20. Sasuke Wakes Up From His Coma

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For me, one of the most cryptic Naruto scenes was the moment when Tsunade woke Sasuke up from his Tsukuyomi-induced coma and then Sakura hugs Sasuke. This was a very challenging scene for me to decipher. I remember clearly the first time I saw it, because even back then I knew this scene was significant. Naruto's reaction to the hug perplexed me because I didn't fully know what it meant, only that the author was telling me something important with that scene, I just didn't yet know what. Years later after reading many analyses of the series and its characters, I feel confident I understand the point of this scene. It's an important Team 7 scene representing the shift in the relationships between Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto, and it displays how much Naruto and Sakura both have grown and matured.

I've heard criticism that SasuSaku fans look too deeply into this hospital hug scene and desperately use it to advocate the ship as an affectionate moment between Sasuke and Sakura, when to anti-SasuSaku fans it merely looks like Sasuke woke up from a coma and is too traumatized and tired to resist Sakura's display of affection, or even to react at all. Given only the picture of the hug and vague knowledge of the scenario, I would agree with antis on that. In fact my original interpretation of the scene was similar; Sasuke looked totally traumatized and unresponsive to his surroundings and he had a 'dead on the inside' look if I ever saw one and at a cursory glance Sakura's hug seemed a bit irrelevant to what Sasuke was going through.

 In fact my original interpretation of the scene was similar; Sasuke looked totally traumatized and unresponsive to his surroundings and he had a 'dead on the inside' look if I ever saw one and at a cursory glance Sakura's hug seemed a bit irrelev...

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However

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However.

What these criticisms don't account for is context. There's far more occurring in this scene than just Sasuke's dead-on-the-inside expression and Sakura's hug.

Certainly Sasuke's reaction seems subdued, as if he's too dazed and traumatized to register much. Well, I say that, but Sasuke is visibly looking at Sakura. When he woke up, he seemed dazed and distracted, but when Sakura hugged him, he's definitely looking at her. It means that as dazed and out-of-it as he was, her presence nonetheless captured his attention and focus, so he's no longer staring blankly out into space, but actively looking at her.

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