@PKRolling456:
But WCI was an irregular arc, and Carrot did benefit from that. In a conventional arc, the Straw Hats sail to an island, anchor their ship, disembark, make some friends, fight some enemies, make everything better and then get back on their ship and leave the island. WCI by comparison is a chain of islands that the Straw Hats have to sail between, thus it has an exceptional amount of focus and time spent on the Sunny compared to most other arcs. It also featured large naval battles, which is surprisingly rare for series about pirates. This meant that Carrot was able to do a lot more on the sunny than any other temporary ally had the chance to. Also most Allies are recruited on the island where the arc takes place. Carrot, Pedro, and Pekoms were recruited on the previous arc's island, meaning Carrot got to be present during arc transitions.
Furthermore the arc had a surprisingly small cast initially. As a courtesy to the Curly Hat pirates for kicking them out of Dressrosa, Oda kicked not only Robin, Franky, Brook and Zoro out of WCI but also all of Luffy's tagalongs like Law, Kinemon, Kanjuro, and Momo. Adding only Pedro, Carrot and Pekoms to make up the difference meant that Luffy headed into the arc with only 7 people. This lack of protagonists plus the fact that Oda didn't have the team split up nearly as much as a cluster arc like Dressrosa meant that early WCI was a very focused arc plotwise, with limited division. Even when the arc introduced more allies later on they got little focus compared to the WCI Infiltration team. Being in hostile territory meant with the exception of Luffy running off to fight Katakuri and Sanji running to bake the cake the team could not afford to break up for fights or whatever, thus whenever Oda had to focus on the strawhats, they were all there, all getting attention. Compare that to a more traditional long arc with fights where everyone goes all over the place and a character only gets screen time if Oda wants to specifically focus on them. This facet of the arc means that Carrot gets constant screen time by being present even in scenes that are not focused on her. She also picked an insane amount of chapter appearances by combining that more focused narrative with the immense length and the smaller cast of WCI.
Let's do some math. In terms of panel time anyone present in WCI Benefitted immensely. Carrot in particular got 475 panels in WCI, that is more panel time than Jinbei, Chopper and Brook and it is the majority of her screen time in the entirety of One Piece so far. The only 5 people who topped her were in order Katakuri, Big Mom, Nami, Sanji and Luffy. Sanji in particular got over 1000 panels which are numbers that only Luffy can manage usually. It allowed him to briefly overtake Zoro until Wano. Luffy himself picked up over 1400 panels which is the most panel time any character has ever received in any arc ever. Any character on the crew benefitted immensely from that arc and Carrot did especially. Now you stick her in a more traditional cluster arc like Wano and she gets lost in the mass of plotlines and characters, failing to even break the top 40 and losing out to characters who were introduced after she re-entered the story in 975.
Does this mean much for Carrot joining the crew? Not necessarily. She could get some amazing moments that fix all my problems with her and propel her to crew mate position. I just don't consider WCI enough to throw my weight behind her when I compare WCI and Wano critically. If Oda truly connects to me with how he decides to write Carrot in the future then I may change my opinion on her, but I don't like assume she's going to e that important because of what Oda could do with her. I care about what Oda's doing with her in Wano which is not much this late into the arc. I just don't think he's shown interest in building her up over the course of Wano and I see that as indicative of how he feels about her as a character. Was Carrot just a tag along for WCI meant for a role as an ally to the crew, or was she a more important character. I don't think either of us can answer that for sure, but just as you choose to believe Carrot is important based on WCI. I choose to believe based on the Wano that he's setting her up for a lesser role as a ally. I feel it would a perfectly satisfying conclusion to her character even if you might feel differently.
All good points. It's true that there is correlation, maybe even causation, between the smaller cast and Carrot's bigger presence, although that's not the complete picture and it doesn't answer all the questions.
Obviously, as long as she's around with a reduced cast, she's bound to get screentime, and that's why her presence was not SCREAMING new nakama. However, this advantageous circunstance doesn't explain why she got so much exposure to the point of being above other SHs in terms of panel time. She could have been treated like Pekoms or Caesar, right? In my opinion, things got out of proportion and that's why I avoid fully accepting this argument of "causation". One could say that Carrot should have gotten even more panel time if she was supposed to join the crew. However, the other side of the coin is questioning why a side character who won't join the crew was getting more attention than a proper SH - as you mentioned, she was above Jimbe, Brook and Chopper, even though we can discuss the relevancy of their highlights. It's hard to measure both sides of the coin against each other.
Besides that, your reasoning mostly explains why she got so much panel time, but not why she was portrayed so actively, so equal to the crew, sometimes even shining brighter. You see, one thing that I always appreciated about Carrot is that she was not there to make exposition, or to play a very specific role, or to cut corners in the plot, or to simply be a spectator. Instead, she would fight and adventure and contribute as much as the other SHs who were with her. This is special.
Most of guests and allies of SHs don't reach the same status, and it doesn't matter the size of the crew because this comes back to even the first few years of the series. Like, we don't have Johnny and Yosaku defeating some weaker fishmen onscreen in Arlong Park. They just watch and react, or lose a fight offscreen, or they explain things when things need explaining. Other allies do minor stuff and become plot devices even when they're cool charismatic guys and girls. The exceptions are a very elite class of characters like Vivi, Law and Kinnemon, although each one of them have different circunstances for their participation, and it's impossible to make a perfect comparison. Maybe we could include the Grand Fleet captains in this list too, although a little different, but at the end of the day we learned that there was an ulterior motive behind their screentime.
Most importantly, why is Carrot even in WCI in the first place? Once she was there, your reasoning shows how she had the opportunity for so much panel time, but why was she there? It doesn't fulfill a clear function other than building up her own character. Some people see that as a bad sign for Carrot, because it means she was not central to the story like main characters usually are, but it's the most intriguing thing that Oda included a side character who had no business being there, and then gave her such a prominent participation.
For instance, when Kinnemon and Momonosuke become allies in Punk Hazard, the audience is already aware that they're not there randomly. They're vessels of the story to play a role in a future arc completely linked to its plot. The same is true for Vivi or lesser characters like Camie because that's how a story is written - characters are there for a reason and their screentime tend to be equivalent to the weight of their role. Now what's the deal with Carrot? We may find an answer when Wano ends, and it's possible that her prominence is not because she'll join the crew, of course, but I hope the answer is proportional to the time invested on her. You said she could be just a lesser ally, and that's certainly possible, but it's funny that it's difficult to figure out in which condition she'll be a future ally and if there's a role that matches such an extensive build up.
We all have our bias here, of course, but I'd like to repeat something I said in this thread that Carrot feels like a nakama because of the portrayal of her friendship, even if she doesn't join at the end. Like, I see this character without a clear role in the story, but who was so prominent despite that, and then I see how intimately she's been portrayed with the crew even to this day, and it smells like a future SH to me, lol. Well, Carrot has lost her momentum now, so the scent is a lot weaker, maybe even vanishing, but it just made sense and still does. She looks like an outcast among the minks, wearing a different costume, wanting to leave to have adventures at sea, stowing away on a ship, being shown to be more excited with the SHs than with her tribe. Purely from a character perspective, it's hard to believe that Carrot would not want to ask to join the crew.
Finally, just one last thing. You said something interesting that Carrot doesn't have solo moments, like being completely alone and the narrative still following her. Good point. That said… isn't this what's happening right now with Perospero? I mean, Wanda is with her, but in this case Wanda is the secondary character, not Carrot. Does it refute your argument? You see, even if Wano has been sidelining Carrot, which is bad for her prospects of joining the SHs, she's important enough to have this individual highlight. Anyway, let's not be hasty with our conclusions and wait to see what's in Oda's plans.