Itachi Psychological Profile
In this analysis, I'll be assuming that neither Itachi nor Hidan is actually lying to us or deliberately acting in ways that are out of character for them. They could be. They probably have no
reason to, however. C'mon. They're S-rank demigods who could kill us with a flick of their wrists. They
know they hold all the cards here.
So: starting from where Itachi shows up in the scene...
The cursed scythe swung in a perfect horizontal curve towards Hazō's neck, ready to decapitate all four Gōketsu in one fell stroke. Hazō could feel himself reacting too late, even the Iron Nerve's instant motion not fast enough in the face of the living avatar of slaughter.
The other figure's hand caught the shaft just before the blade touched Hazō's neck.
"I believe we have discussed this," it said in an even, measured voice. "Human sacrifice in the forest, love and peace in the village. If we have another incident, you will be cleaning up the blood on your own."
- Itachi likes things to be ordered rather than chaotic (he likes Hidan's antics to be kept far away from him, and he's willing to step in to make sure that boundary stays intact).
- He maintains professionalism (he discussed a problem with Hidan in order to resolve it, and sees that as important).
- He has at least some degree of self-respect (he's not willing to clean up after Hidan).
- This also ties into valuing self-sufficiency (he expects the people he works with to clean up their own messes).
"You're always such a wet blanket, Itachi," Hidan muttered, reluctantly stowing the scythe away into the depths of his robe. "This is just like that time with Nagato and the Demon Fox. If you'd only kept your mouth shut, we'd already be—"
"Hidan," Itachi snapped. "I don't believe our guests need to know the particulars of that unfortunate event. Now, can we move on to the substance of their visit?"
- Itachi views himself as sensible. Plausibly, as "the sensible one". He has a habit of trying to get the people he works with to act in a "boring" way (Hidan's "wet blanket" comment).
- This led to a failure regarding Naruto.
- Itachi is embarassed by this failure. It's a sore subject for him. He's attached "being sensible" to his identity, and now his actions look insensible. It stings.
- Itachi retreats into to sesquepedalian locatiousness when his sore spots are prodded.
- "I don't believe our guests need to know the particulars of that unfortunate event." instead of "Can you please not."? Really?
- He reassures himself over insecurity by trying to feel smart and equating that to "things being orderly".
"I'm sorry," Noburi said incredulously. "Are you telling me that the high priest of the god of brutal murder is also the oracle of the spirit of love?"
"Duh," Hidan said. "Gotta bring new life into the world before you can massacre it. Everythin' from conception to death belongs to Lord Jashin, and it's his priests' job to make both ends as fun as possible. Rightly speakin', this is a job for a different kinda specialist, but I've been… diversifyin'. I'm a natural at the shaft-handlin' and the swingin', but teachin' people not to rip each other's hearts out? Real learnin' experience."
"Perhaps we can save the theology for later?" Itachi asked wearily. "He can keep going all day if you give him an opening."
- Aww... Itachi likes Hidan a lot. It's really cute.
- Did you see the way he complimented Hidan's skill even as he was complaining about him?
- Not that I'm implying romantic interest, to be clear.
- This is something Hidan does a lot. He knows it annoys Itachi. They have that sort of friendship.
- Itachi takes things seriously. He doesn't like fun. Sex jokes make him uncomfortable.
- He considers this sort of tone to be beneath him.
- He equates seriousness to value of self-image.
"Never gonna run out of stamina 'long as Lord Jashin is with me," Hidan agreed. "Gotta practise what I preach, or I'm a damn hypocrite. And Lord Jashin's only got one fate in store for hypocrites.
"Now, let's get this shit on the road."
"Hidan, we have already established that this isn't why—"
"You shut your mouth, Itachi. Lord Jashin gets called down, he ain't goin' back up again 'till his work is done. Them's the rules. I don't tell you how to butcher your family, you don't tell me how to worship my god. But since you're beggin' me and all, I'll give 'em the abridged version.
- Itachi just wants to treat the situation seriously and check off his neat little list of items for resolving the chaos in front of him. Hidan throwing more antics at him is tiring in a non-serious way.
"You!" Hidan pointed at Hazō with a psychotically shaking finger. Hazō flinched.
"Your heart's split in two, and you're dumb enough to think half's the past, and half's the future. That's bullshit. Unless you're Lord Jashin and you rule the cycle of life, there's only the present, and you're only bein' an ass in the present. You shove both halves of your heart together into one, then you throw it at the one you love. It hits, they get showered in your blood and it's up to them if they want to mix it with theirs. It misses, it gets to coagulate so it's in one piece for next time. The one thing you don' do is hold the halves in your hands and keep 'em drippin' until you bleed yourself dry. That's wasteful, and wastin' blood's a mortal sin.
"Thus speaketh the Great Spirit in all his wisdom: hurry up and grow yourself a fuckin' pair."
Hidan's trembling hand swerved to Noburi, who also flinched.
"I can sense the blessing of Lord Jashin hangin' thick around you, only you're too much of a pussy for it to be yours. You're in love with a true believer? Good for you. Like the scriptures say, best in blood, best in bed. But a milquetoast like you don't deserve a real woman. The likes of you wanna get with a Jashinite? Passion answers passion. You bring your A-game, and hit 'er hard with love and life as strong as her hatred and death, if that's how you roll, or she'll move on to a man who can handle 'er, and maybe rip your guts out on her merry way.
"Thus speaketh the Great Spirit in all his wisdom: quit being chicken when what your woman wants is a great big co—"
"Hidan," Itachi said firmly, "I believe our guests are having difficulty taking in the Great Spirit's guidance. Perhaps you could go and brew them some tea? You are aware of my unfortunate history with cooking."
"Yeah, yeah. It ain't called a fryin' pan 'cause you're supposed to fry it with your eyes. Fine. Heretics, you're gettin' five cups of peppermint tea, and I hope you choke on 'em."
- Again, Itachi finds sex jokes uncomfortable. He likes sophisticated interaction. Having to put up with crudeness is beneath him.
- Itachi's willing to bring up his own embarassing moments to get Hidan to back off with the inuendo.
- He's not that prideful.
- Note that the frying pan incident was way less important than whatever happened with Naruto, so hurts his self-image of being sensible a lot less.
- Itachi actually once tried to use Amaterasu to cook a meal, what the fuck.
- Okay, so he's not that sensible.
- And he's actually willing to admit to it.
"Peppermint tea?" Noburi asked with an expression of dawning understanding.
"Next most sacred liquid after blood," Hidan said. "Bringer of life an' rebirth." He disappeared through a door in the back of the room.
"Wait, five?" Itachi repeated. "Hidan, I don't need any tea!" he said urgently.
"Too bad," came a gleeful voice. "You interrupted a holy ritual of Lord Jashin. You get extra leaves."
- Is peppermint tea some kind of viagra or aphrodisiac or something?
- If so, this strikes under Itachi's armour of intellectual sophistication by physically reminding him that he's a human with a squicky body. It's also an intrusion into his calm and orderly world.
- Again, Itachi is humble. He's willing to beg Hidan not to embarass him, and he doesn't escalate to seriousness when Hidan just thinks it's hilarious.
Itachi looked down.
"This, too, is part of my penance," he muttered to himself.
He turned towards the back door.
"Can you at least add honey?" he called out with forlorn hope.
"You're gettin' yours plain," Hidan replied just as gleefully. "Time you learned some fuckin' piety, Itachi."
"This, too, is part of my penance," Itachi muttered insistently.
- Itachi believes in justice. He thinks that people who do wrong, or fail to do right, and especially people like him who did both, deserve punishment.
- Itachi is sad. It's pretty obvious, but should be stated anyway.
- He had hope that he could solve world peace forever, and then that hope was stolen away from him.
- He feels lost and betrayed by the cruelty of the world.
- He also feels that it's at least partially his fault, so any minor indignities thrust upon him are merely justice for his failure.
- He's also mourning Nagato -- who was his friend. He probably feels that Nagato's death was his fault, too.
- Again, Itachi is humble, and not above begging his friend to not be annoy him in petty ways in front of company.
He sighed, then sat up straight. "Allow me at least a moment of respite from the tomfoolery into which my life has degenerated. I received your letter, Gōketsu. Your proposal is not unappealing. It does, however, come from a missing-nin who blazed a trail of destruction across the continent—I speak here as a man of experience—and was the indirect perpetrator of the greatest bloodbath in human history, as well as the heir of the man who strangled world peace in the crib. There are several respectable schools of thought that say it would be for the good of the world if you did not walk out of this room alive, or at least… unmodified. But there are also a couple which say I should at least consider or even support your case."
He crossed his arms as an immolating red light blazed into existence in his eyes.
"Persuade me."
- Here we are again with the sesquepedalian locatiousness. "Allow me at least a moment of respite from the tomfoolery into which my life has degenerated.". Itachi is trying to reassert control over the social environment, and for him that means "feel smart and reassert that you're above silliness".
- "It does, however, come from a missing-nin who blazed a trail of destruction across the continent—I speak here as a man of experience—"
- Ooh, more self-hatred. Cool.
- He thinks that missing nin (himself included) are inherently people who the world would be better off without.
- "and was the indirect perpetrator of the greatest bloodbath in human history,"
- "The results of your actions are your fault, even if they went against your actual wishes. It is right that you should be held accountable for even accidental atrocities."
- (crying) "Why couldn't I succeed at holding off the village forces until the plan succeeded?! It's myyyy faaaaaauuuullllttt...... Nagato! I'm sorry!" (trails off into sobs)
- "as well as the heir of the man who strangled world peace in the crib."
- Transferance of anger. Hating himself feels bad, so he lashes out at Jiraiya's perfectly reasonable reaction to people messing with the fundamental structure of the universe. If he was thinking clearly, he wouldn't blame Jiraiya for doing what he did, but he's not thinking clearly. He's full off bitterness and resentment over the plan's sucess being stolen from him.
- "Everything was going to be perfect! Why couldn't Jiraiya just leave us alone?!"
- Jiraiya's not here. But Hazou is here. He makes a good proxy for that resentment.
- "There are several respectable schools of thought that say it would be for the good of the world if you did not walk out of this room alive, or at least… unmodified."
- "Look kid, I'm itching to take out my self-loathing on you, and I'm going to dress it up as sophisticated intellectualism so that I can use it to feel smart instead of facing my insecurities. Cool?"
- "But there are also a couple which say I should at least consider or even support your case."
- "Unfortunately, my self-image as a calm and sensible intellectual who's above base emotions is throwing a hissy fit, and it won't stop until I at least give you a chance to fuck up at making a reasonable argument so I have an excuse to write you off."
Discussion
Itachi has four major defining aspects:
- He sees himself as a sensible sophisticated philosopher type. He likes order and dislikes chaos. Primal urges and emotions are beneath him. He scores highly on Openness to Experience, but it's all compacted into highly cerebral areas.
- He believes strongly in justice, personal responsibility and self-reliance. He is humble. He scores highly in Conscientiousness and Agreeableness.
- He is friends with Hidan. That friendship manifests as tolerating the annoyances Hidan inflicts upon him far more than he admits to. He strikes me as the sort of person who has a small number of closely cherished friends who he doesn't really engage with very much, preferring to sit quietly and watch their antics. He scores lowly in Extraversion.
- He is hurting. His belief in justice -- especially his belief that accidental evils and mere failures to succeed at doing good deserve punishment are making him hate himself. That belief will be lashing out at acceptable targets around him in a sort of "If I can't face the justice I deserve, then I can at least bring others to justice" way. He just lost a friend. He just lost his chance to change the world and make everything alright forever. He's in a very sad and bitter place. It's difficult to get a read on how he scores for Neuroticism, because we're not seeing his baseline.
I recommend approaches that involve showing that we can be calm, sensible, and non-chaotic. I also recommend approaches that focus on Hazou as a
force for Justice, rather than a
target for Justice. I do
not recommend approaches that would make Itachi closely identify with Hazou, such as by drawing a comparison between Itachi's relationship to Hidan and Hazou's relationship to (Lee? Kagome?). Itachi hates himself right now. We do
not want to become someone he can self-harm through by proxy. It
may help to draw a comparison between Itachi's relationship to Hidan, and
Kei's relationship to
Hazou. This casts Hazou in the role of "Itachi's friends" rather than "Itachi". Do
not try this angle if you can't make it not conflict with presenting Hazou as ordered/calm. The tiniest hint of silly antics is fine. Chaos is not.
Focus on showing calmness, humility, personal responsibility, and how Hazou can give justice to those who have been wronged by the world.
