@shinpanman:
But then again, Crocodile was pretty much a run of the mill evil mastermind who just had an interesting power. Hrmm…. I dunno, it was a pretty devious plan I guess...
Run of the mill?! Psh! Girl, lemme school ya, and lemme school all y'all. This here's m'boy's turn, so I gots a campaign to run up in heah…
Pay attention, Arlong Parkers:
First of all, what we have here is one of the most concretely evil sombitches in One Piece. Now I know whatcher sayin'; "Shmeckie, One Piece has many cruel, sadistic bastards!" Why yes, this is true. But very few of them took it to his level. I mean, fuck, the guy gets more ominous face shadows and scary guy shadow hatching than probably any other villain period. Go head, find some random pages with him in it. That man's eyes get less light shone on them than a corpse in a coffin.
This is a man who had such loathing for the spirits of others, he would torment and torture others merely for showing some hope. Remember old man Tutu? Crocodile buried his town, and the well he worked so hard to dig, again and again out of sheer spite for the man. Just because he could. A megalomaniacal mastermind who will still take time to regularly torment the little guy because said little guy bugs him just a little bit. Enel needed divine judgment to do such a deed. Lucci only took time to do such things if he was ordered to. Crocodile would destroy your home and your ambitions just because he thinks you're ridiculous. Oh, and that's not all! What other villain had such "oh snap" lines in this series, hm? Who called Vivi out on her idealistic nonsense right to her face? Who called Nami the bossy biyotch she is? Who called the Marines out on their beaurocratic uselessness? Why, Sir Crocodile, of course! Let's not forget even now he was the one to introduce us to the concept that the OP world did not, in fact, have a universal hard-on for Whitebeard.
But wait! There's more! Not only is he one of the most evil sombitches, but one of the most badass! Think back to Enies Lobby… Remember the drama and fear of Impel Down? Hell, Robin bled from the mouth biting down on the bridge to keep from being dragged to that place! The tears! The panic! No, we can't let Robin be taken there! Well, Crocodile was also sentenced to Impel Down. His reaction?
He was friggin' smiling about it.
While in Impel Down? Smiling away. Hell itself couldn't put fear in this man. Hell, he stuck around that place because, by his own words, he didn't feel like leaving. Even now he's picking fights with other Warlords, salivating at the chance to kick Whitebeard's ass. That, my friends, is the very definition of badass. He goes with the flow, he doesn't give two shits, and if he finds something he wants, he'll concoct an inhumanly intricate plan to get it. Like if Chuck Norris and Tsun Tzu had a clone baby who lost his hand. That baby would be Sir Crocodile, my friends! And let's not forget that, while everyone in OP obsseses over the regular goals of piracy, Crocodile says "fuck that shit, that's for little girls and kittens." He doesn't want to be the Pirate King, he wants to be an actual king. As much as I love the romance in OP, that's just cool.
Oh, and let's not forget the pure style of the man! Pimp coats, expensive cigars, the man is just cool. Not general kind of cool. I mean the James Dean of evil, here.
He's not just an evil mastermind, hell, he's the evil mastermind. The scale of evil by which all villains are held to. He is the Freeza of One Piece.