not what I did at all lol.
You said again and again, and i listed you the times he was brought up and asked where is the again and again. There's only 1 character in this series that's about "how the marines should be", that's Fujitora. That's it. Koby is your status quo guy who's doing what others before have been doing for ages, does Oda need to spell it out for you and show you each incident of guys like Smoker/Drake/Hina/etc saving civilians from pirates?
And Koby's title is not "Hero of the Marines", he's "Hero of the Rocky Port Incident". Which then is shortened to "the hero". Hero of the Marines is a title that's only applied to Garp. But there are other marines who have hero titles but aren't directly told to us, just Kuzan was called a Hero by Brannew.
"Kuzan was called a hero by brannew"
And I listed another time where Koby's hero title was mentioned by the manga, and that's not counting in the papers when he was kidnapped and why Blackbeard thought he might even be a decent bargaining chip.
It's because Koby, with that huge medal across his chest, is being cast as something symbolic/representative of the Marines as a group; period.
Smoker would not be seem similarly and that's not an indictment on Smoker because that's just not what his plot has dealt with; Koby has the fawning civilians, Smoker gets the underworld brokers mentioning him as a renown name/the fear of Vergo and Ceaser for his intelligence and willfulness.
I'm done here since you just repeated that Koby's your status quo guy as if I didn't literally already state that his first official act as a Marine was leading the Shell Town Marines in saluting a pirate and that Koby, who as ill mention again in all caps but you won't acknowledge HAD THE CLIMACTIC SCENE OF PRE TIMESKIP ONE PIECE by deliberately bucking the status quo for his conviction.
Koby isn't your status quo guy, he's defined by his defense of life from a weaker position whether that's in going to unite Zoro, standing in front of a canon for Helmeppo, or his fateful actions in Marienford.
By his willfulness.
You cheaply emphasizing the gaps in between those appearances rather than just copping to Koby's inherent importance and then trying to figure out what Oda's saying with him in his economy of page time is ridiculous.
Black Cage "just swallow the company line" Hina shouldn't be next to either Smoker or Koby separated by a comma.
There's being a good person/good officer and then there's standing for something greater and deliberately pushing yourself to the front of the pack like Koby and Smoker do.