Cheer Up, Emo Kid (Or, It's A Family Affair)

[redbrunja]

I love it when I'm wondering about some element of a story - in this case, who polices Konoha - and I get an answer almost right away.

I think the idea of Sasuke's clan being the ones who were supposed to police the town and the other ninjas was nicely apropos, and surprisingly enough, I now have a lot of sympathy for Sasuke.

He's still making blindingly bad decisions, and ignoring all the ropes people are throwing him, but I adored how you could see Sasuke's father screwing up Itachi who screws up Sasuke, who goes on to think that his only real option for defeating his brother is to join Orchimaru.

(And he might not be wrong - if you set aside all moral and emotional considerations, chasing after the power being offered him is a clever move. It's not smart, but it's clever. Sasuke just has no fucking idea of what he's losing by doing so.)

Also, Sasuke learning how to make those fireballs, with his puffed out cheeks and little flash of belly button was just about the most adorable thing ever.

The Naruto vs Sasuke fight was very cool, and I loved the headband motif. Sasuke's line about being "more special than you" almost made me do a spit take, it was so hilariously lol-tastic.

I know how many slashers adore Sasuke/Naruto, and I usually don't use this argument, because I'm honest enough to know that if the genders were different, say if Gojyo was a girl, I'd be over Gojyo/Hakkai like white on rice, but this time, I have to:

Why does everything reduce to sex?

By which I mean, I kind of feel that if you watched that fight between Sasuke and Naruto and thought that the subtext was "I wanna get into his pants," I think you missed the point.

Look at the way that the characters interact: when they're interested in someone romantically, they are not subtle about it at all. We all know that Sakura is pinning after Sasuke, and Naruto is pinning after Sakura, and Hinata is pinning after Naruto, and in the case of the first two, they are fucking BLATANT about their affections.

There is no room for confusion about that. And when Sakura starts to think fondly of and respect Naruto, she treats him like a brother or friend - none of the blushing, subservant way she treats Sasuke.

We don't know how Sasuke acts when he is actually is crushing on someone, but look at how he acts with his brother: He wants attention, wants to be as good as/better then, and then he wants to kill his brother.

That is almost the same emotional arc as Sasuke's relationship with Naruto, with the exception that Naruto is the one striving for attention and to be as good as/better than, and Sasuke is the one not giving him attention.

My point is, Sasuke's main relationship are all fraternal, and Naruto explicitly labels his relationship with Sasuke in familial terms. (And wondering if being with Iruka was like being with a father made me wibble.)

In other news, I loved Temari's conversation with Shikamaru in the hospital (though I wish either Neji or Choiji or Kiba would have died, simply because everyone making it out alive stretched my sense of credibility.) Poor Shikimaru, getting tag-teamed by both is father and his girlfriend Temari. I love how cold and ruthless she is, and I loved Nara-senior's comment about how you have to stick around to keep your friends safe.

Seeing Sakura come to Tsunade and ask for training was fantastic, as was Tsunade's conversation about the skills medic-nins have to have but I have to say, I was almost nauseous when I saw Sakua healing the fish. I know that l soon every female ninja sans Temari is going to be getting medic training, which makes me go, 'way the hell to ruin any chance of letting Sakura be special.' Sure, she ends up all badass from her training, but the fact that every other girl is going to be doing the same thing takes away any value. It would be completely different if they were picking medics based on, you know, personality or skill, but the mangaka totally isn't. I mean, Ino? I love the girl, but she (and Shikamaru) are the worst people to work in medicine in the whole manga. What about Choiji or Shino or Rock Lee? (Okay, he can't do the medical techniques so he's out, but you get my point, right?) The idea that Ino could be more valuable in medicine than in information gathering is ludicrous.

*sigh*

End rant.

So... Kakashi gaiden.

wee!Kakashi: most adorable thing ever Y/Y?

That was fantastic backstory for him.

And I have to say, Obito, Kakashi must have really liked you, because you're whole, 'Your father was a hero' *two panels pass* 'Your father was even lower scum!' was... not an argument that I would have listened to.

But I adore the whole 'sharingan as a gift' and when Kakashi is crying out of just that eye.

I totally need a wee!Kakashi icon.

Also, when do we learn that Kakashi was in ANBU and how Rin died? Because what Kakashi was wearing sort-of looked like an ANBU uniform, but I didn't see a tatto and it was never mentioned, but I thought this was around the time he was being sent out on assassination missions? Or was that after he mastered his chidori?

Speaking of, Sasuke has three 'comets' in his eye and Kakshi has two, correct? And do you think the Sharigan 'remembers' things it has learned? By which I mean, if it was passed on, does it/new person use jujitsu that had been memorized before, or does the new person have to relearn everything?

So now I'm on to Shippuuden! Where Sakura wears awesome boots and rivals Toph for earthbending, Temari is a jounin and Kakashi continues to be awesome!

Comments

[pikabot]

If you're going to get into analysis of subtext without considering authorial intent, it doesn't really work because at that level (which is really more like sub-subtext, or underneath the underneath if you will) everything is completely subjective to the reader. What some people see, others will miss completely, and oftentimes people will come out of it with exactly the opposite views. Discussion on that level is pretty much meaningless because not only are all participants working off of different playbooks, odds are pretty good they aren't even playing the same sport.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yes and no.

I talk about that alot here:

http://redbrunja.livejournal.com/143180.html#cutid1

Also, in most cases, if someone actually LISTENED when someone said, 'this is the subtext I see, here and here and here, which means X' EVEN IF THEY DID NOT AGREE, I think that someone would be able to at least understand where the other person is coming from.

[pikabot]

I remember that post, and to be honest I don't fully agree with it. No, there isn't a writer on the planet who's allowed to say 'this is all there is to my work', because subtext is subjective and everybody's going to see it differently. However, they do get to say 'this is what I see in my work and what I put in there', and that's worth something too.

I also disagree that all subtext is understandable to everyone. To bring up an old and tired example, I've listened at great length to Zuko/Katara shippers talk about the Fire/Water duality, and I still don't understand it. Oh, I can see the duality all right, but I cannot understand how that translates into romantic subtext. The two things are completely divorced to me. My brain's just coming from a different place from theirs, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Anyways, this is all sort of detached from the point I was making, which is that it's impossible to have a meaningful discussion about subtext that isn't about what the authorial intent is. Every other topic relating to the subtext varies so completely from person to person that in a best case, such a discussion goes as follows:

Person A: When I see X scene, this is how I interpret it.

Person B: Really? Huh. When I see that scene, this is how I interpret it.

Person A: Huh. I can respect that.

A worse case goes pretty much exactly like that, except that it involves one or more of the individuals flying off the handle at the other.

And I mean, that's a fine conversation, and it can be a lot of fun to see other people's perspectives, but it doesn't constitute any sort of meaningful discussion. And pretty much any other conversation has to go that way, because what's being put forward is just subjective interpretation.

The only real and meaningful discussion that's possible is trying to suss out which interpretation is the author's. Which in some cases is really easy, and in some cases...not so much.

[pikabot]

Also oh my god I am having such a love affair with that Hiyori icon. I need someone to stop me before it's too late. XD

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I've had too many authors pull things out of left field, or decide things that made to sense to trust them on knowing or understanding what they're writing, so I have a really hard time with the idea that only the story the author is fully conscious of writing is the only one with meaning.

[pikabot]

...and that's not at all what I said!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I know, I'm sorry, I answered that one really badly.

What I MEANT, and failed to articulate, was that first, I don't have a problem with the 'this is how I see it.' 'Oh, I see, and respect' that conversation, especially since usually you can find some middle ground, if not on, say, a shipping point, on another character, or something else.

Secondly, I disagree that 'The only real and meaningful discussion that's possible is trying to suss out which interpretation is the author'. If you're trying to PREDICT what's GOING to happen, yes, you want to try to figure out what the author is doing, but if you're just enjoying the fandom, and then see hints of something that makes you go "Shiny!"... I don't think that has inherently less value than agreeing with whatever the author says is right, especially since, as I mentioned, I have so, so little trust in authors at this point.

[pikabot]

Oh, no, I enjoy those sorts of conversations greatly as well. There's nothing wrong with them, and they're not of less value or anything. What I meant by 'meaningful discussion' is a conversation with actual back-and-forth arguments, with room for persuasion, much like what we're doing right now. Once both sides have stated their interpretations, there...really isn't anywhere for a conversation to go except to describe them in more detail or move on to describe other interpretations you have. You can't really have debate over it.

Well, not without winding up on fandom_wank, anyways.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That's true to an extent. I mean, further down enderxenocide explained how she viewed this fight as a Sasuke/Naruto shipper, and now I can see where she's coming from it. (Admittedly, she's way more sane than 99% of the fandom.)