Welcome, Worstgen, and share with me a disgusting cup of horchata as I discuss something I'm personally worried about. My text may be long but I believe it's interesting enough for me to share it and for you to share your opinions on it. To summarize, it's on Oda forcing unnecessary explanations and justifications on his own artistic choices, and how this could harm the romantic vibe of his story.
Let's begin, shall we?
In Volume 100 SBS we found out that Black Maria’s abnormal hybrid is the result of her taking “some drugs” and that’s it. The situation here is obvious: Oda wanted to put Jorogumo, a famous Japanese yokai, in Wano; yet the changes in his own rules required to do so lead many people to be confused at why Maria’s hybrid looked like a SMILE. His answer? “A drug did it”.
This isn’t an answer, let’s get that right, but the modern reinvention of the infamous “a wizard did it” that fits modern standards better. Contemporaneous tastes are spoiled so they need a tangible and feelingly (albeit not truly) logical explanation for everything, and this is sufficiently provided by anything sounding scientific enough even though, at the end of the day, is as empty as an explanation as the wizard’s doing.
One of the most aberrant manifestations of this bias happens when seemingly magic events, difficult to explain by reason yet very powerful from a literary standpoint, are repudiated by readers who need “explanations”. This phenomenon famously reached its peak when George Lucas butchered his own mythos as he felt the urge to “explain” the Force, an essentially spiritual concept, through vague pseudoscience in the form of midichlorians. Just one scene: that’s all it took for Star Wars to lose the scaffold that supported its wise, ancient, transcendent-feeling universe. Contrary to Lucas’s mistake, a writer’s ability to play with non-rational elements and elevate the rhetorical strength of their story is to be praised; this can be noted throughout masterpieces going from epic fantasy (such as Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil and the author’s overall liking for leaving things unexplained) to more down-to-earth genres (see magic realism, with exquisite authors like Gabo and their mastery on putting impossible things in realistic settings and making them work perfectly to improve the whole work).
If we focus on One Piece, I have the feeling Oda is turning to a dangerous route of unnecessary explanations and fake justifications. Black Maria’s hybrid made no sense but eventually worked as her whole context fully merged with Japanese folklore, and when the author tried to justify it he just opened more questions: who created such drug? Why no one paid attention to Chopper’s transformations if it’s something the Beasts Pirates are familiar with? How is it that such powerful science was limited to one of their fighters (maybe Jack’s centaur too?) even though so many of them could improve their fruits by using it? It all feels like Oda saying: “Oh, yeah, it’s… Let me check my ‘sounds scientific’ list… A drug! That’s it; a drug did it, now forget about it”.
Another recent discovering, which is Onimaru, suffers from this too to some degree. From my point of view, it really helped Wano’s enchanted atmosphere (expected for this kind of tale) to have a fox that turned human without any explicit justification given. This mystery is actually the reason why his subplot delivers a strong final punch when both the monk and the pet are revealed to be the same, but Oda decided to conceive an unnecessary mythical model of the Hito Hito to explain how a fox becomes a big man, a mythical that may never have a significant enough role to justify it and decreases the scarcity of such powers said to be rarer than Logia. Onimaru's shapeshifting remaining unexplained wouldn't mean that no explanation existed, but rather that it was up to your own imagination —which is exactly why it worked so well in the folkloric context of the feudal Japan that Wano is.
That said, let’s take on my big personal fear: Sanji, and more specifically his genetics. For years we’ve had readers repudiating Sanji’s fire powers as they thought them to make no sense and come out of the blue without a “rational explanation” behind. These people found support on the possibility of Sanji being genetically altered which would apparently explain his abilities; a train of reasoning that got new focus with Queen’s comments on lunarians and how normal people can’t produce fire.
My fear here therefore comes from the chances of Oda actually following this route and turning Sanji’s fire into another genetic modification, another experiment. And I fear it because it would brutally destroy Sanji’s character even more than it’s already destroyed. To make it clear, I was perfectly fine with Diable Jambe and Hell Memories lacking “rational explanations” because every justification we received was quite strong from a rhetorical standpoint; even then, the spinning explanation worked perfectly as not only did we see him doing so, but he was likely inspired by Wanze's roller skates (which produced fire with friction).
But let's clarify some points:
—First, as he stated back in Baratie, no cook fears fire. Additionally, chefs are well known to resists very high temperatures as they dominate fire and heat for a living.
—Second, he’s a very emotional man, reacting with violence towards Fullbody, stopping Luffy with a kick the moment he suggests on Usopp leaving the crew, having a natural talent to empathize with people and comfort them, the kindness narrative for his character… and, of course, his whole love them. Emotions are what he could kept unlike his siblings thanks to Sora, they are passion, they are heat and fire, which is why it fits so much that Sanji is “naturally burning”, and burning hotter as his emotions are fueled (hence Hell Memories).
—Third, he’s a classy devil. He wears an elegant suit, he has French inspiration, he loves smoking and, on top of this, he follows a “diable” theme (remember, Jabra: the Devil created the spices). All of this carries a strong mysterious and even supernatural vibe that perfectly fits the idea of a seemingly normal human producing fire by himself.
The whole package, therefore, works perfectly with no strong scientific, rational or whatever explanation needed, and more importantly: it works better without it because spirit Sanji and science Sanji don’t mix: science is cold and rational, not hot and emotional; Super Sentai suits are robotic and cheesy, not elegant and classic (and Stealth Black's mask won't let him smoke!); genetics are physical, unlike the spiritual tone of a hellish fire. In other words, Sanji works as good as the Force and doesn’t need his own midichlorians —call them Germa modifications, raid suit or lunarian DNA— because that’s pseudoscience, and pseudoscience kills romance.
Let’s get this right, though: I’m not against mixing science with literature, not even close, and of course I know science can indeed be emotional and approach spiritual areas to provide a better light at them. What I’m talking about here is the rhetorical tone of a piece of literature, and in this case, One Piece has always respected a romantic basis that I now fear to disappear. Imagine, for example, the shadows from Florian Triangle being explained or the Klabautermann losing its folkloric feel —there’s no need to because they work perfectly as they are! But Oda may be his own story’s highest threat, just like Lucas was to Star Wars, and in the same way the richness of his powers is being slowly retconned into vague forms of haki (breath of things, rokushiki, etc.), we could witness Sanji’s devil, among many other things, turning into “a scientific wizard did it”.
And then the romance would be gone.
Let's begin, shall we?
In Volume 100 SBS we found out that Black Maria’s abnormal hybrid is the result of her taking “some drugs” and that’s it. The situation here is obvious: Oda wanted to put Jorogumo, a famous Japanese yokai, in Wano; yet the changes in his own rules required to do so lead many people to be confused at why Maria’s hybrid looked like a SMILE. His answer? “A drug did it”.
This isn’t an answer, let’s get that right, but the modern reinvention of the infamous “a wizard did it” that fits modern standards better. Contemporaneous tastes are spoiled so they need a tangible and feelingly (albeit not truly) logical explanation for everything, and this is sufficiently provided by anything sounding scientific enough even though, at the end of the day, is as empty as an explanation as the wizard’s doing.
One of the most aberrant manifestations of this bias happens when seemingly magic events, difficult to explain by reason yet very powerful from a literary standpoint, are repudiated by readers who need “explanations”. This phenomenon famously reached its peak when George Lucas butchered his own mythos as he felt the urge to “explain” the Force, an essentially spiritual concept, through vague pseudoscience in the form of midichlorians. Just one scene: that’s all it took for Star Wars to lose the scaffold that supported its wise, ancient, transcendent-feeling universe. Contrary to Lucas’s mistake, a writer’s ability to play with non-rational elements and elevate the rhetorical strength of their story is to be praised; this can be noted throughout masterpieces going from epic fantasy (such as Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil and the author’s overall liking for leaving things unexplained) to more down-to-earth genres (see magic realism, with exquisite authors like Gabo and their mastery on putting impossible things in realistic settings and making them work perfectly to improve the whole work).
If we focus on One Piece, I have the feeling Oda is turning to a dangerous route of unnecessary explanations and fake justifications. Black Maria’s hybrid made no sense but eventually worked as her whole context fully merged with Japanese folklore, and when the author tried to justify it he just opened more questions: who created such drug? Why no one paid attention to Chopper’s transformations if it’s something the Beasts Pirates are familiar with? How is it that such powerful science was limited to one of their fighters (maybe Jack’s centaur too?) even though so many of them could improve their fruits by using it? It all feels like Oda saying: “Oh, yeah, it’s… Let me check my ‘sounds scientific’ list… A drug! That’s it; a drug did it, now forget about it”.
Another recent discovering, which is Onimaru, suffers from this too to some degree. From my point of view, it really helped Wano’s enchanted atmosphere (expected for this kind of tale) to have a fox that turned human without any explicit justification given. This mystery is actually the reason why his subplot delivers a strong final punch when both the monk and the pet are revealed to be the same, but Oda decided to conceive an unnecessary mythical model of the Hito Hito to explain how a fox becomes a big man, a mythical that may never have a significant enough role to justify it and decreases the scarcity of such powers said to be rarer than Logia. Onimaru's shapeshifting remaining unexplained wouldn't mean that no explanation existed, but rather that it was up to your own imagination —which is exactly why it worked so well in the folkloric context of the feudal Japan that Wano is.
That said, let’s take on my big personal fear: Sanji, and more specifically his genetics. For years we’ve had readers repudiating Sanji’s fire powers as they thought them to make no sense and come out of the blue without a “rational explanation” behind. These people found support on the possibility of Sanji being genetically altered which would apparently explain his abilities; a train of reasoning that got new focus with Queen’s comments on lunarians and how normal people can’t produce fire.
My fear here therefore comes from the chances of Oda actually following this route and turning Sanji’s fire into another genetic modification, another experiment. And I fear it because it would brutally destroy Sanji’s character even more than it’s already destroyed. To make it clear, I was perfectly fine with Diable Jambe and Hell Memories lacking “rational explanations” because every justification we received was quite strong from a rhetorical standpoint; even then, the spinning explanation worked perfectly as not only did we see him doing so, but he was likely inspired by Wanze's roller skates (which produced fire with friction).
But let's clarify some points:
—First, as he stated back in Baratie, no cook fears fire. Additionally, chefs are well known to resists very high temperatures as they dominate fire and heat for a living.
—Second, he’s a very emotional man, reacting with violence towards Fullbody, stopping Luffy with a kick the moment he suggests on Usopp leaving the crew, having a natural talent to empathize with people and comfort them, the kindness narrative for his character… and, of course, his whole love them. Emotions are what he could kept unlike his siblings thanks to Sora, they are passion, they are heat and fire, which is why it fits so much that Sanji is “naturally burning”, and burning hotter as his emotions are fueled (hence Hell Memories).
—Third, he’s a classy devil. He wears an elegant suit, he has French inspiration, he loves smoking and, on top of this, he follows a “diable” theme (remember, Jabra: the Devil created the spices). All of this carries a strong mysterious and even supernatural vibe that perfectly fits the idea of a seemingly normal human producing fire by himself.
The whole package, therefore, works perfectly with no strong scientific, rational or whatever explanation needed, and more importantly: it works better without it because spirit Sanji and science Sanji don’t mix: science is cold and rational, not hot and emotional; Super Sentai suits are robotic and cheesy, not elegant and classic (and Stealth Black's mask won't let him smoke!); genetics are physical, unlike the spiritual tone of a hellish fire. In other words, Sanji works as good as the Force and doesn’t need his own midichlorians —call them Germa modifications, raid suit or lunarian DNA— because that’s pseudoscience, and pseudoscience kills romance.
Let’s get this right, though: I’m not against mixing science with literature, not even close, and of course I know science can indeed be emotional and approach spiritual areas to provide a better light at them. What I’m talking about here is the rhetorical tone of a piece of literature, and in this case, One Piece has always respected a romantic basis that I now fear to disappear. Imagine, for example, the shadows from Florian Triangle being explained or the Klabautermann losing its folkloric feel —there’s no need to because they work perfectly as they are! But Oda may be his own story’s highest threat, just like Lucas was to Star Wars, and in the same way the richness of his powers is being slowly retconned into vague forms of haki (breath of things, rokushiki, etc.), we could witness Sanji’s devil, among many other things, turning into “a scientific wizard did it”.
And then the romance would be gone.