no one piece this week
Which is probably a good thing, seeing as how the last chapter broke my heart (and the next chapter or two is bound to rub it in).
But I'm already in withdrawal mode too. :')
Anyway this is kind of just an excuse to post about a tab I've had open for a few months.
a page from chapter 207 (spoilers for the climactic sequence of a major arc)
Croc's expression in that top panel. I never caught it until my sister went on a reread binge and linked me. (I haven't had time yet for my own reread.)
I love Oda's expressions -- and this one in particular is just such an unusual one for the character. Which isn't something that one notices on first read, because it seems pretty natural, given the context.
But looking at it again -- what an ambiguous expression. It's strangely one of the most unguarded moments we ever see of him. I mean it's definitely not the first/only time he ever laughs (One Piece laughs are a THING). But there's just something so open and free about that expression. No hint of mocking or cruelty or intimidation. Just kind of a laughing at fate sort of feel.
Still, it definitely fits with what I've felt about most of the major villain showdowns, but Croco in particular -- through the process of doing battle, Luffy really strips them down to the core, revealing something of their "true" selves.
It's why when Oda gives his dorky explanation about why Luffy never kills the bad guys -- that he's essentially defeating their ideals/completely destroying their dreams, and that is a worse fate than death -- it really honestly does make sense. (It's like Naruto's "talk no jutsu" or Fairy Tail's "FRIENDSHIP POWAHH", except far more subtle, and far messier. Instead of automatic repenting/forgiveness [/"forced conversion"/erasure of nonconformity], it is a true clash of ideals with a winner and a loser, and the loser must live with the consequences and the knowledge of defeat.)
The whole Croc/Luffy showdown (all of them) is really about psychological warfare imo. And Croc is the first really complex personality* Luffy meets (villain-wise) -- which is why it takes so many tries to really peel all his layers away.
* Which is not to say that previous villains are not interesting/well-characterized. But they have simpler motivations and are more easily dissected. Kuro and Don Krieg, as surprisingly nuanced as they are on reread, can be pretty much summed up in a single line, frex. Arlong doesn't really get interesting until we learn the context of the character hundreds of chapters down the line.
And honestly, probably the reason I adore Croco so much when it comes down to it, is that the villains' most revealing moments tend to be at the brink of defeat/post-defeat.
And Croco's "revealing" moments have been, for me, the most telling. First of all, that face. How the heck are you supposed to interpret that face. You just know he hasn't been pushed this damn hard in years, too. And he goes down fighting to the end, and is by the end pretty self-aware of the mistakes he's made re: dealing with Luffy (whereas the previous villains tended to start panicking after a certain point -- I should do a more detailed examination of Grand Line villains sometime though, since what I remember is primarily East Blue*).
* Also interesting to note is that although every major villain is allowed to state their various convictions -- some convictions are in the end revealed as fundamentally flawed (Don Krieg's conception of strength, Hody's hollow hatred), whereas others are never quite rebutted because they are more "twisted" than "flawed" (Croco's is the prime example so far IMO though I'd say CP9 is probably this as well; I would tentatively class Akainu/Blackbeard/Doflamingo here too though they have yet to be defeated).
He's beaten fair and square rather than through his own hubris (well yes, his overall downfall can be chalked down to hubris, but not the final battle IMO -- and this ties in a bit with what I touched on re: convictions just above). And in hindsight, the moment of defeat is surprisingly quiet -- unlike some of the other arcs where the defeat of the big bad is THE MOMENT -- Croco's is not even quite a catalyst (only emotionally, I would argue -- but his defeat is ultimately more about him and about Luffy than it is about the culmination of the arc, due to the nature of Croco's manipulations). Either way, it's overshadowed by the greater conflict, and the catharsis brought by other events.
(And, though we don't see it for a while, he reflects on his defeat, and picks himself back up afterward.)
tl;dr Luffy tends to expose the underlying insecurities of his opponents (or lack of insecurity in one case... ahahaha) just by being himself, and how they react to that exposure is really interesting.
Because of that, I can't wait to see how the current showdown plays out -- because with all these flashbacks, we already know more or less what makes the current villain tick, and that is actually pretty unusual for this series. (This really hasn't been one of those series where every single antagonist gets a sob story motivation.) One gets the feeling that it's not going to be a "peeling away the layers" sort of confrontation, at any rate -- I mean, what else is left to see?
What this implies in the long run, I'm not sure. I think it's definitely one of many signs of the expanding scope of the overall story. Instead of dismantling people Luffy is graduating to dismantling systems, in other words, LOL.
Of course I may be proven wrong in the next few weeks...
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
But I'm already in withdrawal mode too. :')
Anyway this is kind of just an excuse to post about a tab I've had open for a few months.
a page from chapter 207 (spoilers for the climactic sequence of a major arc)
Croc's expression in that top panel. I never caught it until my sister went on a reread binge and linked me. (I haven't had time yet for my own reread.)
I love Oda's expressions -- and this one in particular is just such an unusual one for the character. Which isn't something that one notices on first read, because it seems pretty natural, given the context.
But looking at it again -- what an ambiguous expression. It's strangely one of the most unguarded moments we ever see of him. I mean it's definitely not the first/only time he ever laughs (One Piece laughs are a THING). But there's just something so open and free about that expression. No hint of mocking or cruelty or intimidation. Just kind of a laughing at fate sort of feel.
Still, it definitely fits with what I've felt about most of the major villain showdowns, but Croco in particular -- through the process of doing battle, Luffy really strips them down to the core, revealing something of their "true" selves.
It's why when Oda gives his dorky explanation about why Luffy never kills the bad guys -- that he's essentially defeating their ideals/completely destroying their dreams, and that is a worse fate than death -- it really honestly does make sense. (It's like Naruto's "talk no jutsu" or Fairy Tail's "FRIENDSHIP POWAHH", except far more subtle, and far messier. Instead of automatic repenting/forgiveness [/"forced conversion"/erasure of nonconformity], it is a true clash of ideals with a winner and a loser, and the loser must live with the consequences and the knowledge of defeat.)
The whole Croc/Luffy showdown (all of them) is really about psychological warfare imo. And Croc is the first really complex personality* Luffy meets (villain-wise) -- which is why it takes so many tries to really peel all his layers away.
* Which is not to say that previous villains are not interesting/well-characterized. But they have simpler motivations and are more easily dissected. Kuro and Don Krieg, as surprisingly nuanced as they are on reread, can be pretty much summed up in a single line, frex. Arlong doesn't really get interesting until we learn the context of the character hundreds of chapters down the line.
And honestly, probably the reason I adore Croco so much when it comes down to it, is that the villains' most revealing moments tend to be at the brink of defeat/post-defeat.
And Croco's "revealing" moments have been, for me, the most telling. First of all, that face. How the heck are you supposed to interpret that face. You just know he hasn't been pushed this damn hard in years, too. And he goes down fighting to the end, and is by the end pretty self-aware of the mistakes he's made re: dealing with Luffy (whereas the previous villains tended to start panicking after a certain point -- I should do a more detailed examination of Grand Line villains sometime though, since what I remember is primarily East Blue*).
* Also interesting to note is that although every major villain is allowed to state their various convictions -- some convictions are in the end revealed as fundamentally flawed (Don Krieg's conception of strength, Hody's hollow hatred), whereas others are never quite rebutted because they are more "twisted" than "flawed" (Croco's is the prime example so far IMO though I'd say CP9 is probably this as well; I would tentatively class Akainu/Blackbeard/Doflamingo here too though they have yet to be defeated).
He's beaten fair and square rather than through his own hubris (well yes, his overall downfall can be chalked down to hubris, but not the final battle IMO -- and this ties in a bit with what I touched on re: convictions just above). And in hindsight, the moment of defeat is surprisingly quiet -- unlike some of the other arcs where the defeat of the big bad is THE MOMENT -- Croco's is not even quite a catalyst (only emotionally, I would argue -- but his defeat is ultimately more about him and about Luffy than it is about the culmination of the arc, due to the nature of Croco's manipulations). Either way, it's overshadowed by the greater conflict, and the catharsis brought by other events.
(And, though we don't see it for a while, he reflects on his defeat, and picks himself back up afterward.)
tl;dr Luffy tends to expose the underlying insecurities of his opponents (or lack of insecurity in one case... ahahaha) just by being himself, and how they react to that exposure is really interesting.
Because of that, I can't wait to see how the current showdown plays out -- because with all these flashbacks, we already know more or less what makes the current villain tick, and that is actually pretty unusual for this series. (This really hasn't been one of those series where every single antagonist gets a sob story motivation.) One gets the feeling that it's not going to be a "peeling away the layers" sort of confrontation, at any rate -- I mean, what else is left to see?
What this implies in the long run, I'm not sure. I think it's definitely one of many signs of the expanding scope of the overall story. Instead of dismantling people Luffy is graduating to dismantling systems, in other words, LOL.
Of course I may be proven wrong in the next few weeks...
comments at the original Dreamwidth post