Originally posted on Wordpress in August 2022.
Naruto and Sakura's obsession with bringing Sasuke back is stupid; no need to beat around the bush. They were never close friends with him no matter how the story likes to pretend otherwise. But there is some justification in Naruto caring about him; Naruto's whole shtick is that he was a lonely kid with no friends, and Sasuke was among the first to acknowledge his existence. Having not grown up with a family, he sees Sasuke as the brother he never had. Makes sense; Naruto is just a stupid kid with a warped view of friendship. It's Sakura caring so much for Sasuke that's utterly stupid. Unlike Naruto, she didn't have any sort of traumatic life growing up, and no, getting bullied as a kid for the size of her forehead is no real trauma, especially when so many other characters grow up as literal orphans who see their loved ones get killed or find their corpses as children. Naruto cares so much about Sasuke because he was one of the first people to acknowledge his existence. Sakura cares so much about Sasuke because ... she thought he was cool. That's all there is to it. It's a glorified middle school crush that turns into an unhealthy obsession. And no matter how the story tries to pretend otherwise, they never became close during their time in Team 7.
When they're first put into a team at the start of the story, Sasuke tells Sakura off for being annoying and misunderstanding of an orphan's problems. He opens up to her a small bit when he drops hints that someone was crying the night his clan was killed, but that wasn't to become closer to her; he was just frustrated at the thought of failing the bell test when she brings up that they don't have much time left, so he explained why he can't fail. They pass and go on worthless off-screen missions that they don't bring the team closer at all; Sasuke just wants to hurry and do something challenging. For the entirety of the Zabuza arc, their relationship sees no real progress at all; it's only Naruto and Sasuke's bond that receives any development. Kishimoto wrote Sakura off by making her the first one to master the tree climbing exercise; the whole time Naruto and Sasuke were training their butts off in the forest together, Sakura was away with Tazuna. And the whole time Naruto and Sasuke are fighting Zabuza and Haku, Sakura is left behind to "guard" Tazuna, and by guard, that just means stay behind and do nothing. After the Zabuza arc, Team 7 goes on more worthless off-screen missions and as Kakashi notes, none of them were getting along or working together as a team. Sakura asks Sasuke if he wants to hang out, and he tells her off again, even calling her the most worthless member on their team. Seriously, it's fucking bullshit that the Sasuke Rescue arc wants to pretend that these off-screen missions brought them closer together, because the story shows the literal opposite. None of them were getting along.
When they prepare to enter the Chunin Exam, Sasuke notices her upset and cheers her up by praising her ability to easily see through illusions. This is a kind gesture on his part, but one compliment doesn't make them close buddies and it's pretty clear that he only took pity on her sulking. Just stop and think, if Sasuke truly was impressed with any of her skills, then where was any of that respect when she asked him if they wanted to hang out? Why would he tell her off for being unskilled and useless instead? He only changed his tune after he saw her moping, because he took pity on her; otherwise, he'd have praised her earlier instead of belittling her. It's not even like he just discovered Sakura had a knack for telling illusions, as he already knew Sakura saw through the illusion at the entrance without her saying so. The reason he didn't praise her earlier is because just being able to see through illusions isn't that impressive; such a miniscule skill doesn't stop Sakura from being a trash ninja, as many characters including herself, Sasuke, Dosu, Zaku, Kin, Asuma, Shikamaru, etc point out. It's not even like the illusions Sakura can see through are advanced. Let's face it, unless you can see through illusions cast by Sharingan, then fuck your illusion seeing "skills".
So, the exams start, they enter the Forest of Death and only then do they start risking their lives to protect each other. But to say that she truly fell in love with Sasuke here because they were protecting each other is stupid; other people like Naruto and Lee were protecting her as well, and she was protecting them. Despite that, she was never in love with either of them, so obviously that is not the key to Sakura's heart; neither protecting her nor getting protected by her will make her love you. The only reason she was in love with Sasuke is because she thought he was cool. Them protecting each other may have strengthened her feelings for him, as would his pitiful compliment about her ability to tell illusions, but none of it would have meant anything at all if she didn't already like him for being cool beforehand. She was head-over-heels for him right from the beginning; she even flashbacks to their academy days as little kids when she tries and fails to kill him in the Kage Summit arc. We also see her genuinely break down upon finding what looked like his corpse in the Zabuza arc, and tearfully embracing him when he wakes up alive; this is before the Chunin Exam arc. The Forest of Death didn't start shit; Sakura was always in love with this emo loser. Why? Because she thought he was cool. That's all there is to it. If she didn't think he was cool in the first place, then she would have never been in love with him at all. That's why her being in love with him is stupid; it's a glorified schoolgirl crush.
As for Sasuke, he saw Sakura as nothing more than a nuisance before the Chunin Exam, and cheering her up once doesn't make them close. He might have begun caring more about her when he was protecting her in the Forest of Death, and later on against Gaara, but just growing a soft spot for someone you protect doesn't actually make you friends with them, and it certainly doesn't mean you're in love with them. Some people say he was pissed off when he found her beaten up by Orochimaru's Sound goons, but he was really just high off the power from the Curse Mark and wanted an excuse to beat someone up. It was the Curse Mark that was affecting his emotions; he wouldn't have gone on a rampage just from seeing Sakura hurt if he were his usual self, which is the entire reason Sakura is upset to see him like this. He wasn't being himself, and that was all due to the mark. Furthermore, most people would be upset to find a teammate beaten up, especially in an exam where them dying would result in your failure; that doesn't make you close friends with them. And it's not like the Sound goons were only after Sakura; they were mainly trying to kill him, which angered him.
It is true that Sakura was able to bring him back to his senses when she hugs him and begs for him to stop, which is proof that he cared for her to some extent. But all this amounts to is just him having a soft spot for her, which doesn't actually suggest any actual friendship; in Sasuke's mind, Sakura is just this fragile, weak girl who can't defend herself and is easily scared. He didn't want to scare her further because he took pity on her being a crybaby. It's not even like he was really doing anything wrong here, anyway; the Sound fodder he was fighting deserved to get their asses beaten, and I mean badly because they were scum. We even saw that Dosu and Zaku were willing to kill Kin, their own teammate. Suddenly being embraced by an acquaintance who is crying like a bitch and begging for you not to beat the shit out of someone else would make most people change their minds about beating someone up; the resulting awkwardness would kill the mood. Just someone stops you from killing doesn't mean they're your friend.
And when Sakura shows concern over his Curse Mark and tearfully begs him to drop out from the exam when they enter the preliminaries, he's back to telling her off because he wants to stay and fight strong people; however Sasuke may care for Sakura, his quest for power is more important to him. Their whole dynamic is just that Sakura is an annoying crybaby who never stops worrying about him and he only ever puts up with her because they're teammates and he pities her; nonetheless, he still considers someone who holds him back, which is why he tells her off, and why he eventually abandons her. More than anything else, Sasuke cares about becoming strong so he can kill Itachi; if he respects anyone, it's only those he considers strong like Naruto, Neji, Lee, Gaara, Haku, Kakashi, Guy, etc. Sakura, on the other hand, is not someone he truly respects; he looks down at her for being weak and not understanding any of the pain he's been through. He only feels morally obligated to protect her and occasionally be kind because they're teammates; looking out for a weaker teammate and taking pity on them because you don't want to sadden or scare them does not make you friends with them.
Then, after the prelims, Sasuke and Sakura don't see each other for a whole month as he's busy training for the finals. Then, the fight with Gaara; Sasuke says here that he considers Naruto and Sakura to be his precious comrades, even likening them to his own family ... you know, the family that Itachi killed, but LMAO it's a bullshit scene because Sasuke did not actually see them like his real family AT ALL; people don't become your "family" just because they're on the same team as you for a little while (literally less than a year), especially when you're choosing to keep away from them and not open up to them the way real friends do. He cares about avenging his dead family and clan more than anything else; Team 7 could never replace them. They only risk their lives to protect each other because that's their duty as Leaf ninja; they're still not anything close to a real family. Sasuke considers them his "precious comrades" in the sense that they're his teammates and fellow ninja of the same village, but they are not his family, nor are they much of actual friends if at all. Ninja of the same allegiance protect and die for each other simply because that is their code; that doesn't make them family, that doesn't make them lovers and that doesn't make them actual friends. They are just soldiers who are trained to protect each other for the sake of their village.
Of course, being an orphan whose family was slaughtered, it would have made some sense for Sasuke to try compensating for his loss and look for family in his teammates as a way to cope with his trauma, but if that was how he felt the whole time, then the story did a piss poor of showing it, because we don't hear a word about Sasuke saying, "You guys are my precious comrades who are like my family" until the fight with Gaara. He bonded with Naruto a little bit when they trained together and eventually acknowledged his strength, and he took pity on Sakura a few times when he saw her upset; everything else was just him being annoyed with his teammates, or just typical soldier behavior of protecting each other for a common cause. And furthermore, trying to compensate for a loss by trying to find what you lost in other people as a way to deal with the trauma is an ultimately futile practice; it's looked down upon because it suggests you have a mental illness as you're scarred and you're expected to eventually accept what you lost and move on. You can't replace what you lost; you're supposed to move on by making new bonds. That's what Sasuke should have done after he lost his family, but he didn't and the story failed to show that he had any real friendship with his teammates. Sasuke seeing his relationship with Naruto and Sakura as more than it really was because he's mentally scarred doesn't make them actual friends, anyway; they were really just acquaintances at the very most.
There are also some people who say that Sasuke was jealous over Sakura's reaction when she found out that Naruto was the one who saved her from Gaara, but this is false as he didn't have any reaction to it and he wasn't even the one having a flashback to when he told Sakura; if you actually pay attention to that chapter, you would see that Sakura was the one having the flashback to when Sasuke told her. When the scene cuts to Sasuke training, we see that he's not thinking about Sakura at all; he's just thinking about how Naruto could beat Gaara when he couldn't, and how much stronger Naruto has gotten. If he's mad when he tells Sakura, it's only because he's angry that Naruto is stronger than him; talking about that to anyone will make him mad. Sakura's happiness isn't on his mind; he's just jealous that Naruto is stronger than him. Hell, Sakura was rarely ever on his mind to begin with; Sasuke only really cared about becoming stronger, and as such, never had any time to actually bond with Sakura. You would think that they'd actually be seen hanging out together outside of missions if they were real friends; grab a bite and train together, but Sasuke was only ever focused on himself. After the fight with Gaara, this hasn't changed; he's just now insecure over being weaker than Naruto.
Then, Sasuke gets beaten up and mind broken by his older brother Itachi; although Sakura repeatedly visits him in the hospital, they don't interact because he's in a coma. That means no progress in their relationship. Anyway, Sasuke wakes up when Tsunade heals him sometime later, and he's right back to treating his teammates like trash. He fights Naruto and gets tied up by Kakashi as punishment; it's again said that Naruto and Sakura are his close friends, but again, it falls flat because we've never seen them bond like real friends do. Furthermore, it only took a little convincing from the Sound Four for him to leave them altogether; wow, so much for that "friendship" and "family", huh? Before he goes, Sakura stops him and pours her heart out, begging for him to stay. While Sasuke is flattered to hear that someone cares this much for him, even thanking her at the end, he does not reciprocate any of her feelings. The fact he explicitly tells her that his business has nothing to do with her and that Sakura brings up how he never opens up to tell her anything is all the proof needed to show that they weren't really friends. Real friends open to each other; Sasuke never really did that with Naruto or Sakura, because he always kept to himself like the antisocial loner he is. An antisocial loner who never tells you anything is barely your friend, if at all.
That's why it's so pathetic to see Sakura pour her heart for a guy she barely even knows. She claims that despite having friends and family, she will be lonely if Sasuke leaves her. But how can a person be lonely if they have friends and family who care about them? Because they don't have the person they love? But that begs the question of why Sakura is in love with Sasuke to begin with. We know she wouldn't be bawling like this if it were Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Lee or anyone else leaving in the place of Sasuke, because Sasuke is the only person she loves. Why does she love him? Because she thought he was cool and that's all there is to it. Literally without her thinking he was cool before they became teammates, she would have never been in love with him and this whole scene wouldn't be happening. That is precisely why Sakura's feelings for Sasuke are stupid. Tons of girls thought Sasuke was cool and wanted him; Sakura was no different from them, and only lucked out by being placed on the same team as him. If it were Ino in the place of Sakura, then as far as the story is concerned, she'd be the one pouring her heart out to him and unable to move on from him even years later because conveniently getting placed on the same team as him is supposed to make all the difference according to this hack author. Nevermind the fact that they never become close friends during the whole time they're teammates.
So, Sasuke abandons Sakura and they don't see each other for almost 3 years. When they do see each other again in the Sai arc, Sasuke couldn't care less about her and even tries to kill her along with Naruto, Sai and Yamato before being stopped by Orochimaru, who convinces him to spare them so they can kill more Akatsuki members and increase Sasuke's chances of killing Itachi. They then don't see each other again until the Kage Summit arc, by which point Sasuke is full on psycho and wants everyone in the Leaf dead; he tries to kill her again with his Chidori, and again with her poisoned knife when she unsuccessfully tries to bring herself to kill him with it. Despite the fact this piece of shit abandoned her and is literally trying to kill her and all her friends, she simply can't bring herself to move on from him, even though they were never close.
That there are some people who even try to defend Sasuke's actions here is ridiculous. "She was trying to kill him, so he was right to try killing her!" Yeah, no. When Naruto, Sakura and Yamato came for him in the Sai arc, they were never trying to kill him at any point; Sai was planning to at first, but he changed his mind to bring him back instead without ever making an attempt on his life. They were only trying to bring him back to where he was supposed to be by law; Sasuke can break the law all he wants, but that doesn't justify him trying to kill people in cold blood. If he were any decent human being, then he would have been grateful for the fact they were only trying to bring him back when the standard procedure would have just been to kill him for deserting his village. Instead he doesn't give a fuck, because he's a selfish piece of shit who only cares about himself. To defend Sasuke for trying to kill people who were merely trying to bring him back where he was required to be by law is exactly like defending a teenage boy who is trying to kill the police for trying to bring him back to his legal home after he left. Simply put, he has no right to attempt murder.
Then, when Sasuke tries to kill Sakura in the Kage Summit arc, his fanboys defend him by bringing up how she was trying to kill him at this point. But that's also irrelevant; by this point, Sasuke is an international criminal who killed a Cloud ninja after invading their village to kidnap Bee, and crashed the Kage Summit, killing a few samurai. No, it doesn't matter that the samurai came at him first; he invaded THEIR country and caused destruction, so they were well within their rights to take his crazy ass down. He killed them, because he only cares about himself. He even attempted to murder Karin in cold blood just because she was no longer useful to him. Furthermore, Sasuke was literally planning to slaughter EVERYONE in the Leaf; Sakura would have been totally justified to kill Sasuke to save everyone in her village. He deserved to fucking die, and when he tried to cut her head off with Chidori, he didn't even know that she was thinking about killing him. He can sense bloodlust and Sakura had none, because she didn't have any resolve to kill. He wanted her dead the whole time here, because he wants everyone in the Leaf dead; he never seriously intended to let her join him because he knew she couldn't sever her ties to the Leaf and he knew she wouldn't kill Karin.
The fact is, Sasuke was a just piece of shit at this point. He deserved to die like the trash he was; Sakura did nothing wrong when she tried to kill him. But what she did do wrong was fail to go through with it; her stopping to cry as she was still in love with him was stupid, because there was absolutely no reason for him to still love him at this point. They were never close to begin with, and even if they were, even if they used to be actual lovers who got married and had kids, she STILL shouldn't have kept loving him. People should never stay in toxic relationships, or try to rekindle a relationship with a fucking serial killer who has abandoned them, attempted to kill them multiple times and is currently attempting to kill everyone they know and love. Any respectable person with a shred dignity would accept that this piece of shit is beyond saving. They don't deserve saving. They only deserve to be killed or imprisoned for life.
Part of growing up is realizing that people change and sometimes, they are beyond saving, or don't deserve to be saved. If they cross certain lines like senseless murder, then the only redemption they deserve is inside of a prison cell for life, if not execution. Shonen authors just have an unhealthy obsession with forgiving vile scum; there's nothing inspirational about them getting off scot-free for their crimes. But anyway, the fact Kishimoto failed to even show that Sasuke became real friends with his teammates makes it even more pathetic; you could have at least understood where someone is coming from when they want to forgive a person they loved for becoming a monster, even though they should ultimately let them go. Neither Naruto nor Sakura were truly ever close with Sasuke, so there is no real justification for their stupid obsession with Sasuke. It's actually funny that despite being batshit insane, Sasuke can assess his relationship with his former teammates like a normal person can. He has enough common sense to realize that they were never truly close friends, which is why he's perplexed that they never give up on them.
That's not to say the series isn't inconsistent on what Sasuke considers Naruto and Sakura to be, but it's worth noting that in his final fight with Naruto right at the end of the manga, Sasuke reveals that he only considers Naruto to be his friend. That's right, even after abandoning him and trying to kill him multiple times, he still sees Naruto as a friend. But Sakura? Nope. He doesn't consider her anything here, and shortly before, he knocked her out with an illusion before explaining that he doesn't even understand why Sakura would care so much about him. Why is that? Because he knows damn well they were never close and Sakura is an idiot. In fact, even after apologizing and eventually having a daughter with her, they rarely interact as he's always off traveling, making her a single mother and him an absentee father; it seems like he only bred Sakura for the sake of keeping his clan's bloodline going, not because he had any feelings for her whatsoever. Laughably, it's implied that Sasuke has never even kissed his wife; for Sakura, getting poked in the forehead by him is the equivalent. It's fucking hysterical.
Apparently, some novels go into more detail on their relationship, but nobody gives a shit because they're novels; if that shit actually mattered, then it would have been shown in the manga proper. Supplemental shit released after it ends are just last-minute afterthoughts. The fact Sakura instantly forgave Sasuke for all of the shit he did is also just plain ridiculous, too and the fact Karin did the same exact thing when he apologized to her for trying to kill her just goes to show how Kishimoto sees women, which is literal submissive punching bags for men because he's 100% sexist and misogynist. He claims that he doesn't know how to write women, but he just doesn't want to because he would rather focus on all the homoerotic stuff involving male characters. That's just how Shonen authors are. Perverted men who hold grudges towards women for rejecting them when they were younger; these needle-dick losers only ever get laid once they make money off their stupid comics.
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