Sasuke's feelings for Sakura
As we all know, the Naruto fandom has been a mess since the final two chapters were released last week. Some people love the ending, some are indifferent/neutral, and some hate it. You can’t please everyone, and I’ve seen many people attacking SasuSaku, wondering how the pairing happened when Sasuke “never cared about Sakura” or was “abusive”.
These people fail to understand Sasuke’s character. And that’s what it comes down to, because Sakura has always and will always love Sasuke romantically. Of course people are bashing her too, but that’s for another post. Right now, we are talking about Sasuke. I don’t want to make this too long, so I’ll try and sum it up as best as I can.
Argument: “Sasuke has never cared for Sakura/does not love her, it doesn’t make sense he ends up with her”.
Really? Allow me to show you panels from part one, you know, before Sasuke fell into the darkness. I took many of these from une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir’s SasuSaku moments master post (thank you my friend, I hope you don’t mind!)
The panels below depict moments where Sasuke has either saved Sakura, noticed something about her, shown concern, or cared. There are also moments that showcase Sakura affecting Sasuke in more ways than one.
It's clear from these moments that Sasuke held a soft spot for her before he left the village in part one. As Databook two states, the one who filled Sasuke’s lonely existence with the emotion called love was Sakura. It states, he could not let her in, and that is due to his ambitions. Therefore, he could only leave with a word of thanks.
I also believe that Naruto himself noticed Sasuke’s feelings during the hospital scene, and when they were fighting Gaara. Hence the “Sasuke… you…”
Argument: “Sasuke tried to kill Sakura!”
Sasuke tried to kill Naruto too, but I don’t see SasuNaru getting shit on as much as SasuSaku does. I also don’t see Naruto himself getting shit on for forgiving Sasuke/accepting his apology, yet Sakura is the worst character ever for doing the exact same thing.
And here comes the part about understanding Sasuke’s character again. He tried to cut away every bond he had, especially the ones closest to him. Sasuke outright says this himself; admitting Team 7 became his family. Once he started to get out of his funk, Sasuke started working with Team 7 again, which ultimately lead him to realizing he was wrong. He apologizes to Sakura.
The scenes above depict Sasuke working with Sakura, and Sakura affecting him in part two when he is not bat shit crazy nuts he is starting his real redemption.
You mean to tell me that two instances where Sasuke tried to kill Sakura and a genjutsu when he's insane not in his right mind, cancels out all the times (as you can see from all these panels, there’s a crap load) he has shown care for her when he IS in his right mind/normal in this fictional manga? Where it’s all about people accepting other other people? Congrats, you failed to understand the manga.
It’s also not a coincidence that Kishi did this:
Sasuke remembers. He always did. Sakura’s second confession made him shake; there’s a panel of his feet shaking before he calls her annoying (direct parallel to 181). The last two instances aren’t supposed to be negative. They are call backs. Sasuke is smirking.
Coincidence that every Team 7 reunion starts with Sasuke saying Sakura’s name? No, Kishimoto did this on purpose.
Sasuke could not reciprocate Sakura’s feelings in part one due to his ambitions. He even tries to apply “logic” via this scene:
Sasuke does not say he has no interest in Sakura. I have no idea where Mangapanda got that. In the RAW, all he tries to apply is “reason”. His own logic that he thinks is right. In other words, no matter how he feels (like or not), there is no reason for them to like each other. This was his mindset before he is fully redeemed.
Once redeemed, we get his apology and the forehead poke. This is significant because Sasuke is not one to apologize so sincerely, yet you can tell from his eyes and words he truly means it. The forehead poke brought everything full circle, because not only is it a very emotional gesture Sasuke shared with his brother, Sakura always had an insecurity due to her large forehead ever since part one. We also don’t get to see Sasuke’s eyes as he thanks Sakura (again), yet she is able to see them. Judging by her reaction, he gives her a positive response. "Thank you" is another way of Sasuke showing affection to Sakura.
~
tl;dr: Sasuke has always had a soft spot for Sakura; he cared for her in part one and only tried to kill her (along with Naruto) because he fell into darkness and tried to cut away his bonds. When starting his redemption process, Sasuke starts to help Sakura and became affected by her again. They end up together because Sasuke is finally able to let her in/accept his feelings for her that have been growing since part one.
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