminent coup d'etat, and the vast majority of the citizens had no idea what was going on, is fascinating to me. Like, how is THAT not a textbook example of bias?

Ah well, logic is beyond some people.

[redwolf]

Would it be wrong of you to suggest they stop licking the lead paint in their house?

I have a horrible feeling responding to this wingnut will invoke their evangelical zeal to convert you to their insanity.

[edenfalling]

Luckily, they have not replied again. Possibly my sarcasm got through. *wry*

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Um, sounds like they have a problem with how the MANGA is plotted/written. I mean, really.

You were very nice though, more than I likely would have been.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, if you couldn't see from way back in part one that Sasuke would eventually renounce his hatred and return home (for some value of 'renounce' and 'home,' anyway), then wow, you fail thematic reading forever. The manga is called Naruto, not Sasuke, after all, and Therapy no Jutsu is one of Naruto's defining character traits. *wry*

I think my sarcasm got away from me a bit, but oh well.

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

People have... feelings, I guess.

I thought you were very polite.

[edenfalling]

And people are entitled to their feelings! They are not, however, entitled to have everyone else agree with their feelings and only write stories that corroborate those feelings.

I try to be polite. I fail more often than I would like, but I do try.

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

This is very true.

[lynati-1.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite things about fan-written fiction is the many and varied explorations of different ways the same character could have come to be the person he is by a certain point, chose to act as he did at a(nother) point, the possible futures that could have happened once he acted, and the whole strata of what if he'd acted differently or something else in the situation had changed that lead to a series of events which deviate from canon. Trying to claim that there is only one possible read on every scenario is ludicrous, and would lead to a very limited palate of stories. Saying that everyone who writes a story that you don't like is "biased" is just...well, that's a very immature outlook on writing.

"The problem is that no one ever considered that Konoha had been in the wrong (you mentioned it briefly)" .
...PLENTY of people have considered a read of the story as Konoha being in the wrong. And if you mentioned it at all, clearly you were one of those authors, which makes this sentence nonsensical. (Unless he meant the characters within the story itself...? Eh, I won't bother nitpicking that further.)

And ya know, if I learned a dude's brother had killed all of his immediate AND extended family, I wouldn't need any deeper explanation to understand why said dude wanted his brother dead. (Especially if I was twelve years old, like Naruto and Sakura were at the start of the canon story.) Wonder why Itachi acted as he did? Maybe. Wonder why Sasuke REacted as he did? I DON'T HAVE TO WONDER. Wanting revenge for the murder of one's family isn't an unusual reaction. And while the Konoha elders may have set things in motion, they didn't force Sasuke to make any of the choices he made in life.

Some people just really, really need to hear that they are right; that they have won. If you don't admit that they have won, it must mean they have lost! And that they are wrong! So...take what you can from the fact your writing is strong enough to not only cause a strong emotional reaction but also make someone care enough to come back again to argue the central themes of your fic?

[edenfalling]

Yeah. There are a LOT of Naruto fics whose base assumptions I disagree with -- sometimes on minor issues, sometimes on major issues, and with greater or lesser degrees of vehemence. But I generally figure they are being written for other audiences and just stop reading them once I realize they are not for me. I prefer to save my comments for stories I actually like and/or people I actually know. (For whatever internet values of know apply in these situations, anyway.) And I can usually see where the writer is coming from, even if I think the position is full of shit, so eh, whatever. De gustibus non est disputandem, as the Romans said.

I don't remember off the top of my head what my stated position on Konoha's guilt (by which I mean the council, not the city as a whole) was in "What Isn't Broken," though I know I got into the politics a bit more in one of the sidefics, where it's clear that a bunch of people are biased against Sasuke and want to execute him out of hand; Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, and Iruka are the core of the faction resisting that plan. In any case, the guilt of the government does not imply the guilt of the citizens, particularly if the government is unelected, secretive, and given to ruling by fiat.

The other thing to consider is that the Uchiha were planning a coup d'etat, so it's not as if they were completely innocent victims. The punishment was disproportionate for sure! Plans are not actions! But there are reasons Itachi went along with the council's orders, and it wasn't entirely to save Sasuke.

Sasuke's motives are, as you say, the exact opposite of a mystery... at least once Itachi appears and makes the situation clear to his teammates, whom Sasuke had previously been trying to keep in the dark. (Or just hadn't wanted to talk about painful things, whichever.) One can question his decisions -- and oh, I do question, because Sasuke is the king of terrible choices -- but the motivation behind them is perfectly understandable.

I suppose it's flattering that I bothered someone enough to invoke this kind of flailing, but on the whole I have a feeling it was more of a, "How did this story get moderately popular when it contradicts all the things I believe about Sasuke-who-can-do-no-wrong? No fair! I object!!!" impulse, after which I became a convenient straw author, than anything to do with the skill of my writing.