So I wrote a story that takes place after chapter 699. In the story, I had Sakura answer a question that for whatever reason she never asked herself in canon. This question is one that Sakura, since she was portrayed as being very intelligent, would have asked herself at some point. The answer she would have come up with is up to you to guess.
The question in the manga was always "How do I feel about Sasuke?" with the occasional "How do I feel about Naruto?"
It was never "Are these feelings that I have for Sasuke even worth exploring?"
We will discuss why it would have been a good idea for her to ask herself this question based on established facts from the manga. I will try to avoid talking about what existed between her and Naruto because it is outside the scope of this question. Though the existence of Naruto makes this situation much worse. If she liked Naruto, and she clearly did, then pursuing these feelings becomes even more unreasonable and ridiculous.
Established canon fact #1: Sakura loves Sasuke.
What does this mean?
Well, she's physically attracted to Sasuke, so she wants to do those kinds of things with him. She wants Sasuke to view her as an important person. She wants to help Sasuke with the problems that are hurting him. She wants to talk/hang out with Sasuke and be a confidant of his. Ironically she didn't really manage to do any of these even at the end, but I digress. She can do most of these things without being in a relationship with Sasuke. The smart character that Sakura was depicted as would realize this fact and not do it because it would be poisonous to her life. She's depicted as an attractive female. Other characters in the story support this view, Naruto and Lee. She can have anyone she wants. Sasuke isn't the only attractive man. Honestly, he looks like a freak now with the two different eyes. It isn't sexy at all. He looks like Madara except without matching eyes. Was Madara sexy? Well, yes. Of course he was. But this fact wasn't established by other characters in the story. Moving on.
How could Sakura resist the need to be with Sasuke given the fact that she loves him?
You can say that if you love someone, it's natural to want to be with them. But Sakura was depicted as a strong person who is very willful. She should put her own wellbeing first, regardless of who she ends up with. Maybe if she wasn't depicted as being that way it would have been more believable, but being in love with someone doesn't make you their slave. That's ridiculous. If they hurt you, you will get pissed off. If they hurt you repeatedly and then threaten to take everything you care about away from you, you will get pissed off and want to DESTROY them. If they actually try to take or destroy things or people you care about, YOU WILL DESTROY THEM. OR AT LEAST TRY TO. You will not keep falling on your knees and begging them to stop forever. The point here is that being in love with someone does not negate negative emotions that you feel towards that person. Love does not make you oblivious to physical pain or the eradication of things that are vitally important to your livelihood and happiness. This becomes extremely relevant.
It's not how human nature is. A human wants to survive and thrive. You can cite domestic abuse but that requires many pieces to be in place, none of which were there for Sakura. She just thought she loved a boy who she hadn't even seen in three years. One who was at best apathetic to her existence and at worst actively intolerant of it. Her life was completely independent of Sasuke and in fact she didn't even see him most of the time. Ridiculous garbage.
Established canon fact #2: Sakura ended up with Sasuke.
Why is this bad?
It's just another failure of a portrayal of a female character in today's media. There are so many characters like this. Where their entire story is based around getting with a man, and they end up with that man and that's seen as a victory. It's a failure of a character arc. Antis always say "Naruto would have put her in the kitchen!", and well, he probably would have, considering how highly Kishimoto thinks of women. But the thing is, if she had ended up with Naruto, her story would not have been about getting with a man. It would have been about growing up and realizing that what you want is not necessarily going to be what makes you happy. But no, she had to end up with Sasuke. Which is bad for the above reason, but what's worse is it plays out in the worst, most pathetic and ridiculous way possible.
Why do I say it doesn't play out well?
It doesn't matter how strong her character becomes in terms of ninja abilities. If her story arc started off with her wanting to get with a man, which it did, and it ended up with her being with that man, which it did, again, it's not a victory just because he was redeemed. It's a failure and it makes her look weak. It looks so weak for a character's existence in a story to revolve around someone who doesn't care about them. Her existence should not have revolved around the emo avenger to begin with. Ending up with him is just a complete failure. Especially the way it was handled. If she had always been an important person to Sasuke but he still hurt her, it would be controversial and bad but it wouldn't be ridiculous like this is.
As it is, the man was a jerk to her. Sasuke either treated her harshly or ignored her. Sakura declares her love and he knocks her out harmlessly. This is fine so far. Sasuke leaves the village. 3 years later Sakura meets up with him and tries to punch him unsuccessfully. Later she encounters him in the snow and tries to stab him unsuccessfully. She did this either to protect Naruto or out of love for Sasuke, as nonsensical as that is, or a combination of these; it doesn't really matter.
Then Sasuke tries to kill her. This is the point of no return for the two of them, because he tried to end her life. Any normal person would find it extremely difficult to get close to Sasuke after this. Because doing so would enable Sasuke to kill them very easily. Doing so would display a lack of self-preservation which is unnatural. It would mean she cares more about the prospect of being romantically involved with Sasuke than she cares about her own life or the people that care about her. For instance, her parents. If someone is willing to kill you, that can never be erased. If she still wants to be with Sasuke, that would mean Sakura has a flagrant disregard for the feelings of those close to her. This is disgusting and destroys the image of Sakura as compassionate. It introduces the extremely likely scenario that she deceived everyone who wasn't already aware of what had taken place between her and Sasuke, because there is no way they would ever have approved of it, which is horrible for her character as well.
No, it doesn't matter that she tried to kill him first. I'll talk more about this later.
After he tries to kill her, she's saved by Naruto. Then there's the war. He belittles and ignores her during the war, later letting her fall towards a pit of lava. This is not Sasuke being a tsundere. This is Sasuke saying "Sakura's life means nothing to me." He was not incapable of saving her; he simply chose not to, likely because it was a minor risk. And this is the best possible interpretation. She is shown obviously suffering over the constant reminders that Sasuke doesn't value her at all. Then she declares her love for the second time. His response to this is to belittle her again and put her in an illusion that simulates him killing her by thrusting his hand into her chest and destroying her heart. Basically, he used genjutsu to torture her, causing her to believe that he had killed her and likely inflicting a great deal of pain. It ultimately has the effect of rendering her unconscious.
This would be extremely traumatic for a young girl. Imagine yourself in her shoes. You desperately want to convince Sasuke to stop hurting everyone so you try to stop him in the only way you can, by saying you love him. His response is to mock you. Before you can properly process this, he suddenly flashes in front of you and impales you on his arm. You're in a lot of pain. You realize that this is almost certainly a mortal wound, so now you're going to die. How would this make you feel? Now you won't even get to see what happens. Will Naruto be able to stop Sasuke? Or will Sasuke kill Naruto along with everyone else you care about? You can't help them anymore. You're powerless now. Sasuke just took your greatest desire away from you. She wanted nothing more than to help Naruto, see him achieve his dream, and bring Sasuke back to Konoha. But now she can't do those things because Sasuke just killed her. None of her dreams and desires will ever come to fruition now. This would be infuriating, terrifying, and heartbreaking for Sakura.
Sure, she would be relieved when she woke up and realized she wasn't dead. But this would not translate into gratitude towards Sasuke. It would translate to, at best, being terrified of him and wanting him to stay far away from her so that he can never have the opportunity to do that to her again. And probably desiring the destruction or sealing of his eye techniques so he can't do it to ANYONE ever again. What would she be feeling when she wakes up? She would feel useless because Sasuke took her out so easily. She'd feel very guilty that she couldn't help Naruto at all, and scared for his safety now that he's probably fighting Sasuke. And she would be terrified of and likely deeply resentful towards Sasuke as I mentioned already. This action by Sasuke was incredibly cruel and would have the effect of terrorizing Sakura to such an extent that she would never be able to forget it for the rest of her life. It's a waking nightmare. She would probably ask a Yamanaka to delete the memory so that she didn't have to keep seeing it whenever she closed her eyes.
Anyway, she wakes up and doesn't feel any of these things, somehow. She goes and heals Naruto AND Sasuke. She heals Sasuke without being prompted to do so by Naruto or even Sasuke himself. Ridiculous. After what just took place, this is so god damn ridiculous. If she was a real person, it would be so hard for her to even approach him, even in the greatly weakened state that Sasuke was in. It would be so hard to even LOOK at him. The only reason she wouldn't walk away would be because she needed to help Naruto. But no, she happily stabilizes his wounds without even bothering to ask "So, is he done killing everyone?" Apparently, this love that she feels obliterates her personality, her feelings, and her pride as a member of the human race.
A much better ending would be her refusing to heal Sasuke at first, because of the extremely strong emotions that I established that a normal person would be feeling. Naruto sees that she isn't healing Sasuke and asks her to. Then Naruto becomes very distraught when she refuses. He doesn't want to lose his friend who he worked so hard to save. He starts begging her to heal Sasuke. Sakura sees the pain and desperation in his face and realizes that she's starting to hurt, too. Why? Because she can't stand to see him like this. Because the one she loves is actually Naruto. She can't bear to put him through the pain of watching his best friend die. She wants to save Naruto from that pain and that's the ONLY reason she heals Sasuke. This would be heartfelt on the part of Sakura and very dramatic. It would make her finally be important in the Team 7 equation; events would finally center around her. Instead, Kishimoto deprives her of agency. She's just a plot device so that the important characters can get healed. A walking plot device that has very little in common with a thinking, feeling human being. We feel nothing about Sakura from this other than that she would obviously forgive Sasuke for anything as long as she's still alive to do it. How is anyone supposed to relate to this character anymore?
Sasuke then says he's sorry. He does not offer any specific apology for traumatizing her for life, for instance. Or for the attempted murder. Or the fact that he was willing to let her be incinerated in a field of lava because he saw no tactical value in her remaining alive. She says "You better be", despite the fact that in the event of him not being sorry, she wouldn't do a damn thing about it. Then she asks to travel with him. He declines this request and treats her as his brother used to treat him. i.e. as someone inferior who he doesn't have time for, belittling her yet again. Naturally, she is profoundly flattered by this. Some years later, she marries him and either adopts or gives birth to his child, spending the rest of her life waiting in this man's home like some Victorian woman of the house archetype, in complete opposition to her character's personality as established in the last 600 chapters or so. She is depicted wearing the dumbass fan symbol on her back for whatever reason, even though Sasuke doesn't wear it anymore. Are we meant to believe she is just unbelievably proud to now be a part of this ninja clan, when a member of said clan that she is now married to inflicted an unspeakable amount of pain on her, more than anyone else in her life by a huge margin? She wants to show off how much she loves this whole situation in case she encounters someone who didn't know that already? Again, how are we meant to take this new Sakura seriously or relate to her in any way?
She later destroys the house that she is the woman of in response to her possibly adopted daughter offering entirely valid criticism of her relationship with Sasuke. This shows a lack of conviction in parenting in regards to not scaring the kitten out of her daughter. She loves Sasuke so much that she is willing to terrify her daughter on account of him. How admirable.
This is completely ridiculous. All of this is so absurd that it's hard to put into words so I won't try anymore. I did my best. Moving on.
Why was it unacceptable that he tried to kill Sakura given that she was an enemy at the time?
I submit to you the example of the character "Uzumaki Naruto". You might remember him from the manga. Did you notice that he killed very few characters? How did he manage that despite winning many fights? Because he didn't try to kill them after they were incapacitated and he had already won. Those were the exact circumstances under which Sasuke tried to kill Sakura. The fact that she tried to kill him first does not diminish the significance of his murder attempt no matter how much it sounds like it does for this reason. She was a former teammate and he should have respected her right to live regardless of her intentions. Intentions are irrelevant when someone is completely at your mercy and killing them is as easy as breathing. I don't need to say anything else on this point.
Why else shouldn't she have been with Sasuke?
It was so distasteful how her getting with Sasuke was seen as a reward for her. If anything it was a reward for Sasuke. She's the main heroine. She was clearly at one point intended to be the "best girl". Fans hating her doesn't change that. Did Sasuke deserve the best girl? No. Even if you discount how he personally treated her the answer would still be no. He probably doesn't even deserve the worst girl, which most fans will tell you is Sakura. So in any case, he doesn't deserve Sakura. So it's a reward for Sasuke and a massive punishment for Sakura. Sisyphus doesn't have kitten on Sakura. Neither does Tantalus or any of those other poor bastards from Greek mythology. Itachi would bow down to Kishimoto and say "Nice work. I usually only torture people for 72 hours. What the hell did that poor girl do to you?"
Why else is this bad?
Because she didn't change and ended up being the same, or rather an even more flawed person than she was when she started out. Part 1 Sakura showed resistance to Sasuke when he did something so minor as to be afraid of his own death at the hands of a legendary ninja. Part 2 Sakura showed no resistance when he tried to kill her, tried to kill her friends, and basically tried to kill or subjugate everyone. The only resistance she offers is by availing him of the comfort of her love for him, which he has no interest in at all. This is pathetic.
What is doubly pathetic is the fact that she ended up marrying him just because he stopped trying to kill everyone. A simple cessation of murdering is not sufficient to make amends for the wrongs he inflicted on her. It doesn't matter if he was redeemed. Being redeemed does not erase what he did to her or anyone else. And she would have no way of knowing if he was truly redeemed or just pretending to be. She would also have no way of knowing that he wouldn't become evil again. She's just going to trust him. Unbelievable. But every other character also does the same thing so this point is not as bad as it could be.
But it gets worse, because Sasuke isn't in the village by the end. So Sakura is raising a child that either is or is not hers for a man that still doesn't care about her, so she hasn't changed much in her interactions with him. He's just not going to try to kill her anymore. This is not appealing at all for fans of Sakura. And it actually doesn't matter if Sarada is her child or not.
Why doesn't it matter who Sarada's mother is?
Because her relationship with Sasuke is a joke as it is. The maternity issue would matter if they had a good relationship that could be impacted by this controversy. Sasuke is never around so they don't have that. The possibility of her not being his child's mother doesn't affect her closeness to Sasuke, because Sasuke doesn't care about her. So if she's not her real daughter that just makes it a bigger joke, but she's a laughing stock either way. You could argue that it would affect Sarada's opinion. OK, it could. Actually, it almost certainly would. However it doesn't matter because her relationship with Sasuke leaves no hope of redemption. Sarada could love her as much as Naruto used to or even more and Sakura is still being portrayed as pathetic.
Was Kishimoto trying to portray Sakura as having a serious mental illness?
Few other interpretations make any sense at all. She started off as a regular fangirl. She was a bit shy around him, liked him, respected his space. She had her own opinions and views. She tried to ingratiate herself to him, but really wasn't good at it at all. It actually could be funny at times. It was fine. Then in Part 2, she was willing to fight Sasuke for a time, but then her spine disappeared and she became a doormat. This is when everything takes a dark, disgusting turn as you know already. Then in the post 700 stuff, she acts like a pathetic, lobotomized sycophant in front of Sasuke. She presents none of the many grievances that she so very clearly has. This loyalty of hers is rewarded with absolutely nothing from his end.
So Part 1 was tolerable but occasionally pathetic, Part 2 started off good and then became SUPER pathetic, and then part 3 is even worse. This is a depiction of a mental disorder that has progressed. The idea of marrying a man who tried to kill you, either giving birth to or adopting his child, and raising it by yourself because you KNOW he will never be around, is entirely impossible to relate to. To a rational human being, it's completely alien. Maybe if he did the murder attempts and the leaving AFTER you were already in a relationship, not before. It just makes her character into a joke and it's... you guessed it, pathetic. It's crazy that Kishimoto did this and even crazier that some people actually support it. But guess what, it was her only option other than being with Naruto. She wasn't with Naruto, so her life had to be made miserable with Sasuke.
So why did Kishimoto have to make her miserable after putting Naruto with Hinata?
It's because Naruto is still his self insert. He's willing to let him lose Sakura, but he's not going to give up the high ground of "Naruto and Sakura were meant to be". He could have written a happy, loving relationship for Sakura, with Sasuke (He doesn't care enough anymore for OOC to matter) or someone else. But if he did that, then Naruto truly lost. Sakura would be happy without him. If that happened, then she really didn't need to be with Naruto to be happy. This way, Sakura is miserable so people can say "Wow, she was so stupid. She should have been with Naruto. Haha!" So Naruto can still win, because Sakura acted completely insane and unrealistic in regards to Sasuke and ruined her life, while Naruto moved on. Everyone wins! Except for Sakura.
Why was Kishimoto willing to do that to Sakura?
I don't know. If Kishi wanted her to be with Sasuke, why did he make him torture her and try to kill her? That would be a good question to ask him.
Edited by DrK, 09 November 2017 - 09:52 AM.