Sheri

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Slowly making a visual novel called We Will Not See Heaven, demo is free. Sometimes I stream, or post adult things. Boys' love novel enthusiast. Take care, yeah?

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so lately my boyfriend austin has gotten me firmly into one piece. i always put it off saying "it's too long" but finally he convinced me to watch the recap movies of some early arcs to cut down on time. i wish we had watched the full alabasta arc but overall i'm just glad to be on board

anyways, one piece is a found family series that has a large focus on "actions have consequences" but also "individuals aren't great by themselves, they surround themselves with great people"

the scene pictured is luffy decking a royal, called a celestial dragon, which obviously immediately summons SWAT and marine higher ups to eliminate the straw hat pirates

the buildup to this moment is said noble shooting a fishman for "fun" and assuming he could get away with it because of the taboo. and luffy was warned explicitly several times to just pretend he never saw anything like that happen, because otherwise he'd make an enemy of the world government (again)

luffy's theory however is "nothing gets better if we don't deck the racists in the teeth" and he's right. he can be right about that and still have consequences occur. nothing in one piece happens in a vacuum, everything is on balance

this single action of performing dental extraction on king mcelroy here leads to his crew being separated, releasing several prisoners from a high security detention centre, and arguably eventually the dissolvement of an entire branch of the government (the warlords) due to fallout from the chain reaction

but more importantly, we don't just see how the government reacts. they're the bad guys of the series, of course we'll see them freak out that's part of the fun of any shonen. but we see reactions around the world from regular civilians, farm workers and children and elderly who've lived through massive events before. you see how the eventual reaction leading to whitebeard being killed and a massive power vacuum on the seas. you watch as previously peaceful towns get trampled because the taboo is dead.

though the path to get there isn't direct, essentially luffy smashing a taboo of assumed respect and affability leads a lot of people around the world going "wait, why DO we let the government walk all over us?" both for good revolutions and horrible fascist takeovers

if oda is trying to say anything specific with one piece, i'd assume it's that "the various branches of military are just an extension of an oppressive police force that is only held to the expectation of peace by taboo. the same taboo that stops you from fighting back when nobody is looking."

one piece understands revolutions have consequences, which cannot go unaddressed, but ultimately may be inevitable as the alternative is far worse. and sure, luffy punching this dude is the catalyst, but that only happened because of a series of other events leading up to it. befriending haachi, realizing just how persecuted fishmen are in this world, wanting to protect his crew but not being willing to pretend he saw nothing while a hate crime is committed in front of him

and his crew rose to the occasion. even though they were angry he effectively started a war, they knew the alternative was far worse. one piece is way too smart a series to be seen as the "funny pirate show" by so many.


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