Living In Your Head? Rent Free? Embarrassing

sure, it could have been good if this or if that or the other thing, but the fact of the matter is that it’s not, and the main reason it isn’t is actually touted by a lot of sns fans as one of the central pillars of the relationship.

when kishimoto retconned naruto and sasuke’s relationship to state that they always understood each other, he undermined an entire series where the central conflict was about the two of them not understanding each other. to read from the beginning with this interpretation requires you to cast a ridiculous, needlessly complicated filter over all their interactions, giving them the character of a pair of chessmasters, rather than young boys. naruto and sasuke, if you throw out the retcon, read as a perfectly comprehensible narrative about two children who (realistically!) can’t see past the intricacies of their sociopolitical situations to understand that they have a lot in common. over time, their emotional maturity grows, allowing them to begin to realise this.

this is why the “i’ll bear the burden of your hatred and die with you” scene is so weighty; naruto is acknowledging that it is the realities of their circumstances that keep them apart, and he wants to meet again in another life where none of that exists. this scene is the canary in the coal mine, letting us know this relationship is going to end in tragedy; they’ve chosen separate ways, paths which are inevitably fated to cross, and the only way for them to meet again as friends is in death. he’s finally come to understand, but it’s too late. when faced with the choice of sasuke or konoha, naruto chose the village. that’s a huge choice that should, realistically, come with a consequence. even if this ends, somehow, with the both of them alive, the memory of that choice, and the circumstances that created it, remains. because naruto (the manga) is an immature narrative, however, there are no realistic, interesting consequences. sasuke is made to give up and magically let go of his grudge against an institution which murdered his family and destroyed his life, of his pursuit of justice, which, from the very start, defined him as a character, so naruto can have both his friend and the admiration of said institution. the end of the series is the death of sasuke’s character, and i could go into an in-depth analysis of chapter 699 and how i think kishimoto knows this on some level, hence why sasuke never truly returned to konoha (ergo, to naruto, since, in becoming hokage, naruto becomes synonymous with konoha). sns is depressing. i see the tongue-in-cheek posts about the sns affair, the sns divorce arc, and all i can think of is how bleak an ending this is for sasuke, and how out of character it is. what i wouldn’t have given for him to hear “i know your heart, and you mine” and lash out with a resounding “no you don’t”.

but the late series, and shippuden as a whole, more and more as it drags on, is synonymous with predetermination superseding free will. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that i don’t see many sns fans talking about the first part of the series, where naruto and sasuke are actually forging this relationship. sns would be nothing without the story pre-timeskip, but people tend to focus on shippuden-era sns, which, to some extent, i understand. this is the era most fraught with emotional tension (and where naruto spends the entire time with a thought bubble that says “sasuke”, because he lost all of his depth as a character from part 1 in favour of that, but i digress), but when it comes to looking for the core of their bond, to the actual raison d’être, the entirety of part 1 gets far less press than the scenes of them as young children in the academy – scenes which were introduced extremely late in the series as brief flashbacks. kishimoto’s fixation with destiny invalidates the themes of part 1 on all levels, and the sns relationship is in no way exempt.

so could sns have been good? yes, as a tragic relationship, disregarding the retcon. except, from what i see, people who like sns seem to really, really like it. they take the overly-complex retcon interpretation and use it in support of a “naruto and sasuke always loved one another” or “naruto and sasuke had their positive feelings for each other twisted by their martial society” reading. it’s not even that these are inherently bad takes, in a literary sense, it’s simply that they don’t hold up to the rest of the manga. asserting in the very late series that these two characters have been watching each other for some time doesn’t hold up with the reality of the story, which begins on naruto and sasuke having no thoughts or opinions of one another beyond their surface-level feelings towards a classmate they don’t particularly like or understand. the growth of this into their genuine bond is much more meaningful, because it occurs textually. it is a true show of increasing mental and emotional maturity, rather than a frustrating wait for the characters to stop dancing around the conclusion of their emotional journey, which they already know, for some reason, from the beginning. that’s the core of it, really: the retcon puts the end at the beginning, making the entire story a pointless exercise in futility. destiny is wholeheartedly embraced as romantic and self-evident, rather than the death of narrative and interpersonal complexity, and the fundamental truth that love is a choice – the continual, conscious decision to choose each other, day after day – and we already know what naruto’s choice was.

I know this post is supposed to be anti sns but I would like to speak my mind if you let me.

It is indeed true that the manga could have ended in a better way : we, as readers can agree that everything related to the narrative about Kaguya is twisted.

Some people would even say that it seems like the concept of « predestination » just served as a reason to introduce the sequel of Naruto Shippuden : Boruto

In regards to Naruto’s choice in the end however, I’d like to point that most people don’t even bother to understand his character.

« He’s such a flat character » I read often.

Naruto is emotionally repressed. His fear of loneliness led him to a place where he’s afraid to lose absolutely anything and anyone.

That character trait made him strong because he couldn’t afford to lose but also ultimately flawed.

He’s an all or nothing kind of person.

Even though his love for Sasuke is unending (to the point where he’s ready to die with him) he fear to lose the approval of his teammates (and Konoha in the process) as well.

Why ?

Because that means he’ll go back to the beginning, back to loneliness again.

Back to be shunned like the plague by the whole village again.

And that fear of him is his character flaw.

Finally, I’d like to add that Naruto and Sasuke know each other’s hearts.

It’s the reason why Sasuke « gave up » in the end and accepted to « collaborate » with Naruto.

Remember ? That’s how he has always been. Self-sabotaging for « unknown reasons ».

Like you know… instead of pursuing revenge

Instead, he casted that burden of him upon someone whom he apparently trusted with his life.

There’s a french proverb that says : “le cœur a ses raisons quels raison ignore” which can translate to “the heart have it’s reasons unknown to logic or intelligence”

Sasuke has his reasons “unknown” to our expectations. Hence, we falsely attribute those reasons to « character death » because when they do something unexpected. It’s like they’re breaking the fourth wall.

To conclude whatever this is, I’d like to add that I totally understand Sasuke’s decision to take revenge for his clan : it’s justified (of course) as Naruto stated himself :

But his actions are self-destructive as well (eg. cutting off every bond in order to remain alone and focused on his goals) and that’s also a character flaw.

In the end they didn’t really resolved their internal struggles as we can see it post Shippuden. Naruto’s still afraid to leave Konoha and Sasuke is forced to come back from time to time to Konoha.

An open ending would have been better in my opinion.

At the end of the day, the purpose of art is to make us feel stuffs and the fact that the Naruto fandom is filled with people with many interpretations of the original material is the proof that we felt something.

Those little “imperfections” in these SNS is what, in my opinion, makes SNS perfect.

and then he gets yanked directly out of that nexus and despite that the fact that he spent, again, two hundred years in a situation that was sort of a rock tumbler for the human soul, there’s still a pebble left in there. and it’s a pebble that can be grown if placed in the right environment and provided with a support network.

so i think it becomes interesting because it really does i think force you to start thinking about the limits of free will even on as basic a level as the human personality. i think the fact that he becomes such a different character based on player choice, that his end morality is so hugely dependent on player choice, is uhhh. a big part of what the devs were going for probably.

it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable to acknowledge some bad people would be good people if literally nothing changed except they had a good support network and different circumstances. especially because it means the opposite is also true. which is even more uncomfortable.

Erika Lee Sears, Strawberry Milk, 2022