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Thanks for answering my question Morgaine, I have one more if that's okay! Sorry XD I never understood how Karin's feelings can be seen as unselfish. She watched him go into darkness and did nothing to help, just like Hinata watched Naruto get bullied. She worried about him yes but never once tried to help him on a personal level, again just like Hinata. I love Karin but I just see her feelings for Sasuke as selfish and really similar to Hinata's with Naruto, which is why I don't like NH as we'l
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ASKED BY ANONYMOUS
Of course it’s OK to ask me another question, I’m just not so sure that I can answer it, haha.
Hmm, that’s quite an interesting perspective, and I think to give an adequate answer I might have to go back and re-read Sasuke’s fall into the darkness, but as I’ve said I’m extremely lazy so I’m going to take the easy way out and explain what comes to mind off the top of my head =D.
I’m not sure that I agree that Karin did nothing to help him, I think she absolutely was trying to help him get revenge against Konoha, I think she thought that that’s what he needed, I think she was trying to be useful to him. That probably wasn’t the right way to go about it, he was essentially going through a psychotic episode, and it probably would have been helpful if she along with the rest of Taka had tried to stage an intervention and tried to get him to understand that he needs some therapy, but as far as we know mental health services in the Narutoverse are pretty shitty. We know that many people suffer from some type of metal illness or another in this world, but unless I’m having another Naruto-related-brain-fart we’ve never seen someone be given psychiatric help —that’s precisely why I would love for Sakura (with an assist from Ino who can fraking walk into people’s minds) set up some sort of protocol to deal with the adverse mental and emotional effects of being a ninja. So while I can agree that with an outsider perspective there might have been better ways for Karin to help Sasuke, I’m not sure that Karin would have had that knowledge or those tools available to her. And, I really can’t see her actions as selfish. She (and the rest of Taka) were willing to go amazingly far for Sasuke, they were loyal to him and Karin…Karin nearly died because of how far she was willing to go for him (had she left him, she wouldn’t have been captured by Danzo, Sasuke wouldn’t have impaled her to get to Danzo etc etc thank the gods for my Cherry Blossom QUEEN). Also, I don’t really think she was being selfish, she got nothing out of seeing Sasuke’s fall into the darkness, she just got hurt. I think it was more due to an unavailability of proper mental-health tools/protocol. How can someone do, what zhe doesn’t know to do?
Plus, something else to consider is the fact that Sasuke’s fall into the darkness was fundamentally different from Naruto’s bullying, Naruto’s loneliness. For one thing, I don’t think that Sasuke can actually be saved from the darkness/the dark path by anyone other than himself. Someone can offer him a way out (and that someone can only be Naruto, his destined lover rival/best friend), but ultimately the decision has to be his to modify his ways, to modify his perspective is his. Saving Naruto would have been much easier, it was much easier. All Naruto needed was to know that someone cared for him, he pestered people hoping to gain their attention, chances are he started liking Sakura because she noticed him (it didn’t matter that she was annoyed with him, and treated him poorly), if Hinata had reached out to him, or had asked one of her body guards to help him in such a way that he knew someone cared for him, he’d have been saved from his loneliness much earlier. The problem is, Hinata was too self-involved, unobservant, and selfish to even understand what Naruto’s primary problem was, despite the fact that she spent so much time stalking him instead of training herself. She also seemed to gain something from her fabricated head-canon for Naruto, she devised a relationship in her mind based on an idea that he and she had bonded over the fact that they were both troubled because they were underestimated —the main problem being, though being underestimated did bother Naruto to some degree, the source of his problems were his loneliness. Hinata was so self-involved that she couldn’t comprehend what Naruto was going through. She can’t relate to Naruto, and even with what she could understand she refused to change because she was too cowardly, and because she got something out of it —an manufactured fantasy bond with Naruto— and as a result she acted as a bystander, and worsened Naruto’s predicament (until Iruka, and then Team 7 came along). That’s very different, IMO, from Karin who tried to help Sasuke, who thought she was doing something to help Sasuke, but perhaps went about it in the wrong way not because she misunderstood him, but because in their world nothing else was really available.
I think this anon is fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of Sasuke’s fall into darkness.
the chapter in which Tobirama explained the Curse of Hatred made it clear that rescuing someone from the effects of the Curse is practically IMPOSSIBLE, even for Hashirama, the god of shinobi, himself - he couldn’t stop Madara from becoming “evil” no matter what he did, it’s like Tobirama said - the more powerful their eyes become, the more vulnerable they are to the darkness
that being said, it was right when Sasuke activated Susanoo that Karin noticed the change in his chakra, which is in keeping with what we’ve learned in the chapter about Madara’s fall into darkness due to the Curse of Hatred - the more powerful an Uchiha’s eyes become, the more vulnerable they are to the darkness, and no matter how much you care about them, you are powerless to stop that from happening
here is Karin’s observation of the change in Sasuke’s chakra after he awakens Susanoo (notably left out of the animé):
After this, she tried to get him to go back and help Suigetsu and Juugo (which is what he NORMALLY does - see the Hachibi fight for a good example of how Sasuke acts around Taka (HTTP://HOMUSUBI.TUMBLR.COM/POST/36770049474/WHY-TAKA-IS-SEPARATE-FROM-AND-WHOLLY-UNRELATED-TO-TEAM) when he’s not being affected by the Curse), but he wouldn’t. She didn’t understand what was wrong with him - he’d become ”a completely different Sasuke” - but she did what she could to protect him.
moreover, that change in Sasuke occurred within a few hours - it started when he awakened Susanoo and began killing innocents (which he’d sworn he’d never do) and culminated in him stabbing Karin, which elicited a gleeful grin from Obito, who says “That’s my boy…”
The anime has Karin saying “Cold as ever. He’ll never change. But still…" when she talks about Sasuke’s chakra in Box Land (the name I’ll be using to refer to the weird dimension into which Sasuke and Karin are sucked by Tobi during the Kage Summit right before the Tsuchikage almost obliterates Sasuke).
However, that whole scene never actually happened. We never saw how Karin healed him in Box Land (it can only be assumed that she did so via biting since we have never seen her use the Mystical Palm Technique as she did in the animé), we just saw them appear in the other dimension with Karin wondering where they are and Sasuke passed out. Some chapters later, we get this scene:
So we actually have no idea what went down in Box Land, but it may not even be important.
What’s more important is that Sasuke’s chakra did change. It wasn’t “as cold as ever,” it was actually totally different from usual.
During the Raikage fight, Sasuke was clearly only looking out for himself since he’d gone over the deep end (Karin notices his chakra has become “dark” and “cold” and that he was a completely different person). But the rest of Taka had each other’s backs. As he watches, Karin cheers on Suigetsu internally and Suigetsu points out how uncaring Sasuke is being:
Despite Suigetsu’s derogatory comment, it was obvious that during the Hachibi fight, they had fought as a team and protected each other - Sasuke had stayed behind to save all of them rather than merely running away when the going got too tough. He had almost died saving Karin with a power he had awakened specifically to save her (Enton Kagutsuchi); a power he didn’t know he had and which his brother never achieved. Now, all of a sudden, Sasuke doesn’t give a fuck about any of them. Karin realizes that something strange has happened to him. He has awakened Susanoo:
When the fight is over and Suigetsu and Juugo are buried somewhere in the rubble, she wants to go after them, and is surprised when, unlike during the Hachibi fight, Sasuke doesn’t care about their well-being at all:
The point is, this is not the normal Sasuke who cares about Taka. This is the evil Sasuke bent on revenge at any cost, even the stabbing of a teammate he had previously endangered his life for and almost died for. A teammate who had been more precious, in that moment, than revenge.
So it’s important to realize that this Sasuke is different - unhinged completely and totally devoid of any qualms when it comes to obtainingrevenge. And Karin has a unique insight into this - she witnesses firsthand the change in his chakra, evident in this panel (which I’m posting thrice for emphasis lol):
This is further underscored by what she later says to Sakura as she is being healed, and makes it indubitably clear that she has witnessed Sasuke’s descent into darkness via his chakra as well as his erratic behavior. “He’s become even colder,” she thinks, and says to Sakura “He’s…not the Sasuke you knew anymore.”
as myself and many other SasuKarin fans have said in the past, Karin was Sasuke’s MORAL EVENT HORIZON - he crossed the line into darkness when he stabbed her and Obito’s comment is recognition of that fact - and I believe that only by receiving her forgiveness can he recross that line
note also that the endnotes of the chapter describing Madara’s fall into darkness say Madara became “evil” in quotes
so it’s because of the power of his eyes that he became evil, not because he himself was an evil person
the same is true of Sasuke; he can still be redeemed
but how? we’ll have to wait and see
YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT KARIN’S UNDERSTANDING OF SASUKE’S CHAKRA HERE
I think it’s worth noting that Karin also warned Sakura that Sasuke was about to stab her, even though at the time Karin was on the verge of death and did not know Sakura wasn’t planning to kill her. That’s hardly selfish behavior.
It also helps to keep in mind that Taka is a group of anti-heroes. Given their completely different positions in society, Karin and Hinata are not even remotely comparable characters. I’ll reiterate what I wrote in an earlier post -
Given their position as characters with no allegiance to anyone for whom no one particularly cares, likewise, they are not going to care about the Shinobi Alliance much. What has it ever done for them? Juugo was shunned everywhere he went, Suigetsu grew up in the Bloody Mist when young ninja had to fight each other to the death just to graduate from the academy, and Karin’s whole civilian village went up in smoke because of wars between nearby ninja villages. In other words, shinobi destroyed her family and everyone she knew. And then they all ended up in Otogakure, which is no place for a child.
They are fucked up, but they aren’t all bad, and that should be obvious from the Hachibi fight, when Suigetsu said he “didn’t know why he was risking his hide” for his friends, but he did it anyway. Juugo protected everyone in order to fulfill Kimimaro’s legacy. Karin, who didn’t give two shits about Juugo and Suigetsu when they first showed up and wished they’d kill each other, but ended up dragging both of them to safety along with Sasuke at the risk of losing her own life. Karin, who has no skills other than keen sensing skills, a sharp wit, and a potent healing ability, risked her life for them. Then Sasuke awakened Amaterasu to protect them all, and Enton Kagetsuchi to protect Karin.
Then she warned Sakura that Sasuke was about to kill her, and CRIED for her. She said herself that she “sympathized” with her.
The girl who wants more than anything to see the “SMILING FACE” of the boy who saved her.
Suigetsu enjoys “dismembering” his enemies “for fun.” Juugo slaughtered his whole village. Karin has been turned into a living IV drip and used many times by people she probably didn’t even know.
They may be fucked up, but they are far from evil. No one’s ever been on their side, so they have no real stake in this war, nor are they really aware of all that’s going on. They are there for Sasuke, and Sasuke alone.
I agree with this, what Hash literally said is that “it becomes impossible to deal with them”,
And we saw it happening with Sasuke! this also proves what Karin said after observing his chakra during the kage arc right, as well as Karin’s conclusion and her giving up on him at the end of the arc, due her understanding of his chakra. “Sasuke is [or rather, was] a lost cause.” they can’t help him, they can try to understand him -which what she and Naruto did, as well as Hashi- but they can’t help him, he has to help himself.
And as Kat said, it happened within a few hours. it was caused by Itachi’s death, but the serious change happened during the kage arc, you can see the whole thing starting from THIS page. THIS is the moment Karin noticed it, it was right before he started killing the Samurais. and this is the very next page:
And I believe that Kat explained the rest.
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This is beside the point, but I would like to back-up what I said, and add that Sasuke didn’t become the way he is now “semi-normal” until he decided to make a change. the whole curse of hatred thing is complicated, because we saw that Sasuke isn’t crazy, he recognizes people, but still acted coldly and evilly towards them.
What I mean is, contrary to what some of the fandom might think, Sasuke pulled himself out of the hatred by himself. Naruto wanted to save him, yes, but it wasn’t him who “helped” him to become “somewhat OK”, the way he is now. as I said, we saw him act differently towards people. we saw him reacting to Danzo capturing Karin and saying good bye to her, we saw him listening to Kakashi and doing as he told him and taking a look inside of his heart, although its effect was negative. and he reacted to Naruto as well, but we saw him acting all crazy and wanting to kill him. the thing with Naruto is that he gave him a goal and something to look forward to, he challenged him in a fight. however, you can reread chapter 574, and see that Sasuke -despite his nice words to his dead brother- is still under the curse of hatred, and acting all crazy.
The reason he was acting normally with Itachi is because Itachi’s the person he’s most emotionally-attached to, and has the most effect on him. but you can see that even with Itachi -near the end of the fight with Kabuto- that Sasuke still chose the darkness, he’s telling Itachi that he can forgive him because they are brothers, but his hatred for Konoha HAS ONLY GROWN after seeing him again. Only later, after Itachi died, Sasuke himself THOUGHT of making a “change”, and later DECIDED to make this “change”.
We saw Sasuke making a decision and he started to acting normally with others, moreover, dropping his revenge on Konoha. however, there are some hints that he has yet to fully recover from this curse, hopefully he will deal with this when he finds the answer for the last question “what am I?!”. and I really, really hope that Karin would have some role in this. I’ll stop here because that’s another story altogether.
#WOW YES THANK YOU FOR ADDING ONTO THIS#YOU'RE SO INSIGHTFUL!!!#THEORIES#SASUKARIN
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