When the discussion is about Roger-Garp's parallel to Luffy-Koby, yes their relationship 100% matters. Otherwise, as I already stated characters can have multiple parallels. Luffy's parallel for "power" for his era isn't Roger, it's his grandfather. Zoro's parallel for "power" for his era isn't Rayleigh, it's Gol D. Roger the strongest swordsman of his era.
And Garp never represented the justice of his era, never, this man's justice is literally "my justice". He was one of the faces of his era, never the sole individual face of his era for the marines. Rather one can argue Sengoku was a bigger face for the Marines than Garp was. Hence the two are constantly grouped together on a consistent basis with no separation in popularity. Especially when it comes to setting the standard for Justice, Sengoku for sure was the face of the Marines over Garp.
Garp, Fujitora, Smoker are the 3 Wild Dogs of three different eras of the Marines. They're constantly shown talking out against their organization's authority and clashing with it. Constantly doing their own thing on the whim that they want to do it. They have heavy influence on Marines around them and under them.
People acting like Smoker wasn't a renowned figure pre-TS that even warlords knew and recognized back even Alabasta and treated with respect to his power is crazy.
Not a rebuttal to me at all; I never claimed he wasn't renown at all pre or post-timeskip and didn't make a claim that could be interpreted as such.
Smoker has not been cast as a symbol in the same light as Garp has been shown to be the series over, he's the symbol of peace in the East Blue; his whole method as we see again and again is punching moles back into their holes, he punches pirates.
Koby's whole shtick is the defense of life from a weaker position, all his defining moments bar whenever he needs to assert himself to give his position legitimacy (punching Luffy in Shell Town to strike out for his dream/break that reverence, challenging Luffy in Marienford which gave Koby weight as a soldier, otherwise him making the bravest decision a soldier could make of defying unjust orders on the battlefield, at least as they see it, would have no weight at all or he'd just have been a deserter).
Sengoku is not cast as that.
Koby is Garp's pupil and is blatantly being cast again and again as something the Marines should be, cast as their avatar in this era; he had *the* climactic moment of Marineford/pre-timeskip One Piece defending the life of his fellow soldiers on the grand stage; Oda has not on page made any effort to give Smoker similar plot elements.
Smoker is the captain of a faction that as of post-Fishman Island was still torching pirates and is likened again and again to pirates and- well I'm not going to define Smoker because none of what you talked about is relevant to my post as I didn't say his relationship with Luffy doesn't parallel Garp's with Roger.
I specially said it does, just as I specifically said Smoker parallels Garp.
Like I don't even know what you're trying to argue against in my post.
"Sengoku for sure was the face of the Marines"
No.
Not at all.
Sengoku was the administrator, he shouldered the burden that Garp shirked to sail and punch people, but just because the big makes mention their names together doesn't mean the common folk see Garp and Sengoku as representing the Navy equally.
That's pretty clearly not the case.
Koby parallels Garp, Smoker parallels Garp, is this your first work or fiction?
Are you scared of the fact that they mutually parallel Garp and that their parallels purposely point them to take different directions than Garp did?