Power Structures and Bad Rulers
Whenever Luffy topples an enemy, or we speculate about how the story is going to end, I remember what Captain Morgan said to Zoro in one of the first chapters
What those speech bubbles on the left actually say is
貴様の強さなどおれの権力の前にはカス同然だ
Next to my (political) power, your strength is as good as trash
Morgan establishes a difference between 権力 (kenryoku), which means political power, authority or influence, and 強さ (tsuyosa) which means strength or power
And that's definitely true in some cases. For example, most of the Celestial Dragons don't fight, living in luxury and ease. They aren't physically strong, but they hold political power over the rest of the world. However, we also learn later that among them, there are those who are strong, and can hold them accountable. In this sense, the God's Knights have both the strength and the political power. The same can be said of the Five Elders and Imu, each group getting progressively stronger the higher up they are in the social structure
This is a pattern we can see in all of the arcs that center around liberating countries (Alabasta, Skypiea, Dressrosa, Wano), and it follows a typical structure of action-driven shonen stories. In order for both Luffy and the narrative to progress, it makes sense for his opponents to have both the political power that is holding the plot hostage and the physical power to be a challenge that Luffy has to overcome in order to become stronger
The thing is that they never actually change the nature of the power structures, just which people are at the top. We change a bad ruler for a good ruler, and the power structure stays the same
In Alabasta, the people are manipulated into believing that King Cobra has been abusing his power and letting the rest of the country fall to drought. Crocodile wants to instigate a civil war and depose the Nefertari family so he can turn Alabasta into his utopia. The Nefertaris are good rulers, but the people are being tricked. At this point, the whole country loves and respects Crocodile, he is the one with both the actual strength and the political influence. People are losing their faith in the king and putting it on him instead
The citizens' love for their country is equated with their trust in the king. The rebels were manipulated, they lost trust in a good ruler, and the country was almost torn apart. In the end, Luffy defeats Crocodile, the truth comes to light, and the country is saved. King Cobra goes back to having the love and respect of his people
The bad ruler is defeated, and the power structure stays the same
For 400 years the Shandians have been in conflict with the Sky People for the rights to their own land. Ganfall himself admits that the previous God who took the Varse from the Shandians was in the wrong and was in the process of trying to broker peace before Enel showed up and started terrorizing the rest of the Sky People
By the time the Straw Hats get there, Enel is the very obvious antagonist, responsible for keeping people in a constant state of guilt, fear and misery. He had defeated Ganfall and now holds the political power of God by being the strongest. However, like Ganfall says, the Shandians don't really care about who the God is, they still want their homeland back
In the end, both conflicts - Enel's rule of terror and the Shandians' fight - get resolved at the same time, with Luffy defeating Enel and ringing the Light of Shandora. Sky People and Shandians are shown in mirrored actions to highlight that, despite their differences and their history, they are also similar in their united wishes. Both Wyper and Ganfall plead for Luffy to ring the bell, and he remembers both Conis and Aisa's suffering. Afterwards, Ganfall and the chief tell Wyper that there is no more reason for conflict
Despite his reluctance, Ganfall is asked to go back to being God, both by the Sky People and by the chief of the Shandians. The title of God is still considered necessary in order to help unify the two sides who have been fighting for centuries. In a panel where no one takes center stage, where they are all shown together in equal size, the chief says that the name of the country is Skypiea, and the name of the city is Shandora. Enel was a tyrant, he ruled by fear and believed himself above all others. Ganfall, on the other hand, believes in unity, in cooperation and peace. He takes back his role as God
The bad ruler is defeated, and the power structure stays the same
In Dressrosa, we see a mirror of Alabasta: the people were deceived by a Warlord of the Sea and lost their faith in their king. Here, however, we get what could have happened there if the Straw Hats hadn't intervened in time. There is a theme of dehumanization present in this arc, which matches the Celestian Dragon connection. Doflamingo has little regard for people, sees them as nothing but puppets to be controlled and manipulated like marionettes on his strings, along with literally turning them into dolls to be used. He has the political leverage of a Warlord and a Celestial Dragon, and he has the strength to back it up
It was King Riku's mistake that led Dressrosa to ruin in the first place, his naivety that blinded him and prevented him from seeing Doflamingo's manipulation in time. But after all is done and the dust settled, the people want their good King Riku back on the throne
The bad ruler is defeated, and the power structure stays the same
In Wano, Orochi was the one responsible for deposing the Kozuki Family and bringing Kaido into the country. Orochi is a bit of an exception because he never really wanted to rule as Shogun, his plan was to get revenge on the whole country for the persecution he faced for being from the family of a sinner. Orochi had the political power as Shogun, and Kaido had the physical strength of an Emperor of the Sea
You could argue that Oden failed his country twice, first when he went out to sea and left Wano open both for Orochi's takeover and Kaido's infiltration, and again when he failed to take down either of them. As a result, Wano was forced to endure 20 years of exploitation, slavery and starvation. It took an alliance of ninjas, Minks, samurai and at least three pirate crews from the Worst Generation, plus a couple of former Whitebeard commanders, to defeat them. But at the end of the day what matters is that the Kozuki Family is back and Momo is there to take his rightful place, after going through a conveniet (and tragic, if you think about it) transformation into the adult he needed to be in order to become a good Shogun
The bad ruler is defeated, and the power structure stays the same
One of the final antagonists in One Piece are the Celestial Dragons to control the world, with Imu sitting at the top as the secret King and ultimate ruler. They hold all of the political power, and apparently have more than enough strength to back it all up, between the Navy, God's Knights, Five Elders and Imu himself. They are responsible for the eradication of whole nations, the erasing of a century's worth of world history, the persecution of countless races and people, the dissemination of slavery. They basically hold the entire world hostage to their whims and their desires. The World Government is the cloak behind which the Celestial Dragons hide their power, and the Navy is the weapon they use to subjugate the world. It's not that the system failed, it's that it's working as intended, and that intention was a problem from the start
The goal of the Revolutionary Army is to topple the Celestial Dragons, but despite being based on real life communist movements, they are not themselves the One Piece version of communists. Koala says that their real enemy is not the World Government, and Dragon has nothing against the good kings who are decent rulers, like Cobra. The problem is not the power structure, but the bad rulers
All this to say that it wouldn't surprise me if the story ended the way all of the arcs ended, with a bad ruler replaced with a good one. Nefertari D. Lili was the one who began the fight against the Celestial Dragons, in a way, by spreading the poneglyphs and refusing to join them in Marijoa. It would make sense then for the story to end with her descendant taking her place as Imu's enemy and the future leader of a new World Government, a good ruler in place to help the world heal, the Reverie as it was idealized
The same could be said of the Marines. Garp, despite everything he has seen in God Valley about the ones who control the Navy, chose to stay and try to reform them instead of leaving. He wanted to train a new generation of Marines who didn't have their hands tied by blind obedience to the Celestial Dragons or to the unwavering justice of people like Sakazuki. And the one who inherited his Will, his Hero epithet and even his fighting style, is Koby, the boy who mirrored his dream to Luffy's, who said he would be a marine officer the same way Luffy said he would be Pirate King. Maybe Koby and the good Marines we've seen so far - the other members of SWORD, Smoker and Tashigi - will be able to do what Garp couldn't and actually reform the Navy. Topple the bad ruler and replace him with a good one, a new Fleet Admiral with a justice that is actually. You know. Just
The ruler changes, but the power stays the same
[In the real world, something like this would be a bad ending. It would just be a continuation of the same system of oppression with a new coat of paint on. Within the structure of this specific story, though? I think it's fine]
