#candidate for pirate king okay yeah makes sense

[abysscronica]

I just wanted to also add, that while I know Bepo isn’t a supernova, it still feels weird that Law didn’t have anyone with him like Kidd and Luffy did. Isn’t he supposed to be rivals with them too? Sorry, this has just been something bugging me for a really long time. I really thought we were going to get to see Bepo fight so we see how he compares to like Killer or the middle Strawhats

Okay, let's talk about the Heart Pirates.

Based on how Oda's depicted them to this date, they're weak. Too weak.

You said it the best: it looks like Law is carrying the crew through the New World. They're all there as support characters, a role that they took up in Onigashima as well by saving Luffy and tending to his wounds, but they're no battle-driven pirates.

If you think about it, it's not super strange when you consider what kind of person their captain is: Law is a terribly strong warrior, but fighting is in fact not something he particularly cares for. Kinda like Robin, he became a warrior for necessity.

Sure, there was a moment in his past when he was consumed by hate and trained his ass off just to kill, but he radically changed since then. That was also before eating his DF, which is the main feat he uses in battle now.

So it makes sense in a way that strength is not the first thing he notices in a potential crewmate, he probably values other skills above that, at least to some extent. On the other hand, in Sabaody, before the timeskip, we see him recruiting Jean Bart, who's very clearly a brawler.

This, along with the way Law does it, makes me think he was aware of the lack of brute strength in his crew and was trying to make up for it. But why didn't he follow through this route during the timeskip then? He was very popular, extremely strong, became a warlord, so the name of the Heart Pirates must've been attractive to strong candidates.

Instead we see in Wano that the main force of his crew (Bepo, Penguin, Shachi) just managed to get captured by the enemy and has to be rescued by Law. These three do in fact fight later on in Onigashima (they're not among the guys that help Luffy, at least to my recollection), but we see literally nothing of it. At least we know they didn't get knocked out by the Beast Pirates.

So yeah, there is an incredible distance between Law and the second strongest of the Heart Pirates, who is in fact Bepo.

I guess the closest in strength we can use as a comparison from the SH would be Franky, but even then, I seriously doubt Bepo could take him. I don't even dare to compare him to Killer, Zoro, Sanji or Jinbe.

I'm sure the Heart Pirates have other valuable skills that took them through the New World (other than Law himself), but strength is not one of them. Law should really put some effort into recruiting because things are gonna get crazy, and the distance between his crew and the SH/KP is too wide.

Now a word about Law being a rival to Luffy and Kid. Yes and no. He can definitely keep up with Kid strength-wise, one could argue he might be even stronger, although Luffy is now on another level. But let's not forget that Law doesn't exactly share the same goal as the other two.

He's following the same road because he wants to discover the true history and unravel the meaning behind his name. He doesn't care about being King of the Pirates. A reminder of this is that he's the only one of the trio without Conqueror's Haki.