@Crossword:
Oh, I understand why he does it, to avoid protraction, but it is just a little frustrating when you want to see more of a certain character's abilities or interactions. Plus it just sort of gives the impression that they just let each other go as soon as the attention is drawn elsewhere, but maybe that's just me.
I know what you mean by that, but I think that Oda's trying to give the feeling of this being a big, semi-chaotic skirmish with people fighting all over the place, getting attacked by some other guy, fighting that guy while the previous guy is now attacking someone else etc.
Compare that to Bleach where in the "war", people politely do a 1-on-1 for a while, the victor is determined (tragic flashback), another 1-on-1 happens, the victor is determined (tragic flashback)… and so on. For 3 actual years. The fights don't crossover with each other, while Person A and Person B are fighting, you don't see Person C and Person D battling in the background. If Person A's ranged attacked misses Person B, it doesn't shoot across Person E and Person F's fight, or explode in the background (lol, what background?) of another fight. Compare that to Enies Lobby where Rampaging Chopper made a quick tour of the other characters' fights and where the building was accumulatively damaged by the various fights going on within in.
And as for this "bloodline" thing, just think of it like how Aragorn in Lord of the Rings was descended from the noble kings of old and therefore was a noble and honourable man himself. He was also descended from the Elves, and that gave him a special feel as a character. It's more an abstract, mythical concept than the very technical and scientific notion that he shares some genetic acid with some ancient guys and a pointy-eared woman. Similarly, Isildur is one of Aragorn's slightly more recent ancestors but he was portrayed as flawed, greedy and even cowardly to an extent. He still had other traits of the kings of old (e.g. his height) but it wasn't like he was magically made in their very image. Dragon and Luffy are related but Dragon seems a lot more organised and intentional in his aims. Luffy just wants to be free and enjoy himself but Dragon has political aims which would mean nothing to Luffy.
Having a character compared to his parents or older brother - or any ancestors at all - is just a dramatic technique to raise expectations for the character. It's like showing a future version of them without explicitly stating that this will be them in the future. A possible hint of things to come without factually stating anything. Similar to how you see future Simon at the start of Gurren Lagann, but it's later revealed (not particularly clearly) that it's just a possible future outcome, an alternate universe version. But boy did it raise expectations and get a lot of people interested.
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