Was Itachi REALLY always a good guy?

In this video I attempt to get to the bottom of if Itachi was actually always meant to be a good guy or if he was retconned into being something he was never intended to be. I think the conclusion is extremely consistent and people will be pleased with it.

Intro: 0:00
Itachi's in The Hidden Leaf: 1:55
Itachi's Timeline Dilema: 7:51
Itachi Flashback: 14:06
Itachi in Naruto Shippuden: 16:48

[sixfromtokyo]

I actually like this video a lot & for some extra evidence around the "Itachi's Timeline Dilemma" part of the video the 2nd databook also confirms Itachi was 13 years old when he ascended to anbu captain.

[cinemamadness]

Konoha Village: "Itachi was the hero of the leaf all along"

Kakashi: "He violently tortured me for 3 straight days, so brutally that it put me into a freaking coma. Just because he felt like it"

[FriendlyDarkwraith]

Let's not ignore the fact that, had Naruto not intervened in time, Sasuke would have gotten his body stolen by Orochimaru and Itachi would look like the biggest dumbass in the entire world for basically giftwrapping him for the guy. It's pretty obvious that Kishimoto's intentions for his character changed at some point, and he did a pretty good job of covering his tracks to make it seem like this was always his plan from the start.

[DoubleDrastik]

Itachi was written to be a bad guy but kishimoto changed his mind. He even went as far to change his design to give him less of a antagonistic look.

[BuzzabeelYT]

The true retcon was Itachi always caring about Sasuke. You could argue that he choked Sasuke out in that hallway to keep up the pretense for Kisame, but re-traumatizing him was for who, exactly? Sasuke dropping everything to find Itachi was proof enough that he hadn’t gone soft. Hell, even genjutsu’ing him the first time was overkill. Itachi didn’t think Sasuke watching him murder his parents and finding the bodies of his relatives was enough of a reason for him to seek revenge?

[Darian]

Short answer. Itachi was supposed to be a Villain. When they saw how popular the character got in Naruto, they needed to change it to a good guy for Shippuden.

[DiddntFindANameLol]

Itachi's reason for murdering his whole town was always incredibly vague, so I think Kishi wanted to do something with it later on, but I don't for a single moment believe Itachi was intended to be good.

[bentongrover]

Definately a retcon, no doubt. same with Hashirama and Tobirama scaling in shippuden. I think Kishimoto had a hard time justifying Itachi's motivations for his past behavior.

[ennabennab]

The plothole concerning the timing of itachi joining and orochimaru leaving the akatsuki is easily explained...
Hashirama cells

[TheDeadman]

Look the argument I believe is strongest for why Itachi is a retcon is that it's the only thing that explains Itachi's moment of sheer stupidity in executing his plan. Basically Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill him in order to avenge the Uchiha, thereby dying as the villain, and successfully concealing the truth about the coup. And he definitely didn't want Sasuke to turn into a terrorist or anything, as evidenced by the fact that, after Itachi was brought back to life, he was confused as to why Sasuke wanted to join the Akatsuki and destroy the Leaf.

So if that was his goal, why would he think giving a six year old PTSD and telling him to dedicate his life to hatred is a good idea?

Because he wanted Sasuke to get strong enough to kill him? Itachi literally let him win anyway. There's no reason he needed to do any of that. And if there was, then why was Itachi so surprised when the PTSD and hatred turned Sasuke into a terrorist? He basically did to Sasuke what Obito did to Nagato to turn him into Pain. Only instead I guess Sasuke become Hate? Either way, what did you expect to happen, my guy?

This is bigger than your typical uh-oh-spaghetti-o kind of mistake, so it begs the question if there was more than some disconnect between itachi's intentions and executions

[NotEnoughSwvy]

On the Akatsuki not resembling the Akatsuki we see in Shippudden. I’m pretty sure that Kishimoto’s original idea was to have every other Akatsuki member be an Oni of some sort. And the symbolism that Itachi was so bad that he belonged with a group of Oni which are basically monsters.

[TamaraPizhadze]

Kishimoto had his idea for the manga, but the studio had its own idea, and Kishi followed suit. While watching the anime, I felt some conspiracy was going on, which would be revealed later in the story, that Itachi killed the entire clan to stop a coup. When this was first shown, I was not that surprised; what did surprise me was that they tried to recontextualize his actions as heroic rather than cold-hearted and calculated. The only reason he kept Sasuke alive was that despite being cold-hearted, he still loved Sasuke.

[uchiharyuuka]

Shisui wrote the note. He tells Itachi when we gives him his eye, if he's truly his friend he won't try and stop him, and that he's already left a note and he leaves the rest to Itachi.

[unnoticed]

I think Kishi retconed him when he saw the popularity of Itachi and it would be obvious in hindsight on why he’s so popular. Edgy design, cool eyes, very strong. Yea people definitely wanted some sort of redemption

[bnoyxve]

Itachi directly said that he's not perfect but people, I don't know, ignore this fact. It makes me furious. Itachi made it clear that he's not perfect, he's not a saint but fans like shut their eyes, ignore their idol and keep idolizing him too much

[Takejiro]

Also, remember in the flashback to Itachi beating the police and ranting to his father about how fed up he is, it was *Sasuke* calling out to Itachi that made him snap back to his senses and apologize for the trouble. I think it's safe to say he always loved his little brother. Even if he showed it in ways that make me want to absolutely throttle him.

[Dontdoit_]

I’ve always believed it was a retcon was just done well because of how vague it was before

[Borchert]

The very first databook has a bit about Itachi where it says something along the lines of "what are this mysterious character's true motives?" or something like that, hinting that there's more to him than what you might originally guess. Not to mention when he used Tsukuyomi on Kakashi, Kakashi said to himself "why not just kill me? If he wanted to, he could.", another sign that Itachi was holding back or showing mercy. The only reason he put Kakashi out of commission was to prevent a large-scale fight from breaking out, he knew if he incapacitated the heaviest hitter the Leaf has outside of the Sannin, the other Jonin would prioritize Kakashi's safety and allow Itachi and Kisame a window to escape.

[Zakzattak]

He tortured the shit out of kakashi, like excessively

[Lonewulf]

The simplest and most likely answer is that kishimoto had already planned this from the jump, but didn’t have all the details ironed out.