I still can't see Ace staying dead after what Luffy gave up to save him, leaving Bon Clay in ID, what all the Whitebeard pirates did, Oars sacrifice, Whitebeard's rapidly approaching sacrifice, Jinbei. Even with Crocodile & Daz and Mister 3 helping. That is some retarded shit.
Anyways if he does stay dead…I only read/love One Piece because it makes me happy. Not looking for a brilliant or realistic story. And if this is the end of Ace then I think I'm out for the most part. I do want to see what happens to Whitebeard + crew and I'm insanely curious about Crocodile's past but losing that happy vibe isn't something I'm interested in.
Oh, leland, I know exactly what you mean. I've lost my "happy vibe" about this manga too. All those sacrifices Luffy made, everyone made, and Ace still winds up dead? And Whitebeard's whole "if I can just save one young life…" speech, everything his crew risked, all for nothing? I know that bad things do happen in this manga, but in the end you know it'll be alright. All the SH's had sad stories, but in the end they found Luffy and it turned out okay.
The part where Ace says that thanks to Luffy it was worth living and where he says that he won't die and leave behind his brother just kills me. I have never gotten so worked up over a One Piece chapter before.
I kinda hate that Ace's lifelong wish was just for him to know it was okay to be born. He never ended up confronting his daddy issues like I thought he would have. I don't mean for him to all of a sudden like Roger, but for him to make peace with the fact that he was Roger's son, and realize that that is not what defined him. He meant so much to all these people who risked their lives to come save him, yet in the end it seems like he was still defining himself mostly as as the son of a demon. Pity he never got to talk to Rayleigh.