This isn't a Big mom dissing post. It's a character analysis. Big mom is my 2nd favourite villain in the series and is even in my top 10 favourite characters in the series. In fact I've made multiple posts about how I love her motivation and dream and backstory and theories on her character progression in the story (if anyone wants those I'll link them)
I'm prefacing this with proof that I don't dislike big mom even until now in Wano just to make it clear this isn't a diss thread. Because there's a lot of hate for her around and I want to show I'm not trying to add to it.
Big mom has been goofy and dumb since WCI and there's entirely nothing that has changed about that in Wano. If your problem is that you want her to change and become less goofy and dumb than she was introduced to be then this post isn't for you.
What I'm addressing is the notion that she WASN'T like this in WCI and now she's being "disrespected."
I will always remember a very specific scene that caught me off guard in WCI with how clearly it demonstrated that Big mom is a very big dumb dumb. Even dumber than I had previously thought at the time.
Ichiji after realising the betrayal of the Big mom pirates says, "Even if you could kill us and take our technology, you wouldn't even know how to use it." This statement made me pause and try and think carefully about this. All the big mom children are Cooks, not scientists. The only scientist Big mom has on hand is Caeser. And then it dawned on me that this was a stupid plan from the beginning.
Caeser is definitively the worst scientist in the series. Literally NOTHING he's ever made works. And Big mom was likely destroying a perfectly suitable relationship with a scientist who clearly knows what they are doing, to replace him with a scientist who has no working inventions in the series. This was a plan big mom thought of for a considerable amount of time BTW.
Big mom was introduced destroying her house, attempting to kill her son, and then getting her face stuffed full of cream puffs. I mean this is goofy isn't it? I'm not the only person who thinks the arc villain getting their face stuffed with food by force is goofy. And then later on the arc villain spends half the arc destroying her kingdom on a dumb wild goose chase.
And you might be arguing, "Big mom wasn't goofy/dumb AS FREQUENTLY in WCI as she is now," and you're right. But there's a reason for that. The reason she doesn't destroy her own country in WCI and the reason her dumb plan works despite being dumb. Her crew was there. Her crew balanced out Big mom's quirks with a degree of competence to add to an actual threat. And her crew isn't here in Wano.
I maintain Big mom is a fantastic character because she even managed to trick the readers. The way Oda wrote her in WCI SEEMED so threatening that it's actually surprising to many how unthreatening she is in Wano. And this illusion only exists because many people, me included, barely noticed how much her kids were picking up her slack. In fact her kids are so important that one of them literally usurps her as the arc villain for Luffy to fight.
Notice that this situation in Wano for Big mom is similar to Luffy after Sabaody. Both Luffy and Big mom are without their crews and must fend for themselves but then the cracks start to show for Big mom. Luffy is relatively fine and can even make alliances with people who share a similar goal to him such as Boa and Impel down prisoners and white beard pirates. Big mom on the other hand is entirely helpless and finding herself drowning or in sea prism cuffs and she ends up making entirely stupid alliances with people who do not share her goals at all. Remember Big mom wants peace and happiness under her rule, while Kaido wants a world war that destroys everything. If you wonder how Kaido convinced Big mom to join him on this war path, it's easy. Big mom is dumb. She always has been.
With all this said, she's still very interesting to watch. She's as interesting to watch when she's dumb/goofy as when she's entirely menacing or treacherous or just out of her mind. And that's how you know you have a good character, when they are engaging in all sides of their character.
I'm prefacing this with proof that I don't dislike big mom even until now in Wano just to make it clear this isn't a diss thread. Because there's a lot of hate for her around and I want to show I'm not trying to add to it.
Big mom has been goofy and dumb since WCI and there's entirely nothing that has changed about that in Wano. If your problem is that you want her to change and become less goofy and dumb than she was introduced to be then this post isn't for you.
What I'm addressing is the notion that she WASN'T like this in WCI and now she's being "disrespected."
I will always remember a very specific scene that caught me off guard in WCI with how clearly it demonstrated that Big mom is a very big dumb dumb. Even dumber than I had previously thought at the time.
Ichiji after realising the betrayal of the Big mom pirates says, "Even if you could kill us and take our technology, you wouldn't even know how to use it." This statement made me pause and try and think carefully about this. All the big mom children are Cooks, not scientists. The only scientist Big mom has on hand is Caeser. And then it dawned on me that this was a stupid plan from the beginning.
Caeser is definitively the worst scientist in the series. Literally NOTHING he's ever made works. And Big mom was likely destroying a perfectly suitable relationship with a scientist who clearly knows what they are doing, to replace him with a scientist who has no working inventions in the series. This was a plan big mom thought of for a considerable amount of time BTW.
Big mom was introduced destroying her house, attempting to kill her son, and then getting her face stuffed full of cream puffs. I mean this is goofy isn't it? I'm not the only person who thinks the arc villain getting their face stuffed with food by force is goofy. And then later on the arc villain spends half the arc destroying her kingdom on a dumb wild goose chase.
And you might be arguing, "Big mom wasn't goofy/dumb AS FREQUENTLY in WCI as she is now," and you're right. But there's a reason for that. The reason she doesn't destroy her own country in WCI and the reason her dumb plan works despite being dumb. Her crew was there. Her crew balanced out Big mom's quirks with a degree of competence to add to an actual threat. And her crew isn't here in Wano.
I maintain Big mom is a fantastic character because she even managed to trick the readers. The way Oda wrote her in WCI SEEMED so threatening that it's actually surprising to many how unthreatening she is in Wano. And this illusion only exists because many people, me included, barely noticed how much her kids were picking up her slack. In fact her kids are so important that one of them literally usurps her as the arc villain for Luffy to fight.
Notice that this situation in Wano for Big mom is similar to Luffy after Sabaody. Both Luffy and Big mom are without their crews and must fend for themselves but then the cracks start to show for Big mom. Luffy is relatively fine and can even make alliances with people who share a similar goal to him such as Boa and Impel down prisoners and white beard pirates. Big mom on the other hand is entirely helpless and finding herself drowning or in sea prism cuffs and she ends up making entirely stupid alliances with people who do not share her goals at all. Remember Big mom wants peace and happiness under her rule, while Kaido wants a world war that destroys everything. If you wonder how Kaido convinced Big mom to join him on this war path, it's easy. Big mom is dumb. She always has been.
With all this said, she's still very interesting to watch. She's as interesting to watch when she's dumb/goofy as when she's entirely menacing or treacherous or just out of her mind. And that's how you know you have a good character, when they are engaging in all sides of their character.
