@Sugeeking:
Has Zoro lost a swordfight? Yes.
Zoro's dream revolves around being the top dog in his game. Him meeting Mihawk was such a quirk of fate that early on in the journey didn't really help demonstrate the gap between them (I think Alabasta Zoro would have been a better narrative move for having Mihawk show up and prove how far above Zoro he was). Him being the first one to join the crew but still being the massive badass he was lent itself to have him being humbled at some point to show that he had a long way to go. Look where we are in the story NOW; we're beyond the time-skip so anyone joining now can't play goddamn catch-up. Jimbei's the only one we really know of who followed them in body and spirit for that. If the new person isn't already on top of their game, they're going to get left behind, and should. We don't even know what if anything Carrot really aspires to career-wise and like I had said, her temperament isn't exactly suited to being a lookout even if her physical attributes lend themselves to something akin to it (not that it matters given how others on the crew have the same if not better aptitude).
Has Nami failed to predict a weather condition? Yes.
Because no freak meteorological phenomenon she's never heard of that come out of nowhere exist, she's just bad at her job. Oh, wait.
Depending on who you pick for the comparison, things change, uh (and monkeys can fight with swords, this is canon).
You need to teach them to fight with swords. You don't need to train them to sit in a crow's nest and make noise. Maybe a little training to keep them from playing with themselves or flinging their poo.
@AvocadoInTheRain:
I don't know about Usopp, but Chopper failed to cure Luffy when he ate the poison fish while they were on the way to Totland. Raiju had to do the healing for him. He also failed to set out to sea with any blood packs for his captain's rare blood type when they left Sabaody.
That really is a poor comparison. Staying conscious long enough to do one's relatively (very) simple lookout job versus having access to, the ability to both transport and store, said specialty (and potentially perishable) items and antidotes that probably require specialized storage and time to mix and prepare, all while maintaining a low profile? Not to mention poisoning is a terrible example of a situation given that Oda already used Luffy's immunity as a throwaway against Hyouzou's slash and the fact that even now, Zoro just toughs it out having eaten poison meat and letting it give him stomach irritation, so it's more of a running gag than a real plot device. They don't live in Professor Snape's storeroom. They have to work with what limited resources they have and operate under the radar as much as possible, being pirates. Being a lookout whose one breakout ability (their only real one of note, not that it's all that special by comparison) puts them out of commission makes them a liability for a job which if worth even having at all, should be the position requiring most attention. So her using Sulong is about the worst excuse imaginable here.
Carrot hardly dropped the ball in that situation. She was unconscious when Smoothie caught up to them. That would be like saying Sanji dropped the ball as a cook when Luffy made his terrible curry because he wasn't there. Also, a big part of the the lookout's job is to be on the lookout for threats that can come from any direction. The lookout can't constantly be watching a single target or else other dangers might come up over the horizon. The navigator telling the helmsman how to maneuver the ship seems pretty logical to me.
Because nobody else could have possibly taken care of things in that situation. A lookout might not need to have stellar judgment like a navigator or helmsman but when it comes to making sure one becomes incapable of performing their duty, it's probably a bad call to make on the part of the lookout. If you're going to claim that a lookout isn't going to constantly be doing the exact thing their job calls for, it's an irrelevant position and so Carrot has no other apparent specialty to warrant admission into a permanent position on the crew. Thanks for proving the point. And the navigator would only tell the Helmsman WHERE to maneuver the ship, not HOW. Not to mention the unique dynamic of Jimbei and Nami makes it so that she doesn't need to do that with him much anyway since his Fishman attributes allow him to come up with his own astounding ways of doing things irrespective of Nami's navigation.
Whether or not you think she has the right temperament doesn't matter because she has already demonstrated that she can do it.
Being capable of doing something in a pinch =/= being good at it or making a long-term career out of it. That's like saying Luffy's a swordsman because he took a few swings at Arlong with them. If anything I'd see her following Absalom after this whole mess and becoming a reporter, spying on folks who have things to hide and revealing the ugly truth from a distance, while Absalom just uses invisibility to do it up close. I think they'd make a great team.
The escape from WCI lasted, what, 12 hours? She was the lookout for pretty much all of that except for sulong and the subsequent recovery period. And then she was still on lookout when the paper with Luffy's bounty arrived.
Was any of that vital, and was it better than having her at the ready to help fight if need be? It's the kind of damn job that keeps them put in one place or it becomes pointless. It's more like a hobby or nothing more than something where the crew (already having done without any problems) rotates who gets that job because of the nature of it.
In fact, the only known requirements for a lookout in Luffy's eyes is that they should be excitable and energetic, so I don't know how you see this as somehow being a point against herā¦
When it comes to making announcements, sure. But for not getting distracted and concentrating on the actual looking out? Yeah, I'm not surprised Luffy's crap judgment here would make him come to that conclusion.
To be fair, predicting the weather is not actually part of the navigator's job.
I'm willing to give that one, but it's something that actually involves a learning curve. A lookout doesn't, and Carrot hardly has the common sense to consistently perform that duty to the extent that makes it any kind of relevant position to dedicate a permanent person to.