#made it post Dressrossa because of reasons;;

[ccapdis]

It's good that @crepes-suzette-373 made this post because I've been wanting to voice my thoughts on this topic for a while. Iti's nothing new, but I personally find the concept of 恋/koi within the story very interesting, as I think it's the word chosen to convey Sanji's feelings for Nami deliberately. I don't think it's a topic up for debate as there's no much depth in it, but anyway, I want to post my ramblings on Sanji, how he feels about Nami and women and the perception others have for that.

恋/koi (love) as a concept is significant, and I think it will gain weight later in the story. After all, it has been heavily present from the beginning, since Sanji first mentioned it in Arlong Park, going to Hancock and Gloriosa referring to a famous East Blue's poem (Hancock's love for Luffy reminisced Gloriosa to the same love that former Amazon Lily's empresses developed), and even going through Chopper on SBS.

It's a concept that I doubt will fall on deaf ears, as in this post, I believe too that it will potentially have a significant role in the future, be it for Hancock or Sanji's side (or both).

And when it comes to Sanji, it's always been in relation to Nami (except for that one time in Dressrossa, but it was the time he fell for Viola's lies when she still pretended to be Violet).

Indeed, 恋 is exclusively romantic, and in fact I have seen some translators choose to translate it as “true love". Furthermore, it connotes “desire, longing, wanting” and refers specifically to the “falling in love” part of it.

But all of this, the part in which the author 'lets us know' that this is how Sanji feels for Nami and that's when he brings up this 'East Blue poem', that hasn't been worded by Sanji, at least yet.

Bear with me. Back in Punk Hazard, Sanji used ホレち/horechi (from verb 惚れる/horeru) which means “to fall in love”. And then, in WCI, as we already know, he does indeed use the verb 好き/suki when Nami hugs him. Compared to 恋/koi or 愛/ai, it is a much more relaxed and informal verb.

Funnily, much, much later in the story, in chapter 1005 during the Wano arc, when confronted to Black Maria, he says "I want to love all the ladies" and he uses the verb 愛したい/aishitai ('I want to love', literally). And then, in the most recent chapters, when he fights S-Shark to protect Nami, he says 愛の力/ai no chikara (the power of love). What's different from 恋/koi? Well, 恋 is used only for romantic feelings, while 愛 (which he used to refer to all the ladies) is not necessarily romantic. In fact, it refers to a kind of pure and selfless love.

So, maybe, maybe Sanji still has to have some development to know truly what kind of feelings he truly harbors, and learn what he really wants.

Further in the analysis (and I'm aware this is already a pretty cheesy post) I went on to know how others perceive Sanji's relationship with Nami.

In Thriller Bark, Absalom said 妙 に 執着/myō ni shūchaku (deep concern and attachment) to how the Penguin zombie, with Sanji's shadow, felt for Nami (that “he was strangely obsessed over her”). Later on, he says that Nami is "the woman he wanted to protect"/守りたかった.

In Gyojin Island, ���剰 に 反応/kajō ni hannō is said by Hody's pirates, which referred to him overreacting to attacks on Nami.

Robin brings attention to the topic in chapter 1078 by saying "if Nami screams, someone is gonna rush in instantly".

And let's not forget the most famous:

This is part of my reasoning and why I believe that Sanji, despite him being the one in love with Nami throughout all the story and it being an idea very present in the manga and the characters in it, might not have yet figured out how he feels and what he wants when it comes to women and love.

[opwomcn]

“Is it true you were going to be married?”. Yes, a little silly on her part because she decided to run Dressrosa instead of Rebecca and there was no time to actually talk about things like marriage but Viola couldn’t feel a little heartbroken by the news. This was the only man she trusted after all.

@bleuwalk​​ requested a starter. ( Viola / Violet ).

[eroguron0nsense]

^^ Truly appreciate the reminder not to be rude or assume the inherent shallowness of anyone else's takes on a character! The original post was a really specific subtweet???(reblog???) about some posts that made very little sense to me, but it's a good reminder to keep things in perspective when critiquing art and not close off or discredit what could be perfectly valid and thoughtful readings

I do maintain that imho, a lot of Doffy's actions, even when considered in this light, are still pretty indicative of a lack of any real empathy or love for his subordinates. I'd like to elaborate that I do think Doffy feels a very strong possessiveness towards the executives or "close family members", and my statement that he doesn't care for them in any meaningful way doesn't indicate that he has no emotions toward them whatsoever; just that he defends them from any perceived external threats and maintains a stranglehold over the family because he sees them as extensions of himself. It's why he backs Pica up when he kills his other subordinates for slighting him despite the fact that it actually results in Doffy losing power and lowers morale among his staff, and why, despite having a deep-seated mistrust for Corazon and willingness to sacrifice him for his own ends, he still insists on killing anyone who harms him, including very young children. He may not trust them, or want the best for them, but they are his and anyone who touches what's rightfully his should die. I don't think this is love by any conventional definition. I tend to categorize things that like narcissistic abuse and desire to maintain absolute power over someone for my own selfish reasons as separate from love–which is fundamentally selfless and is completely irreconcilable with willingly harming the other person– but it's definitely indicative of a deep-seated desire to keep anyone from threatening his property i.e. the people he perceives as belonging to him, and by extension, himself. I think a lot of this can be attributed to Doffy's absolute need for control and the fact that a lot of his trauma and misanthropy results from a lack thereof (iirc Merphy points it out in her video) but I'm saving my weird psychoanalysis and step-by-step outline of all the ways Doffy's fucked up because he was failed by everyone adult or caregiver around him for another post bc this one's long enough already.

A lot of his other actions toward his executives do have kind of "pragmatic" explanations too. As much as he could probably attribute more blame for the things happening in Dressrossa to his underlings–and he definitely does at least once with Trebol when he fucks up–I think that he's smart and calculative enough to understand that human error is an inherent part of operations that he's dealt with before. and he can think on his feet or make backup plans instead of just pointlessly lashing out at his most loyal, powerful, and difficult to replace followers until something that upsets him happens right in front of him. He kills Baby 5's suitors despite knowing that it upsets her because he's able to very easily foil her attempts to defy him, and once she's stopped trying to kill him, she tends to go right back to serving him loyally despite her constant dissatisfaction because her dependency issues lead her to cling to the family anyway. Her having any partner she pledges her life and being to makes her highly, or at least more, likely to leave (e.g. Sai validating her in and of itself is enough to make her turn traitor and actively sabotage the family; the very thing that lets him and the rest of the family effectively manipulate Baby 5 is a double-edged sword and he needs to keep other people from taking advantage of it if he wants to keep her dependent on and subservient to him specifically. Isolating someone from other connections is a powerful abuse tactic, even if almost all of Baby 5's other prospects are pretty scummy).

He does absolutely take a profound interest in Law and mistakenly projects onto him/constantly tries to ingratiate himself to him (I like MelonTeee's interpretations a lot here), but he doesn't really care to do anything that might benefit Law or even let him live longer in his service even before the possibility of him eating the Ope Ope is on the horizon. He doesn't show any particular interest in looking for a cure for his condition or even trying to alleviate the symptoms after officially taking him under his wing, and he actively, strongly encourages Law's extreme fatalistic self-destructiveness and willingness to do violent, suicidal things for anyone who'll encourage it (which he suffers from in large part because he's going to die very very soon and Doffy is very, very aware of that).

To be clear, this isn't meant to be a weird rebuttal! Reblogging to expand on my thought process bc I really enjoyed and appreciated this response, it made me think about things, and even though I don't really agree with Merphy's interpretation here, I've always liked seeing her OP readings and how well thought through they are!

Truly Baffled every time I see people actually interpreting Doffy as someone who cares deeply for his family

Like if we're writing fanfic that's all fine and good, we're allowed to have fun and indulge ourselves, but I always find people in comments sections talking about how canon Doffy cares for the Doflamingo family deeply or somehow reaching for the conclusion that he deeply trusted or valued Rosinante and started mentally slipping after killing him, interpreting that one scene in the big Dressrossa fight where he flashes back to Cora and screams as evidence of this, and I have to wonder, did we witness the same character or did I somehow pirate the wrong version of One Piece? You mean to tell me that Donquixote Doflamingo, Mr "Threaten every subordinate with death if they fail, and disparage them to their faces for fucking up when they're injured defending me", Mr "Order Monet to commit suicide and take out my enemies with her", Mr "My little brother will eat the Ope Ope no Mi and die for my immortality" has any concern for his minions beyond how they function as extensions of himself, and how well they're suited his needs? Of course he doesn't feel the need to punish his executives horrifically for every minor transgression or unfortunate turn of events because he's smart enough to tell there's no need to get rid of anyone who's still useful and still extremely vulnerable to his manipulation but like

This is a man who immediately defaults to disparaging those very same people when they fail in their objectives, and who clearly has no qualms about giving them up entirely if the cost of losing them is outweighed by any potential threat to his operations. Anything that could be possibly, remotely interpreted as him displaying his own brand of care or defending them (i.e. sanctioning murder whenever someone mocks Pica's voice, murdering Baby 5's manipulative partners, specifically studying Flevance to better manipulate understand Law and trying to convince him their traumas are similar and he gets it too, so he'll enable his violent thoughts and help him pursue destruction) is a very nakedly obvious abuser tactic designed either to maximize his hold over them or to treat any slight against them as a slight on his authority. If Oda wanted to make him a character who cares for people in a fucked up way, it would have been very very easy to give him any moment of internal monologue that implies that much, but he's only demonstrated anything resembling care for one person in all his flashbacks and absolutely nothing other than deep-seated contempt whenever we get a flash of who he really is beyond the facade he puts on. I've got a whole thesis on why he likely behaved in ways that were deeply upsetting or harmful to Cora (if not outright abusing him) even before all the shit went down in their childhoods and he killed Homing, but suffice to say that Doffy is a good villain specifically *because* he puppeteers his followers via implicit and explicit control and manipulation tactics, and has no regard whatsoever for anyone other than himself and he doesn't actually need to have any redeeming qualities to be a complex and well-written character.