@omae:
blinks Equals?
See, I like this for the simple reason that you're essentially arguing that the line "nearly as strong" means that they're not roughly equivalent while "personal strength surpasses that of Don Krieg" means that Arlong is strong enough to squash Don Krieg without much trouble. It's especially amusing when you consider that these are from two consecutive lines.
You're asking too many questions. It's all hypothetical. Does Yosaku know them well enough? How do I know? Maybe he's heard from someone who does. We simply don't know.
Which means that we can't use quotes as proof, but have to rely on a direct comparison. A direct comparison based on what we see in the fights suggests that Luffy had more trouble fighting Krieg than he did Arlong. Part of this has to do with the fact that Krieg had so many weapons at his disposal, but that's his style of fighting.
Saying that Krieg isn't as tough without his equipment (which is a tenuous argument at best) doesn't mean much as you have to question how tough Lucci would be if he was unable to use his Devil Fruit or Rokushiki.
It's really easy to ask those types of questions, especially when there is no solid answer from the person who created the series so naturally no one else can answer properly.
We have a standard of comparison to work with in Luffy. What we actually see in the course of the storyline trumps a single line of dialogue from somebody whose knowledge of the world is questionable at best.
And as far as the analogy, like I said in the post again, regardless of how well he knew him it could easily have been him comforting Marron or that he didn't know what Tenshinhan was up to
Or it could have been his simple opinion that Kuririn is stronger than Tenshinhan for whatever reason.
Again, though, Yamcha saying something about that issue carries more weight than Yosaku as he actually knows something about both potential candidates. It's not like Yosaku can sense somebody's ki and determine how strong they by that standard, but Yamcha can.
Now you've put your personal opinion into it. You don't know that Luffy thought he was messing around in either case. It's easy to tally up:
Luffy did funny things X times here and Y times there.
Oh come on. A healthy chunk of Luffy's fight with Arlong was devoted ot making fun of him and, even when he got serious, there was even a whole section in there where he ignored Arlong's attacks in favor of trashing Nami's room.
Luffy goofing around with Arlong's teeth and the "I can't use swords" bit were clearly designed to piss Arlong off and it worked perfectly. Where Krieg is concerned, about the only time Luffy mocked him was the monkey bit. For the most part, he just kept hammering away at him and then running away from his attacks. In fact, Luffy hit Krieg quite a few more times than he hit Arlong.
Until he found the room with the maps, Luffy just doesn't seem to be all that serious. He appears to have worked off some of his initial anger by sucker punching Arlong when they first got there; after he sprang back out of the water, most of the fight seemed to be him loosening up.
Based on the attitude he displayed during the two fights, I think Luffy percieved Krieg in a much different light than he did Arlong which makes sense. Arlong was a malicious bastard who had tormented his friend, but Krieg was an outright rival and an obstacle on his path to Raftel.
If so, he's going to go out of his way to make Arlong look like an idiot in front of all those people for Nami's sake as much while he's going to treat Krieg with slightly more respect.
It still doesn't mean that Oda intended that to be the symbolism involved or that the character himself (Oda) was thinking at that moment.
Of course not. The only way to know for certain is if he comes right and says so. On the other hand, I think what we actually see backs up my position. You think what we see doesn't. Hurrah for the internet that allows us to discuss such trivial things.