Akasuna
Jōnin Strategist 🧠
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- Mar 13, 2014
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In the time I've spent idly browsing this site while registrations were down, I've seen a felonious amount of ignorance directed toward the character of Uchiha Madara. Let it be known now that while I host a general disdain towards a large amount of characters in this manga due to their shallow development and otherwise unappealing qualities, broad insults toward a character that possesses qualities reminiscent of exceptional storytelling are frequently insulted by the more puerile, so to speak, members of this base; this post hopes to serve as elucidation correcting a common misconception about Madara. And now, onto the thread.
Madara's character serves a rather daedal purpose in the plot; at first glance, assuming one's introduction to this character was during his Edo revival, he seems the common antagonist: pragmatic, finding humor in the macabre, disdain towards the quixotic, and above all an endearment towards chaos. As said, the common antagonist. Following the events of somewhat recent chapters, we've had a more in depth look into his character and as such his motives have been revealed to be other that that of the common antagonist.
In his early ages we've seen Madara hasn't always been the cold, calculating person he's grown into; his Machiavellian tendencies had yet to be borne, and he was shown in a more garrulous, somewhat galoot manner during his first meeting with Hashirama. Following their second meeting (an occurrence tinged with a more sorrowful tone due to the death of Hashirama's brother), they began to bond. They shared Hashirama's ideals of an ideal world, a world in which Shinobi and their children would be able to thrive without the constant threat of war on the horizon.
Madara was the more realistic of the two, however. He recognized Hashirama's dream as near impossible in the cruel realities of the world, yet still hoped for it to be true; the Yin to Hashirama's Yang, if you'd please. Kishimoto has displayed Taoism many times over in his manga, and the relationship of these two characters is no different. They represented both what the other lacked and what the other had in small portions. They believed in a confraternity, a faction in which peace was more than a fleeting memory of times past.
I say all this to say, Madara was originally willing to believe in Hashirama's world. The death of his brothers had been a key for him; he wanted something more than the textbook definition of the Shinobi: one who endures countless pain in order for others to live free of said pain.
The battle between his father and Hashirama's was another revelation for Madara. Everything him and Hashirama had worked for, everything that they had discussed; it had been destroyed in a single encounter. It was then that he realized for the first time, peace had a different definition than what he had believed.
With a newly awakened Sharingan and faded elan in Hashirama's goals, he and Hashirama's next encounter was by the sword. They fought and fought and fought, and somewhere along the line they had become the leaders of their respective clans, with Madara awakening his Mangekyo Sharingan as well; one of the final breaking points for Madara was the fatal blow to Uchiha Izuna that had been dealt by Tobirama's Hiraishingiri. Hashirama had Madara cornered, and yet as he detailed in his narrative to Uchiha Sasuke, he "couldn't let go of his dream". He couldn't bring himself to kill Madara.
Forced to retreat with his slowly dying brother, the change in both the Uchiha and Madara began; more and more Uchiha surrendered to the Senju - acknowledging the clear difference in power - and Madara, with the eyes of his brother and subsequently his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, fought Hashirama for a full day before finally losing to his blade. He gave Hashirama a choice, with the reward being his trust: kill himself or kill his brother.
In a sudden revoke of his resolve, however, Madara stopped Hashirama from taking his own life and agreed to form the village that would be soon known as Konohagakure - the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
Hashirama's dream had finally become true.
It soon became evident, however, that not everybody was comfortable in this new fraternity, this haven, with a former traitor to the Senju as its leader.
Tobirama specifically, did not trust Hashirama's choice to leave Madara in charge of the village. He voted instead for a democracy. This is where Madara's character becomes interesting. What with the public's vote being to have Hashirama as Hokage, directly against Hashirama's wishes himself, Madara and Hashirama were next shown in the room containing the Uchiha Stone Tablet.
Hashirama had managed to decipher a small part of it: "Yang and Ying, in the action of their opposing forces, created all things in nature."
Madara, with the knowledge of the full tablet, took it another way. He saw what he believed to be the future, and he sought the emancipation for the oncoming storm: the Uchiha were not trusted. Tobirama would evidently become the Second Hokage, at which point Hashirama would be out of commission. Tobirama fostered an obvious wariness towards the Uchiha, and would seek to eliminate them quickly. Madara's fellow clanmates heeded not his warnings, and as such Madara believed his attempts at protection to be a failure: he failed to protect his brother, and failed to protect his clan. He was not trusted by anyone, despite his good intentions. It was in his best interests to leave the village, despite Hashirama's protests. He had asked for knowledge from the world and instead received the cold, solid truth: cooperation was nothing more than a lie. And as such, was born project Tsuki no Me.
Madara did not leave the village because he desired power, nor did he leave the village because he was upset Hashirama had been chosen as Hokage in his place. He left because he realized that in the end, cooperation was a quixotic ideal. The village may survive on Hashirama's eke, he realized, yet that can only last but so far. The world is a cruel, unforgiving place, and project Tsuki no Me serves to create a world in which true peace can be achieved.
Madara's former dream became nothing more than a distant memory to him - a memory that was not worth existing. His constant attempts to rid himself of this memory were a failure; in the end, Hashirama's blade was believed to be his cause of death. Yet as we all know, this is not true. Madara waited patiently, along the way gained a pawn in Uchiha Obito; and still he plans to this day, even while bisected, to further project Tsuki no Me. A world in which equality is found in happiness, and happiness is found in the future, past, and present.
On the other hand and a somewhat less important note, Madara's previous assumptions on how far Tobirama would go to eliminate the Uchiha were correct. He gave them control of the military force during his reign as Second Hokage, yet that only served as an ersatz; the Uchiha were moved to a remote corner of Konoha's land, and the discrimination begun. Such tactics, riding upon the fear of the public, eventually led to talks of a Coup d' Etat. And why not? After being treated so poorly by the same village it had helped to bring to life, as near proletarians, why should the Uchiha not seek vengeance? The Uchiha were cornered by these cowardly tactics; the collaborated effects of Shimura Danzo and Senju Tobirama eventually led to what Madara had previously feared: the extinction of the Uchiha.
I appreciate you taking the time to read my rather prolix thread, and hopefully you feel differently now about Uchiha Madara's character.
- Misconception: His reasons for defecting from Konoha were puerile at best.
Madara's character serves a rather daedal purpose in the plot; at first glance, assuming one's introduction to this character was during his Edo revival, he seems the common antagonist: pragmatic, finding humor in the macabre, disdain towards the quixotic, and above all an endearment towards chaos. As said, the common antagonist. Following the events of somewhat recent chapters, we've had a more in depth look into his character and as such his motives have been revealed to be other that that of the common antagonist.
In his early ages we've seen Madara hasn't always been the cold, calculating person he's grown into; his Machiavellian tendencies had yet to be borne, and he was shown in a more garrulous, somewhat galoot manner during his first meeting with Hashirama. Following their second meeting (an occurrence tinged with a more sorrowful tone due to the death of Hashirama's brother), they began to bond. They shared Hashirama's ideals of an ideal world, a world in which Shinobi and their children would be able to thrive without the constant threat of war on the horizon.
Madara was the more realistic of the two, however. He recognized Hashirama's dream as near impossible in the cruel realities of the world, yet still hoped for it to be true; the Yin to Hashirama's Yang, if you'd please. Kishimoto has displayed Taoism many times over in his manga, and the relationship of these two characters is no different. They represented both what the other lacked and what the other had in small portions. They believed in a confraternity, a faction in which peace was more than a fleeting memory of times past.
I say all this to say, Madara was originally willing to believe in Hashirama's world. The death of his brothers had been a key for him; he wanted something more than the textbook definition of the Shinobi: one who endures countless pain in order for others to live free of said pain.
The battle between his father and Hashirama's was another revelation for Madara. Everything him and Hashirama had worked for, everything that they had discussed; it had been destroyed in a single encounter. It was then that he realized for the first time, peace had a different definition than what he had believed.
With a newly awakened Sharingan and faded elan in Hashirama's goals, he and Hashirama's next encounter was by the sword. They fought and fought and fought, and somewhere along the line they had become the leaders of their respective clans, with Madara awakening his Mangekyo Sharingan as well; one of the final breaking points for Madara was the fatal blow to Uchiha Izuna that had been dealt by Tobirama's Hiraishingiri. Hashirama had Madara cornered, and yet as he detailed in his narrative to Uchiha Sasuke, he "couldn't let go of his dream". He couldn't bring himself to kill Madara.
Forced to retreat with his slowly dying brother, the change in both the Uchiha and Madara began; more and more Uchiha surrendered to the Senju - acknowledging the clear difference in power - and Madara, with the eyes of his brother and subsequently his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, fought Hashirama for a full day before finally losing to his blade. He gave Hashirama a choice, with the reward being his trust: kill himself or kill his brother.
In a sudden revoke of his resolve, however, Madara stopped Hashirama from taking his own life and agreed to form the village that would be soon known as Konohagakure - the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
Hashirama's dream had finally become true.
It soon became evident, however, that not everybody was comfortable in this new fraternity, this haven, with a former traitor to the Senju as its leader.
Tobirama specifically, did not trust Hashirama's choice to leave Madara in charge of the village. He voted instead for a democracy. This is where Madara's character becomes interesting. What with the public's vote being to have Hashirama as Hokage, directly against Hashirama's wishes himself, Madara and Hashirama were next shown in the room containing the Uchiha Stone Tablet.
Hashirama had managed to decipher a small part of it: "Yang and Ying, in the action of their opposing forces, created all things in nature."
Madara, with the knowledge of the full tablet, took it another way. He saw what he believed to be the future, and he sought the emancipation for the oncoming storm: the Uchiha were not trusted. Tobirama would evidently become the Second Hokage, at which point Hashirama would be out of commission. Tobirama fostered an obvious wariness towards the Uchiha, and would seek to eliminate them quickly. Madara's fellow clanmates heeded not his warnings, and as such Madara believed his attempts at protection to be a failure: he failed to protect his brother, and failed to protect his clan. He was not trusted by anyone, despite his good intentions. It was in his best interests to leave the village, despite Hashirama's protests. He had asked for knowledge from the world and instead received the cold, solid truth: cooperation was nothing more than a lie. And as such, was born project Tsuki no Me.
Madara did not leave the village because he desired power, nor did he leave the village because he was upset Hashirama had been chosen as Hokage in his place. He left because he realized that in the end, cooperation was a quixotic ideal. The village may survive on Hashirama's eke, he realized, yet that can only last but so far. The world is a cruel, unforgiving place, and project Tsuki no Me serves to create a world in which true peace can be achieved.
Madara's former dream became nothing more than a distant memory to him - a memory that was not worth existing. His constant attempts to rid himself of this memory were a failure; in the end, Hashirama's blade was believed to be his cause of death. Yet as we all know, this is not true. Madara waited patiently, along the way gained a pawn in Uchiha Obito; and still he plans to this day, even while bisected, to further project Tsuki no Me. A world in which equality is found in happiness, and happiness is found in the future, past, and present.
On the other hand and a somewhat less important note, Madara's previous assumptions on how far Tobirama would go to eliminate the Uchiha were correct. He gave them control of the military force during his reign as Second Hokage, yet that only served as an ersatz; the Uchiha were moved to a remote corner of Konoha's land, and the discrimination begun. Such tactics, riding upon the fear of the public, eventually led to talks of a Coup d' Etat. And why not? After being treated so poorly by the same village it had helped to bring to life, as near proletarians, why should the Uchiha not seek vengeance? The Uchiha were cornered by these cowardly tactics; the collaborated effects of Shimura Danzo and Senju Tobirama eventually led to what Madara had previously feared: the extinction of the Uchiha.
- Conclusion: Madara saw this coming. He attempted to warn his fellow clanmates, yet found no luck in said tactic. In the end his only possible choice was to flee the village. Anger, betrayal, hurt; all these emotions were involved in both his leaving Konohagakure and attempting to destroy it.
I appreciate you taking the time to read my rather prolix thread, and hopefully you feel differently now about Uchiha Madara's character.
