Sasuke's defection is so tragic because his story was so close to being a story of healing.
He was broken by Itachi. Badly. Not just through the massacre itself, but also by the psychological torture he'd endured twice by this point, at the tender age of just thirteen years old. And yet, despite this, he was still capable of great love.
Despite losing everything—his entire family, clan, culture, social framework—he still found love again. He found a new family. Which was actually incredibly brave of him! To open himself up to love means to open himself up to loss again, which is something that he's terrified of. (It's something that he's still terrified of twenty years later, in Sasuke Retsuden, when he can't find Sakura in the rubble!)
And as Part 1 progresses, you see him go from being annoyed with being on a team with Naruto and Sakura to being so close with them to the point that he was willing to sacrifice himself for their sakes.
When Itachi comes back to Konoha, Sasuke's first thought is not his vengeance, as it would have been at the start of the story. It was Naruto's safety. The wellbeing of his friend was more important to him than his personal goals—at least, until he sees Itachi, and is consumed by rage. If Sasuke hadn't set eyes on Itachi that day, he would have found Naruto and convinced him to return to the safety of the village with him. He was trying to protect his friend, not achieve his vengeance. He's grown so much by this point.
But the second time Itachi puts him through the Tsukuyomi reopens all the fractures in Sasuke's psyche that were starting to heal over. If Itachi is right that hate is what leads to power—and Sasuke has no reason to doubt this, because as far as he's aware, Itachi's actions up to this point have been driven by hate—then love must be a weakness.
Sasuke doesn't see his own growth, because his growing attachment to his new family has only caused him (in his eyes) to get hurt and fail to protect them when it matters most. He was overcome by Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, couldn't save Sakura from Gaara, and was tossed aside like so much refuse by Itachi.
He doesn't see how he has inspired his friends. How his willingness to put his life on the line for them inspires them to do the same for him. All he sees is their (particularly Naruto's) growth. It's not that he's falling behind; it's that they're catching up.
He doesn't know that Naruto has always had a handicap. No one told him that the reason that Naruto gained so much strength so quickly is because someone helped him overcome that limitation. It wasn't that Naruto didn't always have that innate strength—it was just that no one had taught him how to use it before that point.
But to Sasuke, who is ignorant of all this, it just looks like he's falling behind the dead last loser from their Academy graduating class.
As stated previously, Sasuke has lost everything. He suffers from survivor's guilt and blames himself for not being able to save his clan. This cycle seems to be repeating; he couldn't save Sakura, and the only reason she's still here is because of someone else. Someone his brother—the target of his vengeance—had his eyes on instead of Sasuke.
This is the perfect cocktail of emotions that leads him to spiral deeper into his inner darkness. He challenges Naruto in the hospital, not out of mutual acknowledgement of each others' growth, but for personal validation. And, even though the fight is interrupted by Kakashi, Sasuke sees the evidence of Naruto's growth on full display in the water tanks—and how it, in his eyes, eclipses his own.
He believes, at this point, that he has stagnated.
Still, Kakashi did get through to Sasuke in his speech after the hospital. It was just that the Sound Four found him while he was particularly vulnerable, and presented him with a shortcut to the power he so desperately needed to achieve his goals.
He has the mistaken belief that he must choose between his ties to his friends, and justice for his clan. He doesn't see how the three of them growing side by side, inspiring and supporting each other, can lead to even greater strength. How having something to fight for will give him something to live for on the other side of his goals.
Despite this, he doesn't want to leave his friends. He wrestles with it for days. The anime makes it seem like he leaves the same night, but the phase of the moon is completely different in the manga.
At this point, Sakura is probably the only one who can convince him to stay. Kakashi has tried. He's too envious of Naruto. But Sakura is the one who occupies the softest place in his heart, and she's the one he's already failed to protect.
And she nearly does. She makes him hesitate. She's the only one whose words have ever made him hesitate when he's made up his mind. This is true even in the climax of Part 2, with so much betrayal and hurt and distance between them. She tells him that she loves him and begs him not to continue down the path of darkness.
But he's too damaged. He can't allow himself to fully embrace the love he feels for his friends because it hurts too much. It makes him feel weak; makes him want to heal. And he can't heal, not while Itachi is still alive.
But even after he leaves them behind, he still thinks of them in times of hardship. When they meet in Part 2, he still loves them. That's why he tries to kill them—because he's been so twisted by his dark path at this point that he believes that those ties are still holding him back. He thinks that being alone, like Itachi, will make him strong.
He still thinks of them, even when with Hebi/Taka. He recalls them when he arrives at the Great Naruto Bridge. When he's fighting a losing battle against Killer Bee, it's the memory of Team 7 that allows him to summon Amaterasu for the first time.
Saying Sasuke never cared about Team 7 means ignoring literally everything about his character. He wanted to cut them down at the end because he loved them. Because he couldn't become the God-like entity that absorbed all the hatred of the world if there were still people who loved him.
Sasuke wanting to kill them is not evidence that he never cared for them. The opposite of love is not hatred; it is indifference. If he never truly cared for them, he would never even have acknowledged them at all after leaving them behind. But he did. They remained thorns in his side, not because he didn't care for them, but because he did.
izzy806
areudirty
2087
kianamaiart
