I'm a filthy troll
That's the only explanation I have for why I'm eating up the shipwar drama on deviantART like it's candy. I never comment or provoke anyone, but there's something so deliciously perverse in seeing all the rabid lengths people will go to to prove the existence of something that was never there in the first place.
Since slashers like me rarely have an opportunity to join in canon speculation, and I'm much too exhausted to do anything productive, I'm going to waste some time sharing my thoughts on the craziness of het shipping in the Naruto fandom.
DISCLAIMER: I know brilliant artists and writers who ship every pairing I object to in this rant. When I generalize, assume I'm talking only about the crazy fans.
I should note that Naruto/Sakura is both my favorite het ship and the pairing I think has the highest chance of becoming canon. My main gripe with naysayers is that it's nowhere near as impossible as they make it out to be. Since the beginning of part two, Naruto's feelings for Sasuke have eclipsed Sakura's 800 times over, Sakura has shown much more interest (platonic or otherwise) in Naruto than in Sasuke, and there isn't much proof that her love for Sasuke is more than love for a friend and teammate (yes, there is proof, but people act like everything she does is motivated by a desire to be Sasuke's girlfriend). I could go into my interpretation of recent manga events, but that'd be a whole new essay.
What surprises me is not that Naruto/Hinata fans believe NaruSaku has no canon basis, or even that they are certain NaruHina will become canon (I know far too much about Zutarians to harbor such delusions). When I first began dabbling in Naruto het, I assumed Sasuke/Sakura would be the fan-favored pairing. Like the infamous Zutara or Harry/Hermione, SasuSaku arises from a canon situation where the (presumed) main pairing is between The Girl and The Underdog, with a much more desirable boy left out of the festivities. I assumed that fans identified with Sakura (who is nothing if not the everygirl), and would rather date see her date the pretty angstmuffin than the underdeveloped idiot. I even assumed that NaruHina served the crucial purpose of getting Naruto out of the way without killing him off or turning him into a imbecile with the IQ of a flea.
In short, when I discovered that NaruHina is the evil overlord of the Naruto het fandom, I was shocked. Is Naruto Uzumaki really the hero of every fangirl's daydreams? And if he is, why are the fans so adamant about tearing him away from the everygirl it seems he's going to be paired with? I understand preferring gentle, loving couples over ones with lots of fightsex sexually tense antagonization. I understand wanting the shy, woobie character to get what she wants. But the degree to which Hinata is deified, and her feelings for Naruto held up as the purest human interaction possible, makes NaruHina a different breed of crazy altogether.
Hinata is shy, rather weak, and spends almost all her time worrying about her crush. In three plus years, her devotion to her first love has never wavered. It has always been apparent, especially in part two, that the only way for Hinata to achieve personal fulfillment was through the progression of her relationship with Naruto.
While she shared most of these qualities in part one, Sakura is a whole different animal. She would rather train hard and overcome her weaknesses than sit around pining for Sasuke. She cultivated close relationships with her teammates instead of falling into depression over her lost love. When she appeared to develop tender feelings for Naruto, she accepted his company as an alternative to the hopeless Sasuke situation. She would rather kill Sasuke than watch him kill her remaining teammate and friend--this is clearly not a girl tangled hopelessly in the throes of her first love. You tell me which one a young fangirl in the midst of her first crush is going to relate to.
Saying that Hinata "deserves" Naruto's affection because of how long she's loved him, or that Hinata's crush was worth nothing if she doesn't marry Naruto, or that hiding behind buildings and silently quivering is a purer form of love than that which comes out of shared pain, close friendship, and putting up with somebody's bullshit completely misses the point of Hinata's character. Hinata doesn't become strong because Naruto rubs her feet and buys her flowers and tells her she's beautiful. She becomes strong because Naruto exists, and because she loves him. Kishimoto is more concerned with the power of loving someone than the power of being loved--just look at Naruto chasing after Sasuke. Loving someone despite rejection and complete lack of compassion in return is what drives these characters. I mean, out of the dozens of romantic affections harbored by characters in Naruto, the only ones that are reciprocated are between dead people and talking frogs.
Basically, the craziest NaruHina shippers appear to base their romantic worldview on what it's like to be thirteen and have your first crush. They ignore the fact that the most important bonds in the story have nothing to do with romance, and act like a confession of love from a girl you're kind of friends with should change you more than the bonds of team friendship and shared loss. They say that being submissive makes you a saint and moving on from heartbreak makes you a slut. Is it really any wonder that my former least favorite Naruto pairing is now being edged out of that spot?
On a related note, the essay I'm too exhausted to work on right now is about the use of war imagery in Greek erotic poetry.
Since slashers like me rarely have an opportunity to join in canon speculation, and I'm much too exhausted to do anything productive, I'm going to waste some time sharing my thoughts on the craziness of het shipping in the Naruto fandom.
DISCLAIMER: I know brilliant artists and writers who ship every pairing I object to in this rant. When I generalize, assume I'm talking only about the crazy fans.
I should note that Naruto/Sakura is both my favorite het ship and the pairing I think has the highest chance of becoming canon. My main gripe with naysayers is that it's nowhere near as impossible as they make it out to be. Since the beginning of part two, Naruto's feelings for Sasuke have eclipsed Sakura's 800 times over, Sakura has shown much more interest (platonic or otherwise) in Naruto than in Sasuke, and there isn't much proof that her love for Sasuke is more than love for a friend and teammate (yes, there is proof, but people act like everything she does is motivated by a desire to be Sasuke's girlfriend). I could go into my interpretation of recent manga events, but that'd be a whole new essay.
What surprises me is not that Naruto/Hinata fans believe NaruSaku has no canon basis, or even that they are certain NaruHina will become canon (I know far too much about Zutarians to harbor such delusions). When I first began dabbling in Naruto het, I assumed Sasuke/Sakura would be the fan-favored pairing. Like the infamous Zutara or Harry/Hermione, SasuSaku arises from a canon situation where the (presumed) main pairing is between The Girl and The Underdog, with a much more desirable boy left out of the festivities. I assumed that fans identified with Sakura (who is nothing if not the everygirl), and would rather date see her date the pretty angstmuffin than the underdeveloped idiot. I even assumed that NaruHina served the crucial purpose of getting Naruto out of the way without killing him off or turning him into a imbecile with the IQ of a flea.
In short, when I discovered that NaruHina is the evil overlord of the Naruto het fandom, I was shocked. Is Naruto Uzumaki really the hero of every fangirl's daydreams? And if he is, why are the fans so adamant about tearing him away from the everygirl it seems he's going to be paired with? I understand preferring gentle, loving couples over ones with lots of fightsex sexually tense antagonization. I understand wanting the shy, woobie character to get what she wants. But the degree to which Hinata is deified, and her feelings for Naruto held up as the purest human interaction possible, makes NaruHina a different breed of crazy altogether.
Hinata is shy, rather weak, and spends almost all her time worrying about her crush. In three plus years, her devotion to her first love has never wavered. It has always been apparent, especially in part two, that the only way for Hinata to achieve personal fulfillment was through the progression of her relationship with Naruto.
While she shared most of these qualities in part one, Sakura is a whole different animal. She would rather train hard and overcome her weaknesses than sit around pining for Sasuke. She cultivated close relationships with her teammates instead of falling into depression over her lost love. When she appeared to develop tender feelings for Naruto, she accepted his company as an alternative to the hopeless Sasuke situation. She would rather kill Sasuke than watch him kill her remaining teammate and friend--this is clearly not a girl tangled hopelessly in the throes of her first love. You tell me which one a young fangirl in the midst of her first crush is going to relate to.
Saying that Hinata "deserves" Naruto's affection because of how long she's loved him, or that Hinata's crush was worth nothing if she doesn't marry Naruto, or that hiding behind buildings and silently quivering is a purer form of love than that which comes out of shared pain, close friendship, and putting up with somebody's bullshit completely misses the point of Hinata's character. Hinata doesn't become strong because Naruto rubs her feet and buys her flowers and tells her she's beautiful. She becomes strong because Naruto exists, and because she loves him. Kishimoto is more concerned with the power of loving someone than the power of being loved--just look at Naruto chasing after Sasuke. Loving someone despite rejection and complete lack of compassion in return is what drives these characters. I mean, out of the dozens of romantic affections harbored by characters in Naruto, the only ones that are reciprocated are between dead people and talking frogs.
Basically, the craziest NaruHina shippers appear to base their romantic worldview on what it's like to be thirteen and have your first crush. They ignore the fact that the most important bonds in the story have nothing to do with romance, and act like a confession of love from a girl you're kind of friends with should change you more than the bonds of team friendship and shared loss. They say that being submissive makes you a saint and moving on from heartbreak makes you a slut. Is it really any wonder that my former least favorite Naruto pairing is now being edged out of that spot?
On a related note, the essay I'm too exhausted to work on right now is about the use of war imagery in Greek erotic poetry.