The Two Types Of Pirates: Cheaters And Kings | Analysis

there's no such thing as fair or unfair when it comes to fighting Pirates right that's a core tenet of one piece that was established from the start of the series and so today when we see the Blackbeard Pirates mercilessly ganging up on an aging GARP resorting to sneak attacks and ambushes much like they once did to take out the Aging Whitebeard a lot of readers might say well that's just how Pirates fight there are no rules however what many readers completely Miss is the unspoken yet clear significant distinction in how Oda writes the two types of pirates in his story it's not about good guys or bad guys either rather it's the cheaters versus the strong yes no pirate expects or demands that other Pirates fight fair however the strongest Pirates the ones with the greatest Wills the ones that have the true makings of a king those pirates will always simply prefer to fight fairly themselves even if the opponent chooses to cheat this is the constant consistent choice of the strongest throughout the series that's right Oda established the rule of pirates that anything goes including cheating yet at the same time chose to show that every single truly great pirate deliberately breaks this rule of pirates and chooses to fight honorably instead and that is what makes the great Pirates great in a story that is all about the strength of one Spirit there is no more fitting a way to delineate the difference between which Pirates truly have what it takes to make it to the top versus the type of pirates that at the end of the day will always Simply Be Pretenders to the throne and today we will break down this key overarching difference in how Pirates are written across the entirety of one piece and most importantly the simple reason that the Blackbeard Pirates despite being the most piratey of pirates are ultimately destined to fall short of the top by virtue of this very pirate nature but first I need to ask you are you eating something right now or are you just hungry 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description below so that aside what's so interesting about one piece is that while it is a series about Pirates the very traits it actually celebrates tend to be the exact opposite of how most real pirates historically operated honor loyalty bravery these are all things that are actually put on a pedestal in one piece the grandest most respected Pirates all embody these virtues to an exaggerated degree traits like cowardice deceit betrayal selfishness and yes cheating all of these classic traits that we traditionally associate with pirates are actually generally assigned to particularly slimy villains who are meant to ultimately be defeated by Our Heroes this is because throughout the story Oda goes out of his way to make clear that the only real pirate ideal that is actually being glorified in the story is simply the drive for Freedom the drive to carve one's own destiny that is the true virtue of being a pirate that Luffy embodies but all the less Savory traditional pirate traits are only ever portrayed in a negative light see the big misconception that many readers have is that just because Luffy accepts that cheating is fair game in a pirate's fight that Luffy himself is okay with cheating to win that's not the case all this means is that Luffy's not going to complain if the other person cheats but Luffy himself is going to win the way that he chooses and Luffy is of course always going to naturally choose the harder path that feels more earned we see this most clearly in the katakuri fight Luffy is stabbed and severely injured due to a third party meaning that it's not a fair 1v1 fight now Luffy doesn't complain Luffy makes it clear that he doesn't mind as you can't complain about fair or unfair in a pirate's duel however at the same time it is established that just because Luffy doesn't mind the opponent using unfair tactics Luffy himself refuses to stoop to something like that it is made clear that Luffy he had the option of waiting things out outside the mirror world and allowing katakuri to get drained of his strength by being forced to maintain his observation hockey but Luffy does not want to win that way Luffy outright wants to beat him at full strength in a fair fight as that is the only way to surpass him and so Luffy chooses to fight katakuri straight up that's the key difference Luffy is always approaching each challenge with a goal at every step of his journey the recurring Mantra is I will surpass you that is the purpose of each fight every opponent is an opportunity a stepping stone to get closer and closer to becoming pirate king and Luffy will not feel satisfied becoming the pirate king through any sort of shortcuts for instance Luffy hates the idea of just stealing the road poneoglyphs and sneaking his way to one piece without actually having to overcome the yonko as to Luffy pirate king is only earned if he surpasses the Emperors competing for it Luffy will never accept any sort of shortcut in this race just as Luffy will not accept any sort of shortcut in a fight he wants to win through his own strength the same reason Luffy ultimately decides to fight katakuri without cheating is the same reason Luffy ultimately decides that he wants to fight kaido by himself this is what the strongest wheeled Pirates do the strongest wheeled Pirates do not cheat this is a canonical fact about Luffy by the way it should be evidenced simply from reading the manga but Oda has also outright confirmed in SPS form that Luffy hates winning through cheating to the point that Luffy would not even use futuresight to win a simple game of rock paper scissors Luffy's drive to do things the right way and avoid fighting unfairly is so extreme that he literally chooses to yell out his moves when fighting fujitora because even though he desperately wants to win he doesn't think it would be fair to fight a blind man even a marine Admiral without at least letting him know what moves he's going to do and this same characteristic of Luffy of not wanting to cheat a victory is the same thing that we see with all other strong-willed Pirates katakuri is a pirate too he knows that all is technically fair in a pirate's duel but there is something that goes beyond being a pirate which is one's own sense of honor and spirit and that is what drives katakuri to even the playing field before resuming his fight with Luffy and note right here that the reason katakuri no longer thinks that Luffy is below his level is not because Luffy has suddenly impressed him in combat as all Luffy did was get hit by an attack the moment that katakuri decided that Luffy was on his level is when he saw how Luffy responded to the unfair cheap shot which was to not complain about it and keep going katakuri can now see that Luffy is Cut From the Same Cloth as him and Carries that same strong Spirit which is symbolically followed up with both of them flexing their disposition of the king something that weak cheaters such as flambe both literally and figuratively cannot stand in the face of see that's the unwritten rule in a pirate's duel cheating is allowed but in a duel between Kings there is no place for such a thing we see this type of mentality among all great pirates with powerful hockey and strong Wills they only want what they deem as a fair fight they want to conquer their opponent in a true Victory mihawk won't even fight Shanks now that Shanks has lost an arm kaido to this day bemoans the fact that he only defeated Odin due to outside interference and actually this headstrong conqueror spirit is so absurd that whereas someone like Queen will happily rely on a surprise attack and sea Stone to capture big mom kaido views something like that as such a false victory that kaido will literally unchain a captive big mom and give her back her weapon so that he can defeat her straight up that is what it means to be a king remember kaido and big mom were not not on the same side at this point this wasn't kaido doing a friend a favor at this moment they still very much hated each other and had been literally trying to kill each other for years they did reconcile off screen after the duel but at this moment in time kaido literally has one of his lifelong most hated enemies his number one yonko rival one of the only three other people he needs to eliminate to become pirate king sitting there tied up and completely helpless in front of him and he doesn't even think twice about letting her go so that he can defeat her the right way and the crazy thing is big mom seems to be completely expecting this reaction and is ready to go herself she is a yonko just as much as kaido and she knows that this is how the strong do things that's why this moment of silent unquestioned honor between the strong is immediately followed fittingly by the splitting of the sky as it's a clash between two great uncompromising Wills this all goes back to the main idea of the story of One Piece even though the series is technically framed around Pirates the further we go the more we realize that the story is really more so about dominion over the seas individuals are simply labeled Pirates by the government to maintain a semblance of authority over the world but in reality the strongest Pirates are their own Sovereign entities Emperors in their own right all competing to become king of the ocean this is a story of Kings masquerading as a story of pirates which is why towards the top we see that those that have climbed the highest and achieved the most have done so precisely because they have the spirit of kings and act and approach the world with the disposition of a king it is the weaker earlier opponents like Don Creek foxy crocodile and so on that act more like traditional pirates in their approach to battles happily cheating then falling short and then failing to understand why they don't have what it takes to reach the highest level of the sea it should be noted that even though this is more common among villains it isn't even really a distinction between good and bad pirates as I said at the beginning it's a distinction between cheaters and the strong because even protagonists like law and Capone beige while successful pirates in their own right are nothing compared to the likes of Shanks Whitebeard kaido and so on as law and Capone beige are ultimately cheaters and schemers law is brave in combat of course but ultimately he's always trying to think up of some clever plan or scheme to eliminate his opponents without actually having to fight them straight up just as beige tries to do there's a reason that these characters are not conquerors hockey users as they are very clearly written differently than the Kings they are great Pirates yes but they do not have the disposition of the king as the strongest pirates with the disposition of the king whether they be good or evil will always prefer to earn their victories through their own strength and nothing else and then finally we have Blackbeard he's the one exception to this rule whereas all these other cheating scheming Pirates across the story seem to have a set limit to their success as after all none of their schemes or dirty tactics or cheating will ever allow them to reach the true level of the strongest Blackbeard has managed to actually break that glass ceiling in a sense he's the one pirate who seems to actually have managed to climb towards the top of the ladder and be a true final Contender for One Piece while still genuinely acting like a pirate rather than a king among the strongest Pirates Blackbeard the one dirty player is the anomaly not the norm there's a reason that Whitebeard knows instinctively that out of everyone competing for the one piece Blackbeard of all people does not deserve it I talk about this more at lent in my analysis of Blackbeard but the point is that whereas Luffy always avoids cheating and shortcuts climbing up the ladder to King through overcoming challenges head on Blackbeard is a cheater through and through through he'll avoid every challenge that he can and take every shortcut that he can he'll backstab his crewmates he'll Ambush his old Captain when he's weakened he'll never take on a fight that he doesn't think he can win he'll stock up on powerful devil fruits Blackbeard embodies all the negative stereotypical traits of pirates and the way that his crew fights reflects that as seen in their match with GARP I definitely believe that's a large aspect of why Oda deemed it necessary to give Blackbeard multiple overpowered devil fruits as the rest of the anko good or bad have made it to the top mainly through their strength of spirit their hockey and indeed the true defining characteristic of the pirate king should be to have the strongest haki Blackbeard as the one exception and the least deserving is the only one who got to the top through devil fruits instead which doesn't represent one's Spirit at all and in fact both of Blackbeard's fruits reflect his foul play as he earned both of them by backstabbing and taking advantage of his former crew mates and Captain in fact Blackbeard is such a cheater that he even Breaks the Rules of devil fruits themselves by eating multiple fruits when you should only be able to eat one his very abilities seem to be the definition of cheating the system so looking at Blackbeard and the Blackbeard Pirates I think we can applaud them for having actually made it this far by being a group of cheating conniving scum in a world where honor and a courageous Spirit actually tends to get you further it's certainly interesting to see a group of pirates that genuinely Act Like Pirates being set up to be the final Rivals of the straw hat crew but at the same time let's not forget what these Blackbeard Pirates are at the end of the day which is a group of bums a ragtag group of corrupt pathetic figures that have stolen most of their power by murdering for devil fruits even their first mate would rather fight with sneak attacks than actual hockey confrontations But ultimately in the one-piece World cheaters don't Prosper the Blackbeard Pirates are set up to be the perfect and final example of how following the wrong path will ultimately come back to bite you and that there is Merit to taking the hardest more honorable course as Luffy and the straw hats have always done that is the very reason that they're being written to be the straw Hat's final opponents for one piece to showcase the difference between the right and wrong path once and for all so I'm tired of hearing readers spit back the idea that all cheating is allowed in Pirates duels because it's missing the point of the message that is actually being demonstrated consistently throughout the story don't let crocodile's words from back then fool you there's a reason that he never understood the true level of the seas because while it's true that pirates don't fight fair the pirate king doesn't need to cheat so let me know your thoughts on the pirate code below and if you enjoyed this video definitely like And subscribe and you can get my thoughts on the specific characterizations of each crew in terms of cheating versus playing it fair in my extended thoughts podcast by supporting me on page just hit the link in the description below

Channel: Mr Morj

Views: 75,955

Keywords: Shanks, Blackbeard, Blackbeard Pirates, Shiryu, Vasco Shot, Shanks vs Blackbeard, One Piece Analysis, One Piece

Id: 0K3do5xkhfE

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023