Sasuke & the Uchiha Clan: An Analysis

Chapter 8 Alone

Before his final fight against Naruto, Sasuke mentions he is alone, notably not because he had spent the past few years of his life cutting ties with everyone in his life: deserting his Konoha comrades, ditching both his teams, killing his brother, and trying to hurt or kill anyone who wished to help him. Sasuke doesn't attribute his aloneness to that (though don't get me wrong, Sasuke knows that's a part of why he's alone). Sasuke doesn’t seem especially bothered by his estrangement from Konoha and the comrades he once had there – with the exception of Naruto and Sakura, Sasuke doesn’t personally care about any of his former Konoha comrades. He makes no mention of the comrades of Konoha whatsoever. They barely factor on his radar anymore except as “annoying”. Nope, the thing Sasuke is bothered by is the loss of his clan. What Sasuke specifically attributes his aloneness to is his lack of living clanmates, observing that he has no father, mother, brother, not even a single member of his clan left.

This shows Sasuke's emotional pain and strong personal strong connection he feels to the Uchiha, a connection he doesn’t feel with anyone else except for the notable exceptions of Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno, who through love and persistence won a familial status in Sasuke's perspective.

While Sasuke was vicious about neutralizing Obito and Madara and their sinister plots during the war, it hurt Sasuke to be pitted against his own clanmates due to differing ideologies. The last thing Sasuke wanted was to have to be the one to exterminate the remnants of his brethren. One can't help but wonder at precisely how this must have affected Sasuke's psyche, as he faced the guilt, sorrow, and regret of knowing he had been the one to bring his clan to extinction. One can't help but muse if Sasuke suffers from self-loathing for this. He hated the genocide of his clan, yet in a cruel twist of fate, Sasuke had been the one to brutally finish his own kin off, with only himself left standing in the end. With the guilt of failing to protect his clan piled atop his guilt of participating in annihilating the remaining members of his once-great clan, it's not surprising that by the end of the Final Valley battle, Sasuke appears world-weary and bone-tired, not seeming averse to (or even bothered by) the prospect of his death, as by the end of the battle he calmly tells Naruto he will put an end to himself (though of course Naruto talks him out of his suicidal mindset and persuades him to live on and share in Naruto's vision for the future instead).

No one had been more aggressive than Sasuke in making sure that Madara and Obito were dealt with (Sasuke was ready to rush in to finish off the downed Obito before Kakashi and Minato intervened and Sasuke is the only one who notices Madara and lunges at the fallen elder Uchiha, ready to make sure that the powerful Uchiha is finished off once and for all), yet Sasuke is torn up when he realizes that he is truly the last of the Uchiha. Sasuke had been so caught up in all the chaos of the war that he hadn’t really had time to stop and contemplate the consequences of his actions and what exterminating the last of his clan would mean for him. Or perhaps he had purposefully shoved those thoughts deep down and didn’t want to deal with things until later. Yet once the smoke cleared and settled, the realization that Sasuke is the last of his clan finally sinks it, and it hits hard. The aftermath of the fight brings clarity to the repercussions of his actions, and Sasuke realized he was alone. All of his people had left him, only he remained. It's an incredibly lonely realization for Sasuke, seeing as how he specifically brings it up in the Final Valley fight.

Judging from Sasuke’s heartbroken expression as he watches Madara’s death, one can’t help but surmise that perhaps one aspect (of many) of his sorrowful countenance during that scene is caused by his realization that once and for all he is losing the last of his kin, and he is now the last Uchiha, a depressing prospect that saddens him.

The demise of his clan left Sasuke feeling isolated and alone, more than ever before. Sasuke's gesture of crushing the leaf seems to symbolically represent Sasuke's crushed spirit, heartbroken in wake of realizing he is the last of his clan, a loner permanently separated from his pack, an aimless soul torn to pieces by the harshness of life.