another overanalyzation haha;))
Naruto is a huge fandom and the shipping ratio is probably just a teeny tiny fraction that could easily go ignored. Naruto has 700 episodes, ovas, movies, fillers, spin-offs, cd dramas, all filled to the brim with inconsistencies. Everything from the plot, to the bonds made, to the government, is studded with flaws. It has so many writers and editors and animators projecting on it, that at this point you could literally hate/love/ship any character and be justified in your actions. It's your own interpretation of a massive piece of art that was constructed from the collective efforts of thousands of people and we're prone to have disagreements.
One thing that we can all agree on, I think, is the bond between Naruto and Sasuke and how deep it runs. It doesn't matter if you think it's brotherly (which is kinda totally not true btw) or romantic or even a QPR. Without Naruto, Sasuke would have spiralled down his hatred and eventually ended up killing himself or have become the tyrannical yet lonely ruler of the world or smn. Without Sasuke, Naruto would not have his fighting spirit and he would have never gotten strong enough to become the Hokage because he lacked competition or someone to fight for. He would've just been the loser who used to yell about becoming Hokage but was never powerful enough to make it. At that point, neither Sakura nor Hinata would've been able to save them. Their bond is the one thing that Kishimoto genuinely enjoyed writing and additionally, wrote without any inconsistencies.
I feel sorry for ss fans or nh fans (i was almost an nh fan), in the most nicest way possible, because even when their ships are canon, those bonds don't run as deep as sns bond (with respect to every piece of official content we have). Naruto was never meant to be a romance but sns bond runs deeper than romance itself, cliche as that sounds. It tells you "here, a reason to live - your bond with another human". Romance was something that Kishimoto didn't put much effort into and that's why all the canon ships in Naruto feel so awkward to watch. Honestly, imagine being a girl and dating either Naruto or Sasuke. You would never be either of their priorities because for Naruto, Konoha and Sasuke are important. For Sasuke, his brooding and Naruto are important. Your goals and your emotions and your personality would disappear behind their overbearing personalities. SP did all of them wrong, especially the women. The way they draw the expressions, create the scenes and barely show any proper interaction between the canon ships, kinda hurts me too. The sheer unexploited potential from every single ship - straight or homosexual - is leaving us all unsatisfied and consequently pitting us up against each other :(
Point is, as a naruto fan, if you find things that you don't like, whether it's in the series or amongst fandom content, try ignoring it. Don't take it so seriously, because everyone has a different take. When you ship something, you're shipping it because your shipping it, you're romanticizing romance. It doesn't matter whether you're shipping sns, ss or nh or even ns actually - it also had quite a bit of potential - (other than those which are pedophilic and creepy), you are a shipper. If you'd prefer something in which your ships are actually canon and have valid screentime, try watching romance anime, stop suffering here with us Naruto fans who ignore canon on a daily basis :")
Because at the end of the day, we're all trash.
For our romances and for our pretty cartoon men, women and non-binary characters.
