I mean tbh Kidds treatment in Manga goes hand in hand with his character arc..he was never meant to be a world beater like Zoro, Luffy etc and real fans of Kidd probably expected that.
But if Zoro was treated like Kidd, I'd say he isn't the character I expected him to be and that'll go against the entire legacy Oda built in last 20 years of One Piece..so I won't be making posts about Zoro anymore.
Just say he was a very well written character pre time skip who went to shit post time skip.
But Kidd getting one shot by Shanks is very consistent with his portrayal of a "Lovable Loser"
Agreed. He wasn't meant to be some god who always wins fights (or most of them) like Zoro and Luffy. He's strong, but still much more human than them and more prone to mistakes and what not.
He was only allowed to hurt Smoothie (my inference is it's Smoothie only because Cracker said nobody ever saw his real self and Katakuri obviously wasn't hurt by him, due to FS and the whole "Invincible" epithet, it wouldn't make sense) and steal BM's RP (at least I think he did?) and leave immediately.
Meanwhile Luffy acted a complete fool there.
Beat Cracker, Kata, etc. plus he took her RP.
Plot armor and what not really gets you a long way.
