@Kylor:
I have, thus far, read and supported every installment until now, but I also have the freedom to not read any future installments if I don't want to. I am not, nor have I ever been, morally obligated to read your fantasy pirate comic. And just as I would never say that continuing to read it makes you any less of a person, I ask that you recognize that I don't want to read the manga anymore.
Kylor, first of all, I want to make clear that I wasn't necessarily trying to convince you to keep reading and especially not trying to claim that you were less of a person if you decided to quit One Piece. Of course that is completely your decision and if there are more things you've disliked than you've liked recently, that may even be a good decision. No, I was just interested why exactly Pudding's development in this chapter lead you to this decision and wanted to discuss some of your arguments and thoughts, because I see a couple of things differently than you. No ill intent, I promise
First of all, when I speak of how Pudding's depiction in this arc is poor writing altogether, especially for what Oda says about women, I should clarify what counts as a good female character in my opinion. Short answer: Vivi. When I talk about "strong" characters, very seldom do I mean that in a literal sense. (sure, it would be NICE if the ladies got more honest-to-goodness fights, but that's another debate…) Mainly, what I'm looking for is agency. If a character is going to be in the story at all, they should have an active role in what's happening around them and especially what's happening to them, and if a writer is good, then their actions should tie directly in to their development and motivation. A lot of people tend to lump Vivi into the "crying One Piece Princess" mold, but what sets her apart from the characters that came after is that at no point did Vivi ever stop fighting. She instigated all the main actions in her subplot, was the main driving force of momentum for much of Alabasta, and even when the arc got more action-heavy and she was more relegated to a damsel-in-distress role, she never stopped doing things. Her tears were never because of weakness, nor were they there for Luffy or Koza or whoever to pity her. We, the readers who were experiencing Alabasta's struggle through her, were meant to empathize with her tears.
I completely agree with you here and I am glad you are not trying to say that only physically strong female characters can count as strong female characters in general. I agree that an active role is very important and it is an aspect of One Piece that I've always enjoyed: that Oda in general allows characters to shine even if they aren't strong fighters, which is very different from, for example, DBZ where most of the characters became completely useless because they weren't as strong as Goku or Vegeta. Oda usually takes the time to even give minor supporting characters their moment in the sun, one of the more recent examples in the story being Gatz in Dressrosa. And as you rightfully point out, that is a key difference between Vivi, who, even if she wasn't as strong and wouldn't have been able to beat up any of the stronger Baroque Works agents, always kept fighting and trying and in the end succeeded in stopping the fighting, and a character like Rebecca, who did try to help, too, but always failed and constantly needed protection and basically was a burden to everybody.
What I take issue with then, however, is this part of your original post:
Too often now, we're getting the same message, over and over again, in the series. Women are weak. Women can't deal with the same hardships men can. An "evil" woman just needs a man to come along and treat her kindly for her to see that she was wrong. Their role is to be a support, to need saving, to cry. We've seen this with Nami. With Rebecca. With Robin, Shirahoshi, Viola, Tashigi, Hancock, women we were promised would be strong, and each and every time, Oda has lied to his readers. I can't trust him as an author anymore. I just can't.
Now if you aren't talking about being physically strong, but about being a strong, active characters, then I think you judge at least half of the characters you list very unfairly, especially Nami and Robin. If you are not talking about getting fights, then how exactly are these two characters weak, inactive people that always cry and need to be saved? How many times have Nami and Robin even cried in the series, not counting their childhood flashbacks? I can think of about four or five times for Nami and once for Robin, in Enies Lobby. And as I asked you before, I wonder how you can hold these moments against these characters? What Arlong Park did for Nami and Enies Lobby did for Robin was also to show us, the readers, how freaking strong these two characters were. Nami was strong enough to decide, as an eight year old girl, to work for her mothers murderer, laugh in his face, risk her live to save her village, without accepting help, for ten years. Robin saw everybody she ever cared about die and was alone for 20 years. And yet both of them endured this completely on their own, until their absolute breaking point, until they finally decided to let their friends help them. This is not Oda saying "Women are so weak and need to be saved", that is him saying "Look at Nami and Robin and how strong they have been all their life". So, hopefully you can see how this confused me a little and I hope you can maybe clarify how exactly Oda lied to us in regard to Nami and Robin being strong female characters.
As for the other characters, yeah, I already agreed with you on Rebecca. She had a couple of nice emotional moments with Kyros at the end of the arc (I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff), but as I said, overall Oda pretty much messed up with her character. Tashigi, too, after getting great character development in Alabasta, had a very weak showing in Punk Hazard, no argument there. Hancock, I feel remained a strong and active character throughout Impel Down and Marineford. She certainly never became a damsel in distress needing to be saved but instead helped out Luffy a couple of times. Viola was alright for me, and Shirahoshi actually is a better character than she gets credit for, imho. Yeah she is an annoying crybaby, but this is not treated as a good thing but as an annoying character trait. She is constantly scolded for that by Luffy. And while she certainly is a damsel in distress type of character, I would argue that Oda does give her enough moments of actual inner strength and keeps her as an active character, like when she decides to sacrifice herself by swimming away and thus stopping the ark from crushing Fishman Island.
By contrast, Pudding's moment here isn't about Pudding at all. It makes no sense with any motivation we've seen from her before or since. It's about Sanji.
To be fair, we haven't seen anything from her since, as this moment happened just last chapter. We can't really judge yet if Oda will go into more detail about this and if it'll make more sense then.
Now, the point about Gin is really interesting, and one that I've actually considered myself. In terms of a pure villain character who changed sides due to an act of kindness from a Straw Hat, he's certainly the closest point of comparison. However, there are a couple of key differences that seperate Gin's change of character from Pudding's. The first difference being, build-up. In Baratie, Sanji's whole arc until that point had been about his steadfast determination to feed the hungry. We had seen him go out of his way to do it, struggle to put food on Gin's plate, suffer consequences because of it, and still retain his convictions afterwards. On the other hand, we had seen Gin's coldheartedness beforehand, yes, but we had also seen signs of him changing already, and also got to see the mistreatment at the hands of Don Krieg. Gin's moment was the narrative payoff to all those steps, and thus, it was satisfying.
I agree with you that Gin's turn into a sympathetic character was better executed than Puddings. As I've said before, I'm not happy with it either. But you also have to take into account that Oda wanted to play this scene as a story twist. It's unfortunate that this may make Puddings character arc less believable than Gins, but on the other hand, a lot of the appeal of this arc is how unpredictable things are. If we had gotten scenes of Pudding slowly starting to sympathize with Sanji like Gin did, Oda would have lost that unpredictability factor.
The second factor is, again, agency. Gin's choice to spare Sanji's life, even at the cost of his own, was just that. A choice. He knew exactly what going against Krieg would mean for him, internally and externally, but he had to do it anyways. He wasn't falling into tears in a moment of weakness. He was taking a stand against an abusive captain for the first time in his life. There's a world of difference between that moment, and the one in this chapter.
Actually, he was falling into tears but that is besides the point. The thing is, this is just the beginning for Pudding, obviously this won't be her last moment in this arc and she may very well yet actively take a stand against Big Mom. You are judging this very prematurely.
There's this concept in fiction, especially in older works, that "evil" women aren't actually evil by choice, but are corrupted in some way by external factors, and it's up to a man to change her. Whereas by contrast, men can have more choice and do wrong things because it is what they want to do. The implication in this chapter is that, since Pudding was bullied in the past, she's not really accountable for being manipulative or evil, and now that Sanji came and Didn't Say Mean Things at her, she'll revert to the naturally pure and innocent state of womanhood. That's… really, really bad, guys.
But we have seen quite a few female characters that certainly did not adhere to your naturally pure and innocent state of womanhood. Just in Punk Hazard and Dressrosa, we had Monet, Sugar and Jora, all of whom were depicted as just as cruel and evil as their male colleagues and who didn't get a moment of redemption. And I really don't feel like that is the implication of this chapter at all. Pudding still wanted to murder Sanji and shot Reiju, she probably will have a change of heart, but that is not the same as reverting back to a pure and innocent woman. I hope Oda handles this as well as he handled Gin, and if he screws up, well, I probably won't stop reading One Piece but I'll definitely be very disappointed in him, just like I was with Rebecca. But the thing is, again you are judging this very prematurely. What you are saying here would indeed be really bad, but it has in fact not happened yet in the story. We'll see if Pudding becomes instant good and pure or remains a grey character with a change of heart. (I also would like to mention as an aside that Hancock for example, did not turn into a completely pure and innocent being after she developed feelings for Luffy; it made her more likable and showed us a different side to her character, but afterwards she still kicked around baby seals, lol)
What I am interested in, however, is your view on all the other female characters in this arc? What about Big Mom, Reiju, Carrot, Smoothie, Lady Amande etc.? Has Oda failed in writing these characters, too?