@desa:
I didn't find Crocodile fighting in the war to protect Ace strange. For me it was simply that since he couldn't kill Whitebeard he could at least use the opportunity to get in the marines way and who knows if he wouldn't had get an opportunity to kill the old man.
But as soon as Whitebeard died he should have been concerned about GTFO and definitely not trying to defend Luffy at all cost. He teamed up with the commanders to fight Akainu for forsake. That was straight up OOC for me.
What is OOC? 16 characters
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@garonne:
its not even the same man. Akainu is stubborn one track minded dog who's only aim(as of now) is absolute justice.
crocodile is still a pirate who has his own goal (probably pirate king or conqueror of something). the first thing he did arriving at marine ford was to attack whitebeard, after luffy stopped him he still had a few tussle's with whitebeards men. his aim was whitebeard's head from the get go… it was a mutual agreement from impel down. his power can help me, ace is in dire need, we have leverage incase he goes rogue, lets use him. AFTER being at marineford, as he is still a pirate his hatred for the government is still there and while he wants to kill whitebeard a level of respect is there that is not offered to the marines. even warring countries who were at each other's throat would sometimes come to a truce to either fight together or not fight one another so either of them can accomplish some goal. its happened time and time again in history so its not even a bad plot point; if anything its realistic.
another thing to keep in mind is that crocodile's past is still somewhat vague, we only know of what is presented and as such his aims, his goals, his reason etc might shed some new light as to how he operates if shown later on when he's introduced back into the story.
What? Luffy is the reason he is in jail in the first place after being beaten. This is the same guy who put an entire country at war and wanted to kill all the people fighting in it to get what he wants. He manipulated everyone likes toys, and he "killed" #3 for failing his mission. It made no sense whatsoever to protect Luffy. The idea of a bigger hatred or Luffy turning anyone into an ally in this case, well it's a competition of which idea sounds the most ridiculous, and how much so when you realize both of those points are somehow used to excuse the asspull.
It doesn't matter what Crocodile's past is. He may hate Marines more than anyone else, that still doesn't make sense that he saves Luffy's life. It made any sense whatsoever, he would have been on his sandstorm following Luffy and laughing every time he fails.
There was nothing realistic about that other than to the point where they left the prison. Everything afterwards was cringe worthy, inconsistent writing. Oda has a completely ridiculous (awesome) world but he tends to keep a few things consistent, characterization and rules of what can and cannot happen. In this instance, he didn't and it looked like a total mess.
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@Sereques:
I don't see any inconsistencies in there. He got out of ID for his own selfish reason(s). He found himself at the war (the only possible outcome of the ID escape) What do you want him to do at war? Sit it out? He had two terrible options, Marines or fight alongside the WB pirates and Luffy. He's pirate after all and he decided to go with people like himself. He may not like Luffy or agree with whatever they are doing, at that moment, the logical option was to support his fellow pirates.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like Marineford arc either, I felt the WB pirates were tactically poor. They spent half of the time protecting WB(someone that needs zero protection) than saving Ace.
He didn't have two terrible options at all. He could have went into one of Whitebeard's boats and took off. He could have taken the deal with Doflamingo, he could have fought the Marines without.. wait for it, not saving the one person that put him in jail and ruined his entire plans of taking over a country and finding an ancient weapon which he needed for his own desires. I don't see the correlation of fighting the marines = having to save Luffy's life. The fact that you put any sort of logic along with saving/helping Luffy .. well there's no point arguing that. If you wish to not see the obvious, some random wannabe critic like myself online is surely not going to convince you.
Getting out of jail, everything made sense there. It's what happened after that left me scratching my head time and time again.