A very belated One Piece reaction
This is the sort of post I should probably hold off on making until we get more context, especially since I'm probably going to get completely jossed within the next 24 hours (if I haven't already). But.
There's one thing I'd been wondering about through most of this arc (the sort of thing no one else gives a crap about), especially wrt Doffy and his characterization.
(Somewhere deep down I'm still gloating over the fact that I had him pinned down more or less, unlike the folks who were for some reason expecting a tragic/sympathetic past. I mean sure, tragic. Even understandable. But... still find it hilarious that people were trying to give him noble intentions at one point.)
Also, I remember very clearly declaring that I would never ever ever ever like Doffy. (I admitted to really liking him as a character, but as a "person"? NO.)
Well, GDI, but by now I find that I grudgingly sort of do. Not at all in the way I <3 Crocodile (who's always my point of comparison since they're both villains of the cunning and charismatic type), but kind of "I like you but I'm also fucking terrified of you and despise everything you do and stand for, also you're evil." Croco did some pretty evil things too, but mostly for impersonal/pragmatic reasons rather than being actively cruel; for Doffy it is VERY much personal, and that has never been more obvious than it is now. He's one of those truly amoral characters -- as in, he is aware that moral codes exist, but he doesn't give a shit/doesn't have one of his own*. (We've seen hints that Croco does follow a weird code/have certain standards -- it's more obvious in later arcs of course, but was present as early as Alabasta if you pay attention on a reread.... Which reminds me that, as I've said before, both men serve as foils to Luffy in the sense that Luffy actually embodies all the best parts of them.)
* Or rather, he's the kind of man who, when he says the sky is purple, it's purple. And if tomorrow he decides it's orange, well of course it's orange, and probably for good reason too. Which is actually probably a really bad way to put it. It's different from Enel's god complex, and different from Croco's hunger for power, although there are natural similarities. But I tend to think of it like those cute zodiac quotes ("I believe"/"I desire"/etc.): if Enel is the obvious "I am god", Doffy is the slightly more subtle "I am superior" (or, attempting to put it in yet another way, Enel is a fickle god, while Doffy is and needs to be In Control). Sort of like the difference between Croco and Krieg, actually, both of whom valued [military] strength, except Croco's entire philosophy feels more like a negation ("I am not weak", or more accurately/in his own words "Weakness is a sin"). Like I keep saying, I really adore Oda's villains, and part of it is the way he handles them: "theme and variations", rather than "rinse and repeat", and yes someday (probably when Dressrosa is over, because Doffy is one of the best villains of the series, period) I'm going to organize my thoughts on this once and for all and do a proper One Piece Villain writeup. (Blackbeard remains the final piece of the puzzle after this, but he can wait, I mean, it'll probably be another decade before we reach him LOL. And yes, there will no doubt be other antagonists/villains along the way, but Doffy has been part of the series so long that he truly feels like a milestone -- and really the "last" of the original set of antagonists we were introduced to in form of the Warlords, and I think the last of the "execution witnesses", and that seems significant somehow.)
Well, I say that but arguably Doffy's single redeeming factor is his love for and sense of loyalty to his family (which doesn't prevent him from sacrificing them as pawns). I almost hesitated to say "love", but let's be real, he loves them, in his own way, and to call it anything else would be doing a disservice to him. That love is the closest thing to a code he follows, if you really think about it. It's a tyrant's love (as I have also noted previously about Doffy, what is a king without subjects?), but it's a genuine love nonetheless.
Which brings me to the thing I'd been wondering about.
So... about Viola/Violet.
Something's been puzzling me ever since the reveal that she was Princess Viola. Because it's clear that Doffy's executives -- his "family" -- are a very insular group. Every last one of them is beyond dedicated to Doffy, and he, as I said, loves them in return. And it's no easy feat to be inducted into that inner circle, most of whom have been with Doffy for more than a decade by now. Bellamy, for example, desperately wants Doffy's favor. And yet he never even comes close to gaining it.
And yet Viola was in that inner circle. Despite her true identity, the circumstances of her recruitment, and her continuing potential for betrayal.
Doffy's no fool. Viola's power may be very useful, but to allow her a position of trust and responsibility -- a position among those he is closest to -- goes beyond simply "using" her. He never even really seems to doubt her loyalty (although he's not surprised, either, when she ultimately does betray him).
Which reminds me of Croco and Robin, despite several key differences. As I noted in a previous ramblepost, Croco pretty obviously (in hindsight) liked Robin as a person, not just an agent, and wanted to be able to trust her, maybe even craved her loyalty. He thought of her as an equal and a partner, and respected her. But even though he wanted to trust her, he didn't: he doubted her, and that doubt (along with his contradictory desire for the opposite) is very evident from the way he keeps pushing, keeps testing her constantly right until the very end. The fact that he can't earn her loyalty actually seems to get at him, though I don't think he's entirely conscious of it. He claims it's not personal, but man, from his words and actions, it pretty clearly is, in a way pretty much nothing else about his plans had been up to that point. (Baroque Works is the polar opposite of Doffy's Family -- all cutthroat competition and independently acting units, loyal to an "ideal" or maybe just for material reward/promotion rather than to Croco as a person -- hell, the vast majority of them aren't even aware of Croco's identity, and that's a major plot point!) But Robin? Robin means something to him. At the very least, if you insist on disregarding the emotional aspects, she's the true crux of his plans; without her, there's not a damn thing he has left to accomplish what he really wants and he knows it.
(Speaking of which, there's another great point of contrast there too, between the "final timers" of Alabasta and Dressrosa: paranoid Croco was super hands-on with all that intricate planning, up to the point that he even included that one last emergency resort... but silly man, by the time he actually reaches the point of needing it there's actually nothing he can do to salvage his plans anymore, it's all out of his hands whether the bomb goes off or not. Doffy's always had a bunch of things up his sleeve also, but with him there's been less of a sense that he's following a pre-outlined plan -- and frex Bird Cage wasn't really an emergency measure, but more of a sick sort of punishment game and a way to actively seize back control of the situation.)
Viola's nothing to Doffy, really, except a useful pawn to be discarded at need. And yet I just couldn't reconcile that with her elevated position in the family. Doffy values potential, certainly, or he wouldn't have taken in BB5/Law/Buffalo (and Dellinger and Sugar/Monet, for that matter), but she's not essential to his plans either, the way, say, the dwarf princess is essential, or the OP OP fruit was essential (we still don't know what he intended with it though). And you can see how genuinely upset he was about Monet and Vergo, making his non-reaction over Viola rather startling in hindsight (he's kind of just like "oh yeah, I figured something was up"). And I don't think he's the "keep your enemies closer" type either. Viola hardly seems to have been on a leash. It's like she didn't matter to him either way -- nice to have around, but posing no particular threat either.
And yet no matter what, did he have to give her that position? Maybe you can argue that the Family is essentially a meritocracy, but that doesn't seem to fit -- ALL the other executives are personally loyal and have been with him through thick and thin (well, Sugar and Monet come later, but we'll get back to that). Viola is really the standout exception. You'd think she'd be more of a Bellamy, in fact.
And yet she isn't. In fact, Doffy himself may not react much to her betrayal (in fact he even talks casually about her not long after while threatening Law ["if Violet were here..."], as if expecting this to be temporary), but at least one of the other family members noticeably does and they're all taken by surprise. Apparently they did, after all, consider her "one of them" in a way that seems quite bizarre when you take into consideration her actual identity.
I just couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it didn't seem to be an important issue either (as I keep saying, Robin is IMPORTANT to Croco in a way Viola never is to Doffy)... so I set it aside.
Then three things happened:
- An SBS entry explained that Doffy picked up Sugar and Monet as young sisters from an unspecified "terrible environment". In their gratitude, they pledged their lives to him.
- Last week's chapter, Viola confronts Doffy herself. And suddenly, without warning, we realize that it IS personal. It's the climax. She's done her part already. Oda could have easily left her as a bystander. But no -- of all the people who arguably deserve a personal confrontation against this man at this point, apparently it's Viola... who has never quite seemed to be directly involved in the tragedy. She witnessed Monet's betrayal, her father's downfall, Kyros's loss, Rebecca's pain. But she's always been just that: a witness.
But instead of Kyros (who actually already got his moment in one of the earlier false climaxes) or Riku/Rebecca (the pacifists of the family), this final showdown has been given to Viola.
Why?
(Or, more importantly, why does it feel so right despite being so unexpected?)
- The ongoing familial/nature vs. nurture theme of the arc smacked me in the face YET AGAIN.
Doffy's made a habit of picking up disenfranchised brats: BB5 we saw as a starving/neglected/abandoned child, Law of course we know all about now, Buffalo we don't know shit about but can assume is also an orphan, Dellinger was a BABY when Doffy picked him up, Monet and Sugar were directly rescued the way BB5 must have been rescued from her situation.
He himself had a difficult childhood (to say the least). He was the one to cut ties with his family, sure (and violently at that), but one also can't forget that the society he felt he belonged to turned him out as well.
He is very clearly a believer in the idea that the family one chooses is more valid than one's family by birth.
And so it clicked: of course he could accept Viola turning her back on her royal origins without all that much suspicion. Because isn't that what he essentially did himself? Isn't it natural for him to assume blood relations possess less value (parents in particular)? That Viola would gladly sacrifice herself for her father makes no sense whatsoever to him, when he is the one who sacrificed his father for his own sake. (Sibling loyalty he can perhaps understand more readily -- what an echo of himself and Cora Monet and Sugar must have seemed to him! -- but loyalty to a useless, passive father? Bullshit. And Viola's sibling is dead. She has no one left but said useless father [and a niece, not like that counts], and the fact that he's "forced" her into this difficult situation is another mark against him.)
Would Croco have ever trusted Viola? Hell no. Poor man was way too jaded for that sort of thing, and obviously had no illusions about loyalty of the sort Whitebeard and Doffy both value(d). He wanted something more real, a trust he could actually believe in.
(Also, I doubt the paranoid dork would have even made the deal with Viola in the first place. I mean sure, maybe. But given his personality he would've made the deal, pretending to promise that he'd spare Riku, then arranged an accident and kept the truth hidden from her as long as possible. And/or kept him imprisoned/closely watched instead of letting him run free as Doffy evidently did.)
But Doffy saw nothing wrong with trusting her once she'd proved herself. And to be honest, the fact that he even KEPT his end of the deal is surprising to me. It's as if he were giving her a genuine chance to join him, and essentially taking for granted that she would transfer her loyalties to him without a hitch. Or maybe knowing that it didn't matter whether she did or not. Even now, at this final confrontation, what a contrast between the two men --
Croco giving Robin a chance to defend herself, to prove his doubts wrong, then just coldly taking care of business when his hopes are dashed even as he stubbornly insists that NO HE'S NOT HURT AT ALL BY HER BETRAYAL NOPE STRICTLY PROFESSIONAL.
Doffy, in contrast, not only acknowledges but quite frankly embraces Viola's challenge*. Even though she really hadn't even been on his radar up until now!
* Which is, mind, the exact sort of useless gesture/empty dramatics Croco disdains. See also: the way he completely ignored those idiots who drank the temporary booster potion. XD
(Also note: Croco was the one who initially approached Robin. We don't actually see enough of the context to really say if it's Doffy who makes the offer to Viola [or hint at it] or if Viola is the first to suggest it; all we see is Viola striking the deal. Either way, it's definitely framed as "her idea" in the way Robin's recruitment was framed as Croco's initiative.)
I had to reread the scene several times just to make sure. But I don't think I'm misreading it. The tension, the subtext.
Until now we've all been assuming that the situation is completely straightforward, just as the Soldier explained it to us. Viola hates Doffy and has been pretending to be on his side all this time for her father's sake, and has been suffering for it all along.
But that can't be true. We've seen that it can't be. Her hands are just as dirty as Doffy and his family's. She's been actively involved in their work. And unlike Robin, who often engaged in acts of self-sabotage or secretly undermined Croco's objectives whenever she could get away with it, Viola seems to have resigned herself to this. Her subordinates admired and adored her. Her "colleagues" had come to accept her to the point that they're actually upset/shocked by her betrayal. (Or at least we're shown that Gladius is. He, like most of Doffy's family, can't even IMAGINE the possibility of someone in their circle being disloyal to their "young master", even though they have the example of Law/Cora... [maybe that's why Gladius is so sensitive about it?].)
What do we really know about Viola? Her pre-betrayal personality was all an act except her desire to kill a certain man (implied/pretty much confirmed as Doffy). She loves her father, she loved her sister, she loved and still loves her brother-in-law now that she remembers him, she loves her niece. She'd been utterly disillusioned by men (and people in general, no doubt) until she met stupid dorky Sanji. She lasts like less than a chapter tops as an antagonist XD, and after that she spends most of her time being a useful exposition device.
But she was also with Doffy and his family for ten whole years. Correction: not just with them, but ONE OF THEM. And goddamn if she hadn't grown to care for them, too, despite or maybe alongside her hatred.
And right here, right now, she is openly declaring where she stands. "I was one of you. Even now, I will share in your fate."
Doffy prompts her for her reasons for coming to him by calling her Viola (her birth name).
When she calls him Doffy (what all his family calls him) as part of her response, he switches back to Violet (her name when she was with them).
And it is that exact moment that I realized just how personal it was. (The way it was Croco calling Robin by name rather than codename that pinged me to his ambiguous feelings toward her.)
In fact, here's where I start veering off into stupid lala headcanonland, but JFC I can't be the only one who senses the sexual undertones in this exchange, can I?
- Viola literally disrobing. The flower falling out of her hair.
- Viola pulling out a knife (previously she's been seen with a gun and with her DF powers), an obvious callback to when we were first introduced to Dressrosa culture (somewhat stereotypically Spanish): beautiful women regularly stab men to death when they're betrayed in love. In fact, a quick reread indicates that on her own introduction she claimed to have just stabbed a lover (obviously either a blatant lie or an assassination target in hindsight [since the police seemed to have been genuinely after her, I'm not sure the ENTIRE thing was a setup]).
- Doffy completes the reference by calling her "passionate"
So yeah... apparently now I can't get it out of my head that this is the real reason Viola's relationship with Doffy feels so ambiguous and so "in between", both close and distant at the same time: she wasn't family (see also: Doffy/BB5's incredibly sibling-like relationship, Monet's unconditional devotion), she was sleeping with him. (Or HAD slept with him.)
(Unlike Croc [who completely ignored his own fangirls], he's shown chilling with random throwaway hot chicks at one point, so in addition to the above points we're already seeded with the idea that Doffy is in fact sexually active.... lol I can't believe I just typed that. But as early as that chapter I was sorta getting this sense that Doffy considers his female family members "off limits" and that the throwaway chicks are kind of a status symbol. Where does Viola fit into that? Well, like I said, he trusts her enough to let her into his inner circle, and yet she will never fully belong. Hence that "in between" feeling.)
In other words, that would make Doffy/Viola the dark parallel to Kyros/Scarlet. And how often in this arc have we been presented with pairs of shadow and light? (Kyros the hero, Kyros the criminal. Law's descent and rebirth. The secret of the toys -- the literal underbelly of the colosseum. Sabo and Doffy, both nobles who rejected their heritage. Dead brothers Ace and Cora. Love and hatred.)
If Scarlet redeemed Kyros, then perhaps we can say that Doffy corrupted Viola. But just as that seed of darkness and guilt remains in Kyros, Doffy could not destroy Viola's love for her blood relations or the kingdom that was.
And Rebecca, more than ever I get the sense now that Rebecca is the solution. The compromise. The bridge between darkness and light.
Am I reading too much into things/talking nonsense? Probably. But after last week's chapter, this reading just suddenly leapt out to me as utterly plausible. (For a series that stubbornly refuses to include any romance among the main cast members, it does actually feature a surprising amount of subtle adult relationships.) And no, I don't believe Doffy is capable of romantic love (at least, not as popularly understood). Ain't no shipper gonna convince me otherwise.
But there's just something so startlingly and inexplicably right about this latest development -- and thoroughly makes up for ANY qualms I was previously having about treatment of female characters in this arc. I mean, just this single moment completely turns so much of what I was worried about right on its head, although I'm sure some people might see it as a mere continuation of what came before... but for me it really does shed a lot of things in a completely different light and suddenly reframes a lot of character interactions/motivations while highlighting previously established contextual cues in the worldbuilding (not to mention the recurring themes of the arc).
... tl;dr hatesex is the answer to everything.
- - -
Anyway, update on life: still alive, not really getting much sleep, not sure I'm actually getting anything done despite lack of sleep, trying to pick myself back up either way. Not much else to say.
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
There's one thing I'd been wondering about through most of this arc (the sort of thing no one else gives a crap about), especially wrt Doffy and his characterization.
(Somewhere deep down I'm still gloating over the fact that I had him pinned down more or less, unlike the folks who were for some reason expecting a tragic/sympathetic past. I mean sure, tragic. Even understandable. But... still find it hilarious that people were trying to give him noble intentions at one point.)
Also, I remember very clearly declaring that I would never ever ever ever like Doffy. (I admitted to really liking him as a character, but as a "person"? NO.)
Well, GDI, but by now I find that I grudgingly sort of do. Not at all in the way I <3 Crocodile (who's always my point of comparison since they're both villains of the cunning and charismatic type), but kind of "I like you but I'm also fucking terrified of you and despise everything you do and stand for, also you're evil." Croco did some pretty evil things too, but mostly for impersonal/pragmatic reasons rather than being actively cruel; for Doffy it is VERY much personal, and that has never been more obvious than it is now. He's one of those truly amoral characters -- as in, he is aware that moral codes exist, but he doesn't give a shit/doesn't have one of his own*. (We've seen hints that Croco does follow a weird code/have certain standards -- it's more obvious in later arcs of course, but was present as early as Alabasta if you pay attention on a reread.... Which reminds me that, as I've said before, both men serve as foils to Luffy in the sense that Luffy actually embodies all the best parts of them.)
* Or rather, he's the kind of man who, when he says the sky is purple, it's purple. And if tomorrow he decides it's orange, well of course it's orange, and probably for good reason too. Which is actually probably a really bad way to put it. It's different from Enel's god complex, and different from Croco's hunger for power, although there are natural similarities. But I tend to think of it like those cute zodiac quotes ("I believe"/"I desire"/etc.): if Enel is the obvious "I am god", Doffy is the slightly more subtle "I am superior" (or, attempting to put it in yet another way, Enel is a fickle god, while Doffy is and needs to be In Control). Sort of like the difference between Croco and Krieg, actually, both of whom valued [military] strength, except Croco's entire philosophy feels more like a negation ("I am not weak", or more accurately/in his own words "Weakness is a sin"). Like I keep saying, I really adore Oda's villains, and part of it is the way he handles them: "theme and variations", rather than "rinse and repeat", and yes someday (probably when Dressrosa is over, because Doffy is one of the best villains of the series, period) I'm going to organize my thoughts on this once and for all and do a proper One Piece Villain writeup. (Blackbeard remains the final piece of the puzzle after this, but he can wait, I mean, it'll probably be another decade before we reach him LOL. And yes, there will no doubt be other antagonists/villains along the way, but Doffy has been part of the series so long that he truly feels like a milestone -- and really the "last" of the original set of antagonists we were introduced to in form of the Warlords, and I think the last of the "execution witnesses", and that seems significant somehow.)
Well, I say that but arguably Doffy's single redeeming factor is his love for and sense of loyalty to his family (which doesn't prevent him from sacrificing them as pawns). I almost hesitated to say "love", but let's be real, he loves them, in his own way, and to call it anything else would be doing a disservice to him. That love is the closest thing to a code he follows, if you really think about it. It's a tyrant's love (as I have also noted previously about Doffy, what is a king without subjects?), but it's a genuine love nonetheless.
Which brings me to the thing I'd been wondering about.
So... about Viola/Violet.
Something's been puzzling me ever since the reveal that she was Princess Viola. Because it's clear that Doffy's executives -- his "family" -- are a very insular group. Every last one of them is beyond dedicated to Doffy, and he, as I said, loves them in return. And it's no easy feat to be inducted into that inner circle, most of whom have been with Doffy for more than a decade by now. Bellamy, for example, desperately wants Doffy's favor. And yet he never even comes close to gaining it.
And yet Viola was in that inner circle. Despite her true identity, the circumstances of her recruitment, and her continuing potential for betrayal.
Doffy's no fool. Viola's power may be very useful, but to allow her a position of trust and responsibility -- a position among those he is closest to -- goes beyond simply "using" her. He never even really seems to doubt her loyalty (although he's not surprised, either, when she ultimately does betray him).
Which reminds me of Croco and Robin, despite several key differences. As I noted in a previous ramblepost, Croco pretty obviously (in hindsight) liked Robin as a person, not just an agent, and wanted to be able to trust her, maybe even craved her loyalty. He thought of her as an equal and a partner, and respected her. But even though he wanted to trust her, he didn't: he doubted her, and that doubt (along with his contradictory desire for the opposite) is very evident from the way he keeps pushing, keeps testing her constantly right until the very end. The fact that he can't earn her loyalty actually seems to get at him, though I don't think he's entirely conscious of it. He claims it's not personal, but man, from his words and actions, it pretty clearly is, in a way pretty much nothing else about his plans had been up to that point. (Baroque Works is the polar opposite of Doffy's Family -- all cutthroat competition and independently acting units, loyal to an "ideal" or maybe just for material reward/promotion rather than to Croco as a person -- hell, the vast majority of them aren't even aware of Croco's identity, and that's a major plot point!) But Robin? Robin means something to him. At the very least, if you insist on disregarding the emotional aspects, she's the true crux of his plans; without her, there's not a damn thing he has left to accomplish what he really wants and he knows it.
(Speaking of which, there's another great point of contrast there too, between the "final timers" of Alabasta and Dressrosa: paranoid Croco was super hands-on with all that intricate planning, up to the point that he even included that one last emergency resort... but silly man, by the time he actually reaches the point of needing it there's actually nothing he can do to salvage his plans anymore, it's all out of his hands whether the bomb goes off or not. Doffy's always had a bunch of things up his sleeve also, but with him there's been less of a sense that he's following a pre-outlined plan -- and frex Bird Cage wasn't really an emergency measure, but more of a sick sort of punishment game and a way to actively seize back control of the situation.)
Viola's nothing to Doffy, really, except a useful pawn to be discarded at need. And yet I just couldn't reconcile that with her elevated position in the family. Doffy values potential, certainly, or he wouldn't have taken in BB5/Law/Buffalo (and Dellinger and Sugar/Monet, for that matter), but she's not essential to his plans either, the way, say, the dwarf princess is essential, or the OP OP fruit was essential (we still don't know what he intended with it though). And you can see how genuinely upset he was about Monet and Vergo, making his non-reaction over Viola rather startling in hindsight (he's kind of just like "oh yeah, I figured something was up"). And I don't think he's the "keep your enemies closer" type either. Viola hardly seems to have been on a leash. It's like she didn't matter to him either way -- nice to have around, but posing no particular threat either.
And yet no matter what, did he have to give her that position? Maybe you can argue that the Family is essentially a meritocracy, but that doesn't seem to fit -- ALL the other executives are personally loyal and have been with him through thick and thin (well, Sugar and Monet come later, but we'll get back to that). Viola is really the standout exception. You'd think she'd be more of a Bellamy, in fact.
And yet she isn't. In fact, Doffy himself may not react much to her betrayal (in fact he even talks casually about her not long after while threatening Law ["if Violet were here..."], as if expecting this to be temporary), but at least one of the other family members noticeably does and they're all taken by surprise. Apparently they did, after all, consider her "one of them" in a way that seems quite bizarre when you take into consideration her actual identity.
I just couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it didn't seem to be an important issue either (as I keep saying, Robin is IMPORTANT to Croco in a way Viola never is to Doffy)... so I set it aside.
Then three things happened:
- An SBS entry explained that Doffy picked up Sugar and Monet as young sisters from an unspecified "terrible environment". In their gratitude, they pledged their lives to him.
- Last week's chapter, Viola confronts Doffy herself. And suddenly, without warning, we realize that it IS personal. It's the climax. She's done her part already. Oda could have easily left her as a bystander. But no -- of all the people who arguably deserve a personal confrontation against this man at this point, apparently it's Viola... who has never quite seemed to be directly involved in the tragedy. She witnessed Monet's betrayal, her father's downfall, Kyros's loss, Rebecca's pain. But she's always been just that: a witness.
But instead of Kyros (who actually already got his moment in one of the earlier false climaxes) or Riku/Rebecca (the pacifists of the family), this final showdown has been given to Viola.
Why?
(Or, more importantly, why does it feel so right despite being so unexpected?)
- The ongoing familial/nature vs. nurture theme of the arc smacked me in the face YET AGAIN.
Doffy's made a habit of picking up disenfranchised brats: BB5 we saw as a starving/neglected/abandoned child, Law of course we know all about now, Buffalo we don't know shit about but can assume is also an orphan, Dellinger was a BABY when Doffy picked him up, Monet and Sugar were directly rescued the way BB5 must have been rescued from her situation.
He himself had a difficult childhood (to say the least). He was the one to cut ties with his family, sure (and violently at that), but one also can't forget that the society he felt he belonged to turned him out as well.
He is very clearly a believer in the idea that the family one chooses is more valid than one's family by birth.
And so it clicked: of course he could accept Viola turning her back on her royal origins without all that much suspicion. Because isn't that what he essentially did himself? Isn't it natural for him to assume blood relations possess less value (parents in particular)? That Viola would gladly sacrifice herself for her father makes no sense whatsoever to him, when he is the one who sacrificed his father for his own sake. (Sibling loyalty he can perhaps understand more readily -- what an echo of himself and Cora Monet and Sugar must have seemed to him! -- but loyalty to a useless, passive father? Bullshit. And Viola's sibling is dead. She has no one left but said useless father [and a niece, not like that counts], and the fact that he's "forced" her into this difficult situation is another mark against him.)
Would Croco have ever trusted Viola? Hell no. Poor man was way too jaded for that sort of thing, and obviously had no illusions about loyalty of the sort Whitebeard and Doffy both value(d). He wanted something more real, a trust he could actually believe in.
(Also, I doubt the paranoid dork would have even made the deal with Viola in the first place. I mean sure, maybe. But given his personality he would've made the deal, pretending to promise that he'd spare Riku, then arranged an accident and kept the truth hidden from her as long as possible. And/or kept him imprisoned/closely watched instead of letting him run free as Doffy evidently did.)
But Doffy saw nothing wrong with trusting her once she'd proved herself. And to be honest, the fact that he even KEPT his end of the deal is surprising to me. It's as if he were giving her a genuine chance to join him, and essentially taking for granted that she would transfer her loyalties to him without a hitch. Or maybe knowing that it didn't matter whether she did or not. Even now, at this final confrontation, what a contrast between the two men --
Croco giving Robin a chance to defend herself, to prove his doubts wrong, then just coldly taking care of business when his hopes are dashed even as he stubbornly insists that NO HE'S NOT HURT AT ALL BY HER BETRAYAL NOPE STRICTLY PROFESSIONAL.
Doffy, in contrast, not only acknowledges but quite frankly embraces Viola's challenge*. Even though she really hadn't even been on his radar up until now!
* Which is, mind, the exact sort of useless gesture/empty dramatics Croco disdains. See also: the way he completely ignored those idiots who drank the temporary booster potion. XD
(Also note: Croco was the one who initially approached Robin. We don't actually see enough of the context to really say if it's Doffy who makes the offer to Viola [or hint at it] or if Viola is the first to suggest it; all we see is Viola striking the deal. Either way, it's definitely framed as "her idea" in the way Robin's recruitment was framed as Croco's initiative.)
I had to reread the scene several times just to make sure. But I don't think I'm misreading it. The tension, the subtext.
Until now we've all been assuming that the situation is completely straightforward, just as the Soldier explained it to us. Viola hates Doffy and has been pretending to be on his side all this time for her father's sake, and has been suffering for it all along.
But that can't be true. We've seen that it can't be. Her hands are just as dirty as Doffy and his family's. She's been actively involved in their work. And unlike Robin, who often engaged in acts of self-sabotage or secretly undermined Croco's objectives whenever she could get away with it, Viola seems to have resigned herself to this. Her subordinates admired and adored her. Her "colleagues" had come to accept her to the point that they're actually upset/shocked by her betrayal. (Or at least we're shown that Gladius is. He, like most of Doffy's family, can't even IMAGINE the possibility of someone in their circle being disloyal to their "young master", even though they have the example of Law/Cora... [maybe that's why Gladius is so sensitive about it?].)
What do we really know about Viola? Her pre-betrayal personality was all an act except her desire to kill a certain man (implied/pretty much confirmed as Doffy). She loves her father, she loved her sister, she loved and still loves her brother-in-law now that she remembers him, she loves her niece. She'd been utterly disillusioned by men (and people in general, no doubt) until she met stupid dorky Sanji. She lasts like less than a chapter tops as an antagonist XD, and after that she spends most of her time being a useful exposition device.
But she was also with Doffy and his family for ten whole years. Correction: not just with them, but ONE OF THEM. And goddamn if she hadn't grown to care for them, too, despite or maybe alongside her hatred.
And right here, right now, she is openly declaring where she stands. "I was one of you. Even now, I will share in your fate."
Doffy prompts her for her reasons for coming to him by calling her Viola (her birth name).
When she calls him Doffy (what all his family calls him) as part of her response, he switches back to Violet (her name when she was with them).
And it is that exact moment that I realized just how personal it was. (The way it was Croco calling Robin by name rather than codename that pinged me to his ambiguous feelings toward her.)
In fact, here's where I start veering off into stupid lala headcanonland, but JFC I can't be the only one who senses the sexual undertones in this exchange, can I?
- Viola literally disrobing. The flower falling out of her hair.
- Viola pulling out a knife (previously she's been seen with a gun and with her DF powers), an obvious callback to when we were first introduced to Dressrosa culture (somewhat stereotypically Spanish): beautiful women regularly stab men to death when they're betrayed in love. In fact, a quick reread indicates that on her own introduction she claimed to have just stabbed a lover (obviously either a blatant lie or an assassination target in hindsight [since the police seemed to have been genuinely after her, I'm not sure the ENTIRE thing was a setup]).
- Doffy completes the reference by calling her "passionate"
So yeah... apparently now I can't get it out of my head that this is the real reason Viola's relationship with Doffy feels so ambiguous and so "in between", both close and distant at the same time: she wasn't family (see also: Doffy/BB5's incredibly sibling-like relationship, Monet's unconditional devotion), she was sleeping with him. (Or HAD slept with him.)
(Unlike Croc [who completely ignored his own fangirls], he's shown chilling with random throwaway hot chicks at one point, so in addition to the above points we're already seeded with the idea that Doffy is in fact sexually active.... lol I can't believe I just typed that. But as early as that chapter I was sorta getting this sense that Doffy considers his female family members "off limits" and that the throwaway chicks are kind of a status symbol. Where does Viola fit into that? Well, like I said, he trusts her enough to let her into his inner circle, and yet she will never fully belong. Hence that "in between" feeling.)
In other words, that would make Doffy/Viola the dark parallel to Kyros/Scarlet. And how often in this arc have we been presented with pairs of shadow and light? (Kyros the hero, Kyros the criminal. Law's descent and rebirth. The secret of the toys -- the literal underbelly of the colosseum. Sabo and Doffy, both nobles who rejected their heritage. Dead brothers Ace and Cora. Love and hatred.)
If Scarlet redeemed Kyros, then perhaps we can say that Doffy corrupted Viola. But just as that seed of darkness and guilt remains in Kyros, Doffy could not destroy Viola's love for her blood relations or the kingdom that was.
And Rebecca, more than ever I get the sense now that Rebecca is the solution. The compromise. The bridge between darkness and light.
Am I reading too much into things/talking nonsense? Probably. But after last week's chapter, this reading just suddenly leapt out to me as utterly plausible. (For a series that stubbornly refuses to include any romance among the main cast members, it does actually feature a surprising amount of subtle adult relationships.) And no, I don't believe Doffy is capable of romantic love (at least, not as popularly understood). Ain't no shipper gonna convince me otherwise.
But there's just something so startlingly and inexplicably right about this latest development -- and thoroughly makes up for ANY qualms I was previously having about treatment of female characters in this arc. I mean, just this single moment completely turns so much of what I was worried about right on its head, although I'm sure some people might see it as a mere continuation of what came before... but for me it really does shed a lot of things in a completely different light and suddenly reframes a lot of character interactions/motivations while highlighting previously established contextual cues in the worldbuilding (not to mention the recurring themes of the arc).
... tl;dr hatesex is the answer to everything.
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Anyway, update on life: still alive, not really getting much sleep, not sure I'm actually getting anything done despite lack of sleep, trying to pick myself back up either way. Not much else to say.
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