--incoming wall of text rambling--
Since I see confession being thrown around a little, can you guys look back to when the confession took place please? First, their village was literally obliterated from an attack by Pein. Sasuke, the friend both Naruto and Sakura are trying to drag back to Konoha has officially been dubbed an enemy of the village and a missing nin when tension and sadness is already high. Then, Kumo nins come in and proclaim that Sasuke is now their enemy, is a part of the Akatsuki, and if they see him they'll kill him.
In Naruto's case, he got a huge beat down, and later on Sai told Sakura that Naruto is practically sacrificing himself to keep the promise he made her, because he whole heartedly believes she still loves Sasuke that way. And because Naruto loves her, he'll do anything to keep it, to make her happy and if she's happy, he's happy. Was she really happy all that time? No, not really, she practically had a break down on the spot. Understandably so, things just keep piling on and on. Even if she doesn't love Sasuke that way, she's still at least trying to hang onto the idea that he's their friend. Their friend who is now a missing-nin and a target of another village.
All that is building up to her confession. She'd do anything to hold Naruto back as we saw. Was her confession when talking about her love for Naruto true? I personally think so, but we can't say it is for sure. Was the part where she said she doesn't care about Sasuke true? No, she doesn't believe that, Naruto doesn't believe that, no one believes that.
I would need a more stable translation to be sure, but she's either saying "I don't care about Sasuke anymore" or "There's nothing between Sasuke and me anymore". I'm more inclined to take the first translation because there was never anything between her and Sasuke, it was just her having a one sided crush. Then she goes on to say she's not sure what she was thinking liking someone like him and yada yada. That part might be true, but I don't believe the "I don't care" stuff was. She cares, but at the same time she realizes that she probably shouldn't like or have liked someone like Sasuke, she probably felt like she wasn't exactly thinking. But can she just drop her emotions just like that? No.
Now then, remember when I ranted about the build up to the confession? Well, that's important. As I said, the build up pushed her into making this confession half heartedly. After all that just happened, why would she suddenly give Naruto a "proper" confession and act super chipper about not caring about Sasuke anymore? Even everyone around her knew that just wasn't natural. Why do the confession this way? To make it more interesting. Would we be sitting here in deep thought puzzling over a manga if everything had gone smoothly? No, we would be content, which would be boring eventually. We shouldn't be content until the end, Kishi wants us to read more, not get full and leave early.
With that said, I look back at my clean slate Sakura vs cracked and slanted slate Sakura example. Right now she's still on the cracked one, which causes more harm than it helps and does nothing but cause misunderstandings. She NEEDS to let go of Sasuke completely before her and Naruto can take their relationship any further.
"But why still love Sasuke?" We can't say for sure, only speculate. My speculation is, as every human does... we dwell on big events in our life. She's dwelling over her childhood crush. Naruto is constantly telling her not to give up, he'll bring back Sasuke someday and things will be normal. Don't forget about him, I'll keep my promise and bring him back to you. It reminds me of someone who feels they HAVE to like something because someone worked so hard on it, you don't want to disappoint the person is doing it for you.
That, and I don't think Sakura really realizes she's probably no longer in love with Sasuke and that she could actually love Naruto just as much, if not more than Sasuke. (Best case scenario, sorry guys, it's now rambling realize, pfft Still relevant, but kinda everywhere) I feel like by now, she's forcing herself to be in love with Sasuke. She realizes then he's not a great guy at all of course and she probably shouldn't be in love with him. Along with that, we haven't actually seen her POV at all, we saw a glimpse into who she was thinking about, but that's it. No internal monologue, no hint of talking it over with someone else, as usual, Sakura is kinda... secretive somehow when it comes to Sasuke. I feel as if she reveals more of what she's thinking when it involves Naruto, but not Sasuke, which is probably intentional.
But reading the chapter again, I honestly don't feel that it hurts NaruSaku, not as much as you seem to want it to. It was shown, as we pretty much already knew prior to this chapter, that Sakura still has lingering feelings for Sasuke. But take a step back and look at the bigger picture, does this mean that she doesn't love Naruto? No, and you can definitely love more than one person at once. Does this negate the development that Naruto and Sakura have had up to this point? No, the development is still there, can't erase the past afterall. Is Naruto no longer in the picture? Obviously not, the manga isn't resolved, Sasuke is still... well Sasuke, and Naruto is still striving to bring him back. -though obviously has more important things to deal with- 540 doesn't need to be "necessary", it's there to make things interesting.
Now then, moving away from my thoughts on 540 and moving onto everything else.
Sakura's resolve shouldn't take more than 5 chapters if it's brought up to her attention and she must do it then and there. I bring up the procrastination example again. You wait and wait and wait until the very last moment when you can't wait anymore and you just do it or don't. It is a situation like that where I think Sakura will finally figure out her feelings for sure. It will probably happen when something else involving Naruto and Sasuke is going on.
And I'll repeat again, Kishi wants to make this interesting. To see some people question the pairing you went with this far down the line makes me question your resolve and reading comprehension. And I don't mean that as an insult, but this is a series. We can't look at each chapter as if they are standalone. Each chapter is either building up on something, answering something we weren't sure about, bring up new questions, or reinforcing something we already knew. The confession showed that Sakura is emotionally confused in regards to Sasuke, 540 further reinforced that idea.
Her feelings for Sasuke are causing cracks in her not new slate, which overshadows any new feelings she could have for someone else. No one wants to be in a relationship with someone else when they feel they might have feelings left over for someone else.
And I don't know what world you live in, but there are plenty of people like Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. They had a friend who took a bad path. They do everything they can do to help their friend, offer up their homes, money, car, anything, and that person does nothing but burn them in the end. Yet even after being betrayed over and over, they feel obligated to 'help' their friend that doesn't want to be helped until their friend 'kills' them one day for money they had already offered up willingly. Something very similar happened in my family a while ago, but the difference was their "friend" was actually their own son.
This is a shounen manga, so I doubt it will end so tragically, but Naruto is stubborn. How many people have tried to talk him out of helping Sasuke now? He can't be convinced, he's the shounen hero. No matter what Sasuke has done up until now, Naruto will still somehow forgive him because he 'understands'. That's just how shounen goes, it's cliche, but oh well.
Edited by kirabook, 09 May 2012 - 09:19 PM.
This topic is locked
