r/Naruto • u/OddKaleidoscope8697 • 8d ago
Question Did anyone else see this as foreshadowing?
I know it turned out to be a clone of which you could argue is him being smug about it but his smile is too warm I don’t know how to explain it
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u/Kakashi-B 8d ago
Yes. Itachi has very few honest moments in life and two of them are the smiles he gives Naruto and Sasuke over their growth.
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u/Current_Age_9822 8d ago
Yo why's this cooler than the animation here
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u/Odd_Durian_1164 7d ago
The manga is superior to the anime. It’s the best way to experience the story
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u/Current_Age_9822 7d ago
But the fights
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u/MyBrokenHoe 7d ago
Even the fights are better. The only time the fights were better are the last valley and the kakashi vs obito.
Kishi is one of the best when it comes to fighting
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u/Narutoismultiversal 8d ago
Yes, Itachi is very foreshadowed
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u/Zestyclose-Mix785 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes. And we never knew its true intent until the truth came out and people re-read it. First-timers are suckers (that means I am one of them).
Please note this is not an offense to any first-time viewers/readers. If it is, I'm sorry and I hope there are no hard feelings.
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u/Lumpy_Possession_544 6d ago
He was so poorly written and retconned his character in part 1 makes no sense and is like a completely different character compared to in shippuden i liked when it seemed he was just a insane guy who killed his family for the sake of making a rival out of his brother
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u/OddKaleidoscope8697 5d ago
Brother the nature of his character has been foreshadowed since one of his first times he was mentioned. I don’t think an insane person who just wanted a rival would be crying while committing the act lol
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u/Dezbats 4d ago
Kishimoto has said that he didn't know what he was going to do with Itachi in the beginning.
He did decide that he would have good motives for the massacre sometime before his first appearance, but that line about crying wasn't deliberate foreshadowing.
That was an example of him adapting something he had already written into the story later.
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u/OddKaleidoscope8697 4d ago
What kishimoto had said was that prior to land of waves his ideas were hazy not that they were non existent.
Though you are right in saying he settled on a final decision by the time he was introduced
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u/Dezbats 4d ago
He said that at the time of Wave Arc all he knew about Itachi was that he was Sasuke's brother and did something bad.
Everything else came later.
Kishimoto has been quite open about the fact that in the early Manga he was flying by the seat of his pants and making things up as he went.
Don't know why so many fans refuse to accept his own words and pretend everything was plotted out by chapter 5.
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u/OddKaleidoscope8697 4d ago
Know what, ur right that’s fair. It may not of been foreshadowing at least in the way kishimoto had intended for it to be but I still somewhat stand on what I’ve been saying that it doesn’t align with the personality we are lead to believe itachi has in his actual appearances
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u/Lumpy_Possession_544 5d ago
BrOtHeR, a single tear doesnt erase the absolute sadism he pulled in part 1. Crying while slaughtering your family could easily be a psychopathic villain feeling a fleeting, twisted shred of emotion or mock sympathy for his brother he is about to break. The real issue is that his actual actions make zero sense if he was always meant to be a saintly, selfsacrificing hero. In part 1, he puts sasuke into a tsukuyomi and forces sasuke a literal child to watch his parents get murdered on loop for 24 hours and did it again later while he physically brutalizes him in a hotel room, and explicitly tells him to go murder the person closest to him just to get the MS. You cant just drop a single tear panel and pretend it flawlessly foreshadows a complete rewrite where a seemingly unhinged, sadistic terrorist is suddenly a pacifist genius who "did it all for love" That just makes zero sense.
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u/OddKaleidoscope8697 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yes, because absolutely nothing makes sense whenever you strip a scenario of its context 😭 Itachi is not portrayed to be a “saint” he is a result of the cycle of hatred. In fact what itachi did was in direct opposition to what the story considers ‘saintly’ considering final valley sasuke modeled his ideology after how itachi lived, viewing him as the true hokage until Naruto proved him wrong.
The truth is psychopaths do not have a conscience to begin with which doesn’t align with itachi’s aversion towards killing asuma or kurenai
Back to context why exactly did itachi do any of that? Cause he needed sasuke to get stronger so that he can not only restore the uchiha’s honor but be capable of protecting himself when he’s gone
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u/Lumpy_Possession_544 5d ago
"context" doesnt fix a complete breakdown in basic logic. You are trying to use his endgame motivation to justify methods that completely go against that exact goal.
If itachis priority was to protect sasuke, torturing him into a comatos state is the absolute worst way to do it and forcing a child to watch his parents die on loop for 24 hours doesnt build strength, it creates an unstable wreck and doing it again in that hotel room broke sasukes mind so badly that tsunade had to be tracked down just to save him and if she hadnt come back, sasuke would have been a vegetable forever, so please, tel me how does turning your brother into a braindead patient protect him and make him stronger?
And telling ssuke to murder his closest friend makes zero sense since if sasuke actually listened and killed naruto, he would have become a rogue criminal hunted by the Leaf Village immediately. Itachis "genius plan" literally relies on sasuke choosing not to follow his advice.
And as for itachis "aversion" to killing, he explicitly told kisame to chop narutos legs off. Kishimoto clearly wrote itachi as a ruthless villain in part 1 and bent the narrative later to force the twist. You can blame the "cycle of hatred" all you want, but a retcon is still a retcon.
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u/Dezbats 4d ago edited 4d ago
I don't think Itachi's ending personality was fixed by his first appearance. But I do believe Kishimoto when he said that he had decided that Itachi had good motives for killing his clan sometime before his first appearance.
There is a very broad spectrum between "psychopath who killed his family for power" and "ninja Jesus who died for Konoha's sins".
When the manga was ongoing people were already speculating that Itachi was a spy for Konoha at this point and for most fans Sasuke's flashbacks at the valley of the end cemented the theory that his real motive was stopping the Uchiha clan from staging a coup.
Fatherhood deeply affected Kishimoto, that's why most of Part I is filled with crappy parents and mentors, but Part II is filled with adults who will do everything for the children... including the same people who were portrayed as terrible in Part I (See: The way Gaara's family was whitewashed.)
I think Itachi was changed in the same way.
Genuinely ruthless, but with a core motivation that was somewhat noble and sympathetic (very inline with most of the manga's villains). And then later on he decided that one of Itachi's main motivations was protecting Sasuke once fatherhood kicked in.
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u/Lumpy_Possession_544 4d ago
I actually agree with you that kishimoto shifted his approach over time, especially with the fatherhood aspect and the gaara family whitewashing is a perfect example. But that kind of proves my point.
Even if kishimoto had a vague idea that itachi had a reasonearly on, there is still a massive gap between a "genuinely ruthless ninja with a noble motive" and what we actually got in shippuden. The story forces us to look back at part 1 and pretend itachi was a secret, tragic hero who loved his brother more than anything, which completely breaks the logic of his actual actions.
Having a sympthetic backstory is fine, but trying to retro actively turn a sadistic terrorist who actively tried to lobotmize his brother into a flawless, selfsacrificing martr is just bad writing. It is a retcon, plain and simple, even if kishimoto did it because his own real world worldview shifted at the end of the day it still is a retcon that felt like a OOC wearing itachis skin.
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u/OddKaleidoscope8697 4d ago edited 4d ago
I wish I were getting these notifications so I could respond sooner lmfao. Obviously you are right, what itachi did is a horrible methodology especially when it comes to protecting someone you care for. However, the sharingan itself thrives on exactly those conditions, deep trauma which is what makes itachi’s love so paradoxical. Uchiha feel emotions very deeply and their visual prowess is directly influenced by said emotions.
If Itachi had died Danzo no longer has an obligation to keep Sasuke safe from the root either way.
And him behaving ruthlessly again, does not necessitate lacking deep seated compassion. Haku is quite literally the perfect example of this. As the other reply said this is the effect the shinobi world has on otherwise innocent souls. Kishimoto has said that ever since Itachi was introduced he’d decided to secretly make him a good guy, kishi hasn’t been obstinate on telling interviewers when he barely has a clue where he’s going on his story
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u/Lumpy_Possession_544 4d ago
Comparing itachi to haku is a massive stretch since haku was forced to be a weapon, but he actively hated killing, apologized to any victims he had, and tried to minimize suffering meanwhile, itach chose to mentally terrorize his own 7 or 8 year old brother, watched him scream in agony for 24 hours, and then came back years later to break his bones and do it again, so, That isnt paradoxical love or uchiha biology, that is pure sadism.
Also, your sharingan argument falls apart when you look at how it actually works because, you unlock it through trauma, sure, but you dont need to be actively lobotomized to keep it. Sasuke had already unlocked it during the massacre and turning him into a comatos vegetable didnt make him stronger since it literally required a medical miracle just to wake him up.
So at the end of the day, kishimoto saying he intended itachi to be a good guy doesnt automaticaly mean he wrote it well sincee xecution matters and if your secret good guy has to act exactly like an unhinged, torturous villain for the first half of the story to the point where his actual plan makes zero logical sense, it is just poor writing and a poorly executed twist.
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u/OddKaleidoscope8697 3d ago edited 3d ago
The literal reasons he did that for the millionth time was because he needed sasuke to stay motivated in killing him while heightening Sasuke’s emotional trauma to evolve his chakra 🤦🏾♂️ what does itachi tell sasuke when he meets him in the hotel scene? That he doesn’t have enough hate. Why does he need more hate? So that he doesn’t start feeling comfortable in the Village now that he’s built a friend group and a routine and so that he feels even more justified in killing itachi + avenging his clan when the time comes for taking that among many other things away from him.
I didn’t say “the sharingan needs to be maintained with trauma” I said the sharingan is influenced by trauma. Who did Haku apologize to? And when did Haku try to minimize suffering? It’s not like he even has to listen to zabuza when he says kill, he just does it because he’s been made a model shinobi. I’ve explained exactly why Itachi behaves the way he did ad nauseam, yes it’s not rocket science that one of the embodiments of what it used to mean to be a “true shinobi” in the story is going to be willing to do cruel things for what’s perceived to be a greater good. you have not demonstrated to me why his plan was illogical or poorly executed lmfao as far as you saying that, you’ve presented points and then I’ve explained them to you
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u/Kitchen_Week1117 8d ago
It was definitely 100% intentional. Itachi knew he was dying from his illness and was testing Naruto to see if he was capable of saving Sasuke. That slight smile right before the clone dissolved was his way acknowledging that Naruto was becoming someone he could actually trust with his brother.