Posting here I generally try to keep from criticizing or voting because I don't have the time or interest to put into learning the mechanics and lore to the required level. In light of the recent debacle I realize this isn't always the right path to take and feel I should express some of my perspectives on the problems here.
Fundamentally I object to the moral bargaining I see from players and am disappointed by the lack of POVs from, for lack of a more nuanced term, victim classes. I see a 'rational consequentionalist' as the exact same thing as a 'hard man making hard decisions', with the same outcome for the little people crushed underfoot. We've seen this in the recent events and earlier in the Pangolin deals. However I don't feel like utopian visions are always the motivation behind the ruthless decisions. I think there's a lot of pride there. Losing the Pangolin Scroll would make the thread and viewpoint characters look and feel uncool for example, so reasons are found to justify continuing the arms sales.
Further everything the thread wants to do to help civilians is something that doesn't cost them anything they really care about, like their pride or feelings of power. Hazou working himself ragged in disaster relief or giving away mountains of money (that doesn't exist, and was earned in-game with cool schemes people wanted to pull off anyway) doesn't matter. It feels like his 'uplift' kick is only an attempt to morally justify whatever horrible-but-clever thing the thread wants to do in hindsight, which I'm very uncomfortable with the implications of.
I feel the recent treatment of Hiashi is an emblematic scapegoating of that attitude. Does he represent bad things? Absolutely, but so does Hazou. More level headed characters like Tsunade see him as a step back compared to Hiruzen or Asuma but nothing like the apocalyptic threat to all that is good the thread seems to treat him as. He's a classist, and an isolationist, but he cares about Konoha and could be rationally bargained with. (He's also far from the decisive obstacle to world peace or worldwide humanitarian movements, there are four other Kage to deal with, Akatsuki and the Minor Villages.) I see a lot of space to negotiate with for civilian welfare, clanless rights or peace initiatives given the other sympathetic forces in Konoha (Naruto, Shikamaru, Asuma, Tsunade) and material benefits to Konoha's security that could be provided. However I've seen assassination discussed here and further undermining of Konoha's traditions for peaceful transitions of power. The Pangolin sales would have continued to fund the election if Keiko hadn't stood up and frankly (if the staff hadn't intervened) I think that the Uchiha deal would have gone through with a few token concessions to conscience and only a handful objecting. Anything is justified if it stops Hiashi.
Two, while 'HDK' is valid for main-story posts I don't feel Interludes are being used enough to give many serious but not world shaping elements of the world the focus they deserve. If it's never in the story it won't have weight. Has there ever been a series of interludes of what the Condor civilians are facing? I believe there was one of survivors of the Hot Springs Massacre, but has that been brought back since as probably Uplift's biggest personal crime? Have the friends and familes of the (probably exploited Clanless Chunin) murdered border guards come up? Would there have been interludes of the perspectives and feelings of the Uchiha civilians? I think there should be, and perhaps it shouldn't be voted on. People will probably choose a more prominant privileged and influential character like the Mizukage over the live of a border guard's orphan, but if you want to give proper moral weight to events I don't see another alternative than to deliberately choose to show the fallout. If it's not in the story then narratively it as good as didn't happen or matter.
The inclusion of Yukari and Kenta into the main story is a helpful step in the right direction though, it's been frustrating to see so much of the moral weight in the story being dependent on 'helping civilians' but excluding all civilian voices in the actual narrative.
That's all not to say I don't still appreciate the story, I just don't like the thread discussion very much or sympathise with Hazou anymore while enjoying the rest. Though I'm still holding out some hope that my sympathy for the character can be salvaged. On the character level the way I personally read this story is as Hazou's fall into Ninja Messiah madness. He starts as a young scared boy searching for both meaning and safety. The feeling of 'safety' is unfortunately provided through skill with violence and weaponized seals, which are a passion and also a crutch much like a kid carrying a knife to school because he's afraid. The sense of meaning I feel he's looking for like a gap year student at first, wanting to 'help civilians' isn't founded on organic empathy or experience it's just something he thinks he can do to feel like a good person. Then Hot Springs happens and he's responsible, yes, for the possibility of provoking a world war but also personally for the deaths of the civilians there and a number of missing nin in the same boat as him and nominal allies in the Konoha border guards and Jiriaya's agent and for abandoning the others in Swamp.
Then Jiriaya enters the pictures during the adoption arc, providing both the safety and power that Hazou wants on all levels. Wealth, political power, secret techniques, seals and the protection of the world's strongest ninja with a philosophy and cause Hazou can believe in. It makes a lot of sense for Hazou to be willing to keep the arms trading going for Jiriaya, and to take on his view of Hiashi. Then Jiriaya dies and Hazou is left adrift. My suspicion is this is all about Hazou grasping for the feeling of power and security he had as the Hokage's son and lashing out at Jiriaya's political rival as the representative of the threat of losing it. Naruto being on board with that, who probably took most of his attitudes about Hiashi from the same source and is also traumatized from captivity and missing Jiriaya and Hiruzen, doesn't help. There's also the guilt from supporting the Pangolins, which is partly justified on believing Jiriaya was justified in opposing Hiashi the way he did. So he doubles down and he drags his family down with him. Keiko sees the spiral and refuses to participate, Mari misplaces her trust and breaks.
So yeah Hazou's behavior and agression doesn't seem entirely stable to me, and I'd trust Tunsade's humanitarian perspective on the situation over a traumatized Naruto's and Keiko's moral compass over Hazou's. I'm really hoping the story is going somewhere with a compromised POV, because if it isn't and this kind of 'hard man' thinking is going to be the norm forever I'm uncomfortable.
