Thinkythoughts and several tangents

[elementalhero]

So I'm supposed to be writing several Creative Writing stories that I am way behind on, in addition to doing that term paper that is due A WEEK FROM TOMORROW, but I was instead thinking about frivolous things. So I felt like sharing.

You know, I'm going to be honest and say I really have no idea where Kishimoto's going with the final confrontation. You'd think I'd be able to guess by now, but nope. Not a clue. But you know, as much as I'm super super excited to have an Epic Showdown of the Final Two Uchiha (because I am 85% positive that Sasuke's gonna betray Madara), I think I'd much rather also have Sasuke duke it out with Kabuto-Orochimaru-whatever.

Because, really, the further Sasuke goes in his vaguely defined "vengeance" quest, the more he seems to be becoming like Orochimaru. Like, he's got the whole "mysterious charisma" thing going on that seems to attract the misfits and those without hope (i.e. Team Hawk), and the slowly-becoming-more-ruthless thing (although this may be up for interpretation as to how far it's going to go, there's no question that Sasuke has become more ruthless), and of course the whole "destroy Konoha" thing (if you believe him), and such. But really, we do get that with the rest of Team 7 and their respective Sannin mentors (i.e. Naruto being the new Toad Sage, Sakura taking charge and kicking ass and helping organize the remnants of the village while Tsunade's out of commission), so we can't just treat that as an isolated case.

It's more like, the more I look, it's less that Team 7 is supposed to be a carbon copy of the Sannin, and more like...their redemption? Sannin 2.0? Like, Jiraiya didn't really have a real defined goal in his life, as in "I'm going to do this, this, and this, and then settle down with Tsunade and have eighty million kids." Yeah, he had that whole, "I want to help people understand each other" and "root out hate" and "discover what peace really is" and stuff, but those aren't goals so much as...dreams? By contrast, Naruto is almost tunnel-visioned with what he wants to do. "I'M GONNA BECOME HOKAGE, BELIEVE IT." (Well, when we get into Shippuuden, it expands to, "I'M GONNA SAVE SASUKE AND THEN I'M GONNA BECOME HOKAGE, BELIEVE IT BELIEVE IT.") So, yeah, there are similarities between Naruto and Jiraiya, but they aren't exactly the same person, which seems to be how most of the fandom interprets the idea. Same with Tsunade and Sakura: Tsunade had no defined goal after she left the village, she just sort of wandered around in a sad funk drinking and gambling. Then she became Hokage and she does Hokage things, but there doesn't seem to be a set mindset of, "I'm going to do such and such and this diplomatic thing and then I'm going to take a nap and wake up and Konoha will be in a prosperous Golden Age until the next Kyuubi attack or something." Sakura has much less of a defined goal than Naruto, but she has one: "I'm going to train until my entire body bleeds, so I can be at the level of my companions so they don't look down on me and all that anti-feminism shit, and then I'm going to go beat the ever-loving crap out of Sasuke and drag him home, and then I'm going to maybe help Naruto be Hokage or something. It'll be cool."

In an interesting reversal of the pattern (in keeping with being the Odd One Out, or Evil One Out, whatever you like), Orochimaru had a defined goal, and then gradually lost it (as opposed to Jiraiya and Tsunade not having one and then getting one via their students/village/whatever). Orochimaru presumably started out with, "I'm going to learn all sorts of jutsu and bring my parents back from the dead via the POWER OF SCIENCE." Then, I guess it eventually got to the point where, "I...have lost so much of my humanity that I'm not sure if I want my parents back anymore, meh. But I think I'll stick with THE POWER OF SCIENCE and learn ALL THE JUTSU IN THE WORLD, for which I will require ETERNAL YOUTH AND IMMORTALITY, YAEY~" And then he discovers the Sharingan, so he's like, "Hey, a shortcut to ALL THE JUTSU IN THE WORLD, so I can use my preferred method of ETERNAL YOUTH AND IMMORTALITY to obtain this awesome eye power and...yeah. ALL THE JUTSU IN THE WORLD." But Itachi was like, "bitch get out of my face and try making me a sandwich with ONE ARM," and Orochimaru was forced to wait around a few years before finding SASUKE-KUN~ and reorganizing his goals into, "SASUKE-KUN. ETERNAL YOUTH AND IMMORTALITY. UH.....ALL THE JUTSU IN THE WORLD? YEAH, OKAY, BUT MOSTLY SASUKE-KUN." Obviously, his goals are sort of decomposing into whatever he sort of feels like doing at the moment. Sasuke even calls him out on it (more on that in a minute, though, I am going somewhere with this).

Relating Sasuke to Orochimaru, he does (or is doing, really) much of the same thing with his goals. He goes from, "ITACHI. GAIN POWER TO KILL HIM," to "Itachi's dead. ...What next?" Like, I almost wonder if Orochimaru managed to actually bring his parents back via that jutsu he uses with the First and Second Hokages and the dead bodies of poor Zaku and Kin. Because he could. But I wonder if he realized that it was an empty victory, and that's what further isolated/separated him from the rest of humanity/society/the Sannin/etc. And that might be what's happening with Sasuke. His victory over Itachi was hollow--I mean, it would have been hollow even if Itachi were evil and blah blah blah, and Sasuke drove away everyone to achieve his goal and had nothing after it was done--but the fact that he just ended up doing exactly what Itachi wanted, because Itachi was a good(???? morally gray, anyway) guy after all. So now Sasuke's on this rampage of needing something to avenge, something, anything, and he's just picking targets now.

"But Random," you say, "how does that fit with your hypothesis of Team 7 being a successful reflection of what the Sannin could have been? Are you not contradicting yourself, ma'am?" Ah, my fellow analyzers, but we are not taking into account that the story is not over yet. Naruto "redeems" or will "redeem" Jiraiya by being successful where Jiraiya was not (reference Jiraiya talking about how he "failed at everything he did" (i.e. not saving Orochimaru, failing with Nagato as a student, failing to kill Nagato as Pain)), Sakura "redeems" or will "redeem" Tsunade by surpassing her and not allowing her loved ones to die (Tsunade needs a bit less "redemption" than the other two because she's the most emotionally healthy of the Sannin to begin with, really), and...hopefully, this means Sasuke will "redeem" (...sort of) Orochimaru by actually finding a true purpose after achieving his initial hollow victory, and managing to rejoin society/humanity when he does.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  Please.

BUT ANYWAY, going back to why I want Sasuke to fight Kabutimaru is so he can sort of figure that out, maybe?  Actually, what I really want is this:

[Big fight scene, involving the two of them falling parallel..ly from a great height.  Kabutimaru taunts Sasuke as they're falling and he's trying to strike him or something (this looks better in my head than on paper, bah)]

K/maru: "All this, to destroy Konoha?  Your hometown?  What vengeance are you seeking now?  It looks to me, Sasuke-kun, like you just don't have a goal anymore.  You claim to be seeking retribution, yet all I see are petty excuses to play God with people's lives."

Oh, wait, does that sound familiar?  Oh, yeah.  It's similar to what Sasuke said to Orochimaru right before he killed him. 
 
I love it when people's words are thrown right back in their faces in that way.  Love it.  It's a trope that I adore.

IN FACT, (tangent is coming), it's one of my top 5 favorite tropes!

--Words thrown back in face during a reversal of position
--Lampshade hanging'
--Anticlimax
--Villains snarking at each other
--What the Hell Hero

Oh, hey, wait!  There's a scene in a movie that uses all five at the same time.  From Disney's The Emperor's New Groove:

Kuzco: "I can't believe you're really trying to kill us!" (or something, can't remember)
Yzma: "Just think of it as...you're being let go.  That your life's going in a different direction.  That your body's part of a permanent outplacement...--"
Kronk: "--Hey, that's kind of like what he said to you when you got fired."
Yzma: [irked] "I know.  It's called a cruel irony.  Like my dependence on you."

Ahaha, that movie hung more lampshades than a furniture store.  Probably why it was my favorite modern Disney movie until Treasure Planet came out.

Speaking of which: Treasure Planet.  Aaaahhhh.  That movie.  Is amazing.  I can't believe it was such a flop.  Like, oh my gosh, the gorgeous scenery and the cool fusion of steampunk and cyberpunk tech?  And the music?  And asakljdsakl Jim and Silver, I swear I cried.  Another example of my love for pseudofather/son relationships, where the son finds a father figure in someone who isn't his biological father.

And....wow.  Okay.  Nothing...much more to talk about here.  I'm...going to go do some work or something.  *sidles out*