Speculations Do One Piece Readers Tend to Confuse the Simple with the Complex?

[NexusLord]

Do One Piece Readers Tend to Confuse the Simple with the Complex?
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Reading Comprehension
- The first time I heard of functional illiteracy, it reminded me of an online article about a dramatic car accident in which four youngsters lost their lives. In that article, only the first five comments had anything to do with the tragedy. The rest of the thread was about the performance of the car itself, and not just the safety features. It seemed that the commenters could not distinguish reality from fiction. Does this sound familiar? They were functionally illiterate: They could read and write, but confused the simple with the complex.

Why Do I Bring This Up?
- Many arguments are created as a result of the tendency to confuse the simple with the complex and One Piece is a story that is often vague and open to interpretation. However, it is still a story intended for a young audience, and young audiences are expected to have this problem.

An Example
- There has never been a true consensus on the matter of the World's Strongest titles. Everyone seems to have their own little spin they put on it. Although each of these little spins may be interesting, they are often problematic and leave more questions than answers.

For example, the World's Strongest Man title is often confused for either the simple definition of the strongest man in the world or the complex idea of the strongest person among humankind. This leads to confusion with the World's Strongest Woman title because the complex idea of the strongest person among humankind implies that whoever has the World's Strongest Man title is by default stronger.

When you consider other titles such as the World's Strongest Creature it is often confused for either the simple definition of the strongest creature in the world or the complex idea of the strongest living thing in the world. This leads to confusion with the World's Strongest Man and World's Strongest Woman title because the complex idea of the strongest living thing in the world implies that whoever has the World's Strongest Creature title is by default stronger.

Conclusion
I'm not here to tell you that either one is correct, but I am here to say that complex ideas can lead to confusion, and that it may be best to defer to simplicity when making decisions about the story. In the above situation, none of the titles conflict with one another by their simple definitions, but they do conflict when a complex idea is added.

 

[ConquistadoR]

- There has never been a true consensus on the matter of the World's Strongest titles. Everyone seems to have their own little spin they put on it. Although each of these little spins may be interesting, they are often problematic and leave more questions than answers.

For example, the World's Strongest Man title is often confused for either the simple definition of the strongest man in the world or the complex idea of the strongest person among humankind. This leads to confusion with the World's Strongest Woman title because the complex idea of the strongest person among humankind implies that whoever has the World's Strongest Man title is by default stronger.

When you consider other titles such as the World's Strongest Creature it is often confused for either the simple definition of the strongest creature in the world or the complex idea of the strongest living thing in the world. This leads to confusion with the World's Strongest Man and World's Strongest Woman title because the complex idea of the strongest living thing in the world implies that whoever has the World's Strongest Creature title is by default stronger.

On the money. But you left out the one Worlds strongest title that this fandom has been coping about for over 2 decades now.

That title, and the discussion surrounding who would fall under it is probably the greatest example of "confusing the simple with the complex" in this fandom. It's almost surreal, like someone out of touch from the fandom discussions would never be able to wrap their head around the coping mechanisms that are used.

 

[SkySanji]

Strongest Man
最強の男
男 = male

Strongest Creature
最強の生物
生物 = living thing

It's real simple, what's so confusing about it?

 

[Monster Zoro's Tesla Supplier]

Kaido can't be the World's Strongest Creature because that means my favorite characters are below him and I really don't like that!

 

[vikas]

Kaido can't be the World's Strongest Creature because that means my favorite characters are below him and I really don't like that!

Oda himself says to ignore titles(not directly), its well known oda just hypes things up to make readers stick and not deliver anything and people still going by that...
Imagine worlds most wanted criminal in such a long series did nothing so far.

 

[Monster Zoro's Tesla Supplier]

Oda himself says to ignore titles(not directly), its well known oda just hypes things up to make readers stick and not deliver anything and people still going by that...
Imagine worlds most wanted criminal in such a long series did nothing so far.

Dragon's done a handful of things and he'll do even more in the future
Also y'all seem to forget, even if Kaido's title isn't "official" (as in it didn't get a title card or anything like Mihawk's and Whitebeard's did), it's still something that's spread by a lot of people in the OP verse, which is pretty good hype nonetheless. After all why would they all claim he's the strongest for no reason?

 

[[No Name]]

Yeah it's very simple, titles are not absolut truth and just meant for hype.

 

[Monster Zoro's Tesla Supplier]

It's real simple, what's so confusing about it?

Now let's talk about that WSS title!

 

[vikas]

Dragon's done a handful of things and he'll do even more in the future
Also y'all seem to forget, even if Kaido's title isn't "official" (as in it didn't get a title card or anything like Mihawk's and Whitebeard's did), it's still something that's spread by a lot of people in the OP verse, which is pretty good hype nonetheless. After all why would they all claim he's the strongest for no reason?

He could be the worlds strongest creeature but at the same time he should be the one who needs to have worlds strongest Man title too.
Thats what I am pointing at, oda likes to give titles(doesn't matter in vivre card or not), but they don't really matter much other than hyping readers for short time. For example, in Marinford War, when Garp hit marco and sat down, he hyped him with other characters but after that nothing much happened in war. Felt like a useless hype, could have atleast tried to show something like mihawk, WB akainu/aokiji.
Or take Kaido, his intro/entrance was great, his first appearance in wano and vs Luffy made me think he deserves the WSC. But after that he was a big let down for me. I mean oda even said that he currently has no idea how to defeat Kaido because he is that strong and just a big punch is not the answer, but thats exactly what happened. He just felt like any other major villain of an arc.
And this formula is continuing in egghead, and now in Elbaf too definitely. Like someone getting hyped as destroyer of world(though couldn't even defeat giants of Elbaf), someone having that title is bound to be crazy strong..even Goofy Nika can't do that. But most defiitely will be a let down for the hype he is being given.

 

[NexusLord]

It's real simple, what's so confusing about it?

I don't disagree. That is simple.

I'm not suggesting either thing is correct, but I do wonder how someone would refer to a creature in another context in kanji.

For example, what if somebody was trying to say, "There is a creature in the water."? Would the kanji simply translate to "There is a *living thing* in the water."? Then would we as readers be confused that it could be a man in the water?

I wouldn't know what the correct usage is here because I don't use that language.

 

[MonochromeYoru]

Reading Comprehension
- The first time I heard of functional illiteracy, it reminded me of an online article about a dramatic car accident in which four youngsters lost their lives. In that article, only the first five comments had anything to do with the tragedy. The rest of the thread was about the performance of the car itself, and not just the safety features. It seemed that the commenters could not distinguish reality from fiction. Does this sound familiar? They were functionally illiterate: They could read and write, but confused the simple with the complex.

They were probably car enthusiasts...
Discussing one of their hobbies...

When you consider other titles such as the World's Strongest Creature it is often confused for either the simple definition of the strongest creature in the world or the complex idea of the strongest living thing in the world. This leads to confusion with the World's Strongest Man and World's Strongest Woman title because the complex idea of the strongest living thing in the world implies that whoever has the World's Strongest Creature title is by default stronger.

That confusion is there by design...

Confusion like that invite different views that lead into debates and discussions. Those things are good for anything, especially a literary work.

Oda is making things as vague as possible.
If he didn't want any confusion, he would have defined shit much better.

Stop trying to be some intellectual gigabrain. You are in this damn forum just like the rest of us. So by simple terms, you are also a powerscaling retard.

 

[NexusLord]

Actually I'm here for theories instead of power scaling. I'm one of the guys who likes the lore and world building rather than the interactions between the characters.

 

[Steven]

Now let's talk about that WSS title!

Nobody cares about that titel

 

[Loki D. Terror]

Well agenda scaling is a thing.