#really if Sanji were less skeevy I think he’d be one of my favorites

[opbackgrounds]

So there’s a couple of things from last night’s Sanji post that I want to clear up a bit, and I don’t want to clog up the blog by individually responding to all the asks, comments, etc.  This got quite a bit longer than I originally intended, so sorry about that, but I hope it ends up clarifying where I’m coming from going forward. And if you think I’m wrong, that’s fine! Just please be civil about it; Sanji Discourse(tm) is polarizing enough as it is, and after being in the One Piece fandom for as long as I have, it can be very tiring. Please remember Sanji isn’t real, and I’m not personally attacking anyone who disagrees with me, nor anyone who ends up liking him more than I do.

1. Firstly, thank you to everyone who sent in/responded with a more accurate translation, or who even mentioned the translations from other languages (I saw French and Norwegian, if there are others I’m sorry I missed them). It’s really helpful making what seemed like an out of character moment for Luffy seem much less out of character. 

2. As I’ve said before, Sanji is by no means my favorite character. There is a chance I’m misremembering things about his arc or simply choose to interpret his actions differently than other people to make him more palatable to me. He’s a guy who is open to a lot of interpretation, and I look at him through the lens I find most interesting. I may need to reevaluate my opinion as we get to other more Sanji-centric scenes. We will get there when we get there, and until then I don’t feel like arguing about it

3. That being said, yes, I am very much aware that Sanji also boasted about his future amazingness to Kuma, but he only did so after Zoro did it first. He saw what direction the conversation was going, didn’t like it, and tried to stop Zoro from getting himself killed. More important, I think, is the scene afterword with Brook where Sanji is very self-deprecating about his own resolve to die for the crew.

4. Sanji was very much willing to die on the Baratie for a boat. He considered the physical planks and sails to be more important than his life, never once considering that a boat could be replaced. He literally had no idea how much me meant to Zeff, and there are other parts of the series where he’s very quick to jump on the self-sacrifice train (hello Skypiea!) when a character like Zoro is more likely to try to fight himself out of a similar situation. He was also an active participant in Nami and Robin’s rescue arcs, and still thought he could get away with the stunt he pulled on WCI. The difference, to him, was that Nami and Robin were important, and he was not

5. I don’t think Sanji could have managed the pep talk he gave Usopp during Enies Lobby unless he had a deeper understanding of Usopp’s feelings and has had to try to dig himself out of the same hole. 

This is where my preconceived interpretation muddies things a bit, but as far as circumstantial evidence goes I think it fits pretty well. Sanji has always been a character you have to read between the lines with because very rarely is he going to be emotionally honest with himself and others in the same way, say, Luffy is. I made entire posts on this point back during the Baratie arc and hold by tham today. Even his way of dealing with problems — with sneakiness, going behind the scenes, using guile — points to a very different mindset from some of the more literal-minded characters in the crew. What is more difficult is deciding which words and actions are him being honest, and deciding when he’s putting up a front for others. Hence multiple character interpretations that I think can equally be supported by canon. 

Further complicating matters is that Sanji doesn’t really have a confidant within the crew to express himself to. Nami, who also puts on a brave front, goes to Usopp for a weapon because she knows he’ll understand her feelings of weakness and help her get stronger. Sanji doesn’t have that, partly because his manly pride doesn’t  allow him to be vulnerable. But just because he has his idea of chivalry and a picture of what an ideal man should be doesn’t mean he thinks he meets those ideals. 

So that leaves us with a man who thinks very little himself following a moral code that encourages self-sacrifice. Sanji sacrifices his emotional vulnerability for appearing tough. He sacrifices his time to feed a crew that includes Luffy as his captain. He sacrifices effort that could have gone toward training or personal pleasure for making the people he loves happy. Because making other people happy — especially through cooking — is what gives Sanji the most joy, even if he doesn’t get a lot of credit for it. 

And if those people he loves are in danger, you bet your ass he’s 100% ready to throw down his life to save them. Because he’s just the cook. Luffy can always recruit someone else in his place.