</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Legato 2057 &#064; Jan 19 2004, 01:53 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Having these &quot;crummy childhoods&quot; are important to a story. It makes for flawed characters, and if the characters are not flawed, they cannot grow and become better. Look at Sakura, she had a normal childhood (no indication otherwise) and she turned out to be a boring character. The more complicated (i.e. screwed up) childhood a character has, the more ways there are for that character to better them selves.

Of course, then there&#39;s Shikamaru, who seems normal anough and kicks ass anyway </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Oh I totally agree. I never asked WHY they have these crummy childhoods, I was just pointing it out as part of the Disscussion.

And yes, Shikamaru does rock&#33; *grin*