Read on Twitter
so. i think for starters what is most interesting about the sasuke and shikamaru dichotomy is that shikamaru has almost everything that sasuke doesn& #39;t and is essentially a projection of the sasuke that could have been had he been born into a normal life
shikamaru is part of a normal clan, that clan has no kekkei genkai, shikamaru has a father who puts time into his emotional well being, a father who doesn& #39;t push him to be the best but also nurtures him as a person, shikamaru has a mundane and normal life growing up
and this is essentially a complete antithesis to how sasuke grows up. sure, sasuke grows up in a loving household, but that household also exerts immense pressure on him esp since he& #39;s a second child, and the son of a noble clan. there are so many things that mold him to be worse
i think where they crossover is in the idea that they& #39;re cynics, but at the same time, sasuke is a cynic to the point of anarchy whereas shikamaru acts more as a critic within the system and as such that& #39;s why he& #39;s set up to be an advisor. he& #39;s still just a little more grounded
and i mean, obv, why wouldn& #39;t he be. he didn& #39;t lose his family traumatically like sasuke did. but it& #39;s very striking the way that he kills hidan bc we see that if given the reasons and the leniency, shikamaru has as much a potential to act on coldhearted killer instincts
i think bc we see so little inside of shikamaru& #39;s head that we& #39;re not fully inclined to how detached he can become from reality, but i still think it& #39;s a cusp that& #39;s there. it& #39;s a cusp he has to fight to bring himself back from every day
he& #39;s smart enough to take down ppl if he feels wronged. he& #39;s coldhearted enough if need be and brutal in the way that he can inflict pain. but he doesn& #39;t. he fights back relentlessly against the concept of reckless abandon, and i think that& #39;s exactly why he comes off so detached
imo that& #39;s also why his relationship with naruto feels more plausible than naruto& #39;s relationship with sasuke. he& #39;s a little more grounded, a little more insistent about fighting back against that potential darkness, and it brings him just a little closer to naruto& #39;s idealism
