I'm still stuck on Dragon being the one who saved Shanks. I know we like to joke about the dads in One Piece, that seem to always abandon their children. But Dragon... this man saved the person who would become his son's biggest inspiration, the person his son admires the most. And he was 17, he didn't know, he COULDN'T know!! He saw 2 babies in a hellscape and saved them.
He saved SABO, his son's brother, because again, he saw a child who was suffering and gave him a home and a purpose. Because this child had nowhere else to go. He saved one of the people Luffy loved the most and thought he lost forever.
He saved Luffy from certain death twice in Loguetown.
He couldn't save Ace, he didn't and couldn't know what he meant to Luffy.
I've always felt Dragon left Luffy not just because the Revolutionary Army was a dangerous place for children, but also because he wanted to give Luffy the option, the choice, the freedom to become whatever he wished. (Giving him to Garp seems a bit counterintuitive to that, I won't lie, this isn't a perfect headcanon by any means)
And it doesn't escape me the poetry that the man who saw injustice, violence and oppression in God Valley and decided to create the Revolutionary Army, "gave birth" to the God of Liberation.
