I need to show you something.
Let it be known my disdain for Sasusaku is not solely because I think Sasuke is toxic **** to Sakura for majority of the manga. He is, he most certainly is, and I could go on about that forever. However, Sakura is not an innocent victim in this pairing. She also has a full handbag of flaws and unhealthy attitudes that effectively invalidate these two, as they are portrayed in canon, doing anything romantic.
For one, her obsession has no real emotional foundation. She likes Sasuke, same as every girl in her class, for the same reason as every girl in her class. An understandable shallowness for a 12 year old girl, but it’s never explained what else about Sasuke specifically makes her so desperate and wistful. Even as the series progresses and the two admittedly become closer as teammates, we’re never given an interpersonal dimension about their compatibility or chemistry. Nothing about who Sasuke is actually draws her in, and he’s essentially a trophy for her. If she gets Sasuke she wins; she beats Ino and the rest of her class at their shared goal. She has a bonifide certificate of her worth to combat the teasing she faced as a child and thus transmutes Sasuke the person into her goal. In the end, Sakura just wants him really badly so she gets him. This evident lack in emotional reasoning and ethics makes it unbearably difficult to empathize with Sakura’s grand romantic gestures or her unfailing passion for Sasuke in general. I’m not saying her overall concern for him was feigned, but I am saying her romantic obsession was selfish and seldom proven to be something that improved her relationship with Sasuke. In fact, we see Sasuke ignore and dismiss her even in part 1, which is supposedly the grand sequence for this “love” story, because her obsession cripples her. He calls her out on being ineffective and annoying while he positively responds to Naruto and Kakashi for being strong, capable, and relatable. Sakura is so hellbent on making Sasuke hers, instead of building an actual friendship, that she never accurately picks up on the kind of person he is and the fact that she’s constantly distracted from becoming a stronger shinobi turns him way off. He still cares about her as a comrade, but makes it clear he has no interest in her fleeting desires.
Then there’s the fact that Sakura herself can be emotionally manipulative, and she exhibits this with Sasuke more than anyone else. Whenever Sasuke leaves for his own personal reasons, i.e. Sasuke retrieval and chapter 692/3, she makes no effort to try to understand his motivations and gives him ultimatums, remnant of “me or your goals”. Thats emotional terrorism and is incredibly abusive. Sakura knows nothing about Sasuke’s pain from having the village he grew up in systematically murder his entire family and pinning it on his brother, whom he loved more than anything. Sakura doesn’t even know who Itatchi is, or how he was a loving, affectionate brother to Sasuke til the very end, or the mind boggling sacrifices he made so that Sasuke could live as happily as possible(which by the way is why the forehead poke is pure shit). The only people who know the truth about the Uchiha clan are Kakashi, Naruto, and Yamamoto, and apparently the village hasn’t been made aware if they still blame Sasuke for wanting to leave/revolution. Naruto, by comparison, felt true empathy for Sasuke, and wanted nothing but for the both of their feelings to be mutually understood. Naruto was constantly concerned about how Sasuke felt as a whole person, trying to figure out why he was so hurt and what he could do to alleviate that hurt. Sakura, conversely, just wanted Sasuke as an ideal, and this is best illustrated with her assassination attempt. She takes “responsibility” and agency for Sasuke’s state of affairs and decides its on her to kill him, like Ol Yeller. She never inquired about Sasuke’s motivations, pains, or attempted to understand him and considers Sasuke a burden. Naruto refused to kill Sasuke, because any justice he served without understanding Sasuke would just be another nugget of revenge in the world’s bleak history. Naruto refused to kill Sasuke because no matter what path Sasuke took, Naruto cared for him and wanted his happiness, whatever source it manifested. Naruto still stood headfast to protect his village and the world, and still wanted Sasuke back as a companion, but it was never a question that Naruto was willing to put his life on the line for Sasuke’s redemption, and Naruto was certain Sasuke could be redeemed because the connection they formed was genuine.
It isn’t just Sasuke who she disregards and diminishes. Sakura’s requirement to sate her own elementary, selfish validation by ”getting” Sasuke also invades the sanctity of her other bonds. As destructive and sexist as getting the prettiest boy as the band-aid for Sakura’s self esteem objectively is, this notion persists to the very ****ing end, as Sasuke peacefully disembarks on a Mecca of his own, and we see her buckle into a puddle of doubt and despair the second he does anything that doesn’t involve her. This propensity to be a constant part of Sasuke’s life where she isn’t needed or wanted also urges that she dismiss all of her other relationships, including Ino, her best friend, whose father had just died. No desire, or even internal conflict, to stay with her mourning comrades arises. In part one, she readily abandons her friends, family and village for a boy she’s been on a team with for less than a year. It’s only in Sasuke’s absence that she begins to challenge how much she prioritizes him over others, only to hastily regress once she no longer has to worry about his outwardly terrorist activities.
Sakura’s romantic love for Sasuke is formed on a petty foundation, is wholey conditional, and has no definitive, positive function for how she interacts with Sasuke. She could very much still be concerned for his safety and his darkness overcoming him as she was without her obsession, see: her entire relationship with Naruto in part 2. Her intentions dehumanize Sasuke and romanticize callousness, addiction, and selfishness. Combine that with Sasuke’s history of being a neglectful, cruel, condescending person who feels he’s above concerning himself with how his words and actions affect people, especially Sakura, and you come to the infallible conclusion that these two are bad for EACH OTHER. Their character arcs would greatly benefit from them being as platonic as possible, because nothing about these two being intimate makes either of them better people or even that happy. In fact, more often than not, they bring out the absolute worst in each other.
If you read this till the end then you deserve a medal.
