#some of y'all gotta stop trying to cancel pirates and touch some seawater

[corneliathekate]

Why does every Evil Shanks Theory sound like a bad callout post? Spoilers under the cut so idk, if this happens to spread, you're protected.

"Why would he meet with the Gorosei??? Sus???"

Bro, maybe the one Yonko that isn't a Capital Letter War Criminal has some interest in maintaining balance? And as far as diplomacy with the enemy, this man straight up BDE'd his way onto Whitebeard's ship to tell him to mind his own business. They're not friends. Same with Marineford. He's got a habit of trying to stop fights.

"Well, his brother/father/uncle/moon man cousin, that guy's a Celestial Dragon, and he might be one! He's gotta be evil!"

You right, dude, in fact, I'm gonna let you continue and tell me how many people in this bitch are defined by their shitass biological family and not the people that love them. Go ahead. I'll wait.

"Why did he give up his arm for Luffy? If he says he bet it on a new generation, doesn't that mean he chose to do it? Pretty manipulative???"

Narrative. Eat my ass. Also I'll explain this in-world in a bit, give me a second.

"Why'd he have the Nika-Nika Fruit??? Why didn't he tell Luffy all about it???"

Would you tell the kid that stabbed himself in the face that he just got an all-powerful fruit that makes him God if he dies? 5 year old Luffy was already gonna cowabunga into the nearest bottomless pit to see how high he can bounce, let's not make it worse. The most you'll get is him deciding it's a mystery fruit. And as for why he had it, if he has it, that means the Government doesn't have it. If he was working for them, wouldn't he have it under lock and key and not stop to bone ram Makino and stay for a vacation?

"Well he can't be all that good, he abandoned the One Piece! He betrayed what Roger and Buggy believed in him!"

Bro, sue me for this, but if everybody's gonna suck Buggy's detachable dick for deciding to try to be the King, that means he didn't want to be for a longass time. Despite the power scaling, Shanks is still human. Just as human as his clown ex-boyfriend. You lose your dad in a public execution and see what the world will say about him for the next 20 years and tell me you feel like slapping Kaido or Whitebeard when you're (at the time) half the Him that Roger was. And this ties back to losing his arm. He's a fucking human being. Haki takes concentration and control. And Shanks, emotional wreck he was, wasn't exactly in his top game when Luffy got thrown into the sea. By that point, he was ready to risk everything for Luffy. Whether you believe he's been looking for the real Joyboy or not, he obviously loved that kid. He had his own kid by then, no wonder he dropped everything for this child that reminded him so much of the greatest man he ever knew.

Anyways. I like to think Shanks is who we want him to be, but I could be wrong by the end of the story. Shanks may end up being the disappointment Buggy decided he was. I just think it's funny that we're trying to define the morality of a pirate emperor in the first place like there's an easy answer here. Shit's complicated. He's doubly divorced, never married, and is likely racking up biological/adoptive kids like pool balls. I don't think there's a clear way to define him or his relationships with anybody.