Do any of you believe in those spoilers of Sasuke killing Kakashi? I really hope they aren't true since they say Naruto won't end up with Sakura. I wouldn't hate an open ending as long as Naruto at the very least confessed his love to Sakura and that it was implied that Sakura could fall for Naruto in the future. It wouldn't be ideal for me but I guess it would be better than him getting rejected.
What I would truly hate is if it ends with Sakura still hoping to get together with Sasuke romantically, or worse them actually being together. It sends a bad message. Not only because Sakura's love for Sasuke makes her suppress her personality (from outgoing and cheerful to submissive and sad), but because it would mean that the message of not giving up is completely broken.
It's not like people are going to go about saving the world after reading Naruto, so they must apply the "never give up" terminology for more common everyday things, one of which can obviously be love. If Naruto never gets Sakura to consider him a possible romantic prospect it sends a clear message that he should've given up hoping to be together with her since it was never gonna happen no matter how hard he tried. Now the message has become "If it seems unlikely, GIVE UP".
It sends a clear message to every person who likes another "If the person you like doesn't like you back at all when you first meet them then you shouldn't even try since it's never gonna get you anywhere", depressing message isn't it?
Some of you might ask yourselves "But what about Sakura and Hinata? The same applies to them." It doesn't, because what differentiates Naruto from Sakura and Hinata is that he tries. Naruto is always the one who tries the hardest to make the one he likes (Sakura) happy. The girls on the other hand worry more about how their love affects them instead of focusing on making the boys happy. The girls focus more on what the boys can give them instead of what they can give to the boys.
When you like someone I know for sure that your priority would be on how to make them smile and feel joy, not on what you could get from them. If you like someone then you want to try your best to make sure they're happy, and who is the one who shows that the most in the Naruto series? Naruto.
Now back to the message of never giving up, it's pretty clear that if Sakura doesn't even start considering Naruto as a romantic interest that it completely destroys the general "never give up" message that Kishi took over a decade to try and communicate. Look at it this way, he makes Naruto spend over a decade (real time) loving Sakura and making him do his best so that she little by little changes his opinion of him only to leave it with her as his close friend. Seriously, what in the world was the point of Naruto even changing Sakura's opinion of him?
Sakura's opinion of Naruto should not be on the same level as with the rest of the characters for the simple fact the she is his love interest. The culmination of the hero's journey when it comes to people changing their minds about him includes the love interest falling for him. You have:
- Sasuke: the rival who thinks the hero is a nobody but ends up respecting him and considering him his closest friend by the end.
- Sakura: the love interest who detest the hero but ends up realizing his good qualities and falls for him.
- Kakashi: the teacher who wonders if the hero has what it takes but ends up becoming proud of him and acknowledging the hero has surpassed him.
- Every other ally (the rookies, Tsunade, Konoha people, ninja alliance, etc.), their levels of impact differ but it's basically the same: at the beginning they didn't think much of the hero; some hated him, some thought he was a joke, some thought he wouldn't amount to much. But, whether it was fast or slow, with Naruto's dedication for never giving up he ended up changing the minds of every single one of them.
Then there's odd ones out like Iruka and Hinata who believed in Naruto from the get go. But their purpose was basically to show that the hero does have good qualities, it let's us know that he just needs to mature. Iruka is there to show us that Naruto has his good points or else he would give up on him. Hinata is there to show us that Naruto has good qualities that appeal to girls or else she wouldn't care. It's a way to let the audience know in the beginning of the story that there was a potential for people to eventually believe in Naruto (through Iruka believing in him) and for Sakura to eventually start liking Naruto (through Hinata liking him).
Resuming the culmination of the hero's journey, if Sakura doesn't start having romantic feelings for Naruto then that puts her in the same category as the Every other ally. If that was to be the case then there really wasn't much of a point in making her Naruto's romantic interest. Kishi might as well had made Naruto never like her or at least to have started liking someone else. But so far Naruto has never stopped loving Sakura so she's still his love interest.
If it's not even implied that Sakura could potentially start liking Naruto back by the end of the series then it renders useless the entire "never give up" message. It leaves us with the believe that even if there was a small chance for someone to like you back that you shouldn't try anyway since it's never gonna get you any results. That's like a slap to the face to all the couples who started off with a one sided love. The message of love in Naruto is not about being persistent even if the person says no, notice that for all the times Sakura might've rejected Naruto's advances she never stopped being close to him. If Sakura had gotten in Naruto's face and told him to stop trying to ask her on dates and to keep his distance because he bothered her then it would be a different story but that never happened between them.
Naruto is persistent because he knows that at the very least Sakura doesn't hate it when he does that. If Naruto thought for a second that him asking her out on dates would make her feel miserable then we would immediately stop.
Sakura never starting to like Naruto back leaves us with the message that if you like someone the only way to be with them is to make sure that they like you back from the very beginning. If they don't like you back from the get go then you should give up since no matter how hard you try to make them happy there's absolutely no chance for them to like you back.
I'll be honest, if the series doesn't end with Sakura starting to like Naruto, at the very least, then Kishi might as well end the series with Sasuke still believing that Naruto is an idiot.
WOW, that was longer than I originally envisioned. I would appreciate it if I could get opinions on this.
Edited by redragon88, 05 October 2012 - 07:01 PM.