one piece essay: boa hancock

[hsiuism]

((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

Comments

[irrelevant]

Interesting post. I don't have time to leave the kind of in-depth comment I'd like to, but I will say this:

I dislike Hancock for her attitude, not her actions or her beauty. Strong? I wouldn't call her strong. Nami is strong. Robin is strong, and beautiful in both mind and body. Boa Hancock is a spoilt, willful child who uses her DF power, position and pretty face to manipulate her subjects, as well as every other being she encounters. I'd like her a hell of a lot more if she'd present as: "This is me. I'm not a nice person, but that's just the way I am. Deal." Nope, not Hancock. She makes a point of saying: "You'll all forgive me when I'm naughty because I'm beautiful." *rolls eyes

[pikabot]

You started off pretty well but you lost me in Beauty and Power, Part II. Miss Doublefinger is by no means low-ranking within Baroque Works; she was part of the Number One pairing, meaning she was one of the top ranking fighters within Baroque Works. Claiming that she's no threat because Nami defeated her seems to be looking at it rather backwards to me; from my perspective, that fight was about Nami entering the realm of monstrous fighting power that the other boys operated in

[hsiuism]

Thank you for the correction on Miss Doublefinger - you're right, I remembered her position in Baroque Works wrong. When I've got a bit more time I'll revise that section as needed :)

I have to run but I'll address your other points when I get back!

Edited to expand on points:

I do not deliberately fail to mention Hina and Bellemere, as your comment implies, and I'm certainly happy to revisit my own argument in light of their inclusion. Bellemere is powerful, and she is also dead, which speaks to a separate, though related, trend in OP: most of the people in the Strawhats' pasts who have died "for real" are female, and most of those women have been powerful, physically and otherwise. And the lesson is, beautiful, powerful women die. They are punished for possessing excessive power, which is not all that far from my argument about Hancock being put in her place. Whether one mourned Bellemere's death or not, whether one thinks Kuina was punished by someone or not is not the point. Rather, I am trying to point out a trend in

[pikabot]

most of the people in the Strawhats' pasts who have died "for real" are female, and most of those women have been powerful, physically and otherwise.

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

[hsiuism]

Again, I have to run (sleep calls), so I'll probably edit this comment again in the morning, but very quickly:

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

[hyperactivator]

The wonderfull thing about fandoms is that everyone is equal. People may spout thier opinion as if it were gospel but in truth it is no more important that anyone elses. Also the internet natrually skews to the negitive so as far as I'm concerned every acid comment is in fact just slightly sour in reality.

[3goodtimes]

That was a fascinating and well-written essay! It really made me reassess my view of Boa Hancock.

I agree with many of your points, but I'd like to put my two cents in on a few things if you don't mind. :)

If Hancock were not beautiful, would people forgive her cruelties? Probably not.

I disagree with that actually. Oda says early on that 'strength equates to beauty' on Amazon Lily. Presumably, that means her subjects are more permissive of her cruelty because of the power she wields, not her looks.

Boa Hancock kicks a kitten - a kitten who, by all reasonable assumptions, survived the ordeal - and is vilified.

I think some of that reaction can be chalked up to society's inherent disgust with people who prey on the weak. Children and animals are seen as defenseless and innocent. While the people Rob Lucci killed are innocent too, they don't evoke the kinds of reactions cute animals or babies do.

However, I do agree that judgement of Rob Lucci is lighter than it is for female villains because he's an attractive man.

Hancock's

[irrelevant]

About this statement of yours, concerning Robin: Curiously, she seems to have lost some of that strength or is at least percieved as weaker by some of the Mugiwara crew (notice that Zoro is now the protector of a woman who once said she could knock the swords out of his hands).

I think it's less that she's lost power, or is now perceived as weak, than that she has become family to all of them, Zoro included. They love her, they almost lost her--they don't want to take that chance again.

[3goodtimes]

Well, that's true. But Zoro's line about hurting a woman in the Skypiea arc still sticks with me--and that was pre-Water 7.

Though Zoro, Luffy, and Sanji protect each other in a sense, I think they do it doubly for Nami and Robin--even though Robin is arguably equal in power.

Still, I should have worded that better.

[kyrana]

*butting in

[sparkestra]

I can see why you wanted to write this: the fandom's reaction to Boa Hancock has been excessively negative considering she's only been featured in three chapters so far. The fact that she's female seems to have impounded this reaction further. I'm rather loath to judge her entirely at this early stage but I still can't help but feel a tad disappointed about her appearance. I agree with you when you say that "she walks the walk of being a leader in terms of competence, intelligence, decisiveness, and distribution of wealth" and also that some of her strength lies in the fact that she exploits the susceptibility to beauty that those around her express. As Alvida as already shown, beauty is an exceptionally good means of making people take the women of One Piece more seriously, as is often the case in the real world

[pikabot]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Oda's said that One Piece is only half over. And editors rarely put pressure on writers to end something that's still wildly popular. Quite the opposite, in fact. See: Dragonball.

[doggiewoggie]

No, you're right, there hasn't been any further official comment about the remaining length of the story. For a general estimation help, people usually cite that at first Oda expected the series to last something like 4 to 7 volumes. Then, during Skypiea arc he apparently hinted that a crew member will leave the story in the near future, which turned out to be Going Merry... about 17 volumes later! Now I think it was around that time (vol.45) that he mentioned the story was about half over... on the other hand Oda said he doesn't want One Piece to be the only thing people remember him for.
That means OP won't last forever, but it will probably go on for way longer than Oda himself thinks.

In any case, I think the quick and lazy introduction of Hancock as a villain was essential because an arc that focuses on Luffy alone cannot last for longer than one or two volumes. We have to read Amazon Lily as a detour from the more important plot points: What happened to the other crewmembers, how will they rejoin and how will they escape into