Itachi’s One Mistake Forged Naruto’s Darkest Villain

A botched bid to avert civil war in Naruto Shippuden handed power to Danzo Shimura and set Konoha on a darker path. The Royal Uchiha Fumble still gnaws at the series’ moral core: who really owns the blame?

Call it a royal Uchiha fumble if you want, but the short version is this: one night meant to stop a civil war wound up supercharging the exact guy Konoha should not have empowered — Danzo Shimura. And yeah, the fan question that never dies is still fair: if Itachi had to take out his own clan, why didn’t he wipe out the Sharingan while he was at it? The answer lives in a messy mix of what Itachi was actually ordered to do, what he physically could do, and how Danzo and Obito scooped up Uchiha eyes afterward.

What Itachi was actually told to do

The Uchiha massacre was the Leaf’s response to a brewing coup. Danzo pushed hardest for a blunt, one-and-done fix: eliminate the clan, avoid civil war. Itachi — a 13-year-old ANBU prodigy at the time — got boxed into the job with three non-negotiables: stop the coup, keep Sasuke alive, and keep the village from cracking.

When it started, Itachi ran the mission like a razor — fast, targeted, and over. He wasn’t there to loot bodies or scrub history. The goal was neutralize, not stick around and dismantle an entire bloodline’s artifacts. The Sharingan left behind weren’t because he didn’t understand the risk; they were collateral in a mission that was surgical, not archaeological. That decision, intentional or not, left a power vacuum begging to be exploited.

Danzo saw the opening and took everything

With the Uchiha gone, there was no one left inside the village with the political heft to check Danzo’s methods. The clan’s sacred inheritance turned into somebody else’s toolkit, and Danzo made those stolen pieces his leverage. By the time the Five Kage Summit rolls around, the ripple effects from that night have turned him into one of Shippuden’s most dangerous players.

About that arm full of Sharingan — it wasn’t all from the massacre

There is a big misconception that every eye Danzo used came straight off the massacre. He may have snatched some leftovers, sure. But the bulk of his arsenal traces back to Orochimaru’s lab work — specifically the Shin Uchiha clones whose bodies could accept transplanted eyes with minimal rejection. Even then, Danzo couldn’t make the setup stable on his own. He needed Hashirama Senju’s cells to keep those implants functioning, basically turning himself into a controlled science project.

The eye that really changed his options was Shisui Uchiha’s — which Danzo stole before the massacre even happened. That single theft showed he was already gearing up to weaponize Uchiha power long before Itachi moved. Shisui’s eye gave him access to Kotoamatsukami and later fed into how he abused Izanagi.

Obito was collecting, too

While Itachi was carrying out the orders, Obito was harvesting a stash of genuine Sharingan and parking them in his Kamui dimension. So while Obito leaned on real Uchiha eyes, Danzo leaned on clones, stolen parts, and long-term life support. Different routes, same endgame: the worst possible hands wound up with unchecked Sharingan power.

'Danzo wasn’t Itachi’s creation. The village made him.'

So did Itachi create Shippuden’s most dangerous villain?

Not really. Leaving eyes behind didn’t invent Danzo. The system that greenlit black ops, human experiments, cloned eyeballs, and political power grabs did. Itachi’s mission and its aftermath opened the door, but the village walked Danzo through it. If you want a culprit, it’s the machine that allowed all of this to happen — and then thrive.

Where to watch + quick stats

• Naruto (2002–2007) — IMDb: 8.4/10
• Naruto Shippuden (2007–2017) — IMDb: 8.7/10

Both series are streaming on Crunchyroll.