Itachi's Regret

[no Jutsu]

Been reading around, and see a lot of people saying things like:

"This shows Itachi still loves him!"

"Itachi was just testing Sasuke!"

OK maybe the first is true... but the second?

Itachi wanted Sasuke's eyes. He wanted them bad. There is no way he uses self-destructive techniques like Amaterasu and Susanou without a real intent to take Sasuke's eyes. He was batshit crazy and power hungry.

Looking over the sequence of events in Chapter 393, it is apparent what is really happening. At the start of the chapter, Itachi says, "Your eyes belong to me now. I'll take them slowly... I want to savor this." Immediately afterwards Itachi clutches his chest, bent over, coughing blood..

It at this moment he realizes one thing:

That he is going to die.

Suddenly, the culmination of his entire work suddenly becomes for naught. Think about the things he did in order to achieve ultimate power. Killed his best friend. Killed his entire family. Ruins his brothers life, and then tries to kill him.

It was all for nothing. Even if he took Sasuke's eyes, he is still going to die. The end is inevitable for him.

It is at this point that Itachi finally experiences regret. He realizes the folly of his actions. That his quest for power became meaningless. That all he did was destroy and now he must die alone and blind - alone in the darkness.

So what is his recourse? With but a few precious moments to live, he expresses his realization and intentions to Sasuke in the only way he knows how - a single gesture that symbolizes the bond they had between brothers. A gesture that was typically used to express apology.

I think in a way, Itachi did save Sasuke. Sasuke took the same path as him. Sasuke had ALWAYS followed in Itachi's footsteps, even when he hated Itachi, even when those steps lead him down the path of darkness.

With his death, Itachi has shown Sasuke where this path leads. While he may have ruined his brother's life, he may have saved his brother's soul before he was lost forever.

R.I.P. Itachi.

 

[guro]

That sounds pretty likely to be true.

 

[Sumeragi]

Sasuke took the same path as him. Sasuke had ALWAYS followed in Itachi's footsteps, even when he hated Itachi, even when those steps lead him down the path of darkness.

With his death, Itachi has shown Sasuke where this path leads. While he may have ruined his brother's life, he may have saved his brother's soul before he was lost forever.

R.I.P. Itachi.

Considering the way Sasuke has been in part 2, this sounds right. He became like Itachi even though he said he would not. +Reps.

 

[maximilyan]

Could be possible. but imo thatd be even more lame than his death.

 

[no Jutsu]

but imo thatd be even more lame than his death.

What are you referring to exactly?

That Itachi wanted to make one last effort to try and redeem himself? If this theory of mine is indeed the case then Kishi is doing something very interesting that we don't see very often in cookie cutter shonen manga.

It shows that Itachi, while evil, wasn't 100% evil. He may have even thought he was justified in his action. That's more representative of life than the black/white, good/evil, that we see in a lot of popular media.

Of course I could be adding layers of complexity that just aren't there. Only time will tell.

 

[Jeαnne]

..>< we just want to still believe that itachi was something more...until the very end, we still have hope ç.ç

 

[Raiden]

Could be possible. but imo thatd be even more lame than his death.

Really? I think it would be best to see Itachi go down realizing that wrongness of his ways instead of going down with only regret and the grim feeling of failure. That would add the unique element of "being a vilain but then not acting like one" back to his character. This is what made Itachi fans like him to begin with. He is the only vilain that up until this fight didn't seem power lusted.