among the sea of thoughts

i 1000% understand the inclination to do so - given we already have two members of ASL who didn't have a good relationship/any relationship to their birth parents and who ended up forming a familial bond with someone older who isn't their blood (i.e. ace and whitebeard, luffy and shanks).

but in each rare interaction between sabo and dragon that we see, their relationship seems to be largely mentor and mentee, commander and right hand man, or just partners/equals in the revolution. there's no ribbing or open affection and it doesn't feel particularly familial. dragon talks to sabo the same way he talks to iva or kuma - maybe even less personally or familial-ly than he does to iva.

when he hears that sabo may have killed cobra, he reacts with the anger of someone who has potentially been wronged by their most trusted subordinate, not a father who's worried about their son. even the way he describes what will happen if it turns out to be true doesn't feel parental at all. he says "there will be a reckoning between us", which imo sounds more like an ideological clash between leaders and colleagues than a father confronting his son over a wrongdoing.

this is not to say that dragon and sabo are not close - i actually think they're very close. dragon had to trust sabo implicitly to give him his position, and in turn sabo must trust dragon implicitly to have devoted his life to his cause and chosen to work under someone else, despite sabo being a person who whose original dream was to be a captain of his own and be completely free.

tbh it also just bothers me that the immediate assumption that sabo and dragon are father and son is often used as a "gotcha" against dragon like "dragon couldn't be bothered to raise luffy, but he adopted his brother!!". because dragon didn't adopt sabo. he rescued him from death and then sabo chose to be a revolutionary and chose to be mentored by dragon (and even their mentor/mentee relationship is not shown in the manga, and can mostly just be concluded through the evidence of sabo's attacks being dragon-themed).

For those who are unaware, Oda revealed in I believe Data Book Yellow that he heavily based Whitebeard on a man he knew, a gruff old bartender dependent on oxygen who liked to yell at whippersnappers and tell old war stories. Apparently the guy was delighted when Oda told him, and with that retrospect you can just tell in how Oda presents Whitebeard he respected him a lot.

There's a quote from Oda in the SBS for volume 82 that suits Whitebeard particularly well, and it becomes especially poignant when you know he was based on a real person

i know it's been like a year since they dropped but these panels of reaction shots from the rev army hearing vegapunk's message are super interesting to me. namely, dragon and sabo's reactions or lack thereof.

it's interesting that they're so stone faced while everyone else flips out and IMO it implies something about their shared character - 1) that they're two of the people in the series that have the most knowledge about the OP world and so may have already suspected this, and/or 2) that they understand the implications of this knowledge on a high enough level to immediately assess the gravity of it.

Dragon is a revolutionary. He is the world's most wanted man because he leads the army that goes against the government and aims to free the people of the world of One Piece.

There was always the joke about him never doing anything, and the way that it shows us that is not the case is;

Showing us just how careful and cautious Dragon is about his plans and the people he involves in it. How much the army risk just by fighting back.

Showing us what made him want to be a revolutionary in the first place. The crimes he's witnessed and the deaths he's carried.

He doesn't hesitate in his choice to leave the marines, threatening his superiors with a gun and even stands up to his dad, Garp, who just takes it because he knows he's right. Dragon knew what he was goong to fight for at the age of 17.

Dragon took years to actually build up his army, because knew that this was not something he could take lightly. If he wanted to fight back against the government, he needed the people for it.

Dragon resembles his family in stubborness, a trait that guides them in their goal or journey (Luffy as a pirate, Garp as a marine and Deagonnas a revolutionary). But he differs from them in his planning ahead.

He takes time with plans, he weighs risks in situations, and he gathers information wherever he can.

Dragon is someone who will give up on his own personal dreams for his goals. He will sacrifice pieces of himself, and who he is an individual if it meant he got to save more people.

This isn't to say that being a revolutionary leader is empty, because to Dragon, this is everything he aims for. But this role does not leave room for personal wants or even family. It poses as a danger, because it can be used against you in the grand scheme of things.

In the end, Dragon becoming the leader of the revolutionary army means he can not afford to be selfish. This decision is incredibly selfless, and the commanders under him understand (and often replicate) this.

Luffy is completely different in this regard. The entire theme about Luffy is that he is the embodiment of freedom. This usually means that he is free to make the choices he wants, without regard for the consequences. He chases what he wants, helps who he wants and listens when he wants to.

If I compare him to the two points regarding Deagon, it's easy to realise that he is almost identical in one point while directly opposite in the other.

Luffy does not think through his choices and does not wait for a 'suitable time'. He puts everything he has on the line simply because he wants to.

Luffy, despite this, breaks down completely when he loses people. After hs fight with Kuma and when he argues with Jimbe, after losing Ace, he breaks down.

Luffy is selfish. This is something he has stated time and time again, and his actions do reflect that. It's just that his version of 'selfish' is doing what he wants, which is helping the people he likes.

He does not take the time to think choices over, because he does not feel the need to. Think to that quote " 'Do I deserve this?' So irrelevant, do you want it?" and that embodies the mindset of Luffy. There are very free exceptions, and they only come when people he absolutely treasures get involved.

He drags people along, and they end up going willingly. Because that's the kind of person Luffy is. He is someone that makes you gives you the choice to pick yourself, and be selfish. To be able to 'want' and not be punished.

He gives people and countries freedom not because he was actively chasing it for the sake of justice. He does it because he cares about the people involved.

In this way, his actions aren't originating from a standpoint of "This is the right thing to do," Theyre just things he wants to do, that mean happiness for people. (He's the 'boy' who brings 'joy', hehe)

Luffy is a genuinely good person with a selfish heart that is incredibly generous. He gives love easily. He gives trust even more so.

It makes people suspicious at the start, but it just as easily breaks down those walls because he is consistently earnest in what he does. He does things unapologetically, and this prompts people to follow suit.

Luffy and Dragon are inspire the common people in vastly different ways. But it does not change that they play a major role in how thse people move foward.

Powerscalers wouldn't like that, but it does show that one doesn't need to be a powerhouse superhuman to bring positive change to the world and stand up to the corrupt system <3

the fact that dragon essentially failed at every turn in god valley (lost both the twins, got shot through the shoulder, only survived out of sheer luck, and then got caught and thrown in jail) and yet he STILL managed to completely change the tide of history and save dozens of people is honestly so inspirational to me. him saving shanks from becoming a celestial dragon and preventing kuma & iva from being shot has created a ripple effect that has surely saved hundreds or thousands more lives, and that's not even accounting for the civilians he personally saved by commandeering the marine ship.

and NONE OF THAT was because he was strong or a good fighter. he does not successfully fight anyone in the entirety of the god valley flashback. he tranquilizes someone from behind and threatens someone else with a gun. give me a tranq gun and i could do that too. like literally, you or i could have done what dragon did on god valley. there was no haki, no devil fruit, no feats of superhuman strength. just a teenager who refused to give up or be complicit in genocide. that's so brilliant to me.

In this post, I will analyze the outfits worn by the Celestial Dragons. I'll give a list of Oda's possible inspirations and the narrative implications of it all.

I'll begin by the most obvious one, who was pointed out in multiple reddit posts :

Part 1 : The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Yes ! It's Robin Williams !

It's a 1988 fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliams narrating the life of German nobleman Baron of Munchausen. At one point, the baron flies away to the Moon and meets the King and Queen of the Moon (see the picture above).

Their costumes are eerily reminiscent of the Celestial Dragons, especially their strange hairdo and the barroque spacesuit. Their hairstyle looks like a violin's Peg-Box (the handle part).

Both of their clothing are odd and over-the-top. It shows their arrogance and their separation from regular people.

Instead of making them look noble or respectable, these fashion choices look ridiculous and impractical, despite their power over everyone else.

firstly, the revolutionary army did not recruit sabo. dragon rescued sabo from certain death, and then when they voiced the idea of returning him to his parents, sabo cried and begged them to not send him back. he explicitly (per SBS 80) chose to join the rev army because he agreed with their ideals, not because they "recruited" him.

the scene where sabo is training with other children? that's not canon. that's anime filler. oda wrote some notes on the script, but we don't really know which exact bits he suggested and which he didn't. sabo and koala are the only characters we see taken in by the revolutionary army as children in canon. we do know that sabo and koala learned to fight at a young age, but frankly i don't believe that "choosing to learn karate in a controlled environment" is tantamount to being raised as a child soldier (or else i guess i was raised as a child soldier too). and there is no canonical scene that shows a child taking part in missions outside of the rev army base.

in general, not everyone who is a part of the revolutionary army is expected/made to be a soldier anyway. they are also an intelligence-gathering organization. just because they sometimes rescue enslaved people and those enslaved people sometimes include orphans and children doesn't mean those people are automatically being made to fight. the revolutionary army is all about empowering people to make their own choices for themselves. that's their entire thing.

the revolutionary army was also in some ways founded by children. dragon, kuma, ivankov and ginny were all under 18 when they first recognized the wrongs around them and wanted to fight back. i think it'd be hypocritical of them to turn away all young people who want to be a part of their organization. i do think they have a duty to those children, but it's also important to remember that one piece isn't set on earth, it's set in a post-apocalyptic authoritarian dystopia. the government is a very real threat to these people and they need to be able to defend themselves, regardless of age.

many members of the revolutionary army were previously enslaved, oppressed, and/or physically harmed by the world government. they can't just forget that, whether they're children or not. if they want to fight back and protect themselves and the revolutionary army provides them a safe environment to learn how to do so....i think that's good, actually?

the rev army isn't indoctrinating anyone. they rescue people (or empower them to rescue themselves), they tell them the truth about the world, and then allow them to choose what to do with that information. sometimes, those people may be children and they may choose to learn to fight for their shared cause.