There isn't some secret underlying genius storytelling here...
The manga ran out of that three hundred plus chapters before its end. I'm glad to come visit and see pretty much everyone agrees it ended up being garbage, because around the time I left here, people were still largely trying to defend this series despite the fact that it had been circling the drain for a long time.
Hinata wasn't even the first at anything in Naruto's life, like ever...
Hinata was never anything in his life. I'm sketchy on the details of what happened later - I gave up reading two years before the end, so while I know the events, it's from synopsis - but when I stopped she'd still yet to do anything, really. She had maybe three genuine conversations with him up to that point and her biggest moment was when she stupidly rushed a foe who was way out of her league and found herself immediately shut down in hilarious fashion. She's a bizarre anomaly in fiction in that she's the "victorious love interest", yet she not only did little to nothing through the course of the manga, but she had little real development and even less time on panel. There was no set up at all. They had to go so far as to use an entire anime film - the final one, even - to try and sell a relationship that, if you read only the manga, does not work.
She's like if Kazumi ended up with Yuji in Shakugan no Shana instead of the titular character. Actually, that may even be too generous a comparison. Kazumi was a similar "satellite love interest", but she at least had plenty of screen time. She couldn't really DO anything for most of the series and as such she just kind of orbited the greater goings on, but she was there and she had focus.
None of this should be a shock, though, because Naruto as a whole is awful at romance. Which... well, yeah, it was a shonen series, so that's not exactly a focus. But it still went to the well, so it's fair game. Hell, in the end it wasn't even any good at telling a grand action story, so...
That is what Hinata is...she is the silver medal trophy because no matter what happened no matter how hard Naruto tried...he always lost to Sasuke....even in the very end.
I still think they should have just named the manga "Uchiha" or something. Even when he wasn't around, the manga was more about that family than the main character.
People actually think Naruto won that fight, but all he did was gave up everything for someone who didn't even want it,
You could make the argument that Naruto loved Sasuke more than any of the girls, honestly, because holy crap, dude was obsessed with him. That was his pattern. Giving up everything for someone who didn't really care all that much about him.
"You will take this silver medal and you will like. And if you aren't happy with it, then you are not a real man."
No big surprise that only led to misery. Great life our protagonist ended up leading. Bad home life and a crappy parent.
Edited by dl316bh, 08 April 2016 - 10:54 PM.