What's alarming is that people seem to completely/purposely ignore the fact that the romance sub-plot for this series is all about the Team 7 love triangle. It's so tiring that people seem to lack basic reading comprehension skills. All of the secondary characters who had one-sided feelings (Hinata, Ino/Karin, Lee etc.) for the main characters were meant to remain one-sided, and they did throughout the series. The love interest for Naruto was literally established from the earliest of chapters. Yet, there are people to this day that will argue against this. Naruto's love interest was Sakura, Sakura's love interest was Sasuke, Sasuke...well he was about revenge at that time.
Anything outside of the love triangle had no substance and/or no development. Plain and simple. For one, they're secondary characters who aren't as essential to the plot and of course, they have their own character developments and naturally don't interact with the main characters as as much (ex. different teams accompanying team 7 throughout shippuden). Even if that were to happen, it would change the structure of the story. Characters have their designated spaces and roles.
I was watching Friends recently and I read somewhere that Chandler was originally meant to be a side-character, and had they followed through with that, he wouldn't have gotten together with Monica because there would literally be no opporutinity fpr that to happen. You can't have someone who is a side-character get together with one of the main character's as they would only pop-in once in a while, do their part as required, then leave. No constant presence in story = no interaction with the main character = not even the opportunity for development. Common sense? Yes, but more importantly, literal story structure.
It's so unfortunate what has happened to this series, the characters...everything. People who don't understand will say "a pairing choice can't ruin the series" etc. Erm, yes it can. And it damn well did. Naruto already had a very well established romance sub-plot throughout the series. The protaginist's love interest was clearly stated and showcased several, several times throughout the manga. So yes, a pairing choice can ruin a series. To go against what was written and developed throughout the entire story means you have to take drastic measures to erase and reverse everything. This is exactly what happened with the Naruto series. The very fact that this ending and movie had to happen for NH to occur proves it. Reminder that Naruto is not a shojo either, so for them to have to go to such extremes to make NH & SS happen proves that there was a hefty amount of undoing and erasing to do.
The ending literally switched, shifted and relegated character positions (Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura etc.) to benefit a secondary character who has no immediate importance to the protaganist. This isn't a diss to Hinata either of course, it's a simple fact. We had a whole movie about this secondary character that told the story of how she won the heart of the protagonist. Sakura was relegated to Hinata's status temporarily, despite being the female lead of the series. Hinata's character even did a 180 temporarily; they changed her looks, changed her hair colour, eye colour, changed her clothes (dressed like RTN Hinata).
It's really disgusting to see all this happening and still see people defending it. There's nothing to defend and the evidence shows. It shouldn't even be up for debate as it's plain fact, but hey, people will still try to spin it and deny plain evidence anyways. Mess.
endless kittening chapters of parallels and subtext, just a false trail, meanwhile the real endgame were the pairings that were consistantly shown as onesided and/or toxic. 
