Itachi isn't black or white. Itachi isn't a hero. Itachi isn't a bootlicking race traitor. Itachi isn't a sad backstory merchant. Itachi is way more complex than that.
Itachi is, largely, a narcissist. His whole life he had been told he was the pride of the Uchiha clan, a never-before-seen talent, a genius who stood above all the other clan members. Given how opportunistic the Uchiha were (which is understandable from their perspective), Itachi was burdened with a lot of heavy duty at a very young age.
When he saw the path the Uchiha were heading down, he tried to give his own input, warning his dad against an all out coup d'etat, but his dad dismissed him as a naive child. He was in this position where he was doing all the heavy lifting for the Uchiha because of his supposed genius, yet when he tried to actually lead the clan, nobody was listening to him. The very people who've been telling him how great he was his whole life had treated him like a joke. This causes Itachi to completely shut himself off from the rest of the world. He felt he understood the conflict better than all of them, and that only he alone could resolve it. Rather than continuing to openly oppose his fathers plan, he masks his true intentions, and pretends to be on board with the uprising. He thought that whether they understood his intentions or not was irrelevant, after all, they were reliant on him, his actions would ultimately be the ones to decide the clans fate.
After detaching himself from everyone around him, he slowly grew more and more irritated. The Uchiha kept telling him what to do, and what the future of the clan should be. He was frustrated by the fact that the people who were supposedly below him would keep talking as if they were smarter than him. You can see this fully on display in the scene where a couple of Uchiha officers interrogate Itachi about Shisui's death. Itachi convinced himself that their perception of him didn't matter, yet when they insinuated that he murdered his best friend, his built up anger pushed it's way to the surface as he beat them up and threw a kunai into the Uchiha crest saying "There's no hope left for this pathetic clan."
By the time the Uchiha massacre took place, I believe Itachi fully resented the clan, though he obviously still had love for them. His decision didn't come solely from heroism, solely from his devotion for the village, it also came from a sense of superiority and I would say it was the easy way out. If he had swallowed his pride and kept arguing his perspective to the rest of the clan, refusing to do the dirty work, he might have prevented the conflict. Instead he felt that he was above debating with his inferiors. Doing something extreme and then living with the aftermath seems momentarily easier than continually arguing with inferior ninjas. He framed himself as this necessary martyr, not because he was truly a selfless hero, but because it was a band-aid fix to the real problem. He isn't tragic just because a bad thing happened to him, he is tragic because he was conditioned into a state of mind where he felt he couldn't reach out to anyone, even within his own family.
His withdrawal pre-Uchiha massacre was mostly superiority driven, while after the massacre it was mostly driven by shame. He was 13 at the time of the massacre, in the years following, as he matured, he must've realized how flawed his resolution for the conflict was. How he ruined not only his own, but also Sasuke's mental state. But the snowball effect was already in motion, he couldn't just approach Sasuke and confess that his intention was to protect him. It never would've worked, the hatred that Itachi put inside of Sasuke needed to be channeled somewhere, Itachi's only redemption could come from his own death. He had to die an isolated villain. And as a reanimation he fully acknowledges that most of his actions had been mistakes. That Sasuke shouldn't have been forced by a path through isolation, but rather nurtured through connection.
What Itachi did started a snowball effect that dictated the course of the entire show. Naruto and Sasuke literally debate over Itachi's words and way of life before their fight at the final valley. He is at the center of the narrative, he is simultaneously tragic and villainous, he is simultaneously of low self-worth and a narcissist, his powers are symbolic for his illusive way of life, his presence carries every scene he's in. He is one of the best written fictional characters ever made.
@St3v3Cel
@currycell900
@Caesercel
Itachi is, largely, a narcissist. His whole life he had been told he was the pride of the Uchiha clan, a never-before-seen talent, a genius who stood above all the other clan members. Given how opportunistic the Uchiha were (which is understandable from their perspective), Itachi was burdened with a lot of heavy duty at a very young age.
When he saw the path the Uchiha were heading down, he tried to give his own input, warning his dad against an all out coup d'etat, but his dad dismissed him as a naive child. He was in this position where he was doing all the heavy lifting for the Uchiha because of his supposed genius, yet when he tried to actually lead the clan, nobody was listening to him. The very people who've been telling him how great he was his whole life had treated him like a joke. This causes Itachi to completely shut himself off from the rest of the world. He felt he understood the conflict better than all of them, and that only he alone could resolve it. Rather than continuing to openly oppose his fathers plan, he masks his true intentions, and pretends to be on board with the uprising. He thought that whether they understood his intentions or not was irrelevant, after all, they were reliant on him, his actions would ultimately be the ones to decide the clans fate.
After detaching himself from everyone around him, he slowly grew more and more irritated. The Uchiha kept telling him what to do, and what the future of the clan should be. He was frustrated by the fact that the people who were supposedly below him would keep talking as if they were smarter than him. You can see this fully on display in the scene where a couple of Uchiha officers interrogate Itachi about Shisui's death. Itachi convinced himself that their perception of him didn't matter, yet when they insinuated that he murdered his best friend, his built up anger pushed it's way to the surface as he beat them up and threw a kunai into the Uchiha crest saying "There's no hope left for this pathetic clan."
By the time the Uchiha massacre took place, I believe Itachi fully resented the clan, though he obviously still had love for them. His decision didn't come solely from heroism, solely from his devotion for the village, it also came from a sense of superiority and I would say it was the easy way out. If he had swallowed his pride and kept arguing his perspective to the rest of the clan, refusing to do the dirty work, he might have prevented the conflict. Instead he felt that he was above debating with his inferiors. Doing something extreme and then living with the aftermath seems momentarily easier than continually arguing with inferior ninjas. He framed himself as this necessary martyr, not because he was truly a selfless hero, but because it was a band-aid fix to the real problem. He isn't tragic just because a bad thing happened to him, he is tragic because he was conditioned into a state of mind where he felt he couldn't reach out to anyone, even within his own family.
His withdrawal pre-Uchiha massacre was mostly superiority driven, while after the massacre it was mostly driven by shame. He was 13 at the time of the massacre, in the years following, as he matured, he must've realized how flawed his resolution for the conflict was. How he ruined not only his own, but also Sasuke's mental state. But the snowball effect was already in motion, he couldn't just approach Sasuke and confess that his intention was to protect him. It never would've worked, the hatred that Itachi put inside of Sasuke needed to be channeled somewhere, Itachi's only redemption could come from his own death. He had to die an isolated villain. And as a reanimation he fully acknowledges that most of his actions had been mistakes. That Sasuke shouldn't have been forced by a path through isolation, but rather nurtured through connection.
What Itachi did started a snowball effect that dictated the course of the entire show. Naruto and Sasuke literally debate over Itachi's words and way of life before their fight at the final valley. He is at the center of the narrative, he is simultaneously tragic and villainous, he is simultaneously of low self-worth and a narcissist, his powers are symbolic for his illusive way of life, his presence carries every scene he's in. He is one of the best written fictional characters ever made.
@St3v3Cel
@currycell900
@Caesercel
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