Well yes, Juugo is a possibility. He and Sakura do utilize similar fighting styles. Furthermore, he isn't exceedingly powerful to the point where combating him would be denounced as a suicidal action. Although I do believe he may have an advantage initially against Sakura because of his greater repertoire of abilities and demented mindset when in combat. As with Sasori she would need to analyze his fighting style and develop a battle strategy of avoiding his attacks whilst landing hits of her own. Considering Juugo's durability (as it was displayed against the Raikage when he not only survived a direct hit but managed to counteract) he may not go down in just one hit.
I have this unnerving thought in the back of my mind that if Sakura were to fight Juugo Kishi may have the other female cast members of the K8 assist her. I would prefer it if she fought alone to prove her worth without the assistance of others but factoring in the amount of people on the battlefield everyone else would need to be incapacitated or occupied by someone else for the battle to remain a one on one.
I have that fear too, but could you imagine Shikamaru who was supposed to be Naruto's right hand man join the fight too? The problem I have is Sakura has to get involved some how, she just can't stand there especially not after what she said. I know Naruto wishes one thing, but come on Sakura has made a point that Naruto doesn't understand the truth of things quite yet and that he needs a wake up call.
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How would they fight anyways? Juugo is presently going go assist the alliance since it is the desire of Sasuke whom he is dedicated to. It would only be possible if Juugo became demented and chose to defy Sasuke's orders or if Sasuke shifted loyalties against the alliance once again.
I think the bigger question you really should be asking is if Sasuke shifted sides already, then why would Naruto and Sasuke fight at all? Since the final battle proposed by Kishimoto is naruto vs Sasuke, it would be terribly bad to not have the fight happen.
I know that Juugo would follow Sasuke without question. I got that ever since they first met. You know what I mean?
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Oh, well of course if you perceive her assistance from an emotional and psychological perspective she will prove to be outstanding. The question is how that newly acquired resolve can applied in a physically practical manner. Perhaps if she attacked Sasuke's Susanoo as he is unsuspectingly preoccupied with Naruto she could damage the ethereal warrior somewhat. It could provide an opening which Naruto would need to reach Sasuke directly for an attack. But then you have the issue of Sakura needing to immediately retreat afterwards as Sasuke would undoubtedly lunge at her for her interference.
Let me ask, when has Hinata done anything in a "physically practical manner?" I'll explain down below.
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Despite Naruto's willingness to allow others to fight the Juubi he would prefer it if he could fight alone as he does not wish for any of them to die. He would rather shoulder the burden by himself. More than anyone else I doubt he would allow Sakura to fight. Her insistence to help could prove to Naruto that she is a strong willed individual but that wouldn't negate his hesitance of allowing the potentiality of her being injured to come to pass. Not against the most significant and powerful of adversaries at least.
And this is the problem Naruto has. See Sasuke is not Naruto's problem...Sasuke is Team 7's problem. Given that Naruto is so determined to die for Sasuke, I half expecting Sakura to knock some sense into him. As we know Sasuke is a different subject than fighting the juubi.
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The reasons? Hypocrisy, favouritism towards Hinata, denial of Sakura's character progression, the "mob mentality", Hinata's physical assets (yes, some people actually place more stock in her breasts rather than in her actions or personality), and then there's some people who speak in the manner that they do simply to be jacka**es to others for their dissenting opinion. Those are some of the primary reasons for their exceptionalism with Hinata and unjustified negativity centred towards Sakura. What I don't understand is why they do not criticize the other female cast members for their so-called "imperfections", "uselessness", or hell even their appearances.
Then people wonder why people question Sakura's heroism. It's not that she doesn't do heroic things, it is that people neglect what she does do and pays more attention to what she doesn't. Meanwhile, I am judging Hinata based on both. The list you have made, which I cut out to save space, but read anyway, just shows that even with all her actions many still say she is not a heroine. Even to Kishi this is surprising as he even wondering why nobody sees her as being heroic. Is it because she isn't full on fangirling Naruto? I am not sure.
Also, good job with the analysis.
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Compare all of that to someone like Hinata, Shizune, Tenten, Temari, or most of the cast's contributions in general. In the grand perspective of things she has provided quite a bit to the story. Perhaps she doesn't do as much as some of the male cast but a large part of the reasoning for that has to do with Kishi's blatant incompetence with writing females in a "shonen-esque" effective manner. For who she is as a woman and the mindset of the author that writes for her character Sakura is very important. The only ones who rival her in on-screen contributions would be Tsunade and Ino (the latter having only recently become comparable).
Yeah, pretty much.
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Considering everything that is stated above, why is Sakura's character exclusively denigrated? I have not seen anyone on other forums criticize Ino's stupidity for "loving" Sasuke, the "uselessness" of someone like Temari (her contributions to the general plot are arguably less than Ino's), or the "manly" appearance of Shizune? I have never once seen the criticisms people assign to Sakura placed onto others. It's as if they have this deep-rooted, irrational proclivity to tarnish anything and everything that Sakura does, thinks, and feels regardless if others have committed equally "questionable" or worse actions. Even if you ruminate upon what validity there is to their grievances over her character, many of these can be explained and dismissed with supporting evidence from the manga.
Simple. She interferes with their love pairing of choice. If they didn't see her as a threat, they probably wouldn't even bother. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
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I explained my personal interpretations for why they perceive her in the way that they do but to reiterate much of the reasoning has to do their misconceptions about who and what Hinata and Sakura stand for. Granted, there is an element of Kishi having suggestively incapable skills with writing females as equally important figures next to the male cast. Sakura, unfortunately, suffers the brunt of the repercussions from this weakness as she is intended to be depicted as a "realistic" girl (from Kishi's perspective at least).
Exactly. This is why I blame them. I know Kishimoto has a hard time depicting at times and even gives these weird outcomes, and I do hold him accountable for them, but still when Kishimoto does want to depict a character heroically we the fans need to accept that. If he says she is being a hero, then there is no question and if people do it is because they are biased.
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Well that's not entirely true. She did provide words of encouragement before Naruto's battle with Neji. Later during the events of P2 she acted usefully as reconnaissance and a scout during the Itachi Pursuit arc. Furthermore, whilst her actions against Pain did imperil Konoha, she did indirectly help to save Naruto. If she had not arrived to assist then Pain may have very well have absconded with Naruto's body and we would be witnessing an entirely different timeline with Konoha in a relatively worst condition from their destruction at the hands of Pain, much of the population remaining permanently dead (a few noteworthy casualties being Kakashi, Shizune, and Fukasaku who would not be revived), a war where the White Zetsu guerrilla army is continuing to internally destroy the alliance forces with Killer Bee complacently enjoying what he thought was a "vacation" far behind the front lines, and Naruto would be imprisoned in some cell deep within Akatsuki's lair in preparation for the extraction of Kurama after Gyuki has been captured; and with Pain, Konan, and Kisame all still active members, it would not be that long before Killer Bee is actually captured. That is if he did not allow Kurama to be unleashed during that period but even then with some of Akatsuki's most powerful members still at peak condition, he would probably be contained. Then of course there's Hinata popping Naruto's shoulder back into place.
Hinata's actions do have long lasting effects due to cause and effect, they're just not as frequent or as significant as Sakura's contributions.
I'm sorry, but I have to strongly disagree. Hinata's actions have little to no merit from them. The Pein Arc confession is just one good example how NOT to do it. There are so many things she could have done. So many ways she could have helped, but instead she just runs out, confesses, and then "dies." I have seen heroes do stupid things, but at least they try to fix the problem or attempt to fix something despite failing. Hinata just seemed to not care what would happen. She didn't try to remove the stakes or create a distraction and she blindly jumped into battle not knowing anything. Unlike Sakura who was willing to risk everything, not just her life, so Naruto could be free and live a happy life. That is true heroism.
If Minato didn't think ahead and implanted those fail-safes then Naruto would have died indefinitely and taken out everyone. So not only did she put her life in danger, she put her love's life in danger and every villager just to say "I love you." It is also not like she saved the entire village because Tsunade did that already. Then you would have had Pein take the Nine-tails anyway. My biggest issue with this is that people are giving her way too much credit than she deserves and it could have very well gone from bad to worse because of her. Hinata is not exactly known for her feats of strength or endurance and even at times has little faith in Naruto's abilities to the point of babying him. That's pretty sad when you don;t even have faith in your love.
As for the indirectly, again I could say anything. Naruto indirectly created the alliance. Is it true? I am sure I can make it true somewhere starting with the sand village. So it is hard to take it credible.
One last problem I see is that whenever Hinata faces a problem, it is always someone else that bails her out. Like I said with Minato. We know Naruto has bailed out Sakura in some problems, but some of them we know she could have done with her own strength. This is especially true in part 2. It just goes to show that even though both Sakura and Hinata started out useless, Sakura changed to be more
useful while Hinata stayed being useless for a while longer.
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Hinata's motivational speech was akin to the one she provided to Naruto before his battle with Neji. Only it was much more grand in scale and the depth behind it was thickened tremendously with this recent bout of encouragement.
It was also a speech many have said and also Naruto has said himself. What she said wasn't new nor was it the only thing that swayed Naruto. Even Kurama had to say something and this is the beast that originally wanted to kill him. So, the speech itself while appears grand, is not something new or what as new element Hinata added. I still believe it was hyped beyond it's original capacity.
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I wholeheartedly agree. It isn't through actions alone that one is able to become a hero, but their determination, intentions, and will to persist even when they are confronted by insurmountable tribulations that define them for who they are. The flaw with this has to do with the ignorance of the general fan base's opinion of Sakura.
Exactly.
Edited by James S Cassidy, 15 May 2013 - 10:15 PM.
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