askerian | Sasuke's childhood/family/ goddamnit why are there no social services in Konoha. D:

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Sasuke's childhood/family/ goddamnit why are there no social services in Konoha. D:

book_people: Because Sasuke sort of has this thing about blood family, don't know if anyone noticed...

askerian: yyyyeah. >__>

askerian: and okay, people non-related to him whom he likes AND loves is great, BUT!

book_people: Indeed

book_people: I've been thinking about that recently. Like, what is it about blood family that makes it more important than family-you-choose? Is it the "you have to love me because you're related to me" thing?

book_people: more important for some people, I mean

book_people: and Sasuke in particular

book_people: Okay, aside from the part where they all up and died on him...

askerian: childhood imprinting. :-P

book_people: *sniff* That only explains "mommy" or possibly "daddy."

book_people: u.u

askerian: XD

askerian: in sasuke's case, being an uchiha didn't only mean being dad and mom's son, it was the structure and underpinnings of most of his world

book_people: very true. However, when that vanished, many people would look for a new structure. He never did.

book_people: Particularly since he was so young! When someone offered, one would think a normal person would jump at it. You think it's because nobody offered soon enough? Nobody insisted? Was it the fact that people expected a traumatized kid to choose instead of just telling him "this is what will happen because it's good for you?"

askerian: eight is a real bad age for that sort of thing

book_people: meh

askerian: if he'd been older he would have started to look to his peers for structure, to want to grow away from his parents and more into someone accepted by his age group

askerian: if he'd been younger he wouldn't have remembered so much

askerian: at eight he's old enough to be aware of the Pride of the Uchiha and other heavy stuff like duty, and still totally wrapped up in being An Uchiha

askerian: and since he lived amongst many, many people who were, it wasn't like he had any concept that it was something he might want to grow out of, anyway, since a lot of the adults he knew were fine as Uchihas

book_people: and then it was all taken from him before he could get some perspective on that, so he just built it up into something big and grand and necessary in his head with no hope of learning the realities?

askerian: yeah, i think so

askerian: he's still in the idealizing stage, and then it all gets fixed and fossilized in his head by the tragedy

askerian: because gaining some perspective can only happen by stepping back, away from them

askerian: and that's a betrayal

askerian: which is exactly what itachi did.

book_people: ugh.

askerian: they're only alive and unsullied in his memories now, he can't afford to let them fade away

askerian: also konoha's children services sucks.

book_people: Hm. And even though he's now old enough to realize logically that they couldn't have been perfect, because the world they lived in wasn't perfect and nobody can be, it's still sort of a cornerstone of the way he looks at things.

book_people: ahah

book_people: yeah, they really do

askerian: they were proabbly seeing him too much like The Uchiha Scion/default clan heir and not enough like a kid who needed help even if he couldn't see/realize/accept he did.

askerian: so when he said "no, fuck off" no one told him "no, sorry, you're a kid, you don't get to make that kind of decision yet, and let's get you a tutor."

askerian: he probably had someone who dropped by regularly to see how he was doing, but. dude.

book_people: yeah. Someone who, you know, mentioned that you need to occasionally clean the mildew out from between the tiles in the bathroom...

askerian: XD

askerian: "are you eating alright/doing well in class?"
"yes."
"okay, everything's good, then."

askerian: maybe someone would have asked him if he was sleeping well, but he'd have stonewalled them like a motherfucker

askerian: like he's gonna admit he has nightmares all the time.

book_people: and/or lied like a rug

askerian: yeah XD

book_people: ...*sigh* It strikes me that so much could have been averted in this universe if someone opened a bloody foster home in Konoha

book_people: granted, there wouldn't have been much of a story, but still

askerian: another solution to sending himl to live with another family (and thus abandon his) would have been to have a live-in caretaker but. Not An Uchiha, in his house?

askerian: also why the fuck did no one make him move out, how the hell did anyone imagine anything but another breakdown would happen from there.

askerian: haha, that'd make for a good AU

book_people: An adult would have done poorly in that house. What were they thinking?

askerian: i wonder if anyone even bothered to sand down the blood all over the wooden floor in his parents' bedroom. I mean obviously someone removed the bodies, but.

book_people: ...bet nobody noticed, or they figured he'd call someone to do it. And of course he didn't.

book_people: because he was eight

askerian: Wonder if he did it. Or if he just left it all as-is as some kind of fucked up tribute.

book_people: I could see that. Like, the bedroom is exactly how they left it, plus about an inch of dust on everything because he's sure as fuck not going in there.

askerian: oh god, and itachi's bedroom.

askerian: never ever opening it again, but he'd still have to walk past that door every time he goes to his own, unless they're in opposite sides of the house

book_people: which they probably weren't

book_people: more likely both the kids were in the same wing

askerian: probably on the same corridor.

book_people: XD

book_people: ...maybe he had the exact opposite reaction? He told whoever came to just empty the room out, he doesn't want any of that stuff?

book_people: no, that would have been almost rational. What am I thinking?

askerian: pff.

askerian: also there's the fact that sasuke seems to view this as an internal matter to the uchiha clan (thanks, itachi, for telling him it was his responsibility to fix it) and he wouldn't air the clan's dirty laundry in public

book_people: I bet he never moved anything. Like, he even left the pots where they were, even though he needed a ladder to get to them because his mother was obviously taller than he was

askerian: ;__;

askerian: I don't think it ever occurred to him that maybe it was someone else's job to help him/get itachi captured/punished

askerian: like... actual adults.

book_people: ...seriously. Foster home. With a certified foster parent. Would solve so much.

askerian: *nodnod*

book_people: It also doesn't help that nobody actually did go after Itachi. Like, if they had done it for him, he'd have been upset at the time, but he would have eventually moved on since he didn't have the crutch of "Must Kill Itachi" anymore

askerian: someone needs to write it for us. *starts plotting out way to con f-list into helping*

book_people: XD

askerian: XD he might have never forgiven them, and without an obsession to cling to he might have spiraled into depression instead, but yeah, that'd have been a different set of problems.

book_people: one that's sort of surmountable, comparatively

askerian: XD comparatively.

book_people: Also, if he spiraled into depression, I feel like someone would have noticed and, you know, stuck their nose in

book_people: can't have wee children committing suicide, it's bad for Konoha's image

book_people: meh

book_people: he wouldn't have been Sasuke, though, and that would have made me a sad!Adi

book_people: so instead, I will advocate that someone write about somebody opening a foster home

shewhoflies: ...did Sasuke still live in his parent's house? I never saw that in the manga .__.

askerian: it's not clearly mentioned, but yes

askerian: when you look at childhood flashbacks in his bedroom, and at the bedroom he was living in when he leaves konoha, it's the same room from a different angle

askerian: when i started teamwork i assumed that any sane people would have MOVED HIM THE FUCK OUT but tadahh! turns out they didn't. dude.

shewhoflies: um. wow.
Askerian: yeah. The hell, Konoha. For people who rely on interrogation skills they obviously ned to learn more about mental trauma and psychology

*I saw a point by point comparison once, taking into account stuff like the ceiling light and the ... idk, window frame and whatnot, and yeah, it really did seem like Sasuke was still in his childhood bedroom by the time he left Konoha. There was a recent-ish flashback chapter with Sasuke on the floor playing with his toys that really cinched it, as it showed the same window as in the "tilting the team picture face down" scene.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

You know, though, if someone had opened a foster home, Naruto would have probably ended up there too. What with the, you know, having no parents thing.

Of course, part of the problem is the fact that Japan's child care system and obsession with blood family is almost as bad--One Piece is really astonishingly revolutionary for being a Japanese story that admits to things like adoption happening and non-blood family being important. It probably never occurred to the writer that anyone could possibly take Sasuke in, with his entire family dead.

That being said, Konoha totally needs a foster home.

Huh. I wonder if mulling on this will help me a little with figuring out the character of Mamoru in Sailor Moon. I mean seriously, wth happened to all of his families belongings? Did no one look for him? he just floated through the foster system?
Is there any place to research this kind of stuff or it's more just you know because you've been/lived there or know people who do? The comments about One Piece in the comment before mine has also given me a lot of food for thought...

when you look at childhood flashbacks in his bedroom, and at the bedroom he was living in when he leaves konoha, it's the same room from a different angle

Dude. Good Lord. I just...I mean, yes, this is a ninja village and all members are therefore tools that get replaced with each successive generation, but the Third really seemed to have a humanistic approach to everything. I have no idea how that is supposed to mesh with Sasuke being left completely on his own in that house, aside from some bad planning on Kishimoto's part. Because.

What the heck, Third. I know Naruto was busy wrecking havoc but surely you should have taken five minutes to visit that kid and see what was going wrong.

I agree with your analysis. Child services in Konoha sucks-or doesn't even exist....You'd think people would be aware of these problems. But I guess it's a society that sends 12-yr-olds (and even younger kids) to war, so...

It's been a while since I've seen/read anything Sailor Moon, but didn't he have amnesia after his parents died? Maybe they just couldn't ID the bodies for some reason and so his parents and he were just listed as missing? Until they eventually figured it out...

Yeah, no kidding with the blood family/adoption issue. They do have orphanages though, but from what it sounds from manga it seems like such undesirable places to live Kishimoto might just have dismissed them from his mind. maybe it just wasn't the story he wanted to tell, I can understand that, but it still makes for weird worldbuilding. They must have had another system in place, I mean, shinobi *die*, so what gives? DX Maybe a godparent system, but all of Sasuke's designated parent replacements happened to also be Uchihas so there was no one left.

But I guess it's a society that sends 12-yr-olds (and even younger kids) to war, so...
... this is indeed a very good point.

I dunno, I could accept this kind of thing better if I could tell it was actual worldbuilding, if some time was spent showing how it works (or doesn't work, all societies have dysfunctional corners), instead of being handwaved away because the author doesn't think about the implications farther than "it happened to this character like that." It'd feel more solid. But yeah, this is indeed a society that isn't really tender with its kids. Hell, Itachi and kakashi were jounin at crazy early ages, so...

Huh, Wiki is unhepful. Google? Lots of articles about americans wanting to adopt japanese babies to wade through, but something might pop up.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/07/09/us-japan-adoption-idUST915320070709
this article's pretty good.

yeah, god, what the hell. x__x What's the logiiic aaaaaaaa. Maybe the Third thought he had no right seeing as how he was responsible for the clan dying? Who gave the orders again. Argh. Anyway at that time the uchiha clan and the village weren't friendly to each other so maybe he thought forcing his way in would be an aggressive move and he was tyring to respect thye clan's position... except at that point the clan was AN EIGHT YEAR OLD TRAUMATIZED BOY. DX

idgi.

A bit of a different perspective re: foster parents. My father's first wife (not my mother) died when my oldest sister was about 6 - a little younger than Sasuke, but close enough that her reaction to my mom (Big Sis' stepmother) might be relevant.

From the moment my dad married Mom, Big Sis resented her. She remembered her birth mom, and Mom Was Not Her. They had constant battles, escalating by the time Big Sis was a teenager to screaming fights, because of it. This was despite Mom being a very patient, calm person, mind you - if she'd had more of Big Sis' more excitable temperament I don't even want to think how bad the fights would have been. It took Big Sis getting pregnant and Mom coming to take care of her during her pregnancy for Big Sis to realize that there's more than blood to family, and Big Sis was in her 20s and didn't see her whole family die in front of her as a kid.

But yeah, bringing it back to Naruto - between Naruto himself being on his own at a crazy early age (somebody must have taken care of him as a baby/toddler, but they sure weren't in the picture by the time we see him going to the Academy) and Sasuke, plus Root, it looks like young kids in Naruto are pretty much left to fend for themselves once they're old enough to wipe their own butts and figure out how to cook themselves a packet of ramen. :P

While i sometimes wonder how Sasuke survived at his age, I really cant see why theres not more of this argument for how Naruto survived the first 5 years of his life. He was despised by all but like 4 people in the village, and other than the 3rd, the other 3 people completely ignored him. So either the 3rd raised Naruto himself, then tossed him out on his own, or a Nursemaid was forced to raise him, and probably threw him out as soon as he could walk.

Everyone loved Sasuke. Even if he lived alone, its entirely likely he was looking in on by many people every day. Im sure its entirely possible he was brought food by random people all the time. Certainly, Konoha has horrible child services, but the likelyhood that Sasuke had a hard childhood, aside from the obvious, is likely non existant.

Konoha seems pretty Edo-period in its social structure, despite the modern fashion and architecture. Hyuuga branch house, Hatake Sakumo's suicide-for-honor (which also left Kakashi as a small child living alone), etc. Foster services, if they exist at all, are probably a terrible fate not meant for noble children. Though Sasuke really should've been turned over to one of the other noble clans... but then you get the political problem of "which one?" Whoever gets picked may very well think they're a target for Itachi or that Sasuke is going to steal all their secrets (Sharingan being what it is), and whoever doesn't get picked will take it as a snub.

Also, it's damn difficult to notice depression in children. Most people think it's impossible, and that's with depression being recognized as an illness instead of laziness.

"the likelihood that sasuke had a hard childhood is nonexistent", you make it sound a bit like it's a competition where only the winner gets to have the right to call it a shitty childhood, and the other one is just a whiner, and if Sasuke wasn't beaten daily and/or spat on in the streets that means he should have found a way to be eventually fine.

It doesn't matter if someone was by regularly to feed him. Having to live all alone in the empty house where his parents were killed is mental torture and traumatizing all on its own, even without having witnessed anything himself or been shown it via sharingan on top, and he was.

Sasuke didn't care whether they all loved him, because no they didn't. They loved the Poor Little Orphan (so they kept shoving that fact and their pity back in his face) and the Uchiha Scion (which he didn't used to be, that was Itachi, and he shouldn't have inherited anything with responsibilities attached until he was an adult either way, but now he had to act like it anyway.) No one cared about Sasuke himself, because no one still alive even knew him, and besides his own brother had told him he was a failure and to live by crawling and running away and betraying others since that was all he could do, why would he think he deserved anything?

They didn't love him, they fawned over their image of him. That must have been suffocating, and with very little actual value as emotional support.

I'm not disputing that Naruto had a shitty childhood, but they're two different people who had different trauma and who deal with trauma differently in the first place. Naruto was more resilient to his own loneliness, whether or not that loneliness was worse; he had coping mechanisms in the form of pranks to get him attention when he decided he wanted it, whcih isn't a great trick but one that reliably works and depends solely on his own decisions, and he's never been the sort to brood on things so he doesn't drag himself down. Sasuke's trauma hit him precisely on his shatterpoint, which was his attachment to his family and his pride and trust in his clan, and he's always had a tendency to think and scrutinize more. Does that not count as a hard childhood unless he was, idk, raped behind a dumpster or starved?

We always see such extraordinary backstories in manga it's like if a character still has all his limbs and he wasn't forced to kill his mom with his own two hands it's not real trauma. Seriously, yes, it is.

Wow, what a interesting dialog.

Could it just be that we are seeing the series through young eyes and they just don't notice helping hands? I mean, Naruto saw The Third every few days - enough that he was on first *heh* name basis with him. Sasuke's clothes progressed and that takes more than someone dropping off food. The house was dusted, the yard cleaned, etc. But children - for the most part - are very single focused. Naruto never really noticed Ichiraku's help? Seriously, what successful business gives out that many 2for1 tickets? The Third went out of the way to work with Iruka ... I wonder how many children he just 'happened' upon each day? How many assistants did he have doing the same? But would Sasuke or Naruto really flashback to those? I can see Naruto being neglected but ... hmmm.

I bring this up because my niece lived with my parents and I for 3 years (from 4 to 7) - big house, her own room, dog, toys, pool, best friend next door, she was walked to school, etc. Her fifth birthday party was incredible and people talked with her about it for years. She loved living with us. And she was placed with up because her younger brother died in a home accident. She was able to see her parents regularly since they lived close by and were there just about every night. You ask her about that time now, She calls it the period when we took her away from her family. Kids focus on different things.

Where I'm from, people watch their kids like hawks. Even in your own front yard, if your parents/guardians weren't watching out for you, a neighbor or other adult would be. So I automatically agree with you, but the Konoha community isn't like my hometown and reflects a dated Japanese mindset (also, militarized).

Until fairly recently, kids seem to be supposed to be able to look after themselves in Japan - from what I've been able to see from pop culture. The parents leave for work and their kids tend to be expected to clothe and feed themselves, have their materials ready, and walk to school on their own even at an early age.

In Naruto, how many times do we see kids out and about on their own? We've seen them walking around, training, at shops and eating out... with other children, yes, but not all the kids in Konoha are parentless.

In Naruto's flashbacks to around the time of the massacre when both he and Sasuke were on their own, there were kids in the playground with Naruto - his age - with no adult supervision (up until they were called back for dinner, at which point they were already there so why not walk home together).

It's been shown that Kakashi stopped by Naruto's place to briefly nag him about his eating habits, but dropping by for a few minutes isn't the same as supervision and makes me doubt that they had a system like that in place. For any of the children, war orphaned or not. :(

Right, because you CAN'T have a godparent who ISN'T an Uchiha because, OH NOES, they might discover the awesome secrets of the Uchiha and EXPLOIT THEM, DUN DUN DUUUUN!

So how would you deal with a child like Sasuke then? I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just asking how on earth your average foster is supposed to gain any sort of respect, affection and/or obedience from him considering his, ah, circumstances.

I think he was left alone because, while they thought 'oh poor lil Uchihaling' none of them actually wanted to assume responsibility over him, like when someone falls over in a busy street - someone else's problem but oh that poor dear; someone should really help him. Way easier to pity from afar than it would be to raise him to be a semi-normal kid whether he liked it or not.

That's probably pretty accurate, actually.

Kinda ironic, though...

I always wondered about this! The manga makes it out like nothing happened between the Uchiha being wiped out and Sasuke becoming a genin besides being forever alone (and being all cutely sentimental/melancholy during sunset). Same with Naruto. Makes me wonder if they were just given monthly allowances to spend on food and such. Which probably explains Naruto's...well, everything. Though Sasuke probably had enough money himself. Wish we knew more about all of this stuff.

But, yes, even though foster homes/orphanages aren't always a definite cure for loneliness, it would have been better than being alone.

I wasnt suggesting that Sasuke's childhood Trauma was any less than Naruto's. just that the situations after the fact were probably easier. Obviously whatever truely happened, didnt help at all, and Naruto got really lucky that he didnt turn out just as bad.

I think a lot of it is that after Itachi, he could never bring himself to love *anyone* as much as he did before. His status as special that kept him away from other students didn't help either.

He was already enough of a ninja at the time it happened to let himself stand on his own pretty well and act as a proper ninja, so he didn't have to let himself love another family.

Also, I'd imagine whoever took care of him may have been all about the status of being chosen to look after him, rather than for Sasuke himself.

The "blood relations are holy, adoption is not equal" is a very Japanese thing, one I always thought to be bullshit.

I don't think the nation would have a great system for these things, Konoha or not; they're constantly at war or at the very brink of one, they have to keep sending children to fight as soon as they "qualify", and there are just tons of young orphans with a bunch of traumatized and/or busy adults to look after them. The education is almost non-existent too, they start training to be ninja at such a young age. Especially any Uchiha; they get their own private head-start, easily isolating them from most of the kids. Not only because of the gap in skill, but the social standing as well as the stage of maturity - the clan seems to be spewing highly independent prodigies left and right.

That said, I don't think he should be looked at like you'd look at another real world child of the same age. Kishimoto doesn't follow every rule or logic in anything to do with aging, development and growth. That adds a year to his mental age at least, with the Uchiha thing adding another one, and he'll get at least one more from being generally more mature/developed, as it happens in real life as well. So, let's say he was actually "11".

I wouldn't have sought out another haven, I would have been broken. Like he was. He was still young and unsuspecting enough to react with rage rather than acceptance for the world's shitty ways or understanding for the possible reasons, but old and proud enough to think he could and should make it on his own. Not to mention the illogical sides of PTSD and whatever else he picked up.

I think they did assign someone to at least check up on him, but if they got him an actual caretaker, I think he would've insisted on being left alone until they listened. He would get good reports to back him up from the teachers in school (maybe not the ones like Iruka), and yeah, in Konoha, I think he would've got away with it. Especially with his clan's and brother's reputation - mass murder not included.

... Oops, that got long.

I get the feeling that the reason why none of these good points are brought to life in the manga is because Kishimoto thought "Hey, this is a kid's manga. No one's going to think too deeply about it, why bother? Besides, this makes for a better story! :DDD"

*without reading any of the other comments*

I know I've seen a LOT of people write their fic as though Sasuke lived in a sane and normal apartment outside the Uchiha district -- some tiny little thing, but still nicer than, for example, Naruto's, because of Uchiha inheritance.

I, however, usually write him as living in the family house, partially because of Konoha's shitty child-care system/penchant for pegging kids as "grown-up" at ridiculously young ages (I'm a murderer at age six! Yay!), and partially because it's Sasuke and he wouldn't leave.

RE: The rest of the house. I usually write his house situation as this: My Sasuke is a bit of a neat/clean freak, not because he has to have things clean or whatnot, but because he's a damn good ninja, and if he learns to erase any trace that he's been somewhere, he'll be harder to track. This doubles itself into his home life by rote and habit. The house is immaculate. He somehow finds time among everything else to keep up the house... and it's partially that ninja-clean rote, and partially because... he wants the house to be like it was when there was still a family living in it. I agree with the idea that he would have left all the storage and setup exactly as it was, even if that meant a step stool for the higher cabinets (I've actually written him using a step stool in some RP scenes without even thinking about it). My Sasuke even keeps the back garden perfect.

As for the family's rooms: His parents' room is spotless. It wasn't always, but at the point where he's a pre-teen/teenager (in my fics/RPs where Sasuke didn't leave), he keeps it immaculate. The bed is stripped but covered in a dust-drape; all the clothes have been covered in dust cloths, etc. The blood stain on the floor? He's tried to scrub that out himself. Multiple times. By the time he was old enough to think of sanding, it had bled deep into the floorboards. It's pretty much there forever. Dulled and colorless black, but still there.

Itachi's room is locked. He left it to rot in its own dust. He's gotten so used, by now, to walking past it and pretending it isn't there, that he's actually written his existence out of his mind. His is the second door on the right, not the third; there are three bedrooms in that wing, not four; etc.

I think if anyone had even tried to pull him from that home, there would have been fire. It's all he has left of the family. As I wrote in one of my RPs recently, his opinion on staying there is pretty much, "I wasn't going to leave their memories to fade alone."

...../2cents

^ This. All of this. Forever.

;___;
That's so beautiful. In a messed-up-I'm-the-last-Uchiha kind of way.

Reminds me of a picture I saw. :I (http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs7/i/2005/256/8/f/Random_Naruto_comic_by_Zazie_la_Beast.jpg) Funny, but I was thinking the same thing. Konoha just kind of sucked in this respect. I mean... all of the orphans were treated like that. That same 'smack onna shoulder and man up' thing.

You know my friend and I were talking about this not long ago. Someone was saying they hated Sasuke for being Evil Crazy Betraying Monster, and I was like well what do you expect him to turn up roses living in an abandoned part of town in the house his family was murdered in. There was little to no flipping chance he'd be alright and make good decisions. I'm actually eternally surprised there aren't more little crazys out there, it seems like Konoha will let a baby grow up in the blood soaked remains of it's murdered parents.

Pff, nice comic. Yeah, that's kinda how I saw the loving and compassionate attitude of the villagers toward him too. >__>

and partially because it's Sasuke and he wouldn't leave.

...he wouldn't, would he? ;_;

Sasukeeee. *hugs him to death*

~~How about an awesome Team 7 amv to cheer you up? :D~~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I4lzuqlk-A

...This convo addresses a lot of my issues about Sasuke's childhood. He's a character I've always empathized with so it really upset me to see throughout the show that nobody cared he was living in a house where his own parents were murdered. 8'0 Talk about asking for some seriously bad PTSD...

I mean seriously, what is it with Konoha and orphaned children? They get an 'F' in therapeutic services and psychology. Guess Kishi thought foster care for Sasuke would foil his psycho-suke's ultimate revenge plot. Which is quite mean obviously, but the show must go on...at the sake of my favorite character's sanity ;A; There are some definite plot holes when it comes to why Sasuke was living on his own instead of with other adults, why nobody ever asked him if he hated living in his old house, etc. It's one of those situations where this is purposely ignored/unaddressed for the plot. Not fair. :'P

I read this and it pings me so hard in the "Bruce Wayne" department. Because, well.

There are two differences between Bruce and Sasuke. The first is, Bruce was an only child, so there was no Big Brother for him to simultaneously adore, resent – and ultimately be betrayed by. The significant difference between Bruce’s and Sasuke’s damage is that Bruce’s trauma coalesced around the idea of “crime”, whereas Sasuke had a focus. The second is that Bruce had Alfred – and Leslie Thompkins, but she was far from as present in Bruce’s life as Alfred, and her influence being acknowledged depends entirely on which part of canon you refer to.

And for all that Bruce was raised by someone and not left on his own like Sasuke was, he hasn’t come out that much better. (Of course, Sasuke is still in his formative years. When he was that age, Bruce was still travelling around the worlds to find the best teachers at making him into a weapon; he wasn’t Batman yet. There’s hope for Sasuke yet!) I see Alfred-raising-Bruce as somewhat similar to what Kakashi-raising-Sasuke might have been like, if Kakashi hadn’t been so… hm. I don’t have the words; but you see the scene of Kakashi telling Sasuke that he’s found a new family and new precious people? If Kakashi had raised Sasuke without ever saying something like that, it might be something like the relationship between Alfred and Bruce, minus the employer/employee issues. In that scenario, it would’ve taken Kakashi to be emotionally available/sincere for it to make a blatant difference, maybe.

We don’t know how Sasuke would’ve dealt with being placed in a loving, normal family. The boy cannot deal with Sakura’s hugs. It’s not unlikely to think he would’ve lashed out at the first person trying to show him affection. (Sasuke shows hints of Bruce’s everyone-I-love-dies-I-am-poison-and-can’t-let-people-get-close-to-me mentality, I think.)

Sorry to ramble at you, especially so late. I don’t intend this post as a rebuke of your point AT ALL, if only because I fail to see how ANYTHING could’ve been worse than what actually happened, but being taken in by someone else might’ve only shifted Sasuke’s difficulties.

Of course I’m using Bruce as my control subject, which is lolarious to the max, and another child who’d have greatly benefitted from serious psychological care.

XDD Batman makes for a good comparison.

i enjoyed your comment but i'm so braindead i can't figure out anything else to answer to it. it was v. interesting though u.u ah, those childhood traumas. ♥

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Sasuke's childhood/family/ goddamnit why are there no social services in Konoha. D:

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