To say that Sasuke takes slights and insults against his clan very personally is practically an understatement. Any time an insult is aimed at his clan, it cuts Sasuke deep and leaves him deeply enraged. For Sasuke, it's painful to hear his beloved nakama slandered. Needless to say, Sasuke became sensitive to insults fired at his clan and is always seriously hacked off whenever his clan is insulted, as disparaging remarks about his clan are met with immense irritation at Sasuke’s mildest and frightening violence at his worst. Sasuke's defensiveness of his clan likely stems primarily from him being the last survivor and from his loyalty to his clan.

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There's not a single instance where Sasuke doesn't get seriously hacked when his clan is insulted in his presence. The only factor that changes from scene to scene is not the amount of rage Sasuke feels, but rather his level of self-control and ability to deal with insults targeting his clan. Sasuke doesn't handle insults aimed at his clan well until he's older, unless the source of insult is his teammate who he assumes doesn't mean to be as meanly insulting as they are (though that probably did contribute to why Kakashi and Sasuke don’t get along well).

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To understand Sasuke’s outrage at having his clanmates insulted, one might compare how Naruto reacts when his village comrades are insulted. When Tsunade insults the Hokage, Naruto is so angered by her disrespect that he challenges her to a duel because he won’t tolerate her bad-mouthing the Hokage.

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Or how about when Naruto wouldn’t tolerate others mocking Minato?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or Obito?

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Seeing how Sasuke knew his clanmates personally as his neighbors, friends, family, and fellow civilians (not to mention the Uchiha clan’s interconnected cultural collectivist mentality), Sasuke’s connections to his comrades are potent indeed. And like Naruto, Sasuke has a temper too and won’t tolerate people disrespecting his clan for long. In general, most shinobi wouldn’t be able to resist feeling anger when their comrades are slandered, and Sasuke is no exception. He burns with anger whenever his clan is insulted and feels compelled to make sure that the Uchiha clan won’t suffer such malignment again; it’s part of defending the honor of his clan, like how Naruto similarly felt compelled to defend the honor of his comrades and friends. Thus the reason why Sasuke feels deeply pressured to perform well constantly: he can’t afford to let his performance slip or falter, lest his clan be mocked because of his failures.

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Genin Naruto reinforces this, nonchalantly aiming a barbed insult at Sasuke's clan by remarking that maybe Sasuke’s clan wasn't as good as he thought. Naruto’s casually fired insults at Sasuke's family and nakama enrages Sasuke, as Sasuke angrily growls at Naruto to shut up and he clenches his fist to contain his fury.

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Sasuke is surprisingly patient with his teammate and able to see past Naruto's careless words and recognize that Naruto didn't truly mean to upset Sasuke so deeply. Naruto was musing that Sasuke shouldn't rely on his bloodline prestige and that Sasuke has to work his butt off like Rock Lee if he ever wants to become a strong and skilled shinobi; skill is not just a matter of genetics and talent, but a product of hard work. Although Naruto worded his point poorly and was unnecessarily insulting, Sasuke agreed with the point that Naruto was trying to make, as Sasuke shared Naruto’s philosophy. Sasuke himself had trained so hard to the point of collapse in prior occasions, so Sasuke already knows the value and rewards of hard work. So Sasuke quickly dropped his anger against Naruto, knowing that Naruto is a friend and his criticism wasn’t intended as harshly hurtful as it came across, even while the awkward phrasing was clumsily and rudely worded. While Naruto’s words stung, Sasuke possessed a profound understanding of Naruto and was able to parse out what Naruto meant, not just what Naruto said. After all, words aren’t so important as their meaning, and Sasuke was fairly adept at discerning what Naruto and Sakura actually meant to say versus what they actually said, which is lucky for Team 7 because Sasuke’s teammates were often clumsy and awkward in their phrasing, at times to the point of being rude. Yet Sasuke considerately didn’t get tangled up in the details of their tactless phrasing but tore through to the heart of what they actually meant to say. Thus despite the painful, aggravating insult Naruto fired at Sasuke’s clan, especially in a moment when Sasuke was already stinging from the humiliation of defeat, Sasuke was initially furious but quickly recovers his temper, maturely dealing with his emotions by pushing down his anger, swallowing his pride and hurt feelings, and accepting the truth in Naruto’s words.

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Although what happens when someone not well-meaning insults Sasuke’s clan? It’s not pretty. Almost back-to-back on the chronological timeline, a couple enemies mock Sasuke as a disgrace to his clan and observe that if Sasuke is so weak, maybe the Uchiha clan as a whole aren’t so great after all.

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First was Sadai, who mused that Sasuke perhaps “wasn’t even worth killing”, since Sasuke had been the only Uchiha allowed to live through Itachi’s infamous slaughter.

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The remark hits too close to home, as that is precisely the reason why Itachi refused to kill Sasuke (at least to Sasuke’s knowledge it is). It only further reinforces the question that’s been haunting Sasuke for years: can he really consider himself worthy of the Uchiha clan name? There seems to be an unbridgeable split between himself and his nakama, seeing as how Sasuke has been singled out by Itachi as the one chosen to survive because his incompetence and failures are so great that he doesn’t even deserve his surname, as the Uchiha title is associated with those who are elite, prestigious, skilled, and gifted. Yet Sasuke continually comes up short, and fails, eventually being reduced to relying on the protection of his bottom-of-the-class teammate.

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Sasuke ended up repeatedly punching Sadai into a bloody mess for his offense. Even after Sadai was a downed opponent, Sasuke continued to violently pummel Sadai’s face, frightening the watching Naruto, Sakura, and Naho. This kind of unceasing violence is not characteristic of Sasuke, who is not a sadist; he doesn’t derive pleasure from others’ pain (except for from the people he really hates, like Danzo, Orochimaru, and Itachi). Generally, Sasuke isn’t the type to unleash unnecessary damage upon an opponent. Once an enemy is satisfactorily dispatched and thwarted, Sasuke isn’t much interested in their fate or in further thrashing them. Through Sadai’s insulting misstep, we are shown Sasuke’s deep-reaching rage and how terrifying his fury can be when unleashed and not contained or tempered by his self-control.

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The second enemy to fling mud at the Uchiha clan due to Sasuke’s poor performance was the lightsaber-wielding enemy Aoi…sorry, did I say lightsaber? I meant the Sword of the Thunder Spirit. Aoi makes a dig at the Uchiha clan, which rubs Sasuke all the wrong ways, resulting in Sasuke becoming an angry ball of fury and altogether losing his patience, and losing with it his rationale, good sense, and normally tactful and calculating logic. Having his clan's reputation insulted is one of Sasuke's trigger points, one virtually guaranteed to send him over the edge by his desire to make the insulter pay for their slander against his nakama.

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Aoi tells Sasuke: “I see that the stories are true. I’d always heard that the last of the great Uchiha clan was a hopeless loser unworthy of his family name" (English Dub version).

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After subduing Sasuke for the moment, Aoi moves along the conversation, not caring much about insulting Sasuke’s clan, not seeing as it especially hurtful or provocative, just the typical battle trash-talk that is common in anime fights. Conversation drifts to Team 7’s goal of protecting Idate (Team 7’s present mission). While everyone else present moves along in the conversation, Sasuke is still tangled up in the insult to his clan, unwilling to let the matter drop. Aoi feeds Sasuke’s self-confidence issues while declaring Sasuke a failure to his family’s honor and a disappointment to his comrades, and it’s a stinging blow that needles Sasuke. He can’t sit passively by while he and his clan are insulted so freely. Rather than set aside his anger and stay focused and rational, Sasuke becomes consumed by his anger and rage, yet proves ineffective against the enemy Aoi.

 

Insults to the Uchiha clan are a sore spot, one that triggers Sasuke’s temper. For Sasuke, there’s a desperation to maintain the clan reputation and to prove that he is not a disappointment to his clan. Sasuke refuses to accept a fate where he is nothing but the laughingstock of the Uchiha clan, a failure who, as Itachi said, is so pathetic that he doesn’t even deserve to die like the proud members of the Uchiha clan. Sasuke doesn’t want to be split from association with the rest of his band of Uchihas because of his own incompetence. And so the pressures of that expectation weighed him down and caused a slew of psychological issues for Sasuke, including guilt, anger, lack of self-confidence, insecurity issues, and low self-esteem, to name a few.