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Trauma!

Scar: “tldr survived a genocide”

“survivor of a military genocide of his people”

“His entire culture got attacked in a massive war, he himself got badly wounded and only survived because his older brother sacrificed his own life to safe him and the efforts of two doctors in an emergency clinic. He ended up killing them after he found out about his brother and becasue they belonged to the enemy nation.

This does goes against his religion by the way.”

Awesome thorough trauma summary from @spidermanifested:

“scar (not his real name) was a warrior-priest who grew up in the fictional occupied desert region of ishval at the turn of the 20th century with his parents and older brother. he was a devoutly religious man with a strong moral compass and didnt approve of his brother studying alchemy, which the ishvalan religion forbade.

near the end of the genocide, a state alchemist of the western-european-coded amestrian army bombed and killed the brothers' parents in front of them while they were all preparing to flee their neighborhood. scars arm was caught in the explosion. before he could bleed out, his older brother used alchemy to transplant his own arm in its place, presumably dying himself shortly afterward.

the following only takes place in the manga and the brotherhood anime, and ill touch on the first animes version of events later, but sometime after this is when the amestrian medics (mentioned in the propaganda above) found scar and relocated him. he woke up in a crowded field hospital, and through the blood-loss-concussion-just-woke-up-etc fog he saw his own arm in his periphery, recognized his brothers tattoos, and thought, oh, my brother is here! he must have survived!

so the situation is not "scar realized his brother was dead, got mad and killed the doctors". its "scar realized what hed assumed was his full, alive brother was instead his brothers Disembodied Limb. -> Attached To Him? -> Oh My God What Did They Do To My Brothers Body. What Did They Do To MY Body". and then he had a panic attack and lashed out, like anyone with the strength to do so would have done, because fascists just killed his whole family, he was trapped on a cot in an unfamiliar room surrounded by white strangers and blood, and his first waking realization was that his body had been violated by the exact same process that, again. killed his family

and tbf im sure whoever submitted the propaganda just didnt think about it for very long, because if you ask me the source material doesnt do much better. fma (manga/brotherhood) seems to try to narratively parallel scar killing the doctors, and subsequently (and with a lot more actual intent) a bunch of state alchemists, as revenge for the genocide. with... the genocide in question? or at the very least, the actions of the handful of Sad soldiers who feel Bad about what they did (genocide). as part of a larger thesis about "hate" and "responsibility for past harm" and "cycles of violence". which is already a bad place to start

but then, UNLIKE any of said soldiers, scars arc culminates in being roundly berated by a bunch of the main cast and absorbing it without complaint, to prove hes willing to Atone. and they all STILL proceed to complain and call him a killer the entire time they have to work with him. genuinely the worst part of the show. its not like everyone on screen regularly interacts relatively cordially with roy mustang, the guy with the world record for "most helpless civilians burnt to death", or anything

which leads me to circle back around to the 2003 adaptation: having watched both shows i was blown away by how much more sympathy and understanding scar is granted by those writers. they largely dont shy away from his violence, but one major difference is they dont cast him as having killed the doctors. instead its the aforementioned roy mustang who killed them, and theres a very telling gap in the way fans assign blame and agency depending on the version being discussed. for whatever mysterious reason, scar catches more flack for killing winrys parents with an iv pole in a fit of panic than mustang does for killing them both with a gun on purpose because Orders.

even in the manga/brotherhood, theres so much depth to scar that goes understated. his being forced to inherit his brothers arm and its destructive power, something hes always wanted to reject but can no longer afford to, is really illustrative of how aware hes been made to become of his own capacity for violence, how deliberately he has to decide where and when to use that violence in a world so unthinkingly and unceasingly violent towards him. and fma 03 clearly recognized that exact premise, because as a result you have a show from 23(!!) years ago that dissects and denies the phantasm of the scary brown religious "terrorist". i think we should all strive to clear the same bar when we talk about characters whose lives closely parallel real colonial atrocities, because it definitely reflects how we think and talk about the real thing. scar should sweep this whole poll as well but thats a given”

Kakashi: “father committed suicide when he was a child. he was a child soldier in a brutal war. everyone on his team died, one by one, and each time he had a reason to blame himself. one of them literally killed herself using him as the weapon. did I mention the child soldier thing.”

“so so much its been so long since ive read Naruto but hes pretty up there in traumatic moments”

“Kakashi's father killed himself while Kakashi was still a kid, and left him alone because his mom was already dead. While dealing with his difficult feelings about it, he ended up on a mission that killed his teammate pretty horrifically. He lost his eye on that mission too, and replaced it with the eye of his teammate. He's literally actually died but the plot wouldn't let him rest and brought him back. He's had to train the son of his deceased mentor and a member of the same clan that his teammate who gave him the eye, which probably didn't feel great. Kakashi's really been through it and I haven't even finished the show yet, so there's probably more!”

---(Note: Kakashi has had so much propaganda added to his polls that for the sake of post length and my sanity, I have only included the ones that were written reblogs instead of tags:)

“I said everything under the sun here: https://www.tumblr.com/ripitachi/811418735987638272/hang-on-now-i-can-do-one-of-those-for-kakashi

But this ☝️ touches on the very end of the war arc, which I breezed thru bc it's honestly boring I'm sorry 😭 But the one thing I did totally forget and also isn't mentioned above, so, the red eye he gets "gifted" from his apparently dying buddy.... when they go to war 20+ years later, they rip that thing outta his head all over again. Again bc it's war arc it's ...pretty stupid and Naruto is laughably overpowered and he just holds his hand over his eye socket and just magically creates a new eyeball..... But still. He lost his eye as a child, got gifted a replacement, had it drain his chakra for decades before the guy who gave it to him and his evil boss decide "hey I need that actually" and then they rip it out of his head ....... Mind you, one of Kakashi's monikers is "Kakashi of the Sharingan" bc he made his name for himself mastering its ability to discern jutsu and is now known as Dude Who Can Do Pretty Much Everything.... and now he no longer has that sharingan. Not huge in the grand scheme of his trauma, but having your eye stolen for the sake of killing you with it (bonus points that it's become synonymous with your identity) is kinda harsh”

+ Writeup about his trauma with pictures

+ @00technocolor00 sent us an ask directing people to this post about Kakashi

Propaganda!

Scar: “he's the best <3 my fav serial killer”

“Kills people by just touching and then disassembling them. Has killed multiple state alchemist and has even fought homunculi. He really likes cats.”

Kakashi: “he's got a neat mask” 

“Look at him. He's so cool.”

From @reineyday “oh friend killer kakashi. chuunin at 6, jounin at 12 and anbu at 13 😔

carrying his father's suicide with him as well as his inability to save his mentor or do anything abt the kid they left behind

watched one of his anbu team members who was even younger than him go off the rails and murder his ENTIRE family. except for one (1) kid that kakashi then had to mentor and then THAT kid ALSO went off the rails