@theackwardstation:
Each case is a different case, so I won't say that you're alway wrong, but whenever a particular subject is open ended to different points of view, you always take the negative route. You're always framing what you dislike, or what could go wrong even when instead we could project a good outcomes to the same stuff, so it's very natural for people to disagree with your bias to look at things with pessimism. And it's not like we want to ban negative opinions, since most people I know (including myself) think that OP was better in the old days, and everybody makes valid criticism on how Oda handles many different things nowadays (and in the past too).
I think Whole Cake island was an excellent showcase for Odas’ artistic capabilities. It benefits from having way more focus in its storytelling than the preceding and subsequent arcs, and there’s several good character-spotlighting moments for underserved Straw Hats, such as when everyone works together to repel Big Mom from the Sunny. Big Mom herself is very entertaining. Also, I’ve posted praise for a few of the more focused post- flashback Wano chapters, especially the one that spotlighted Jinbe and the Straw Hats.
There. Some positivity. But the thing about all the above-which I genuinely think – is that they have absolutely no bearing on my other arguments, in this case my criticism of the Zeff hostage, and thus should not affect peoples responses to them. But of course, you’re right that this is not the case- if I did post more praise, some people might not dismiss my negative points – even if said points are exactly the same. But is that fair? Do I have to curate a certain positivity to have the exact same arguments suddenly be acceptable? That’s what irks me.
As is, I hope it is apparent that I’m not arguing in bad faith, but genuinely believe in and try and substantiate my criticism rather than just go “chapter sucks, peace out lol”. You can call it pessimistic bias if you will, but then you could also say that there’s many, many people who have a positivity bias and reactively want to dismiss negative criticism of One Piece. And for what its worth, anecdotally I’ve seen a lot of my criticisms warp from annoying buzzkills to commonly accepted viewpoints as distance is gained from whatever chapter I made those criticisms, so I don’t exactly feel like some extreme outlier. Its just that I can’t always be arsed to post positive feedback to “””offset””” my negative.
@theackwardstation:
This particular discussion about Zeff itself shows it. I don't think that it's unreasonable that it could be (maybe) more satisfying if Oda had a better pay off to Zeff's threat, but you're overblowing it by making it something that it actually never was. You say that "it's the central problem to overcome in the arc, referenced over and over again", but instead it is a fact that Big Mom's pattern of killing people's relatives was only ever brought up as a means to punish whoever misses her tea parties, and it was never mentioned again by any member of the Big Mom Pirates after Zou because Sanji did go to the wedding.
Ever since WCI started, who started framing Zeff was Judge himself, and that was resolved on-panel in chapter 870 after Sanji saved their asses and asked them to leave him alone.
! https://s2.mangabeast01.com/manga/One-Piece/0870-017.png
So that's it. Issue addressed by the manga.
As we can see, a minor threat that was only ever mentioned by the Vinsmokes since WCI started and which was never was brought to the forefront of the drama of the arc becomes this gigantic unresolved problem that tarnishes the Big Mom Pirates and derails the narrative. And then the tard-readers are just people rationalizing…
Wait, “Tard-readers”? If this is what I think it is, knock that shit off. I’m frustrated at how difficult the differences between how I and other people engage with fiction makes the discourse, I’m not personally attacking anyones intelligence. So lets cool those particular jets Ok?
Anyway. First off, I absolutely reject the notion that the Zeff threat is “minor”. How can it be, when it is the foundation for the entire arc, and when it dictates every action Sanji makes up until the wedding? Its like saying Alabasta being under threat is a “minor” point.
That said, regarding the example you give: now we’re talking! The solution to the threat to Zeff is solved by Sanji being so overwhelmingly compassionate that he saves the hostage takers, causing the threat to be rescinded, while he also chews out his family and asserts his independence. The scene never directly addresses the Zeff situation though, and is more about Sanji achieving distance from Judge, but I can still largely get behind this dramatization as a solution to the hostage situation… if this was a Vinsmoke arc, where Zeff was threatened by a Vinsmoke assassin, or some offscreen third party.
Unfortunately, this is post-skip OP where arcs are all mashups, and the Vinsmokes have outsourced the hostage plot to the Big Mom pirates. All the bluster about Germa staying away from East Blue is effectively meaningless, because it was never in the cards- it was, and still is, Big Mom putting the gun to Zeffs head.
And, backing up a bit, it makes sense, considering how the Big Mom pirates have been extensively characterized: As underhanded mafiosos.
Big Mom runs a protection racket. She is extremely petty and vindictive, and will resort to massive collective punishment at any perceived slight. She will hold peoples loved ones hostage to have them fall in line, with the hostages being threated by nothing less than decapitation whose heads can be delivered as grim messages, as if they were horses or something. She is the food-loving head of a literal criminal family who calls her “Mama”. They even have an elaborate wedding - assassination plot. They’re marinated in mafia tropes; short of CP9, theres no group in One Piece who’re a better fit for “Underhanded Hostage Plot Targeting Family Members”.
Indeed, the inciting incident of the entire Whole Cake Arc is Big Moms even more mafia-coded underlings delivering an extremely mafia threat to Zeffs life, which Big Moms other underling then explains is her entire thing.
But then the apparently manga asks you to disregard all that, and instead accept that the hostage plot is entirely helmed by the Germa Kingdom, who are coded as super-science super-sentai supervillains who want to conquer nations and reclaim honor through the strength of advanced tech and eugenics. Compared to the characterization of Big Mom this seems like the first time they’ve ever taken a hostage, and it turns out they had no idea who Zeff was, since the assassination plot was entirely Big Moms idea, and is only made possible through her resources.
But yeah, in this bizarre villain-layer-cake of hostage taking, the manga tries telling us that the power over hostage Zeff is in the hand of the Vinsmokes; that at the same time they have the power to command the forces of Big Mom, while also being hapless victims about to be murdered by Big Mom. This entanglement results in a slew of contradictory scenes;
First, Reiju says that Sanji can just leave the Vinsmokes to die, and that Zeff won’t be targeted. This ultimately says that there wasn’t any danger to Zeff, and that Sanji could leave at any time. In this case, the characters overcome the obstacle in the same way as the handcuffs: The story just says “turns out, this wasn’t an obstacle”
But then Sanji confronts Luffy, and says that he can’t leave his family to die, and that he can’t leave because of the threat to Zeff. Which makes no sense compared to Reijus statement.
Then finally you say that the scene in Beges castle show that the threat to Zeff was still in effect, but is in fact solved by Sanji saving the Vinsmokes – even though they at this point have absolutely no way of enforcing the threat of Zeffs life. Because they are about to be murdered by the only person who ever actually had that power. And that’s the rub; Even if the manga tries to tell us that the Vinsmokes have removed the gun from Zeffs head the gun is actually in the hand of Big Mom, who has a history of, and now ample motivation to, firing the gun.
Which brings us back to having to figure out why she doesn’t ourselves. Its either that, or the threat to Zeff was fake the entire time. Neither of which are very compelling.
If it just the Vinsmokes, the hostage plot and its resolution could work fine.
If it was just Big Mom, the hostage plot fits their characterization absolutely perfectly, and the resolution could work fine.
But smash Vinsmoke and Big Mom together, and it becomes so messy. Just look at the many varied reasonings given for why Zeff doesn’t get killed, quite many of which put all the power in Big Moms hands. Some people say it would be a stain on Big Moms honor to kill Zeff, some people say its because the timing doesn’t allow for it, some people say its because Big Mom only wants to punish Sanjis boss and can’t do that by targeting one of his most trusted men, some people say the Reiju scene explains that there never was any threat, and you say that Sanji saving Germa neutralizes the threat. Some people think the threat to Zeff is still ongoing, some people think it was addressed on-panel, some people think it wasn’t and that this is fine.
So yeah, in conclusion I don’t exactly think Oda handled this particular plotline particularly deftly, considering the wildly different, and often contradictory reasonings people give for how it concluded (yet curiously, these contradictory viewpoints do not seem to argue with each other)
@theackwardstation:
Btw, your weird definition of headcannon kinda rejects how hermeneutics work as an essential part of meaning and understandment of any literary piece.
I just had to google “hermeneutics”. No, I’m not saying that no one can ever “interpret” One Piece. Its not like Viper looked at the reader and directly laid out the themes of Skypea. What I’m craving above all else is dramatization; that events be explored and given weight on-panel, and that readers are not left to fill in the blanks of dramatic developments. I defer you to my above list of various theories on the Zeff Hostage situation, and will say that One Piece is not a “choose your own adventure” novel. Theres’ a difference between interpreting the themes or symbolism or whatever of a story, and having to make up your own conclusion to a plot thread (obviously only in the cases where ambiguity is not the explicit end goal)
altough i would love if its something more
