Wait wait wait. You think I am trying to downplay Smoker?
No. I am simply being realistic. Coby is what 18 had two years of growth with garp and is impressive. Smoker is like 15vyears older than luffy and coby lol. Now how is he realistically a portrayal of garp? Garp and rodger were similar in age. Smoker is so much older than luffy that it isn't even funny. He has less room to grow in comparison to luffy and coby.
Added with the fact that we have already scene the full scope of what he can do post tineskip. I just don't realistically think he is going to be as powerful or as important as you want him to be
No. I am simply being realistic. Coby is what 18 had two years of growth with garp and is impressive. Smoker is like 15vyears older than luffy and coby lol. Now how is he realistically a portrayal of garp? Garp and rodger were similar in age. Smoker is so much older than luffy that it isn't even funny. He has less room to grow in comparison to luffy and coby.
Added with the fact that we have already scene the full scope of what he can do post tineskip. I just don't realistically think he is going to be as powerful or as important as you want him to be
Calling someone the "Garp" of something is a horrible way to phrase a parallel as that isn't a title or what parallels are.
People only deny it due to either hyperfocusing on his losses rather than the context and the character content around them or due to not realizing that no parallel in any work of fiction is a character/relationship being a carbon copy of another.
They're a comparing and contrasting of two figures/relationships/events using one as a touchpoint to explore the other and emphasize notes of interest/specific themes.
They inform on future and past plots and hint at character directions that could mirror their parallels, but often that direction is one character ultimately not following the path of the character they parallel.
Differentiating them as not making the same mistakes/fulfilling something once failed.
That's Smoker.
He's following the same path as Garp with the same attitude in regards to rank and a mirrored ideology in their pride as a Marine/the divide between them and pirates.
He similarly has specifically sworn his life on capturing Luffy on multiple occasions and with him shares the same tsundere dynamic that existed with Garp/Roger ;to the point you could copy and paste Luffy/Smoker into the Impel Down scene between those two and it would read the same.
They both wish to fight once more and have had to team up twice against a greater force; three time's if non-canon stampede is taken into account.
The parallel still exists in PH and is now at the point where Smoker will make the choices/have the-ideological awakening that leads him down the path Garp never took; which is possibly leaving the Navy or at least being far more decisive in actions and actually coming to terms with his fondness of Luffy/acknowledging his complex feelings for him while both still live.
This way they have the cathartic team-up that's been brewing since Lougetown and pay-off for all of Smoker's near stopping of Luffy's ascent to pirate king.
Koby parallels Garp as well, I described how he does earlier.
It's just not in the ways you want.