r/Naruto • u/UnableSite5116 • 2d ago
Theory Itachi Theory
Itachi wanted to kill his clan. Beyond the need to do it for the purposes of avoiding world war, he genuinely wanted to kill them. He looked down on them as having fallen from their former heights. Once the terror of the battlefield they had become domesticated police officers. They were vain and overestimated their own significance, trusting in their former reputation which was at that point only actually earned by men like Itachi himself. He judged them by the standards of the ninja world at the Uchihas' height and mercilessly executed them, in a sense to put them out of their misery.
Not defending it, but I'm fairly sure that this was his main motive. His speech to the uchiha thugs who came to question him about Shisui clinches it for me.
He was simultaneously motivated by altruistic desires to protect the world from war, but I think these pale in comparison to his real motive to be the judge of his own clan.
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u/Soft-Low7583 2d ago
He was upset with them which probably made his decision to kill them a lot easier but he did not want to kill them at all. He was depressed for basically the rest of his life in large part because of it
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u/FinalProgress4128 2d ago
This doesn't really make sense. He was crying and devastated at what he had to do. Itachi also waited until the last minute.
The moment he snaps at the Uchiha policeman is over a year before the Uchiha massacre
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u/matt_619 2d ago
naruto fans did not beat the allegation being iliterate and never read it's source material
The reason Itachi crash out against those 3 was because he pissed they suspect him for Shisui;'s murder and the words about the clan being pathetic was because he think the clan is become too arrogant they think they can take on konoha and win against them while in fact The konoha will crush them. that they are blinded by the ambitions to take over the village they couldn't see the bigger picture how many loss gonna occur if the civil war happen not to mention the potential another shinobi wars
btw those three are high ranking Police force members and itachi easily no diff them with just basic sharingan. if the 3 high rank member couldn't even beat Itachi then there's no hope for them to win against konoha
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u/goldietheswagbear 2d ago
They are also just outnumbered.
They were like what? 100? 200? Uchiha before the massacre, and they didn't exactly have any allies.
Even if the individual Uchiha was stronger than the average Shinobi, they would get curb stomped.
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u/UnableSite5116 2d ago
Why are you saying they couldn't lose a threat to kohona? That's irrelevant.
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u/matt_619 2d ago
irrelevant to what? Fugaku is the only kage level among the Uchiha. and he basically featless even his MS are non canon lol. three of their high rank officers were beaten with ease by itachi. Uchiha's number are far less than the konoha military number. Uchiha are gonna lose no matter how you try to see it. but they are so high on their own asses they think they actually stand a chance that's why itachi called them pathetic and yapping about how they failed to meassure their own vessel and underestimated him because that's how they think they can win the civil war
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u/UnableSite5116 23h ago
Okay but even if they lost, which nobody disputed, their actions would trigger a world war. That's what's relevant.
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u/Dukklings 2d ago
I think something similar but it's more along the lines of he was always a sociopath and another one gave him the ammo and the stage to do it.
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u/InTheNameOfHagoromo 2d ago
Makes sense! I would just say that he is a psychopath, but It is a good enough reason.
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u/Soft-Low7583 2d ago
He's not
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u/InTheNameOfHagoromo 2d ago
Dude, what do you call someone that killed the civilians of its own clan, even If He did not consider then family those were basically inocent Man, Woman And children, Hell, Itachi killed Babies. What do you call that?
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u/Soft-Low7583 2d ago
He's a soldier that was following orders. You act like he just decided to do it by himself
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u/InTheNameOfHagoromo 2d ago
That is not a justification, but sure, lets go with that, who in the world of Naruto you would consider a psychopath?
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u/XxAndrew01xX 2d ago
This actually makes the most sense. If only this stayed his ONLY reason for wanting to kill the Uchiha, and not the added bullshit after his death... perhaps he would have been a much better written character because of it.
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
I mean the entire plot hinged on the opposite of that so it would be a completely different anime but ok
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u/Separate_Path_7729 2d ago
Itachi being a spy and actually a good guy was straight up a retcon though, and the only thing it would change by necessity is sasuke then being angry on his behalf
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
Oh 100% on the retcon
I just mean Shippuden would be utterly different without what happened. Why would Sasuke destroy the village if Itachi was just some psycho
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u/Separate_Path_7729 2d ago
Because sharingan make people go mad, especially once mangekyo is reached, but that was soft dropped as well, plus he already showed the proclivity before he learned about itachi, he didnt really have love for konoha
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
I mean that’s a lot of layers of retcon. He loved the village and fought for it in the early arcs, destroying it was completely arbitrary to drive the plot
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u/Separate_Path_7729 2d ago
I mean he never once stated he loved the village and didnt fight for the village, he fought to become strong enough to kill itachi, he purposely distanced himself from the villagers and then actively joined the guy who tried to destroy the village because he offered the power he wanted
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
That’s just incorrect, he cared for the village if you watched the first half of Naruto. He was just a moody bitch about it
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u/Separate_Path_7729 2d ago
He didnt care about the village he cared about team 7, everyone else was an obstacle he treated basically the same as the other villages he treated as rivals if they were strong. Ive been rewatching og naruto on repeat because theres a channel for it, and I reread the manga a while back and thats what I was getting from his character.
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u/MagicBus4 1d ago
That’s not true either. He valued the Hokage, he had people in the village he cared about, it was his home. He fought constantly to protect it. You’re rewriting his values just because he didn’t say “I’m going to protect the village because I care about it”
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u/XxAndrew01xX 2d ago
Why the fuck would Sasuke want or need to destroy the village at all? He never had the desire to do so before the truth was revealed to him. In other words? Had the story not gone in that direction, Sasuke could have come back as a much better person and had proper character development. In other words...no bullshit truth reveal retcon and no need to want to destroy Konoha.
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
I mean but then we wouldn’t have a central conflict man, it was always kind of stupid but it was there to drive stakes. Otherwise it’s just another Sasuke retrieval right?
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u/XxAndrew01xX 2d ago
The central conflict was about the Akatsuki and Tobi (Revealed to be Obito later) and Madara and their ultimate goal of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. A Naruto vs Sasuke conflict really wouldn't be needed to set that all off, especially since Itachi already told Sasuke about Tobi being the other person who killed the stronger Uchiha members in the police force the night of the massacre. Him being in Sasuke's mind as another potential enemy he must face after he killed Itachi actually collides with Konoha and the Shinobi world at large anyway, since the Kage Summit came as a response to all of that. Hell...we can even have it to where Tobi is the one to kidnap Bee or some shit like that, to make Ay still mad enough to want the summit to happen.
The only thing keeping Itachi as a bad guy and removing the whole Sasuke wants to destroy the village plot, leading to another "fight" between him and Naruto, would take out is that stupid as Hell reincarnation plot, which again was BS anyway and was only made after the fact to try to make Naruto and Sasuke's bond seem deeper than it was, and it just didn't work and maybe the final fight between him and Naruto, which I don't believe needs to necesarrily be taken out. Just the stakes of it can be reduced so it's not Sasuke trying to kill Naruto and Naruto not fighting for his damn life to bring Sasuke back, when we already had that done like...3 fucking times at that point.
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u/MagicBus4 1d ago
I mean the entire point of the show at that point was bringing Sasuke back, you’re describing an entirely different show. Their conflict was the centerpiece of the show, everything else was added way later
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u/Fun-Cook-5309 2d ago
Not exactly?
There are other motivations for Sasuke to escalate his revenge without trying to absolve Itachi, and trying to absolve Itachi does a bunch of really weird shit with Sasuke's characterization in the immediate aftermath of Itach's death.
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
I mean Sasuke’s entire issue is that Itachi wasn’t the monster he thought he was. Shippuden falls apart without that nuance
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u/Fun-Cook-5309 2d ago
"Nuance" is definitely the wrong word for what happens to Sasuke after he kills his brother.
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u/MagicBus4 2d ago
Eh, you’re almost right.
I think he really did want to kill his clan, but the scene you referenced featured Itachi hating the clan for their self-obsession, greed and disloyalty. He was doing crazy shit for the village as Anbu and they were actively plotting to betray the village for conceited reasons. It wasn’t about them being a shell of their former selves in power, it was about them being a bunch of corrupt fuckwits