[neodrag38]

Originally Posted by Inuzuka

No...Itachi is not an idiot. Itachi proberbly said those thing to incite Sasuke more, or rather, to further ensure that Sasuke would take revenge on himself (Itachi) and thus along the way reach his full potential.

Spoiler for Theory, manga refrences, enter at your own risk:

Spoiler for Image:

As you can see, Itachi's take is that 'identity' in general are bondages which limit your potential, thus my theory is that Itachi is actually 'helping' his brother, Sasuke (Or the clan), if Itachi thinks Sasuke has that much potential that is.) by killing the clan which is a invisible prison from Itachi's POV.

Itachi deliberately reminded Sasuke of the night in which he killed their parents using Tsukiyomi to make sure Sasuke dosen't abandon his hate for Itachi for bondages like friendship etc which, from Itachi's POV again, would deter Sasuke from reaching his 'full potential'.
However, it maybe that Sasuke joining Orochimaru may not have been part of Itachi's 'plan' IMO.

Spoiler for Theory, manga refrences, enter at your own risk:

Wait a minute, is it me or does this evidence make it seem wierd that Itachi would join Akatsuki. Wouldn't this organization also exist as another so-called prison of his identity or whatever. Kishimoto is so contradicting and wierding out any logic that ever existed in this manga.

But besides that, the fact will always remain that Itachi was always better than Sasuke and probably always will be. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if when Itachi mastered the sharigan at the age of 7 is still better than the Sasuke that we know of today, without the added curse seal crap. For the love of god, Itach was an ANBU captain at the age of 13 while Sasuke is still stuck at the rank of genin pretty much, don't bring up the whole chuunin final exam not ending since Itachi clearly gradutated from the ninja academy at such an insanely younger age so the difference is in ability and this ability allowing Itachi to reach a higher in faster time.

Itachi has completely shown himself to be the type of individual who can reach insane heights of skill and so forth through his own inherited abilites while Sasuke is quite simply unable to reach this level of ability, with the fact that Sasuke has an actual goal in mind that should encourage him to imrove his abilities. I wouldn't be surprised if Sasuke wasn't even able to reach his current skill level at this time if Itachi didn't massacre the Uchiha clan in the first place.

I'm also tired of people bringing up the idea that Sasuke is behind in his abilites simply because his family was slaughtered yet the manga has shown through the current flashback that he still was attending the ninja academy in a really short period of time after the massacre, unless you think that Shikamaru would waste energy talking about something that occured more than a month ago. And even then, the current flashback has shown that Sasuke had prior training before going to the ninja academy giving him a considerable advantage over everyone else who didn't go through the training he was put through and thus he's able to be the best rookie of the year I guess.

I also would finally like to strike dead this crap about Orochimaru saying that Sasuke has higher potential than Itachi. Do you think that Orochimaru would ever mention that Itachi is stronger than him to Sasuke or stick with the phrase of Sasuke having higher potential that Itachi? Which one would more likely make Sasuke rethink the idea of picking Orochimaru to be his sensei so to speak? The fact will remain that Itachi has clearly surpassed Sasuke in ever single point of age, as in Itachi mastering the sharigan way earlier and graduating way earlier.

The only thing Sasuke seems to surpass Itachi in is quite simply the fact that he's more easily carried away with emotion, doesn't think ahead of time with these emotions come to play, and can be quite easily manipulated by the will of others.

The positives about Sasuke that made him pretty much a better person than his brother, as in not being a murderer and such, is now kind of null since he did go to Orochimaru and attacked his best friend so basically Sasuke doesn't really have anything that makes more righteous than his brother, though it was nice of him not to kill Naruto.