SNS' Mindscape as a Heterotopia Part 1
I posit Naruto and Sasuke’s shared mindscape as a heteropia: a countersite that simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted other sites that could be found within their culture.
Naruto and Sasuke exist within a fictional world that's largely a projection of the cultural milieu Kishimoto himself was raised in. Therefore, by virtue of the fact "that there is probably not a single culture in the world that fails to constitute heterotopias," I posit that the world of Naruto adheres to the first principle.
There are two main types of heteropias: heterotopias of crisis and heterotopias of deviance. Naruto and Sasuke's mindscape embodies both of these categories.
Naruto and Sasuke's Mindscape as a Heteropia of Crisis
Upon graduating from the academy, ninja fledglings were given a headband that symbolized their adulthood and induction to shinobihood. Generally speaking, to be a shinobi meant to be a tool used at the behest of the village one was in service to. But for the Konoha ninjas specifically, it also meant adopting the will of fire, which in practice entailed prioritizing the village entity even at the cost of sacrificing the individual.
Naruto and Sasuke's mindscape functioned as a sacred place that allowed them to negotiate with their crisis of adolescence. Despite both being formally recognized as adults by Konoha, Naruto and Sasuke remained tethered to their childhood, which resulted in their shared neurosis.
Sasuke was groomed to prioritize vengeance by the person he had loved and trusted more than anyone. Bonds were not meant to be regarded as lasting and essential connections, but rather as auxiliary relations that could be sacrificed at the altar of power.
As a result of Sasuke's trauma, he remained continually mired in grief and shirked the "weakness" that came from having with connections with others. As a result of Naruto's trauma, he developed a massive inferiority complex. And naturally, their issues impacted how they interacted with other.
Naruto was happy seeing Sasuke at first glance and wanted to speak to who he felt was another kindred lonely spirit right away. Just watching Naruto made Sasuke's heart feel safe and managed to bring a smile to his face. However, they were unable to properly verbalize their desires even to themselves and lived in a state of denial.
In fact, when Naruto and Sasuke had the chance to make the seal of reconciliation after their academy spar, they both refused, choosing to maintain a facade rather than embrace the vulnerability that they internally sought.
Though their tension in that moment was seemingly ended upon Naruto choosing to leave, their shared mindscape laid bare their anxieties and regret over not having reached out to each other in the way that they wanted to as children. They were unable to complete the traditional ritualistic performance expected of them as ninjas despite and because of their significant emotional attachment to each other, so they retreated to fantasy instead of confronting their reality head-on.
Naruto and Sasuke's mindscape served as a safe haven that allowed them to confront their lack of maturation and gradually develop into adulthood at the end of the manga (during their blood seal of reconciliation). For example, it's the reason why the feelings Naruto held towards Sasuke, feelings which he only internally reflected on during VOTE 1, were finally revealed to Sasuke during the 5 Kage Summit Arc in their mindscape. It's also why Sasuke was able to explicitly tell Naruto that they understood each other’s hearts after they witnessed each other's childhood memories (when their chakras clashed).
Kishimoto continually sought to problematize the notion of shinobihood throughout the manga (e.g., Zabuza admitting that even he, as a shinobi, couldn't cut himself off from his emotions, a scene that was clearly paralleled with Sasuke finally being honest about his emotions towards Naruto at the end of the manga), and nowhere was this explored more than in the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke. If even the ninjas built up to be strongest and most successful by the end of the manga couldn't adhere to traditional ninja ideals, then clearly a radical conceptual shift was necessary.
I would also argue that Naruto and Sasuke's developmental crisis was a form of deviance inasmuch as it conflicted with their status as ninjas.
Naruto and Sasuke's Mindscape as a Heteropia of Deviance
The word "ninja/shinobi" (忍者) means "one who is stealthy" and is a combination of "nin" (忍), which means "endurance," and "sha" (者), which means "someone of that type."
The significant series-ending message delivered by Sasuke, "A ninja is one who endures," is a play on words based on the kanji for "nin" (忍), being made up of the kanji for "blade" (刃) pressing down on the kanji for "heart" (心).
The kanji's meaning of endurance comes from the strength that it takes to withstand a blade pressing down on one's heart.
It was this same pun that motivated the opposing ideology outlined in Kakashi's words ("It is merely important that we exist as a tool for our homeland to use in whatever way they need") at the beginning of the manga, as the "nin" kanji without the "heart" kanji is a blade, or a tool. (There is something to be said about Kishimoto's adeptness with words and the way the incompleteness of the dominant shinobi logic, "A ninja is meant to be a tool," mirrored the incompleteness of the kanji for "nin," but that is beyond the scope of this post.)
Time after time, the narrative reiterated the fact that objectification, and more specifically instrumentality, was the supreme logic that undergirded shinobihood in Naruto. Shinobi were merely regarded as tools (a significant part of the tension in Naruto came from ninjas trying to reconcile the ideal of ninjahood with their lived experiences). And during Part 1 in particular, no where was this logic exemplified more than in Orochimaru, whose crimes ranged from grooming to human experimentation. There wasn't a single line Orochimaru wouldn't cross for power, and this was made especially apparent during the Forest of Death. Orochimaru, who desired a "beautiful" Uchiha body to quite literally use as a vessel, set his eyes on Sasuke and staked his claim with a curse mark, in the hope that Sasuke would seek him out in the quest for power. However, there was one hitch in his plan to turn Sasuke into a tool: Naruto. The person who was fearless enough to try and take on a major hidden village was nervous not because of Naruto's budding physical capabilities but because of Naruto's influence on Sasuke—an influence so strong that it reduced the darkness in Sasuke and changed his heart and goals (The visual symbolism in the scene was particularly telling. It's no coincidence that the kanji for "shinobi" was on full display as Orochimaru and Kabuto discussed the need to separate Sasuke from his heart, Naruto, in order to make him a vessel). In other words, Sasuke's feelings for Naruto were a threat, a deviance "in relation to the required mean or norm" of shinobi society.
Naruto's deviance was even more markedly apparent, so much so that everyone from Sai to Tayuya remarked on his unmanly and off-putting non-friendship-like feelings for and behavior towards Sasuke.
Naruto and Sasuke's shared mindscape allowed the heretical hearts that the shinobi world wanted eradicated to communicate and eventually coalesce in their shared feelings for each other.
This will also receive more elaboration when I discuss principle 3.
The second principle of heteropias states that their meanings and functions can shift based on the cultural context.
In Naruto, the original purposes of chakra, and consequently the connection of spiritual energies, were to enable people to read each other's hearts without words and pray for stability. It was called "ninshu," a religious practice created by the Sage of Six Paths. However, this original purpose became obscured as people used chakra to amplify their own power and convert it into ninjutsu to battle each other. Naruto and Sasuke's existence in a purportedly "post"-Sage world where shinobi were commonplace in their village altered the function of the mindscape/heteropia as well as the mode through which it was reached. While it retained the original meaning of being an interface that allowed two hearts to connect, the connection no longer functioned as a communal prayer channel; it primarily became a means through which Naruto and Sasuke sorted out their *intimate* interpersonal issues. Even though the nature of their confrontation took on a political slant in the aftermath of the war, their political aims were still largely facades that concealed deeper motives: "personal feelings [and] childhood traumas."
Sasuke's statement about fists ("Do you know, Naruto, if two top-class ninjas exchange fists just once, they can read each other's hearts?") also reflected the recontexualization of the mindscape in the wake of Madara and Hashirama's legacy. The seemingly antithetical functions of nishu and ninjutsu merged to adapt to Naruto and Sasuke's hypermilitarized world. Despite the cultivation of chakra, and consequently, power, being characterized as a barrier to emotional connections, it was precisely the clash of Naruto's and Sasuke's respective weapons of choice, the rasengan and the chidori, that allowed Naruto and Sasuke's spiritual energies to merge.
