Aevrum

 
I think the main issue, is that you don't see what makes the Chuunin Exams special.
 
It Does a lot to establish the sort of patterns you see later, intense reactions from Naruto. No, Naruto's cheering for Hinata in her fight with Neji wasn't about getting her killed, or that he didn't care about her well-being, it was creating encouragement, a pattern you see really from him to her. Neji, really enraged by this defiance, then tries to kill her. This later drives Naruto to his blood oath, a pretty intense reaction. This fight is also where Naruto really starts to notice her, where Rock Lee says the two are similar, and that Sakura says that she was always watching him.
 
And what makes the Proud Failure Speech special, on the heels of this, is that Naruto is vulnerable around her. He reveals his worries, he's even taken a detour to the exams, and how unsure he is. I think its also noteworthy after the Neji fight that he searches for Hinata's face in the crowd of spectators, wondering if she saw.
 
No, nothing about your words was a "stylistic device" originally, and for what you are trying to say, its the wrong phrase to use as well.
 
I'm adding detail to my writing, because you make a statement, and then you base source material after it. Rather than making a statement...and not adding anything to it.
 
I still see nothing that suggests why NaruIno can work. You haven't really said -why-.

This will be a shorter answer, because I have no passion left to argue with you and I apologize in advance for my aggressive tone:

Do you know what your problem is? You look at every scene of the two with pairing goggles and interpret it positively, something you don't do with other scenes.

The preliminaries and the first two rounds do NOTHING in favor of NH.
He doesn't care about her, he uses (unintentionally) his influence on her to confirm his thoughts about fate and doesn't even realize afterwards what he did to her, still fixated on 'fate' and showing it Neji. That 'avanging-theme' is the minimum he could have done in that situation with his character we have at hand at that point.

The proud failure speech is the only real 100% NH scene, and there are many positive things wrapping Hinata in the chuunin exams up:
He sees her now as a good friend, we are now more exactly shown what she thinks about Naruto and she manages to restore his spirit.
But you know what? It is still overshadowed by what happened in the preliminaries.

And, only because it is you, let's look at one important point with extremely unfair 'Anti-NH' goggles:
The speech is intentionally segmented in a way, that shows us that she knows nothing more about Naruto than his unwavering will. She doesn't believe in him and is only interested in her picture of him that gives her hope.

Now again a bit more serious:
The most important thing is: The proud failure speech would be a such a nice and beautiful NH scene, if it would have had any impact later on the NH relationship. It is later like it never happened and it is never taken up again and gets completely forgotten.


Oh PLEASE excuse my not perfect English, my third not-native language, I apologize that I am not running around with a dictionary to check every word.

Seriously, you doubt my personal social intelligence, passive-aggressively attack me and get upset because I showed you that it was wrong and call out my bad English?

Sorry, but you are too full of yourself. This is my last answer ever to you, it is not worth any of my time, have fun in life with that attitude.

First Error: No NH scenes included Naruto.
 
Firstly, I told you I listed these elsewhere in the forum, so they are available. However, I'll summarize my counter examples. 
 
Counter Example One: Naruto Seeing how amazing Hinata was (Amazing his word) in the Hinata vs. Neji fight.
 
Counter Example Two: When Naruto joins the battlefield, he remarks how Hinata Saved him twice. Hinata before this, says that she can tell who Naruto is by looking into his eyes. Naruto also makes an eye comment. Neat parallel. 
 
Counter Example Three: The Proud Failure Speech.
 
Three Counter Examples, none of them 615 or 437.
 
Second Error: A claim of cultural knowledge greater than myself.
 
Inquiry: How so? 
 
When I was 8 I was living in a second story apartment in Ginowan City. I learned about gift-giving customs by exchanging them with neighbors downstairs, the language, the abacus, even entering a Soraban competition and coming in third place. I got list in the city of Nago. I spent a week around the Kanto plains. I wrote an essay detailing such experiences, which was published and earned me a modest prize of 20,000 ¥. 
 
I'm not going to say my cultural experience is greater than yours...and I think that is an argument best avoided, but ... you are making a statement without any information of my cultural experience. 
 
The forehead poke, or rather the scene, is the only romantic one, yes. Sakura is this time, asking to be with Sasuke, more or less, to join him. Sasuke says that this journey is his, this is his sin to redeem. but the Forehead poke more or less is a promise of the beginning of their relationship when he returns. 
 
Aevrum, if you look over my posts earlier, you should see me discuss Naruto not understanding Love quite a lot, and I won't add it to this already long post. If you insist, I'll add it to the next. 
 
No, Naruto and Ino would be out of nowhere, like Chouji and Karui was. But Naruto and Hinata, would not be, if we did a part one jump to the end.  There'd be holes in other issues..but the ending would still make sense that way. 

I wrote till the confession.
And my term war-hand-holding was more general, sorry if it was conveyed differently.

The chuunin exams were an important tool to solidify Naruto's bonds to his former classmates, including Hinata. But it offers nothing more, only builds the foundation to make any progress of inter-human relationship between the two possible.

I don't see what makes the Hinata Arc in the Chuunin exams special.
He literally didn't care about her well-being, because he was so obsessed on his 'anti-fate-show-it-Neji' trip and nearly drove her to her death. Hinata nearly died because of him, but he didn't show that much concern, immediately again thinking about that 'Neji-kitten' and avanging.

We could argue about the proud failure speech, but I accept it, if you want to count it.
For me personally it is mainly a reconciliation step for his behavior towards her during her fight, but it is development, you are right there.

That would be one significant moment from beginning till Pain arc.


I don't understand you, you started the 'culture' argument, and my statement aimed at how ridiculous this is without knowing me. Did you really not recognize the overstatement as stylistic device I used?

I can't understand why you felt the need to doubt my personal competence.

Again, the forehead poke the only romantic thing ever till then?
I understand SS, why are you again trying to explain everything I never stated differently.

We discussed Naruto several times, but we never agreed on something and I never got a satisfying answer.
I don't know why you have to think that your own opinion is clearly superior and right and start to be so aggressive.

The thing is, our views aren't actually that different.
The only important disagreements are how Naruto is portrayed and how well we think the pairings are executed.


I stated that NH is of course more logical. But that isn't the essence of it. If you make NH happen from the point of view of part 1, there is not really that much left to also make NaruIno happen.
You could also easily include NaruIno progress into the holes.

Thanks, read it over. 
 
Art work is great. Never really a fan of rehashes of the Last, because the end product is less ingrained when you do it, Chronic Tension does not connect well with the acute anymore, and a juggling ball not connected with the rest is shown. I feel like a good NS AU should just go with an original story. 

I understand what you mean and agree with you (even stated this same concerns to Tokai in one of the earlier pages of his, but he showed me that he handles it really well till now), but I think that it actually still kinda works with the Last.

You can't maybe focus on NS as much as you probably want, but you can always adjust the plot slightly and it has the advantage to give you a golden opportunity to handle Hinata.

 
...So let's continue. 
 
1: NH had more than two moments, had more than the thrown out number "38 pages". I went through several in another post, but of course, that wasn't paid attention. There was no romantic moments mind, there was no romance except Sasuke's poke at Sakura's forehead in 699. You were looking for romance maybe, very obvious signs...but there was none. This is what the Last does, it provides that romance, but it isn't needed to make NH make sense. This is a difference between cultures, really, and that Naruto was a battle manga. There isn't really any indication that Sakura was consistently in Naruto's head as you imply either, its not shown. It is shown that Naruto doesn't understand love, and it's not because he's "dumb" persay, just a social pariah. 
 
For SS, the obstacle was Sasuke not wanting that bond. 699 afterwards is Sasuke accepting that love. This one is more informed mind, the foundation is there, but its weaker, really, all of the Team 7 bonds are a little weak. 
 
Your argument notably forgets the Chuunin Exams. Remove part two entirely, and while a lot of things don't make sense without later pieces, if it was revealed SS and NH were the end pairings, and Naruto became hokage, that would be a sensible ending, based on what happened in part one. 
 
That said, I'd love to see a novel length essay. 

No, I wasn't looking for overly romantic scenes. I was looking for scenes that could progress any feelings.
There were NO NH scenes that included Naruto, if only a little bit, till the confession. You listed not a single clear scene, but say that my interpretation of Naruto's stance is not backed (And please do not lay things into my mouth I never wrote)? Suuree..

Believe me when I say that I probably understand the culture much better than you, I grew up myself with a similar 'closed' one in terms of romance.
I never expected western-style romance, that's one of the reasons why Naruto is the only series where I ever cared about the pairings and how they happened this much.
But surely Sakura screeching 'I love you's is not a clear scene and typical cultural.
*rollseyes*

It's funny that you speak about me not understanding the culture and write that the forehead poke is the only romantic gesture in the series. I really can't understand you.

Again the same thing: Please show me a tangible situation, where we are shown that he doesn't understand love generally.
It isn't even stated in The Last that way, and you know it.

I know why SS was theoretically always possible to happen if nothing else progressed. (I even wrote it, what do you want to tell me writing this?)
Does it make it into love? Nope. Does it make it convey any important message? Nope.
It only happens to wrap things up. There is nothing what makes it worth the panel time it occupied

If you really think that after part 1 NH would be believable, I can't help you.
Ok, it would be believable. But it would be equally believable as saying he married Ino (Okay, NH would be a bit more believable^^ But that doesn't matter here. ) . I would want to know how that happened, but it would be possible.
Your thoughts are in utterly different spheres than my, it makes no sense to discuss any further.

 
This Analogy is one I've used, albeit differently. The Analogy works as is in a closed sort of fan, that doesn't interact or see the opinions of others. 
 
But more often than not, its like this: 
 
You order a Deluxe Cheeseburger from the menu, with fries and a soda and a slice of pie. The person you are with says that isn't on the menu. They order a salad, pointing to the same item you ordered. You say there isn't any salads here, both reading the menu differently, which, is in Italian. 
 
When your food arrives, it is as the second person said. And yet so often this successful Translation is ignored, disregarded, accused of conspiring with the waiter to get the salad,,because, psychologically, many can't say they were wrong. Maybe it's a passion issue, loyalty issue, even pride issue, but I know very well when I post, that very few, if anyone, will change their stance that has been so ingrained in it. It's cognitive dissonance, versus reconciliation. 
 
You'll have to elaborate what was promised, and I could be wrong, but I find the end wrapped things up neatly, and things ended really, as expected: Naruto became Hokage, is the beef of it, and the great Nations work together and cooperate. More or less the pairings made sense as well, as the smaller pieces at the end. This doesn't make me Pro-NH, as you said in an earlier post,  I don't ship NH, nor do I ship SS, I ship NS. I -defend- the end though, and the canon pairings with it, because most of the anger/hatred towards it is because of pairings. I read a post saying it wasn't about pairings, then they always circle back to pairings. They tend to start with comments on plot holes, minor characters not getting screen time (Orochimaru and Team Taka notable comments). I've seen mentions of unfinished "threads", and still, it always, as the discussion goes on, circles back to pairings, a bash at the author, another display of hatred. The difference between some of us, why I don't act this way, is simply I avoided cognitive dissonance, and I understood that I was wrong about NS being the final pairing. In no way does everyone act like this, thankfully. 
 
This is nothing against what people post, full respect for a opinion that avoids being hateful. I judged the quality of the above post, because their tangent had nothing to do with their argument. And when I see a really well done post, I'll point it out, even if its a point of view I disagree with. I go out of my way even to be thankful to respectful posts...and can get Snarky when someone employs too much hate. 

You didn't understand what was written, did you? Again writing the same things as an answer?

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' in that sense. This is a piece of literature, not a one-dimensional line of correlation.
Do you even realize what you are suggesting with what you wrote?
I don't even want to argue. Just think about what you wrote in your fourth paragraph.

The end wrapped up the most important things: Naruto became Hokage, Sasuke was 'back' and through the war the nation's came together. So far, so good.
But how is it with other things? You spoke about the pairings, for example.
As of chapter 699, and what happened shortly before, NH and SS had to happen - because that was the last chapter and there was no room anymore for a twist or something like that. There was simply no other way.

I don't know if you will believe me or not, but I didn't care about Naruto for nearly 8 years (And didn't ship anything before it, just thought NS was surely to happen) and just pretty recently watched the whole Anime. I knew the end pairings and cheered for NH in the back of my mind. And the end pairings made enough sense to be acceptable. But this doesn't mean that there aren't huge problems with the pairings, that instantly bugged me:

NH was quasi non-existent. I don't care how much anyone tries to overanalyze things, there was nothing going on with the two till (and even afterwards) the confession. It was introduced as a classical 'girl-that-loves-the-outcast-but-doesnt-voice-it' cliché and stayed like that till the very end. I waited and waited for NH situations but in the end there were only two: The confession and the war hand-holding.

But the most important thing with NH is: Till the very end, Naruto wasn't able to get Sakura out of his head. And he felt partly guilty to not recognize Hinata's love for him earlier (and I am not speaking about The Last) and didn't show any genuine reciprocation.
You know what this is? A VERY bad combination of things for romance.

I know how you will respond now with The Last, but we have discussed that enough.
Furthermore it is never really stated there that he doesn't understand love - it only is one of Sakura's thoughts to reassure Hinata. The only thing really stated is that Naruto is dumb enough to not be able to understand Hinata's love for him.


Another point is SS: Differently to NH, there was always the foundation and history there for it to happen, but it lacked something more important: love. There was simply none. Nowhere, never. Crying two times was enough for it to be later portrayed as true love. A joke.

But it isn't that important if it is a good pairing or not. Following the course of the story, I would be able to believe that it was possible that SS was aimed at (As much as I think that that 'planned' thing is ridiculous; I could nearly always say that if the pair has enough history, feelings or interaction).
But NH was never ever thought of as a pairing till much later in the story. That wouldn't make sense.
Not that this 'planned' thing is important, but it is helpful to understand the course of the story.

Let's face it: NS was a long long time the most probable pairing by far, till it was shot off very late, whether it was always planned or not.
But the problem is: You can't make the things unwritten afterwards. And that more exactly means: Letting NS open that long and giving it the most (and personally speaking the best) scenes by far, hindered and blocked NH/SS and made them look bad, underdeveloped and forced.

What you need to understand is this: The thought that the pairings are just another thing that went down the drain together with the writing.

The pairings are an epitome of what went bad with the ending. You are on a NS site, it is just natural to include the pairings into things when talking about the ending.
But the pairings don't even matter that much. They could be as bad as anyone can imagine it - they only would be bad end pairings (on the other hand, wouldn't even that be enough to not like the ending? It isn't like you are not allowed to think that the ending is bad, because you think the pairings make no sense).

But important is, that they seamlessly integrate into other things that were bad. You listed yourself many good points and I can't understand why you don't think that they are important.
There are many fans that hated the ending and moved on. There are enough NH/SS fans that hate the ending, there are enough NH fans that hate The Last.
The stance is not unique, nor baseless.

If you want, I could write a novel-length essay about what is wrong with the ending. And it is not only about the ending and what came afterwards itself, but also an accumulation of things throughout the whole story.
But everyone wrote so many points to you already, including me, so...