@access-timeco said in Chapter 1098: Bonney's Birth:
@Razh said in Chapter 1098: Bonney's Birth:
@Captain-M said in Chapter 1098: Bonney's Birth:
YouTuber Merphy Napier made an interesting point on the topic of Bonney's birth father in her video this week. She said that revealing an individual would let us point fingers and make it the fault of that individual. But by leaving it vague, the crime remains the fault of the Celestial Dragon class as a whole. Sure, there's someone out there who did it, but that narrows the focus too much from the system and society that enabled the act to be done, and continues to allow it to be done to countless others.
That's a silly point to make. You can both blame the individual and the system either way. One of the first things a CD does on panel is just take someone elses wife cause they thought she was cute, and it was presented as the norm for them. We always knew they took advantage of their slaves, female or otherwise, it just wasn't stated directly until now. The decent guys among CDs are rare rotten apples.
In real life, of course. In fiction, it's not so easy. A narrative demands you chose your focus and once you shift the focus to an individual, the weight from the group/class is lessened.
Charlos' actions are a good example of this, actually. Through his and his family's actions we knew the CD were all disgusting because we knew their actions reflected the whole class, but the hatred we felt was targeted at the individuals. That's why Luffy punching his face is cathartic, because our emotional investment is primarily directed at the individual: once Charlos is brought to the ground we feel good as if the crime was properly punished and we can move on without looking back - there is no lingering feeling of "ok, this is good, but what about the bigger scene?".
Not giving a name and face to the crime in this chapter immediately denies catharsis from just punching someone. There is really no comparison.
Aren't you just speaking for yourself, though?
Yes, seeing Charlos finally get punched was great, but that doesn't mean I just forgot CDs were a thing until they reappeared again. Oda's introduction was so effective that I fear for the good guys any time one of those dudes pops up in the story. That has nothing to do with any individual, just has to do with how effectively Oda portrayed them as a group.
In a way, what Luffy did was a punch to the entire CD class. Charlos was just a product of generations of accumulated depravity. With his move, Luffy didn't declare Charlos his rival, he declared war to CDs.
I disagree about the fiction demanding an alternation of focus. If you build the setting right and introduce your individuals and groups properly, you can shift focus without shifting much weight. And I feel Oda has certainly done that. All the crap Kuma went through in his life is a result of CD class, and so whoever it was that took Ginny is just a part of the system that needs to be held to account.
I feel like a lot of the readers take things at face value without stopping to consider the bigger picture Oda paints. Don't mean you necessarily.
So yeah, don't think revealing who did it will detract from anything. Oda doesn't work like that and he certainly isn't a modern PR attempting a spin to change the media narrative. He's writing a story in which anyone who did anything meaningful is named and drawn. Revealing Bonney's dad won't make me hate the CD system or its members any less. A crime is a crime and both the system than enabled it and the individual involved in it deserve reparations. It's not going to be a loose end, not in this manga.
Shift