I'm happy to see Elbaf reaffirmed as a future place to go. My investment in One PIece is still suffering a sort of apathy after how fumbled Wano felt so the current ongoings kinda don't really do much for me. I'm kinda just waiting on the devil fruit lore drop if that happens but info like the ancient kingdom being high tech or similar is kinda just expected.
The most interesting bit was certainly the potential Vegapunk tie to the space pirates.
Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara
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I’m starting to get some anarcho-capitalism vibes here: the cowardly government who suppresses people, the brave individuals who stand against it fighting for love and freedom or whatever.. and now the single entity (the ancient kingdom) who was better than all the others combined
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I hope someone actually asks the right questions. What are the ideals of the Ancient Kingdom Vegapunk spoke of? Does he know or at least have an idea? And did all the people of that kingdom have the same ideals or were there actually some different ideals clashing - possibly leading to the kingdom's demise?
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Saul is a giant from South Blue, that's what trips me out. Is there a second place were lots of giants live? Or were his parents from Elbaph and they migrated to live in the South Blue.
I like that Elbaph is harboring any giant, it might be something like every giant is welcomed at Elbaph no matter the circumstances, surely helps that they have/had a massive pirate crew to stand up against the Marines, plus Caramel was dead at that point, so no WG agents coming to the country to look for a former Marine Officer Saul.
I assume Hajrudin and the others were looking for Brogy and Dorry and stumbled onto a frozen/injured Saul. And helped him recover and he told them what happened, I'm sure Robin is grateful to Hajrudins crew and of course all the giants who shelter Saul. I hope we see a nice reunion between Robin and Saul when they see each other at Elbaph, if not a certain Red haired guy lays waste to the country.
Needing the knowledge of the giants and in particular Saul, might be another reason why Big Mom wanted Lola to marry Loki.
It seems like somehow Big Mom's information gathering network, knew about the possibility of the Ohara books being there, or more likely Big Mom just wanted to have natural big grandchildren without Caesars help.
On the other hand, Kid got something from Big Mom, maybe it was the location of the man with the burned mark and is knowledge about the Poneglyphs.Overall good chapter, we've got bits about Dragons and Vegapunks relationship and the confrontation between Bonney and Vegapunk seems imminent, so maybe next chapter we switch back to talking about Kuma and his special race, we could possibly see Law's fight vs Blackbeard and confirming that the D clan could be that special race or its something only Teach and Kuma have in common.
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Sigh.
I really disliked this chapter. It’s emblematic of a whole host of the things that bother me most in latter-stage OP storytelling. Parsing it is taking up considerable mental real estate for me, so why not dump it all here as a point-by-point numbered list.
1: Retroactive Tragedy Reduction: First things first, the reveals of this chapter massively reframes the scale of tragedy of the Robin Flashback. Interpretation is subjective, and I know that these reveals are expected/unsurprising to some, but to me the tragedy of Robins flashback was about how everything was stripped from her, how the entire legacy of Ohara end up contained within this one poor child. The scholars desperately try to save their research materials, but the materials are still discovered by the WG after the raid. Regardless of whether or not Saul is frozen with a move called “capsule” at the end the process is still visually indistinguishable from the previously established Quite Quickly Lethal Ice Time move, and Sauls final words is for Robin to find new friends since, you know, he won’t be around. Cue him going out with a laugh, D style. ”Returning things Robin thought she’d lost” by revealing that neither the research nor Saul were gone reduces the tragedy of the flashback, unless you wanna go full “Pells sacrifice still has weight in retrospect because he thought he’d die at the time."
Furthermore, in keeping Saul and the research alive…
2. Reframing Robin in the present: This might just be me, but for a longas time I viewed Robin as this pretty unique and singular factor in the series; the only one who could discover the Ancient Past, the Only one actively working to uncover said Ancient Past. Skills and goals that in turn made her a massive target, and in turn isolated, hunted and friendless. But as the series goes on, it turns out theres quite a few people sympathetic to Robins cause, including the Worlds Most Dangerous Man and his army of revolutionaries, as well as the Worlds Most Brilliant Man. And hey, Saul too is alive as well- good on Robin for finding some new friends as well in the time before a literal army sympathetic to her plight found her , and also her old friend is still alive too, nice.
The avenues for discovering Ancient History also keeps expanding, as does people with extensive knowledge of it, eclipsing even Robins. In the case of one giant Elephant, it even lived during the Ancient History! I know both these Things aren’t new, theres Precedence etc, but this chapter is just so emblematic of it, and leads to a separate issue:
3. Thrilling adventures in exposition! Again this might just be me, but way back when I thought the conceit of Robins character would be that we’d gradually piece the Ancient History Mystery together along with her, as the story progressed and she did Adventurous Archeology. And to an extent, we are learning of the Ancient History through her, but now it’s through more knowledgeable, senior characters telling Robin these things up front. It’s not so much about Robin uncovering these things, it’s about Robin being an excuse for other characters to exposit about it, because she’s the only one with the correct frame of reference. What started as this huge unknown void left for Robin alone to fill is now becoming other characters handing over their notes on the subject, pointing Robin in the right direction and going “you might find the very last puzzle piece kiddo, or at least appreciate the completed puzzle in a new way”. This is again an issue going back to the gang chillin’ at RayRays 560 chapters ago, and much like that chapter, a further problem I have with the Exposition here is…
4. It’s just so friggin boring to look at. Regardless of what the characters are talking about, regardless of the occasional insert shot of Robin looking sad/happy, I just have a really hard time finding this comic book chapter compelling when so much of it is a bunch of characters talking back and forth in a hallway. Half the characters literally can’t move, the other is devoid of personality and incapable of expressing emotion due to a Daft Punk reference (and possible Reveal Concealer). The insert flashback is mostly a conversation between a guy with a permanent scowl, and a guy almost incapable of expressing emotion due to a giant Einstein reference. Though at least they both stand up and sit down. The most dynamic panels in the first 13 pages are the ones quickly recapping a 670 chapter old flashback.
5. Selective Incompetence: Those books did turn out to be pretty important after all huh? Pretty wild that when sent on a mission to eradicate Ohara and its researchers for the crime of doing forbidden research, and you find a whole bunch of research materials the scholars were evidently very keen on saving, you just shrug and go “eh whatever, probably unimportant”. And then despite Ohara being branded highly evil enemies of the world you just, idunno, let the island and the leftover books be completely free of surveillance or barriers, allowing symphatizers to make it a memorial site and salvage the scholars belongings a few months later? Cool cool. I’d say the WG being incompetent is at least in character, but then again these are also the same guys who can learn of the illicit Oharan research in the first place, or Roger having a son, or the Pluton blueprints and so on. More like the WG is exactly as competent as it needs to be for the Current Plot Development to happen.
6. Interconnectedness and the shrinking of worlds: Also helping the plot expediation along is the increasingly elaborate Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon’ing of the Opverse. Like we need to have an excuse for why Vegapunk and also Dragon are invested in Ohara, so we get a retroactive rejiggering of Clovers character – 670 chapters ago he was just a kindly head of research, but now we need a reason for why Dragon would know such a guy I guess so now he’s also a rogueish adventurer who hunted the world for Lost Century Knowledge and amassed an army of followers! Which is a wrinkle that drastically reframes the whole Oharan research effort; instead of it being a generational effort of the entire culture it now becomes extremely Clover centric – there may have been research before, but he – this guy that Clover and Vegapunk knew – was the one that REALLY got Ohara going, which moves the needle from “WG discovers that the respected research institution of Ohara is doing forbidden work” to “Rogue and 10-times jailed Void Century enthusiast Clover and his group of personal followers were doing Void Century research? Yeah that tracks, wonder why it took us so long to look into that.”
The more details we get the more issues and inplications are raised, and on a personal level I’m just so exhausted by the amount of connections between various disparate characters/plotthreads, connections the story need to relegate time to address or awkwardly ignore. Going into a new island some of the new characters might have connections to pre-existing things, but here Vegapunk is juggling:
Being the friend of Clover and an Ohara sympathizer and also a friend/sympathizer to Dragon despite being the head of the WG super-science division, by Dragon also acquainted with Kuma whom was used as the basis of the pacifista lineup thus also making him acquainted to Bonney, this being a different pacifista project than the one that produced a super-soldier child clone of a SH pirate member the crew fought five minutes ago (we’ve moved on though, will probably get back to that shortly)
(inhales)
Vegapunk was also a former criminal as part of the MADS gang which included former antagonist and drugger of SH-befriending PH children currently getting de-giantification treatment Caesar Clown, as well as super scientist asshole father of SH Sanji, and also Vegapunk made the experimental DF of the SH’s good personal friend Momonosuke based off of preceding arc antagonist/Emperor Kaidou and has his hands in all sorts of other research projects, such as giantification…
I realize this is Endgame One Piece Babyyy but it’s just so much, and it makes the world feel small, inorganic and convenient to me; Like theres a singular panel of 5 different Straw Hats having 5 different parallel crumb-sized reactions to different parts of Vegapunks whole bombshell spiel. Theres just so much going on, but no time for anything more organic.
7. Clueless Best Friends: Lastly, the subject of the supposed depth of friendship in the SH pirates have been discussed several times here. Mostly it is what it is; OP is a series where you have to buy that the Crew will put their lives on the line for each other, despite the story showing making little time for deep moments showcasing bonding or deeper affection/understanding between them. And so in the CP9 arc, where Robins past/goal was this whole curse that prevented her from forging any connections, the story had the Crew go “We don’t know or care about Robins past, but like her regardless” as opposed to the more powerful “we know Robins past, but like her regardless”. It is what it is. But the problem with that former approach is that when you get a situation like this some 670 chapters later where Robins past/goals are explicitly brought up, the crews reactions make them seem clueless at best, insensitive at worst. You’ve got this new character whom Robin has never met before moving her to tears of happiness because he provides catharsis rooted in knowledge of Robins past and goals, while her supposed best friends go “DURH, WHY YOU MAKE ROBIN CRY YOU BAD MAN” to the side.
And on top of that, for three of the 4 other crewmembers, the reaction to the discussion of Robin/Oharas past is, the past that hounded Robin and made her friendless until she met the SH’s is…to freak out, to want no part of it. Oof. Beyond “Oh noooo the government is gonna get mad and target usss” being pretty outdated at this point, I’d just be so bummed out if I was Robin, and this was what I got out of my “accept me for who I am” friends. Like I know the two moments are displaced by real time and narrative YEARS, but can you picture this reaction playing during the Enies Lobby Raid? Like, this reaction while the crew are standing defiant before the tower of Justice? I certainly can’t, and it makes the bond between the crew seem puddle deep.
So yeah. I didn’t like this. I can understand why others might. But regardless of whether or not the current reveals “make sense” or could be expected”, I just can’t with the current OP trend of dragging past seemingly clear-cut things out in the present and retroactively reframing them, certainly not when it seems like it’s mostly for the benefit of efficiently propelling the plot forwards and managing its increasingly tangled Plotline Web.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
reduces the tragedy of the flashback
This is fine. It reduces the tragedy of the flashback in the present, after Robin has already been through it for the last 20 years and has recovered through finding friends. This is an awesome example of catharsis that I don't think diminishes what Robin went through and how it affected her.
It's not about it making sense or being expected, I think it's effective and deserved after Robin embraced the demon inside for her friends at Wano.
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@andre So I see you're opting for “Pells sacrifice still has weight in retrospect because he thought he’d die at the time."
I'm happy that you're able to see it like that, but I just can't compartmentalize it that way. Rereading Pells sacrifice has me thinking "Man! This is so potent- if I willfully ignore the fact that he survives", and now Robins flashback is gonna be the same way.
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@Daz, regarding the incompetence issue, a lot of real life authoritarian regimes generally tend to be pretty poorly run and their soldiers little more then dumb thugs. So the WG being like that isn't too unrealistic.
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@Daz No, I don't think Pell's survival works because it doesn't truly provide anyone with catharsis and because it's much more bs than Saul's survival as far as explaining how it was possible next to the comic itself. Vivi doesn't get the same boon from Pell surviving that Robin does from one piece of her defining and tragic past actually making it out alive in my opinion.
edit: Rephrasing. It's much harder to reconcile Pell's survival in believability than Saul's. Also, Pell doesn't provide the same level of catharsis to Vivi that Saul does to Robin because Vivi has so many other supportive people from her past.
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@Johnny-B-Decent said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@Daz, regarding the incompetence issue, a lot of real life authoritarian regimes generally tend to be pretty poorly run and their soldiers little more then dumb thugs. So the WG being like that isn't too unrealistic.
Yeah but as I say the WG can be super duper competent if the story needs it, or at the very least committedly ruthless. The Celestial Dragons may be portrayed as buffoons, but not the Elder Stars, so quick handwavey explanations such as "Oh the WG didn't know the importance of the books, that why they survived" just feels rather hollow and easy.
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For the books, I'm just going with a policy of not thinking about it too hard. Easy to do when I like the other stuff so much.
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@andre I mean the whole reason Pells death was reneged on was to make for a happier ending to Alabasta. At the time of his "death" Vivi is extremely emotionally intense, but cheer up because he didn't really die. The segway from Chaka going "I somehow don't really feel sad" to the reveal of Pell being alive is absolutely meant to be a happy, cathartic moment.
If your argument is that Saul works because Robin is more happy at his survival, where does that end? Nami would be happy if Bellemere turned out to be alive. Just making a character happy is not necessarily a good reason for undoing a death, especially in a case such as Saul where his last words were that Robin should find New Friends, considering she was losing everyone she knows - except turns out she didn't lose Saul, nice.
Saul being alive here feels mostly like a way to resolve plotlines - Oda needs Vegapunk to know the Oharan history, but him having all the books would be weird since he's a WG employee...so instead the giants have them, and they have them because Saul was alive.
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The marines who we've seen checking in on Ohara, seemed like your stand ins for clean up and looking for any survivors and reporting back, so no one of significance checking in on Ohara, is a big mess up on the WG side, but understandable, who thinks anyone could survive a buster call, any survivors who try to swim away are caught, either by the CP group, Akainu or Kuzan and all the other ships around Ohara.
The marines who are present, probably due to an incompetent chain of command, don't know about the significance of the books, as this would raise to many questions.But I do wonder, how the WG argued for a buster call and a cover up, or does no one question them, besides rebels like Dragon?
SW-3170-8630-8341
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@The-Light-of-Shandora Easy, just with the same fanatism as your average religion justifies its crusades and massacres.
Especially a zealot like Sakazuki is the perfect tool for this - assuming you want to destroy all remnants (contrary to confiscating in order to actually evaluate them later). Just tell him:
"Hey, Sakazuki, as you already know all Oharans are devils. Just remember all Oharan books and items are devil's work, too. So be sure to burn them all. For. Absolute. Justice."
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@Daz My argument is that Saul's is actually effective because it's plausible, and yes, because Robin's loss of everyone is much more dire than Vivi, who still had a loving kingdom, her father, and many friends and confidants.
It's not so much about Robin being happier as much as it about us, the readers, being happier for Robin. It's helped because it's not unreasonable to think he survived for a myriad of reasons and it creates new questions, namely about the nature of Kuzan way back when and what his nature is now (compounded by his recent cover story inclusion). Bellemere being alive is not really defensible. There are characters who are alive that are not defensible. To me, Saul is the one surviving person that works really well in One Piece for all of these reasons.
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Yes, how awful that the character that lost everyone in her childhood actually didn't. She still has someone! How awful.
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@Daz I find Oda is making something extremely clear here, and has been for quite a while now.
This story is about Nika. He's the centerpiece of everything, the only one who's really important and irreplaceable.
He's becoming pirate king, he's freeing the slaves, he's ending merfolk segregation, he's revealing the ancient history, he's toppling the evil overlords of the world, he's the one each and every prophecy is talking about.
That's why Robin's importance has steadily been decreased since the timeskip, and that's why everybody in the crew knows and supports Luffy's dream (both of them now) while not really caring for each other's.
That's also why each and every time Luffy's journey comes to a dead end we're always litterally one chapter away from a friend of his father showing up to work some miracle.
Add One Piece being currently in maximum efficiency mode, and you see this big complex fantasy world built over a quarter of century, suddenly collapse into a sort of small village gathered in awe around this one very special guy who's doing exactly what everybody is expecting him to do.Curiosity has its own reason for existing
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@Alfiere said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@Daz I find Oda is making something extremely clear here, and has been for quite a while now.
This story is about Nika. He's the One Piece of everything, the only one who's really important and irreplaceable.
He's becoming pirate king, he's freeing the slaves, he's ending merfolk segregation, he's revealing the ancient history, he's toppling the evil overlords of the world, he's the one each and every prophecy is talking about.
That's why Robin's importance has steadily been decreased since the timeskip, and that's why everybody in the crew knows and supports Luffy's dream (both of them now) while not really caring for each other's.
That's also why each and every time Luffy's journey comes to a dead end we're always litterally one chapter away from a friend of his father showing up to work some miracle.
Add One Piece being currently in maximum efficiency mode, and you see this big complex fantasy world built over a quarter of century, suddenly collapse into a sort of small village gathered in awe around this one very special guy who's doing exactly what everybody is expecting him to do.Fixed that for you.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
Sigh.
I really disliked this chapter. It’s emblematic of a whole host of the things that bother me most in latter-stage OP storytelling. Parsing it is taking up considerable mental real estate for me, so why not dump it all here as a point-by-point numbered list.
1: Retroactive Tragedy Reduction: First things first, the reveals of this chapter massively reframes the scale of tragedy of the Robin Flashback. Interpretation is subjective, and I know that these reveals are expected/unsurprising to some, but to me the tragedy of Robins flashback was about how everything was stripped from her, how the entire legacy of Ohara end up contained within this one poor child. The scholars desperately try to save their research materials, but the materials are still discovered by the WG after the raid. Regardless of whether or not Saul is frozen with a move called “capsule” at the end the process is still visually indistinguishable from the previously established Quite Quickly Lethal Ice Time move, and Sauls final words is for Robin to find new friends since, you know, he won’t be around. Cue him going out with a laugh, D style. ”Returning things Robin thought she’d lost” by revealing that neither the research nor Saul were gone reduces the tragedy of the flashback, unless you wanna go full “Pells sacrifice still has weight in retrospect because he thought he’d die at the time."
Furthermore, in keeping Saul and the research alive…
2. Reframing Robin in the present: This might just be me, but for a longas time I viewed Robin as this pretty unique and singular factor in the series; the only one who could discover the Ancient Past, the Only one actively working to uncover said Ancient Past. Skills and goals that in turn made her a massive target, and in turn isolated, hunted and friendless. But as the series goes on, it turns out theres quite a few people sympathetic to Robins cause, including the Worlds Most Dangerous Man and his army of revolutionaries, as well as the Worlds Most Brilliant Man. And hey, Saul too is alive as well- good on Robin for finding some new friends as well in the time before a literal army sympathetic to her plight found her , and also her old friend is still alive too, nice.
The avenues for discovering Ancient History also keeps expanding, as does people with extensive knowledge of it, eclipsing even Robins. In the case of one giant Elephant, it even lived during the Ancient History! I know both these Things aren’t new, theres Precedence etc, but this chapter is just so emblematic of it, and leads to a separate issue:
3. Thrilling adventures in exposition! Again this might just be me, but way back when I thought the conceit of Robins character would be that we’d gradually piece the Ancient History Mystery together along with her, as the story progressed and she did Adventurous Archeology. And to an extent, we are learning of the Ancient History through her, but now it’s through more knowledgeable, senior characters telling Robin these things up front. It’s not so much about Robin uncovering these things, it’s about Robin being an excuse for other characters to exposit about it, because she’s the only one with the correct frame of reference. What started as this huge unknown void left for Robin alone to fill is now becoming other characters handing over their notes on the subject, pointing Robin in the right direction and going “you might find the very last puzzle piece kiddo, or at least appreciate the completed puzzle in a new way”. This is again an issue going back to the gang chillin’ at RayRays 560 chapters ago, and much like that chapter, a further problem I have with the Exposition here is…
4. It’s just so friggin boring to look at. Regardless of what the characters are talking about, regardless of the occasional insert shot of Robin looking sad/happy, I just have a really hard time finding this comic book chapter compelling when so much of it is a bunch of characters talking back and forth in a hallway. Half the characters literally can’t move, the other is devoid of personality and incapable of expressing emotion due to a Daft Punk reference (and possible Reveal Concealer). The insert flashback is mostly a conversation between a guy with a permanent scowl, and a guy almost incapable of expressing emotion due to a giant Einstein reference. Though at least they both stand up and sit down. The most dynamic panels in the first 13 pages are the ones quickly recapping a 670 chapter old flashback.
5. Selective Incompetence: Those books did turn out to be pretty important after all huh? Pretty wild that when sent on a mission to eradicate Ohara and its researchers for the crime of doing forbidden research, and you find a whole bunch of research materials the scholars were evidently very keen on saving, you just shrug and go “eh whatever, probably unimportant”. And then despite Ohara being branded highly evil enemies of the world you just, idunno, let the island and the leftover books be completely free of surveillance or barriers, allowing symphatizers to make it a memorial site and salvage the scholars belongings a few months later? Cool cool. I’d say the WG being incompetent is at least in character, but then again these are also the same guys who can learn of the illicit Oharan research in the first place, or Roger having a son, or the Pluton blueprints and so on. More like the WG is exactly as competent as it needs to be for the Current Plot Development to happen.
6. Interconnectedness and the shrinking of worlds: Also helping the plot expediation along is the increasingly elaborate Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon’ing of the Opverse. Like we need to have an excuse for why Vegapunk and also Dragon are invested in Ohara, so we get a retroactive rejiggering of Clovers character – 670 chapters ago he was just a kindly head of research, but now we need a reason for why Dragon would know such a guy I guess so now he’s also a rogueish adventurer who hunted the world for Lost Century Knowledge and amassed an army of followers! Which is a wrinkle that drastically reframes the whole Oharan research effort; instead of it being a generational effort of the entire culture it now becomes extremely Clover centric – there may have been research before, but he – this guy that Clover and Vegapunk knew – was the one that REALLY got Ohara going, which moves the needle from “WG discovers that the respected research institution of Ohara is doing forbidden work” to “Rogue and 10-times jailed Void Century enthusiast Clover and his group of personal followers were doing Void Century research? Yeah that tracks, wonder why it took us so long to look into that.”
The more details we get the more issues and inplications are raised, and on a personal level I’m just so exhausted by the amount of connections between various disparate characters/plotthreads, connections the story need to relegate time to address or awkwardly ignore. Going into a new island some of the new characters might have connections to pre-existing things, but here Vegapunk is juggling:
Being the friend of Clover and an Ohara sympathizer and also a friend/sympathizer to Dragon despite being the head of the WG super-science division, by Dragon also acquainted with Kuma whom was used as the basis of the pacifista lineup thus also making him acquainted to Bonney, this being a different pacifista project than the one that produced a super-soldier child clone of a SH pirate member the crew fought five minutes ago (we’ve moved on though, will probably get back to that shortly)
(inhales)
Vegapunk was also a former criminal as part of the MADS gang which included former antagonist and drugger of SH-befriending PH children currently getting de-giantification treatment Caesar Clown, as well as super scientist asshole father of SH Sanji, and also Vegapunk made the experimental DF of the SH’s good personal friend Momonosuke based off of preceding arc antagonist/Emperor Kaidou and has his hands in all sorts of other research projects, such as giantification…
I realize this is Endgame One Piece Babyyy but it’s just so much, and it makes the world feel small, inorganic and convenient to me; Like theres a singular panel of 5 different Straw Hats having 5 different parallel crumb-sized reactions to different parts of Vegapunks whole bombshell spiel. Theres just so much going on, but no time for anything more organic.
7. Clueless Best Friends: Lastly, the subject of the supposed depth of friendship in the SH pirates have been discussed several times here. Mostly it is what it is; OP is a series where you have to buy that the Crew will put their lives on the line for each other, despite the story showing making little time for deep moments showcasing bonding or deeper affection/understanding between them. And so in the CP9 arc, where Robins past/goal was this whole curse that prevented her from forging any connections, the story had the Crew go “We don’t know or care about Robins past, but like her regardless” as opposed to the more powerful “we know Robins past, but like her regardless”. It is what it is. But the problem with that former approach is that when you get a situation like this some 670 chapters later where Robins past/goals are explicitly brought up, the crews reactions make them seem clueless at best, insensitive at worst. You’ve got this new character whom Robin has never met before moving her to tears of happiness because he provides catharsis rooted in knowledge of Robins past and goals, while her supposed best friends go “DURH, WHY YOU MAKE ROBIN CRY YOU BAD MAN” to the side.
And on top of that, for three of the 4 other crewmembers, the reaction to the discussion of Robin/Oharas past is, the past that hounded Robin and made her friendless until she met the SH’s is…to freak out, to want no part of it. Oof. Beyond “Oh noooo the government is gonna get mad and target usss” being pretty outdated at this point, I’d just be so bummed out if I was Robin, and this was what I got out of my “accept me for who I am” friends. Like I know the two moments are displaced by real time and narrative YEARS, but can you picture this reaction playing during the Enies Lobby Raid? Like, this reaction while the crew are standing defiant before the tower of Justice? I certainly can’t, and it makes the bond between the crew seem puddle deep.
So yeah. I didn’t like this. I can understand why others might. But regardless of whether or not the current reveals “make sense” or could be expected”, I just can’t with the current OP trend of dragging past seemingly clear-cut things out in the present and retroactively reframing them, certainly not when it seems like it’s mostly for the benefit of efficiently propelling the plot forwards and managing its increasingly tangled Plotline Web.
I agree with the tragedy reduction. The tragedy the characters faced during flashback should not be fixed. The characters are supposed to grow and manage to overcome them not realize that maybe there was a silver lining back then.
And I can also agree on the whole not everyone and everything need to be connected. Like I can understand why a scholar like Vegapunk might have known Clover but Dragon knowing him is unnnecessary. Heck I would say the same about Roger and his crew. Their field of interest are pretty massively different. And Dragon doesnt need to know Clover to be disgusted that a whole country was bombed.Hell I dont even know why the hell Saul is suddenly important enough in Elbaf when he looked down on the lot of them.
I am fine with the books being saved. I am against them being saved that way or their content. The least they should be stashed in Marijoa. Or If we gonna emphasize Aokiji being a traitor back then. Then make it so the grunts reported to him and he filled a false report about taking care of the destruction while actually hiding them. And also a big thing for me when they were saving those books was how the government was destroying a lot of regular knowledge in order to erase that one century. So tying the books back to the same forbidden time doesnt work for me.
The selective friendship of the strawhats it usually depends. Not every strawhats knowing Nami past I find normal. The strawhats not knowing Robin past I find odd because a big thing was about accepting her despite the danger she represents. So the crew not knowing diminish that idea of accepting no matter what.
I disagree that it is boring. If you remove Saul and adjusted some things I think it is a nice chapter about 2 great figures being inspired by a great tragedy.
I dont need Robin to be the only person that can gather knowledge around the glyphs. Just that she's the only one that can read them. I can agree she should have the most knowledge about them instead of constantly being educated about them.
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@desa said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
The tragedy the characters faced during flashback should not be fixed. The characters are supposed to grow and manage to overcome them
Like 20 years of suffering and release an outburst of culminated emotions is not enough, not growth?
Saul being alive doesn't change one bit of her growth. -
@Zhenja said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@desa said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
The tragedy the characters faced during flashback should not be fixed. The characters are supposed to grow and manage to overcome them
Like 20 years of suffering and release an outburst of culminated emotions is not enough, not growth?
Saul being alive doesn't change one bit of her growth.What do you mean by not enough? Robin didnt see her friend get a long prison sentence. She saw him die. Death doesnt have a time limit. There isnt an expiration date on how long you grieve before your lost one come back. You have to learn to continue living without them being part of your life ever again. That eternal lost is what death is.
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@danie said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
Yes, how awful that the character that lost everyone in her childhood actually didn't. She still has someone! How awful.
I mean from that point of view wishing for most character to stay dead is terrible as they are decent people who deserve a full life and will leave grieving people that dont deserve said lost.
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My main problem with the no death thing is that Oda wants to have his cake and eat it too. He plays the death and grief 100% straight, then wrings the dishrag out in the glass again like it never happend. You can only serve so many do-overs before it becomes the norm, and once it is the norm it undermines all future attempts at gut punching.
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So is Vegapunk kinda sort of able to phase thru walls? That sounds incredibly powerful. And would make him pretty hard to kill. I mean once he stops getting half stuck in walls
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@wolfwood said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
So is Vegapunk kinda sort of able to phase thru walls? That sounds incredibly powerful. And would make him pretty hard to kill. I mean once he stops getting half stuck in walls
I had the impression he was trying to teleport and missed his target.
Waldorf: You know Statler, after watching the last one thousand episodes of One Piece, I think I've come to a conclusion.
Statler: No you haven't.
Both: DOHOHOHOHOHO!
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@desa said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
What do you mean by not enough? Robin didnt see her friend get a long prison sentence. She saw him die. Death doesnt have a time limit. There isnt an expiration date on how long you grieve before your lost one come back. You have to learn to continue living without them being part of your life ever again. That eternal lost is what death is.
That's not why people in One Piece die... it's not about grieve.
It took Robin 20 years to overcome her trauma, her past. It's not because of Saul's death that she did it, it's because of the things he said back then, the things she remembered about him... whether he's dead or alive doesn't change those things... that's what's important.The live itself matters, the actions of the people matter, the moment of death matters... but whether the person stays dead or not, doesn't matter.
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@desa That's not really what I meant though. If Saul's death had been the focal point of the tragedy of Robin's backstory, I would agree that him being is alive is shit. But it's not. Not really. Saul was important to Robin and her backstory but he was just an outsider that helped her and Ohara. Robin's tragedy is that she lost her mom, Clover, and everyone else on the island. I think that's enough tragedy for her.
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Thank God Oda didnt writte Lion King, Mufasa would've shown safe and sound at the end of the movie.
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@Zhenja said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@desa said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
What do you mean by not enough? Robin didnt see her friend get a long prison sentence. She saw him die. Death doesnt have a time limit. There isnt an expiration date on how long you grieve before your lost one come back. You have to learn to continue living without them being part of your life ever again. That eternal lost is what death is.
That's not why people in One Piece die... it's not about grieve.
It took Robin 20 years to overcome her trauma, her past. It's not because of Saul's death that she did it, it's because of the things he said back then, the things she remembered about him... whether he's dead or alive doesn't change those things... that's what's important.The live itself matters, the actions of the people matter, the moment of death matters... but whether the person stays dead or not, doesn't matter.
Well I guess the only thing I can say I do think it matters if the person she lost truly was lost.I think it matters that the incident truly killed everyone important from her. I it was important the war killed one of Vivi's most loyal servant. And I think its important that Franky failed to save Tom once that train flew him over. I think the loss those experience caused matter. And it should be a matter of once you're in a better place you can get it back.
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@wolfwood said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
My main problem with the no death thing is that Oda wants to have his cake and eat it too. He plays the death and grief 100% straight, then wrings the dishrag out in the glass again like it never happend. You can only serve so many do-overs before it becomes the norm, and once it is the norm it undermines all future attempts at gut punching.
I mean, Oda still hasn't chosen to put in the time to draw chapters where Whitebeard and Ace come back despite what happened at Marineford, so I'm sure all of us know for certain that Oda at the very least has some standard and specific way of handling death the way he does. Those are extreme cases, sure, but I think it's less of a case of Oda wanting cake and more of a case of getting us to think.
After all, I doubt Oda had Sabo's fate play out the way it has at this point so as to emotionally wreck his readers just to fool them into feeling stupid. I can understand why it could give that impression, but I really wouldn't think that's the sort of agenda he truly has.
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@Daz I strongly disagree with your take on Robin and archeology. Archeology, in its essence, is to go around and listen to voices of the past. That's what the Poneglyphs themselves are.
Robin went to Alabasta and discovered Pluton's location. Then to Skypiea, and discovered Poseidon's location. Then she confirmed it with the father of the current Poseidon, himself the holder of centuries of "secret knowledge" passed down in the royal family. Then, in Wano, she actually found Pluton, again by tracking down secret knowledge passed down in generations. That's mostly what archeology is: why does it matter if it's a guy telling Robin a generational secret, instead of a stone tablet she finds and reads?
About Vegapunk: he knows what Ohara knew, because he stumbled upon it as a scholar, and he inherited the ancient technology.
Like, Robin knows so much more than him right now. Vegapunk seems to have 8 year old Robin's knowledge about the Void Century. For instance, does Vegapunk know where the ancient weapons are located? I doubt it. Now, if it turns out he does, well you're right.I mean, your point does apply, and strongly so, to the Road Poneglyphs and the One Piece adventure. The crew has never been to Lodestar, and that potential amazing reveal... was a conversation in Zou. But not to Robin, I think.
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@SirCaesar said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@Daz I strongly disagree with your take on Robin and archeology. Archeology, in its essence, is to go around and listen to voices of the past. That's what the Poneglyphs themselves are.
Robin went to Alabasta and discovered Pluton's location. Then to Skypiea, and discovered Poseidon's location. Then she confirmed it with the father of the current Poseidon, himself the holder of centuries of "secret knowledge" passed down in the royal family. Then, in Wano, she actually found Pluton, again by tracking down secret knowledge passed down in generations. That's mostly what archeology is: why does it matter if it's a guy telling Robin a generational secret, instead of a stone tablet she finds and reads?
About Vegapunk: he knows what Ohara knew, because he stumbled upon it as a scholar, and he inherited the ancient technology.
Like, Robin knows so much more than him right now. Vegapunk seems to have 8 year old Robin's knowledge about the Void Century. For instance, does Vegapunk know where the ancient weapons are located? I doubt it. Now, if it turns out he does, well you're right.I mean, your point does apply, and strongly so, to the Road Poneglyphs and the One Piece adventure. The crew has never been to Lodestar, and that potential amazing reveal... was a conversation in Zou. But not to Robin, I think.
Would be nice to clarify if all the weapons are connected to people, like how Shirahoshi is.
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@Alfiere said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
That's why Robin's importance has steadily been decreased since the timeskip, and that's why everybody in the crew knows and supports Luffy's dream (both of them now) while not really caring for each other's.
Well, yeah. Luffy is the Captain and the glue that holds the crew together. Zoro already put his dream in jeopardy for him all the way back in Thriller Bark. The Straw Hats fight for Luffy first and foremost, and then themselves.
While I agree that the whole literal God Nika aspect is dumb, we shouldn't pretend Luffy was not going to be the centrepiece of everything. At least with Robin losing her supposed uniqueness, we can have other crews attempt to forge their own path to the end.
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It's the shounen curse that all MCs must eventually leave behind all other characters and hog the entire undivided spotlight.
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On one hand, it’s true that Saul being alive doesn’t take away too much from the core of Robin’s flashback, which is that she spent most of her life alone and hunted. The gut punch has always been Luffy ordering the flag to be shot to prove that Robin isn’t companionless during a re-read or her trying to imitate Saul’s laugh but being unable to do it when she leaves Ohara, not Saul’s deep freeze.
On the other hand, you could say the same of pretty much any other flashback character who has died. Bellemere popping up is not going to erase Nami’s trauma from being Arlong’s slave and Kuina reappearing shouldn’t dent Zoro’s drive. And I don’t think anyone (I hope) wants Doc Hirluk to show up again just to make Chopper happy or Tom got his execution converted to life imprisonment so Franky can bust him out. Saul shouldn’t be treated any differently.
On the other other hand, it does make Kuzan look like less of a monster and I do worry about his next full appearance given both Oda’s low batting average of taking great characters from before the timeskip and keeping them as such post, and the fact the guy’s morals seem to be all over the place at the moment. I'd like the "good" admiral to actually be good.
On other other other hand, it’s incredibly annoying and frustrating to see Oda undo a death again, and of a flashback mentor of all characters, which have otherwise been sacred. If he wants us to get all blubbery over a character’s ultimate sacrifice, then we have to think that it is actually is a sacrifice.
On the other other other other hand, death has been so degraded as a concept in One Piece that another step down the ladder ain’t going to make much of a difference. Even when pretty much everyone thought Saul was dead, it didn’t keep debates about Pedro’s fate from going on and it doesn’t change the fact that both Ashura and Izuma’s deaths fell flat for a lot of people; though that isn’t 100 % because Oda can’t make a death stick.
On the other other other other other hand, Saul’s status doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a pretty dull chapter. Daz is right, it’s not fun to read an entire info drop (which I should point out didn’t have anything truly groundbreaking besides Saul and the books, which was a chekhov’s gun waiting to be fired so not that much one) with almost no fun antics or character’s discovering things for themselves (Robin’s tears don’t move me; I would get it if the reveal was Robin actually seeing Saul, which would at least take some of the sting off the retcon). Egghead honestly is wearing out its presence for me (even though we've barely been here) and part of that comes down to the fact that it doesn’t feel like a living place. The only characters the Strawhats have interacted since landing are either a vegapunk, a mindless robot, or a bonney. Where’s the crazy messes Luffy can cause with Vegapunk’s fellow researchers or his factory workers (like, I don’t know, having Luffy and co. run through a crowd of them while escaping Officer Bear Bot chases them; but no we had to cut to Poochie 2.0). Oda’s rushing isn’t doing him any favors here, and that’s been the case since we’ve gotten to the island. So I don’t like Saul being alive, but that’s probably the least of this chapter’s problems.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
- Thrilling adventures in exposition! Again this might just be me, but way back when I thought the conceit of Robins character would be that we’d gradually piece the Ancient History Mystery together along with her, as the story progressed and she did Adventurous Archeology. And to an extent, we are learning of the Ancient History through her, but now it’s through more knowledgeable, senior characters telling Robin these things up front. It’s not so much about Robin uncovering these things, it’s about Robin being an excuse for other characters to exposit about it, because she’s the only one with the correct frame of reference. What started as this huge unknown void left for Robin alone to fill is now becoming other characters handing over their notes on the subject, pointing Robin in the right direction and going “you might find the very last puzzle piece kiddo, or at least appreciate the completed puzzle in a new way”. This is again an issue going back to the gang chillin’ at RayRays 560 chapters ago, and much like that chapter, a further problem I have with the Exposition here is…
It's not just you. I also expected the ancient history to be some mystery story, that is, an actual well-written mystery story with everything that belongs to such a story. Including red herrings.
First of all, despite lots of fantasy stories trying to tell us, archeology is more than just learning the ancient language and then just translating perfectly tailor-made texts which tell basically everything absolutely accurately. No, that's just not how the human nature works. People lie - be it sugar-coating or outright blatant false claims. Therefore, historical sources cannot and never should be taken at face value. A big part of evaluating historical discoveries is interpretation. Two different archeologists can e.g. both syntactically flawlessly translate an ancient text, yet come to two absolutely different interpretations and conclusions.
There should be some actual hurdles and obstacles in Robin's way for her to overcome. That's where some red herrings come in - be it due to Robin making some false conclusions on her own or someone else actively providing false information and doing historical revisionism. There's so much potential for the latter. Like one of the Gorosei just doesn't believe that it's possible to completely eradicate everything, therefore he instead started an operation to provide whoever tries to research the ancient times with as much as erroneous material as possible, trying to mislead them for years, decades or even centuries. Even going as far as creating fake poneglyphs. Or how about Black Maria being such a history revisionist - for whatever reason? That also would have given us a battle with some emotional stakes and opportunities for some proper inner conflict for Robin during the battle, but nah...
if everything mentioned above is off-limits, anyway, how about to at least NOT give Robin all the puzzle pieces for absolutely free? Like Robin and Vegapunk actually disagreeing in some of the research conclusions and therefore starting a scientific dispute in some way? Or at least Robin asking some clever questions? That is, instead of asking only basic questions whose sole purpose is to just confirm whatever Vegapunk says without any accomplishment coming from Robin herself. Of course, given how the Strawhats in general don't earn anything anymore (like the tailor-made anti-Sugar operation by the dwarfs or the anti-Big Mom operation by Bege), I expect absolutely nothing!
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I’ll agree to disagree regarding Robin’s past. As opposed to the rest of the crew, she literally had nobody else from her past. She deserves this. And I’m very happy for her
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@GuetaMinute said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
I’ll agree to disagree regarding Robin’s past. As opposed to the rest of the crew, she literally had nobody else from her past. She deserves this. And I’m very happy for her
What do you mean by nobody else as opposed to the others in the crew?
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@electricmastro said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@GuetaMinute said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
I’ll agree to disagree regarding Robin’s past. As opposed to the rest of the crew, she literally had nobody else from her past. She deserves this. And I’m very happy for her
What do you mean by nobody else as opposed to the others in the crew?
Luffy still has Shanks and the rest of his village. Sanji has Zeff and them. Nami has Nojiko and Pinwheel head (forgot his name) as well as her town. Usopp has Kaya, his pirates, and the town, and even Yasopp. Zoro has his village and sensei. Chopper has Kureha and even Dalton. Hell, even Brook still has Laboon. Etc. But Robin had no one in her life aside from the straw hats, they were all gone, every single one.
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Personally, I've been getting increasingly annoyed over the years at the conceived notion that Robin was literally the only way anyone was ever finding the One Piece. There should never have been an argument that if someone else actually got all 4 poneglyph rubbings, they'd be shit out of luck just cause they don't have Robin. That'd just be....bad writing. There always needed to be more ways for people to win in the end, but it shouldn't reduce the value Robin really is as an asset to this goal.
Otherwise yeah, this is why I largely skipped over the history lore portion of discussion on the chapter and instead focused on the new current developments of Luffy finding ApplePunk and Shaka's sus level.
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@Marcotty said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
Personally, I've been getting increasingly annoyed over the years at the conceived notion that Robin was literally the only way anyone was ever finding the One Piece. There should never have been an argument that if someone else actually got all 4 poneglyph rubbings, they'd be shit out of luck just cause they don't have Robin. That'd just be....bad writing. There always needed to be more ways for people to win in the end, but it shouldn't reduce the value Robin really is as an asset to this goal.
Otherwise yeah, this is why I largely skipped over the history lore portion of discussion on the chapter and instead focused on the new current developments of Luffy finding ApplePunk and Shaka's sus level.
I agree. Some here are misconstruing the leveling of the playing field as OH NO ROBIN NOT USEFUL ANYMORE DAMN YOU ODA POST TS OP STRIKES ONCE AGAIN
But alas.
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The options were either
- everyone else gets an alternate way to get to the end goal
- there is no race for One Piece at all and no one in the last 20 years had any chance including Kaidou, Big Mom, Blackbeard, Shanks, and any of Luffy's rivals and Roger really did the world dirty... and also there's zero actual contest or drama about getting to Raftel because no one else can
- the badguys kidnap Robin and force her into servitude AGAIN.
Given those choices "there were a handful of other ways to get the info" is the best one. It actually takes a little bit of edge of all the chosen one nonsense that has built up around Luffy.
(as is they're doing that last one with Pudding anyway!)
If you had to have the legendary fruit and the legendary hat and the legendary initial and the legendary haki and the legendary reborn at an exact date mermaid princess AND the legendary translator? Lets take at least one impossible to replicate advantage away from the heroes.
It also grows the world, rather than shrinking it and having it focused ONLY on the handful of characters.
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Something I forgot and that I was pointed out by another reader is that it was already confirmed by Oda that the books were indeed saved by the Ohara scholars. I.e. someone had to retrieve them from the lake and restore them.
It was an answer to a question in a SBS regarding the Brag Men book.
As for Saul surviving an ice attack by his friend, I don't think that's a plot "mistake" and I could see that being what Oda had in mind when he wrote that scene that particular way.
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You cannot ask a fictional serie to be representative of real world. Of course it is very convenient that Vegapunk and Dragon happened to know Clover. But if Oda wants that we learn more of Dragon and the revolutionnary plotline or Vegapunk, those are helpful facilities that do not hurt that much the serie.
On the countrary I find it good that we are not presented another random people A for such things and that he reuses characters that we know. -
@Bugs said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
On the other other other other other hand, Saul’s status doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a pretty dull chapter. Daz is right, it’s not fun to read an entire info drop (which I should point out didn’t have anything truly groundbreaking besides Saul and the books, which was a chekhov’s gun waiting to be fired so not that much one) with almost no fun antics or character’s discovering things for themselves (Robin’s tears don’t move me; I would get it if the reveal was Robin actually seeing Saul, which would at least take some of the sting off the retcon).
I hate to go all "The Dude" on you, but that's not a fact, it's just, like, your opinion, man. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine; I find it annoying when people claim their opinion as fact to elevate it to a level where people can't really disagree without automatically being wrong (can't argue with a fact, right?), especially when we are talking about a topic that is super subjective, like if a chapter was a fun read or not. Clearly, plenty of people have enjoyed reading it, some have even been moved to tears by it...
Other people have already pointed why comparing Saul to other flashback characters doesn't really work out, because the other Strawhats all have at least some people left. Robin is the only one who had to watch everybody she ever cared about die - and then she had to live alone for 20 years, with everybody she ever met along the way betraying her. That's a super harsh fate, and one of the many friends she lost that day being revealed to still be alive doesn't really change any of that. She still had to watch everybody else die, including her mother who she never really got to know, and then had to live a really shitty life for two decades. That's why I'm happy for her, she deserves at least a small happy end.
The only other main character who even comes close when it comes to tragedy is Brook, who also had to watch everybody he cared about die and then spent several decades all alone, but at least he wasn't a little kid when it happened. And if you think about it, Brook learning that Laboon is still alive is very similar to Robin learning that Saul is still alive. The only difference is in how the reveal was presented to us, the reader - we obviously never thought Laboon was dead, while we thought Saul was a goner ever since Enies Lobby.
While I'm just as annoyed as everybody else when Oda milks a "death" for all its emotion only to then later reveal that, nah, the character was alive all along, this one feels differently to me. And I think the main difference is the reason for Saul's "revival". When Oda usually brings a character back from the dead, like Pell or Conis' dad, for example, it's just done to provide the arc with a happy ending where everybody can be joyful and nobody has to mourn their dead. There are no reasons beyond that, it doesn't really matter for the story if Pell is still alive or not. Things are different with Saul. While this reveal does make Robin more happy, that's not its only or even main purpose from a story-telling point of view. It figures into Vegapunk's past, it will very likely impact the plot of the Elbaf arc, it will change how we view Kuzan's character in the future.* It's important for the plot and didn't just happen because Oda can't bring himself to kill a character for good.
*On a small footnote, this is very similar to Igaram being revealed to be still alive after Robin apparently murdered him in cold blood in Whiskey Peak, which is "this character is actually still alive"-reveal nobody ever actually talks or complains about. This one was really important in order to make Robin a character we can actually accept as a sympathetic person. If Igaram had stayed dead, Robin would have been responsible for the death of a person that was very close to Vivi, after all. Things are very similar in Saul's case: now Kuzan actually isn't a coldblooded killer (no pun intended) anymore from Robin's point of view, which might be important in the future.
@ARTEMlS said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
It's not just you. I also expected the ancient history to be some mystery story, that is, an actual well-written mystery story with everything that belongs to such a story. Including red herrings.
First of all, despite lots of fantasy stories trying to tell us, archeology is more than just learning the ancient language and then just translating perfectly tailor-made texts which tell basically everything absolutely accurately. No, that's just not how the human nature works. People lie - be it sugar-coating or outright blatant false claims. Therefore, historical sources cannot and never should be taken at face value. A big part of evaluating historical discoveries is interpretation. Two different archeologists can e.g. both syntactically flawlessly translate an ancient text, yet come to two absolutely different interpretations and conclusions.
There should be some actual hurdles and obstacles in Robin's way for her to overcome. That's where some red herrings come in - be it due to Robin making some false conclusions on her own or someone else actively providing false information and doing historical revisionism. There's so much potential for the latter. Like one of the Gorosei just doesn't believe that it's possible to completely eradicate everything, therefore he instead started an operation to provide whoever tries to research the ancient times with as much as erroneous material as possible, trying to mislead them for years, decades or even centuries. Even going as far as creating fake poneglyphs.
I'm sorry, I think all of this stuff can be really interesting if that is what the story is all about, but as much as I love Robin and find all scenes of her uncovering the secrets of the past fascinating, the story isn't called "Nico Robin: Raider of the Lost Poneglyph" for a reason. Even if some readers seem to suddenly have a problem with this, the focus of the story is still on Luffy and his quest to become Pirate King and find the One Piece, and how he gets closer and closer to his goal, both geographically and regarding his position in the pirate world. Robin's storyline of uncovering the history of the Void Century is exciting and obviously important to the lore of the story, but it's still a secondary plot line at the end of day. Introducing fake poneglyphs that contain false information just seems overly complicated and sort of cumbersome. Do we really want plot lines of Robin going "Damn it, that Poneglyph I read in Skypiea actually was a total lie created by an evil forger/spy from the WG, now I have to rethink my whole theory on the Void Century!". That just seems kinda annoying and also like a very convenient way to me for the author to introduce some retcons to his established mythology
Or how about Black Maria being such a history revisionist - for whatever reason? That also would have given us a battle with some emotional stakes and opportunities for some proper inner conflict for Robin during the battle, but nah...
But that battle did have emotional stakes and inner conflict, those were just centered on her relationship to the crew in general and to Sanji specifically instead of her role as an archeologist. And where does Black Maria being a history revisionist even come from? That's just a case of being pissed at the author because he didn't make your headcanon come true.
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@Marcotty How is disclosing a secret by finding the right key "bad writing"?
Again, Luffy had to actually go out of his way and walk several extra miles to get and keep Robin in his crew. And all this while knowing nothing of how crucial she actually (once) was to obtain the One Piece. He gained the key and deserved it, for being a decent person.If Kid and Law know of the burned man on Elbaf that knows ancient kingdom lore (and know what that entails), they would surely know of the Ohara scholar in Crocodile's entourage and work from there.
But they were likely too busy with their edgelord revenge plans and crucifying civilians habits, and they missed their chance, too bad for them.Also, the OP being basically hard locked for anyone that isn't the reincarnation of the guy who buried it in the first place is instead good writing? Because now all hints are pointing to that, ask Roger for reference.
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@Riddler said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
But that battle did have emotional stakes and inner conflict, those were just centered on her relationship to the crew in general and to Sanji specifically instead of her role as an archeologist.
The problem is this inner conflict just did not work at all because Black Maria didn't provide anything for Robin to be emotionally challenged in any way. When she asked "Did I hit a nail?" I just thought: No! You did hit nothing. You completely missed the mark. It just doesn't work.
Of course, Luffy is the protagonist. But that does not mean there cannot be more compelling and better thought-out sideplots for the other Strawhats than what we actually have here.
And my ideas and suggestions are nothing more than this. I'm totally fine with whatever solution Oda comes up - as long as it works narratively and it's well-written. Which unfortunately is not the case way too often nowadays.
Forum user Bartholemew Bear passed away in a very moving and touching way. I, ARTEMlS, therefore carry on the Will of DArth for good unto its final fulfilment.
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@GuetaMinute said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@electricmastro said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
@GuetaMinute said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
I’ll agree to disagree regarding Robin’s past. As opposed to the rest of the crew, she literally had nobody else from her past. She deserves this. And I’m very happy for her
What do you mean by nobody else as opposed to the others in the crew?
Luffy still has Shanks and the rest of his village. Sanji has Zeff and them. Nami has Nojiko and Pinwheel head (forgot his name) as well as her town. Usopp has Kaya, his pirates, and the town, and even Yasopp. Zoro has his village and sensei. Chopper has Kureha and even Dalton. Hell, even Brook still has Laboon. Etc. But Robin had no one in her life aside from the straw hats, they were all gone, every single one.
Well, there’s possibly also her dad who mar or may not be out there, but beside the point. Robin is prob comparable to someone like Yamato who had no one else sentimental in her past she could really just return to, so yes, I’m happy for her.
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@Daz said in Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara:
5. Selective Incompetence: Those books did turn out to be pretty important after all huh? Pretty wild that when sent on a mission to eradicate Ohara and its researchers for the crime of doing forbidden research, and you find a whole bunch of research materials the scholars were evidently very keen on saving, you just shrug and go “eh whatever, probably unimportant”. And then despite Ohara being branded highly evil enemies of the world you just, idunno, let the island and the leftover books be completely free of surveillance or barriers, allowing symphatizers to make it a memorial site and salvage the scholars belongings a few months later? Cool cool. I’d say the WG being incompetent is at least in character, but then again these are also the same guys who can learn of the illicit Oharan research in the first place, or Roger having a son, or the Pluton blueprints and so on. More like the WG is exactly as competent as it needs to be for the Current Plot Development to happen.
Yeah, I didn't have much time in my original post to address some of my petpeeves but thanks for reminding me. I agree that this is just ridiculous. I've seen a couple of excuses (upon checking the spoiler thread) such as soldiers just being soldiers thus not having the knowledge what those books are about. B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T! Law enforcement troups in this case soldiers might not have the in dept detail that the higher ups, who make the decisions have but they are always briefed on what they are setting out to do. Even if the briefing is wrong and manipulative informations the troops will have to know what they are set out to do.
And in this specific situation they are setting out to destroy the entire supposed island of knowledge because the scholars are said to be demons whose research aims to bring destroy the entire world. And then after everybody was annihilated the soldiers find thousands of books in a lake and draws a conclusion between scholars and books? Are you kidding me? And on top of that, even with that background information, having thousands of books in a lake is not a common occurance. Like how was that not reported to the higher ups? Honestly, they were sent to check there and see if everything is normal or something out of the ordinary. A lake full of books definitely counts among the latter. Especially if we're talking about an island of supposed demon scholars. Horrible, horrible writing here.
All those years I thought that the WG got hold of the books because you know, that's what law enforcement does when going through the belongings of those they consider criminals. They confiscate them. It's not an alien concept is common proceedure. But nope, no need to double check if the dangerous idiology we don't want to spread even commited genocide to keep hidden possibly might have been recorded somewhere. Let's just leave everything there for others to find. Holy fucking shit is this bad writing!
6. Interconnectedness and the shrinking of worlds: Also helping the plot expediation along is the increasingly elaborate Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon’ing of the Opverse. Like we need to have an excuse for why Vegapunk and also Dragon are invested in Ohara, so we get a retroactive rejiggering of Clovers character – 670 chapters ago he was just a kindly head of research, but now we need a reason for why Dragon would know such a guy I guess so now he’s also a rogueish adventurer who hunted the world for Lost Century Knowledge and amassed an army of followers! Which is a wrinkle that drastically reframes the whole Oharan research effort; instead of it being a generational effort of the entire culture it now becomes extremely Clover centric – there may have been research before, but he – this guy that Clover and Vegapunk knew – was the one that REALLY got Ohara going, which moves the needle from “WG discovers that the respected research institution of Ohara is doing forbidden work” to “Rogue and 10-times jailed Void Century enthusiast Clover and his group of personal followers were doing Void Century research? Yeah that tracks, wonder why it took us so long to look into that.”
That also rubbed me the wrong way. Like before that Ohara as land of knowledge had more mystisism to it as it seemed like something that existed for a long time. But nope, Clover seems to have created that entire place within a few decades only by just making him flock other people with the same idiology fly to him like moths attracted by a fly. How could this country ever get such a high standing within the WG if Clover was known to be a rowdy looking into problematic things? That just didn't sit well with me.
7. Clueless Best Friends: Lastly, the subject of the supposed depth of friendship in the SH pirates have been discussed several times here. Mostly it is what it is; OP is a series where you have to buy that the Crew will put their lives on the line for each other, despite the story showing making little time for deep moments showcasing bonding or deeper affection/understanding between them. And so in the CP9 arc, where Robins past/goal was this whole curse that prevented her from forging any connections, the story had the Crew go “We don’t know or care about Robins past, but like her regardless” as opposed to the more powerful “we know Robins past, but like her regardless”. It is what it is. But the problem with that former approach is that when you get a situation like this some 670 chapters later where Robins past/goals are explicitly brought up, the crews reactions make them seem clueless at best, insensitive at worst. You’ve got this new character whom Robin has never met before moving her to tears of happiness because he provides catharsis rooted in knowledge of Robins past and goals, while her supposed best friends go “DURH, WHY YOU MAKE ROBIN CRY YOU BAD MAN” to the side.
I felt the same. It's like they are listening to everything that's going on and then while witnessing the things Vegapunk reveals and Robin clearly crying out of joy, the Strawhat's are not only incapable human speech but also are so emotionally detatched that they can't even tell Robin is sharing tears of sheer happiness? Get out!
And on top of that, for three of the 4 other crewmembers, the reaction to the discussion of Robin/Oharas past is, the past that hounded Robin and made her friendless until she met the SH’s is…to freak out, to want no part of it. Oof. Beyond “Oh noooo the government is gonna get mad and target usss” being pretty outdated at this point, I’d just be so bummed out if I was Robin, and this was what I got out of my “accept me for who I am” friends. Like I know the two moments are displaced by real time and narrative YEARS, but can you picture this reaction playing during the Enies Lobby Raid? Like, this reaction while the crew are standing defiant before the tower of Justice? I certainly can’t, and it makes the bond between the crew seem puddle deep.
Yeah, what's this entire "the WG is going to come after us if they find out we know about this history?" nonesense? Do you guys know who the heck you are? To just name a few of the more prominent things you've done, you've invaded the WGs judicial island and declared war on the WG right there, have several times destroyed a link in the Warlord system and hurt two Celestial Dragons and are now considered to be the main crew of an Emperor.
Honestly, I still love One Piece, the lore, the characters, the adventures and whatnot. But Oda has too many horrible writing choices for it to just be labeled an occational hickup. Either way I've come here and I will follow this story to its end.
