Another Monday, another Meta Discussion. As is the case with the past few months, we are once again doing a theme for this Month’s Meta Mondays. This month, the Meta Monday theme will be Differences!
By differences, I mean, each topic this month will focus on what are likely differences between Iruka and Kakashi, and what if any steps they take to understand the other’s differing opinion or view on something. That said, this month’s Meta Mondays might be long, and I hope I get to see a lot of headcanons!
To begin, let’s start with this question: How do Kakashi and Iruka deal with their differences regarding their ambitions and goals?
To be honest, I think for the both of them this is a steep learning curve. Kakashi, who has only known the life of a field shinobi, and a deadly, highly trained one at that, honestly just lives for the next day and making it home in one piece. He can understand, on some level, those who want to stay rooted in the village, but for him, protecting the village from the outside and making sure that the people within it can be safe is what really matters to him.
This of course isn’t too different to Iruka’s goal of watching his shinobi students become talented genin, chunin, etc., but unlike Kakashi who knows that the students graduating from the academy will have to grow up and become shinobi, Iruka sees them as the kids who had cried about a bad grade or gotten into petty schoolyard fights. And I think this causes one of the biggest issues in their relationship because while Iruka on some level understands where Kakashi is coming from, he can’t help but think that he doesn’t want to see another child in the same position as Kakashi.
I think in the end, they’ll both realize that what they truly want is to protect the youth in their village, and they’ll learn to accept that they go about it in different ways, though occasionally they still get into heated arguments on the subject.
But, what do you all think?