Uchiha Clan

Character Group
Name:	Uchiha Clan
Type:	Family
Fandom:	Naruto, Boruto
Members:	Uchiha Sasuke Uchiha Itachi Uchiha Shisui Uchiha Madara Uchiha Obito Uchiha Sarada
Other:	The clan bloodline limit is the Sharingan
Related:	Uchihacest The Uchiha clan mon, an uchiwa.
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The Uchiha Clan is a ninja clan from the anime Naruto and many of its members are central to the plot and themes of the series. The clan also appears in Boruto, Naruto's sequel series.

Canon

The Uchiha Clan founded Konoha with the Senju Clan, largely based on the childhood dreams of Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama, despite a long-running blood feud with the Senju. In much of Naruto's canon the Uchiha clan is almost completely dead, having been massacred by Uchiha Itachi on the orders of Shimura Danzou. Uchiha Sasuke, the sole surviving member besides his older brother Itachi, spends much of the series seeking vengeance against his brother before uncovering Danzou's involvement. The Uchiha ran the Konoha Military Police before the Uchiha Massacre; how exactly the village dealt with losing its entire law enforcement branch in a single night is unknown and the subject of much speculation and world building.

Uchiha have the ability to unlock the Sharingan, a special bloodline that lets them predict enemy movement and copy enemy techniques via their eyes. The final level is the Mangekyou Sharingan, which is gained through extreme trauma (usually seeing a loved one die) and will cause the user to eventually go blind unless they switch Mangekyou eyes with someone else, attaining Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan.

Criticism

Some fans are frustrated with how the Sharingan works against Naruto's overall theme of power and fulfillment being achieved through hard work.

[That the Mangekyou is activated through trauma] is a flaw in the Naruto universe because hard work, work ethic, is a staple of becoming a strong shinobi: essentially, if you work hard enough, you can reach your full potential... As an example, for a Hyuuga to reach their full potential, it would be mastering high-level techniques, such as the Eight-Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms or the Air Palm techniques; for medic nin, it would be mastering the Creation Rebirth technique to then master the forbiddedn Strength of a Hundred technique.

These are all abilities and techniques that require hard work, and by this logic for an Uchiha to reach their potential, it ends by evolving the Sharingan up into its final form, the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan... the flaw of the Sharingan is that there are no alternative ways to obtain the later stages. An Uchiha cannot develop similarly to the other characters in the Naruto universe just by working hard.

Fandom

Uchiha characters (and therefore the clan itself) tend to be very polarizing. Fans on tumblr use the pro-Uchiha tag to find and denote positive Uchiha-focused content.

Common tropes and themes

Because all but a few members of the clan are dead during canon, fanfiction that wants to deal with the Uchiha Clan as a whole often has to take place pre-series in the Warring Clans Era or diverge from canon.

Warring Clans Era

Warring Clans Era fic most often focuses on Uchiha Madara and his younger brother Uchiha Izuna. The most common pairing is Hashirama x Madara.

Uchiha Massacre

The Uchiha Massacre commonly features as a station of canon in time travel fix-it fics, and is often portrayed as being near-impossible to stop. Fanfiction and meta also often speculate on the exact cause of the coup the Uchiha were planning and whether Danzou had ulterior motives for ordering the Uchiha Massacre. A 2014 meta post remarks:

Not counting Itachi, only two Uchiha actually say the word ‘coup d'etat’, Obito when he’s convincing Sasuke to hate Konoha, and Shisui in his very brief appearance in the manga. We have absolutely no point of reference for what information he has and how much of it is just filtered information.

[...]

95% of the talk of the coup comes from you guessed it Danzo. Koharu is seen also raging about them, saying that 'revolution might as well be rebellion!’, Obito tells a tale about the Uchiha that only actually shows how the Uchiha were mistreated which led to the supposed coup, not any concrete information proving they were planning one.

[...]

Now, it’s obvious the Uchiha are angry and unsettled, but all of their behavior is characteristic of a group of close-knit people who feel backed into a corner and threatened, not a group of people who are arrogant and ambitious and feel they deserve to lead the village.

The Curse of Hatred and Senju Tobirama

Senju Tobirama, the second Hokage, was concerned with the trustworthiness and mental stability of the Uchiha, essentially believing that their great capacity for love was matched only by their extreme capacity for hate, and that in losing the person they care about the most they essentially become dangerously unhinged and selfish. This is often in contrast to the Senju Will of Fire. The audience mostly hears about the Curse of Hatred from Tobirama, however, so some fans think that this is just a personal theory of Tobirama's, or a piece of Senju propaganda, or otherwise suspect due to the nature of the Senju–Uchiha blood feud.

There is no fandom consensus on this subject. Consider this YouTube comment chain from early 2018, which has five comments from five different users:

The curse of hatred was nonesense Tobirama was simply using dehumanization techniques to justify his bad treatment of the Uchiha Clan

To be fair he has stated not all Uchiha subscribed to the curse of Hatred but many thought of their clan before the village something Tobirama interpreted as the curse of hatred add in Madara and he has all the justification to treat them badly. he if i remember rightly predicted it would lead to the clan's destruction which sadly came to fruition for a number of reasons.

How was it nonsense when Hagoromo talked about it himself???

I mean the Curse was very real, but it wasn't quite the unavoidable fate that Tobirama made it out to be. But it was a real issue which could cause the clan members to spiral out of control and cause some serious damage. Add in the fact that the debacle of Madara was still pretty fresh in Tobirama's mind and his actions, while ruthless, had their reasons behind them.

And why wouldn’t [Tobirama be cautious] when Uchiha’s can be one of the most emotionally unstable clans in the village. Of course there are ones who manage to stay away from this path. But then the most powerful people in this clan: Madara, Obito, Sasuke were, at some point in their life, unstable, power hungry and just a mess. Itachi is a touchy subject I don’t wanna try though. The thing is, he did a good job as Hokage making sure that the village can function. He was only being cautious.

Other

• Mangekyou Sharingan
• A character discovering that they're Uchiha by having their Sharingan awaken
• Speculation about how the clan functions, especially with regard to women
• Sai being an Uchiha

Shipping

In-clan pairings

See Also: Uchihacest

Canon never definitively says how big the Uchiha clan is, but they certainly seemed large enough to intermarry, so some "Uchihacest" pairings might be incestual in name only.

Itachi x Sasuke

Main article: Itachi x Sasuke

Also abbreviated ItaSasu. The original Uchihacest pairing, although the term can now apply to all Uchiha x Uchiha ships. Gen works are also included in the ItaSasu fandom.

Shisui x Itachi

Shisui is the only character besides Sasuke who Itachi is shown to be close to.

Out-clan pairings

Sasuke x Naruto

Main article: Sasuke x Naruto

Also abbreviated SasuNaruSasu or SNS because of the LJ shipwar regarding which character is seme or uke.

Sasuke x Sakura

Also abbreviated SasuSaku or SS. This ship is canon and in Boruto they have a daughter together, Uchiha Sarada.

Hashirama x Madara

Also abbreviated HashiMada. This is the main yaoi ship for Warring Clans Era fic.

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Two Steps Back ^[1] by H.E. GrayDate: 2006–2011Status: IncompleteGenre: Canon Era (pre-Massacre), time travel

A Sasuke who intentionally blinded himself because long-term use of the sharingan causes insanity time travels and adopts Naruto, in addition to training an OC kunoichi.

One Small Kindness ^[2] by DigitalTartDate: 2011Status: CompleteGenre: Canon Era (pre-Massacre)

A what if fix-it fic starring Uchiha Mikoto, who sees Uzumaki Naruto being mistreated and ends up taking him in. She ends up in the thick of things dealing with inter- and intra-clan politics. The A/N at the beginning admits it's more about "cut throat politics" and not to expect much flashy fighting because it's more about "Twisty Uchiha Political Intrigue" and that nNruto will be more of a supporting character.

Wish ^[3] by MokuleDate: 2008–2011Status: IncompleteGenre: Canon Era (pre-Massacre), time travel

Sakura goes back to the past and ends up about Itachi's age. She's fostered by the Uchiha and ends up working within the clan to try and stop Itachi from killing everyone. Started pre-coup reveal, but had several updates after so it's an evolving look at the clan, though it's quite Sakura/Team 7 focused. The Uchiha took her in for clan politics and continued to provide for her, even giving her Uchiwa-branded things to publicly claim her as one of their own once she started making a name for herself as a healer.

Uzumaki Treasure ^[4] by Cassie's BedlamDate: 2013–2014Status: CompleteGenre: Warring Clans and Founders Era

Sakura gets saved by Naruto by an obscure Uzumaki technique, and ends up in the Warring Clans Era. A great deal of worldbuilding for the Uzumaki clan and techniques, but also some WCE Uchiha worldbuilding. Sakura accidentally saves Madara and Izuna's little brother, Izuna is the one to turn against the village, and there's just. A decent amount of politics that's at least adjacent to the Uchiha.

Troublesome Timing ^[5] by FrznlightsDate: 2013–2014Status: IncompleteGenre: Canon Era

Shikamaru gets reborn into the Uchiha clan, as an excuse to get him to interact with Itachi. The author has A/N notes doing math on how many people the clan should have and such, at minimum, and the early chapters, at least, focus on the clan.

Fanart

• The Book of Uchiha by Shiya
• Daddy Tajima and his kids by junsui4089

Meta

but mikoto’s friendship with kushina should have been brought to the forefront ^archive by stirringwinds

How the exploration of Uzumaki Kushina and Uchiha Mikoto's friendship could have made a more interesting, in-depth narrative surrounding the Uchiha Massacre.

Naruto - Curse of Hatred: Flaw of the Mangekyou Sharingan by Sage's Rain

Quoted above; discusses how the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan works against the themes of the show and is ultimately a flawed piece of worldbuilding.

Not counting Itachi, only two Uchiha actually say the word ‘coup d'etat’ ^{[6] archive} by unwiltingblossomDate: 2014

Quoted above; the author searched the manga and found that the only characters who talk about the Uchiha coup are characters who either have a vested interest in making certain everyone thinks that there was a coup planned or characters who might reasonably have been mistaken in thinking that there was a coup.

First Mission ^archive by mondengelDate: 14 June 2018

Author talks about the Japanese tradition of the "first errand" for kids and how the Uchiha would have "first missions"

Tobirama’s intentions toward the Uchiha ^archive by mondengelDate: 06 June 2018

Author talks about the Curse of Hatred and why Tobirama likely wanted the Uchiha as police.

Archives and Fannish Links

• Uchiha Clan tag on AO3
• Uchiha Massacre on AO3
• Uchiha Clan tag on tumblr
• Uchiha family tag on tumblr
• pro-Uchiha tag on tumblr
• Uchiha month on tumblr

Resources

• Uchiha Clan on Narutopedia
• Uchiha Clan Downfall on Narutopedia