#at a different point in the dream i got to inhabit Zoros perspective while he stabbed the shit out of some guys which was pretty swag

[sporesgalaxy]

oh i got to experience being fully ship of theseused in my dream last night, that was fun. like i died and an entire new copy of my body was printed with a brain full of copies of all my memories from up until the moment i died. so i awoke in the new body with the memory of death seeming only to be a lapse in consciousness but the truth of my situation was clear to me and i fell to my knees and just started screaming at the top of my lungs freaking out having a meltdown it was very dramatic and cathartic 10/10.

[creative-type]

Several months ago someone asked what I thought about the Warlord system in One Piece and how Oda integrated it into the story as a whole. The short answer was that I thought it’s been pretty fantastic thus far, but it’s something that I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while now and I’d like to expand on my reasoning a bit. 

I know I’m in the minority on this, but as a general FYI I will be using the English translations for all titles and epithets. I have a difficult enough time with spelling as it is and don’t really see the appeal of using Japanese when there’s a perfectly serviceable translation available.

So without further ado, let’s talk about Warlords.

In Service of World Building 

As many already know, when Eiichiro Oda conceptualized One Piece the series was only supposed to last for five years. It seems silly to think that now, but when you look back and see how quickly Oda breezed through the East Bue arcs it almost seems as if that original estimate was possible.

What you may not know is that according to an interview in the 23rd log book, Oda came up with the idea for the Seven Warlords of the Sea after the Four Emperors. And while I have no proof, I would go so far as to argue that the decision to make Mihawk a Warlord was a retroactive one, as the term “Seven Warlords of the Sea” wasn’t introduced until chapter 69 when Mihawk made his debut in chapter 49. 

Chapter 69, incidentally, is also when we get our first hint of the Emperors, as they along with the World Government and Warlords make up the three great powers that rule the Grand Line.

So the Warlords were a relatively late addition to the world of One Piece, though their role and place within the story come hundreds of chapters before the influence of the Emperors or the World Government is fleshed out. Credit goes to Oda for seamlessly integrating a new idea into his rapidly expanding story. 

I’ll go into the importance of the Warlords from a narrative standpoint after a while, but first I want to point out that the Warlords make sense. Privateers were totally a thing during the Golden Age of Piracy and had a profound impact on real world politics. One Piece’s Warlord system is a broad reference to these privateers, but grounding the more fantastical elements in the series in something the audience can understand helps make the story feel real. Transforming the mundane into the fantastic is one of the hallmarks of a great fantasy series. 

Even if the reader doesn’t have any foreknowledge of real world privateers, the in-universe logic pans out. It makes sense that the marines would be overwhelmed by the pirate boom caused by Roger’s death. It makes sense that the World Government would be willing to make deals with their sworn enemies to help stop the bleeding. It makes sense that selfish, amoral criminals would take advantage of the privileges offered to them by the World Government, or that less scrupulous individuals would seek out that power to further their own ends. 

(Not a whole lot is known about the initiation of the Warlord system, but I work under the assumption that it’s a relatively new organization. As far as I’m aware Crocodile was one of the longest-tenured Warlords and joined in his mid-twenties, which matches up nicely with the beginning of the Great Pirate Age. If there’s evidence that suggests they’ve been around for longer I’d be happy to hear it.) 

As for why Seven Warlords instead of five of ten or any other number, Oda himself is on the record for saying he thought it was cool, but in-universe it stands to reason that the marines and World Government wouldn’t want to give out too many pardons for fear of losing control over the Warlords (which ends up happening anyway, but we’ll get to that later) while still having enough of a force at their disposal to counter the Emperors if need be, as seen during Marineford.

All this to say that as a concept, the Warlords work. They serve a greater purpose within the world of One Piece than fodder for the Straw Hats to face. One of One Piece’s greatest strengths is that the characters always feel like they have lives outside of what we’re shown. Even minor antagonists like the Baroque Works agents are shown to have dreams outside of Crocodile’s ambition, while characters like Hancock and Jimbe have histories that go far beyond “allies of the Straw Hat Pirates”. We are only shown tiny slivers of these characters lives, but they are all unique with different motivations, dreams, and outlooks on life while all still being, ostensibly, pirates who have made themselves dogs of the Government.

A secondary effect is we get to see how other characters react to them and their actions, particularly the marines and World Government. 

Smoker says it best. The Warlords hit this weird middle ground between the Justice spouted by the marines and the Freedom the Straw Hats pursue, and in doing so reveal the corruption within the World Government and show what the Straw Hats might become should they falter in their journey.

The Warlord-World Government relationship is especially interesting. Before the Alabasta saga we had seen small-time corruption by Morgan and Nezumi, but the cover up surrounding Crocodile’s defeat goes all the way to the top. It’s the first time we see different factions within the marines and really the first time we see how awful the World Government can be. 

What’s special is the entire interaction doesn’t involve the Straw Hats at all. It’s an interaction between Smoker and his superiors in reaction to what happened with Crocodile. There are’t a lot of series that can have this type of development separate from their main protagonists, but it’s another one of those things that makes the world of One Piece feel bigger than just the Straw Hat Pirates.

Service of the Straw Hats

While the Warlords are an interesting bunch with enough personality to carry the manga by themselves, their existence would be meaningless if they didn’t interact with the Straw Hats in some way shape or form. It is entirely possible to cut the Warlord system from the story with minimal interruption to the overarching plot. At the same time, you don’t introduce a powerful group and then not have them all show up. The moment Yosaku said there were seven Warlords Oda was basically forced to make sure they all appeared in some way, shape, or form (in the same interview that revealed that the Warlords were made up after the Emperors, Oda laments not lowering the number to something more reasonable, like two).

In a lesser series, this would mean having the Straw Hats fight all seven, preferably in order of ascending difficulty. Luckily for us, One Piece is not one of those series and the Warlords turn out to be as unique and variable as the world they inhabit. Some have become Luffy’s mortal enemies, others allies, and hopefully one will someday join the crew (any day now, Oda). Alliances form, shift, and break as needed to further the plot, with a few good twists thrown in along the way.

I would say that the Warlords were at their most effective early in the series, when they were acting as gatekeepers to the rest of the world. Mihawk, even though he wasn’t confirmed to be a Warlord until twenty chapters after his introduction, was the reader’s first glimpse into the power scaling of the series. The first thing we knew about him was he was the World’s Greatest Swordsman and could destroy fifty ships without breaking a sweat. Luffy and Zoro had their badass moments early on, but nothing they had done was even remotely close to what Mihawk was capable of with a knife and an afternoon to kill. 

Crocodile, on the other hand, opened the reader up to the political side of One Piece. We met princesses and kings, and the fate of an entire nation depended on whether or not Luffy could overcome one of the scariest Devil Fruits of the series to date. We got a greater look into the marines and the World Government, learned of weapons capable of taking over the world, and saw the first hint of an ancient conspiracy that remains a mystery even to this day. 

The Warlords of the Sea opened up the world of One Piece in a way almost nothing else could,while also fleshing it out and giving Oda a lot of freedom to maneuver. An example of this would be Thriller Bark, which might not be the most consequential arc in the series, but One Piece needed a little bit of levity between the whirlwind of Enies Lobby and the massive shakeup that would be Marineford. 

The fact that the Warlords tend to represent different factions doesn’t hurt. Crocodile and Moriah are silver medalists in the Great Pirate Age, Doflamingo was a Celestial Dragon and king, Hancock a literal empress of her island and former slave, Jimbe one of the first examples of the power of allies on the highest level, and Kuma was a Revolutionary. Mihawk is the outlier here, but even he shows what the pinnacle of swordsmanship looks like in the One Piece world.

And since Oda doesn’t have a habit of killing off his antagonists we get to see the Warlords themselves receive development and play major roles in the story long after their arcs are complete. Jimbe is perhaps the greatest example of how perspectives can change over the course of the series. He was name-dropped during the Arlong arc as a probable antagonists, introduced as a defector of the Warlord system due to his loyalty to Whitebeard, only to become one of Luffy’s greatest and most powerful allies in the New World and likely tenth member of his crew. 

A Crumbling System

By now you’ll probably have noticed that I’m referring exclusively to the original Seven Warlords, and there’s a reason for that. Things get complicated after Crocodile’s scheming gets him kicked out of the group. Blackbeard, Law, and Doflamingo follow in his footsteps as explicitly using their position to further their own goals. Jimbe quits. Hancock keeps her position while secretly allying with Luffy, Kuma was revealed to be a double agent until the loss of his free will. Moriah is double-crossed for being old and washed up, and Mihawk doesn’t even care. 

By the time skip rolls around the mystique surrounding the Warlords had vanished, and I think Buggy’s inclusion into their ranks was the final indication that, no, we’re not meant to take them seriously anymore. And why should we? The Straw Hats have graduated from surpassing Warlords to surpassing Emperors, and the series focus has shifted from a devil-may-care attitude regarding the politics of the world to an arms race of gathering allies and picking the right moment to start fights with major players.

The people within the system are still a force to be reckoned with. Despite being fought after the time skip, Doflamingo was a beast in battle. But the system itself is shown to be broken beyond repair. The Straw Hats--and the series--has outgrown them. 

Which was why I was super pleased with the ending of the Dressrosa Arc.

By all accounts the Warlord system shouldn’t exist anymore. The ridiculousness that they’ve gotten away with is absolutely staggering, and because of Luffy’s meddling it’s all starting to come to the surface. The World Government, even if they started the system with the best of intentions shouldn’t tolerate their presence any longer. 

Issho and Smoker working together to bring down the system while Sakazuki butts head with the World Government makes for excellent drama and probably the only way to keep the Warlords interesting in the manga’s current state. It’s another way Oda’s evolving narrative, and I look forward to see where it goes from here.

But that’s just my take. I’d be happy to hear what y’all think, or if there are any topics you’d like me to write on next. It’s been a while since I’ve done any major One Piece analysis, and it was really fun digging back into the nitty gritty of the series.