The Greatest Zoro Analysis Ever Made

[Music] look I really like one piece okay and I like Zorro but I'm not the type to shy away from criticizing both of them especially when it comes to our Moss haired friend and his frankly terrible lineup of opponent's Post Time skip I do it on my streams all the time and while I'd love for my enjoyment of the story to always be sunshine and rainbows I think it's important to look at things with the critical eye in order to learn what works and what doesn't and at least for me the criticism does come from a good place I still love the story and wanted to do well however there are also times when I feel like I've been quick to judge recent things in the story is negative especially major events before I've had a chance to fully digest the writing sometimes I fear that collectively we can Tunnel Vision on the negative aspects on the what could have beens where we lose sight of the positives and intern what's been done right in my case I nearly missed the point entirely this script originally started as a critique of King about how he didn't satisfy my expectations of the opponent that should cap off an entire Saga for Zorro about how King didn't develop enough upon Zorro's themes and his quest to become the world's greatest swordsman and yet despite my initial pessimism the more I read into the relationship and interactions between these two characters however short and passive aggressive they may have been the more I came to understand what Oda was trying to do with King and what he was trying to call back to when he wrote this character the more I read the more I came to appreciate his addition to the story and the more I realized that Zorro vs king is seriously misunderstood foreign [Music] here's the deal we can't fully understand why this guy is so great until we talk about what his fight meant for Zorro and so to understand King first we need to talk about Queen nah I feel as though Queen is purpose in zoro's backstory is lost on part of the op Community it's not as uncommon to see it written off as a flat out bad flashback all too often I see people misinterpret queen as death doing no small part to false rumors which I'll talk about in a bit and granted it's a bit basic it's not the best backstory ever but keep in mind it's also the first proper flashback we get for a straw hat in the story Luffy's childhood with Shanks was where the manga began chronologically but the first time the story sequence breaks and takes us back 10 years is with Zorro this was pre-buggy mind you it was way too early in the story to deliver a multi-chapter drama filled with death and tragedy and betrayal and political factions and ancient civilizations and blah blah blah blah no up until this point this story was just about a happy-go-lucky kid with wacky Powers who wanted to become pirate king because some homeless dude told them Pirates are cool a long time ago Zoro to a degree was just a plan on the cool edgy swordsman Trope where this gullible muscle head wanted to be the best knife Enthusiast so bad that he uses more swords than he has hands but that's only on a surface level the subversion like Luffy's rubber powers are not what sold us on Zorro as a character it wasn't the cool factor or the humor of it or the fight with Captain Morgan it was the backstory we were sold on Zorro's resolve to be the best in part due to his backstory much like how we're invested in Luffy's goal and his attachment to the straw hat itself solely because of the events were shown in chapter 1. without this backstory Zorro would just be some muscle head without this backstory his motivations and his dream wouldn't really matter to us at all but they do and it's all because of quina no jokes for a second this is a heavy subject matter and I want to be 100 serious for a minute I I have a question what do you think was the cause of Queen's death was it a falling down the stairs or B suicide if you answered B then you are likely victim to a false rumor about the supposedly hidden context in zoro's backstory that only Japanese readers are supposed to recognize the ultimate cope for anyone that doesn't believe queena could have died to a set of stairs time and time again over the years I'd been told that in Japan falling down the stairs is a euphemism for committing suicide this is something I've seen people parrot over and over and over without verifying if this is actually true I'm here to tell all of you that it's not it is not a euphemism for any form of self-harm as a matter of fact anywhere in Japan neither my wife nor her friends all of whom are native Japanese readers of One Piece have ever heard of such a thing nor have they ever got the impression from the Zorro flashback that queen of falling down the stairs was a metaphor for something else when I attempted to Google the answers just to make sure I couldn't find anything confirming the euphemism either what I did find was was a threat on Reddit with the top post claiming that it's fake and that apparently this was a nonsense rumor started on the one piece subreddit itself just goes to show how easily misinformation can spread translation barriers have a ton of power on the internet man sometimes all you got to do is attach in Japan or Oda once said to the front of a completely statement and at least some people out there will believe it and then tell it to other people who then tell it to other people until all of us are just repeating some untrue nonsense and whether it was out of an innocent fan desire for more depth Zorro's backstory took a hit from this the hardest among the straw hats because the queen of euphemism rumor is by far one of the most popular ones I've seen and it's led to a fundamental misunderstanding of the actual reason queen died she died by complete accident there is no metaphor here some people will say she didn't die or something and you know maybe it's tashigi and okay fine but until Oda reveals that twist queena actually fell down the stairs and died and queena was robbed of her life by the will of the heavy Evans by fate and by death itself in my opinion her death is supposed to represent how fragile strength and Life by extension really is no matter how strong you are whether you're the best or not death comes for all of us didn't expect to get existential on azoro video but here we are anyway queen of wazura's mihawk before mihawk in fact Queen a shared Zorro's dream to become the world's greatest swordsman she was this Untouchable unbeatable figure standing in his way no matter how strong he thought he was she was always able to beat him however while Zoro was frustrated with his weakness she was also burdened by her own Queen believed that she would never become the strongest swordsman because of being a woman because of characteristics Beyond her control she believed that fate had prevented her from achieving her dream Zorro believed none of that mattered and that you can become the best simply if you worked hard enough on one hand we have a child prodigy with natural Talent who believes they are limited by Fate on the other we have a competitive overachiever who works incredibly hard to conquer fate they complement each other's nature and so Zorro being the competitive one made a promise with her they share the same dream so one day they should fight each other for the title despite quina being the stronger swordsman Zorro had the personal and spiritual strength to keep her from giving up too soon he treated her as his equal as a rival and gave her a newfound hope in Her Dream surely a major turning point in her life's journey and then she died the person who Zoro was striving so hard to beat the person who he deeply admired died suddenly and without warning in a completely random inconsequential way Zorro was suddenly faced with an even greater more terrifying opponent than queena someone who beat her before he could and someone who would eventually come for him as well death her dream was cut short by the same forces as she felt imprisoned by forces Beyond her control every other martyr character in flashbacks tends to die in some Grand fashion often willfully choosing to die in order to save the life of another and typically pass on their will in the process queena didn't really have that she wasn't saving anyone from anything her death didn't serve some greater purpose she didn't leave behind any final impactful words for Zorro no just the night before she died Queen and Zorro made a promise together that now could no longer be fulfilled and the worst part is there's no one we can blame this on unlike most other backstories in one piece this one has no villain there's no physical bad guy in this entire thing the driving force of this event in zoro's life and the force behind Queen is life ending is not a physical person but a conceptual one death himself the villain of his flashback is the Grim Reaper what did Zoro say after Queen had died that Hill become such a master swordsman that his name will be known even in heaven not too far off in concept from a man only dies when he's forgotten he wants his name to reach heaven where even after he dies his legacy is the greatest will live on forever but this is not simply a selfish goal he isn't striving for the top out of some blind pursuit of strength it's to avenge the death of his friend to make her death have a purpose queena was robbed of her dream while other characters got to pursue their own and leave their work behind for the Next Generation Queen had never even got the chance to start and so two sword Zorro became three sword Zoro he took it upon himself to carry on her dream to conquer death and bring her sword with him on his journey to be the strongest so that when he finally accomplishes that goal so does she so that even in death Queen lives her sword the wado ichimonji is translated as the straight path to Harmony an app description of Zorro's unwavering resolve towards achieving the dream harmoniously shared between these two characters when Zorro and mihawk eventually fight for the title through this sword queena will be there fight fighting with him he's bringing her along for the journey and all of that is communicated in so few panels but the impact it has on us makes Zorro an extremely easy character to root for because what drives him is not a selfish goal to become the best but a selfless desire to fulfill the wishes of a dearly departed friend like Zorro said he wants to become so strong that not even death can stop him that until he achieves his goal the Grim Reaper won't be able to take his life away in the end zoro's backstory and his goal are indirectly a Revenge plot against the course of nature against the circle of life and against the wheel of fate but most importantly against death which is why he has all of these allusions to being the king of hell and ashra Grim Reaper Etc the first time we meet the guy he's on death row he's made references to the gates of Hades and has moves named demon cutter in Dead Man's game his whole deal at least thematically is being a demon cutting monsters and facing death head on cursed blades or azoro calls them probably children are simply blades that are the best at killing and he's conquered every cursed blade he has touched in Longtown he gets a cursed sword after meeting a queen a lookalike and Thriller bark he got one from fighting the ghost of Queen's ancestor and in wano he acquires another sword enma from the homeland of Queen's family taking it even further enma is named after the king of hell and Shinto and Buddhism and while on the west we consider the devil to be the king of hell and death to be a skeleton and a cloak in the East enma is both the king of hell and the representation of death they are not separate in other words Zorro's newest sword is basically named after death himself and Zorro uses this sword to become the king of Hell at least symbolically the list goes on and it's all because of this moment right here so how in the world does this all relate to King well allow me to describe king for a bit and see if you notice any similar themes here King formerly named Albert is a man who was hunted and whose family and friends were probably killed all because of their race King was subjected to a horrible childhood purely because of circumstances Beyond his control but whereas queena believed she was inferior because of being born a woman King at least on the surface believed that he was Superior because he was a lunarian king is thought to be Invincible unbeatable he makes Grand statements to Zorro about his race about how because he's a lunarian no matter how hard Zorro Works he won't be able to win and yet his past experiences have left him self-conscious about that very same trait King chooses to hide his face at all times and kills any and all who know about his identity in other words his greatest strength is also his greatest insecurity in fact there's an underlying running theme among zoro's opponents of being insanely strong or talented but having some sort of insecurity or fault holding them back Kaku is a cipher pull Prodigy a regular badass but has an obtrusively large nose and his new devil fruit power was really funny looking in heavy contrast with the image he likes to maintain which ultimately made him very self-conscious Monet brought up yet again the whole theme of going easy on her because she's a woman Pico is really tough looking but had an incredibly high-pitched voice that he was ashamed of and now we have King a man who changed his name and hides his face because he doesn't want the world to know his identity this sort of thing even extends into Egghead island with s-hawk having that extra little bit of humanity in comparison to the person he's supposed to be imitating I guess that's what makes mihawk the ultimate opponent for Zorro isn't it since he lacks any obvious Achilles heel he's cold sharp and unwavering not unlike a sword itself similarly by Design king and the lunarians by extension are meant to emulate some kind of biblical angel that much is clear by this point but I think it's not just any Angel but the concept of a fallen angel that's being referenced here I've spoken Ad nauseam on this channel about all the visual connections between King and Lucifer a fallen seraphim from the Bible who became the devil that fall from grace resulting partially due to insecurity in hubris and from what I can tell there's all this angel devil and death symbolism we see with King and his physical design which by the way is in and of itself an overt reference to Angel of Retribution by Judas Priest so for Kings specifically there's plan plenty of possible sources of inspiration another being possibly Azrael the angel of death who is also often depicted in all black with black wings once again an Eastern culture's death and the king of hell are the devil or whatever are often equated with each other so the theme is prevalent here when big mom tried invading wano who was sent to take them out king when kaido killed Orochi on the live stage who handed him to Executioner's sword King so Zorro is basically fighting the Visage of death here the right-hand man to the king of Oni and he manages to defeat him using a sword very clearly cursed explicitly named after the king of Hell Zorro starts the wano arc after being accused of a crime and forced to commit harakiri he fights against the man literally named Killer who fights him using sides and despite taking a scythe to the body Zorro just smirks at death and comes out on top he's later spurred into anger by the public execution of a friend who died in the same manner that Zoro was supposed to die back in the beginning of the story and he ultimately fights a caricature of the Angel of Death all in defense of Queen's ancestral home this fight is not about becoming the greatest swordsman it is the culmination of Zorro's struggles against the very enemy that claimed Queen Is Life Death fate and the forces of nature perfectly represented by a pirate crew themed around the animal kingdom and suddenly this panel with the Grim Reaper here makes a lot more sense at least thematically you might think well if only Oda put it that way if only he made it clear and made that Queen a connection for us but the thing is he did and I haven't given him enough credit in the past for doing that because part of the way into the fight with King Zorro thinks back to his past he thinks back to the day Queen had died and when he decided to take her sword he remembers another conversation back with Sukiyaki where he learned that enma his brand new sword was made by the same person who made the watto ichimonji shimotsuki kozaburo queena's grandfather his first thought of koziburo is not of their conversation but rather of the day he died and of Queen a crying at the funeral only after which we see a scene where kozaburo gives Zorro his first two swords and explains to him that swords are tools of death and a master swordsman is one who controls that tool not the other way around he explains that there's no such thing as cursed swords only quality swords which can only be wielded by quality Swordsmen and he finishes by telling us that he once made a sword his greatest creation ever his Masterpiece named after the king of Hell surely a sword only a true Master of the blade can tame zoro's growth happens in this fight when he begins to tame enma and literally conquer death because the moment this realization hits him and he understands that this blade in front of him is testing his swordsmanship Zorro does something special he officially unlocks and Taps into conquerors hockey the haki of the Supreme King he tames enma and acquires the resolve to fulfill his promise not only to his captain but to his best friend Zorro's Ascension towards becoming the best truly picked up here so you intend to be a king a fitting question coming from this man but not just for all the obvious reasons sure his name is King a name he wears with pride But ultimately it was only granted to him by a much more powerful Dragon every King in one piece has to answer to a dragon but what about the king of Swordsmen not the greatest swordsman the king shimotsuki ryuma zoro's look-alike and most importantly queen as ancestor the likely reason she is so naturally gifted with the blade ryuma is a man who accomplished zoro's dream his name reached the heavens so much so that he's still well known and spoken of hundreds of years after his death I mean Zoro literally had to fight his corpse ryuma back in his original manga monsters was a Wandering swordsman who saves a town from a terrifying dragon and this dragon's power was abused by a guy that looks like mihawk not really any other way to put it he looks like mihawk throughout the manga ryuma keeps hearing rumors around town about some impressive Master swordsman named King and this King guy seemed to have such a reputation that ryuma hoped he could fight him one day the irony of this is revealed at the end where after he kills the dragon and defeats this douchebag we find out that ryuma himself is the nameless swordsman everyone keeps calling the king and he's blissfully unaware that the man he's hoping to meet and fight is actually himself the manga leaves us by telling us that ryuma the king is a man who carries the world's greatest Warrior's Soul so when I look back at one piece and this fight in particular certain details now have a lot more impact we have a character literally called King who serves a massive Dragon Zoro fights against both using two swords made by ryuma's ancestor through honing his Warrior soul and his fighting Spirit he acquires conquerors hockey and strives for the level of King himself King conjures up a massive dragon and Zorro cuts that dragon and defeats King paralleling the ryuma panel and making his Evolution into a conqueror complete with this fight Zorro took one step close sort of becoming a king himself by defeating an angel and conquering death Zorro took one step closer to his name reaching heaven and maybe this was also a step closer to shimotsuki Queen his name living on in Legend alongside his own just like shimotsuki ryuma did long before them and that's why this fight is so damn cool thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed today's video sorry I didn't have as many jokes this time but I felt like this one called for a more serious approach before you go if you like the discussion today make sure to like And subscribe to keep the music alive and with that I'm out see you next time [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: The Hidden Island

Views: 66,475

Keywords: Sword God Zoro, Zoro vs King The Making of a Sword God, Zoro vs King, Zoro, King, vs, The Truth About, One Piece, The Hidden Island, Analysis, Zoro Wano, Zoro SBS, Family Tree, SBS, Oda, Onigashima, Zoro fight, Theory, One Piece anaylsis, Ryuma, Zoro Ryuma, Wano analysis, Wano, Kaido, ZKK, Zoro Reaper, Death, Zoro Death, Kuina, Explained, Manga, Anime, Mihawk, first mate, pirate hunter, zoro backstory, asura, grim reaper, King fight, One Piece theory, GLR, Ohara, Tekking101, conquerors haki

Id: ksnUvD9K600

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 04 2023