@Enlighten:
So in conclusion all of the groups above believe either Japan, Manga, Oda, Zoro or this chapter are broken. So they can't deal with what is happening now. And I say humor us and Believe for the sake of argument, if for no other reason, that all is well with the world.
No. Because that's as irrational as the would-be brigade that you've painted a picture of here (which is insulting to those of us who have actually put time into writing out thought-out responses here, especially considering that the "SEXISM SEXISM I HATE ONE PIECE BUT I HAVE NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE HERE SO KTHXBAI" poster is nothing more than a strawman).
The world, the author's home country, and the author himself are important and should never be ignored. The story does not exist within a bubble where everything can explained via relevant reasons in that same bubble, as nice and clean as that would be. Authors are inspired by their upbringing, environments, and experiences. Did Oda go on a magical pirate journey in the early 80's? Probably not. Does he base his more complex characters in part on bits and pieces of people he's known and does he create themes and archtypes based on what he sees as important issues in the world and society? I bet he does. Writing 600+ chapters of one's life's work would be impossible without that. Oda is not a sexist because he writes a sexist character. The presence of two sexist characters who are both major protagonists is because Oda is sexist. Japan and most of the world are sexist because they have been for most of human history. It's forgivable, but if you think none of that matters when analyzing Zoro, the character, because it's more palatable to try to invent in-world hypotheticals, then I disagree.
Autumncomet sums up my thoughts pretty nicely, and honestly, that should be the end of it.
But you want a "theory"? Someone else stating his view and being satisfied with it… doesn't satisfy you!? You claim that most of this forum's "theories" are of the broken clock variety- bound to be right only twice a day- because most of them consist of little evidence, a lot of emotion, and great deal of conjecture, and you want more of that!? (In defense of Aohige, his theory was the perfect example of a good one. We just learned that Momo is a dragon. Monet said Luffy won't be getting out of the garbage dump unless he can fly. We knew Momo would enter the story at some point [during this arc]. It was a very good inference to make.) I'll try.
Theory 1: Zoro is sexist. Hey it's just a theory, so bear with me!
"There are some things I don't like to cut." -Roronoa H. Zoro, chapter 687, One Piece, Oda Eiichiro.
He's not talking about weak people, as we've been through ad nauseum (everyone loved that idea at first, in part thanks to Robby's opus- the first substantively massive post of this thread- but the discussion quickly eliminated that as a possibility). Even Urouge agrees on that. Think he's talking about chimeras? Or people with green hair? Those sure would be some wacky theories. I think he's talking about females. Zoro doesn't like to cut women, at least not as much as he "likes" to cut men (I'm omitting people without gender for the sake of keeping down the complexity of this theory). Furthermore, Zoro has never cut a woman before (important, as you point out, because he's swordsman, so head-crushing = leniency), and the first time that he does, we have to have a whole chapter about it and what that means for him. I personally think the evidence is pretty good. Straight from the mouth of the character himself, while still open to just enough interpretation to keep this thread going after over 800 posts. Perfect for a classic AP "theory."
Want to say that Zoro having a relative aversion to cutting women doesn't make him sexist? I disagree. No matter his potential PTSD, survivor's guilt, mommy-beat-him-as-a-child complexes, treating half the human race so differently in matters of life and death battle is sexist. Again, cultural relativism may give one a different semantic perspective of the word. That's only interesting to me as far as suggesting that Oda did not intentionally make two main characters into sexists, which I feel comfortable saying at this point. He made one character a fool whose plot point last arc revolved around his disability, and he made the other into a badass who, hey, acts like most dudebros would in the same situation. A bit frustrating, considering that I have no love for the average dudebro, but whaddya gonna do? This is shonen. Gotta take the good with the bad, and One Piece is pretty fucking good all things considered.
Theory 2 (don't read this. unless you're ready to have your mind blown):
! Well, first, Oda's like totally a genius. He may be a sexist bastard, but that doesn't mean he can't write a durn-good manga, right? So yeah, get this- he's already realized how this chapter must have come off to a bunch of his readers, and how they're all arguing about it on the internet. He doesn't have time to go on the internet, really, but he figured it out via his mangaka-sixth sense on Thursday, probably. But Oda doesn't disappoint! He knows that we would all love it if what half of us see as a flaw and the other half are trying to explain a different way came back to bite Zoro in the ass sometime soon. That would be great! The Strawhats have been kicking a bit too much ass lately, yeah? Fishman Island? What the junk was that!? Arc villains got one-shotted! Boooring! So next arc, Zoro is going to get his butt kicked by a lady! It's probably going to be Baby 5, because she's clearly got some sexism issues going on with Doflamingo (crying and trying to kill him but then still working for him? classic stockholm syndrome or something like that. I read about it on wikipedia) and it'd be cool if the two characters could juxtaposizeify their sexism. But it might also be three-eye girl from Big Mam's crew (or is it Mom? Oh, Oda! trying to be sneaky with gender-specific terms so we never really know_what_ you're thinking! classic Oda!), because she's probably Baby 5's sister (third eye isn't heriditary- it was surgically implanted by Vegapunk when he was kidnapped by Big Mam/Mom for a while). ANYWAY, Zoro's gonna get beat by one of these ladies, and he'll have this amazing epiphanicaltastic moment with all sorts of Naruto-esque flashbacks to his past, his recent past, and what happened five minutes ago (cuz we forgot already) and Kuina will appear in his mind and tell him, "Zoro-kun! Humans are all equal and beautiful! You put your friends in danger because you don't like to cut women! Cut that out! It doesn't honor my memory! Oh and my daddy pushed me down the stairs. Take revenge for meeeeee~~~ she poofs away. So finally Zoro will be like "What a fool I've been! Women can be dangerous psychopathic villains too, and I need to take them down quickly and without mercy!" And that will set him up to take down the zombie of Portgas D. Rouge, who shoots out baby missiles thanks to the Prego-prego no Mi, revived by Moria and guarding One Piece near Raftel. Bam.
*sarcasm often doesn't translate, I know, so… Theory 2 is just for fun. Theory 1 is serious. Dear god, Wednesday cannot come soon enough.
I honestly think we've all said as much as we can without it beginning to scratch away at our souls.
@Enlighten:
Eliminating sexism. What's left is Zoro doesn't like to cut women just because.
"Just because" is sexism. Clearly this is a matter of semantics. So you're right- there's no point in going on, because disagreeing on the definition of the key word in this argument amounts to a solid roadblock.