One Piece is a series where Oda tries to prioritize his agenda for the overall story, respect his reader's agendas when they're fun and make sense/add to the story, but will always prioritize the character's motivations, first.
Take Sanji: in Onigashima, Oda wanted to portray that Sanji had learned from Whole Cake Island. Sanji refused to ask to help, like Robin did in Water 7, until the Crew proved they WEREN'T leaving him behind to be kidnapped.
The readers wanted Sanji to be cool, and take on Black Maria himself. Instead, Sanji learned from Whole Cake, asked for help, and trusted his Nakama, Nico Robin's, strength to do what he couldn't.
My point?
Sanji and Robin's character agendas are what matters to Oda here: not his agenda, nor ours.
The biggest issue with One Piece theories, currently, is they're based on our agendas, and in some cases the agendas we believe Oda has.
We don't theorize based on WHAT THE CHARACTERS WANT, but what we want, and what we think Oda wants.
Take Kaido.
"You couldn't be Joy Boy, either."
"King, I think I know who Joy Boy is.. He's the man who shows up to beat me in the future!"
Kaido wanted to be Joy Boy, but couldn't, so, he became depressed. Why did Kaido go to Marineford? Because he wanted to save Ace, Roger's son, and make him the "Ace" of his crew, his Joy Boy, the same way Newgate wanted Ace to be the King of the Pirates.
Why does Kaido occupy Wano? Because he knows Joy Boy needs it. The army? For Joy Boy.
Fans want Kaido to kill his Pirate enemies. Why is Kaido so hesitant to kill? Because, he wants them to become stronger, and kill him. He wants to die.
What the community wants out of Kaido, is entirely opposite of what his character is.
Keep in mind, Nika and Joy Boy are too different entities. Nika is Elbaph's God/an Ancient Warrior, Joy Boy was from the Ancient Kingdom, and the first known pirate.
Kaido doesn't want to be Nika; Kaido wanted to be Joy Boy.
King: "You think you can change the world?"
Kaido: "I'm the only one who can change it!"
Same with Linlin; we want her to pop off and murder people. What does Linlin want?
A utopia, where all races live in peace, and eat together at the same table.
Take the Garp Celestial Dragon memes. The man has denied how many promotions, because he refuses to serve the Celestial Dragons? Of course he hates their slavery. Garp accepts that if he rebelled, he could no longer protect citizens and raise Marines the way he does.
Garp believes, like Dragon, and Vegapunk, that there's good in the WG, that can overtake the evil of the WG. Garp believes Kuzan, Koby, Hibari, etc can change the world someday, so he tolerates people he hates, to protect those under him.
The biggest issue with One Piece theories/powerscaling is it ignores the character's personal motivations.
This entire series is about Dreams and Inherited Will, about people's desire.
We simply can't scale fights like Kuzan vs Garp, or Luffy vs Kizaru, because we wanted full on fights, and instead, we had people holding back.
Kuzan didn't use his strongest stuff, he fought Akainu evenly for 10 days.
Kizaru didn't use his strongest stuff, he was holding back all the time.
Did Kaido use his strongest stuff against Luffy? Nope, he wanted him to be Joy Boy, and became OPENLY DEPRESSED every time he defeated him on Onigashima. Look at that expression, it's DESPAIR. Kaido WANTED LUFFY TO BEAT HIM, he was always trying to make the new Joy Boy.
Even Linlin let Kidd and Law live to go help Kaido.
What does this mean? We've never seen these people go out.
Kuzan? We've always see him fighting when he didn't want to. Kizaru? He DID NOT want to kill Vegapunk and Bonney, and gave them how many chances to escape?
Kaido and Linlin? There enemies are the WG, Pirates are their rivals. Who do they spent time plotting to destroy? Shanks? Or the WG?
Green Bull straight up told the Samurai he didn't want to fight them.
This is why Akainu and Newgate in Marineford are such menaces: they are squaring up with someone they JUST DESPISE.
So often we power-scale fights, while ignoring that Haki is Will, and that Will is everything in this series.
It's almost impossible for us to scale Garp vs Kuzan, because of HOW much they love each other; we can only guess how much each of them held back.
We want Chopper to be stronger, but, he's a doctor, who needs to focus on healing, while also honing his fighting.
We want Sanji to fight women, but, he loves them too much to hurt them.
So often, the fanbase wants characters to become stronger, at the EXPENSE of the character's traits/dreams/beliefs in the first place.
The only good agendas are character agendas.
Our agendas are CRAZY, and some of Oda's agendas are nuts, too.
We should theorize and power scale based off of what the characters themselves have shown they want; not what we want out of them.
But, we wilding, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Take Sanji: in Onigashima, Oda wanted to portray that Sanji had learned from Whole Cake Island. Sanji refused to ask to help, like Robin did in Water 7, until the Crew proved they WEREN'T leaving him behind to be kidnapped.
The readers wanted Sanji to be cool, and take on Black Maria himself. Instead, Sanji learned from Whole Cake, asked for help, and trusted his Nakama, Nico Robin's, strength to do what he couldn't.
My point?
Sanji and Robin's character agendas are what matters to Oda here: not his agenda, nor ours.
The biggest issue with One Piece theories, currently, is they're based on our agendas, and in some cases the agendas we believe Oda has.
We don't theorize based on WHAT THE CHARACTERS WANT, but what we want, and what we think Oda wants.
Take Kaido.
"You couldn't be Joy Boy, either."
"King, I think I know who Joy Boy is.. He's the man who shows up to beat me in the future!"
Kaido wanted to be Joy Boy, but couldn't, so, he became depressed. Why did Kaido go to Marineford? Because he wanted to save Ace, Roger's son, and make him the "Ace" of his crew, his Joy Boy, the same way Newgate wanted Ace to be the King of the Pirates.
Why does Kaido occupy Wano? Because he knows Joy Boy needs it. The army? For Joy Boy.
Fans want Kaido to kill his Pirate enemies. Why is Kaido so hesitant to kill? Because, he wants them to become stronger, and kill him. He wants to die.
What the community wants out of Kaido, is entirely opposite of what his character is.
Keep in mind, Nika and Joy Boy are too different entities. Nika is Elbaph's God/an Ancient Warrior, Joy Boy was from the Ancient Kingdom, and the first known pirate.
Kaido doesn't want to be Nika; Kaido wanted to be Joy Boy.
King: "You think you can change the world?"
Kaido: "I'm the only one who can change it!"
Same with Linlin; we want her to pop off and murder people. What does Linlin want?
A utopia, where all races live in peace, and eat together at the same table.
Take the Garp Celestial Dragon memes. The man has denied how many promotions, because he refuses to serve the Celestial Dragons? Of course he hates their slavery. Garp accepts that if he rebelled, he could no longer protect citizens and raise Marines the way he does.
Garp believes, like Dragon, and Vegapunk, that there's good in the WG, that can overtake the evil of the WG. Garp believes Kuzan, Koby, Hibari, etc can change the world someday, so he tolerates people he hates, to protect those under him.
The biggest issue with One Piece theories/powerscaling is it ignores the character's personal motivations.
This entire series is about Dreams and Inherited Will, about people's desire.
We simply can't scale fights like Kuzan vs Garp, or Luffy vs Kizaru, because we wanted full on fights, and instead, we had people holding back.
Kuzan didn't use his strongest stuff, he fought Akainu evenly for 10 days.
Kizaru didn't use his strongest stuff, he was holding back all the time.
Did Kaido use his strongest stuff against Luffy? Nope, he wanted him to be Joy Boy, and became OPENLY DEPRESSED every time he defeated him on Onigashima. Look at that expression, it's DESPAIR. Kaido WANTED LUFFY TO BEAT HIM, he was always trying to make the new Joy Boy.
Even Linlin let Kidd and Law live to go help Kaido.
What does this mean? We've never seen these people go out.
Kuzan? We've always see him fighting when he didn't want to. Kizaru? He DID NOT want to kill Vegapunk and Bonney, and gave them how many chances to escape?
Kaido and Linlin? There enemies are the WG, Pirates are their rivals. Who do they spent time plotting to destroy? Shanks? Or the WG?
Green Bull straight up told the Samurai he didn't want to fight them.
This is why Akainu and Newgate in Marineford are such menaces: they are squaring up with someone they JUST DESPISE.
So often we power-scale fights, while ignoring that Haki is Will, and that Will is everything in this series.
It's almost impossible for us to scale Garp vs Kuzan, because of HOW much they love each other; we can only guess how much each of them held back.
We want Chopper to be stronger, but, he's a doctor, who needs to focus on healing, while also honing his fighting.
We want Sanji to fight women, but, he loves them too much to hurt them.
So often, the fanbase wants characters to become stronger, at the EXPENSE of the character's traits/dreams/beliefs in the first place.
The only good agendas are character agendas.
Our agendas are CRAZY, and some of Oda's agendas are nuts, too.
We should theorize and power scale based off of what the characters themselves have shown they want; not what we want out of them.
But, we wilding, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo