Samurai Souls and Swords

#1
Kawamatsu introduces a relationship between SWORDS and SOULS in Wano.

As you can probably tell this concept sounds like a Wano roundabout way of discussing INHERITED WILL with SOULS as a stand in for the WILL passed on through the action of welding the fallen's SWORD.

After Kawamatsu discussing this, we get ourselves a direct example of this concept in practice.

Oden proclaims that his SOUL will live on and then

Oden passes his SWORDS onto his Children.

On the topic of Inherited will though, Oda does EXPLICITLY talk about Oden's retainers inheriting Oden's will but this thread is about the metaphor of SWORDS and SOULS so I will focus on that.

Now outside of Oda setting up this clever metaphor to repeat one of the oldest themes in the story, Oda still has to make a story out of this metaphor. And a story needs conflict.

Our first source of conflict though is resolved rather quickly at least for Zoro.

Zoro is given the choice to decide between Enma and Shusui and after a rather short conversation, the conflict is resolved when Zoro chooses to respect the Memory of Ryuma and trade Shusui for Enma.

Hiyori on the other hand is the one who actually goes through a reasonable amount of conflict here but its done in the background of Zoro showing off his cutting skills. Hiyori is the one who INHERITED her father's WILL through the sword and has to make a choice to give up something that means a lot to her to a person who just wants a sword for the sake of having one. Ultimately though after observing him closely, Zoro's character and cutting skills and affiliation with the rebellion convince her enough that he's worth being the next INHERITOR and she bows down to pass on her father's WILL.


Notice that this is slightly reminiscent of the time Momo bowed down to Luffy also passing on the WILL of his father to Luffy.

Interestingly, this creates the SECOND time Zoro has INHERITED the WILL of a lady (Kuina and Hiyori) through SWORDS as Oda even lightly points out.

It's even pointed out again that Zoro having trained with Wado Ichimonji for years let's him have a better grasp on Enma than normal which emphasizes Zoro's accumulated strength and effort to that point is what makes him able to use Enma so well and Hiyori noticed all this in the background to make her choice.

For the second conflict presented by our SOULS and SWORDS metaphor, we have Momonosuke INHERITING Ame no Habakiri.


This conflict as we can see hasn't been resolved since Momonosuke doesn't feel himself worthy yet.

We can see Momo feels that people see his father's SOUL and not him when the see him and he feels he has to live up to it before he can INHERIT it through the SWORD

The question now would be how will this conflict of Momo not feeling up to the task be resolved. The answer presented to us as of now is Momo is training to get strong enough to do something and to close off the thematic loop, it's revealed Momo is being trained by Zoro, the other INHERITOR


Though to create the seeds for a real character arc with Momo, he must also grow as a person on top of gaining phycial strength as highlighted by Luffy in Zou and by Zoro here.


This little bit dialogue sets up the fact that Momonosuke hasn't fully grasped the situation every one else has been facing including his sister and he expects that she's the same to an extent after all this time.

This minor theme of time passing was explored with Kin'emon failing to grasp that Ashura douji having lived through these twenty years is not exactly the same person and kin'emon grew a bit from recognising this.

We know because of Hiyori's dealing with Kyoshiro and her trists as Komurasaki that there's a number of things below the surface with her and Momo will have to empathise with her situation even if she's not the same person he knew or could be doing things he doesn't agree with.

Finally we have ourselves a thematically resonate story with Zoro as a mentor figure who was naturally worthy of the burden of INHERITING this WILL while Momo looks up to him hoping to gain the strength to be worthy of his father's SOUL in his SWORD but has to mature to see his sister's and everyone's perspective on this tragedy as highlighted by Zoro.

That's it for my analysis of this metaphor of SWORDS and SAMURAI SOULS as presented in Wano so far.
 
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#8
Kawamatsu introduces a relationship between SWORDS and SOULS in Wano.

As you can probably tell this concept sounds like a Wano roundabout way of discussing INHERITED WILL with SOULS as a stand in for the WILL passed on through the action of welding the fallen's SWORD.

After Kawamatsu discussing this, we get ourselves a direct example of this concept in practice.

Oden proclaims that his SOUL will live on and then

Oden passes his SWORDS onto his Children.

On the topic of Inherited will though, Oda does EXPLICITLY talk about Oden's retainers inheriting Oden's will but this thread is about the metaphor of SWORDS and SOULS so I will focus on that.

Now outside of Oda setting up this clever metaphor to repeat one of the oldest themes in the story, Oda still has to make a story out of this metaphor. And a story needs conflict.

Our first source of conflict though is resolved rather quickly at least for Zoro.

Zoro is given the choice to decide between Enma and Shusui and after a rather short conversation, the conflict is resolved when Zoro chooses to respect the Memory of Ryuma and trade Shusui for Enma.

Hiyori on the other hand is the one who actually goes through a reasonable amount of conflict here but its done in the background of Zoro showing off his cutting skills. Hiyori is the one who INHERITED her father's WILL through the sword and has to make a choice to give up something that means a lot to her to a person who just wants a sword for the sake of having one. Ultimately though after observing him closely, Zoro's character and cutting skills and affiliation with the rebellion convince her enough that he's worth being the next INHERITOR and she bows down to pass on her father's WILL.


Notice that this is slightly reminiscent of the time Momo bowed down to Luffy also passing on the WILL of his father to Luffy.

Interestingly, this creates the SECOND time Zoro has INHERITED the WILL of a lady (Kuina and Hiyori) through SWORDS as Oda even lightly points out.

It's even pointed out again that Zoro having trained with Wado Ichimonji for years let's him have a better grasp on Enma than normal which emphasizes Zoro's accumulated strength and effort to that point is what makes him able to use Enma so well and Hiyori noticed all this in the background to make her choice.

For the second conflict presented by our SOULS and SWORDS metaphor, we have Momonosuke INHERITING Ame no Habakiri.


This conflict as we can see hasn't been resolved since Momonosuke doesn't feel himself worthy yet.

We can see Momo feels that people see his father's SOUL and not him when the see him and he feels he has to live up to it before he can INHERIT it through the SWORD

The question now would be how will this conflict of Momo not feeling up to the task be resolved. The answer presented to us as of now is Momo is training to get strong enough to do something and to close off the thematic loop, it's revealed Momo is being trained by Zoro, the other INHERITOR


Though to create the seeds for a real character arc with Momo, he must also grow as a person on top of gaining phycial strength as highlighted by Luffy in Zou and by Zoro here.


This little bit dialogue sets up the fact that Momonosuke hasn't fully grasped the situation every one else has been facing including his sister and he expects that she's the same to an extent after all this time.

This minor theme of time passing was explored with Kin'emon failing to grasp that Ashura douji having lived through these twenty years is not exactly the same person and kin'emon grew a bit from recognising this.

We know because of Hiyori's dealing with Kyoshiro and her trists as Komurasaki that there's a number of things below the surface with her and Momo will have to empathise with her situation even if she's not the same person he knew or could be doing things he doesn't agree with.

Finally we have ourselves a thematically resonate story with Zoro as a mentor figure who was naturally worthy of the burden of INHERITING this WILL while Momo looks up to him hoping to gain the strength to be worthy of his father's SOUL in his SWORD but has to mature to see his sister's and everyone's perspective on this tragedy as highlighted by Zoro.

That's it for my analysis of this metaphor of SWORDS and SAMURAI SOULS as presented in Wano so far.
Oden said his soul would live on because he is a D. The D's do not really die, their souls keep on passing on.

It has nothing to do with paseing his will on to Luffy or Zoro.
 
#14
Oden is most certainly a D. Him n Roger could hear the Sea Kings.
Momonosuke, Luffy n Law could hear the cries n voice of Zou, and it was mentioned Roger n Oden also could hear Zou.
Only one thing common btwn em.
And thn Oden dying with that smile could be another hint.

Good read and applaud the efforts @ImmaIvanoM
 
#15
.
Oden is most certainly a D. Him n Roger could hear the Sea Kings.
Momonosuke, Luffy n Law could hear the cries n voice of Zou, and it was mentioned Roger n Oden also could hear Zou.
Only one thing common btwn em.
And thn Oden dying with that smile could be another hint.

Good read and applaud the efforts @ImmaIvanoM
I mean him being mg a d doesn't have anything to do with what i was saying though

Kawamatsu doesn't say D clan people are exempt from the Inherited will thing

I mean is there anything I said in my post thats affected by whether he's a d or not?
 
#17
Oden said his soul would live on because he is a D. The D's do not really die, their souls keep on passing on.

It has nothing to do with paseing his will on to Luffy or Zoro.
Errm when was Oden Confirmed a D?
where did it say oden is a D? Headcannon
the passing down of swords symbolises inherited will. Zoro inherited odens will.
Oh, now he's a D:ihaha:
Oden doesn't even strike as someone with the D to me, I usually associate D with success but I could be wrong
O D. En:smithnie:


OT: .....
I mean Pound died also with a smile...

Poun.D?
How Exactly would him being a D or not affect anything I said?

This Rmstorm guy didn't actually say anything that cohesively makes it one way or another. He simply said "He's a D so I'm wrong" and that doesn't mean anything

For some reason this is now derailing the point of the thead when no one has a good reason why it should derail anything
 
#18
How Exactly would him being a D or not affect anything I said?

This Rmstorm guy didn't actually say anything that cohesively makes it one way or another. He simply said "He's a D so I'm wrong" and that doesn't mean anything

For some reason this is now derailing the point of the thead when no one has a good reason why it should derail anything
Babes if your thread is getting derailed, it shows it wasnt interesting in the first place. Be grateful for all the replies you've gotten.
 
#19
One of the more difficult things was tracking Hiyori's train of thought regarding her deciding to give Zoro the sword. Oda intentionally gives us very little regarding her inner dialogue because of course she's Komurasaki and her inner dialogue would expose whatever that shit was about.
But the few time she did in fact have inner dialogue were interesting since they were all observations about Zoro


And then pages like this have a certain deeper context regarding certain aspects we learn later about her.

We see she feels very bad for Zoro getting hurt in her stead and we know from her situation with Kawamatsu that she really doesn't like other people getting hurt because of her as she ran away from Kawamatsu because he was starving himself for her

What's ironic is that both times she's tried to make up for people getting hurt for her, she ended either making it worse or not doing anything. In this scene with Zoro she says all she did to supposedly treat Zoro was apply Ussop's FAKE toad oil which we know doesnt do anything and then she jumps onto the man's shoulder. And then with Kawamatsu, he was literally going to commit suicide because she left

It seems there might be a theme being set up with her in this regard.


Next we have this situation where Zoro empathises with her situation having effectively been abandoned but she brushes this off too.

This is the most of I've looked into Hiyori's character to see how she ended up choosing to give Zoro the sword and the further I went the more interesting she got. Hell you could even pull out a semi-romantic story if you look closely but thats a topic for another thread
 
#20
.

I mean him being mg a d doesn't have anything to do with what i was saying though

Kawamatsu doesn't say D clan people are exempt from the Inherited will thing

I mean is there anything I said in my post thats affected by whether he's a d or not?
You mistook my post, Oden possibly being a D was a separate part, was basically just stating my opinion on that matter.
 
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