OK writing the beginning of something is always one of the most difficult things ever. But here I go.
Now this is a not a thread where I talk about the fact that my own personal expectations weren’t meet, therefore the story sucks. This is a thread about the how Kishimoto failed as a writer because he broke the fundaments of writing. He broke the essentials.
Before I truly dive into this, I have to remind you that English is not my first language. And I’ll try my best to explain what I mean with my limited understanding of the English language.
First of all I have to say that I was actually going make another thread explaining the fact that I’ll stop reading Naruto. Because it got to a point that I just couldn’t take it anymore. The funny part about this is that the next day when I wanted to create that thread, news came out that Naruto is ending in 5 weeks.
Secondly I’m actually writing this now because I made a promise to some of you. And I tend to keep my promises, if I can of course.
Let’s begin. A lot of people called Sasuke a good character, an antagonist, that he’s the opposite of Naruto, that his storyline is good. Now that’s not really true.
You see Naruto’s storyline and Sasuke’s storyline were never really opposites. Naruto’s storyline and Sasuke’s storyline never connected with each other, these two characters were never really opposites.
Sasuke was on his own path, while Naruto was on his own path. These two paths never opposed each other.
You see Sasuke was going on the left side while Naruto was going on the right side. Each of them were pursuing their own dreams, their own goals. And these goals had no connection with each other, no correlation and the most important fact is that Naruto’s goals and Sasuke’s goals never opposed each other. Sasuke was doing what he wanted while Naruto was doing what he wanted.
Naruto’s dream of being acknowledged by everyone and becoming the Hokage didn’t oppose Sasuke’s dreams of killing Itachi and restoring the Uchiha’s honor.
You see that’s one of the reasons why Sasuke’s storyline back then was actually good. Because it was independent of Naruto’s. Now Sasuke’s storyline was actually a sub-plot and it should’ve remained a sub-plot. But somewhere along the way it sort of turned into the main plot, well at least for the majority of part 2. The plot of part 2 became save Sasuke, nothing else matters.
Now after Itachi’s death Kishi started to give Sasuke more and more attributes that made him into an antagonist. Sasuke became Naruto’s opposite. But here is where the writer failed with that. He failed because Sasuke became a flip flop character that can’t stay true to his own convictions for more than a few chapters, sometimes even less. What is even worse with Sasuke’s character is that the ideals he gained after Itachi’s death are not really his own.
He literally started to leech goals and dreams from other characters including the main character. And he could never picked one and stick with it until the end. He always switched when he wanted. Sasuke became a pathetic copy of Naruto, Madara, Danzo, and Orochimaru.
Not to mention that after Itachi’s death, Sasuke basically had no character development. Take an honest look to the moments when the story switches from Naruto to Sasuke. It never really switches to Sasuke. It switches to other characters and somehow Sasuke at the end reacts.
Let me give you two recent examples. When we got the Itachi and Sasuke fight against Kabuto, we got Kabuto’s backstory and Itachi’s backstory. We got Kabuto development and Itachi development. And after all that Sasuke just reacted, but he didn’t actually get development. He didn’t learn a lesson and stayed true to his path, he just changed it again. Like he always did after Itachi died.
Second example: When Sasuke listened to Hashirama’s bedtime story. We got Hashirama’s backstory, Madara’s backstory, Konoha’s backstory, etc. And Sasuke as usual just reacted to all that but yet again not in a good way. He didn’t learn something new that helped him stay true to his path. No, he just changed it completely.
Kishi didn’t develop Sasuke into a good character after Itachi’s death. He just found different ways to keep Sasuke relevant, when his sub-plot ended. And thus we have a mess of a character that Kishi needed to find ways to keep him relevant. Otherwise he would’ve been nothing more than Naruto’s lost pet. Because like I said before part two of this story became about Naruto going after Sasuke.
The entire part 2 consists of Naruto chasing after Sasuke, because somehow he views Sasuke as his friend. Here’s the problem with that Kishimoto never properly explained it. He never properly explained why Naruto is chasing after Sasuke. Yes you can argue that Naruto wants to save Sasuke because of his promise to Sakura, which is true. Because Naruto promised Sakura that he’ll save Sasuke because he loves her and wants her to be happy. And that’s fine.
However what exactly is Naruto’s own motivation for going after Sasuke? There’s none, we never got a proper explanation on why Naruto is so desperate to save Sasuke. Yes we’re reminded every time that Sasuke is Naruto’s best friend and vice versa. But there’s a big problem with that. It was never showed to us, the readers. That great friendship was never explored, it was never showed to us. Yes we know Naruto calls Sasuke his friend but why is that? That has never really been explained.
You see a writer can tell anything they want provided it’s done right. But Kishi never bothered to justify why Naruto and Sasuke are best friends.
The only explanation that I can come up with is that Naruto views Sasuke as himself and by saving Sasuke from the darkness, he saves himself. What I mean by that is that Naruto sees himself in Sasuke, he sees Sasuke as his dark side that he has within him (Naruto).
But here’s the problem with that. That’s my own theory, my own personal interpretation. And that’s really it. That’s not good, because it’s not my job as the reader to write the story. That’s the writer’s job.
If a writer can’t be bothered to write a proper explanation to justify why Naruto is willing to throw his entire life for Sasuke, then why should I care about this bond and about the plot?
And I’m sure you’re going to say that Kishi did show us why Naruto wants to save Sasuke. But again take an honest look at what Kishi showed us. We always get the same moments over and over. And those moments are: Naruto walking on the street one day and he happened to see Sasuke sitting on edge of a lake, and the two looked at each other with an angry face, Naruto kept walking and after he passed Sasuke both of them smiled.
Another moment, we see Sasuke’s back walking away, going somewhere and Naruto behind him pining over him and feeling sad because if only he would’ve talked to him.
And lastly is the Naruto’s famous line. Sasuke is my friend. Without giving any explanation why Sasuke is his friend.
These are the moments that Kishi keeps hammering us with over and over. Because he couldn’t be bothered to develop the bond between Naruto and Sasuke.
Now I’m sure you guys didn’t notice this but I never talked about the bond between those two before the chapter in which the Rikudou said that Naruto and Sasuke are actually reincarnations of Ashura and Indra. That’s because until that point it didn’t actually bothered me that much. However Naruto’s line that Sasuke and he are really great friends pissed me off.
Because it showed that Naruto values his “bond” with Sasuke more than he values the bond he has with everyone else. Naruto has a lot of people in his life that can actually be called best friends.
Examples: Sakura, regardless if you want to believe the bond between these two is romantic or not, you can’t deny that it’s one of the strongest bonds in the series; actually it is the strongest one. Shikamaru, we’ve seen how Shikamaru supported Naruto in his darkest times. When Jiraiya died, Shikamaru was there for Naruto. We also saw the bond between Gaara and Naruto. And yet Naruto values Sasuke more than his actual friends, people that actually supported him throughout his life, people that made him into who he is.
And the main reason that chapter pissed me off the most is because Kishi forced the Naruto and Sasuke bond down our throats by making us accept that the bond between those two is the strongest because they’re distance brothers. Basically he invented the reincarnation thing so he can use it as an excuse for his poor writing. Effectively telling us to shut up and just accept the great bond between those two.
You see the writer’s main task is believability. I know this sounds strange but a writer needs to make his/hers story more believable than the real world. Even if the story has flying monkeys in it, it needs to be believable, it needs to be realistic. That’s one of the reasons we like these stories, it’s because sometimes we have a better connection to these fictional characters than we do to random people we pass on the street or sometimes our own friends. It’s because we can relate to these characters or something that happened to one of the characters.
Now I’m going to talk about how Kishi could’ve fixed Sasuke’s broken character. He could’ve easily given Sasuke another storyline that’s independent of Naruto’s storyline, that’s method number one. Method number two is: make Sasuke into an antagonist and stop switching him on a whim. Sasuke should’ve stayed in that cave when he transplanted Itachi’s eyes. And only come out when the battle with Tobi and Madara was over. Thus we wouldn’t have a flip-flop character, we wouldn’t have all those retcons and we wouldn’t have a contrived villain that had less development than Hinata.
Moving on to fixing the Naruto and Sasuke bond. This one’s easy. We needed to see back in part 1 the friendship between those two. We needed to see why those two consider each other best friends. Something that the writer didn’t do, what’s worse is that he did show us why those two are friends. In the last chapters, that’s when Kishi decided to finally show us that great bond that he kept alluding to for all these years.
You see there’s nothing wrong with chapter 698. It’s a good chapter, with good dialog. The thing is that we needed to see some of those moments/lines years ago.
I really don’t understand why he couldn’t just develop the bond between two main characters. I mean later on he did develop Hashirama and Madara’s bond, and these are side characters.
Kishimoto’s has always been trying to give us a life lesson in his own story. And that life lesson is that we should cherish the bonds with have with the people in our life. Those bonds are the most important thing. And we should do our best to keep them and protect the people that are important to us.
But there’s a problem with that. Since he screwed up with Naruto and his fixation with Sasuke. He also screwed one of his messages. And that message is “To never give up” that message turned into “To never let go” at least when it came to Naruto’s bond with Sasuke.
Now why did I say the message turned into “To never let go”. It’s because all Sasuke wanted from both Naruto and Sakura was to be left alone. Yet those two especially Naruto couldn’t do that.
They still wanted to maintain their nonexistent bond with Sasuke. They just couldn’t let go. And in the end it basically tells us the readers that we should never let go. Even of things that we don’t have or even exist. We should just force ourselves on people calling them best friends, insisting that we have a special bond with them because eventually that person is just going to give up and admit that we do have a special connection with them. Because that person got tired of arguing with us and trying to get rid of us. And eventually gave up.
Mind you that is exactly what happened in chapter 698. Sasuke just throw in the towel because he didn’t want to continue arguing with Naruto. He just accepted that Naruto is his best friend.
There are other things I still wanted to mention but I do want to release this before the final two chapters of this story. So I have to end this now and maybe I’ll mention those things after the story ends. We’ll see.
But before I end this. I have to say something. Now regardless of what happens in these two chapters. I have to say, thank you for letting me be a part of this great community. I love you guys and girls (not in that way or maybe in that way) because you truly are awesome. The main reason I like this website is because of you guys, because you guys like to think for yourselves. I liked that this fandom doesn’t instantly agrees with something that someone said. You prefer to debate with each other, and that to me means growth. Remember I said debate not arguing. We’re not like the NH fanbase, where one of them says something and everyone agrees without thinking.
This forum has great people on it, like: Chatte, Firefox, James, 4life, Nate, Lid, KnS, Inferno, GravenImage, LadyGT, Hiraishin, Tricksie, Ramenanmitsu, Konan and on and on. I’m sorry if your name didn’t appear on the list but it would take me forever to mention everyone. So don’t take it personally if your name isn’t on the list. And also keep in mind that the order in which the names appear is irrelevant.
However that being said, I have to say I’m disappointed in some of you. How is it possible that some of you when we’re really close to the end decided to throw in the towel. How is it possible that the NH fanbase is more confident that you guys? When they have basically 3 big moments to support them and we have the entire story. Hmm, anyone?
I know we’ve established that Kishi isn’t a good writer and he has a tendency to screw up. But really why are you guys doubting NS now?
Is it because of these “spoilers” that we got from Evil? To be more precise the Itachi and Sakura forehead poke. Now some of you decided to take what is clearly a NS hint, because Sakura’s forehead is a direct connection to Naruto. Remember Sakura hated her forehead and Naruto likes her forehead. You know that Minato and Kushina parallel. And turn that hint into a SS moment, saying that Sasuke will poke Sakura’s forehead. Oh boy.
Well let’s say that is true. Do you seriously believe this is a bad thing? On the contrary it’s actually a good thing. Because in case you don’t know when you write an ending to a story you need to give characters closure. Even if this closure is poorly done, it needs to be done.
Both Naruto and Sakura need their closure with Sasuke, so they can move on with their lives. Something that they couldn’t do. They need “make” peace with Sasuke in order to start living again. Sasuke accepts them as his family, he leaves and both Naruto and Sakura can finally close that chapter of their lives once and for all. It needs to happen. Giving the main characters closure is a MUST.
Yours truly Alex.
