Chapter Discussion [Opinion] Luffy The Pirate Christ-When A Protagonist Ruins A Story

[Nidai_Kitetsu]

Am I alone in my thinking here?

No you are not alone. Post-timeskip One Piece is average at best. Oda is not doing a great job for nearly a decade now. He will be one of the best for his pre-timeskip alone and I still have some faith in him, but there is no denying I am not feeling very interested to read One Piece. There have been several occasions in recent memory where I read the spoilers and didnt feel to read the chapter anymore. Its the same formula over and over again, everyone risking their life for Luffy for no good reason, the antagonists defecting to strawhats side, tons of horrible side characters, incompetent antagonists and overall ZERO sense of danger.

P.S. I find Yubel's thread more interesting than such lazy writing from Oda.

 

[Adam 🍎]

To be honest i blame the fandom for this shit

If you guys weren't spamming GODA every god damn time this man uses the most popular writing technique he wouldn't have this complex that he can do whatever he wants and get away with it

When you have a fandom that will eat whatever you shit out you can literally do what ever the fuck you wanna do. But when you have a fandom that holds you for your qualities and the work itself you can't do shit like this

And this happened to Naruto, Bleach and now OP and it is happening to every new shounen that will come up. Overall i lost interest in Manga as a medium for entertainment overall

The only good shit currently out there is Dr. Stone. That manga is fucking amazing and i highly recommend you read it

 

[Cross_Marian]

I agree on everything you said, this is my biggest complain with One Piece. This chosen one shit gets old and is an excuse for everything. I like MCs which feel more realistic. Life is not a party and not everything goes the right way. The MC needs to touch my heart with all his up and downs. This chosen one plot takes it all away for me. I write my own story and my MC has no great ancestors or isn’t a chosen one. He has his faults, struggles, loses himself but at the same time he finds his own way. God will give you the blessing but you need to deserve it, that’s life. But chosen people are blessed from the beginning, that’s pretty lame

MCs like Allen Walker, Thorfinn, Gintoki, Musashi and Guts are great in my opinion. Allen Walker is probably my favourite

 

[Rivaille]

@Fleet Admiral Lee Hung not that I disagree with anything in your post but hasn't destiny/fate/whatever always been a part of One Piece's narrative?

Perhaps the destiny/fate deal was not as egregiously heavy handed in execution as it is now but I don't think One Piece ever really had a hard work ethic theme like Dragon Ball. There is the faux as fuck underdog portrayal of Luffy but I don't think that is quite the same thing.

Even the simple concept of devil fruits relies on insane amounts of luck. Eat a fruit and you play a Russian roulette game to get something awesome like full control of a whole arse element or something lame like the ability to crap glue.

While I do not think there is any clash of "destiny chosen" vs "hard work ethic" since OP never had the latter, there is perhaps a different thematic contradiction going on with One Piece.....

Destiny vs Freedom.

Both are big parts of One Piece and I do not see how these two are all that compatible with each other.

On the one hand, we have destiny which is an abstract concept in regards to individuals being set on a predetermined path by whatever meta force (the plot ) decides that a certain predetermined individual has to do a certain predetermined thing to achieve a certain predetermined outcome (e.g. Mary Stu has been arbitrarily chosen by fate to slay the terrible Blabberwock to free the land of Barnia and she is going to do it because plot).

On the other hand we have freedom, an even more abstract concept that can be interpreted in dozens of ways but regardless, the main thing associated with freedom is ultimately the ability to choose i.e. choice (e.g. Mary Stu decides to leave because she ain't paid enough to deal with Blabberwocks and cause the people of Barnia are all arseholes anyway).

So we have predetermined path vs choice.

How the feck are these two ideas compatible in the slightest? Lol. They are antithesis to each other.

It does not help that we now also have bullshit like Future Sight which is supposedly all about seeing the future which pretty much implies that everything is predestined so screw choice I guess.

Another thing that muddles this all even further is the fact that deep down, we don't actually know Luffy all that well.

He is all about freedom but we never actually get his personal opinion on what he believes freedom is about.

Feck, as far as I can recall we do not even know why he ever wanted to be a pirate in the first place. Pirate King, sure but he already wanted to be a pirate even before that. Why? Don't know. Might as well chalk that one up to destiny too I guess.

In « Letter to Shuller », Spinoza said : « Mankind believes itself to be free because it ignores the cause that determines its actions and acts ».

Luffy believes in freedom because he is unaware of the works of destiny. In his case « Destiny » is Oda. And this might be the biggest issue of Oda is that he wants people to love Luffy so much that he stopped to try to hide that he is the cause of every Luffy’s steps. The reader is too aware of the author hand on the story, unfortunately.

And for the people who do not like the « chosen one » trope, I can assure you that Oda will make every fiber of Luffy’s being to be special.

 

[Roo]

@Fleet Admiral Lee Hung not that I disagree with anything in your post but hasn't destiny/fate/whatever always been a part of One Piece's narrative?

Perhaps the destiny/fate deal was not as egregiously heavy handed in execution as it is now but I don't think One Piece ever really had a hard work ethic theme like Dragon Ball. There is the faux as fuck underdog portrayal of Luffy but I don't think that is quite the same thing.

Even the simple concept of devil fruits relies on insane amounts of luck. Eat a fruit and you play a Russian roulette game to get something awesome like full control of a whole arse element or something lame like the ability to crap glue.

While I do not think there is any clash of "destiny chosen" vs "hard work ethic" since OP never had the latter, there is perhaps a different thematic contradiction going on with One Piece.....

Destiny vs Freedom.

Both are big parts of One Piece and I do not see how these two are all that compatible with each other.

On the one hand, we have destiny which is an abstract concept in regards to individuals being set on a predetermined path by whatever meta force (the plot ) decides that a certain predetermined individual has to do a certain predetermined thing to achieve a certain predetermined outcome (e.g. Mary Stu has been arbitrarily chosen by fate to slay the terrible Blabberwock to free the land of Barnia and she is going to do it because plot).

On the other hand we have freedom, an even more abstract concept that can be interpreted in dozens of ways but regardless, the main thing associated with freedom is ultimately the ability to choose i.e. choice (e.g. Mary Stu decides to leave because she ain't paid enough to deal with Blabberwocks and cause the people of Barnia are all arseholes anyway).

So we have predetermined path vs choice.

How the feck are these two ideas compatible in the slightest? Lol. They are antithesis to each other.

It does not help that we now also have bullshit like Future Sight which is supposedly all about seeing the future which pretty much implies that everything is predestined so screw choice I guess.

Another thing that muddles this all even further is the fact that deep down, we don't actually know Luffy all that well.

He is all about freedom but we never actually get his personal opinion on what he believes freedom is about.

Feck, as far as I can recall we do not even know why he ever wanted to be a pirate in the first place. Pirate King, sure but he already wanted to be a pirate even before that. Why? Don't know. Might as well chalk that one up to destiny too I guess.

I honestly thought the series was heading towards Destiny vs Freedom. Blackbeard being the embodiment of “destiny” and Luffy freedom.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I remember telling Anderson or Lanji on discord to not be shocked when luffy gets Ancestral PUs or sjust PUS from the past Joyboys.

Becoming Joyboy = being able to be telepathic (via VoAT) while shooting CoC blasts by using your ancestral D. powers to win.

Kishi is Oda's friend... why are people shocked or mad?
Took you guys long enough to accept that OP is just Pirate version of Naruto.

Im sorry we doubted you

 

[uyuu]

I agree on this post, but i think you miss some key point / s:

i think this is mainly because Oda is cheap in giving out the powers, in order to hype villains and allies one after another. Nothing is rare anymore nowadays. Previously, finding out that a character can use a devil fruit or haki is a treasure. But now, everyone gets everything and some.

Since the timeskip, i thought Luffy will be among the only 4-5 characters to have and master all 3 haki color, while Zoro will only have 1 (Armament) but he will specialize in various new sword technique that can compete with haki users. And Sanji also 1 (Observation) but his recipes have something power-related etc.


As the result, during the New World adventures:

- Zoro will go deep in mastering his CoA to reach Black Blade which only Ryuma and Mihawk have but his sword technique and philosophy become another major power which also get depth (how to breathe how to move like flowing water how a swordsman look at his opponent' blindspot whatever)

- Sanji will continuously sharpening his Observation and finally reach Future Sight,

- and Luffy will paving his way throughout the top enemies to finally invent the only haki color mix/fusion, and finally the only Advanced Conqueror Haki in history.

The most importantly, is for the power (for example haki) to have unique and different effects in personal application between users. It can be according to the user's characteristics, creativity, pre-existing strengths, ambitions, or other traits.

To provide other examples, Kaidou won't have Observation but his Conqueror application has uniqueness and translated into the ability to eat elements and become stronger by that, for example. That is his specialty which no one else have. While Big Mom has a unique Armament which can control souls which mean one specific touch can access your soul and you can kill yourself etc. No one else have that.

This should be much better design of power branches. Just limit one character to only have one kind of unique haki, so it felt luxurious and well-earned.

Meanwhile in OP currently what do we get? Hippity hoppity every power is my property. Big Mom, Kaidou, WB, Doflamingo, Katakuri, Luffy, everyone relevant especially everyone Luffy must fight against, gets every power in the world. This happens since the lesser characters already have multiple haki branches, so it leaves little choice but to give even more amount of haki branches to more relevant characters, and for Luffy's case, since he's MC...well Oda had no choice other to give him max stat in every haki and even more absurd abilities on top of other absurd abilities. While really he doesn't have to do that. Just go and specify in-depth aspects of each haki or each DF powers instead, he doesn't have to create other 100 powers that he can't juggle if he just tries to be responsible and go creative with the powers he already put in the manga.

Tldr: Oda culminating every powers and hax to Luffy is merely a consequence of Oda already being cornered by his own previous tendencies of giving too many powers to too many characters for the sake of hype.

 

[dereshi]

Yeah. Not a Kid or Law superfan but they really had worst luck by having Luffy as a rival.

When Kid was laughing along with Killer (cuz Killer can't stop it due to the defective smile), it was seriously heartbreaking. At Dressrosa too, I was expecting it to climax with Law vs Doffy (cuz that was the point of the arc right) but just a few punches and Luffy takes the last hit and wins, against OP and creative Doffy. Law got reduced to Vivi 2.0 ("I need help with revege") and Luffy tsundere (lmao)

Meanwhile Luffy got everything he needed, wanted, and more from the storyline... I'm not saying Luffy didn't deserve it, I just wish Oda gave Law and Killer a chance to be Luffy's rival.

 

[Jailer]

Goku trained to get ssjs than luffy with adv haki

That matters little because dbz has zero tension anyway with dragon balls, goku can fail all the time and be killed but will get revived by dragon balls.

Post automatically merged: Jun 29, 2021

hasn't destiny/fate/whatever always been a part of One Piece's narrative?

Yeah since first chapter fate is mentioned, I think this was inevitable to happen in OP eventually, just we didn't know enough back then. Not disagreeing with the first post but it was there since the beginning

 

[Monster Luffy]

I agree on this post, but i think you miss key point / s:

i think this is mainly because Oda is cheap in giving out the powers, in order to hype villains and allies one after another. Nothing is rare anymore nowadays. Previously, finding out that a character can use a devil fruit or haki is a treasure. But now, everyone gets everything and some.

Since the timeskip, i thought Luffy will be among the only 5 or so strongest characters to have and master all 3 haki color, while Zoro will only have 1 (Armament) but he will specialize in various new sword technique that can compete with haki users. And Sanji also 1 (Observation) but his recipes have something power-related etc.

Zoro will go deep in mastering his CoA to reach Black Blade which only Ryuma and Mihawk have but his sword technique and philosophy become another major power which also get depth (how to breathe how to move like flowing water how a swordsman look at his opponent' blindspot whatever), Sanji will reach Future Sight, and Luffy will invent the only Advanced Conqueror Haki in history.

The most importantly, is for the power (for example haki) to have unique and different effects. It can be according to the user's characteristics, creativity, pre-existing strengths, ambitions, or other traits.

To provide other examples, Kaidou won't have Observation but his Conqueror application has uniqueness and translated into the ability to eat elements and become stronger by that, for example. That is his specialty which no one else have. While Big Mom has a unique Armament which can control souls which mean one specific touch can access your soul and you can kill yourself etc. No one else have that.

This should be much better design of power branches. Just limit one character to only have one kind of unique haki, so it felt luxurious and well-earned.

Meanwhile in OP currently what do we get? Hippity hoppity every power is my property. Big Mom, Kaidou, WB, Doflamingo, Katakuri, Luffy, everyone relevant especially everyone Luffy must fight against, gets every power in the world. This happens since the lesser characters already have multiple haki branches, so it leaves little choice but to give even more amount of haki branches to more relevant characters, and for Luffy's case, since he's MC...well Oda had no choice other to give him max stat in every haki and even more absurd abilities on top of other absurd abilities. While really he doesn't have to do that. Just go and specify in-depth aspects of each haki or each DF powers instead, he doesn't have to create other 100 powers that he can't juggle if he just tries to be responsible and go creative with the powers he already put in the manga.

Tldr: Oda culminating every powers and hax to Luffy is merely a consequence of Oda already being cornered by his own previous tendencies of giving too many powers to too many characters for the sake of hype.

Yes, I bet no one would have batted an eye of Luffy had advanced haki tech since timeskip. Or as a matter of fact other character getting random powerups won't matter to them much.

 

[Fn Lucci]

It's almost like Luffy's entire point is that his success is a combination of wild courage and help from his friends. Jeez wtf is that right

 

[Elder Lee Hung]

It's almost like Luffy's entire point is that his success is a combination of wild courage and help from his friends. Jeez wtf is that right

I am 100% positive you did not read the OP with a response this off-topic lol.

 

[Law-sama]

BB, Kid & Law had no chance to compete with Luffy from the very beginning since Luffy is the Child of Prophecy and the Savior of the World.

Dragon needs to retire and let Luffy do all the work.

 

[Roronoa-sama]

1. The protagonist of this story:

• Has a strong genetical background
• He's blessed by the gods of fortune
• Descendant of the ancient king/Warrior JoyBoy
• Has a special power

2. The right hand man of the protagonist:

• Has a strong genetical background
• He's blessed by the gods of fortune
• Descended of the ancient King/Warrior Ryuma himself
• Has a special sword that does the cutting instead of him

3. The left hand man of the protagonist:

• Has a strong genetical background
• He's blessed by the gods of fortune
• Descended of the ancient King/Warrior king of Germa kingdom
• Has a special suit that does the fighting instead of him

That's the entire story of one piece in nutshell!

enma is nerf

 

[God Buggy]

enma is nerf

We are still with the "it's Enma, not Zoro" nonsense

 

[Jailer]

enma is nerf

Yeah no

 

[Adam 🍎]

In my opinion there are 2 types of protagonists

First one is a protagonist shaped by the world and actions occurring around him
Second one is a protagonist that shapes the events around him to his "will"

Most memorable characters in any media are first type. They personality and beliefs are constantly being tested and often than not such protagonists learn a lot and change a lot. They grow as a character alongside the reader. Perfect example would be Guts.

Second type are the characters that never change nor is their resolve ever tested. These characters are often than not boring after a while and they all fall back to single trait - strong. Luffy, Naruto and so on.

Luffy as a character never ever encountered an event that change his view on something. Even when ACE died bcs he was cocky and rash Luffy didn't learn shit and first thing we see post TS is Luffy being rash and cocky so much so Zoro had to put him in place in PH and even after that Luffy didn't learn shit from an event that killed his brother

 

[Master OF Haki]

In my opinion there are 2 types of protagonists

First one is a protagonist shaped by the world and actions occurring around him
Second one is a protagonist that shapes the events around him to his "will"

Most memorable characters in any media are first type. They personality and beliefs are constantly being tested and often than not such protagonists learn a lot and change a lot. They grow as a character alongside the reader. Perfect example would be Guts.

Second type are the characters that never change nor is their resolve ever tested. These characters are often than not boring after a while and they all fall back to single trait - strong. Luffy, Naruto and so on.

Luffy as a character never ever encountered an event that change his view on something. Even when ACE died bcs he was cocky and rash Luffy didn't learn shit and first thing we see post TS is Luffy being rash and cocky so much so Zoro had to put him in place in PH and even after that Luffy didn't learn shit from an event that killed his brother

I don't like your avatar but overall you're right. Luffy is a generic shonen manga character, and it baffles me that people view Luffy, strowhats and one piece in general, as this "peak fiction and peak character development" story. The strowhats contradict themselves in every fucking corner, Luffy as the CAPTAIN of the crew has zero, literally ZERO responsibility for his actions nor for the actions of his crew members.

 

[Light D Lamperouge]

I don't like your avatar

What's that got to do with anything lol??



Also Buddha is the GOAT of ROR.

 

[Master OF Haki]

What's that got to do with anything lol??

That avatar irritates me so I thought to mention it.