On Saul (impossible) possibilities for becomng part of Luffy’s team…
Ok, at first I was going to reply that I don’t believe Saul to be alive at all, which was the truth – my previous post was not serious (I thought that was obvious)… but since you asked so nicely, I gave it some serious consideration to reach one (I hope) interesting theory (more like series of speculations, though); but not about HOW he was kept alive – I decided to consider a scenario where he IS kept alive, and concentrate on this question only:
@Deltron:
Why would he be kept alive.
Some Notes: I spoiler tagged whole sections to make the post more hmm.. user-friendly, since it became quite long. So FYI they’re not real spoilers ;) Texts in italics are just there but not really required for the overall understanding, so you may skip them if you like. Well, sorry for being so detailed, I needed some English language practice, anyway :P and hope you guys like it (and most of all read it, at least)
So here are the reasons I came up with:
I. OP world reasons (or why would he be kept alive by the WG)
! A. Detaining Saul would be a lot harder than killing him; it was probably a good career advancing possibility for Kuzan; or
! B. He was Kuzan’s friend so the future Admiral might just not have finished the giant;
! C. The above two are alternatives. But this one is valid with or without either of them: Sending a high-level officer in Impel Down would set a good example for dealing with problematic marines, stressing out that status means nothing when someone obstructs the WG’s Absolute Justice.
Now you might be wondering what ‘OP world reasons’ means – well, it’s simply a title I came up with - didn’t know how to call that set, just wanted to differentiate those reasons from the other set, which I find to be more intriguing, namely:
II. Plot-wise reasons (or why would he be kept alive by teh Oda)
Brief explanation for this set:
! While I don’t like this set very much since I consider it as somewhat a matter of necessity and a bit of a fail for the One Piece Odaverse, I’m at the same time quite happy with the reasons (go figure >.<). Then again, I find them a bit similar to Boa Hancock’s convenient placement: I don’t like her character exactly because she is IMO the latest fault for otherwise OP’s consistent world.
On Boa Hancock
! (I’ll try to briefly list her convenient erm… facts: i) she’s the person with just the proper status to help Luffy infiltrate ID; ii) her powers didn’t work on Luffy (while working on everybody else)… ok, with Enel it was logical and pure physics’ knowledge, lightning not working on rubber – it was there from the very start, we just needed to notice, Hancock, thought… how come? Pure chemistry? = love or whatever? Anyway, we reach: iii) where she conveniently falls for Luffy so he gets his ship to ID and that’s ok, but iv) the ship is conveniently waiting to depart immediately and also v) even though it’s impossible for a ship to reach ID on time, it seems this ship will make it since it’s a marine ship that would make use of the convenient sea torrent, which passes nearby… OK… if they were just 2 or 3 conveniences, it’d be more acceptable… but so many – well, I do like Hancock’s char design a lot, and I’m probably just bitching aimlessly but I very much disliked this concentration of conveniences >.>)
So with that said, I think it won’t be impossible to place even more convenient characters, when need be. For example, the way Going Merry appeared and literally saved everyone’s ass, and all that after her supposed ‘death’.
And finally, here are the plot-wise reasons why I think Saul might be convenient for Luffy’s team in this case:
! A. The level where Ace is is full of insanely powerful badass criminals. Most of them showed a desire for WB’s death = they’d do everything possible to stop Luffy from freeing Ace. So Luffy’s team would need some very strong additions. An ex VA would be very convenient and strong enough since right now both Ace and Jinbei seem extremely weakened.
! B. If Saul is indeed frozen someplace in ID, Ace is the convenient key needed to unfreeze him – with his ability.
! C. The most direct way to stop people from fleeing ID is to flood it: it’s underwater after all. That is a serious problem because right now all of the people on Luffy’s team, including himself and Ace are DF users. (sidenote: it’s illogical for Fishmen to use DF but can Giants use them?) Saulo is not a DF user for sure: he was presented as a drifter in Robin’s flashback = he can swim and is large enough to save every single DF user from Luffy’s team + a lot more. Even if Jinbei is capable of saving Luffy, Ace and Hancock – what about the others?
! D. Saul would be capable of beating the SeaKings/Monsters outside of ID if it’s destroyed, and maybe get rid of most of the battleships on the surface when swimming up. At least one should be left for runaway purposes.
! E. Even if it doesn’t come to deliberate flooding as in C. above, Saul could do it himself in order to stop DF users like other criminals and/or guards (Magellan i.e.)
(Sort of) Conclusion: So as I started, I don’t really want to believe Saul is still alive. Just provided some ideas. That would make his sacrifice for Robin’s sake less dramatic, even though his survival would probably have lots of nice impacts on the story. Anyway, it does seem impossible at the moment but Oda loves surprises, we can’t know what’s in store for us, though, it’s very likely it’s not Saul, but some other strong characters we’ve yet to see to perform the things from the ‘plot-wise’ reasons – future chapters will prove this speculation to be either fail or win. I myself am more or less scepticalabout it anyway.