Yeah, know what you mean about the fic. It was definitely slanted. But it was refreshing to see the rest of Team 7 calling out Naruto for his actions. And it was a nice twist to see Sasuke supporting Sakura by being disappointed in Naruto right along with her. It just a nice change from a lot of the Naruto-worshipping fics that are out there. In canon, there should still be a lot of Uchiha hate out there!
So true!! Completely agree!! The resolution of the story should have included Madara's role in the beginning of the Uchiha, how he sowed the hatred and then later using Obito to bring it to the surface. But all that was just dropped. Because that history was included in the beginning part of the story, it should have been part of the ending.
The coup doesn't make any sense to me, because the reasons for it were shady and what they hoped to gain was equally amorphous. Did they want the power or control? The wealth of Konoha or the ability to rule? None of that is ever delved into. Certainly they couldn't have all been war-mongering killers, down to the grandmothers and the young children. So I have a hard time believing that the whole clan deserved to be murdered in their beds.
It's a troubling issue — though most may have supported a coup that doesn't mean they all deserve to be brutally murdered for it — and one that should have been resolved in the end by laying blame where it falls: to Madara and Obito.
Sasuke could have easily been shown finding a scroll in the rubble of a clan meeting house, written with the arguments for and against what they were choosing to do. Showing that they weren't all involved, and many wanted peace. Easy peasy.
HOWEVER, if Kishi did that, then it undermines Saint Itachi completely. For Itachi to look good, everyone else in his clan to look/be bad.
I think the Uchiha massacre is a sticky situation because Kishimoto is so hell-bent on redeeming his villainous characters. If the Uchiha clan are shown to be at all innocent or caught in the cross-hairs of a larger situation, then Madara's backstory and Obito and Itachi's "justified" killing of the clan and subsequent redemption stories backfire.
Anyway, I'm not throwing bukets of sympathy at the Uchihas. You're right - they were planning a coup. But since their massacre was so central to the plot and so much the driving force of Sasuke's like, then it should have been resolved. After all - Sasuke's avowed goal is to redeem his clan. And since doing this directly at odds with Itachi's goal of peace at any cost (even if it means killing his family) - then this seemingly unsolvable puzzle is the centerpiece of the story!!! This is what Kishimoto should have resolved!
This is the piece the reader can't figure out on their own, and this is where it's the writer's job to come up with something imaginative to resolve the story. There should have been some sense made out of the tragic events that put Sasuke on his life's path. But in the end, just like Naruto, Sasuke's, as well as the Uchiha clan's, story arc goes unresolved.
The Uchiha clan shouldn't get pardoned because they deserved it, but there should be some satisfactory resolution for them because Sasuke has worked so hard for it. And this is reinforced by Naruto and Sakura, the other two main characters, supporting Sasuke unequivocally in his quest (thereby becoming his new family).
That's certainly true. I guess it's to be expected since the story is seemingly written from Sakura's pov. I'm hoping that he'll incorporate things from Naruto's side of things, like his view on the political pressure, as well as his treatment by Sakura in the last and at the end of the manga.
You raise good points, a lot of what Kishi never did was out of handicap set by Itachi's characterization, he was almost held hostage by Itachi being the good guy.
Personally, I liked "good guy" Itachi, I enjoy characters such as him, Minato, Obito, Jiraya, Hashirama, Naruto etc. that acknowledge that they are failures in some respect, and acknowledged that they had flaws. I enjoyed Itachi doing what was best for his village because he believed in the village. One of the things I lamented though, was that it was stated Itachi loved Konoha, but it was never really shown why. I think it was a mistake to show Itachi doing his duty, but not showing his motivations for doing it.
I always had this little headcanon that Itachi was heavily doted on by Kushina (mothers bestie/godmother trope), and that he loved her like another mother, and found a second, more loving family in the Namikazes. I envisioned that Minato would have taken Itachi under his wing, and shown him why the village was so important and why Minato loved it, and that Itachi would have inherited his love of the village from those two, as the Uchiha lacked that trait. I feel that if that were to occur, it also gives Itachi's spy role in the Akatsuki more backbone, as he would have been trying to protect his godparents' son. Something like that would have made Itachi much more relate-able to the fanbase and story, as you could see why he was so duty bound to Konoha, and why he seemed to be a failure during his stint in the akatsuki, as he never really attempted to catch Naruto.
Another thing I might have done is have Naruto, at some point in time, call Sasuke out on his bs regarding the massacre. I think it is a little stupid that Naruto never got the chance to mention it, nor did he get to really interact with the Hokage, nor did he ever get to learn about his family etc..
What would you have done to make it more believable?
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Persona 5 hype 
