I pulled this out of the spoiler thread because I wanted to continue this discussion. Multiquoted in case anyone cares to catch up. Or cares!
If Croc was the one that front-backstabbed WB, then at least there was previously established motive, and we know Croc would doing something cunning to achieve it. I'm not saying that Squardo doesn't have a motive, but we currently don't know what it is. So this makes it worse for the reader. You can't just have character X show up and trump establish character "Whitebeard". This is why Lucci's character seemed so one-dimensional. Oda waited till the middle of the fight with Luffy to say, "OH!, btw, here's what makes Lucci the devious mind he really is". That's called a slap in the reader's face IMO.
If Croc would've done it, it would be like "Oh yawn Croc… Wasn't he beaten like 300-400 chapters ago?" Whereas now instead of trying to just reastablish a past villain we could be getting the beginning developments of a new one, and all villains have to have a beginning introduction and this is one hell of an intro. And since you mentioned it, the 5 year infiltration mission, the soloing of both Zoro and Luffy (the 2 strongest SH) and the 4000 douriki, his ability to reason out who Cutty Flam was, all played parts in establishing Lucci as both immensly powerful and devious, that flashback just showed that he's been that way since age 13.
I'm holding out on the premise that this will not be a serious injury to WB, and Squardo will get soundly dealt with at the start of the next chapter. If that isn't the case, then I have to wait to see how Oda will deal with the aftermath of the stabbing. There are just too many unknowns right now.
I don't think anyone truly believes that that wound in and of itself will finish WB, I can only speak for myself but I think the wound could play a role in WB's eventual death but he definitely won't die next chapter because of the wound. But WB's death isn't what's being pinpointed here it's that Squardo had the balls to walk onto WB's ship and stab him like that, even if he did it in a treacherous, underhanded way that is still very ballsy. The treachery and ironically the guts to try it, and that he had the ability to be successful speaks volumes about the character.
Now, we have some random New World Captain. Nothing is established about him at present. So having him deliver a critical blow to "The Strongest Man" is a horrible idea IMO, and that's why it doesn't sit well with me.
He's not so random, he was established as WB's go to guy to lead ALL the other NW crews and captains including the fan favorite Doma, so that immediately makes it reasonable to believe that he's the strongest and most strategical of the NW captains. Plus there were many who suspected that he was up to something treacherous because of his absence.
??? :wassat: Luffy's not gonna have many new people to fight in the New World. We just got introduced to 43 New World Captains and their crews. I think there's plenty of space in the New world for Oda to establish plenty of opponents for Luffy. I'm not concerned about that at all.
All in all, I'd like to see what the strongest man can do, and I just hope this "stabbing" isn't a coup out to make us wonder just how "strong" WB would have been if he had not been injured.
And is it not better to introduce one of these new possible threats before the NW is reached? As I said all villains have a start or point in which the readers are first introduced to the depths of a character's villainy. And again I don't think this is the end of WB, but if there was any cop out, I think the fact that WB is probably old as dirt and was shown to be hooked up to IVs 200+ some odd chapters ago would be it, but again I'll put my trust into Oda and atleast old age + sickness is a reasonable and plot related reason for him to be weaker not some young guy dying of disease randomly just so a main character can have a chance.