and then he meets luffy and shit happens and he ends up facing down Kuma on Thriller Bark. and he has a choice to let luffy die and save himself or not, where no one would ever know what he chose, and he even told Luffy he’d rather let Luffy die than let Luffy step in between him and his dream

and he saves luffy at his own expense

and i think that wasn’t just Zoro realizing his crew meant more to him than his dream, or Zoro honoring Luffy as his captain, or deciding his dream was “just talk” if Luffy didn't see his own dream. that was zoro realizing and acknowledging that kuina wasn’t all he had anymore

he had luffy and he had his crew and they weren’t like. an intangible idea he’s still holding onto. they’re new friends, close friends

and they’re something new worth fighting and dying for (or living for)

and then he meets mihawk again and it’s not about claiming the title of world’s greatest swordsman

it’s about Luffy and their friends and seeing to it that none of them are lost

and like, Zoro still wants to achieve his dream, and he’s still honoring Kuina’s memory. he didn't give it up or anything. but i think he’s also sorta moving on, too

1. i wonder if Brook was a better swordsman before he died vs when he landed on Thriller Bark the first time, or when he met the Strawhats

it’s possible Brook got rusty at all after everything. dying and coming back with a new, lighter body might have made him faster, which would compliment his fighting style, but i’m sure it was one hell of an adjustment to find a bunch of his weight was gone. he probably had to retrain himself to fight, at least somewhat. do you think that had any effect on his skill?

then he can’t really do any real fighting for decades, so even with any training he had to do to get better, he has no real opponent or anything. in any sport, you learn just as much from taking on someone else as you do in practicing.

2. i wonder how good of a swordfighter Brook was when he was alive compared to the rest of the world

brook is not a super powerful swordfighter (mostly because, from a writing perspective, all the big sword fights need to go to Zoro so he can become the best, and it would sort of suck if Brook was in the way of Zoro’s dream, too (or if Zoro was in the way of Brook’s)). plus, being the best has never been on Brook’s mind, since he seems to have sailed to have fun in the first place.

but i wonder how much of it is because he never aimed for the top, and how much of it is because the top has risen since Brook died

i read a while back about how the olympics have been getting increasingly harder as the years go by. world records become even more impossible, and yet people beat them still. im sure in a world like One Piece, where titles such as “Pirate King” and “World’s Greatest Swordsman” exist, this same sort of principle could apply. the bar keeps rising, and people need to keep getting better to meet it and to beat it

of course, there’s plenty of strong pirates we’ve seen from the past, but i think they prove my point! roger and them, for example, are an old crew who sailed after Brook. the strawhats are working on (and perhaps close to) passing them now, which proves my point about meeting a rising bar. there’s also Ryuma, ancient master swordsman. he had Brook’s shadow, so Brook sort of by default couldn’t beat him, no matter how strong Brook or Ryuma were. Zoro could, though, despite Ryuma being two skilled old swordsmen. a former great ended up far out of place a few centuries (if i remember right) later! Zoro barely even had to put up a fight!

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