#anti root

[seilahsacress]

One of the many reasons we antis hate the Naruto ending

Things wrong with Konoha:

The Uchiha Clan has faced decades of xenophobia because of the actions of one man. Rumors that they're all genetically deranged were spread, they were ostracised from village’s internal affairs. After the Kyuubi attack, they were sent to live in the outskirts of the village under constant supervision which is just humiliating.

Konoha government ordered the genocide of a whole ethnic race without a trial because the said people got enough of the xenophobia which the state encouraged. 

Hyuga Clan practices slavery in broad daylight. I don’t even need to explain why this is a horrible violation of human rights.

The government glorifies fascism and blind nationalism. Heck, leaving the village is punishable with the death penalty.

ANBU. ROOT. Do I need to say anything more?

Danzo committed treason against the village by cooperating with Orochimaru and ordering the Uchiha Genocide behind Hiruzen’s back. He’s also responsible for many crimes against humanity. Nobody stood up to him.

As far as we’ve seen, the village doesn’t have a fair, independent judicial system. Hokage’s word is the law. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this can lead to stupid or morally wrong decisions.

One’s suitability for the Hokage position seems to be mainly determined by their strength level, not by their political wits or morality stance. This and the previous point make sense for the militarian world of the Shinobi but the issues such a system can very possibly lead to still remains.

There’s no democracy, it’s the Daimyo and the council that chooses the Hokage. It’s also not hard to see favoritism since many Hokages are from prestigious clans, are blood-related or have other close relationships with each other like the one of a master-discipline.

And many more I forgot or didn’t realize

Things wrong with the entire Shinobi system and other specific villages:

Jinchuriki practice all around the world is wrong. It turns babies into nuclear weapons for the village without their consent and the said babies face social stigma for the rest of their lives.

The entire Shinobi system supports the existence of child soldiers and the world’s economy relies on the inhumane deeds committed by Shinobi.

In many parts of the world, the Shinobis are viewed to be tools rather than human beings with emotions and basic rights. This leads to many morally unacceptable emotional training methods practiced on children.

Daimyos are completely unnecessary. They exist just to exist. One can claim they live in comfort as the Shinobis lose their life to protect them.

Small nations continue to be seen inferior to the Big 5. They still don’t have the right to represent themselves at the Kage Gatherings.

Nations only look out for their own gain, the biggest example of this being Kumo which attempted to kidnap Kushina when she was an academy student and steal the Byakugan. No nation came to terms with their past wrong-doings in the series, peace between these selfish parties is simply impossible.

Bloodline limit owners are objectified and face xenophobia. Examples are Kumo’s attempts to steal power, Kiri’s orders to wipe out clans with bloodline limits, Uchiha Massacre etc.

And many more I forgot or didn’t realize

Issues that were properly handled in the series

None

Nothing

Genuine nothing

Many issues written here weren’t even acknowledged by the narrative, the same narrative even tried to justify some. The ending didn’t show us any radical reforms or satisfying political discussions.

No, stop. Neither the Shinobi Alliance nor Hiashi’s “but Hinata and Neji are equal now!!1!” mean anything. The former is a temporary peace against a common enemy with no deep political context. The latter is an off-screen cop out. I don’t care about Boruto series mumbling about world peace and stuff either. Show. Me. Permanent. On. Screen. Changes. With. Politic. Background.

And as you have realized, I titled this “one of the many reasons” instead of “the one reason”. We can count more reasons as to why Naruto’s ending is by far among the worsts fiction history has ever witnessed. Heck, we can argue the series started to go shitty was before the ending or it had always been bull to begin with too.

Then why do pros insist we hate the series because we’re just butthurt about ships?

I dislike both NH and SS but ffs, they are the least of my worries about the ending.

This series spreads Kishimoto’s disgusting far authoritarian right, fascist views which glorify blind nationalism to impressionable children. Even to this day, in the fandom, you can see idiots who argue that the Uchiha Massacre, A STATE-SUPPORTED ETHNİC GENOCIDE WHICH IS A FUCKING CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, was just. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you seriously fucking kidding me? Are you for real, genuinely fucking kidding me?

Screw that...

[crackinwise]

Read every post you tagged as anti root and my eyes are open now: I never really liked shoot but I thought I must in the wrong bc everyone else did. I thought it was maybe bc I saw Sameen as aro, but it's true I've been bothered since their first scene together. like people saw chemistry where all I could see was someone being restrained and threatened of torture by someone else :/ I've never realized their relationship was that unhealthy tho and now I know why I was so troubled by this ship.

Yeah, i’m forever bitter about it. Somewhere along the line it became the Root show and everyone suffered, but not as much as Shaw. I’m sorry to see it hurt you too.

If it makes you feel better, you can do what i do and think about Shaw FINALLY BEING FREE. She’s helping people, kicking ass, and most importantly has her true love Bear. Our girl is missing a few good friends but she still has some and maybe she’ll make more if she needs them. She and Bear will never ever leave each other.

I also like to think either Shaw asks the Machine to stop using her remorseless murdering stalker’s voice for no reason, or the Machine itself advances further to stop on its own and goes back to computer voices or uses bits of Finch’s voice. Bonus good thought that Shaw leaves little vague memorials to Reese and Carter after certain finished jobs, and Fusco always finds them.

[crackinwise]

petty moment: hiring am-y a.cker for your show continues to be a huge mark against you

[gingersnapwolves]

We can be unpopular together, I never liked Root either. I don't hate her being on the show, she adds an interesting dynamic, but I feel no warm feelings towards her. Or only a little because she admires Finch so much, as is proper, but the way she expresses it is rotten.

Yeah, she’s definitely an interesting character and I don’t actively dislike her, but from what I’ve seen of fandom she’s very popular and I just …. don’t feel it?

I mean part of my problem is that I’m very, very attached to Finch, I literally adore him, and so her kidnapping of him is just Not Okay With Me. Now, I understand that a lot of time went by between the end of season 1 and their alliance in season 3, but since I just watched it … (also Root in those scenes acted literally just like a villain I’d written in the past who was Extremely Evil so I totally had her in my head as Extremely Evil).

The thing is, Root has never apologized for what she did to Finch. It’s interesting because the Machine is clearly teaching her morals, she kneecaps people now like Reese does, and the episode where she ended up rescuing a guy whose life she had fucked over in the past was very interesting … but she doesn’t show any remorse over having kidnapped and tortured Finch. When they pick her up in early season 3 and lock her in the library, she treats him like he’s the unreasonable one for not trusting her. Oh, the Machine said so? If I were Finch I’d be like “if the machine wants me to trust the person who kidnapped and tortured me, the least it could do is send me an email”. Or maybe “How do you know the Machine didn’t mean for us to capture and imprison you?” But honestly the way she treats Finch, especially in those episodes, really grated on me. It seemed very condescending and completely lacked acknowledgement of the fact that she kidnapped and tortured him (I’m clearly not getting over this any time soon) and he had every fucking right to be like “yeah I’m not letting you wander the streets of NYC and I don’t care if the Machine likes it or not”.

I think part of this is that the writers wanted her as a part of the team, as an ally, so they kind of shoehorned her into it and then forced the other characters to accept it (and tbh given Finch I’m less surprised that he accepted it and more surprised that Reese didn’t try to quietly murder her at some point). So it’s not exactly Root-the-character’s fault, but after the writers did such a good job not downplaying Finch’s trauma after those events, it disappointed me that they basically hand-waved it aside when Root joined the team without so much as a ‘sorry about the time I kidnapped you and everything’.

tl;dr Root is a very interesting character but she traumatized Finch and I’ll probably never be over it

[crackinwise]

"shaw was aro/ace" ummmmmm did you miss that entire episode with her drooling over thomas? did you miss the part where she killed herself over and over instead of killing root in the simulations? do not even try to accuse root of being abusive or sexually harassing shaw unless you actually understand what either of those two things even entail.

Why are all these people anon? You notice that? I think it’s cuz they want to word-vomit their never ending R00t worship and ignorance at someone without having to engage in an actual discussion. Cuz let’s be real, people like this aren’t gonna change their mind. Lookit this anon thinking those suicide simulations were romantic or something. Lookit this anon be so apologetic of shit predatory behavior it must be me who doesn’t know what abuse and harassment are. (Lookit her conveniently leave out Shaw going gaga over Carter too. I’m sure that’s not a blind spot.) Damn, dude. I’m so glad Shaw is free from both R00t and the writers.

[idinink]

On Root, Harold Finch, and Dead-naming

Hello so okay. Dead-naming is deeply uncool and I am 100% in favor of getting AO3 to change Root’s nametag. 

However. I think it’s important to remember that in this specific case of Root and Harold Finch there are serious mitigating circumstances. 

The obvious ones: Root continues to call Harold “Harry” after he explicitly asked her not to; she demeans John at every turn by calling him “Tarzan” or “Lurch” or “knuckle-dragger” -- that is, when she’s not literally calling him an ape or a dog. (I mean I know that’s supposed to be “funny” and “charming” in a way the boring old moniker “Miss Groves” can’t be, but if we’re gonna get serious about treating people’s names with respect then goddamn let’s get serious about treating people’s names with respect.)

HOWEVER, less discussed is the IMO CRUCIAL fact that “Root” isn’t some neutral, innocent choice on Root’s part; it’s a specific computer science term with a specific meaning. The first few results I got after Googling the term:

the root directory is the first or top-most directory in a hierarchy. It can be likened to the trunk of a tree, as the starting point where all branches originate from

root is a superuser account on a computer or network and has complete control

The root account is the most privileged on the system and has absolute power over it (i.e., complete access to all files and commands). Among root's powers are the ability to modify the system in any way desired and to grant and revoke access permissions (i.e., the ability to read, modify and execute specific files and directories) for other users

So yeeeeeah I think it’s easy to see why Harold would resist calling her that. It also puts an especially nasty spin on some of Root’s first words to Harold after she casually blew a woman’s brains out two feet away from him: “You can call me Root.” For these two, who live and breathe 1s and 0s, she might as well have said, “You can call me Your Majesty.” Then she spent however-many days controlling his every move and trying to force him to give her access to his creation and its attendant unfathomable power all while abusing/torturing/killing people along her merry way. I think it’s safe to say that the name (and term) “root” in association with her was well and truly poisoned for him.

To draw a comparison with another beloved yet villainous character: if Ben Linus had (quite understandably) decided he wanted to shed his old name and turn over a new leaf, would he have every right to do so? Of course. Would I want fandom, myself included, to respect that? Yes. Would I be angry at any Losties, people he deceived and abused and tormented, if they refused to call him, idk, “MASTER” or “OVERLORD” if that was his name choice??? Uh. No. Even if this refusal continued after they had, to some degree, come to an accord with him and were fighting on the same side? NO.

***Full disclosure: I myself used to tag tumblr posts with “root/samantha groves” (merely because “root” on its own is such a generic tag used for any number of unrelated things and i was new to tumblr and didn’t really understand how tagging worked) but quickly changed it to “root poi” when I learned more about the oppressive nature of dead-naming.***

[crackinwise]

I stumble upon these poi blogs sometimes by accident and find them gloriously hating on r00t as much as i do but they don’t tag it as anything anti or wank related. Cmon guys, don’t you wanna connect to kindred spirits? Don’t you want a shared rage experience? Work with me, my friends. Let us cleanse ourselves of the overrated homicidal predator together.

[crackinwise]

what pisses me off is even tho Root is finally dead and can’t hurt Shaw or Finch or humanity anymore, the show is still so far up this character’s ass that they made the Machine take her name and voice. so my personal hero Shaw is free from her stalker/torturer/sexual-harasser, but still has to take orders from her voice every damn stinking day. something is wrong in the narrative when an AI whose sole mission is to save as many people as it can chooses to favorite a person who hurts and kills indiscriminately for selfish gain. a person who’s hurt its own creator. and then it just...chooses to become that person in spirit? i’d destroy the thing too cuz something went fubar. (i mean, that’s the info i got but if instead it was Root that forced the machine to take on her voice cuz her ego is the size of the sun, please let me know. would make more sense and redeem the poor machine, actually.)

oh well, Shaw is with her One True Love Bear now. so i’ll just ignore the voice thing, or believe the machine only sends texts. officially i’m going with the show ending sometime in s3.