Naruto Chapter 344: The Snake!

Summary:
Sasuke reaveals his true colors against Orochimaru. Orochimaru reveals his true self as a creepy scaley snake. A fight ensues in which Sasuke becomes poetic and a flashback of young Orochimaru which perhaps reveals his facination with rebirth.

Witherwing writes:

The Traitor...again: Ah yes, the ever arrogant Sasuke is still ever arrogant. Gotta love it. He still has that Quin---Uchiha pride. But now it seems that his cool arrogant demeanor is just a way to cover up his more embedded hatred. It seems that he likens Orochimaru to his brother in the quest for meaning and playing with other's lives. Maybe he has the same hatred for Orochimaru as he does for Itachi but is cooly hiding it. Maybe.

Also, he seems to know that the reason that Orochimaru wanted him as a vessel was because he couldn't control Itachi. I never thought of that. Perhaps he resents the fact that he's a replacement for his brother.

You-know-who: Thought #1) Ewwww. Thought #2) Orochimaru is Voldemort. I mean, the obsession with imortality, the switching bodies to live, the becoming snakes...kinda.

The Hawk: I still can't help but think that Sasuke is still fighting on borrowed power. I mean if he uses the power that Orochimaru gave him to defeat the snake, isn't it pointless?


Note: I updated below.

SnowyOwl Says:

WitherWings, how can it be that we both are weeks behind and then you update the moment I was drafting mine? So I'm going to include my less bias/speculative summary, since I took the time to think it out. (P.S. We have a new reader!)

Summary: Sasuke belittles Orochimaru and attempts to kill him, but Orochimaru leaves his temporary body and reveals his true form, a great white snake. Sasuke activates the cursed seal and the two face off. We see a flashback of Orochimaru finding a white snake's molted skin and Sandaime informing him that it was a symbol of good fortune and rebirth.

Commentary

So much psychological meat here, so please excuse the long post. And be forewarned that there's a lot of Sasuke hating in this post. I don't dislike him as an integral part of the story, but I do dislike what I saw in this chapter.

Can you say power struggle? We knew this already, but Oro and Sasuke are not nice people. So much hypocrisy, selfishness, arrogance, sarcasm, and hurtful words all to establish the power relationship, I'm suffocating here.

Orochimaru is the lesser of two evils in this chapter: he jibes at Sasuke sense of self-importance (Big words...from the leftover Uchiha), the sarcasm implying that Sasuke was the worthless one, tossed aside. This, I think is a bit of a 'who do you think you are?' defence strategy to get Sasuke to back down mentally, since Sasuke physically has the upper hand.

Sasuke comes back five-fold strong, attacking all of Orochimaru's insecurities, belittling his aspirations, laughing at his actions, and disrespecting his identity. I guess I'm just a bit disappointed that Sasuke chose to bully Orochi mentally and emotionally and didn't just kill Oro out of survival or for the good of Oro's enemies. It goes to show that Sasuke is not just poopy (an adjective I've associated with him since the Valley of the End) but actually mean. A bully.

I find it ironic that Sasuke is using the the cursed seal to fight Orochimaru. Orochi facilitated his own demise, and Sasuke is just an ungrateful jerk. Really, he just used Orochi -- just as Orochi always meant to use Sasuke. They didn't have a healthy relationship, to say the least. Calling Orochi pathetic for experimenting on his own body...isn't that what he did when he accepted the level-two cursed seal? Hypocrite. Yes, fighting with borrowed power, not heroic or noble.

I agree that Sasuke drawns similarities between Orochi and Itachi (ooo, they're both 'two-syllable+chi's). I'm fairly certain that the 'You sicken me' line was meant for Itachi.

I had an 'Oh no!' reaction to the flashback. Don't make Orochi a sympathetic character! Wha! Now it will be less satisfying when he's finally defeated. Orochi had regrets, felt lonliness, and found hope. His interpretation and methods came out all twisted, but the initial motivation for becoming immortal was very human, maybe part of him wanted to live until he could meet his parents again. (He had a non-creepy smile! Awww.)

But enough of the heavy stuff. I had a good yuk at this:

Be awed by my whiteness! I blind you into submission!

And I still don't get the 'hawk' comparision. Those protrusions look like thick flesh to me. I don't see any pratical functionality to those things.