Like, King was bland too until his fight with Zoro where subtle character traits were contextualized.
Oda managed to make me care about King within the two last chapters before his defeat.
Before he was a walking silhouette. This speaks volumes about Oda's writing these days. He is afraid to reveal things too early. Instead he leaves everything until the end, forcing people to keep reading because they want to see how it ends.
I guess this is the reason for 50% of all One Piece fans to still follow this series.