Now, understandably, some of you might be thinking "what the hell" about that last point, but I'm actually dead serious. I have mixed reservations about what I believe Shanks to be in One Piece. I don't think he's as "good" as people think. Better yet, I think his character will be revealed to be morally grey.
Lets get a list going of "why" I think this:
- Nearly every point Luffy is mentioned, Shanks gets into a very serious/competitive/almost "evil" or dark looking face (not saying he's actually EVIL, I'm just saying that's how it looks). Either Shanks simply just wants to fight Luffy, or there is something deeper here that Oda has been setting up.
- Shanks was able to stop, full front, a war just by out of pure respect from Sengoku. That has to mean something. It could mean "respect" just because Shanks is possibly not a very violent pirate, sure. But then this last point is what threw me off.
- Shanks has met with the Gorosei, the same people who entirely committed Genocide of the Oharans and call for further "cleansings". This I don't understand. If the point of Roger's journey to finding One Piece to "change" or "save" the world, presumably from the WG, and if Shanks is supposedly Roger's protégé, why on earth would Shanks secretly meet with the very people Luffy is destined to stop? The same people the Revolutionaries want to stop? The same group who erased the person who is allegedly orchestrating Luffy's will?
- Shanks also seems to have been born at the EXACT timeframe of God Valley (39). It almost seems that Roger took a baby from there. Perhaps 2 since Buggy is the same age. Why?
- Shanks is the one named character that is entirely important to the plotline of One Piece that has been here since Chapter 1. His character and passing of the strawhat are entirely central to Luffy's character. Unlike Blackbeard, Akainu or Im, Shanks has been present since the beginning, since Oda already had thought of One Piece's ending....