I'm going to give a breakdown of Zoro's dream as it related to his character.
Zoro's the character whose dream is constantly redefined by him to have different meanings.
Zoro starts as a blank slate of pure ambition. Zoro wants to be the Strongest swordsman because he decided to be. It's unclear what becoming the strongest means to him or if it has any meaning to him to begin with.
Then he realises he's weak. He can't beat Kuina in 2000 matches and Kuina tells him no matter how hard either he or she work, Zoro won't beat her until the biological differences between the two of them give him an advantage he can't obtain by hard work. This creates Frustration and Zoro changes the meaning of his dream. His dream becomes to challenge Kuina for the title of strongest swordsman. Now Zoro's dream means that he can keep challenging Kuina for the rest of time and she won't give up training just because of supposed biology.
Next Kuina dies and Zoro's grief makes the meaning of his dream change AGAIN. This time he will achieve his dream in memory of her which is symbolised by inheriting her sword.
These are three different Emotions and motivations in just the Flashback for Zoro's dream and they all affect what his dream even means to him. Ambition, frustration and grief all change his perception of why he's striving for greatness.
As an adult, Zoro meets luffy and ties his fate to his out of gratitude for luffy saving his life. He says "Whether as a good or bad guy, I will achieve my dream" meaning his dream doesn't have a moral center to it. He hadn't given his dream a moral meaning when he joins luffy and so now his dream is just tied to gratitude. He will help Luffy become pirate king out of gratitude on the way to him becoming the strongest swordsman. At this point, luffy is a side quest to his main quest and who Luffy is as a person doesn't matter to him as far as morals go.
After that Zoro loses to Mihawk who tells him Luffy isn't a side quest to Zoro. He tells Zoro that he must in fact go see the world before he can hope to be ready and so Zoro has to make the choice to change the meaning of his dream to the man who will be the strongest swordsman in order to make Luffy king of the pirates. Zoro now has to start caring about Luffy's adventure and who luffy is since he has to travel with luffy around the world to get the experience required to beat Mihawk. In fact after this is when Zoro starts adopting some of the luffy mentalities and morals such as how he dealt with the Nami Ussop business in Arlong park.
Even after that, Zoro's outlook on "Strong swordsmen" had to change from "the person who cuts the most things" to "the person who cuts only what needs to be cut and doesn't cut what doesn't need to be cut". At this point in Alabasta it was a near death experience that motivated Zoro to rethink his whole definition of "Strength" when he thinks about his dream to be the strongest.
Of course then we have Thriller bark where Zoro outright states that his dream only has worth to him if he can make Luffy pirate king in the process and now Zoro's own life is worth the trade off. This is of course starkly different from when Zoro and Luffy first meet and Zoro says he will kill luffy if he jeopardises his dream.
At this point, Zoro's dream to be the strongest swordsman has changed meaning again to traveling the world to prove he is worthy of the strongest in the world title, cutting only what he wants to cut to show his strength, and making Luffy pirate king and even forfeiting his life to give luffy the opportunity is a worthwhile action to this goal. That last point is important. Zoro would've considered himself a great swordsman even in death as long as he managed to keep Luffy on his journey. That's how far the meaning of Zoro's dream to himself had changed
Lastly we have Zoro setting aside his pride by prostrating himself to Mihawk. This is the point that inspired the title of this post. Zoro's main thing is pride. That's the cliché of his Samurai/swordsman archetype. That's his defining trait upon his introduction with him making ridiculous deals and sticking to them because of pride and that's what got him recognition when he fought Mihawk. And IN SPITE of that, Zoro still knelt to Mihawk. That is when Zoro's dream was IN SPITE of his character.
A lot of times in the above examples Zoro is motivated by negative emotions such as grief and frustration and even shame to losing to Mihawk but Zoro's character never changes much from these negative emotions EVEN though his dream does change in response. He's not an emo character despite being driven by grief over Kuina's passing and he never got depressed or doubted his dream when he was so badly beaten by Mihawk. That is until he knelt to Mihawk. At this point his dream had to actually change a core character trait of his and he had to be humble for the first time ever. He relinquishes his pride and this time the dream doesn't change, he even reiterates it to Mihawk, but he himself changes because of the dream.
Post time skip, Zoro is a lot more measured and stable. His dream doesn't change much and same for his character. He spent pre time skip grappling with what his dream means to him and how he should respond to the requirements of achieving his dream and now he's more comfortable in the way he goes about things and feels about them.
This is shown for example in the way he interacts with Tashigi post time skip as compared to pre time skip, in the way he has pre set expectations of luffy such as the whole Conquerers haki thing, in how he deals with fights against weaker or stronger opponents than him and in how in sync he is with Luffy a lot of times.
I don't know if there will be another shake up to the general meaning of Zoro's dream to himself but as of now this is the course Oda has set up for a very long time in regards to Zoro's character.
Zoro's the character whose dream is constantly redefined by him to have different meanings.
Zoro starts as a blank slate of pure ambition. Zoro wants to be the Strongest swordsman because he decided to be. It's unclear what becoming the strongest means to him or if it has any meaning to him to begin with.
Then he realises he's weak. He can't beat Kuina in 2000 matches and Kuina tells him no matter how hard either he or she work, Zoro won't beat her until the biological differences between the two of them give him an advantage he can't obtain by hard work. This creates Frustration and Zoro changes the meaning of his dream. His dream becomes to challenge Kuina for the title of strongest swordsman. Now Zoro's dream means that he can keep challenging Kuina for the rest of time and she won't give up training just because of supposed biology.
Next Kuina dies and Zoro's grief makes the meaning of his dream change AGAIN. This time he will achieve his dream in memory of her which is symbolised by inheriting her sword.
These are three different Emotions and motivations in just the Flashback for Zoro's dream and they all affect what his dream even means to him. Ambition, frustration and grief all change his perception of why he's striving for greatness.
As an adult, Zoro meets luffy and ties his fate to his out of gratitude for luffy saving his life. He says "Whether as a good or bad guy, I will achieve my dream" meaning his dream doesn't have a moral center to it. He hadn't given his dream a moral meaning when he joins luffy and so now his dream is just tied to gratitude. He will help Luffy become pirate king out of gratitude on the way to him becoming the strongest swordsman. At this point, luffy is a side quest to his main quest and who Luffy is as a person doesn't matter to him as far as morals go.
After that Zoro loses to Mihawk who tells him Luffy isn't a side quest to Zoro. He tells Zoro that he must in fact go see the world before he can hope to be ready and so Zoro has to make the choice to change the meaning of his dream to the man who will be the strongest swordsman in order to make Luffy king of the pirates. Zoro now has to start caring about Luffy's adventure and who luffy is since he has to travel with luffy around the world to get the experience required to beat Mihawk. In fact after this is when Zoro starts adopting some of the luffy mentalities and morals such as how he dealt with the Nami Ussop business in Arlong park.
Even after that, Zoro's outlook on "Strong swordsmen" had to change from "the person who cuts the most things" to "the person who cuts only what needs to be cut and doesn't cut what doesn't need to be cut". At this point in Alabasta it was a near death experience that motivated Zoro to rethink his whole definition of "Strength" when he thinks about his dream to be the strongest.
Of course then we have Thriller bark where Zoro outright states that his dream only has worth to him if he can make Luffy pirate king in the process and now Zoro's own life is worth the trade off. This is of course starkly different from when Zoro and Luffy first meet and Zoro says he will kill luffy if he jeopardises his dream.
At this point, Zoro's dream to be the strongest swordsman has changed meaning again to traveling the world to prove he is worthy of the strongest in the world title, cutting only what he wants to cut to show his strength, and making Luffy pirate king and even forfeiting his life to give luffy the opportunity is a worthwhile action to this goal. That last point is important. Zoro would've considered himself a great swordsman even in death as long as he managed to keep Luffy on his journey. That's how far the meaning of Zoro's dream to himself had changed
Lastly we have Zoro setting aside his pride by prostrating himself to Mihawk. This is the point that inspired the title of this post. Zoro's main thing is pride. That's the cliché of his Samurai/swordsman archetype. That's his defining trait upon his introduction with him making ridiculous deals and sticking to them because of pride and that's what got him recognition when he fought Mihawk. And IN SPITE of that, Zoro still knelt to Mihawk. That is when Zoro's dream was IN SPITE of his character.
A lot of times in the above examples Zoro is motivated by negative emotions such as grief and frustration and even shame to losing to Mihawk but Zoro's character never changes much from these negative emotions EVEN though his dream does change in response. He's not an emo character despite being driven by grief over Kuina's passing and he never got depressed or doubted his dream when he was so badly beaten by Mihawk. That is until he knelt to Mihawk. At this point his dream had to actually change a core character trait of his and he had to be humble for the first time ever. He relinquishes his pride and this time the dream doesn't change, he even reiterates it to Mihawk, but he himself changes because of the dream.
Post time skip, Zoro is a lot more measured and stable. His dream doesn't change much and same for his character. He spent pre time skip grappling with what his dream means to him and how he should respond to the requirements of achieving his dream and now he's more comfortable in the way he goes about things and feels about them.
This is shown for example in the way he interacts with Tashigi post time skip as compared to pre time skip, in the way he has pre set expectations of luffy such as the whole Conquerers haki thing, in how he deals with fights against weaker or stronger opponents than him and in how in sync he is with Luffy a lot of times.
I don't know if there will be another shake up to the general meaning of Zoro's dream to himself but as of now this is the course Oda has set up for a very long time in regards to Zoro's character.