//maybe Not So Extreme As What Oro Did But Grief Really Messes With Your Perspective Of Life - Tumblr Posts

What event solidified Orochimaru’s belief that power and knowledge are more important than bonds?

// Nawaki and Dan's deaths. @senjutsunade and I have talked about this at length. She headcanons that Orochimaru and Jiraiya were at the Senju compound so often that Nawaki became like their joint nephew, so it was a devastating blow when he died, especially since it was so senseless. Nawaki had a bright future ahead of him, and then he just...wasn't there anymore. All it had taken was one trap to erase him from existence, a child robbed of what surely would have been a long and distinguished career. But it was Dan's death in particular that drove Orochimaru over the edge. It seemed Orochimaru was always a little closer to Tsunade, and my personal headcanon was that he quietly carried a torch for her, so standing there, on that night, in that tree, hearing Tsunade screaming in desperation as she tried again and again to save Dan's life and watching her collapse into hysterical tears destroyed Orochimaru, because this was now the second person Tsunade had lost. He started becoming all the more painfully aware of how fragile human life was, and he swore to himself that he'd never EVER succumb to that weakness. And the thoughts churned and grew, and the little seed Sarutobi had planted in his mind that day in the cemetery took root and bloomed into a sickening obsession to cheat death in any way he could, even if it meant killing other people. And so gradually people became irrelevant. He grew distant from his friends, caring only about acquiring more and more knowledge and more and more power. And then, ultimately, those were the only things that mattered.