Do we like them?

Do we like Sasuke Uchiha?

A character from Naruto (1999-2017)

Our score: 4 out of 10. A loyal friend one moment and a dangerous grudge-holder the next. We'd back him on a good day and keep an eye on him on a bad one.

Sasuke is a prodigy from the Uchiha clan in the ninja village of Konoha. He is cold and proud, and he is put on a team with the loud, upbeat Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno. The clan was wiped out when he was a child, leaving him one of its few survivors. His one goal is to become strong enough to take revenge on the person responsible, his older brother Itachi.

Sasuke and Naruto are rivals and friends at once. Each pushes the other to improve, and Sasuke slowly lets Naruto in. But his hunger for power keeps pulling him away from the people who care about him. He often treats kindness as a distraction, and his choices cause real pain for his teammates.

He is hard to back wholeheartedly. He has real loyalty, great courage and a tragic past that makes his anger understandable. Against that, he does serious damage by choosing vengeance over his friends again and again. That puts him squarely in the middle of the scale.

His path takes him far from Konoha, to some dark places and some major wrongs. Later he works to make up for it and to protect the village, and he ends up as a guide to the next generation. It is a real redemption arc, but it comes late and leaves a lot of damage behind.