One Piece Chapter 866 Discussion

ashfrliebert said:

What is this, a moral debate? It's pretty simple, she *was* mentally ill child in, as someone else put it, "a world of cardboard".

ashfrliebert said:

Do you think people are born ripping apart cities? This is really misunderstanding human nature.

ashfrliebert said:

"Evil" isn't biological no matter how many ways you slice it, everyone is a part of their environment.

ashfrliebert said:

OBVIOUSLY this doesn't excuse burning down cities, but this is very basic story telling.

ashfrliebert said:
Because it's basic human nature.

ashfrliebert said:
Big Mom´s on the other hand is worthless to everyone who can deduce simple patterns in basic storytelling.

ashfrliebert said:

This is a COMIC series, it doesn't matter if it's obvious (One could see this flashback coming a mile away if you pay attention), you're supposed to show it anyway. It's how comic series work. You don't leave things implied.

Isterio said:
I agree with everything you said

Elaborate!

That´s completely wrong and can be disproven by the countles examples of comics that are intelligently written. Even One Piece itself uses occasionally implication as a literary device.

As for why the debate? Dahaka claims Big Mom isn´t evil I claim that the concept of morals is constructed by humans and therefore arbitrary. Depending on who you ask she´s evil. However if you take away the concept of morality and observe her through a vaccum she´s just human. Neutral.

ashfrliebert said:

Everyone is shaped by their circumstances and surrondings something something.

ashfrliebert said:

I can't think of one example tbh. Most of times when things are as blatantly implied as "Big Mom had a terrible life to shape her into the person she is", it's usually ALWAYS shown as a sort of "puts the pieces together" kinda thing. Like Doffy,

We could ALWAYS figure that Big Mom had a rather terrible life to become the type of manchild she is, seems we both agree with this, but the effect is lessened when it's only implied.

ashfrliebert said:

It's like the arc is building up to something that will never be explored. What's the point?

ashfrliebert said:

Think Arlong, except Arlong is a major character with 50+ named, supporting allies, and a huge family. And he wants equality for everyone. And he's one of the four strongest pirates and the world and he goes on mentally insane cravings where he kills his siblings and forgets everything that happened. And he's a massive man-child. And he's very important to the overarching world. You kinda expect this character to be further explored here..to get the specifics of why they are how they are.

Like Whitebeard, but actually relevant beyond one arc (uh, I'm assuming based on all these family members and allies introduced. Unless Oda just dumps her away forever after this arc lol) and being a sorta bit-plot character.

Isterio said:


TL.DR: A retarded person cannot be good or evil by nature, he lacks the cognitive capacity to diferentiate between the two moral constructs.
Big Mom isn´t retarded and even if she was she couldn´t be good either way.

tripofwhitebeard said:
Yes but I'm not saying Big Mom was retarded she was just a child. Like it's not hard to understand. Children kids do mischievous bad things or even make really dumb mistakes without bad intentions all the time that's like the entire point of being a kid. It just looks a lot more malicious when you are as strong as the hulk at elementary school age.

Isterio said:




Yes and I´m telling you the solution for such children!
Big Mom on the other hand requires different treatment because of her deeds and her level of threat to society

Hence this post:

She´s equally out of control and far more dangerous than the dog.



He on the other hand has also no or at least only limited control over his actions, but he´s perfectly fine as a member of society. He doesn´t hurt anyone he doesn´t threaten anyones life. He just lives his life.

Big Mom going full retard through her food cravings isn´t childlike behaviour. It´s a menace, a danger to all of her environment.

Rationally, you put that down. Morally the behaviour is repugnant. If in real life a sick psychpoath kills dozens we don´t excuse his behaviour with his sickness.

WE SENTENCE THEM TO DEATH:John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer.

tripofwhitebeard said:

Yes but you're leaving out the fact that's she's a child we don't sentence children to death. Especially ones that were never taught societal rules by their parents and happen to have superhuman strength. You've never seen an elementary age child throw a fit over things like sweets or toys? (Mind you Big Mom the glutton fasted for a week it's not like she immediately spazzed out.) It usually calls for reprimand but isn't much of an issue but like I keep saying big mom is a special case. If a child throwing a tantrum after fasting for a week is out of the ordinary I'm truly lost here. I get a little angry after not eating for too long in one day. Had they not forced her too fast none of it would've happened. We keep saying Linlin is "retarded" but she clearly isn't mentally keen and has very special needs so it's really hard to call her actions "evil". Because there's no intent. Not once in the flashback did she enter a situation with the actual intent of doing wrong.

Isterio said:
[
As you said, blatantly, but still implied. It´s show don´t tell, which makes flashbacks like the ones you´ve mentioned pointless to me. Those characters didn´t have enough personality to justify a flashback of this magnitude to begin with. Doffy´s had a little merrit, because of the inclusion of Corazon but all it did was confirm what we already knew.
As for the quality implication adds to a story. It varies for each person.
I personally think that blatant implication is the best form of storytelling.
It´not as dry as blatant exposition, but also not as ambigious as uncertain implication. One is boring and dull, the other has the potential to mean everything to it´s audience and nothing to it´s pretentious artist.

Oda has a terrible track record for this and I´ve noticed an issue with his post time skip writing I´ve dubbedd Bleach syndrome.

The introduction of a multitude of characters that have unique designs and abilities but impede each others character exploration through their sheer numbers. I´m just not optimistic anymore. My greatest hope is that the finale lives up to expectations because I don´t expect anything of the inbetween to deliver anymore consistently

Elbaf has been foreshadowed since 700 chapters, is he going to plow through it like with Zou? Not that I have a problem with Zou, I think it´s the best New world arc because it came out of left field and delivered alot for it´s short runtime.
But this worked because it delivered only exposition and no timeline figting.
One Piece Arcs on Average take 50 chapters.

Tl:DR. Final war arcs haven´t been done great (never it´s best part) in any Manga I´ve read.
They always drag, they´re always confused and they always build too much hype around them.
Naruto is the best one and judging by the competition it´s not an amazing feat. FMA was anticlimactic,Bleach sucked, Shaman King was boring and dumb, Toriko was awful,Fairy Tail is an offense to the readers intelligence,Ravemaster was cheesy and Akame Ga kill was retarded.

I´d give Ravemaster the second best war Arc out of childhood nostalgia, fast pace and one of the best Shounen fights I have ever read. But there are too many objective faults with the ending, so I have to give it to the lackluster FMA finale.

ashfrliebert said:

Can't agree that this author is one who could possibly do this well with a subtle, implied approach (not that other authors can't). He goes way in detail with his major characters life and how they ended up the way they are. His subtle nuances are few, far inbetween. It's a fairly...obvious formula, but One Piece is too..hammy and in your face to go the subtle route with things like this.

No point in talking about what he "might" or "might not" be able to do when he's never tried it though, I guess.

ashfrliebert said:

He did this with Dressrosa and maybe you can say Marineford, but I'm sure that Big Mom and her family are going to be relevant later in the future. The Dressrosa characters were too many, but all of them were explored and all of them were given due attention..mostly all of them. That's why it was 100 chapters. Uh..except Rebecca. And Viola.

ashfrliebert said:

I don't believe an author who spends 100 chapters on a..relatively minor (Compared to this one) arc such as Dressrosa (albeit, it did introduce the fleet) to flesh out his characters, would ever toss all these characters aside never to be focused upon again. Chapter length might suffer, though. That's why I don't believe we are done with Big Mom. Maybe I'm optimistic, though.

also no way this guy kills anyone besides maybe Shanks for the rest of the series lul

ashfrliebert said:

I'm of the opinion that Zou was good as it was because it *was* short. I notice I disagree with alot of people when I say I think this arc is probably..a top 15 arc already solely based on everything *not* Pudding (Especially Sanji's storyline, which is great). But how I judge this arc will largely depend on how it actually ends. Do we defeat Big Mom without regard to how we're going to handle all these family members and allies in the future of the story? Naah, I doubt it

ashfrliebert said:

But I'll give One Piece an edge over the rest of the field for being as good as is for sooooo long.

Isterio said:


When you refer to things like these. be precise, with what you´re refering too. I for myself didn´t mean to imply that Oda is amazing at the usage of implication. I merely pointed out that even he is using it to some extend occasionally.

In the end. He is a Shounen writer, his audience are young teenagers and some of them need to be beaten over the head with it. to get a point across.

Let me ask you the following questions.

1. What is Blue Gillis character?

Orlumbus? Oh we do know what he´s in charge off. He has a fleet of over 5000 ships. What are his likes his dislikes? What is his moral code? Does he have family?You get he point.

2. What´s Smoothie doing currently? She´s a "Yonko Commander". What did she do since her introduction? What are her achievements? What enabled her position over her siblings?

Yes I understand that the series isn´t over yet but like I said the number of chapters is limited. 3/4 of the series are done. Oda won´t pull another 500 chapters out of his ass, people have to get to terms with this truth.

Frankly if I´d have to choose between development or even just screentime for the Strawhats or these assholes, I´d take chapters for Ussop and chopper by the dozens (my least favorite Strawhats)

It´s not about what it used to be. It´s about what it will be. I haven´t dropped the One Piece Anime because it used to be good. The pacing and animation has visibly declined and turned into horseshit. I´m not going to uphold it´s current rating just for what it used to be. As for the Manga.

Can you imagine that the East Blue Saga took only 100 chapters? I reread it recently and it´s amazing. Some weak parts are there. But compare all of the content the East Blue Saga had to Dressrosa.

It´s a world of difference.