#also there’s this one panel when Doffy starts going to Punk Hazard

[deadite-central]

Honestly I’m kind of surprised I managed to fit punk hazard in just two posts, but considering how much I like this arc this isn’t the last time I’ll be talking about it lmao

While overall Punk Hazard is a pretty lighthearted arc, there are two things that make parts of it genuinely hard to get through. The first one being the reveal of what’s actually happening with the children. We already know that Caesar is a terrible person, but when you read that these children have been conditioned to get addicted to drugs, it’s shocking, and Oda doesn’t shy away from portraying just how terrifying and fucked up this situation is. This storyline is an incredibly heavy one, and I think that the way Chopper is written during it genuinely made me like him even more

On the other side of things, we find out at least a little bit more about what Law is doing here, as well get more of Caesar being. Caesar. We hear the name Joker for the first time and oh will that lead to great reveals later. A really good set up for everyone involved

Remember how I said that Law keeps being mysterious? Yeah that doesn’t last too long. We for now find out that he’s trying to overthrow Kaido and for that he needs an alliance with Luffy. Obviously, that’s not all that there is to it, but we’ll find that out in Dressrosa. The alliance itself IMMEDIATELY turns into one of the biggest comedic highlights in all of One Piece to me and many others, as Law’s mysterious aura completely disappears because no matter how serious he tries to be, he has now become one of Luffy’s friends, whether he likes it or not

I’ve mentioned before that I really really like Caesar as a character, and everything surrounding his broadcast to the underworld is a testament to that, because again, what he’s doing is absolutely despicable, but also, he’s so incredibly funny it’s a joy whenever he does anything. Like. He named his weapon of mass destruction Smiley. It looks like an axolotl. He cries when he sees him, what more could you want from a villain, not every single one has to be serio

And on the topic of villains, cause I got a lot to say! The build up to Doflamingo’s reintroduction is great, and the way he takes up almost two whole pages is just good panelling. Oda’s clearly started leaning more into his menacing side in post timeskip, and as much as I love the silly rendition of Doffy that we see pre timeskip, for everything in Dressrosa to hit as well as it does he has to be terrifying. And he is. Vergo certainly isn’t the most important character ever, and once Law gets his heart back he gets rid of him with no problem, but I did enjoy him for the short time he was there and he sets up the fact that while Law knows Doflamingo, he doesn’t know as much about him as he thinks

And finally: Monet. I said in my last Punk Hazard post that I believe she shares the main antagonist of the arc status along with Caesar. She’s just as much of a threat as him, and she’s even closer with the main villain of the saga than him. And that’s the thing. Monet is our first true look at a member of the Donquixote family. She is also the first of many to fully be ready to sacrifice herself for Doflamingo’s sake. The man saved her and her sister and took them in, of course she cares about him. The self sacrificial mindsets of the Donquixote Family is something I’m going to touch upon more during Dressrosa, but Monet shows that the straw hats aren’t the only ones who truly devoted themselves to their captain, with the difference that their crew is built upon mutual love and care, while the Donquixote Pirates, no matter how much Doflamingo cares about them, and he certainly does, will always take second place behind his own self, again, more about that during Dressrosa. Monet herself is such a good character, and I think that one day maybe I’ll make an entire post dedicated to her, her death is also the second thing that makes it hard to get through this arc for me

A lot more shenanigans happen, leaving the arc off on a more positive note, but not before Doflamingo himself arrives on Punk Hazard to clean up the whole mess, and we get one of the best hooks for the next arc: Law giving him an ultimatum, either he forfeits his warlord status or he’s never getting Caesar back, and considering the fact the the SMILE trade with Kaido is what’s keeping him on the man’s good side, oh is this a great way to leave the reader questioning for what’s to come

Especially since Doffy’s first reaction to this will be to absolutely wreck the shit out of Smoker and his men, poor guys

[sulky-cabbage]

✨️Reading One Piece with my Dofladile goggles on✨️

(My English is kinda trash)

Let's start with these amazing panels

Ahhh yes Doflamingo kicking Luffy around while talking about Crocodile being defeated because of him.

Now let's go back to the first time we saw doflamingo...

"Let's discuss what we came here to discuss...Fufufufu! And quickly wrap up this meeting"

He was in marijoa literally bullying the marines to start the meeting, he wanted to know what happened.

Then he says..

"I wasn't planning to come either, but my business has been going so smoothly as of late, I came here out of boredom"

Hmmmm idk that sounds very sus, he is obviously obsessed he was literally going through the bounties until he saw Luffy's bounty and decided it was him.

Of course he's going to attend the meeting to know what is going on..

And ...

what made me make this post in the first place is this..

Why did He go to jaya???? The island the Strawhats went to right after Alabasta🤨

Was he fucking chasing after Luffy???

He came from dressrosa (in the new world)-> to marijoa to attend the meeting -> (then after he became sure it's luffy he literally flied across half of the world through sabaody, water 7 and all those islands) -> to reach Jaya

And if you read the page you can conclude that doflamingo probably called bellamy with a din din mushi to tell him to just kick the strawhats out, and not fight them (he knew Bellamy would lose), and if bellamy lost, doflamingo will kill him for humiliating doflamingo's flag, that was the agreement we learned about in dressrosa, he spared him here...

Now why did doflamingo tell him to just leave the strawhats alone, and yet come to jaya running??? I'm just picturing him really mad, flying over the clouds like that scene in punk hazard, and planning to take revenge on luffy himself😂 especially since luffy is a D too.

And when bellamy said: "If I merely kicked them out... they will get to your position eventually"

Doflamingo replied: "That is very thoughtful of you my royal follower. I like that.."

And started talking about the new era and shit, did he decide to wait for Luffy to come to him instead???

Marineford

"Current and former Shichibukai all gathered here...fufufu"

He was very excited to see Crocodile again 🥰

And finally the fated reunion..

LOOK AT HIM

He even helped Croc by stopping jozu🥰

And started flirting OMG DOFFY CALM DOWN

There's just something about this exchange, it feels very... out of place, everyone around them fighting while they're standing in the middle of the battle field flirting and having a friendly conversation in front of white beard's ship,and doflamingo inviting crocodile to team up against white beard to bring the new era, since everyone knows croc has a grudge against him.

and I think this is the only time we see crocodile smile in this arc, the exchange ends with him being a tsundere as usual which is great, I also feel like this shows they knew each other from a time back when they were rookies, they were both at lougetown the day of Roger's execution, so they probably go waaay back.

So when crocodile switched sides, and started helping white beard (the symbol of the old era) against the government, doflamingo got mad..

Now why the hell is doflamingo focusing on crocodile this much???

What is Oda thinking?? What exactly is their relationship?

I hope we have a similar scene after doffy breaks out from prison, but in reverse with crocodile asking doffy how he found the bath of blood, and Then doflamingo asking to join cross guild (basically begging to be his subordinate like crocodile said), that would be awesome foreshadowing.

Then they would be working together ushering in the new era for real this time!! Maybe With moria and mihawk too!! They were all at Roger's execution after all, but now they're all fighting against the world government, while in marineford crocodile was the only one on whitebeard's side, while doffy, mihawk, and moria were fighting on behalf the world government.

[chromatic-lamina]

trafalgar law is willing to die for his cause but would rather not: part one

part 2 here.

Canonically, that I’m aware of, there are two main characters who are suicidal, possibly three, if we include Monet.

Trying to kill himself is  Kaidou’s hobby for one thing.

As Kaidou says above, Whitebeard really knew how to see himself out. After all these years of trying, Kaidou still can’t get death right.

And then this guy: Kanjuro (Wano Arc spoilers, about chapter 974):

Like Kanjuro’s so  traumatised that’s his one role in life is to die.

However, if there’s one thing Law knows how to do it’s to survive. 

Whether in a cartload of corpses, or a chestful of treasure (plus, above confirms there might be other Flevance survivors), he survives.

He was certain he was gonna die when he was a kid, lost his heart in more ways than one, but I really don’t think he sets out to die, though he’s not afraid to, at least when he first came to the Donquixote Family. 

He faced death as an inevitability of his borrowed time, and who knows whether he would have pulled those grenade pins. If he had, he would have brought down others with him. His actions got him what he wanted. And I’ll argue in part 2 that adult Law is different from child Law.

Now, I know I’ll go against fanon, fandom and possibly canon, but there are three things I think that play into the popular trope that Law is an EMO depressive lump who needs rescuing from himself. 

One is that yeah, he wants to bring Doflamingo down and he states himself he’s lived his life with that aim, he won’t be truly free until he does (thinking this will fulfil his debt to Cora. or fulfil what he thinks are Cora’s wishes ), and that he knows he might die trying. 

But that wasn’t the plan. Look at the title.

On Punk Hazard in true One Piece style, Law tells Luffy the chances of them taking down a yonkou is about 30%, which is enough for Luffy to enter an alliance, so Law obviously knows that going into Dressrosa won’t be a walk in the park. Like, I know Doflamingo wasn’t a yonkou, but I’m sure he weighed up the odds.

Even so, his plan was pretty good: Doflamingo resigns, picks up Caesar at Green Bit, is no longer a shichibukai and so the marines (informed by Law that he would be at Green Bit) can arrest Doflamingo and Caesar. Law would still have his shichibukai status at this time, depending on how he played out the whole alliance thing, so he might be able to walk away (though I don’t think he’d have sold out the Strawhats).

But, as Vergo said, there was a lot Law didn’t know, and as Law acknowledges himself from the 30% of things working out in taking down Kaidou, he had probably been aware of the strong possibility of things going awry. Although if it had worked, he would’ve been able to stop Doflamingo, which is his repeated wish (along with killing him, uttered every now and then, but the threat is liberally applied in One Piece). 

Also, just as his smile was taken (the last image he had of Cora), he’s keen on removing Doflamingo’s smiles from him. He’s got a back-up. Kaidou takes Doflamingo out if the marines don’t arrest him, or even if they do.

If Law were truly suicidal, he wouldn’t have run from nor fought Doflamingo at Green Bit, nor worried about the Smile factory, probably. He would have just accepted his fate. It took him some time to decide to face Doflamingo head on, even though it really was his battle, hoping that more strategic moves could bring Doffy down without face to face interaction, something that Doflamingo mentions.

He could give Doffy eternal life. It would kill him. He’s aware of that, but he doesn’t want to. He didn’t have to switch himself out with a body double, but he did, thus saving his own life. He didn’t have to use sterben blade against Trebol, but he did, thereby saving himself, and doing so because of his role as captain, therefore, aware of his crew. 

He didn’t have to get upset when it seemed Doflamingo would crush his head and vengeful hopes, but he did. He’s aware he can die, he puts himself in situations where the possibility is strong, but he fights with the hope of defeating the enemy and surviving.

Possibly or probably some of the wording has been mistranslated, but look at the exchange below between Doflamingo and Law over the ultimate power of the ope ope no mi.

Law, at least in the scans above, doesn’t state that he has no interest in using the fruit’s ultimate ability on Doflamingo, he says he has no interest in using it (so let’s hope that it doesn’t come into play in Wano as many have been dooming and glooming), because basically he doesn’t want to give up his own life. Good. He’s fought hard to get this far. Though of course he’s never gonna give that gift to Doflamingo if he has to give it to someone.

But yeah, as Doflamingo says above, Law is self-destructive in tackling him, and I think the anime or other translations state it as a suicide mission, but when isn’t a battle in One Piece a David and Goliath suicide mission? 

This is the second point, I think. Doflamingo’s own view influences readers’ views, and it’s not without truth, but is not the whole truth.

Law’s willing to die for his beliefs and drives, for sure, but if he overly wanted to die, or even subconsciously wanted to, I don’t think he would have planned so meticulously not to die, nor fought so hard not to. He went in to attack, but he defended himself as well.

Doffy tells us and Law constantly that he is playing a fool’s game because he is fighting for and from emotion (Luffy’s m.o. as well), but we also know that Doflamingo is a master manipulator who uses people’s emotions and passions against them, and his own emotions get the better of him also on a number of occasions.

A few panels after this declaration (before Doflamingo saws Law’s arm off), Law calmly rebuts him, keeps his cool, states that it’s his own decision or not to determine whether he’s playing a fool’s game, or has wasted his time, by keeping Cora close to his heart and as a role model. 

And it’s up to him to determine whether trying to fulfil Cora’s wishes (stopping Doffy in Dressrosa), in a way that Cora could not on Minion Island, is worth it or not to him.

Doflamingo states that it’s Law’s fault that hardship has befallen Dressrosa because he led Vergo to Cora, and Vergo took ownership of the canister that would have informed the World Government of Doflamingo’s imminent take-over of Dressrosa. But Law rejects this, turns the statement back on Doflamingo, and Doflamingo applauds him for his cool. Trebol does at times too.

What I’m trying to say is that Doflamingo derides Law as beaten, trodden, suicidal and pathetic, but Law ain’t buying it, and I don’t think we have to either.

 Sure, he was in trouble. Absolutely. But he fought, and I don’t think he fought poorly. He was over-powered by Doflamingo, so Doflamingo was right, emotion got the better of him there, but it wasn’t the plan, and it wasn’t the second plan either. Maybe if Luffy hadn’t been fighting Bellamy...? But then again, Luffy got trounced fairly easily at the start of the fight on top of the palace too.

Getting away from the main point here. Climbing Mount Everest is in many ways a suicide wish. People who view it that way have a point. Because it is. Risks are involved. You do it anyway knowing that you might not come out alive. 

Of course guns, bullets and all have death imprinted more firmly on their casings than a mountain, a crevice, or an avalanche, but yeah, I don’t think that Law pointed Doflamingo’s gun at his own head, and I think he went in equipped for possible success, not inevitable defeat. He’d spent 13 years planning, after all, and Punk Hazard was a victory for him. Then I think the third reason is mostly why the fandom is sold so hard on this idea: Bepo’s vivre card. This is too long already...So I’ll talk about it in part 2.