one piece essay: boa hancock
((So by "Monday" I apparently really meant "Thursday night". But whatever; this thing takes up 7 pages on MS Word so I hope you've got a nice big mug of tea.))
Disclaimers and Notes: this post contains spoilers for the most recent arc, especially chapters 516, 517, and 518. Questions, comments, discussion, and arguments are welcome; statements ( Read more... )
Disclaimers and Notes: this post contains spoilers for the most recent arc, especially chapters 516, 517, and 518. Questions, comments, discussion, and arguments are welcome; statements ( Read more... )
Um...no. Doctor Hiluluk, Jaguar D. Saulo, Professor Clover, and Tom, Captain Yorki. Contrast with Kuina, Bellemere, Nico Olvia and Bankina. That's a pretty even split, with a small advantage to the males. And then there's the guys who suffer crippling injuries...
As we've seen in the past, the events of the cover arcs are far from irrelevant to the main plot. They can and do come back to bite the main plot on the bupkiss. Also, I don't think I recall her and Smoker engaging in any arguments. Their exchanges read much more like friendly conversations between old comrades to me, with no intention of mind-changing.
And yet it is plain that she was deliberately pitted against Sanji precisely because he has a handicap susceptible to a female opponent. The scene was played for laughs.
It was played for laughs up until when it became deadly serious. You didn't detect a palpable tone change when she pulled out her devil fruit abilities? In any case, this doesn't really address my point.
Regardless of physical or battle strength, Lola occupies, in terms of social power, the exact same status that Luffy has: she is the respected and absolute captain of a pirate crew on the Grand Line.
A crew of failures and victims, waiting for someone to come save them. That doesn't really make her powerful, it makes her 'slightly more powerful than that guy over there. The one puking his guts up into the gutter'.
So actually, she does considerably more than drive a train, and she is considerably more than a train conductor. And I would charge that you are doing the exact same kind of trivializing I discuss in the original post.
Good grief, I'm not charging that she's not valuable, but when you come down to it her skill sets include getting drunk and driving a train and little else. On the scale of powerful characters in One Piece that falls rather short.
And it is her face, not her body, that is commented on by characters in the story, specifically by Sanji and Luffy. When Sanji protects her in the fight, our reaction is not "Wow he protected someone with a really hot body, how typical", it is "Wow, he protected her even though she is old and ugly; what a gentleman!"
...I didn't have either one of those reactions. I don't know about you, I wasn't framing it in that context at all.
That is a disingenuous statement.
No, your rebuttal is what's disingenuous here. When they discover he's a boy they react with surprise because they've never seen one before and there shouldn't BE any on their island. However, once they come to grips with this, they treat him as an object of curiosity. I mean, one of them is hurriedly taking notes on him.
If Miss Doublefinger was a top fighter, why was she matched with, and defeated by, a relatively weak opponent? If Nami was facing her first serious solo opponent, why was the fight peppered with sight gags and jokes, when Zoro's wasn't?
Virtually all One Piece fights are peppered with sight gags. It's just One Piece's thing. And Miss DOublefinger was mopping the floor with nami for most of the fight.
Mr. 1 was no doubt more powerful than Miss Doublefinger, but I also don't think it can be argued that Miss Doublefinger was a powerful opponent, certainly more powerful than, for example, the Mr. 4/Miss Merry Christmas pair. And I think you are underestimating Nami's ability with the Clima-tact; in the very next arc, Nami is the only character aside from Luffy to face Enel in single combat and emerge unharmed.
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I'm really not interested in defining or discussing power solely as a DBZ-type ranking system, as I think it's a derailment of the original post. I am perfectly willing to agree that Lola and Kokoro would not make it past the preliminary round of a One Piece death brawl. However, their power and strength come from other sources, as sasori_katanaoutlines below with Kalifa and as I've referenced in my own comments. If you're not willing to consider them in those terms, then I think we're just going to have to drop this particular discussion.
When they discover he's a boy they react with surprise because they've never seen one before...I mean, one of them is hurriedly taking notes on him.
And as I said, I also think Oda is playing around with the genre in some clever ways, your example being one of them. That being said, this arc has thus far followed the main narrative points of the Amazon Island trope: man is found on island populated entirely by women, man is met with hostility, it is decided man must die, man is on the brink of execution. Even the Despotic Female Tyrant and the Lone Sympathetic Girl are thrown into the mix.
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"Most female characters in OP who are in positions of power are not conventionally attractive - think of Kureha the doctor, Lola the pirate Captain, and Kokoro the mermaid."
I in turn pointed out that two of these three are hardly in positions of authority. Lola is a leader in name but wields little real power, because nobody of import is under her command, and Kokoro's authority extends to cover a train, and that's about it.
That being said, this arc has thus far followed the main narrative points of the Amazon Island trope: man is found on island populated entirely by women, man is met with hostility, it is decided man must die, man is on the brink of execution.
Yes, and that's what a subversion is: you take the staples of the trope and then turn it on its head. Luffy was met with hostility, but only after it was stirred up by a few women on the island. In fact, separated from Boa Hancock, the Kuja Amazons seem to be quite reasonable people. Far from having a Lone Sympathetic Girl, the unsympathetic ones are the exceptions; except for when Boa descends on them with her beauty spell, at which point they don't seem to be fully responsible for their actions.
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Lola is a leader in name but wields little real power
So is a Fire Department Chief less of a Chief, and holds less responsibilities as such, and deserves less respect as such, because the town he works in is really small and no one famous is in the department anyway? I'm really not understanding your comment. Lola is not a contender for finding the One Piece with the manpower she commands, sure. But how does that make her not a real Captain? We've seen Luffy call people out for being pirates in name but not in spirit. He wasn't concerned with how strong they were, but what qualities they possessed. Lola is brave, she inspires her crew to be braver than they currently are, she keeps her crew together, they're loyal to her, she's a fair and just leader, and she likes adventure. I did not compare Lola to any other pirate Captain. I referenced her title as one, which is perfectly valid and stands independently of her rank among the general community of pirate Captains.
Kokoro's authority extends to cover a train, and that's about it.
In my original post, I referenced Kokoro's status as a mermaid. You focused instead on her capacity as a train conductor. I responded in kind and expanded on her role as such. You then talked about her "skill set" and again ignored my comment about her as a mermaid and life-saver. And in this comment, you talk about her "authority". I didn't talk about trains, skill sets, or authority in relation to Kokoro in the original post. I have responded to your criteria, while you keep ignoring mine and changing your own.
Yes, and that's what a subversion is: you take the staples of the trope and then turn it on its head.
Then I suppose our disagreement is whether Oda is successful in his subversion. You seem to think he is, and I'll respect that, but I personally think, in the areas I laid out, that he is not. To me, his main subversions lie in the diversity of body/face types on Amazon Lily, and the social hierarchy. The other stuff is clever but doesn't say anything new.
Um...no. Doctor Hiluluk, Jaguar D. Saulo, Professor Clover, and Tom, Captain Yorki
I'll acknowledge this and agree that the numbers are split pretty evenly. I'm interested in if you were planning to address this point: Bellemere is powerful, and she is also dead, which speaks to a separate, though related, trend in OP:...most of those women [who have died] have been powerful, physically and otherwise. And the lesson is, beautiful, powerful women die. They are punished for possessing excessive power and the rest of the paragraph.
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I'll acknowledge this and agree that the numbers are split pretty evenly. I'm interested in if you were planning to address this point: Bellemere is powerful, and she is also dead, which speaks to a separate, though related, trend in OP:...most of those women [who have died] have been powerful, physically and otherwise. And the lesson is, beautiful, powerful women die. They are punished for possessing excessive power and the rest of the paragraph.
Again, I think this is a trend that doesn't actually exist. The total number of women who have died 'for real' in One Piece is the list of four women I made above (and I suppose Margaret and co, now). Bankina was not exceptionally attractive (not bad if you look past the nose, I suppose) and not in any position of authority beyond 'mother', so she's out. Kuina was just a kid, but I'll be generous and allow her inclusion onto the list on the assumption that she would grow up to be similar to Tashigi. So that's three (arguably six, but quite frankly Margaret and co would be sort of a weird fit for 'beautiful, powerful women are punished with death' when one considers the circumstances of their death and more pressingly, who did the deed). Meanwhile there are absolute reams of attractive women in positions of strength and authority who have NOT died, and show no indication of being at risk: Robin, Nami, Nojiko, Laki, Jewelery Bonny, Kalifa, Miss Doublefinger (hell, all of the female Baroque Works agents), Vivi, Hina, et al. The 'trend' only appears if you take those deaths and remove them utterly from the context of One Piece.
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