The Girl Was A Puppet

[redbrunja]

Thoughts on Naruto to 277:

First off, I'm as a whole, I'm really enjoying Sakura's power-up. I loved when she's running into the hospital and treating Gaara's brother, and that she had the forsight to make some antidotes even after she'd healed him.

Also, whole comparison between Gaara and Naruto, when you see all the people Naruto gained, while Gaara remained alone was excellently done, and my heart was breaking for him. That said, one of the reason Naruto had those people was because he wanted them. Now, I imagine that Temari and Kankarou were always told to stay away from their brother, and possibly packed off to be trained while Gaara was a chibi!monster and being taken care of by his "uncle". At the very least his siblings where he teammates, and he didn't treat them well then, so it's not a total surprise that with all the indiscriminate killing and the threats of death that they didn't become close.

I really liked Naruto getting pwned by Itachi. I always love the trope of other characters telling one character everything said character is afraid they really feel deep inside as an illusion or under abnormal circumstances.

Also, Kakashi is badass.

Speaking of badass, that scene where he ripped off the seal and jumps away while Sakura breaks down the wall? Win. As soon as I read it I wanted to go find out which episode it's in, because I bet it looks hella cool animated.

On the subject of Sakura...

Okay, this is another case of being told something is fantastic, and then being disappointed. I was told this fight was sheerest win, and really gives Sakura her due.... and while it's cool, it doesn't, totally.

It's about evenly split between me going 'go, Sakura!' and wincing at the unhappy feeling in my tummy. I actually read it yesterday and then re-read it today to get everything straight in my head.

First, we have another case of someone else saying, "Stay behind me," to Sakura. Granted, it's a women instead of a boy... but that doesn't really give Sakura a leg up, you know?

The section picture of Sakura's back is fantastic - harkening back to the classic "now it's your turn to watch my back scene" from the chuunin exams.

"Knowledge of traps... instant reaction... I don't have either of those...."

This line bugged me the first time I read it, and upon seeing Tsunade's training, it makes no. fucking. sense. If Tsunade was training her in escape and evasion, wouldn't those be exactly the skills Sakura would have?

I was loving the whole breaking open the first shell scene until I realized that Chiyo was literally using Sakura as a puppet. Despite the fact that Sakura willingly choose to be a weapon in Chiyo's hands, the fact that even in this, her spotlight battle, she has this loss of agency... it grates, especially since agency has been exactly what Sakura needs more of.

"I promised Naruto... I said that this time, we'd be together. I swore that... this time, I'd protect both of them."

Awesomecakes.

And then Sakura using a explosive tag to blow the gas away was sheerest win, because that was all her, being tough and clever.

"You! I'll get you! Even if you blow off my arms and legs, if I take in your poison gas and it paralyzes me, I'll get you, I swear it! No matter what you do, no matter how much you resist, I'll beat half to death and make you talk about Orichimaru!"

And the crowd goes wild. Or at least I do, until he throws a whole bunch of kunai at her and Chiyo prevents her from getting stabbed, commenting, "Do you think men stop to listen when a women's talking?"

Let me pause here for a moment for a segue. Within a text, there are two kinds of sexism: character and authorial.

Basically, you can have a sexist character, without having a sexist text. You can also have a sexist text, with sexist characters.

Now, here, I imagine I'm supposed to read this as Sasori being an ass, and disrespecting Sakura.

I don't.

To me, it reads like Kishimoto shafting the ladies yet again.

Tell me, has anyone, ever, interrupted Naruto during one of his big, important speeches? Or when his is fucking loudly talking strategy with Kakashi? Of course not. Naruto has a penis. One of Sakura's few moment to shine, and she gets her dramatic death threat truncated.

"What I do have is my master's contempt for losing!"

Again, Sakura's awesomeness shines through, and because of how SAKURA is the one going 'we're going to fight,' I have much less problem than when it was Chiyo saying the same thing.

"Perfect! What I got from my master were unarmed combat skills!"

This is where the fight gets unequivocally fun -Sakura getting bloodied up, trixy with antidotes, and hurling Sasori around with his puppet strings was delightful.

(And I am now, retroactively, pissed off at the fic I read that had Sakura having a miserable time training with Gai and Anko when she wasn't allowed to use chakra post-timeskip. I cannot believe that Tsunade would train a hand-to-hand specialist who can only fight effectively with chakra. It's just dumb. Plus, makes no sense. If you're learning how to punch, it is the exact same motion whether you're punching out a mountain with chakra or punching out, say, Ino, with nothing but muscle. Remember when she did that?)

"You call yourself a girl with that unnatural strength?"

redbrunja: Hell yes!

I really loved Chiyo comments about Sakura's analytical skills. Now, if only she'd actually been fighting without Chiyo's help...

I greatly enjoyed the glimpse of Tsunade teaching we say, and as of now, Kishimoto is actually doing a good job of making Sakura a character of value to a team, and unique to boot.

I'm inordinately displeased that apparently Sakura grew her hair out while Naruto was gone. Thank god she cut it before he came back. (Shorter than it was before, to boot.)

Sakura's antidote fake-out was total win. I love her falling, and then surging up to smash Sasori's last puppet to pieces.

"You got your personality from Tsunade, too."

And redbrunja goes: Rentboy, no.

It was subtle until now, but I HATE HATE HATE this idea that Sakura is now a Tsunade clone. Christ, Kishimoto! Are you completely forgetting the chuunin exam arc? (Along with everybody else.)

"Sakura isn't the type of person to brag about or hurt others... she just doesn't want Ino to not take her seriously or show mercy."

Or, my favorite, "Sakura is like Naruto... her inability to accept defeat is beyond the average person."

The latter is particularly important because Tsunade isn't like that.

I'm not saying that the fifth Hokage isn't stubborn, but she doesn't have the same drive to never give up that Naruto or Sakura do. Just remember, both she and Jiraya were wandering around doing nothing in particular until Naruto showed up. Can you imagine Sakura aimlessly wandering about while Sasuke is out there being evil? Or initially refusing anything Konoha needs of her?

I thought not.

Back to the manga, Sakura taking that sword in the chest and then starting to heal herself was awesome.

I have no problem with Chiyo giving Sakura the antidote, but I hated the life exchange. It seemed like one more example of Sakura getting saved by someone else, and I really didn't see the point - so it could be revealed that Chiyo have a jutsu to save her grandson? Anyway, I didn't like it.

Sasori getting killed by his puppet parents was great, and I love the repeated image of him surrounded by those two in various ways.

Sakura's verbal and physical smackdown of Sasori was great - she's totally saying things she's been thinking about saying to Itachi.

*sigh*

I... wish I had some nice conclusion to sum this all up, but it short... "Awesomesauce! *feminist tummyache*Awesomesauce! *feminist tummyache*"

Comments

[pikabot]

I'll give you the Naruto fight, because he was weakened ahead of time (although it was two hearts he lost, not three, he still had three of the five elements to draw one, plus two hundred years' worth of fighting experience, and he didn't seem particularly discomfited by it, but whatever), but not the other two. Unless my memory's failing me, there's nothing that indicates that Hidan was any weaker than Sasori, and in fact on a one-on-one basis I'd think that Hidan's ability is nastier; he hits you even once and you're dead, no questions asked. Yeah, Shikamaru used preptime and strategy to kill him; but that's just how Shikamaru rolls.

And as for Sasuke vs Deidara...yeah, it was close. So has been every significant fight since the very beginning of the manga. He still took Deidara down, one-on-one, and I really don't see what his status as a villain has to do with anything.

Yes, Pain won against Jiraiya and all that, but the fact remains that ninjas of Sakura's level are capable of winning in one-on-one fights against members of the Akatsuki. And considering the fact that up until the fight, Sasori's biggest (and only) feat had been defeating Kankurou, there was no good narrative or in-universe reason for Sakura to need help.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Kakuza may have had a hundred years of battle experience, but he was also arrogant. That cost him.

There’s nothing in text that says Hidan was less powerful than Sasori, but it’s fairly obvious. Hidan had exactly two gimmicks: immortality and the voodoo thing. The first time Shikamaru faced him (with an entire at his back, so he actually had more backup than Sakura), these were put to good use, but once he’d figured them out (at the cost of Asuma’s life) they were essentially useless. Shikamaru may have been alone when he eventually killed Hidan, but it’s hardly like he got their alone, and it cost him much more than Sakura’s victory. So you could argue that Sakaru’s victory from a narrative standpoint was the ‘better’ one.

My point was that it was a close fight. After it had been shone that Sasuke was more powerful than both Sakura and Naruto. And him being a villain has everything to do with it. I’d assumed we were talking about the fact that it would be unfair for Sakura to not be able to defeat an Akatsuki member alone when her peers could. Sasuke hardly has peer status anymore.

…Sasori destroyed an entire country on his own and killed the last Kage. That’s enough justification.

Again, only two of Sakura’s peers were able to take down Akatsuki members on their own. Both with mitigating circumstances.

[pikabot]

Offscreen power displays don't count. We don't know what the circumstances of that were, nor exactly how it went down. They're impressive resume-padders but in terms of narrative plausability, they don't mean squat.

The only thing Shikamaru's team did to help Shikamaru get Hidan alone was stop Kakuzu from following. THey had nothing whatsoever to do with his one-on-one fight with Hidan, it was the exact same net result as if both of them had been alone to begin with. There were no 'mitigating circumstances' there. And yeah, he's only got those two gimmicks but in one-on-one combat? They basically make him invincible. Shikamaru might have known the tricks but he was still risking his life with every move he made, because one scratch and it would all be over.


And I still don't see what Sasuke being a villain has to do with anything. No, he may not be one of Sakura's "peers". But they were both part of the same class, went through the same training, and then both of them underwent intense training under one of the three legendary ninjas. They should be at approximately the same skill level, which is what is relevant to this conversation.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Yes, they do. Because for Chiyo those events are very real. That’s why she didn’t leave Sakura to face Sasori alone.

I was talking about the first time he faced Hidan, in which Kakuza didn’t even show up until the last half of the fight, and Shikamaru’s team did do a lot. And the second time they face each other, it’s not like it would have been if they first met one on one. Shikamaru had already seen all his techniques, had days to learn to counter them, and was able to choose the battlefield. Those are the mitigating circumstances.

I’m not saying Hidan wasn’t powerful, but that his techniques are very limited in their actual application, and were horribly inadequate to face Shikamaru’s shadow bind. And I didn’t say that it wasn’t still dangerous, but that Shikamaru basically controlled that battle right from the start.

Sasuke being a villain only has relevance form a narrative point of view. What you just described were in-world reasons for why he shouldn’t be more powerful than Sakura. Which may or may not be valid, but have little to do with whether the narrative is treating Sakura fairly. Which is what we’re talking about. Is it unfair that Jirayai is more powerful than Sakura? No. Why? Because narratively they’re in different power spheres, just as Sasuke is now in a different power sphere than not only Sakura, but Naruto, Sai, Yamato, and Orochimaru.

[pikabot]

Because narratively they’re in different power spheres, just as Sasuke is now in a different power sphere than not only Sakura, but Naruto, Sai, Yamato, and Orochimaru.

O rly. I'm curious as to how you conclude this. I mean yes, he beat Orochimaru, but Orochimaru was crippled and bedridden at the time, so I'm not sure that counts. And please don't say that it's because he beat Deidara, because that's begging the question.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

He outmaneuvered Orochimaru. Orochimaru was arrogant and assumed that all he needed was one shot to take over Sasuke's mind. Sasuke must have known that was Orochimaru's ultimate goal (it had been for what, two hundred chapters?) and once Orochimaru got there, he was able to turn the tables on him, not just defeating him, but stealing his power for his own. That seems to me a much sounder defeat than simply killing an opponent.

Also I'm curious that you only responded to one word of mine, do you not have anything to say about the rest?

[pikabot]

I'm not sure how subtle an out-maneuver 'wait until he's crippled and bedridden and THEN kill him and take his powers' is, or how on earth that qualifies as him being ina different power sphere at all, but OK, I guess we can roll with this if that's what you want.

I didn't respond to any of the rest of it because it either wasn't relevant or, frankly, worth responding to.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

You know, being rude doesn’t actually prove your argument has any more validity than mine. All it does is make people think you’re, well, rude.

And while I’ve read over both are posts, I fail to see how my points were not relevant. A bit of clarification if you would be so kind.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Okay, pikabot, solace_adrift, enough. You clearly aren't going to agree. If you really want to continue this, please take it to somewhere else.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Alright. I'm sorry we couldn't have a civil discussion.

[pikabot]

Trust me, I was already done with that last comment.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to be sure.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Okay, pikabot, solace_adrift, enough. You clearly aren't going to agree. If you really want to continue this, please take it to somewhere else.