Ce pavé sur Madara

I

When you look at any character, Madara or otherwise, you’re forced to examine—rather, analyze it in the light of what you’ve read. Madara as a character suffers from what I’d call the “imitative syndrome (IM)” (this isn’t really a phrase; I coined it, though let’s call it a term instead); and what’s that imitative syndrome, you’d ask? Characters that rebel, but don’t rebel further than how Sasuke rebelled.

This may seem like a strange thing to suggest, but I’ve repeatedly mentioned that and I’d repeat the sentiment here, as well: if you aren’t associated with Sasuke, you have very little narrative worth in Naruto's Canon. The issue with this interesting structural choice is that you’re left with advantages and obstacles—in regard to whatever theme you’ve chosen for the narrative.

The advantage is that you can simply refer to the repertoire of structural and thematic inferences and references and construct a way forward (they’re already there, simply waiting for you to pull out another causal juncture)—the obstacle is that you can’t go beyond the themes on which you’ve constructed your complete narrative, not without tearing apart the entire casual chain and reshaping it in another manner; to put it simply, your characters can’t run beyond the bounds you’ve created for them, and Sasuke—fortunately or unfortunately—is that set boundary, beyond which neither the actors nor the events exist; and Madara is an illustration of that … “problem”.

When you look at the Uchiha, you can only think of the coup, massacre, and what followed; and what followed is the very spine on which the manga’s apparatus stands. Yes, you (as in any reader) can infer to the “flashbacks” and make a claim that that happened (or was shown) well into Part I’s culmination; however, consummation of the narrative’s pieces doesn’t mean that that’s how the narrative is constructed, as well. To reuse my analogy of a painting, if you reveal a painting piece by piece, you’re only shown parts of the painting, not the whole of it. The “claims” that Kishimoto hadn’t thought ahead are always illogical as art isn’t created for you to maintain a “time-line” of events (and try and feel smug in one-upping a collection of pictures and bubbles, pitifully), as art doesn’t occur in the real-world, it imitates and/or reflects it; furthermore, very few authors have ever constructed elaborate plots to fill up their narratives—not even Shakespeare, God of English Literature, was exempt from that (Portia in The Merchant of Venice, disguised as Balthazar, travelled back to engage in the Shylock’s case, from Belmont to the court of the Duke of Venice, in a time that’s inconceivably impossible, yet its “timeline” is never brought into question as the focus is the trial—Naruto Fandom isn’t smart enough to realize this simple detail.)

Therefore, Sasuke’s the character that’s the root, tree, and seedlings of the manga’s past, present, and future; and Madara, in more ways than one, is but a seedling of his rebellions, not the root. (Fugaku’s the father of Sasuke’s conflict, but he, too, can’t exist without Sasuke’s existence.) Once you make peace with this structural choice, you’d have to make peace with its facets, advantageous or disadvantageous as they may be; hence, when Madara is truly introduced, his antagonism is made to “feel” bigger than it is; and that’s Madara’s true fault as a character: he feels “larger than life” when he … isn’t.

II

The IM that I talked about works well with Indra, not Madara. The reason for it is that the former remains a myth, the latter converges from myth to reality, yet fails to reconcile both. Villainy is what you require for a convectional protagonist (a brimful of expectations that are clichés) to engage with, a construct that’s got to meet defeat for the conflict to slide down from the crest of climax. That's how plot's function. You don't like it? Then seek out character-driven narratives, which Naruto (a plot-driven narrative) isn't; in fact, which most narratives aren't.

The confrontation that leads to Madara is embroiled in the Curse of Hatred (CoH) tale, a tale older than the Uchiha, a tale that’s as old as myth, a tale that perseveres in the Uchiha Clan’s reality; so when you think of the Uchiha, you can’t think of the clan as an entity without CoH: it’s a curse that propels the Clan from the annals of the Clan’s muddled past on the Tablet, a relic from a distant father, to the future that could ensure a better tomorrow—a tomorrow in which the curse is purged and the blood is freed, but on Indra's terms, not father's.

Therefore, Indra's path (punctuated by CoH) is more than just a cure from the father’s curse, a nurturer, creator, tormentor of the older son: it’s a curse that engenders conflict; a curse that perpetuates conflict; and a curse that ensures conflict. The conflict is in the blood, an ever-lasting scourge that’s more than vestige; it’s the very purpose of the Clan that others and is the othered; creates conflict for it’s always at the end of it; perseveres and annihilates itself to achieve a Shinobi Martyrdom that Itachi could never taste—Itachi's but a poor imitation of the "True Shinobi" credo, a belief that Indra invented through Ninjutsu, a deliberate parody of a futile peace that's won through injustice at Ashura's hands. The curse is a generational prison and liberation—a paradox that encapsulates the Clan; and none of it is as wonderfully illustrated as it is in Sasuke; and here’s where Madara fails; here’s where he vanishes; and here’s where he loses … to Sasuke’s shadow. Yes, Madara, for the lack of the better word, is Sasuke’s shadow—a character that suffers perpetually from an IM, nothing more; and that blunts his narrative effectiveness in ways that never allow him to recover.

And that’s the primary “fault”, if you venture that far, with this structure; because when you come late into the narrative, you don’t generate, but imitate aspects; you can’t run beyond the revolutions that Sasuke’s laid the foundations and waxed lyrical for (a thematic aspect Nagato spoke before, but strangely repeated as his theme can’t be completed without the original rebel, the true rebel, the headstrong rebel that won’t lie down no matter how far you push him!). There’s the reason why Sasuke’s Mangekyō is the only “inverted” Mangekyō, because it’s more than a “different” artistic choice; it’s an inversion of Uchiha martyrdom, legacy, fate; and even when cut through with Itachi’s Shurikens, literally and figuratively, it maintains that inversion, a foretelling of Sasuke’s convictions that assimilates but doesn’t let go—not entirely. So when Sasuke inherits the contrast between “a setting sun and a waning moon” that’s the Uchiha Symbol, he sets out to alter the very dimensions of his own history, his clan’s history, and by extension, his father’s. It’s a rewriting of the blood’s legacy, not a drop short of it.

III

The curse is triggered by father, and Madara fails to become the bridge between Hagoromo's and Fugaku’s sons (Indra's two dimensions, two faces, but one man)—men who nurtured, created, and tormented a son, albeit the latter’s more metaphorical as a “burden” that torments Sasuke. Madara’s burden is more of a father’s than a son’s, as he becomes his father’s heir and fathers the clan, a stark shift from the denial of inheritance to Indra and Sasuke both. What Indra of Madara’s past and his future lose out, he gains; but at a cost.

The narrative shifts somewhat interestingly from Itachi’s lies (because all he does is lie, albeit he never manages to embody the theme of the Devil, a word that simply means “The Father of Lies” and predates Christianity—a poor narrative actor to the end) to an oral narration that morphs a man, from lies to somewhere between mystery and truth. No longer a thief of his brother’s legacy, he gains Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan (EMS) out of love, an imitation of Sasuke’s story. You might be tempted to say, “so what?” and I’d be tempted to reply, “why?” The narrative of a “thief” truly connects Indra with Sasuke: Indra never knew darkness, because he never had Sharingan; Sasuke sought to eliminate it out of necessity, not out of love for brother; Madara’s tale takes it a step further and makes it about love, a love that summons back the lost … bond? The theft makes it so that Madara’s future as another Indra listens to the tale and carves his own way for an affliction his first “Self” had never experienced. Here, Sasuke does just that, but the association between the two is tainted by the IM, an Indra in the past that takes on the colors of Indra that’s meant to be his future.

What does that accomplish as a tale that’s meant to be a divide between two Indras—irrespective of the time lapse as themes seldom have anything to do with “timelines”? Nothing, really. Madara loves and that’s the end of that. A curse that began from a “loss of love” harbors an insidious need to protect it, shed blood in its name, and … change the way the world sees blood? An expected progression, one which didn’t need to be stated out-loud by dear ol’ (bigot) Tobirama and given a name, because CoH was always about that—Jiraiya and Nagato stated as much.

From here begins a long list of missteps that do more to fracture the association between Indras than bring them together as a single entity that lives, relives, and lives again to experience the same curse over and over again—till it isn’t purged, sated, or altered to become something more than it is, a curse in the blood, a denial of birth-right, and a loss of inheritance, of greatness, and of innocence.

One of the greater themes that define Sasuke’s character, surprisingly, is never talked about, and it’s the “loss of innocence”, a “state of mind” rather than an “accident” that concerns the circumstantial nature of birth (which are always biological accidents rather than karmic ones); and that’s the theme that binds Indra and Sasuke as Indra together as fiercely as cosmic forces, so that they truly feel a single Self bifurcated by Time, not Madara. No, he’s a piece that doesn’t fit, doesn’t mend, doesn’t bridge. A failure as a third Indra.

Where Hagoromo’s decision corrupts Indra’s innocence, slowly but surely, enough that he develops a method to weaponize Hagoromo’s own philosophy against him—a corruption of his father’s creed that Ashura’s line, too, indulges in, perhaps, too liberally—Sasuke’s innocence is taken by a father who was blinded by lies of the other son. Both flounder in lies, each in their own way; but the lies originate from father, not words on a stone.

Yes, you may say that Black Zetsu is the original "Liar", and that’d be somewhat correct; however, that doesn’t solve the piece that doesn’t fit in Indra’s own legacy; and Madara truly is that piece that doesn’t fit. That’s not to say that Madara doesn’t reveal Indra’s colors at all—no, that’d be too harsh a judgement on his character. The one aspect that connects all Indras is the “curse”, but as an affliction that haunts the blood in a many a lifetime, it has many faces through which it generates this … trauma.

One characteristic “quality” of CoH is that the bearer can’t gain anything without losing something in return. It’s as if Indra’s Self and his blood can’t find liberation without sacrifice; and what’s Sharingan if not an instrument that reflects sacrifice, a continual martyrdom to gain power? Where Ashura’s “power” is a natural consequence of camaraderie (look no further than Naruto gaining the Bijū Mode and chakra of all Bijūs simply because they liked each other very, very, very much), Indra’s is born from accidents that rattle the innocence, tragedies that cause the bearer to endlessly suffer; yes, he’s stronger than before, but at what cost (blindness is no more than a punishment that seals the light of an eye whose power is all but fruitless without sight)? In this regard, Madara, too, is another Indra: beguiled by Hashirama’s promises, he loses everything, brother, clan, and trust; and in the end, he’s left with nothing but the curse; and faced with this dilemma, a burden he can’t bear, he seeks to imprison the world in the myth his father wanted.

It’s a character trait that’s rooted in self-affirmation, but it’s an odd expression of it as Indra always sought to create hope for his own world … in reality; and that’s the main reason why Sasuke as Indra chose to bring together the myth of Eternal Tsukuyomi (ET) and reality of Revolution: two worlds under a single God. Madara wanted to become a God, but he wanted to remain in myth, a reiteration of Obito’s dilemma and a disservice to Indra’s legacy, I feel. While you could claim that Sasuke “corrected” the course of Indra’s previous “fault”, and I’d agree with it—but only to an extent, not more.

The biggest culpability lies with the readers and their demands for the genre, a genre that has to endlessly generate villains for the protagonists to defeat, power through, and overcome. Shōnen demands that Kishimoto dispatch the villains he creates before ushering in a happy ending, an ending that concerns marriages and babies and … some graves—here and there, but nothing too depressing. Indeed, how many truly doubted Madara’s—no, Indra’s fate? The male audience that projected endlessly onto Naruto for him to assume the seat and a back-shot of flying robes streaked with Leaf's consuming fires, a face carved in the mountain that casts a tall shadow on the graves of the subjugated, and a sleeping beast content in the belly from the food of … “friendships”? The female audience, too, did the same and wanted that marriage to an Uchiha … so badly (a very small minority’s screeching not withstanding as Sasuke and Sakura’s “pairing”, which stood at number 15, wasn’t in China’s all-time favorite anime-pairing for nothing)? People enjoy reaffirmations, validations, and fantasies, not matter how impractical they can be, how fanatical the obsessions can be, how … pointless they can be; but that’s how they are, and that’s how the author, a slave to market demands in a very commercialized industry, has to meet them.

Therefore, no one’s an “impartial judge”—neither the characters who seek to draw characters from the dark of sacrificial revolution to the light of fascistic salvation, because that’s expected of them, nor the readers. (The world has to metamorphose into binary domains for it to make sense to the readers who, to this day, lament as to why Sakura wasn't granted a quality husband, career path, and friendship to lead a middle-class life, albeit the narrative has nothing to do with any of this, but they so want for it to play ball with their ridiculous sentiments.) As a result, "niceties" take hold and "truths" vanish back into the darkness as the rule of sentiments over truth is the very essence on which capitalism runs: you have to make your consumers happy, because "customer is king". It's not shocking that "what so and so deserved" is always at the heart of these parodical outcries that don't serve the narrative in any manner whatsoever. In fact, had any of them ever been realized, they'd have devalued it to caricatural degrees; therefore, to stroke the customer's "egos", every Indra must fall one by one—some sooner and some later—but the fall is inevitable. The conviction (jokingly referred to as Talk no Jutsu) against Indra, though forced, isn’t anything that the reader wouldn’t expect, and with glee at that as by condemning the Indras, revolutionaries, of the world, the enlightened Status-quo-adorers satisfy themselves with their own brand of kindness: now, Indra’s curse is purged at last; he's "normal"; one of us!

IV

You see, when you’re a child, you want to be “one of them”, other children, but not every child seeks to follow; no, some choose to create legacies—others merely exist in them; and that’s the difference between Indra and Ashura; as a force of destruction the former strives to change, progress, and create; Ashura isn’t anything more than a facet of the world that resists that change, destruction, and creation. It resists its nature, and in that theme’s subservience, Indra locates his true death.

If they, readers (fancy term for hyper-consumerist costumers), don’t indulge in this self-masturbatory turn of events that the genre absolutely promises them, they’d have to question the very nature of naiveté that governs the Ashuras of the world, pillars that stand against change, because destruction is indistinguishable from change, and rebirth’s but a cosmic process that’s incomplete without this transition. Then Ashura’s naïve nature is no more than a dangerous idealism that exists to crush—any and all change; and a system that doesn’t change stagnates, rots, and collapses into itself in time. It may take a hundred years or more; and from its ashes begins a new story, with or without an Indra or Ashura, because that’s the law of cosmos and that’s how things are meant to be …