@maxterdexter:
While hostage taking could probably be enough to make Oden fold, I doubt it would be enough for him to play the fool, or would need to be held back for a later reveal. The bargaing was something else, and that is what caused the anger, plus Hyozu's wife dying to hammer the fact that there are no deepts where Orochi won't sink.
At this point in time the factories aren't a blight, the workers are mostly criminals and dissidents, there isn't a town with people cursed to smile forever, the land still is able to sustain the people, people still don't just dissapear but get "accidentally" hit by stray arrows or "misteriously" sick, that lady is the first evidence of a non combatant casualty, these kind of crimes change the in universe narrative a lot, by pushing the "these people died because Orochi" into "Orochi ordered these people killed" are ideas that flow in a way to sow dispair in the populace.
Country-cancers like Orochi take a while to become trully devastating.
We are escalating, we went from Wapol's few years of opulence, to Doffy's decade of decadence, now Orochi's insane twenties, and we are bound to the 800 years of the WG.
all fair and good, but still: why not actually put these concepts on paper in this chapter? The problem is that the supposedly emotionally-charged last double-page of this chapter, with the heroes finally raising their head and marching bravely towards desperate odds and, we already know, tragic doom, falls completely flat.
"Oden has been carrying a burden!!!" oh really, thanks for sharing that in a textbox, 'cause all we saw was he couldn't hit Orochi and then played the fool for the next 5 years. "But wait, we'll probably know the reason for it in a flashback-inside-the-flashback right next week!" Gladly, still the spreadpage here went copletely wasted.
The scabbards too, we spent 0 time with them since the appearance of WB.
Except "stop being a fool Oden"
"No."
"Ok"
None of them showed contempt or anger or anything resembling an opinion over what became of wano and its people, you could almost begin to think they are enriched assholes who don't give a shit anymore about the poor since they went up and became aristocracy in the meantime.
I can't feel the tiniest emotional resonance with them here, they could be as well be random goon number 1 to 9, their only motive here is to follow their sovereign.
