@Robby:
If Law hadn't been on the island we would have seen Chopper putting bandaids on them and handing them over to the marine doctors for Vegapunk to deal with. Like what happened. It would have been really weird for him to throw a few vials together and mix a cure for a disease he knew nothing about. Stalling it worked fine.
He was able to diagnose exactly what was wrong with them after spending 5 minutes in a cave. And you really are saying that, at a Law-less Punk Hazard, Chopper would-first thing after his two year medical resarch break-only be able to accomplish stalling? The payoff would have been "more competent faceless marine doctors will handle it"? We all lucked out Law was there? Thats absolutely terrible storytelling. Way to undersell the über doctor of the crew.
Again: Nowhere was it said "these kids have the #1 hardest thing to cure ever"; Chopper would have worked hard, have sweated bullets, but if he'd saved those kids himself? We'd have bought it. Luffy beating a +500 million legendary pirate bought it. And it'd have been great.
@Robby:
Law's being distant to ALL the strawhats and playing straightman to their antics and being constantly bothered by them. By arc's end, Law himself should have changed some, more than any given situation. I imagine he'll have final words for some of them. (And depending on just HOW long he's with the group going into Kaido…)
Law handing Chopper a compliment at such a time would be Sakura style "You did something too, significant person!" condescending.
Again: There is no reason, at the very least, that Chopper and Law couldn't have worked together at Punk Hazard.
@Robby:
Chopper stabilized the kids, prevented them from getting worse. Law… aided in the kids being experimented on in the first place.
The kids were still on deathrow though? Chopper just sedated them, and prevented Mochas immediate death.
And yeah, Law stood by to watch the experiments, but he made sure to tell Caesar he diassaproved, and extracted the bad molecules easy as pie. So he gets off scot free, and makes Chopper look hopelessly lacking. How do you compete with someone who can literally cut disease out of you?
@Robby:
When you can painlessly pull their bodies apart and drain most of the tainted bits in a few minutes, rather than go through weeks of detox, yes.
In the real world obviously that's not the route you'd go.
You initial point was "Chopper is no surgeon, so he couldn't help".
Indeed, as you say, surgery is not the default option with dealing with drugging. Surgery is what Law has been doing with the centaurs-stitching on new legs and stuff. Whereas someone like Chopper has a history dealing with poisons and diseases, something much more applicable to drugging. So Chopper could have helped. "Cutting out" peoples disease is an immensely cheap skill, showing control at a molecular level beyond anything else Law has ever shown.
Maybe Oda could have…not have had Law literally been able to Extract Badness by cutting people? What did he do, wring them like wet towels?
@Robby:
He diagnosed them, kept them from getting worse, and was part of the team that forced Law to not sit idly by about the whole thing. He DID contribute. He simply didn't deus ex machina a cure in a matter of hours that should rightly take months of healing and years of research.
You're right; Law did. Didn't even need no research, just some instant Ope Ope magic, and there you go.
@Robby:
(It'd be insulting if Kureha were on hand and was able to fix them too. Knowing the cure to an ancient disease is one thing… fixing a brand new thing is another.)
Being able to deal with situations like this- or at least assist in finding a cure- is kinda something you would expect from the person who will most likely be the worlds highest medical authority by the end of the year.
Again: The kids condition was presented as dire, and a huge challenge- but not something only the best of the best solve-everything DF magic doctor could solve.
@Robby:
We're at the middle of the series. People wanting Usopp to already be brave, or Chopper to be curing anything he comes across… that's just not the pacing needed.
We also haven't seen Nami draw maps in like 600 chapters... but its presumably still happening off camera. (Now, her not knowing about there being 3 logposes in the new world IS a dissapointing shortcoming... her research probably should have let her know that much.)
Using the "wait patiently" argument doesn't change what is a wasted opportunity. Or in the case of Usopp, degeneration. At 700+ chapters, the crewmembers should not be complimented for "trying their best" until the professionals can take over/randomluck resolves the situation, the should get some personal milestones through their own effort.
Chopper healing the kids with great difficulty until he collapses from exhaustion =/= Chopper has cured all disease
Usopp KOs Sugar through wit and skill, taking a colossal beating and not embarrasing himself in a way that would make 700-chapters-ago-Arlong-Park-Usopp shake his head =/= Usopp is the GL's peak brave warrior.
No, I don't think that way. However, you can't really blame people who don't feel any tension anymore while reading One Piece when they are expecting characters to die and then having them surviving or being revived.