gratitude has been a theme throughout the story starting from zoro’s introduction. zoro thanking rika for the rice ball was the clue that told luffy he was a guy worth paying attention to, when up til then he was pretty ambivalent towards him.
in the baratie arc, the theme shows up prominently again. luffy gets angry at krieg for being ungrateful for the food he received. gin’s gratitude towards sanji for saving his life manifests in complex ways when it runs up against his loyalty to krieg.
luffy cares a lot about showing proper gratitude for hospitality and, importantly, food! ‘toppling dictators for a sandwich’ is one of luffy’s iconic traits of course, but it speaks to the thematic importance of hospitality/gratitude throughout the story. the strawhats are always guests, going from one island to another, and it’s part of one piece’s championing of love and community to show them as being considerate and thankful to their hosts.
hence why luffy gets so angry at zoro here. whatever people’s thoughts and feelings on the luffy vs. zoro fight, whether it is in the story due to editor pressure or not, the conflict does make sense with their established priorities as characters. the fact that zoro’s introduction emphasizes his grateful nature and how important that is to luffy adds an extra layer to this — luffy trusted zoro in this respect, and probably felt quite shocked and betrayed at zoro’s actions since he thought they were on the same page about this value.
