The whole point of Naruto’s conflict with Sasuke is that they have both been abused and traumatized by the same place, the same system, and their traumas manifest in completely opposite but equally damaging ways as they grow up. Sasuke isolates and lashes out, Naruto denies and people-pleases. Sasuke wants the people who hurt him to pay, Naruto wants the people who hurt him to love him. Two sides of a tragic spectrum. Both of their life goals and senses of selves are shaped by their traumas.
And it makes me so crazy how Naruto and Sasuke both represent healing for each other. Naruto encourages Sasuke to accept love and support from others, but then Sasuke consistently contrasts Naruto’s forgiveness and loyalty to the Leaf. He opens Naruto’s eyes to the extent of the nation’s corruption, and Kage Summit shows that they are both in danger of becoming like the adults who hurt them. Sasuke through wanting everyone in Konoha to suffer by answering one massacre with another and then later his backwards attempt to unite the world through hatred by putting himself in the role Itachi played in his life. Naruto through his silence to the Leaf’s crimes, not unlike how everyone in the village ignored his pain as a child and lied to him on orders from the Hokage, and his willingness to sooner die than stand up to the Leaf because he is so afraid of being alone again. The cycle of trauma/abuse is perpetuated by those that hurt and those that do nothing to stop it. I don’t know how it can be any clearer that those are both negative responses to their traumas, and if Sasuke and Naruto continue to lash out or say nothing like this, if they refuse to heal, it will kill them (the murder suicide pact).
Reconciliation and learning from each other is the only way to break this cycle and survive. It’s the only way for them to heal. We should let go of our destructive anger, but we don’t owe the people who hurt us forgiveness. We should hold people accountable for their actions, but that doesn’t mean shedding unnecessary blood. We should consider how other people feel, but we should also establish boundaries and care about ourselves. Konoha needs to be restructured, the Shinobi system needs to be dismantled and replaced, but the responsibility of fixing the world shouldn’t fall to one person (Naruto). It can’t fall to one person because one person doesn’t have all the answers. It’s up to everyone. We have to listen to each other and work together. Naruto and Sasuke finding a true balance in their approaches to life together and, for literally maybe the first time ever, making healthy choices and setting that example for others, not wanting the next generation of kids to be victims of trauma/abuse and starved of love like they were, in a world that glorifies violence and hatred.
And I would think that they would succeed where Hashirama and Madara didn’t, in creating a society where children wouldn’t have to fight or kill, where orphans are actually taken care of. Children that have safety and security and opportunities that Naruto and Sasuke and so many others never had. And we already know that there are places like this, like Land of Waves, that don’t have Shinobi, where the economy and government are not structured around the military and kids get to be… kids. Not tools or human sacrifices. So there have to be other places like this, other people that Naruto and Sasuke or whoever can learn from, to build a better future.
With child soldiers still existing after this story, with nothing substantial having changed in the Shinobi world to prevent the mistakes and pain of the past from repeating, it renders the entire story completely pointless. It makes Naruto and Sasuke’s conflict ultimately meaningless.
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