Hyugaism

padmé amidala + pacifism 

bonus: 

But they are abusive. Abuse is pretty much an entry level requirement for the gothic genre. It’s all about exploring taboo subjects but not necessarily imposing judgement on them and that’s precisely what she did. It doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person if you like her characters. I actually wish passive exploration of abuse was more common than it is because it is fascinating.

In Anne’s work, there is constant abuse, and that is what it is. That is the word we’ve coined for dynamics like the ones she writes about. She just writes about them as if she were a passive observer, which is where half the appeal of the books comes from imo. It’s far more interesting to read about how characters respond to toxic dynamics rather than for author to hold your hand and tell you they’re bad. Labelling it abuse isn’t passing judgment on the books or the characters. It’s just a clearer word for what’s going on.

We know Armand is being abused by Marius because his emotional outbursts (amongst other examples) are the most obvious kinds you’d witness in a real child being abused as he was.

We know Gabrielle is abusing Lestat (neglect is abuse) because Lestat desperately fawns over her whenever she’s around to try and prevent her from leaving again. We also know because Anne had a real issue with how neglectful Gabi was and said so directly.

The characters give real life responses that abused people exhibit and the story only benefits from this. Anne’s vampires are so heightened yet they’re still so terribly human which is why they’re so powerful. She doesn’t need to tell you it’s bad because it’s horror. That’s sort of a given.

And there are obviously a thousand other examples. You can pick any character and analyse their actions and intentions and you’ll find abuse. Louis and Claudia is in an underrated example. That’s what the series is about. Ironically, the readers who insist this isn’t the case could probably benefit from Anne being a little more direct in her framing of it, but I don’t think she needed to be necessarily. I actually love when a book or other piece of media doesn’t directly call out whatever issues it’s dealing with. It’s far more elegant to explore the impact this behaviour has on the characters rather than to just say it.

And what cracks me up is how people will say "B-b-but trauma is different from abuse~!" 😩 and I'm like....? 🤨 As if trauma can't be caused by abuse? 🙄😒

All of these vamps live a long time, so their PTSD comes from a whole cocktail of abuses--physical, verbal, emotional, psychological/mental, neglectful, grooming, sexual, even substance abuse, etc. And like you said, Anne Rice has a way of not really stating the obvious--esp. because so many of her characters ARE traumatized, but trying to not dwell on it. And ofc Armand & Lestat are the best examples.

I was literally *just* talking about Dr Fareed giving Maharet new eyes, and there's a passage in Prince Lestat where you literally SEE Lestat get triggered and try to quickly push past it:

He's trying his hardest to not dwell on what was obviously a trauma-response to the rape (sexual abuse) he suffered under Magnus, when Magnus picked Lestat as his victim strictly because he had "the proper-color eyes" and hair. It's blink and you miss it, but it's there. Lestat is being triggered by things 200+ yrs after they happened; but folks wanna act like vampires have no concept of moral/ethical right & wrongs that they do to others, or are done TO them by others; and that people are crazy for calling out the things they do as abusive? 🙄🤦‍♂️

What I see when I go back to the original manga is that a huge part of the misunderstanding surrounding Hinata comes from a pre-existing assumption about what "heroism" is supposed to look like in shonen stories. A lot of readers treat heroism as an external action: defeating an enemy, challenging authority, giving a revolutionary speech, or directly changing the world. And when Hinata is measured by that standard alone, she naturally appears less significant than certain other characters.

The problem is that this isn't the standard her character was built around in the first place.

From her very first appearance, Kishimoto does not write Hinata as a character centered on power, political influence, or social ambition. What makes her narratively distinctive is her ability to recognize human value in people whom society rejects or looks down upon.

And this exists before any romantic development.

The first major insight we get into her history with Naruto reveals that she was one of the few people who didn't see him as "the outcast kid," but as someone who kept getting back up after every fall. The important detail here is that her admiration doesn't begin with love. It begins with empathy. And that's a crucial distinction.

In fact, the manga presents Hinata as someone who understands marginalized people because she is one of them.

She isn't a beloved princess within her clan who chooses to sympathize with the weak from a position of privilege. She herself is repeatedly defined as "not good enough," "weak," and "a failure" according to her family's standards.

That's why when she sees Naruto being rejected by the village, she isn't sympathizing with him from the outside. She recognizes a part of herself in him.

What's interesting is that this pattern doesn't stop with Naruto.

Even in her fight with Neji—the person who attacks her psychologically more than anyone else in Part I—she doesn't view him as a monster or an evil person.

The very moment that triggers Neji's anger comes when she points toward his internal pain. A lot of people reduce that scene to "she exposed his hypocrisy," but the text is more complex than that.

Hinata isn't saying Neji is wrong because he's cruel. She's implicitly pointing out that his anger itself proves he hasn't accepted the fate he claims to believe in.

She sees the wound before she sees the aggression. And that's a recurring trait throughout her characterization.

That's why I think describing Hinata as a character centered around "love" isn't wrong, but it's often understood in an extremely superficial way.

Because in Hinata's writing, love isn't merely romantic desire. It's a way of perceiving the world. A way of seeing other people.

She doesn't define people through their social status, success, or strength. She defines them through their humanity.

And that's why her words and actions consistently revolve around encouragement, recognition, and belief in people's ability to rise again after failure.

What's even more notable is that the manga doesn't present this love as passive or submissive. Quite the opposite. Hinata's most important narrative moments happen when love becomes action.

During the Chunin Exams, love becomes courage.

During Pain's invasion, it becomes sacrifice.

During the war, it becomes the ability to keep moving forward despite loss.

In other words, love is not positioned as the opposite of heroism in Hinata’s characterization, but as one of its motivating forces.

And I think part of the misunderstanding comes from a broader cultural assumption: that feminine strength only counts as "real strength" if it resembles traditionally masculine forms of strength.

But the manga itself doesn't apply that logic to Hinata. Kishimoto never tries to turn her into another Naruto or another Sasuke. Nor does he build her narrative value around her ability to defeat people.

Instead, he builds it around her ability to preserve empathy and faith in others even when doing so is painful or costly.

Someone can absolutely criticize the amount of screen time Hinata received, or some of Kishimoto's decisions regarding her development. That's a completely fair discussion.

But reducing her to nothing more than a love interest ignores the fact that love itself is not a secondary function within her character structure. It is One of her central themes.

Keep in mind, when Hinata stepped in? Naruto was literally stuck to the ground due to Chakra receivers and he could not move plus was LITERALLY about to die cause of pain. Hinata stepped in and this wasn’t with the intent to DEFEAT pain.. she knew very well she didn’t match his strength cause that wasn’t even her goal. She was doing this to save Naruto by distracting pain. If anything? It goes to show her love for Naruto would lead to her even risking her own life which she did with NO hesitation. No one else was standing up to pain like that. Another thing is that when pain left her critically injured? It pissed Naruto off SO much that it triggered his 6 tailed, 8 tailed, snd sage form. In the end, pain/nagatos use of the rinnegan which resurrected the fallen, caused his death. But point is.. Hinatas fight against pain wasn’t “weak”. It was her literally saving Naruto which she did successfully.

Neji pushes Hinata to quit. Not only because she's outmatched, but because the win/lose conditions are "surrender, incapacitate, or die." First choice he makes is not to attack her and end it while she's too busy panicking, which he could have (and should have in my opinion), but to force her to surrender - which she would have if not for Naruto and in turn her obsession with Naruto.

That fails, he goes to incapacitate her and continues pushing her to forfeit. She still keeps fighting and he doesn't says "fuck it" and go for killing blows, contrary to what Hinata fans and Neji haters like to think. Both in anime and manga, Neji doesn't try to actually kill her until she makes that comment that is the basis for my own dislike of her.

Now, reverse their skill level and try to tell me Neji wouldn't be dead - because it isn't like Hinata values his life nor does her father.

It's true that Neji indirectly implies that he and Hinata were much closer as children before the clan's politics poisoned their relationship. It's also true that Hinata witnessed the effects of the Hyuga system firsthand, including the incident involving the Branch Family curse mark being used against Neji. But jumping from those facts to the conclusion that Hinata "should have fought the system" or that her failure to do so represents some kind of moral failing ignores her actual position within the story.

Because the real question isn't, "Why didn't Hinata change the system?" It's, "Did she even possess the authority or social standing necessary to do so in the first place?"

The manga answers that question quite clearly.

Hinata herself was a victim of that system.

When we're first introduced to her, we learn that her father considered her a failure as the clan heir and had effectively replaced her with Hanabi. Hiashi does not present her as the future leader of the Hyuga clan. He presents her as a disappointment. Even Kurenai describes her family situation as painful and complicated.

In other words, the story does not present Hinata as part of the authority oppressing Neji. It presents her as someone being rejected by that very same authority.And that distinction is extremely important.

The argument assumes that witnessing Neji's punishment should have pushed her toward rebelling against the system, but that assumption completely ignores both her age and her psychological state.

We're talking about a child who grew up in an environment that constantly told her she was weak, incapable, and disappointing. The manga does not portray Hinata as someone lacking empathy. It portrays her as someone lacking self-confidence.

Those are two very different things.

In fact, one of the most important aspects of the Neji vs. Hinata fight is that Hinata never responds to his hatred with hatred of her own. This is something people often overlook.

When Neji begins attacking her psychologically and humiliating her in front of everyone, she doesn't retaliate in kind. And when she speaks about his suffering, she doesn't do it to mock him. She does it because she sees the pain he's trying to hide behind his philosophy of fate.

Ironically, the statement that triggered Neji's anger wasn't even hostile.

Hinata simply points out that he himself suffers because of his fate and continues trying to resist it.

In other words, she was one of the very few people who actually understood the source of his emotional conflict.That doesn't sound like the behavior of someone who doesn't care about her cousin.

As for the claim that Neji showed compassion toward Hinata while she showed nothing comparable toward him, that's an extremely selective reading of the events.

Because compassion isn't limited to choosing not to strike someone.

During the Chunin Exam fight, Neji was the physically stronger party, while Hinata was the weaker one. Yet despite that, the character who spends the entire confrontation trying to understand the other person is Hinata, not Neji.

Neji reduces her to a "failure who can never change her destiny."

Hinata, meanwhile, sees a wounded human being behind his anger. That's a form of empathy no less meaningful than any supposed physical mercy.

As for the claim that Hinata never performed any noble or selfless actions unrelated to Naruto, it simply doesn't align with the text.

Because the foundation of Hinata's admiration for Naruto was not romantic love at first. It was the fact that she saw someone who suffered just like she did and kept trying despite repeated failure.

That trait—empathy toward those who are marginalized and struggling—exists within her character before any romantic development ever occurs.

Reducing all of her actions to "she only does this because of Naruto" doesn't actually explain her behavior. It ignores huge portions of her characterization.

But perhaps the most interesting point is that this argument criticizes Hinata for failing to fix the Hyuga system, while the manga itself ultimately frames the reconciliation between the Main Branch and the Branch Family as a responsibility shared by Hiashi and Neji after the truth surrounding Hizashi's death is revealed.

In other words, the narrative never treats the issue as Hinata's responsibility in the first place.

And Kishimoto never wrote it that way.

That's why I think the core of this argument confuses two completely different ideas:

Hinata lacking the power to change the system, and Hinata lacking the desire to change it.

The manga repeatedly confirms the first.

There is no real evidence for the second.

In fact, everything we see in the story suggests that Hinata was one of the people most harmed by the system itself, and that her resistance did not take the form of political revolution, but rather the form of psychological survival in an environment that spent her entire childhood trying to convince her that she had no value.

Isolation and degradation (psychological maltreatment) is one of the worst things a child can go through in their developmental stages. The years one through seven, this is the period of high neural plasticity. These experiences lead to permanent changes in how a child processes emotions, interactions, and handles stress.

Her refusal to let this corrupt her empathy and to forgo developing maladaptive projections is a testament to extraordinary emotional fortitude.

I do not respect nor will ever listen to a person or people who downplay her internal battle, depression, and make fun of her stutter. It says more about the person and their lack of media literacy than it will ever say about her.

Social isolation can lead to decreased white matter (myelin) in regions like the prefrontal cortex. This is essential for social interactions. How this affected Hina can be seen through her stuttering. Something alot of weirdos bash her and others like her for.

Altered emotional centers ; the amygdala (the brain's alarm system) becomes hyper responsive or even physically larger, leading to chronic anxiety and inablity to regulate fear.

Hinata developed a deep seated belief that she was defective in some way or another.

Social isolation in early childhood activates the same neural pathways as physical pain.

Hinata defies the outcome of a typical character within the series that lets their pain become their motivation to harm.

Needless to say, I can see why her self-reflective nature puts a mirror to the lack there-of in other characters.

itachi wants sasuke to be safe, and hinata wants hanabi to be powerful. both of these desires assign an abstract form of gender to their siblings; in order for itachi to "protect" sasuke (his ass is not protecting sasuke) he must be more masculine than sasuke, because protecting is a masculine role in naruto. in order for hinata to let hanabi be powerful, she must be more feminine than her, because competency and power are masculine traits, in order for hanabi to be powerful, she has to be more powerful than hinata.

the main thing that would change in an au where itachi and hinata end up transitioning is that both of them would be less willing to become more masculine/feminine for what they perceive to be their siblings benefit. itachi would have to find other ways to help sasuke (make him strong rather than protect him) and hinata would have to find other ways to help hanabi (protect her rather than make her strong).

how would this play out? ideally, itachi goes girl mode before she gets into anbu, and as such, doesn't actually ever get into anbu. rather than the ideal that sasuke can never live up to, she is the failure of an eldest child that sasuke is expected to surpass. sasuke is given the time and space to grow into himself and become a child soldier who can do a good job serving the state. without itachi there to use as a scapegoat/guillotine, i think the massacre still happens on some level, but i doubt it'd be to the same degree. maybe the uchiha still try and plan a coop, it fails, the rebels are executed, or something like that.

sasuke, on a personal level, would probably be upset with itachi for burdening him with the responsibilities of being the next clan head, and also for "killing" the person he used to look up to. in his head, the itachi that became a failure abandoned him so that she could live a quiet life. itachi does her best to support sasuke in becoming the best shinobi possible, and sasuke resents her for it. but at least there was no torture involved? hashtag girl win

hinata, as a man, would take a more active role in protecting hanabi. rather than relinquishing his position as the future clan head in order to protect her from the caged bird seal, he destroys everyone who could possibly put it on hanabi. what i'm saying is that he kills the entire main branch- and there's no way that they'd let that happen without taking out the rest of the clan with them. something probably triggers this- maybe neji plays a similar role to shisui and dies, and hinata realizes that he can't let the rest of the hyuuga continue to live like that. i kind of see this happening post-chunin exams, with hinata being the genin that runs off and goes missing-nin.

i think it'd be interesting to swap their roles regarding their siblings but not their position in the timeline. itachi could lean into her pacifism, and hinata would get to be a more antagonistic (i mean personally. based. but narratively.) character, kind of also taking over sasuke's role in a way, just in how he interacts with the main cast. sasuke would be more of a rival, plain and simple, and in a lot of ways he'd actually parallel naruto a little better i think? just because he'd, you know, actually be someone who has what's perceived as a good life (imo canon sasuke's role as "naruto if his life was good" suckssss because it's literally not. hell world hell world). he'd basically be living the ideal life, and it'd still suck, which would just be interesting thematically in regards to, you know, the military dictatorship being bad stuff. hanabi would actually get to be relevant! maybe she'd take a similar role to late-narrative sasuke, where she never stops loving hinata, and wants to save him? or maybe she thinks that hinata snaps and killed everyone, and then it's a twist later on and its revealed that he only killed the main branch people to save hanabi, and the main branch killed the rest? there's a lot that would work there.

Sakura forces others to confront who they really are beneath the façade they've built due to the system's polluted ideology; she serves as a narrative foil for characters who have either dismissed the value of human lives, detached from their own humanity or both, although this is something she, somewhat, and contradictorily denies herself; the fks, thus, serves as an opportunity for Sakura to face this most vulnerable, human side of herself she tried so hard to repress as well as it does showcase the ideological/philosophical battle that was happening inside her head...

So remember when Hinata offered Naruto her answers bc she doesn't want him to fail or as she worded it “she doesn't want him to disappear”:

...and Naruto refused bc he's honorable like that and bc he cares about Hinata and his teammates he doesn't want to drag them if ever he got caught :

...BUT ALSO because he’s trying to be HONORABLE AND A BIG SHOT towards HINATA :

Also that time when he does blood oath using Hinata’s blood and vowed to defeat Neji :

…and when Naruto was down and depressed about his upcoming fight with Neji, like Naruto walking towards the sun, Hinata appeared and made the remarkable Proud Failure Speech (not to mention it was also Naruto’s cheering that boosted Hinata during her fight with Neji ; talk about a great support system) that completely lifts Naruto’s spirit like magic :

And for me Naruto definitely gives off the “Babe, go watch my game” vibe here lol :

…and when Naruto & Neji’s fight was over when for the first time Naruto was acknowledged and praised by the Village NARUTO SPECIFICALLY LOOKS FOR HINATA THE GIRL WHO ALWAYS BELIEVES IN HIM. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT NARUTO WAS LOOKING FOR THAT PERSON HE WANTED TO SHOW HIS VICTORY WITH. I thank Kishi for small but deep details like these. Hinata was so deserving to see this moment but too bad Hinata was out cold, would love to see how proud Hinata would look for Naruto and preferably happy and thankful bc Naruto managed to knock some sense into her cousin Neji :

When Naruto saves Hinata from white Zetsu with his new KCM form. He’s such a show-off in this scene but ofc in a good and fitting way! I also love the fact that he humbles himself and took a moment and acknowledged the times Hina saves him :

Kiba 🤝 Kishimoto 🤝 NH FANS :

ON THIS OMAKE BY KISHIMOTO HE LITERALLY MADE NARUTO UZUMAKI YES YOU HEAR ME RIGHHT NARUTO UZUMAKI READ A FREAKING BOOK AND STUDY A ROMANTIC ONE AT THAT TO GIVE HIS GIRLFRIEND A PROPER DATE NOT TO MENTION THE LOOK OF DREAD ON HIS FACE WHEN HE REALIZED HE CAN’T AFFORD THE FANCY RESTAURANT TO EMPRESS HIS GIRL BUT LUCKY HIM HINATA WAS SO PURE AND KIND SHE DOESN’T CARE WHERE THEY EAT AS LONG AS IT’S WITH HIM :

On the other hand, Hinata and Shikamaru didn’t have to do any of that, because they never saw anything inherently wrong with Naruto’s character to begin with. Sure, he was brash and loud and ill-mannered and hot-headed and maybe a little daft and a whole host of other unpalatable things, but they didn’t see those things as a weakness - they were just Naruto. They were two of the few characters (alongside Choji and Kiba, I suppose, considering they were Naruto’s other close friends during school, but I think that’s just because they were genuinely nice rather than because there was something about Naruto specifically that attracted them) with the ability not to look past all of Naruto’s 'bad’ qualities, but to not acknowledge that he has any bad qualities in the first place. Could they be wrong? Of course, everyone has some drawbacks, but they were also, like, six. We can forgive them their optimism.

I think the reason for this is because, even at such a young age, both Hinata and Shikamaru were already emotionally mature enough to be cognisant of their own drawbacks. Shikamaru is comfortable in acknowledging that he’s lazy, maybe a bit of a smartass, definitely picked up some heavy cynicism from his father… but those things don’t make him any less of a good shinobi, any less worthy of having friends and family and fun. It’s just him. We all collectively agree that Hinata obviously had some serious self-esteem issues courtesy of her father, was very self-critical and anxious about her skills - but the way this manifested in her emotionally is that it made her want to work harder, gave her more drive, in order to prove herself to her father and show that she was worthy of being his heir. This points to the fact that Hinata’s self-esteem issues didn’t lead to self-loathing, they led to a thirst for improvement, and everyone knows that the first step towards improvement is always to acknowledge your faults. Moreover, the qualities she saw in Naruto that made him ‘bad’ are the qualities she wanted to see in herself - confident, unafraid, stubborn, not deferential, always asking questions. If she, Hinata, strove so hard to have even a smidgen of the personality Naruto had, how could those traits possibly be bad?

This level of emotional intelligence set them apart from the rest of their agemates, and let them understand that a person is no less a person for being human. Therefore, when they both stumbled into the connections they built with Naruto, they didn’t have the preconceived notions that everyone else did - they were completely judgement free, because judging other people would open themselves up to judgement, too, and nobody likes being judged. Furthermore,  I think Hinata and Shikamaru had mastered the ability of looking at people as a sum of all their parts; after all, if we were to judge someone like Hinata on a weighted scale of her individual traits, her level of social anxiety would outweigh all her other traits combined, but altogether they come together to make a rather sweet, intelligent, and powerful individual.

Hinata - representing the main branch - is shown as the yang side of the relationship, while Neji - representing the cadet branch - is shown as the yin side of the relationship.

Yin and Yang are two great opposite but complementary forces at work in the cosmos. The interplay of the two forces makes up chi, or the material principle governing the universe. Their balance is said to be essential to harmony and health.

Yin is passive, dark, negative, cold and soft. Yang is active, light, positive, warm and hard.