@MarcelloF:
He revived him just to give him a lame sob story to redeem him. Bellamy was perfectly fine as a (dead) pirate that was the antithesis to Luffy when it came to their views on pirates.
Though, I assume this was already heavily discussed.
He revived him for more than that, I'll give a few off the top of my head:
He's involved with Doffy and served to prove what a heartless prick Doffy is when it comes to unworthy underlings.
He came back to show us that Luffy completely changed his outlook on life with one punch.
The defeat made him go all the way to Skypeia and after that there was no looking back, his original views were flipped on their head.
He came back to enrage Luffy after he was toyed with by someone he admired most of his life.
He came back to tell us the readers that he was sorry he admired the wrong man, but he was too heavily invested to turn back and it would only be a cowardly move to suddenly side with someone when it suited him, the truth is if Doffy did approve of Bellamy he would never have this change of heart and would die for Doffy, no questions asked. Thus, sticking to his guns although admitting internally he was wrong and regretful, he earned a shit ton of respect, something he never would have gained had he remained that "lowlife" that talked a big game and got owned with one punch.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@.access:
I guess you are right, in the end Oda DID drove himself into a corner, so the problem lies there. The amnesia is just the product of the problem, not the problem itself.
I believe the root for this problem lies in Sabo. Up to this point, I can't believe Oda planned this guy. It seems to me he came out with Sabo in the last minute as a way to be able to kill Ace without actually "killing" him - by giving us (and himself) an Ace2 in the form of Sabo. So problems appeared in retrospect and there is no satisfying ways out of them, just ways good enough to at least make some sense.
If it wasn't for the ASCE tattoo…
Yeah I always believed the same that Oda penciled in Sabo to cope with having gotten rid of Ace, Ace might have been one of his favorite characters too. He cried when he had to kill Merry off but then lessened that pain when he drew the spirit of Merry still lingering around, so I wouldn't put it beyond him to get attached to his own characters. Personally, it's worked on me, growing up (and yes I grew up reading One Piece) I couldn't accept that Ace was dead so I desperately wanted Sabo to be alive and when he came back as an adult it allowed me to move on, so at least it worked on one reader