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

Huzzah!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Filter it, filter it, filter it. The stupid parts don't exist, and the awesomecakes will keep you fat for a week. Go Sakura!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

That bit on authorial sexism? A large part of why I just called it quits. I can put up with all kinds of garbage in Bleach, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Rurouni Kenshin, Clamp, D.Gray-Man, etc. because, even though I have issues with the girl is sidelined/there to be rescued(with varying degrees of gravity), those mangaka seem to really and truly LIKE their female characters and want them to be cool and do things and be important(and they all DO make them important...though I kinda wish Clamp wouldn't tie that so closely to their deep need for Epic Angst.) In Naruto, I never got that feeling. I felt like, no matter how much I liked them, the girls were there because there had to be girls. The only one Kishimoto seemed to really like was Hinata, which I have issues with. Not issues with Hinata herself(I adore her) but with the fact that the only one he seemed to like was the almost pathologically shy wallflower who has to be pushed by the boys into doing things, and who has a massive and near-blind crush on the lead, who doesn't notice.

[anenko.livejournal.com]

Sakura is one of those characters I like despite the text. No, I think I like her *more* than I otherwise would have, just because she gets so much flak from every quarter--fandom and canon. I'm seriously thinking of giving up on Naruto because the characters I care about don't have much to do, and and Sasuke leaves me cold.

[pikabot]

Heh, I had a feeling you'd be disappointed by that fight, especially after all the buildup you got on it.

I went into the fight thinking 'oh shit, Sakura's about to actually get to do something,' but I emerged thinking 'what, is that it? Come on, Kishimoto, I'm sure even you can do better than that.'

It was subtle until now, but I HATE HATE HATE this idea that Sakura is now a Tsunade clone.

Oh ho, well, get used to it, because apparently in Kishimoto-land everybody turns into a mini version of whoever taught them. =/

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

-Yes, Kakashi is badass.

-Looking over your post, it seems most of your problems from this fight come from the fact that Sakura wasn’t alone right? That Chiyo was there, and thus not her moment to shine? If Sakura had taken down Sasori alone it would have somewhat better? If it is like that then I have to disagree. There is simply no way Kishimoto could have made it that Sakura won against an Akatsuki member alone. Akatsuki members are elite ninja, each one on par with a Kage in fighting ability. It would have violated the world rules too much if Sakura had been able to take one out on her own. Remember that Sasori took out an entire country on his own. It simply isn’t plausible.

-Sakura used as a puppet: it’s group tactics. Nothing more, nothing less. And it was used once.

-Sasori interrupting Sakura I think is just Kishimoto coming up with a witty way to subvert a trope, and it coming up during Sakura’s watch. Not to mention, she basically gets the essentials of her speech out. What else was she going to say?

-All of team seven is compared to the sannin. It’s anvilicious and doesn’t mean they’re clones.

-Life swap was narratively important. Had to be done. No else around.