I really hope it doesn't go that route, to be honest.
Do people really want Shanks to be a villain? first I've heard of that.
When that happened in Naruto, it came out of nowhere and ruined the story for me. If it ends up happening and it's Xebec, I think Oda could pull it off better than Kishimoto.
Completely agree, I would hate that so much. It ruined Naruto for me.
Evil Shanks is very popular, they feel he has too much of a "facade" or mask and he seems "too good/pure/innocent" or so lol. I think the Mother Carmel twist and even Pudding hasn't helped things either. I've been on the fence about it too. I rather he's not evil at all but I fear it might be probable for the ultimate shock factor from Oda. 22+ years of setting up a hero to be a villain all along.
Oda has been making Shanks seem more shady and he's purposely not saying who the pirate Shanks wants to speak to the Gorosei about is too. Also actually trying to bargain with the Gorosei in general too and not showing him reacting to Bartolomeo attacking one his territories and how he would respond to that as well. Not to mention him or one of his crew being the ones to cut Kid's arm off as well.
We did see how quietly savage he can be in the very beginning of OP with those bandits and I think it was an important detail for his character especially. Shanks has been described as having a fearsome anger, to be unstoppable when he's angry too apparenty. I really hope Oda makes him as nuanced as possible and nothing more than a lawful neutral type character, like an anti-hero or so. Morally grey?
We know Roger and Garp fought to protect Celestial Dragons which is another eye opener and unexpected twist, so I think we're still in for a lot more surprises ofc. I don't think Germa and Judge are as evil and corrupt as we're meant to believe either. It's a lot more complex and a historic problem than what we know currently.
We don't have "all the facts" and thus the complete truth. We're being led to see certain characters painted in certain lights only to deceive us. We're seeing a lot of "fake news" and media manipulation in OP lately, it's gonna be very interesting to see how this plays out further and it's consequences.
Yeah I agree on that too, Oda could execute it a lot better but he might not either given the current state of his writing too. But even then, I don't think he's quite as bad as the final arcs of Bleach, Naruto and Fairy Tail, not yet anyway. I just hope OP doesn't truly become that bad by then, especially Naruto and it's conga line and Spanish Inquistion of unexpected main villains.
