#“ws a matter of media critique & the way we approach certain works I believe we need to reexamine our view on this character”

[gildedmuse]

I want to reblog this, even if it's a bit of an old post, because I honestly believe that a work has so much value outside of the author and their intentions.

What Oda did with Kuina is very simple: she helps to give Zoro reason and drive, her death pushes him forward.

But Zoro was already working on becoming the best swordsmen alive.

He DID NOT NEED Kuina's death to "inspire" or "push" him. Zoro knew his path and her death DOES NOT CHANGE THAT.

So I think it's important that, as a fandom, we disregard what the author intended and instead look at Kuina as her own character. That's the point I was trying to make when I said she was NOT Zoro's backstory. Kuina did not exist just to inspire Zoro, she was her own person with her own dreams and her own goals.

And she was repeatedly told those things were impossible, not because she wasn't skilled enough, not because she wasn't trying hard enough. Because she was a girl.

And there is a difference in how we delineate characters in our minds. Vivi served a plot purpose, Ace served a plot purpose, but we see them as fully independent characters despite their main contributions being to fullfil a plot point. Instead of looking at Kuina as merely a plot point that is there for Zoro - and you know I love Zoro and am willing to turn most characters into mere plot points in the story that is his awesomeness - we should see her the way we see Ace. An independent character with a tragic story.

For Ace, it was being defined by his parentage, and his constant battle against that, to try and define himself yet he was always stuck searching for that approval he couldn't find from his father. He was always looking for that love.

For Kuina, her story isn't just about Zoro. It sets up the entirety of this world we're about to inhabit through these characters, and establishes that sexism is still a major force in the culture.

No, you can argue this is just Wano inspired culture where roles are DEFINITELY divided by sex, but it's something we see repeated again and again across various islands, not just on this single Wano immigrant community in the East. And since it's so early in the series, it's really establishing that sexism will play a major role throughout, and sure enough soon after we meet Sanji. A character whose entire thing can be summarized, if I'm being kind, as: Women are inherently precious and require protection from men.

Where as the lesson Zoro appears to learn is: I need to become the greatest swordsmen twice over, to carry Kuina's legacy with me.

But again, I don't care about author intent. I mean, I do care but it's not the end all, be all. No one can stop an audience member from bringing their own thoughts, experiences, opinions, etc to a reading of a work. It's simply impossible to fully remove yourself and consume a work entirely objectively with it being biased by the society they grew up in. I mean, language is part of culture so it's LITERALLY impossible, and I would love to see someone try and prove me wrong. You would have to start with the fact the characters are wearing clothes and again, like language, that is cultural. So you'd already be watching a show trying to ignore all the dialogue, and then questioning why they are wearing what they're wearing. And that's just two of the bigger thing. Point is, it is impossible to remove a work from the culture it was created in. It is equally impossible to separate it from the culture of THE AUDIENCE.

I understand this seems to have gone off topic but it's important. It's about how we see Kuina's character. Because her purpose within the narrative is fairly simple and straightforward, but that's not to say that is all we can see in her.

I would advocate Kuina is one of the most important non-main characters we meet in Romance Dawn not because of Zoro's backstory, which, to be honest while it might intensify his drive it was never the REASON. Zoro was already set on being the best, Kuina is just the friend who shared that goal. She didn't create it, he didn't take it on for her, she just helped stoke the fire that was already there.

And he did the same for her; he believed in her even when her own family, and likely the community around them, dismissed her.

That makes her more than a backstory character. That makes her someone with her own dreams and skills and even her own adversary to fight against. She isn't Zoro's backstory any more than you'd call Ace "just Luffy's backstory".

I want the fandom to reinvision Kuina, not as Zoro's childhood friend that informs his characterization because it doesn't. Zoro was gonna Zoro regardless. I want them to see her like they see Ace. Her own character, full of life and potential, and the chains in her case were not literally but worse: they're cultural. She was held back not by any physical force she could simply break through, but by the nigh unbreakable chains of social expectations.

With that in mind, as a fan, I have chosen to understand how Zoro takes her death in two ways. I do think it intensifies his drive, because he is now carrying her dreams as well. It doesn't create or change his goal, it just means that when he achieved it, that somewhere Kuina will know.... I once kicked the butt of the idiot who became the greatest swordsmen alive.

(Even though he dropped his elbow in that fight with King that one time. Sloppy work.)

But I've also seen another lesson he learned: People are people.

And sometimes that means the fighting girls, but if they can fight him then why wouldn't he fight back? It would be an insult not too.

Everyone knows it's a TV trope that when you have a girl villain, you have a girl hero fight them. Because it would look bad to have a guy just wailing on a girl. From what I've seen, Zoro and Usopp and surprisingly BROOK are the male Strawhats most likely to engage in combat with female enemies, and Brook is only making it on list because like Zoro he does a good amount of group work (ie: fighting whole groups) and also he took on Big Mom and that was awesome. Again, this may not have been the author intent but what I see is Zoro not taking Kuina as his backstory. He would not insult her in that way. To Zoro, she was a rival and a friend, and he would never just dismiss her as being just backstory. He would never dismiss her as "just a girl". And if Kuina could kick his ass, it just shows it's not about who you are or how you were born. It's about what you put in. And Zoro is willing to put in everything he is, regardless of his opponent.

But the biggest thing is Zoro doesn't make her his backstory. He thinks of her, because of course he does, they were friends. They were RIVALS. They were supposed to be doing this TOGETHER.

We, the fandom, need to do the same. We need to unite to give Kuina the respect she deserves. Not as a backstory, but as a young girl who was a victim of the patriarchy and the box it forced her into.

(In my fanfic All Hearts guess who lives and gets to be the Strawhat swordsmen?)

"Girls can beat boys, but no woman can defeat a man."

- Kuina, OPLA, EP 4

When I first started watching One Piece of was because all my siblings did, and while my siblings aren't really "fandom" types, my sister had exactly one non canon theory: that Kuina was killed by her father.

Now, that doesn't seem likely (at least in the sense she meant it) but this? This mindset that she could never TRULY be a great Kenshi?

That is entirely on her father

Listen, she is the best in the dojo, the best in ALL the dojos on the island based on what we know, and yet somehow she has been taught that girls cannot grew up to the best, that is a MAN'S place. And while I'm sure there is an element of all society pushing that narrative, as someone who grew up with parents who DIDN'T ever push those sort of gender limits while I had friends' whose parents did, I feel like at her young age the major influence would have been her father.

And, sure, it would be easy to come up with a headcanon where Kuina and her father end up in a fight because Kuina is training so hard with Zoro, and she is finally entering that point of adolescent where your friends often have more influence than parental figures, and how that could have resulted in an accident that ended with her falling down a flight of stairs. Its not a hard jump to make.

More importantly, this is about how Kuina could have been great but was told it was impossible. Because of her sex. And that attitude seemingly extends to most of the islands they visit. And how fucked up is that?

To be clear: Kuina isn't Zoro's tragic backstory

Kuina's is the tragic backstory of how the patriarch shapes the minds of young girls to believe they can't.