[[ LOL

Alright, let’s destroy you and any future people who still think it’s ok to be anti-Itachi as if he alone caused the massacre. I’m tired of y’all clogging the Itachi tag with your nonsense opinions. 

First things first: The massacre was out of Itachi’s control =/= the massacre was okay and a good thing.

You don’t even have basic reading comprehension. I hate the massacre, it’s awful, but I’m not so much of an idiot I think it’s entirely Itachi’s fault. You’re blaming a thirteen year old who had his fears used against him and was used as a scapegoat so the village could get away with murdering one of its founding clans. Itachi is not at fault for the massacre, he was a pawn. Just as much a victim of Danzo and Hiruzen. 

Sarutobi was alive, wasn’t he?

You poor, poor soul. You think he would’ve helped? Do you really trust Hiruzen that much? Let’s go over a list of things Hiruzen has done that are canon.

Your Precious Angel Sarutobi Hiruzen…

• Agreed to Danzo’s idea of sequestering the clan into its own district, despite there being no existing evidence that the Uchiha clan were responsible for the Kyuubi Attack, other than an old tale about Madara. 
• Owns and Maintains the ANBU squad that checks the surveillance cameras inside the Uchiha District 24/7. These cameras have been in place since the district was built.
• Approved a 30% budget cut to the Police Force despite knowing full well Danzo was using the cut as a method to piss the Uchiha off and ‘prove’ they were dangerous and needed to be eradicated.
• Allows Danzo to run free and without any check. The worst Hiruzen does is verbally scold him twice before the massacre. 
• Knows full well that Danzo absolutely hates the Uchiha clan, yet again…takes no actual action to prevent him from messing with them.
• Refuses to meet with the Uchiha for a full year after Shisui’s death. This is despite claiming that he doesn’t want them to die and they are friends from the previous war. He refutes any actual attempt at negotiation.
• Is aware of the fact Danzo wants to kill them. This is in a direct manga flashback. Hiruzen ended up okaying the massacre. 
• Only demotes Dnazo and disbands ROOT, but knows, and verbally admits, that Danzo will find a way to continue his work even if not officially, and he is going to do nothing else about it, despite being acting Hokage.
• Depends on Itachi and Shisui alone to “fix” the Uchiha and make them complacent in their position and the rights they are not allowed, so that he does not have to lift a finger and actually work. He trusted teenagers…. to do the negotiations and hard work he as an adult, and as a leader of a village, to do.

And killing entire clan is sort of… not smth Danzo would be able to do and then hide it?

Do you honestly think Danzo was even attempting to hide it? It works in Danzo’s favor if the entire village thinks the Uchiha are dangerous. He already has a lot of the public believing that the Uchiha are at fault. Itachi is bullied in school because he’s an Uchiha. He’s discriminated when he works in ANBU because one of them lost his sister to the Kyuubi, and somehow it’s Itachi’s– and the entire Uchiha clan’s fault. Danzo wants this kind of outcry to be public, he wants to be lauded as a hero for exterminating the Uchiha. He got the best he could, the clan is gone and no-one in the public thinks negatively of him. Danzo is the same man who let out the secret that Naruto was the Jinchuuriki, purely so people would hate and fear him and he could be considered a savior for killing Naruto in the future.

And the worst isn’t even that he betrayed his family. The worst is that he went and brutally slaughtered them at night without giving them any chance to defend themselves. He’s a coward.

You really are, just…missing the whole point, aren’t you? The massacre was scheduled and orchestrated. If it wasn’t Itachi who started it, it would’ve been the ANBU under Hiruzen and Danzo’s command. 

There’s hundreds of things that he could’ve done, but he chose mass murder

See, this is what I hate about you anti Itachi people. You always act as if Itachi acted completely on his own, independent of other people’s pressure and manipulation. As if he just up and one day said “yeah, i’ll kill them that’s the only option lol” and planned the whole thing himself.

Danzo has been manipulating Itachi Uchiha since he was seven years old.

Itachi has had an Aburame stalking him since he graduated the Academy and met Danzo. Danzo wanted Itachi specifically. An Uchiha, a clan he hates, but Itachi showed so much skill and promise that Danzo would much rather have that skill be working under his name. 

Danzo does everything in his power to speed up the process to get Itachi into his clutches. Itachi’s sensei won’t allow him to enter the Chuunin exams? Go to Hiruzen and speak harshly about the sensei, and convince Hiruzen to not only let Itachi take the exams– but to take them alone.

Uchiha not allowed in ANBU? Well, strike that for this one particular Uchiha. Danzo wants him badly.

Age restriction to join ANBU? Come on Hiruzen please just lower it by one year I really need this Uchiha to be working under me. 

Danzo knew about Itachi’s fear of mass fighting and bloodshed. He used it to his advantage, told Itachi the safer option was for himself to murder the clan as opposed to a fight breaking out. The fighting would break outside the clan, spill into the streets…enemy nations would see this and seize the opportunity to attack the Leaf…and Itachi would bear witness to the bloody scene he saw when he was four years old. 

Itachi wants more than anything to prevent mass fighting, so to him, scared as he is, it sounds better to be known as the rogue Uchiha who killed his clan, rather than the rest of the village being scared that they’re next. Is it logical? No! But if you actually cared for one second and stepped into his shoes and thought about it from his point of view, you could see how he would come to that conclusion. 

So, let’s recap.

• Danzo has been having one of his ROOT members tail Itachi since he was seven.
• Danzo has pushed for Itachi to take the Chuunin exams….alone.
• Danzo has pushed for Itachi to be made an exception into the ANBU role, and for the age restriction to be pulled down a year.Danzo has pressed Itachi for information from the clan meetings. When Itachi refuses, he murders an Uchiha and has two ROOT members take turn impersonating him and attending meetings. 
• Danzo has Shisui murdered, because Shisui’s plan of using KotoAmatsukami would have actually worked.
• Danzo preys upon Itachi’s fear of a war that involves the whole of the village and other villages, to convince Itachi that the only viable solution is for Itachi to kill them so the other clans do not grow suspicious or weary.

Itachi did not choose mass murder. Itachi was manipulated into the ‘choice’ because he was a child who had fears and vulnerabilities that were preyed on. There are people with more power and influence than Itachi and he was merely a victim of them. 

Even if he chose to stand with his clan, he simply would’ve been killed along with the rest of them. The massacre would have happened one way or another, Itachi’s cooperation be damned. 

So again….the massacre was out of Itachi’s control.

**And a helpful edit by my friend Tai, the village got away with the Uchiha Clan Genocide because publicly, it’s considered it’s Itachi’s fault. A person killing their own family is a massacre, another system enacting a family wipe is a genocide.  ]]