One Piece 597
Aug. 26th, 2010 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zhadraniSo. :|a
I reacted, let us say, Not Well to the Zoro section of OP 597, and it's only been through much ranting to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whiteadelphi and soul-searching and awesome conversation that I've been mostly reconciled to it. Not entirely! There remain issues, but at least I'm not making lineface every time I think about it, now. Instead of reiterating, I'm just going to link to the post WA made that contains basically our whole IM conversation on the topic.
To clarify before we even start, my problem wasn't at all to do with the plain fact that Zoro asked Mihawk to train him and humbled himself terribly in the process. In fact, that hardly comes up in our massive combined tl;dr AIM conversation, and I'm surprised that a lot of people seem to have issues with it. Not like he hasn't shown that he'll sacrifice his dream for Luffy at this point, after all. And yeah, it's painful and shaming and he had to throw away his pride to do it, and he doesn't care, he'll get on his hands and knees and press his forehead to the floor and hold there, bleeding all over Mihawk's carpet until the man agrees to train him, and then look so thrilled and happy when he finally does (>.> socute). I thought that was awesome, actually, it hammers in just how far he'll go—he won't just die to protect Luffy and his dream and the rest of his crew, he'll humiliate himself in front of his ultimate rival and live and get stronger in order to better support him, too.
...Which is the thought which sparks my ACTUAL problem. >_____> So here are the links.
These are the Original Problems With the Chapter.
And here's the conversation we had earlier today exploring Zoro's motives and why it went down the way it did. WA's previous post has the beginnings of some speculation too, in the comments.
There's some good stuff in the comments to that post by now, too, and...y'know, I thought I'd have more to say in addition/expansion, but I think I'll leave it at that for now. :|a
With regard to the rest of the chapter, I'm pretty sadface that the crew will be apart for two – freaking – years; I knew there'd be a timeskip coming up but I thought it'd be a lot shorter than that, and I'm still a little shakey on how Luffy came to decide this was the best way to do things given how much he wanted to see his nakama a few chapters ago and the fact that he doesn't even know where they are right now or if they're alright. (Perhaps Rayleigh told Luffy that Kuma told him they'd been sent to places that would make them stronger? But that doesn't make sense, I don't think Kuma managed to say all that to Rayleigh, IDEK.)
Also, they'll have been apart for longer than they've even known each other! ...Not that that will diminish the strength of their bonds in any fashion, of course, but still. There'll have to be a whole new getting-to-know-you-again part when they get back, which...okay, admittedly, could be interesting. >.> Not to mention WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO LOOK LIKE, OMG. I'm going to trust Oda on this, he'll probably win me over, but there's just no preventing a certain amount of saaaaadface at missing all of that time with them and them missing all of that time with each other.
I did love finally getting a really thorough explanation to Haki, at last—and wheeee, all the examples of it over the years getting tied together, so genius, Oda. I loved all of it, and oh man Luffy is going to be powered up so epically with two years training in it! 8DD
...And I think I'm not alone in suspecting that Zoro has been picking up the edges of some haki techniques as he goes along, too (sensing T-Bone on the train tracks before he was in sight, split-second knowledge of where his opponents will strike, manifesting his spirit externally with Ashura, among other examples). And he's going to need to learn to cut logia, anyway, and the rest of the crew will probably be learning some of this stuff, too, given that they're the Pirate King's crew and Must Be Epic (like Rayleigh! :D)
...And that's all for tonight, folks. >.>
Edit: Now with links actually added, derp.
I reacted, let us say, Not Well to the Zoro section of OP 597, and it's only been through much ranting to
whiteadelphi and soul-searching and awesome conversation that I've been mostly reconciled to it. Not entirely! There remain issues, but at least I'm not making lineface every time I think about it, now. Instead of reiterating, I'm just going to link to the post WA made that contains basically our whole IM conversation on the topic.To clarify before we even start, my problem wasn't at all to do with the plain fact that Zoro asked Mihawk to train him and humbled himself terribly in the process. In fact, that hardly comes up in our massive combined tl;dr AIM conversation, and I'm surprised that a lot of people seem to have issues with it. Not like he hasn't shown that he'll sacrifice his dream for Luffy at this point, after all. And yeah, it's painful and shaming and he had to throw away his pride to do it, and he doesn't care, he'll get on his hands and knees and press his forehead to the floor and hold there, bleeding all over Mihawk's carpet until the man agrees to train him, and then look so thrilled and happy when he finally does (>.> socute). I thought that was awesome, actually, it hammers in just how far he'll go—he won't just die to protect Luffy and his dream and the rest of his crew, he'll humiliate himself in front of his ultimate rival and live and get stronger in order to better support him, too.
...Which is the thought which sparks my ACTUAL problem. >_____> So here are the links.
These are the Original Problems With the Chapter.
And here's the conversation we had earlier today exploring Zoro's motives and why it went down the way it did. WA's previous post has the beginnings of some speculation too, in the comments.
There's some good stuff in the comments to that post by now, too, and...y'know, I thought I'd have more to say in addition/expansion, but I think I'll leave it at that for now. :|a
With regard to the rest of the chapter, I'm pretty sadface that the crew will be apart for two – freaking – years; I knew there'd be a timeskip coming up but I thought it'd be a lot shorter than that, and I'm still a little shakey on how Luffy came to decide this was the best way to do things given how much he wanted to see his nakama a few chapters ago and the fact that he doesn't even know where they are right now or if they're alright. (Perhaps Rayleigh told Luffy that Kuma told him they'd been sent to places that would make them stronger? But that doesn't make sense, I don't think Kuma managed to say all that to Rayleigh, IDEK.)
Also, they'll have been apart for longer than they've even known each other! ...Not that that will diminish the strength of their bonds in any fashion, of course, but still. There'll have to be a whole new getting-to-know-you-again part when they get back, which...okay, admittedly, could be interesting. >.> Not to mention WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO LOOK LIKE, OMG. I'm going to trust Oda on this, he'll probably win me over, but there's just no preventing a certain amount of saaaaadface at missing all of that time with them and them missing all of that time with each other.
I did love finally getting a really thorough explanation to Haki, at last—and wheeee, all the examples of it over the years getting tied together, so genius, Oda. I loved all of it, and oh man Luffy is going to be powered up so epically with two years training in it! 8DD
...And I think I'm not alone in suspecting that Zoro has been picking up the edges of some haki techniques as he goes along, too (sensing T-Bone on the train tracks before he was in sight, split-second knowledge of where his opponents will strike, manifesting his spirit externally with Ashura, among other examples). And he's going to need to learn to cut logia, anyway, and the rest of the crew will probably be learning some of this stuff, too, given that they're the Pirate King's crew and Must Be Epic (like Rayleigh! :D)
...And that's all for tonight, folks. >.>
Edit: Now with links actually added, derp.
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Sorry for lateness, I'm out of town & have limited net access >_>a (also this account is still me)
Date: 2010-08-28 08:49 am (UTC)I'm super-glad that our back-and-forth could provoke some thoughts! I'm actually always a little surprised to hear people not think Zoro is a leader-type, but I probably I shouldn't be since I also see him as baseline comfortable as a lone-wolf, more inclined toward and content with being on his own, though as with Johnny and Yosaku it's clear he's alright with traveling with people, too. I think it's more that he has plenty of the qualities necessary to be a leader (natural confidence and decisiveness, etc.,) and they pop up quite readily and without effort and make people look to him when he's put in a situation where there's a need for someone in the leader-role but it's currently empty (with Johnny and Yosaku, or when Luffy isn't around, with the rest of the Straw Hats.) I classify him as a leader-type because of that, since even lone-wolves get put in group scenarios sometimes and when they do the underlying leader-or-follower inclination tends to come out, and lone-wolves just generally don't tend to 'follow', in the first place. And the vice-captain needs to be a leader-too, to an extent, for things to work. For example, Rayleigh and Ben Beckman, I would probably quantify them the same way.