A lot of these agenda chasers, powerscalers are so afraid for their faves to be vulnerable and lose or not to be going all out or w/e. They gotta come up with excuses like the constant assumptions of hostages being used lately for different situations as copes.
They get self-inserty, they like the character and see themselves in them, so downplay sounds like a personal insult at that point.
I've caught myself doing it tbh.
Honestly I don't mind if it's supported by the story, but sometimes it's just plain ol' reaching.
LMFAO ACCURATE, god being an Admiral fan can be traumatic especially with this fanbase. I lowkey got PTSD being a Kizaru fan during Egghead too, as if being a Eustass Chadd fan post Shanks encounter or even from Dressrosa onwards wasn't bad enough /s.
I think to some extent it's due to a lack of garnishing and screentime.
Kidd is the only captain who doesn't have a D or fancy WG wanted fruit compared to Luffy and Law.
He also never got the screentime Law did which is a shame, IMO he could have been written to show up in WCI and get captured by Kaidou later maybe seeing as how he was mentioned to have attacked BM's ships at one point.
Similarly Admirals and top tier Marines don't really have fancy titles, legendary (Like Gura or Nika) fruits, extended screentime or loads of exposition on past history.
So people underestimate them and disregard their actual showings and portrayal because of that.