One Piece is weird. You have your Pells and no one dying from Enel or CP9, but then you have Ace and Whitebeard, Vergo and Monet, Pedro and presumably Peckoms, Asura and Izo, possibly Big Mom and Kaido, and finally Saturn outside of flashbacks.
I actually dont get his decision making on stakes because he can be surprisingly brutal when he wants to be but its obviously rare.