My (terrible, no good, very bad) NARUTO headcanons
These are mostly my thoughts after reading Gaiden. And I can tell you that you’re not going to like them no matter whom you ship or who your favourite character in the series is.
Naruto has been never interested in Sakura romantically. He wanted to be her friend, and he admired her hard work and the fact that she was a great student despite not being from a shinobi clan. But because he had no one to show him how to befriend the opposite sex, he took cues from the (terrible) romantic script from whatever media he had been consuming and executed them badly. (Not saying that the media dictates what we do, but it probably influences neglected children more than any other group because that’s going to be their primary way of understanding human interactions.)
Naruto hadn’t been interested in Sasuke beyond their rivalry when he was young. That’s why there’s an inconsistency between the apathy Naruto showed towards Sasuke at the very beginning and how he talked about it later. The way he tells it actually fits with how people who have known each other for a long time and are deeply in love talk about their past -- as if they have had this intense emotional connection right from the beginning even though they didn’t.
Sasuke, on the other hand, shows attentiveness right from the start. He’s actually the one who got interested first but he was unable to process the emotion due to his childhood upbringing, trauma, and his focus on revenge.
Even though Naruto and Sasuke end up in love with each other, they cannot be together, at least not as young adults. Sasuke’s too traumatized to love properly, and Naruto doesn’t understand how to care for a person who’s damaged and in pain in front of him instead of being a tragic figure he pines for at a distance. If they were to get together at that age, it would become a destructive relationship that destroyed both of them.
Not to mention that Naruto hasn’t quite fully formed his bi identity yet. Konoha seems very conservative about the expression of gender and sexuality. Jiraiya, the closest thing Naruto has to a consistent father figure, seems to fit the macho heteronormative idea of a guy to the tee. And since Naruto has terrible responses to Sai’s (unintentionally/jokingly) coming on to him but hadn’t been bothered by Haku, I can only conclude that Jiraiya had been a bad influence on that. There’s a possibility that at that age, Naruto has internalized the disapproval from his father figure and so never explores his feeling for Sasuke as deeply as he should have.
Naruto ends up with Hinata because she is safe. She is stable. She is available. She is a woman, which means Naruto knows how their relationship should go. She is patient with him and, sadly, also let him walk all over her more than she should. He does have feelings for her, which was born from friendship and familiarity, but it’s much paler than what he has for Sasuke.
Hinata has never been a stalker. F-U, Studio Pierrot.
Hinata knows about Naruto’s feelings for Sasuke. She accepts the fact that he is going to prioritize Konoha and Sasuke over her. It’s a result of her being treated as second best all her life. She might not have endured physical abuses, but the persistent putdowns mean she is aching for some kind of acceptance, and that’s pretty much the reason she is drawn to him in the first place. So, she’s willing to have this pale love than no love at all.
So, no, Naruto and Hinata’s relationship isn’t exactly healthy. It’s badly damaged and only exists because they both are damaged by the people who should have loved them. But since it’s better than what both of them have had, they stay together at least for the time being.
I really want someone to come along and show Hinata how being loved and respected properly actually looks like. I want her to not be treated as second best for a change.
Sakura and Sasuke’s marriage wasn’t actually born of romantic love but a deal Sasuke made with her. Sasuke wanted an heir to continue his bloodline, and so he asked the woman he trusts most to carry the child. Sakura’s status as his wife makes Sarada the legitimate heir and allows Sakura to be the primary caretaker of their daughter and his estate while Sasuke does pretty much fuck-all.
The proposal might have been a response to Naruto getting married. I couldn’t imagine how it would have felt like for Sasuke to watch that happen since he’s the more self-aware of the two.
I’m not saying that Sasuke took advantage of Sakura’s affection for him or her taking advantage of his need to her end. I think Sakura feels for Sasuke more like a family by the end of the War, and because of that, she feels for his loneliness and wants to help him build something for himself. Of course, she totally miscalculated how much Sasuke’s still a prick and how that decision is going to end up derailing the rest of her life.
Tsunade and Shizune suspected something was up when Sakura told them she was going to get married, but Sakura never told them anything.
Karin is the only other person who knows Sakura worked out a deal with Sasuke and supports her and Sarada where she can because she knows Sasuke makes for a shitty husband, even a mostly pretended one.
Sakura might have tried to have it all at first, but the reality of single-motherhood probably gets to her. Juggling that with working as a regular doctor at the hospital is probably too much for her health, so she chooses her daughter and becomes a stay-at-home mom. Sasuke’s inheritance is more than enough to keep the family going anyway if she spends them well.
Sakura still complains about her life choices every time Karin comes by for a drink. Except for Sarada. She regrets nothing about Sarada.
Sakura tries her best to keep Sarada from learning about the deal and tries to put up a charade of a romantic relationship in front of their daughter. Sasuke, of course, doesn’t understand this since he doesn’t subscribe to the same idea of family as Sakura or Sarada.
Naruto couldn’t have been a good father. He only knows how not to be abusive but in no way does he know how to connect to and treat children well. This is because he didn’t have consistent role models as a child, especially one who doesn’t also treat him as a shinobi. He was probably an okay dad when his children are young, but as he gets busier and they grow older, his prioritization becomes horribly off and he sees them more as shinobi just as everyone else has seen him. That’s why he asks them to tolerate his absence for the greater good instead of making rooms for them in his increasingly crazy life.
