Naruto V: Eye See Your Sharingan and Raise You a Rinnegan

[VanBuren]

As much as I love good-Itachi during this whole war arc, I will admit his suddenly being good all along was a total retcon, and not a very well-done one at that.

Murdered his entire clan, not just the masterminds behind the conspiracy but all the women and children and spared his brother only to literally torture him with a Genjutsu of him reliving the most horrible moment of his life over and over.

There is no part of this plan that's a good idea.

Granted, when he came back during the war arc and broke the control over his body to go fight Kabuto, he was one of my favorite characters, but his heel-face-turn was still BS.

I'm still not entirely convinced that the whole Itachi thing was a retcon and not just bad writing. I mean, quite a bit doesn't make sense, but some other stuff makes more sense. To begin with, if we take away the Itachi was good all along thing, what the hell was Itachi's goal? He told Sasuke it was to test himself. Not only is that stupid, it doesn't fit how Kishi writes villains.

It really depends on how you define "good guy". Did Itachi have good intentions? Yes. Did he do good things? No.

Did his decisions ultimately achieve his goals? No. That's the whole point of his character. He wanted to protect Sasuke, and eventually suicide-by-cop from him. And he was willing to brainwash and mind-rape him to do it. That's not a good thing, and Kishi isn't trying to make us see it as one.

That's why he has a conversation telling Naruto to rely on his friends and not do everything on his own. Because that's exactly what Itachi always tried to do, and it's a large part of what drove Sasuke off the deep end.

Itachi exists as a foil; not just for Sasuke, but also for Naruto. He took the burden entirely on himself in order to protect what was important to him, and did it alone. Doing whatever was necessary. He exists so that Naruto can know not to tread that path, and that--however well-intentioned--he can't shut his friends out of the fight out of a desire to protect them.