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OK, so this is something I've been wanting to do for a while. but I really haven't gotten into it because of how sensitive it can be. However, I will try to immerse myself into this topic while being as polite as possible. I can't say that bashing will not happen, but I will make my best of efforts to stay away from it. I don't know which kind of words can be taken as so, so I will address this very carefully (or at least try to).
Now, something I have always wanted to write about is about the possible pairing in Naruto and how each pairing would work in a relationship. This is a touchy subject because it may borderline in bashing of either characters or pairing, but try to bear with me, since I want to try and visualize these pairing in a possible future, and of course, I'm more than willing to edit my post to correct anything that would be seen as plain bashing. Also, I admit that I did a bit of a copy paste (credits to their original sources like Narutopedia btw), so there are some things which are repeated but its for the sake of organization.
Now, since this might be a very long post, I will only focus on the three main pairing that people usually support in Naruto: NaruHina, SasuSaku and NaruSaku.
A-NaruHina: OK, so here we have Naruto and Hinata. This is one of the favorite couples of the western culture and some of their fans can be very vocal about it. However, let's not focus on the fanbase, but on how would Naruto work with Hinata.
First of all, let's look at their characteristics:
Naruto Uzumaki - Exuberant, brash, inattentive, and heedless to formality or social standings, relatively naive, simple, and being slow to understand a principle or situation. However, during the course of the manga, he has shown improvement over many of these characteristics. When Naruto makes a promise, he assumes the "nice guy pose" and becomes dedicated to fulfilling it. When Sasuke defected from Konoha, Naruto made a "promise of a lifetime" to Sakura to bring him back, using the "nice guy pose". He shares many other qualities, but this just a brief summary.
Hinata Hyuuga - Hinata is characterized as shy, thoughtful, serene, kind, and very polite, as noted from her always addressing people with proper honorifics. She is also very gentle, a trait that Neji and her father used to consider a flaw, and dislikes competing and fighting. She is shown to be incredibly empathetic, and, because of her upbringing, is one of the very first characters who identifies with Naruto's painful childhood and desire to be acknowledged.
Now then, here we have two characters who are opposite poles in some of their characteristics. This may work, since sometimes, opposites attract each other, but let's say that as of the present, the decide to establish a relationship. I'm going to touch five qualities and compare to see how much they have progressed in each one:
1-Trust - Does Naruto trusts Hinata? Well, is we speak about fellow ninja, then he did admitted that she was very strong and he even thanked her from her encouragement words. There is no doubt about that. Apart from that, we could say that the trust he has in her is pretty much the trust he shares with other members from Konoha 11.
Does Hinata trusts Naruto? Well, this might have been subject of some debates because some people say that Hinata doesn't believe in Naruto. But he has been the source of inspiration for her so we can say that there is an amount of trust from her towards him.
2-Care - Does Naruto cares for Hinata? Well, once again, we're pretty much limited to what we've seen on the manga. He did encouraged her in the chunnin exams and he did question why Hinata placed herself in danger during the pain arc. So of course, we can also say that Naruto does care for her. However, we can't say that he cares for her in a romantic sense because there is no evidence in the manga to support it.
As for Hinata, well, not much to discuss. Even if its in her own shyness, she does care for Naruto. This has been also questioned by some fans, but she does share her nindo with him and she also supports the idea of him becoming Hokage. So even though it may be subject to debate, Hinata does care for Naruto.
3-Respect - As fellow shinobi, I can safely say that they both respect each other. The know that the other is strong and they do know that the other can give a good battle.
4-Knowledge - Now, here's where things begin to get a bit shaky. Apart from some history details and basic knowledge, Neither Naruto nor Hinata know much about each other. We could give many points of evidence, but let's take two chapters: The chapter where Hinata confessed to Naruto and the chapter where Sasuke arrives to assist in the 4th shinobi war.
In the first one, we see that this is finally the moment where Naruto realizes that Hinata loves him and that's because she confessed to him. During the whole course of the manga until this point, he was oblivious and unaware of Hinata's feelings for him. Now even after this point, that have had only two conversations where both have been about encouragement rather than discussion of this topic. Naruto has been so busy with many other tasks that he really doesn't know much about Hinata. Neji, Shino, And Kiba all know Hinata better than Naruto.
The same situation happens with Hinata's knowledge of Naruto. Sure, he know what he went through in his childhood, but since they really didn't interacted, there is not much Hinata knows about Naruto on a personal level. We noticed the lack of awareness/reaction when Sasuke came in. And of course, we don't have to comment on the fact that Hinata at this point should know that Naruto loves Sakura. So overall, compared to the other pairings, they don't have much knowledge about each other.
5-Communication - And here's pretty much where things collapse between Naruto and Hinata. During the whole course of the manga, the communication between them has not been big. People may say that this is because Hinata wasn't in Naruto's team, but I could say the same thing about Gaara, Shikamaru, Neji and even Rock Lee. Yet all these people have had more interaction with Naruto than Hinata. Naruto has been focused on other things and I have to say that he has not shown any romantic interest towards Hinata through the course of the manga. If he did, then don't you think that, just like he did with Sakura, he would find chances to talk to her and maybe even to go on a date? On Hinata's part, we could partly blame it on her shyness, but this went all the way to part 2, and it wasn't until the pain arc that the communication between them began to improve a bit. I won't deny that she has grown in this aspect (and while some may consider it bad writing, it has been shown that she has encouraged both Naruto and the whole alliance), but still, the communication between her and Naruto is considerably small when compared to the other pairings (we could argue that NaruHina has more interactions than SasuSaku, but that's also debatable).
Now, when looking at their future, keep in mind these questions:
-How much do they know about each other?
-Are they willing to correct each other's mistakes when necessary?
-Can we safely say that they both know each other's virtues and flaws?
-Have they demonstrated that they are willing to work for the other person's happiness?
Let's see what some Naruto fans have to say about this:
-"I think Hinata is to submissive with Naruto; and I think Hinata is more in love with Naruto's ninja-way than Naruto himself." (sushi)
-"Still because of her shyness and her lack of pushing her love for him, it might be the reason why NaruHina never came to pass. Her shyness is probably what might have killed it to begin with. The ultimate question being If she loves him, why wasn't she there when he needed someone? Well, because she wasn't there is why nothing ever grew from it. You have to plant the seeds before you can grow a forest and sadly, Hinata missed her chances." (James)
Overall, even though it may seem at first that they could be a good couple, they would need a considerable period to get to know each other and to improve their communication before they could actually consider the concept of becoming a couple (keep in mind that I'm speaking as if it would happen in real life, since the manga is on a high speed course towards the end and, unless a huge time-leap, long explanation occurs, the chances for NaruHina happening considering all these aspects are low).
B-SasuSaku: Here we have the lone wolf of the Uchiha clan and a "common girl" who initially just liked Sasuke out of admiration. Now, let's see what do we know about these two:
Sasuke Uchiha: Sasuke displayed great indifference to his team-mates as well as others. Feeling superior to all of them, including his teacher, Sasuke was unwilling to cooperate with any of his team-mates, as he felt they would provide him no aid in furthering his ambition to kill his brother; this attitude affected his grades in the Academy after losing his clan, he had the lowest score in cooperation and second lowest in assertiveness. We also noticed his development in part two, where he went from indifferent to cruel and ruthless, leaving his teammates behind, stabbing Karin to kill Danzo and attempting to murder Sakura twice (despite the fact that she confessed to him at the end of part one, only to be left with an ambiguous answer). And although there has been a bit of a change into somewhat of his former self during these lasts chapters, we still see that he is uninterested in what his teammates think of him and he is still uncooperative (as shown when he was willing to let the Ten-tails burn down, even if it meant killing the other Bijuu in the process).
Sakura Haruno: In the beginning of Part I, Sakura was self-centered, vain and was solely focused on herself and developing a relationship with Sasuke Uchiha. Due to this, Naruto's advances and attempts to gain her attention as well as his antics would generally irk her as she saw them as nothing more than childish and foolish. Sasuke pointed out that because Sakura had not experience loss in her life, she could not understand Naruto nor him, prompting Sakura to start looking at things from Naruto's perspective in an attempt to understand her team-mate. This caused them to develop a mutual friendship which endured even when Naruto had left the village for two years. In Part II, Sakura becomes more mature and less self-centered. At her core, Sakura is strong-willed, determined, and courageous, Her courage, along with her care and understanding of Naruto appeared to have increased during the Fourth Shinobi World War, where she raised the morale of the Shinobi Alliance while healing Naruto by telling them that he was protecting them because he saw them all as his comrades.
Well then, here we have a guy who is centered on his own goals and a girl who, although she was shallow at first, she began to develop true feelings towards both Sasuke and Naruto (and by feelings, I mane natural care for them). This doesn't sound good for a healthy couple, right? But eve so, let's be fair and dig into the characteristics:
1-Trust - Does Sasuke trusts Sakura? I can safely say that, although it may have seem like it in part one, we noticed that in part two he asked for proof (asking Sakura to kill Karin) and he attempted to murder her twice. Keep in mind that he has not apologized to her for this. So well... not a god start here.
Does Sakura trusts Sasuke? Well... 635 pretty much answers this question, so I don't think there's much to discuss here.
2-Care - Does Sakura cares for Sasuke? Well, we can't really debate that. We've seen thhrough the course of the manga what she's willing to do for him; even goign as far as to try to kill him to "save him from his path of darkness"; though of course, we also know that she was doing this while thinking of Naruto.
Does Sasuke cares for Sakura? Well, he tried to kill her and has not apologized. Though of course, we can argue that he did defend her from the Bijuu clones. But apart from that... not much, really.
3-Respect - Umm.... I feel bad when trying to find good points for this couple because the fact that they tried to kill each other pretty much nullifies that they respect each other.
4-Knowledge - Well, they both had a considerable amount of knowledge of each other through part one during the Team 7 days. I could say that Sakura knew a bit more about Sasuke than what Sasuke knew about Sakura, but well... In any case, there is knowledge between then, though not enough to guarantee that they would make a good couple.
5-Communication - And well, apart from some Team 7 moments, there hasn't been much communication between Sakura and Sasuke. We can pretty much blame this on Sasuke because he left everyone in his quest for power.
So again, when looking at their future, keep in mind these questions:
-How much do they know about each other?
-Are they willing to correct each other's mistakes when necessary?
-Can we safely say that they both know each other's virtues and flaws?
-Have they demonstrated that they are willing to work for the other person's happiness?
At first I believed that SasuSaku had a bit more chances than NaruHina, but after the events where they tried to kill each other, things have gone downhill even though chapter 540 has been a point of hope/debate. But with 573/631/635 after this.. well... things do not look good for Sasuke and Sakura to work as a healthy couple.
And last, but not least, let's look at the third and less popular pairing:
C-NaruSaku: We already saw how both Naruto and Sakura are, but let's bring them up in order to keep a detailed list in each analysis:
Naruto Uzumaki - Exuberant, brash, inattentive, and heedless to formality or social standings, relatively naive, simple, and being slow to understand a principle or situation. However, during the course of the manga, he has shown improvement over many of these characteristics. When Naruto makes a promise, he assumes the "nice guy pose" and becomes dedicated to fulfilling it. When Sasuke defected from Konoha, Naruto made a "promise of a lifetime" to Sakura to bring him back, using the "nice guy pose". He shares many other qualities, but this just a brief summary.
Sakura Haruno: In the beginning of Part I, Sakura was self-centered, vain and was solely focused on herself and developing a relationship with Sasuke Uchiha. Due to this, Naruto's advances and attempts to gain her attention as well as his antics would generally irk her as she saw them as nothing more than childish and foolish. Sasuke pointed out that because Sakura had not experience loss in her life, she could not understand Naruto nor him, prompting Sakura to start looking at things from Naruto's perspective in an attempt to understand her team-mate. This caused them to develop a mutual friendship which endured even when Naruto had left the village for two years. In Part II, Sakura becomes more mature and less self-centered. At her core, Sakura is strong-willed, determined, and courageous, Her courage, along with her care and understanding of Naruto appeared to have increased during the Fourth Shinobi World War, where she raised the morale of the Shinobi Alliance while healing Naruto by telling them that he was protecting them because he saw them all as his comrades.
Now then, we have here the main character and his love interest. But let's talk about them as individuals. We have the Heaven and Earth comparison, where Naruto needs to work on what Sakura handles best and vice-versa. We also have also two friends who, apart from sharing common goals, also have similar characteristics (like their strong will and unwillingness to give up). And of course, we have the two friends who are willing to go the extra mile to help the other one. But let's dig into the qualities, shall we?
1-Trust - Does Naruto trusts Sakura? And does Sakura trusts Naruto? We've seen throughout the course of the manga how they work as teammates and a friends. We've also noticed how they are both confident in the other person's abilities and how they are pretty much assertive towards each other. They time they have spent together has led them to a very close friendship with mutual trust.
2-Care - Does Naruto care for Sakura? Does Sakura care for Naruto? Well, I can summarize this in two points: POAL and Sakura's confession. These two show the lengths each one of them are willing to go for the other one. And before the POAL is dismissed as something that happened in part one, we have to keep in mind Naruto's words to Sai on the question about Naruto confessing to Sakura. We also have the many times where they cheered each other up in both part one and part two and the many events which have led them to develop a genuine concern for each other.
3-Respect - Wether its in comedic fashion, on teamwork, on trust in the other person's abilities, and on overall admiration for the other, it is clear that Naruto and Sakura respect each other. We can also see that, although it may borderline in stubborness, they actually respect each other's decisions regarding topics like keeping secrets and love in itself.
4-Knowledge - Well, again, through the course of the manga, both of them have learned quite a great deal about each other. They know their virtues and flaws and they can recognize when the other person has something they need to correct. In fact, they are so assertive towards each other they they can pretty much discern the other person's intentions with the use or a few words or simply with the exchange of eye gestures.
5-Communication - Finally, the final aspect for a relationship to work. We've seen again that the manga has shown us how much Naruto and Sakura communicate with each other. From mild things to serious topics, they usually find themselves talking and exchanging words. They have shared both good moments and bad moments and they have also improved their communication even in the battlefield, up to the point where the other person doesn't need to say if they agree or not because they trust in what the other person's saying. In fact, we have seen that Sakura has even flirted with Naruto. And to do this, you must obviously have a good communication with them to the point of trusting them.
And with all this information, the questions arise:
-How much do they know about each other?
-Are they willing to correct each other's mistakes when necessary?
-Can we safely say that they both know each other's virtues and flaws?
-Have they demonstrated that they are willing to work for the other person's happiness?
Even though it may not be the most popular pairing, when we see the relationship between Naruto and Sakura under this light, along with the information provided in the manga, we can say that they have a very good chance of having their relationship work out. Considering how their friendship has developed through the course of the years, the desire to make the other person happy and the genuine care and concern for each other, if Naruto and Sakura were to get into a relationship, they have very good chances of making their relationship work.
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So there you have it folks. Again, this is something that I wanted to do for quite a while, but I want this to be displayed in a good light, with no bashing and with a good, constructive criticism about each analysis. So if there's anything that could be considered as such, I would appreciate that you inform me about it (It's 1:21 am here, so chances are that I may have not been as clear as I should in some points and of course, there is always a small margin of biased comments in things we write). So of course, comments and tips are more than welcome, since this is only a theory and as such, there is always something to work on.
Edited by Shadow Wolf, 23 July 2013 - 05:36 AM.
