Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-31099706-20170327120301/@comment-734582-20170524205708

BlazeRelease wrote: The only thing Itachi was holding back was his Susanoo. the only thing that he got lowered was his speed or reaction ability due to his disease or blindness. The only thing he was holding back was finishing moves. In stead of wasting time on explanations, he could've used his four or five layer Genjutsu to launch attacks on Sasuke. We saw him chain attacks rapidly against Kakashi, but he took his sweet sweet time in between every major phase. He could've launched Amaterasu inside the building, where the flames would have much greater chances of hitting sasuke. He could've finished Sasuke immediately after tanking Kirin since he thought he had won. he could've used Totsuka on sasuke himself.

Time and time again Itachi took his sweet time and never issued a killing blow when he had the chance.

BlazeRelease wrote: Considering he could have shown characters like Danzo earlier at part 1 itself but the fact that I don't get is why did Itachi order Sasuke to kill his best friend? if he only wanted him to be a hero? like @AsianReaper. said, he could have just threaten Sasuke that hell vome and kill his loved ones instead of giving a Sasuke a reason to come after him with killing his friend. I think people overestimate Itachi's actual goodness. He was a true shinobi in the sense of Part I shinobi: People who put the village and the mission above themselves. It's explained by Obito that itachi saw war and death at the age of 4, which permanently changed his outlook on life.

Itachi wanted Sasuke to kill Naruto in order obtain the power to safeguard the future of the clan. Itachi had little regard for his own life, but also probably saw Naruto as little more than a tool to his end. Besides if Naruto had died, Akatsuki's plans may have been delayed by decades. Besides, I think there's a big difference between interpretation here: Itachi was intended to have good intentions, but he murdered possibly hundreds of innocents, so he's not a good guy. He did it to avert greater evil, the same way he ordered Sasuke to kill his friend, to avert a greater evil.

In more than one way Itachi tried to make Sasuke like him, to make him understand his worldview and ideals. Ironically Sasuke did learn lessons from Itachi, just not the ones he wanted. Itachi tried to bear the world's burden, which Sasuke tried to copy. He got his blatant disregard for human life from his brother. He got his sense of "might makes right" from his brother.