i am… thinking about smiles. the expression, not the fruits, though i guess i’m thinking about those too.
smiles, and laughter, show up a lot in one piece. it’s the sort of motif that doesn’t get a whole lot of attention drawn to it in-story (until very recently) but when you pay attention, it’s everywhere.
like, the first page of the manga, and the very first opening, what’s one of the first things we’re presented with? roger grinning on the execution stand. we always see people smiling in the face of death. ace is the other most obvious example, but there’s also saul, rouge, luffy on the stand at loguetown, and law telling doflamingo to fuck himself. i see it pinpointed as a trait of Ds sometimes, and it is that, but it’s not exclusive to them either. bellemere dies smiling, as do hiriluk and otohime as they hand their dreams down to their children; corazon smiles to cheer law up before he dies, and wants that to be the way he’s remembered.
and then there’s laughter. one of the most popular posts i’ve ever made on this stupid blog was a semi-shitpost pointing out a possible connection between the focus placed on laughter in one piece and the name of laugh tale for the final island of the grand line. many many characters in one piece have a unique style of laughter, and you even have scenes like saul (again, a D) encouraging robin to smile and laugh with his own silly laugh, even when he’s dying.
the final words of binks no sake, a pretty important song in one piece, literally describe a neverending tale of laughter- and the song begins and ends with brook’s laugh. and the rumbar pirates, too, die smiling and laughing and singing.
and here’s a fun fact for you: in japanese, ‘smile’ and ‘laugh’ are the same word- 笑う/warau.
and then, of course, there’s joy boy, too, who just by his name alone is clearly connected to all of this.
on the other hand, there’s multiple examples of literally forcing people to smile, and its clearly shown just how cruel and inhumane that is. ebisu town is the latest and most obvious example of this, and feeding the failed smiles to the people there is literally referred to in-text as orochi’s greatest crime. and there’s also koala (and presumably other slaves of the celestial dragons), who trained herself to always smile and seem happy to avoid punishment, and fisher tiger’s victory is in getting her to finally stop, and finally cry.
in both the cases of koala and the people of ebisu town, the reason they’re forced to smile is because their crying is annoying to their oppressors. one piece is a story all about freedom, and one of the most fundamental freedoms is that to express yourself and your feelings honestly. so it follows that one of the worst crimes would be to steal even that freedom.
and luffy is smiling almost constantly. just cause he’s happy. just cause he’s free.
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