General & Others Luffy's DF reveal made sense, it was just executed poorly

[Monkey D Theories]

While a lot of people have complained about Luffy's DF reveal, I think the issue isn't so much what Oda did but rather how he chose to execute it.

See, Luffy's DF reveal actually makes a lot of things that have happened over the course of one piece make a lot more sense. It explains why Luffy is so special. Why everyone just naturally loves Luffy and why he can even win his enemies to his side. Why Luffy has shown strange powers, like red hawk, that don't make sense for a rubber user to have. Why Luffy can be defeated multiple times in a battle, such as against katakuri or kaido, and yet still get up and keep on fighting.

It also reinforces a lot of the symbolism we've seen throughout the series. For example, Ace vs Teach was framed as a battle between the sun and the darkness. However Ace lost, that's because he wasn't the true sun god, Luffy was. Throughout this series there's also this massive motif of the dawn all of which makes a lot more sense when Luffy is the sun god.

I think the issue with this reveal is that it came at the end of a fight in which Luffy was already granted a copious amount of power ups. Had Oda dealt with Luffy's power ups in a more logical manner, perhaps with Luffy awakening ACoA and ACoC against linlin in WCI, then maybe it wouldn't feel like such an asspull for Luffy to awaken his DF against kaido.

 

[lee33]

Anyone can try to make sense of something if they look hard enough. There is no debating that Luffy's devil fruit is a retcon. You can say you like it, but you can't say it makes sense because making sense is something you can measure.

Oda is a master manipulator and searches for holes/ambiguity in his story to fill that with something post factum. All he does is retroactively adding stuff based off those ambiguity. You can do almost everything with how Oda ambiguously writes things in terms of retroactive foreshadowing and it still would fit and this is no exception. You can find a bunch of things that parallels Luffy to a Zoan gorilla if you look hard enough.

Luffy being able to get up and still fight was plot armor so you can't associate that with his devil fruit. Red Hawk still makes no sense even with the awakening. With redhawk, Oda just wanted Luffy to have a power that parallel's Ace so to associate that with his awakening is taking a big leap.

Regarding Sun vs Darkness, Ace vs Blackbeard, how does that mean Luffy who is rubber is now the new sun god? Instead what that actually means is that Oda retconned Luffy's devil fruit into being the new sun god.

 

[LANJI CUCKSMOKE]

i think your post poses an even bigger question. what you have just highlighted is that the things that made luffy special aside his strength , the other intangibles to his character can also be accredited to his fruit(making allies , massive endurance) . that in my opinion would be the most damning if it were the case .

 

[BlackLegFring]

No that makes it worse. Instead of Luffy’s own personality, hard work and demeanour drawing people to him, it was really his fruit all along. That only diminishes him.

Red Hawk didn’t need any special explanation when other fruits have done weirder things (like Hawkins, for example). Should we expect all those to be revealed to be something else as well? It makes no sense.

There’s a difference between mere symbolism and integrating such a thing into the character’s abilities themselves.
It’s no longer symbolizing anything, Luffy’s powers are literally those of a god of liberation that goes around freeing slaves.
There is simply no need to bash it over people’s head to that point: he’s freeing slaves and bringing laughter to people with the mythical ability of the god of freeing slaves and bringing laughter to people.

I don’t see how that’s better than elevating a mundane and unremarkable power like the rubber fruit to do so.

And yeah, it was executed poorly on top of that.

 

[Roo]

The power creep post ts has been crazy but I can't think of a better way to have done it. Maybe after Wano is done someone can come up with a rewrite that makes sense

 

[LANJI CUCKSMOKE]

The power creep post ts has been crazy but I can't think of a better way to have done it. Maybe after Wano is done someone can come up with a rewrite that makes sense

i think up until wano it was fine tbh

 

[Finalbeta]

It can make sense because Oda doesn't necessarily have to put a specific limit to how much he can power up a character as long as the story behind it is not looking inconsistent from a feasibility perspective. :cheers:

 

[Charlotte Horchata]

Why everyone just naturally loves Luffy and why he can even win his enemies to his side.

It made total sense for someone like Luffy, who will give his all for the people he cares about, who will treat you kindly if he doesn't feel any grugde even if you are seemingly against him, who will defend his convictions with no hesitation... to be beloved like that. Luffy is the kind of guy who ordered Zoro to save Smoker and later stated to not hate him with a big smile. How do you exactly expect this person to not gain friends nor turn enemies to his side? He's a role model, his attitude is transformational and he's incredibly friendly; if you know anything about Psychology, Luffy pretty much displays every trait possible shared by those capable of changing the hearts of people. He's naturally belovable, and we didn't need a twist in form of a fruit to explain it.

In fact, I seriously hope the Nika fruit has nothing to do with everyone naturally loving Luffy. If this is the case, then it's utter crap.

Why Luffy has shown strange powers, like red hawk, that don't make sense for a rubber user to have.

As if this required an explanation. Sanji burns hotter the stronger his emotions are, Black Maria's spider can spite flames so can Holed'em's lion, Katakuri's Yaki Mochi gets ignited... Why would we need a reason for Luffy to use Red Hawk?

Why Luffy can be defeated multiple times in a battle, such as against katakuri or kaido, and yet still get up and keep on fighting.

Because "rubber always bounces back", but apparently we need to make metaphors explicit too because rhetorics are bad.

It also reinforces a lot of the symbolism we've seen throughout the series. For example, Ace vs Teach was framed as a battle between the sun and the darkness. However Ace lost, that's because he wasn't the true sun god, Luffy was. Throughout this series there's also this massive motif of the dawn all of which makes a lot more sense when Luffy is the sun god.

Doesn't need an actual Nika fruit. Same symbolism can be achieved with Luffy being the new Nika without being an actual Nika.

 

[Garp the Fist]

I don’t think any of the “explanations” that the Nika fruit supposedly gives were ever questions that needed answering.