wait what.

[arise]

It might be a warped impression that I'm getting from watching my husband play the 360 game, but Naruto has a REALLY broken Aesop, on multiple levels. Sasuke ditches his friends and is a total jerk (to put it lightly) to Naruto, while repeatedly telling Naruto to leave him alone and that he's not interested in being his friend... and Naruto obsessively trying to stay friends with him is a good thing?

Kids these days.

Comments

[mitbix]

I've never really thought of it that way. :|a It's hard to remember when I haven't had a proper reread in ... forever, but I think at this point, it's not so much that Naruto wants to be Sasuke's friend anymore so much as he wants to rid him and/or take on all the hatred Sasuke has for, well. Basically the entire world as they know it, really, due to the fact that he thinks Itachi had to do terrible things and then died as a result of it. The Aesop(?) that hatred breeds hatred and is a thing that needs to stop is something I like.

[arise]

Ahh, that makes significantly more sense. I think it might be the scenes that this game is choosing to stress, then - basically anything Naruto says is about how he has to rekindle the bond between him and Sasuke and he won't let go of the friendship etc.. It's kinda disconcerting because Sasuke's parts are All Itachi All The Time, so it comes off as Naruto being really clingy/emotionally co-dependent for someone who has mistreated and explicitly doesn't care about him.

The game storyline only seems to go up to a bit after Itachi's death, so perhaps that explains it. I don't know much about Naruto outside of watching my husband play the games (he hasn't seen the series either but really likes the gameplay), so it's an odd impression.

[mitbix]

Ooooh it's a game storyline, no wonder I was confused. Yeah the manga doesn't really ... have that. (SPOILERS: Naruto's pretty sure Sasuke is either going to kill him or they're both going to die, I forgot which one it was.)

[arise]

Yeah, I think the game probably takes a lot of liberties with the storyline. For example, I would assume that at some point in the manga Sakura does something. It looks like a fun game, though!

[amielleon]

The use of Aesop to use "moral message" is something I've never seen before. I like it. Is that an Australian thing or something you picked up from the internet?

Anyway, Japan advocating sticking by tsunderes to unrealistic extents is nothing new. For what it's worth, I don't think it really changes how people fundamentally behave.

[arise]

It's a bit of both, I think. I've seen it on the internet, but I've also heard it used in real life by people who wouldn't have gotten it from online. Aesop's Fables were still a pretty common thing when I was growing up, so perhaps that's why.

Yeah, that's true. It just seems so strange in this game that it's basically the entirety of Naruto's character!