[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by ronin myael

i hate to say it but you're right. his intentions for sasuke were noble but the way he did it was horribly twisted. the best reason i could come up with is that maybe itachi felt that hatred is sasuke's greatest motivator and the only thing that could make him stronger. he does know his brother better than anyone else. people get motivated in different ways. some get motivation from inspiration, some from desperation, but the ones who gain the most strength are the ones who struggled from a certain adversity and sometimes anger helps. when you hate someone so badly, you would do anything to destroy that person, and that could be a form of strength.

Problem with your theory is the fact that we saw Sasuke as a kid and we saw no indication that "hatred" would be the most preferable motivation. He was a good kid, who loves his family, worked hard and seem to take great pride in his family's line of work which he was told was protecting konoha.

Yes hate can be a powerful motivator, but it can VERY easily motivate you in the most horrible possible way. Many of the most vile people in history had hate as their motivation. Hate has a great tendency to blind people... We can even see it in Sasuke... Hate is a the reason he was willing to abandon Konoha and his friends; Hate is the reason why he was willing to give up his body to a mad man (though he changed his mind later); And now Hate is the reason he is willing to murder all of his former friends and kill thousands of innocent people. Most every character that uses hate as a motivator turns out to be a villain (i think the only heroe's that pop up from hate are those that were villains that managed to reform when they realized how wrong all their hate was)... So ya, Itachi was basically pushing sasuke down the villain path from day one

Originally Posted by Sabaku Kyu

The best thing Itachi could've done was not kill the Uchiha clan in the first place and ruin Sasuke's life.

No it wasn't seeing as doing that would have led to a massive war that would have could have resulted in either A) Sasuke being killed in the war, B) the entire clan being killed in the war anyway, or C) the clan being victorious but sasuke probably scarred for life after having to see war first hand at the ripe young age of 6... and i'm not so sure how the uchiha would fair if they had to first beat kohona and then beat back all the other villages; making A and B more likely...

But once he did, the ship had sailed. Sasuke was traumatized. The only way Itachi could reach him at all was to focus all Sasuke's rage on himself. There's no way he'd be able to preach a message of selflessness to Sasuke after he just butchered their family. Ronin myael, is right. Hatred can be just as powerful a motivator as love and friendship and Itachi clearly was in much better position to use that for influence.

Trauma is not the end all be all; time heals all wounds as they say and people can recover from most anything... Hell we know a lot of heroes in fiction that have trauma in their past. Despite the trauma they choose a more selfless path

Also, Itachi himself would not be the one preaching the selfless message... Itachi would just not egg sasuke on with the Hatred BS that he had been spouting and exposing sasuke to even MORE trauma via mind rape... He would instead rely on konoha, which has produced numerous heroes to provide sasuke with the proper upbringing to seek out justice for his clan instead of vengeance.

Originally Posted by itachi-san314

itachi chose dark for sasuke because not only was the scenario setup for that to work, but the uchiha apparently thrive in darkness and hatred. tobi said this to naruto when explaining the uchiha's bloodsoaked past.

Except that has been part of the problem with the clan; something that desperately needed to change. Hell Itachi himself proved that whole theory to be misguided. Itachi was one of the most powerful uchiha ever, but he did not get that way with hatred... he did not have a pretty life, but all his training and growth was in pursuit of a purely selfless path. Itachi should have tried to make sure Sasuke went down a similar path

Originally Posted by Captain Commando

Sasuke was actually doing well around the time he and Naruto became closer imho. He did indeed start out "broken and lonely" in the classes, but team-7 did have have some positive influence on him, at least socially. He also had Kakashi as a master(an awesome coach/role model), and I'm sure between the two of them they would've come up with a way to get Sasuke a nice MS technique. Sasuke and Naruto were rivals, but it was a sportsman-like rivalry (e.g. Naruto delcaring that he wanted to fight Sasuke in the tournament).

If he kept going down that route, I'd imagine him probably having the mindset of bringing Itachi to justice, rather than "slaughtering" him. Whats interesting is that it was Itachi himself who took set Sasuke on the "wrong path", as his little visit to the village became the catalyst for Sasuke not being satisfied with his growth, and it certainly didn't help that Itachi dismissed him, saying Naruto was more important (which caused a very unsportsmanlike-like resentment towards Naruto), not to mention the mind torture, brutal beating, more taunting, etc.

heh, true enough... though Itachi instilled hatred at the beginning, sasuke was proving himself able to recover from it and move and a hero's path... and then Itachi had to screw it all up and send him down the villain path instead. Still it does rather show that sasuke was not broken and could make a healthy recover with the right guidance.