To be fair, it is both. A tactical retreat and hype for Garp.
Also, Oda used BM to hype up Garp for a reason, cause WB having that reaction wouldn't make sense since he's same level level as Garp. Oda was clearly protecting WB here by doing this.
Oda played it quite carefully there. Gave Yonkos an out by having two smart ones deciding to retreat (while having the young Luffy like retard wanting to fight), didn't get Garp kicked his ass in a 1v3, and hyped up Garp USING Big Mom
Yes, but this doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. We already know that Garp was for sure stronger than BM at the time, who was almost a decade younger. It’s expected for someone like Garp to no-sell an elemental attack with haki, and it even looks like he used advanced Conqueror’s btw. Old man and geriatric Garp was doing the same, if not worse, to Kuzan, so it’s hard to imagine a younger Big Mom posing much of a threat to prime Garp with her projectiles.
If Whitebeard hadn’t run away with BM, gotten mocked by Garp, and then given an excuse by Oda, then things would look really bad for Big Mom but that’s not the case. In fact, her portrayal comes off as second to Whitebeard’s, even though she’s younger than Shiki. Whitebeard and BM has been paired up throughout the chapter. We’ll have to wait for the translations, but in the Dragon scene, it was her and Whitebeard doing the bickering about some shit. Both had their little brothers in the crew, both also dismissed wasting time on Garp, and that directly contrasted with Kaido, who was portrayed as the weaker and more naive one.
@Ven437, think it’d be clear in the upcoming chapters that Whitebeard and BM could have been the top dogs. Shiki’s not getting much attention as I initially expected. At most, I can see him clashing briefly with Ray. If he doesn’t show acoc then it’s over for him ngl.