naruto uzumaki doesn’t really understand love? a few times we are shown otherwise
another attempt of rewriting my own post that is lost forever under a read more. so let’s see if naruto uzumaki is really the type of character who doesn’t understand love, as a few people claim he is. i will not put this under a read more and risk to losing it, so it will be a long post.
land of waves arc delivers such a good and clear storytelling, not only for the arc itself, but it sets the tone for the rest of the manga, many important messages have its roots in land of waves and it’s unfortunate that the manga didn’t keep this arc’s level of quality, but anyway.
the reason why land of waves is so impactful it’s because it not only questions what it is to be a ninja, but how and why you do it, and most importantly, is it possible to do it without losing yourself, your values, your heart?
in this arc’s storytelling, through mostly haku’s speech, but also naruto’s thoughts, the manga tells us that you are able to become a strong ninja when you have precious people, people you care about and want to protect.
naruto is not only able to understand what haku tells him, but also he can apply that to other people and, more importantly, to himself. land of waves establishes that iruka is a precious person to naruto and naruto is able to see that.
and what is interesting is that haku doesn’t necessarily uses the word love, but the way he describes how you feel towards a “precious person”, it doesn’t take a genius to understand it either.
and then again we have naruto being able to connect such a special feeling with iruka. that should be enough to show that he understands the feeling, but naruto goes beyond that.
this translation isn’t quite accurate, because the word naruto uses in the first panel isn’t mere “care about”, it denotes feelings of affection. when haku dies, naruto calls zabuza out for seeming heartless towards it and he describes the same feelings haku has described to him, he is able to see devotion, he is able to see self sacrifice, he is able to see and tell that haku loved zabuza. and his speech is enough to make zabuza cry.
so what we can take out of land of waves, at mere first glance, is that naruto is able to see love, not only when it comes to other people, but to his own reality, and he is even able to touch people with his understanding. on a deeper look, considering the entirety of the manga as well, naruto is able to link devotion, self sacrifice, desire to protect and become stronger for someone to love, but i will mention this later again.
2. sakura’s fake confession
in sakura’s fake confession, naruto looks stunned for only a brief moment, but he doesn’t buy it and right away starts questioning her. he understands that for someone who “loved” sasuke for so long, it doesn’t make any sense that she suddenly just started to like him. sakura’s confession mostly annoys naruto and he can quickly tell that she’s lying.
as if that’s not enough, in this confession sakura basically inflames all of naruto’s insecurities, by saying she likes him because she was able to see how he has grown to be a hero. in her speech, she puts herself in the same position as the other konoha citizens (“right now everyone loves you, i am simply one of them”). but in the following arc, this is shown to be badly received by naruto through the manifestation of his dark self. naruto resents this type of demonstration because he knows it isn’t genuine. in land of waves, naruto refuses to become a tool, and later we see that he kept this idea within him. it’s not meaningful to be loved only after he’s proved to be “useful” to the village.
and besides all that, when sakura brings that sasuke is a criminal, when everybody brings sasuke’s hatred on the table, naruto talks about the deep love sasuke felt for his family and why it’s so hard to forgive those who took that away from him.
what he can take out of sakura’s confession is that naruto is not only able to understand what love is, but he surely knows what love isn’t, and in this case, it’s specifically romantic love. later with dark naruto, we are also able to see that naruto is aware that the love people feel for him for being a hero isn’t genuine, and it sickens him.
3. when he meets his mother
another thing people say to discredit naruto’s emotional intelligence is that he can’t understand love because he grew up with none. that couldn’t be any further from the truth. naruto’s meeting with his mother is pretty self explanatory.
kushina just tells naruto right away that she loves him, and this is his cute reaction.
not only that, but he feels calm and happy. naruto grew up desperate for bonds, yet with dark naruto, we see that he distrusts people who don’t love him genuinely, that clearly isn’t the case with his mother. even though he grew up without her love, he is able to recognise it as soon as she tells him, and it makes him calm and happy, as if that desperation is immediately filled.
i guess it is pretty self explanatory, he had doubts but he knows now, he can tell he has always been loved, and again we see naruto taking the notion that love is self sacrificial.
like i said before, land of waves is the origin of many important messages of the manga. what haku says about “precious people” also applies to sasuke. in many instances, naruto makes sure to put sasuke and iruka in this same special group of people that were able to change his heart… because they showed love for him first. when i say land of waves sets the tone of the manga, it’s because the same way naruto calls zabuza out for seeming heartless, he refuses to act the same towards sasuke. so much of what he sees in haku is applied to how he feels towards sasuke, the devotion, the desire to protect and become stronger for that person, the self sacrifice (that is also learned from iruka and his parents), and naruto understood that that was love, it is established in land of waves that naruto understands those notions and that they are linked to love. it is established that naruto understands sasuke feels the same. even though naruto doesn’t immediately understands it, even though he says he can’t exactly put it into words, how he feels about sasuke, he is able to describe it. not being able to put a name to it isn’t the same as not understanding, and the narrative and storytelling has shown us what it is.
does he have to repeat himself? do you still not understand it? it’s almost like he is speaking to the audience.
and these are just a few instances, there are many more showing naruto isn’t emotionally inept, he is actually complex and displays a lot of emotional intelligence. it’s disrespectful to his character to say he doesn’t understand or doesn’t know what love is, that’s not what the writing shows us. if you need to believe a movie that contradicts what was written in the manga because the manga didn’t give you the love story you wanted, if you need to butcher naruto’s character like that in order to defend a ship, maybe the problem isn’t with naruto and his understanding of love, but with the ship that can’t rely on his very evident understanding. let’s not simplify a beloved character like naruto that way.
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