Cause she looks it when there is no good reason for it?
I mean, ignoring all of this shipping talk, Konoha had been reduced to a giant crater in the ground, Tsunade(her master) had one foot in the grave, Naruto went 6 tails and went after Pain, half the village was dead at the time and Hinata was in critical condition.
But you think she was sad cause Hinata liked Naruto?
You said Kishimoto's post ending stuff had been good. One of the things he gets praise for is Sarada. I don't see why he should.
Sarada seems less susceptible to similar criticism because she resembles her father, has a Sharingan and is thus likely to be relatively stronger and more relevant.
And again, Sarada's looks have little to do with how she had been received. Sure, you could argue characters with more attractive designs draw more people to them, but that only works to a point. If all Sarada had the looks of Sasuke, no one would have felt attachment to her story. Certainly not if she had her father's psychotic personality.
Sarada isn't getting the same scrutiny Sakura got is because she is not Sakura. For that matter, she is not Sasuke, no matter how much she looks like him. Her story and the experience she underwent is uniquely different from what either Sakura or Sasuke experienced when they were at her age. Sakura never had doubts about who her parents were because they were there, and her father never tried to attack her with a sword while her mother dodged questions about where her father left for such long periods of time and never calling to check on them. Sasuke didn't one day discover a photoshopped family photo of his father and mother. Trying to equate how Sarada acted in the mini-series with how Sasuke and Sakura acted earlier in the manga is erroneous, because the reactions, events and attitudes are different.
"My mom is not real mom! Who cares what happens to her?"
"Sorry, Seven, but I'm not going back to the village cause I don't know who I am anymore."
This type of self-absorbed shit wouldn't have flown if it were Sakura. It just wouldn't. The only reason she got away with being so disrespectful to Sakura in the first place was A) because it's Sakura, and B) SasuSaku is a joke.
Otherwise, her bratty behaviour isn't far off from that of Sakura in her early introduction phase.
Who's ignoring context now?
Sarada reached that emotional point after going to her mother one day asking a simple question: what did my dad look like? All the girl wanted to know was what her dad was like, because she was curious and lonely and needed to know who her father was. In response, all she got was Sakura snapping at her, everyone who wasn't Naruto dodging her questions, and then once she meets her dad, she gets nearly skewered for her troubles.
So when she goes and does her own research and discovers what she thought to be conclusive proof that Sakura and everyone had been hiding the truth from her, she felt betrayed. And thus she lashed out, like any normal person would in a similar emotional state would. You might think that people who feel angry at a moment because they were lied to by the closest people they trust as bratty or self absorbed, but I think otherwise.
Of course it wouldn't fly if Sakura did that, because it was impossible for Sakura to ever experience the same situation. What, did Naruto cheat on her mom and she found out, and that why she'd be badmouthing him and treating him poorly at the start?
Naruto being a dunce when it comes to shinobi related stuff is par for the course. This is the guy that needed an icecream analogy to understand the basics of senjutsu.
When it comes to people, however, I'm simply not buying it because time and again Naruto demonstrated a great understand of people and emotions. He did with Konohamaru, with Zabuza, Neji, Gaara, Sasuke- - the list goes on and on.
The look of shock on his face when Hinata said it clearly shows he understood exactly what she meant. He isn't retarded.
Naruto being a dunce is something that is part of his character, shinobi stuff or otherwise. He had always a side of him that was pretty dumb that every figure of his life pointed out, and we had seen play out throughout the manga. It might have gotten better as he aged, but he still had those moments.
Naruto, even as a kid, had a great deal of emotional intelligence, to make up for him not being traditionally as smart as some of his peers. But the basis for that emotional intelligence came from him being able to relate his experiences with those you listed. He understood what it was like to feel lonely, shunned, hated, bullied, looked down upon. That why he spoke out against Zabuza trying not to show his pain over Haku's death, and why he was able to relate with Neji, Garaa and especially Sasuke (because all of them had comparable situations growing up).
Now we can argue that he couldn't understand what Hinata said at the time properly because he didn't have a way to relate to her in that manner at the time, but I already know what you will say:
I find your justification intellectually dishonest. Especially since you're so keen on disregarding all context.
In what I wrote in that post, I tried to put everything into context and I had not attempted to be dishonest at any point.
Yet when Naruto meets with Hinata on the battlefield he thanks her and leaves it at that. Zero indication that he even remotely likes her back. Just like the rest of the manga. He just didn't like her back.
I didn't say Naruto liked Hinata back at that time? I said Naruto didn't process the thought that Hinata liked him romantically because he was busy thinking of how to stop everyone from killing Sasuke and getting beaten up.
