"You have the same eyes as me"
Jan. 22nd, 2004 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaser(I wish there was a big fanbase for Naruto like there is for HP, a group where you could discuss the meaning of individual lines and scenes as is done in HP...)
Last night I paused near the end of the Haku/Zabuza arc, and so I'm finishing it now. In ep 17, during a flashback scene to Zabuza "adopting" Haku on the bridge, I noticed something odd. Haku (4? years old?) look up at Zabuza through the snow.
Zabuza: A kid like you will not be needed by anyone and will die a beggar.
Haku looks up at him, smiles happily, and says: You have the same eyes as me.
Not only is the timing on that comment odd enough to raise eyebrows, but quite clearly they don't have the same eyes:
.. 
(Click for larger/different view.)
So what does Haku mean? He's (accidentally/defensively) a murderer and Zabuza is one as well (though quite willingly and gleefully), but would a kid as young as that not only be able to read that in someone else, but acknowledge that he did it as well (especially when it was his father? and probably other people from the village?). And unless I missed something, these are the first words Haku says to Zabuza -- that has to be significant.
This ties together with something else I wondered: How did Zabuza know that Haku had the Bloodline Limit inside him? That can't be something ninjas can just sense, otherwise Kakashi and the others would have picked up on it themselves. Is it a special ability of Zabuza's? Or did he know of Haku's village and heard what happened there? Or the thing that sort of pings the most: Are the two related? Maybe Haku recognized something like that in Zabuza's eyes? (Even when he was older, Haku didn't want to kill people, so I doubt this was a "one killer recognizing another" sort of thing.) I refuse to believe this is a plot hole. :)
Mm. Or maybe it's some Japanese cultural thing that I have no idea about... I wish I had time at work to search for fanfics about this, but I won't have a bit of free time for a couple weeks yet.
Last night I paused near the end of the Haku/Zabuza arc, and so I'm finishing it now. In ep 17, during a flashback scene to Zabuza "adopting" Haku on the bridge, I noticed something odd. Haku (4? years old?) look up at Zabuza through the snow.
Zabuza: A kid like you will not be needed by anyone and will die a beggar.
Haku looks up at him, smiles happily, and says: You have the same eyes as me.
Not only is the timing on that comment odd enough to raise eyebrows, but quite clearly they don't have the same eyes:
.. 
(Click for larger/different view.)
So what does Haku mean? He's (accidentally/defensively) a murderer and Zabuza is one as well (though quite willingly and gleefully), but would a kid as young as that not only be able to read that in someone else, but acknowledge that he did it as well (especially when it was his father? and probably other people from the village?). And unless I missed something, these are the first words Haku says to Zabuza -- that has to be significant.
This ties together with something else I wondered: How did Zabuza know that Haku had the Bloodline Limit inside him? That can't be something ninjas can just sense, otherwise Kakashi and the others would have picked up on it themselves. Is it a special ability of Zabuza's? Or did he know of Haku's village and heard what happened there? Or the thing that sort of pings the most: Are the two related? Maybe Haku recognized something like that in Zabuza's eyes? (Even when he was older, Haku didn't want to kill people, so I doubt this was a "one killer recognizing another" sort of thing.) I refuse to believe this is a plot hole. :)
Mm. Or maybe it's some Japanese cultural thing that I have no idea about... I wish I had time at work to search for fanfics about this, but I won't have a bit of free time for a couple weeks yet.
