#Garp is criminally underrated and underappreciated

[newbieineverything]

I'm free so why not do this now?

Okay I'm gonna attempt to be comprehensible but no promises bc im easily distracted

Here we have three main points that most people being up in their criticism of Garp:

He's an abusive grandfather

He's working for the evil dystopian World Government

Everything at Marineford

Please note that what I'm going to say doesn't mean that I think he's 100% right but it means that I think the whole situation wasn't black & white and I'm recognizing that there's circumstances that makes these choice more gray and from my own pov I think he made the best decisions he could have done in the situations he was put in

Not the right one but the best he could (taking into consideration who he is, the world they are in, the different culture,...etc)

So for point one:

People kind of always strip this out of context and I don't know why?

One Piece is a dystopian world, yes it wasn't clear from the beginning (so you get a pass) but it's has been obvious for a long while now, and in this world some people are being chased and hunter as if there's no tomorrow as if them being alive for one more day will destroy the world and the ones who are doing the hunting? The marines

But here's the the thing you can't categorize the marines as evil because the narrative has made it clear that not all are evil that some genuinely believe that they are doing what's right

Yes there's corruption, yes there are some who think that the goal justifies the means, yes there are some who bought into the propaganda and believe this is the correct course of action, and there's some who knows that not all is right that this not good but it's literally the best they can do right now (yes this is SWORD)

In a world like this when the ones being hunted are children, when nearly 90% of the world will hunt them or sell them to the hunters you think raising them a normal way like how we raise children is the correct way??? He would be wishing them dead if he did it this way.

Garp the time he could take training them to survive this world (Not to be a marine) to survive any backstabbing, and the marines that could come after them.

Ace and Luffy left Dawn island already overpowered and yes they were already stronger than normal people and had the potential to be more but you can't tell me that they would have reached that without training from someone

And yes they didn't have Haki when they left but they were still kids! Yes they were overpowered but they were still kids! Looking at everyone's career history in the one piece world, Ace and Luffy practically Speedrun the whole thing if they were like everyone else even Garp and Roger they should have still been in Paradise at most!

Now for the Fist of Love

Do I agree with it? No

But you have to notice when it's actually used, when Ace & Luffy declare they want to be pirates and please please note that in One Piece pirates are evil and at best morally grey

99% of the pirates are evil, they are theives, murderers and don't care about the innocents and won't go out of their way to help people, the other one percent is literally divided between people forced to be criminals or saw it as the only solution to survive which really makes you not know how they will treat the innocents after (ex: Whitebeard was part of the Rocks first before God Valley), and people who would steal but not murder innocents and leave the bystanders and poor be (Again like the Whitebeards, Shanks, brook's old crew, Roger) and yes we have seen a lot of these pirates because our protagonist are included in this category but you have to remember they really are the minority here

So yeah he hit them because they declared they want to be criminals, because he's afraid because he's worried, because doing so puts them even more at risk.

And I'm not sure if this because I didn't reread the manga in a while and I'm not gonna use the fanon to judge but I think he hit them sometimes for disrespecting him? Which from the culture I think it's normal (like a mom going after you with her slipper) I don't agree with it but I wouldn't say it's abusive (western culture really is kind of weird for me I get that for you anything is bad and over the top so 🤷

Garp wanting them to be Marines is selfish, because it's not about the right thing but for their own protection yes they won't be free but they would safe under him.

Point two:

Same thing about the pirates and who works for the marines as above

99% Evil pirates, 1% Morally grey pirates

Marines consists of the dystopian overlords, the end justifies the means people who hesitate to sacrifice anyone for the greater good, people really believing in the propaganda, and people who looked at this world wanted to protect the innocents but also knows how dystopian the world really is aka SWORD (or in the process of finding out about SWORD and transferring into it)

So Garp is obviously in the last category.

I think Garp really wanted to help people, like this is his goal to keep people safe to protect the innocents and for a young man with these kind of goals? Of course the Marine it is! They are here to protect the people! right?

So Garp joins the Marines but along the way discovers how corrupted the WG is, but what can he do? The Marines are bad yes but most of it still protects the innocents still helps the people there are still pirates and criminals threatening the innocents

For someone like Garp what he can do is rise enough in the ranks to have freedom in what he can do & any order to refuse and refuse any promotion that could put him under the command of the celestial dragons.

Ordered to do something against his morals? Refuse

Ordered not to fight? To not rescue people because of anything? Refuse

Garp essentially became the freest Marine there is, Garp is still known as the Marines Hero even though he doesn't like that but I think he's still known as that not because of God Valley no one even knows of it now! No he's known as that now because he's the hero of the good marines, he's the hero of the people.

Point Three:

Okay before we get in please remember I'm an Ace simp, Portgas D Ace is my favorite character in One Piece if anything could have saved him from Marineford I would have loved it so so so much but the narrative was literally after his ass, no way could he be saved and the world not be in shambles after

Everyone needs to realize something From a meta pov it was literally Ace vs the World

Also something else because everybody keeps forgetting this:

Marineford wasn't just about Ace, wasn't just about getting rid of Roger's blood. It was 100% pirates vs Marines and the narrative made that pretty clear by opening on people from around the world all afraid of Whitebeard wining, very clearly praying that they can survive this.

The marines losing wouldn't just mean saving Ace, the Marines losing means that symbol of the world's protection "Marineford" will go down, will mean that the people will lose those who protects them, will lose faith, that the pirates will gain even more courage and openly attack more islands, trade routes, and marine bases at a rate that the Marines will not be able to handle.

Remember what happened to the Whitebeards territories and the crew? This is what will happen to the world on a bigger scale. It would have been a Massacre.

Standing with Marines wasn't choosing duty over family, standing with the Marines was choosing the people of the world the innocents who had nothing to do with this

It was the most selfless decision Garp could take, it was the right one for everyone else but the worst one for him.

(AND HE CHANGED HIS MIND HE COULDN'T DO IT TILL THE END HE ALLOWED LUFFY TO PASS HE-)

I think Ace knew that and that's why he didn't want Garp to save him (besides his own issues of course)

This is not everything I wanted to say and I know I can't because words has never been my forte BUT I found a video 2 days ago about Garp and god everything said I 100% with it's everything I want to say but can't

From 13:27 it's about Marinford please please listen to it because this dude put all of my thoughts into words:

One day I'm gonna post about how most of the fandom misunderstands Monkey D. Garp and how they take a character who had to make nuanced and difficult decisions and simplify him into a flat one dimensional character that they don't like because they don't understand his decisions