Character Discussion Why does Old Rayleigh have such a fearsome reputation despite being irrelevant in his prime?

[Sugoi]

No matter how strong or weak you think Rayleigh is compared to the other old era characters, no one can deny the fearsome reputation he has in the one piece world. Everyone has a hypegasm whenever he appears "OMG ITS THE LEGENDARY DARK KING RAYLEIGH NO WAY". A legend written in so many books

"Do you want the marines to take on 2 legends at the same time"- Garp calling Rayleigh a legend alongside whitebeard
Recently even yonko blackbeard ran away from him

But it's not just his reputation, Rayleigh has been very relevant as well, being the person to save camie in shabondy, protecting the strawhats from kizaru, teaching luffy haki, accompanying him back to marineford and seeing him off, saving boa and driving blackbeard away

However, when we go in to flashbacks and see rayleigh in his prime, all this hype and relevence seems non existent. Oda shows Roger clashing with Whitebeard, Roger and Garp taking on the rocks pirates, oden fighting kaido, shiki escaped impel down and fought garp and sengoku, but where is rayleigh in all this? who is rayleigh fighting? Oda doesnt even bother drawing rayleigh in the battle with rocks...

So why is rayleigh called the dark king? epithets aren't created out of nothing, there has to be a reason. For example, knew garp was called the "hero of the marines" back since chapter 423, but we only found out why he is called that hundreds of chapters later when he got lore about rocks. That's why I think rayleigh must have done something to be known as the dark king, which hasn't been revealed to us yet. It definently feels like something is missing. If there really isnt anymore to rayleigh than what we've seen then all the hype surrounding him just doesnt make any sense

 

[milluki]

Dark King because he was in the shadow of Roger.

 

[Sugoi]

Dark King because he was in the shadow of Roger.

that is just a headcanon theory that fans just accepted because there is nothing else

 

[Salah WG]

Dark King is basically Shadow Pirate King
All of Roger Pirates are considered Legendary due to reaching Laugh Tale
And Roger was simply called Pirate King cuz He is The Captain
So it's generally considered that Vice Captain is also regarded almost as Legendary as Pirate King
Cuz "Vice Captain" means you also have Authority over entire Crew with Exception of Captain

Buggy was literally seen as Greater Figure by WG during Impel Down Arc than All Escapees, just for being once on Pirate King Crew
Even though there were likes of Crocodile & Jinbe (Someone WG thinks He deserves almost Yonko-Like Bounty & other is Strongest Fishman)
So imagine how the World thinks of not just a Member of that Crew but actually it's Vice Captain

In conclusion, you could say that Rayleigh is considered 2nd Most Legendary Pirate Overall while WB is 2nd Most Legendary Captain
Alongside Roger, these Three are treated with much more Respect than anyone else & are always given Benefit of The Doubt whenever They are compared to anyone (Such as Big Mom saying "Even" WB when comparing him to Kaidou/Shanks or Blackbeard/Garp not wanting to start a War against Rayleigh Alone despite being Old)

Their Reputation is Comparable to Roger
(Jinbe literally called Emperors as "Mere Yonko" but was Speechless when He met Rayleigh, that's how big Difference is)

 

[JoNdule]

No matter how strong or weak you think Rayleigh is compared to the other old era characters, no one can deny the fearsome reputation he has in the one piece world. Everyone has a hypegasm whenever he appears "OMG ITS THE LEGENDARY DARK KING RAYLEIGH NO WAY". A legend written in so many books

"Do you want the marines to take on 2 legends at the same time"- Garp calling Rayleigh a legend alongside whitebeard
Recently even yonko blackbeard ran away from him

But it's not just his reputation, Rayleigh has been very relevant as well, being the person to save camie in shabondy, protecting the strawhats from kizaru, teaching luffy haki, accompanying him back to marineford and seeing him off, saving boa and driving blackbeard away

However, when we go in to flashbacks and see rayleigh in his prime, all this hype and relevence seems non existent. Oda shows Roger clashing with Whitebeard, Roger and Garp taking on the rocks pirates, oden fighting kaido, shiki escaped impel down and fought garp and sengoku, but where is rayleigh in all this? who is rayleigh fighting? Oda doesnt even bother drawing rayleigh in the battle with rocks...

So why is rayleigh called the dark king? epithets aren't created out of nothing, there has to be a reason. For example, knew garp was called the "hero of the marines" back since chapter 423, but we only found out why he is called that hundreds of chapters later when he got lore about rocks. That's why I think rayleigh must have done something to be known as the dark king, which hasn't been revealed to us yet. It definently feels like something is missing. If there really isnt anymore to rayleigh than what we've seen then all the hype surrounding him just doesnt make any sense

Oda just wants us to respect Rayleigh

We haven't seen Prime Rayleigh doing anything amazing yet

 

[matt245]

Because, hear me out, he isn't irrelevant?

 

[Krusher1357]

Gotta wank zoro's parallel dad to high heavens

 

[zzShinichi]

Because he's HIM

 

[Krusher1357]

Because he's HIM

That guy?!?

 

[soheilhazrat]

he is strong as fuck but oda just doesnt have the time/panels to hype him with actual feats. So he uses narrative to give us an idea of how strong he was back in the day.

kinda reminds me of Kakashi's dad, no feats but narrative and minato say he is stronger than sannin

 

[Master OF Haki]

Because Rayleigh is the guy who trained the main character, and the main character can't be trained by some no name from Roger's crew. That's why Rayleigh has this baeslles clout despite the fact that he never fought anyone. Plus Rayleigh is meant to show what Zoro must become in the future, his window to the future.

 

[JoNdule]

Because Rayleigh is the guy who trained the main character, and the main character can't be trained by some no name from Roger's crew. That's why Rayleigh has this baeslles clout despite the fact that he never fought anyone. Plus Rayleigh is meant to show what Zoro must become in the future, his window to the future.

Exactly

 

[Welkin]

I do think it’s weird that he’s left out of the God Valley stuff especially when we know he had to be fighting one of the big names of his generation

Could’ve been Big Mom, Shiki, Kaido, anyone

Dunno why he wasn’t included

Maybe he had a certain role to play that won’t be revealed till later?

No idea

 

[Sugoi]

Because, hear me out, he isn't irrelevant?

he's not relevant in flashbacks

Post automatically merged: Apr 25, 2023

Maybe he had a certain role to play that won’t be revealed till later?

that is what I'm hoping

 

[a_fan]

There's a theory that Mihawk's parents are Reyleigh and Shakuya. He must be insanely strong in his prime if he was able to groom Mihawk into a WSS and turn Yoru into Black Blade.

 

[Moegara]

I don't agree with either option.

Is there more to him in his prime? Well, not necessarily? He may have fought tons of strong guys in his years of piracy and taken on future Yonkous in God Valley (and clashed with Shadow Marine Hero Bogard) but we aren't going to learn every little event that happened in the series. We know enough about him to justify there not being more to learn.

So is his hype fake? Not at all. His "hype" is factual. We not learning his life story and his point of view during the adventure doesn't invalidate anything.

Then again, I'd be willing to bet there will be a God Valley flashback sooner or later when it's time to learn about Xebec.

 

[RoronoaZorro]

No matter how strong or weak you think Rayleigh is compared to the other old era characters, no one can deny the fearsome reputation he has in the one piece world. Everyone has a hypegasm whenever he appears "OMG ITS THE LEGENDARY DARK KING RAYLEIGH NO WAY". A legend written in so many books

"Do you want the marines to take on 2 legends at the same time"- Garp calling Rayleigh a legend alongside whitebeard
Recently even yonko blackbeard ran away from him

But it's not just his reputation, Rayleigh has been very relevant as well, being the person to save camie in shabondy, protecting the strawhats from kizaru, teaching luffy haki, accompanying him back to marineford and seeing him off, saving boa and driving blackbeard away

However, when we go in to flashbacks and see rayleigh in his prime, all this hype and relevence seems non existent. Oda shows Roger clashing with Whitebeard, Roger and Garp taking on the rocks pirates, oden fighting kaido, shiki escaped impel down and fought garp and sengoku, but where is rayleigh in all this? who is rayleigh fighting? Oda doesnt even bother drawing rayleigh in the battle with rocks...

So why is rayleigh called the dark king? epithets aren't created out of nothing, there has to be a reason. For example, knew garp was called the "hero of the marines" back since chapter 423, but we only found out why he is called that hundreds of chapters later when he got lore about rocks. That's why I think rayleigh must have done something to be known as the dark king, which hasn't been revealed to us yet. It definently feels like something is missing. If there really isnt anymore to rayleigh than what we've seen then all the hype surrounding him just doesnt make any sense

Of course it's for indirect Zoro hype 😎

Oda hints to us just because someone is 2nd, it doesn't mean they're your usual above average dude.

This is why Oda also hype Ben.

 

[Adamxero]

Rayleigh at 70+ year old was evenly fighting Kizaru.

Rayleigh in his prime therefore would be Yonko level at least.

 

[Apollo]

Rayleigh is a legendary man, this was how the -rather oblivious strawhats- reacted when they heard his name:

Spoiler

Roger's crew had decades of piracy under their belt with Ray being there since day 1, I don't doubt there is more to their actions that add to his reputation.

 

[matt245]

he's not relevant in flashbacks

Flashbacks where he wasn't the focus and still, even if he did nothing in those flashbacks, he achieved at an old age things that a few pirates can only dream of.