Ranting Until Further Notice

Not only do we never get to know what Luffy is thinking,

But the one time that Luffy literally turns to the camera and says to his friends with his mouth words something that he wants for himself--

Oda cuts away and doesn't let the audience hear it and deliberately makes it a mystery.

Seriously now, he's a teenager, he's the same age that Luffy was in the start of the series. That boy knows things, he definitely knows what sex is he's a doctor for God's sake. He can and will swear. But people forget that because of his looks. You're acting just like the Marines, who think he's the pet of the strawhats.

Sure, sometimes Chopper is allowed to be a competent doctor, like when he creates a cure for Queen's disease in Wano, but he's still often portrayed as a cutesy little boy in canon who just loves candy! Hell, you don't even have to go further than his character design, which has been gradually chibi-fied instead of making him look more mature, despite him reaching 17 post-timeskip (presumably in terms of physical/mental human maturity and not his literal age?) and very likely being at a point where a human boy would have some level of pubescent physical maturity.

I would argue that Chopper was most mature-acting near the beginning of the series, because it at least felt like he spoke in a more rude and assertive way that more accurately represented the personality of a teen.

A) trebol groomed Doffy

&

B) Doffy genuinely loved his family.

If you truly think that people who believe those two things about Doffy are wrong, then the truth is that you have both a flawed moral framework, and bad media literacy.

Let's address them one at a time.

A) trebol groomed Doffy

Firstly, some facts.

One, Doflamingo was barely ten years old when he met Trebol and the other executives.

Two, Trebol was 18 at the time, Diamante was 15, Vergo was 10 and Pica was 9.

Three, textually, canonically, Trebol says on the page that he groomed Doffy to be a king. Groomed in the traditional, non-sexual sense where one 'grooms' a young person for a role that they will fill when they're older. There is literally a speech about it, and to back that speech up we actively see a flashback.

There is no arguing against Trebol grooming Doflamingo because it is literally and without exaggeration the text of the story. Trebol says "I raised him to be an evil king" and then we see flashbacks of how he does that. It's just literally the canon of what happens between them.

The only way you can try to argue that Doffy wasn't groomed by Trebol is is you truly believe that a 10 year old child is both completely morally responsible for their own actions, and also so manipulative that he is completely in control of all of the people around him even as a child.

In other words, it's absurd unless you believe that an actual child can be responsible for adult actions. And if you believe this about children, then you have a flawed moral framework.

B) Doffy genuinely loved his family.

This all depends on what you believe "genuinely loved" means. If you only ever use the term "love" to mean "pure, selfless unconditional love" then sure, I will agree you, Doffy did not love his family in a "pure, selfless and unconditional" way. I would argue that that's a standard of love that most people fail to meet.

However, we see on the page, demonstrated in canon, that Doffy has genuine affection for and attachment to his family, two things that when taken together, can be described as love.

If Doffy doesn't have attachment to and affection for Vergo and Monet, (he does!) then there is no reason for him to secretly leave Dressrosa and flay all the way to Punk Hazard to try to rescue or take revenge for them. (He does this! He goes to Punk Hazard immediately after speaking to Vergo, without even telling Trebol!)

If Doffy doesn't have attachment to and affection for Pica, then there's no reason for him to threaten people over laughing at Pica's voice. You may not like it, but it is an expression of care by Doflamingo that he threatens people on his friend's behalf.

The care and trust between the executives is so important that Law tries (successfully) to use it against Trebol in the big fight. When he says "Doffy doesn't care about you, he's just manipulating you", whether Law actually believes it or not is irrelevant— what he's doing is using the horrifying idea to manipulate and enrage both Trebol and Doflamingo.

Trebol did groom doffy to be king, yes. BUT trebol didn't groom doffy to be who he is today. The point of my #1 was that I've seen way too many people try and argue that doflamingo only turned out this way because of trebol and that trebol is the true mastermind of everything. And that's just not true and those are the people I'm arguing against.

As for the question of love, as I suspected, you and I just disagree fundamentally on what counts as "love" -- but even so it sounds like we agree on the way that he treated his executives with affection and attachment. We just disagree on what that should be called.

Firstly, I believe that there is such a thing as "conditional love", because otherwise we wouldn't have a phrase for it, lol.

Secondly, and more importantly, I hate the assertion that Doflamingo "wouldn't hesitate to kill any of his crew" because we DON'T SEE ANYTHING IN THE TEXT TO SUGGEST THIS. Doflamingo tells Monet to "die for [him]" when she's critically injured and the only other person on his crew who would be hurt by her murder-suicide is Vergo, who accepts that he is going to die, and dies anyway despite Punk Hazard as a whole not exploding. Otherwise, the only member of the crew we see Doflamingo kill is Rocinante after Roci proves in-person that he is a Marine and is betraying Doflamingo and the rest of the crew.

People could point to Bellamy, but he's clearly more of a member of the "fleet" than the crew proper. Doflamingo clearly doesn't have an emotional connection to people outside the "family", which is not unreasonable. I'm not going to just excuse how he treats Bellamy, but I'm arguing that Doflamingo loves his Family, not that he's not still... a villain. 😅

When Law attacks Trebol during the fight against him and Doflamingo, Doflamingo EXPLICITLY PROTECTS TREBOL. I don't know why people seem to ignore this and argue that Doflamingo is purely self-serving. Trebol might be an asset for him, but Doflamingo protects him in a way that's a lot more emotionally reflexive rather than calculated. It reads like he doesn't want Trebol to get HURT, not just that he's protecting him from dying.

One Piece peasants have absolutely zero problem literally tarring and feathering people for crimes they are merely related to by blood.

Compassion and selflessness is really lacking in the general world of One Piece, to the point where it's really genuinely a remarkable quality, reserved only for specifically heroic characters.

We see it in Doflamingo's backstory. In Ace's. In Robin's.

We see an angry mob hunt down and torture a family (the Donquixotes) just due to who they're related to.

We see grown adults talking about hunting down and torturing a small child (Roger's son) just for who he's related to.

And then there's Robin.

It kills me that Crocodile is the nicest, most caring person Robin has run into her whole life at the point that they meet.

Literally every other person she's met has turned her back on her, or sold her down the river.

Crocodile, suspicious, guarded Crocodile doesn't do that, and is working with her legitimately. And Robin is so traumatized she turns on him first, instead of trying to talk him around and communicate and figure out a solution.

And they both validate each others worst fears about people, and it's awful and sad.

The Gum-Gum fruit secretly being the ultra special god fruit of heroic destiny all along.

I LIKED it when our hero was an underdog using a goofy power in inventive ways to make himself stronger.

The only way I will come around and like the Nika stuff is if Oda turns around and actually does something with the fact that it's a zoan fruit and actively trying to take over Luffy's personality. If he makes it a point of conflict where Luffy's will has to win out over Nika's then I'll say it's good.

But for now it's just magical destiny bullshit.

Crocodile is the underdog in that fight. He's lost before, and lost *everything*, and Luffy's a god who he has no hope of beating. He kills him twice and he just keeps coming.

Unfortunately, anon, I don't agree with you.

First of all, Oda's women ARE overly sexualized. Oda has literally said as much in interviews and editors notes. He's not ashamed of it. As he says, it's his comic and he wants to draw sexy women. Which is why the only mermaids that exist are under thirty and he has gone on record saying his method for drawing women was "three circles and an X".

But I wouldn't care about that if he did give his female characters the same kind of independence he gives his male characters. He does not. He constantly creates woman and girl characters who are conceptually powerful, and then refuses to let them use that power.

Nami and Robin, the ladies in the Straw Hats, are constantly sidelined.

Tashigi, the lady marine, is constantly belittled, called "cute" and "captain-chan" by her inferiors in the navy, is totally clumsy and never allowed to win fights or look cool.

Rebecca, the female gladiator, is literally told by the men in her life that she never has to fight again.

Baby 5, a cool assassin girl, gets married to the first man who is nice to her and is never seen again afterward.

Vivi is forced into a purely political role.

Alvida (an ugly joke character) after being hit by the magic sexifier beam, is never given a speaking role again, only appearing in the background of Buggy panels.

Giolla, while being a powerful fighter and a cool antagonist isn't taken seriously and is constantly made fun of for being an older woman who dares to consider herself a sexually appealing person.

Koala never gets to fight anyone despite being an expert in fishman karate and is only ever seen in a support role.

The female members of Baroque Works all retire from fighting to work at a restaurant.

Big Mom is treated by the narrative as a kaiju instead of a human being.

Pudding is the center of a marriage plot, and then acts as a kidnapped princess character.

Boa Hancock is constantly ridiculed by the narrative for being a female character that shows love and affection despite being strong. In fact her love and affection literally cripple her strength (love sickness.)

Reiju Vinsmoke is the only member of the Vinsmoke family to be nice to Sanji, because she's a girl.

Then there's all the saintly tragic dead moms.

Sure, Oda creates "strong" female characters, but he constantly strips them of their dignity, competence, agency, and relevance in the narrative.