“Hey maddy 🙂 Hope you’re doing fine! I just wanna ask is it too much for you to do an analysis on Naruhina and how Naruto’s feelings for Hinata developed?”
Anon, this is for you 🙂
When Hinata was first introduced, she was done so from Naruto’s perspective, and his description of her wasn’t too flattering:
But of course, this was based on nothing but initial impressions since at this point, Naruto and Hinata hadn’t really conversed.
But despite this, Hinata was shown to know more about Naruto than most people. During his fight with Kiba, when Kiba mocked Naruto’s desire to become Hokage:
Hinata was shown to be aware of Naruto’s strong resolve, his belief in himself and his sense of self worth, and she found those aspects of his character to be truly admirable:
So following Naruto’s eventual triumph over Kiba, Hinata gathered all the strength she could muster to approach him and offer him some medicinal cream as a congratulatory gesture for his victory:
And Kurenai being her sensei, was all too aware of how hard this must have been for Hinata; for a supremely shy girl such as herself to approach the object of her affection for the first time must have been a very daunting prospect, and Naruto’s scepticism wasn’t making matters any easier for her. So Kurenai just urged him to accept the offer, and he duly obliged, to which he would then claim that she was nice:
This marked the beginning of the gradual change in his opinion of her.
This change was greatly accelerated due to Hinata’s fight against Neji. During this fight, after a while of Neji psychologically tearing Hinata apart, Naruto urged her to defend herself because he could no longer watch her getting talked down upon in such a manner:
Naruto’s very presence there, and the fact that he was watch her and rooting for her, was enough to give Hinata the strength she needed to continue:
And Naruto’s opinion of her only continued to grow. Hinata’s display of toughness and resilience was awe inspiring, and now Naruto was beginning to realise how incredible Hinata truly was, and his peers attributed this aspect of her character to her observation of Naruto, and how he actually inspired her:
So when Naruto continued to verbally and very strongly express his support for Hinata in front of everyone:
The strength returned to her eyes once more. Kurenai noticed the drastic change in Hinata during this fight. Prior to this, she’d always appear to be weak, frail and quick to lose her self confidence. However, now her expression was full of ferocity and confidence:
And Naruto wanted her to prove to the others just how amazing she truly was. While everyone else was writing Hinata off as having already lost the match, Naruto wasn’t having any of it. Just as Hayate was about to end the match and grant Neji the victory, Naruto stopped him. He stopped him because he knew that contrary to Sakura’s words, Hinata was not at her limit; she still had more fight left in her, and Naruto wanted to see it, because he had now grown interested in this “shy”, “weird”, yet “incredible” girl:
And sure enough, just as Naruto had predicted, Hinata rose to her feet. To the shock and amazement of everyone present apart from Naruto, Hinata still had some fight left in her:
Because she knew that Naruto was watching and supporting her, and didn’t want to miss this opportunity to show to him what she was capable of:
Of course, I’m sure the majority of the people present were fully aware deep down that despite Hinata’s extraordinarily brave performance, she was simply delaying the inevitable, and as predicted, she did eventually succumb to her injuries and lose the match. However, the concern Naruto demonstrated for her was a portrayal of his new found respect for this girl:
And after reflecting on how admirably she fought, despite being so severely outclassed in every aspect, and being aware of that:
The respect and admiration he now had for her was epitomized by the infamous “Blood Promise” he made to her; that he would take Neji down on her behalf, for being so sorely mistreated:
That’s how much Naruto now valued her.
A while later, just prior to Naruto’s attempt to make good on the “Blood Promise”, he met Hinata on a training field, and expressed the little known fact that even he was susceptible to self doubt, and this derived from the frustration he felt due to being all too familiar with failure:
However, what Hinata said next would quell Naruto’s doubts and restore the confidence he was known for – her “Proud Failure” speech:
She explains to Naruto why being accustomed to failure isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, and how admirable it was that despite the frequency of his failure, he was able to pick himself up every single time and never lose sight of his dream to become Hokage. That’s what true strength is:
Hinata’s words worked wonders for Naruto, who himself admits that it was very uncharacteristic of himself to be as depressed as he was. He goes on to say how he initially always viewed her as “a plain looking, dark weirdo”:
However, this had now drastically changed. After proving to everyone (including herself) how capable she was during her match with Neji, and now with her showing her understanding of the true meaning of strength, Hinata had wormed her way into Naruto’s heart. It wasn’t romantic from his side at this point, but she had made a comfortable spot for herself regardless, because now Naruto considered her as a person that he really liked:
I can’t imagine how it must have felt for Hinata to hear him say that; after years of having Naruto unknowingly cheer her up and motivating her to better herself, she was finally able to return the favour here 🙂
Now, during Pein’s confrontation with Naruto, after a while of having the latter pinned to the ground, Hinata eventually couldn’t take the sight any more and jumped in to protect him:
Of course, Naruto tried to convince her to leave because she didn’t have a chance against him, but she was fully aware of that, and she didn’t care in the slightest. She willingly stood in the way of the single greatest threat the village had seen since the attack by Kurama, by herself, for the sake of protecting the once she loved; that spoke volumes:
As Hinata was explaining how much Naruto had done for her in the past, the progressive close-ups of Naruto’s eyes really depict how distraught he was at how powerless he was to prevent what was transpiring directly in front of him. Hinata was probably going to die trying to protect him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it:
And to make matters worse, she all but confirmed this as a likely scenario with her own words moments later:
So when she finally did confess her feelings to him:
Naruto didn’t really even have much time to process the weight of her words, because she immediately charged in to face Pein, but was unfortunately yet predictably defeated rather swiftly.
We all know what effect the sight of Hinata’s impaled body had on Naruto, and he’d slightly recall a hazy memory of her motionless body in front of him which had caused him to go in the 6 tailed rage in the first place:
But thankfully, the injuries she sustained were not fatal.
Now during the war, after Naruto had saved Hinata from a group of enemies:
Their peers had doubts as to whether Naruto was the real deal due to many things about him being different to what they were accustomed to:
But Hinata could tell that it was him, solely from the look in his eyes:
That just demonstrates the depth of her understanding of Naruto, to be assured that it’s genuinely him, just from his eyes.
However, Hinata would feel rather down because she wound up being protected by Naruto, even though she had vowed to protect him instead, and she tried to hide how she was feeling to Naruto:
But just like Hinata before him, Naruto could just tell how she was truly feeling, simply by the look in her eyes, and he reassured her that despite her doubts, she was strong, as he recalled the moment when she protected him from Pein:
This unspoken understanding they had of one another was rather telling; they didn’t demonstrate this with anyone else. It just goes to show how strong their bond already was, and how highly Naruto regarded Hinata now, especially in comparison to his initial, and slightly less flattering impressions.
Later on during the war, Hinata would again demonstrate her complete willingness to sacrifice her life to ensure Naruto’s safety:
However, when Neji’s life was taken instead, and Naruto began to break down due to Obito’s psychological attack, Hinata was there to snap him out of it; to remind him of the things he had that were still worth fighting for, to remind him of the ideals and the principles that had gotten not only him, but every one of their comrades this far, and to encourage him to persevere, with her, and to not go back on his word, because that was now both of their ninja ways:
Hinata’s words were able to remind Naruto of what was truly important and why he couldn’t just throw in the towel, and this wasn’t the first time she had done so either. At this point, Naruto acknowledged the unconditional support that Hinata had always given him, and was truly grateful that he had someone like her by his side for all this time:
It’s kind of amazing how much Naruto’s opinion of Hinata had changed throughout the series. Given Hinata’s character towards the beginning of the series, it’s not hard to see why Naruto thought of her that way. But the manner in which she came out of her shell and showed everyone who Hinata Hyuuga truly was, was really inspiring, and was something that Naruto greatly admired.
By 615, Hinata wasn’t just another one of Naruto’s comrades. She was special to him, he just didn’t realize how special she was just yet 😉
A/N – Sorry this took so long Anon, I’ve received more asks than usual lately, which kinda made it difficult to finish this swiftly 🙂
We Are What We Feel 