Why Crocodile Was The Villain One Piece NEEDED

you know the most important thing about making videos about fictional pirates on the Internet is to have a good hook and uh here it is this is Sir crocodile and he quite literally single-handedly because of the hook changed the tone of the entire series crocodile is the iconic gold standard of villainy and we're going to analyze why that is especially because if you compare crocodile to more modern antagonists then on paper crocodile Falls a little bit short but on different paper the actual manga paper crocodile managed to do something that no villain before him and arguably no villain after him managed to accomplish but this is bigger than a single crocodile because ladies and gentlemen of the grand Fleet we are on a mission we are going to rank every major antagonist in one piece in the most comprehensive and exhaustive way possible video by video starting with the legendary sir crocodile so let's figure out what makes crocodile hit so damn hard and the first criteria for an amazing villain is simple it's how much of a threat they actually pose to the protagonist and in crocodile's case that threat can be calculated by the dangerous equation of power multiplied by intelligence because crocodile is an exceptional academic he has a polished understanding of science politics culture and geography in fact there was even that one time where he gave Luffy a geography quiz midf fight okay Straw Hat the prevailing winds in this area always blow from north to south now if this Sandstorm were to head south growing stronger as it went what would lie in its devastating path and then you've got Luffy there making the same face as we all do when we encounter an unexpected question in exam in the grand scheme of things crocodile is nowhere near the most powerful villain in one piece nowhere near if he gets caught up in a 1V one he's losing to almost anyone with a you pretty decent level of strength however crocodile's existing power compounded by his intelligence is what makes him so ridiculously dangerous he's the kind of guy who actively anticipates his plans failing so he has backups and even backups for his backups like the ludicrous situation with the bom in alaban this makes crocodile quite the overwhelming opponent for l in particular because thinking is very much the thing that he does intend to do which is not to undersell crocodile's pther due to when he appears in the series his abilities are overwhelming smoker was of course the first Thia that the crew ran into but crocodile was the first Thia that Luffy could not run from and had to figure out how to beat a seemingly impossible task and one that Luffy failed at many times crocodile impaled Luffy he buried him alive sucked every bit of moisture out of him and fatally poisoned Luffy there isn't a single round of Luffy versus crocodile where Luffy comes out cleanly on top or arguably on top at all a lot of people forget this but in their final fight crocodile poisoned Luffy and if Robin hadn't had the antidote then Luffy would have died right then and there so even at the very end when his entire plan had come undone he still had a backup remaining to ensure that at least he wasn't going down alone I really cannot emphasize just how much narrative assistance Luffy needed to beat crocodile he needed to be a prophesized son God chosen by Fate to beat crocodile and even then he only barely got the job done and even after getting said job done numerically he didn't even surpass crocodile Luffy got a 100 million Berry Bounty as a result but Oda noted in the SBS of volume 36 that had the world government known that crocodile was the leader of Baro works then his Bounty would have been 162 million Bears so even after being beaten by Luffy crocodile still takes a big old dub there but speaking of Dubs like most things the four kids dub did decrease crocodile's threat as he was the subject to one of my absolute favorite edits in the entire show I love this image so much as instead of impaling Luffy with his hook what crocodile does his artfully drape Luffy's body within the gentle cresant of said hook and Luffy is being mighty Cooperative in this piece of performance art because he just has no reason to let this happen crocodile is also the subject of some non-canon hype in volume 10,089 yes it exists it was said that a fight battle took place between crocodile and Douglas bullet which ended in a draw and this is notable because the only person bullet ever outright lost to was gold D Roger so crocodile forcing bullet into a drawer is pretty wild and honestly completely unbelievable which is which is good why that's why it's not counting but the other thing to address with threat is the sheer scale of crocodile's forces which if you think about it crocodile was kind of like a prototype Emperor with a close crew of trusted officers and an expanded force of 2,000 agents in terms of numbers alone Baro Works was even larger than the Whitebeard Pirates and we had toay painstakingly work our way up the hierarchy just for the opportunity to face off against crocodile himself so even by modern standards crocodile was an incredible threat but our second criteria is motivation and having an understandable motivation is probably crocodile's weakest aspect as a villain as presented to us it's very much I'm evil because I like doing that makes me all happy in the sand pants and in fact what little of his motivation we do have is revealed after Alabaster long after the AR concludes actually but it is revealed that like most most of the greats of the world crocodile was present at rogers's execution for the one piece Beach and was one of thousands who took to the Grand line with the dream of becoming the pirate king and you know it's possible that crocodile was once very similar to Luffy a wideeye dreamer however his dreams were crushed after challenging and losing to Whitebeard which also gave crocodile his trademark Scar and after this event crocodile had a moment of self-reflection and after getting used to how he looked with his new scar which was quite cool actually quite nice and suve in fact crocodile looked so cool that Vega Punk decided to keep that aesthetic feature for S crocodile but crocodile realized that he would never be able to achieve his dream through the standard Avenues of piracy and not only that not only could he the crocodile not achieve his dreams but he started to believe that no one could achieve this dream it was impossible for anyone to become the pirate king full stop so crocodile settled for the next best thing which is check's notes world domination in chapter 165 crocodile says I'm not interested in money or status I want military money night so crocodile definitely haven't given up on becoming pirate king there considering that he needs both wealth and fame for that but you know nothing wrong with narrowing it goals let's focus on Power and with that Focus again it's almost as if crocodile was trying to position himself as an emperor of the sea which makes it a lot funny thinking about the future when buggy accidentally takes that title after crocodile put all of that work into cross Guild but going back to Alabaster crocodile's goal was to make Alabaster his home territory his plan was to consolidate the people under his command after both the rebels and the Royals where they clashed and they died but then he crocodile was there to pick up the pieces in a single night the kingdom will become our Utopia but it doesn't stop there and crocodile's plans for after this event are more akin to what we know of the legendary Rox debec when I become king it will be a simple matter to recruit Pirates to serve under me I will increase my political power until it surpasses that of the world government mine will be a kingdom of Legend and you know whether he knows it or not what crocodile was essentially trying to create was a new ancient Kingdom a new single dominant force one entity that surpassed the powers and influence of the world government this guy was still dreaming big he may have given up on becoming the pirate king but he went and picked something else just as impossible to do so he didn't start dreaming bigger or more conservatively what he started to do his dream adjacent and the really cool thing is that even if everything succeeded on Alabaster you can tell that this whole conflict was just one stage of his plan crocodile isn't the kind of blind fool who does lazy maths like me plus of power equals world domination dot dot dot eventually he knew that pluton had the power to destroy entire Island and I would be shocked if he didn't already have a strategic list of Targets in his mind also small note here after crocodile Reveals His plan king cobra says the world government will never allow it and crocodile just replies probably not and I just like the wording of that because it implies that look maybe if you caught emu on a good day he might allow me to overthrow his entire government probably not but maybe although COC crocodile's plans are pretty funny in retrospect because even if everything went all good what he would have found out is that pluton was buried under wano and you know what good luck taking that from kaider but the tricky thing to figure out is where crocodile makes the leap for world domination and why what is his motivation for that because we know almost nothing about his past and therefore what drives his present all we know is what not why which means that you couldn't copypaste crocodile into a modern one piece art he'd end up feeling quite Hollow but that's more or less irrelevant because he was in the right place at the right time he was a perfect early series villain it's forgivable because again it was so early on this was long before Oda started to do his standard give the antagonist to flesh CH storyline and I mean long before that wouldn't really start until the post times skip error so whilst I would have ideally liked more crocodile definitely gets a pass here but arguably the most important villain criteria is being engaging to the audience the best villains in media usually have the sort of Twisted Charisma something about them that makes you actively want to see them on screen even though every time they appear on screen bad things happen but you want it you sickening audience member and crocodile is one of those villains he has an aura about him that transcends the page that his art is drawn on which is all about a combination of Art and dialogue artistically crocodile is drawn with a lot more detail than most one piece characters if you take a standard closeup of crocodile you'll see that Oda gives him an insane amount of aesthetic attention the lines around his eyes the Contour of his face the shine of his hair the detail of the cigar it's all very deliberately designed to be confronting to create a character who is aesthetically one or two stops closer to realism than what odor usually offers with one piece it makes crocodile feel like a living breathing entity to you the reader and I want to remind you that that closeup was from early one piece in modern one piece this is pretty standard but back in early one piece most faces were completely flat you just did not see this kind of detail very often and to demonstrate the effect of this I did an experiment where I made a version of crocodile if he was drawn in OD standard more flat style at the time and whilst there's still the bones of a compelling character there there's no denying that he loses the majority of his villainous atmosphere art alone is not enough though so I also want to highlight some of crocodile's dialogue because he has some of the Flatout coldest lines in one piece history my absolute favorite crocodile quote is from chapter 204 when Luffy tells him to return what he stole and crocodile is genuinely dumbfounded by the question and has to make a grocery list of crimes just to narrow it down what thing I stole money honor trust life the rain and it's just like damn it puts into perspective just how far he's willing to go and how meticulous he is to remember each and every horrible thing he's done before crocodile I had never felt so threatened to my core in this series because everything he lists is accurate so what isn't he capable of taking away and honestly during Alabaster the only thing crocodile seemed incapable of was being stopped another thing I find particularly compelling about crocodile is his Dynamic with Luffy crocodile is of course the straight man to Luffy's clown as well as the morati to Luffy Sherlock let me explain Luffy is the only person in this entire Saga who is capable of outthinking crocodile because crocodile sharpened mind does not have the capacity to anticipate Luffy's left field Logic for example Luffy has a bit of a cool line when he confronts crocodile for the second time he points at crocodile in your traditionally accusatory Manner and he States that's why you stole the rain because you're afraid of water which is such a fantastic Luffy conclusion that's not why crocodile stole alabaster's rain it had nothing to do with it but in Luffy's mind that makes perfect sense water is his weakness so of course he took the water away that brilliant dastardly villain but for an example that actually helped how about when Luffy was able to find crocodile in the Tomb simply because he spotted a set of stairs and thought to himself that hole looks crocodile is crocodile again foiled by Luffy's unique thought process which is a very kind way of putting it I said earlier that Luffy was capable of outthinking crocodile let's not entirely accurate but Luffy is essentially immune to a lot of crocodiles logic so it often does genuinely feel like a battle of intelligence just as much as it is power especially because crocodile and Luffy spend so much time interacting with one another much more time than any villain who came before crocodile plus crocodile does have some fun compelling quirks something that a lot of people Miss is that during impel down after being freed crocodile appears in his own clothes instead of the prison outfits of the others keep this is because crocodile took the time and effort in UK Comm to go through their clothing options and put together a bit of an outfit we don't see this happen in the manga but the anime even has one of the candies fitting his shoes and just what a boss even in the closest thing this world has to a literal hell crocodile just has to style all over everyone else he would be a perfect fit in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure which I think is best epitomized by this liveaction crocodile in the one piece Premiere Show 2014 because just look at that magnificent face but everything I've mentioned is essentially irrelevant without a satisfying payoff everything else is all about building the sand castle that we get to knockdown and crocodile more than satisfies what I love about this climax is that Luffy needed a clever solution to beat crocodile and that that rarely happens in one piece the solution is usually just punch harder or bigger or punch more because Luffy's final fights tend to be a bit of an endurance contest but on this occasion he had to come up with the brilliant idea of using his own blood plus during the climax crocodile makes it personal Luffy up until this point has mostly for the sake of others which is how this begins as well as Luffy of course agrees to help Vivy but crocodile makes this a personal obstacle for Luffy by insulting his ambition to become the pirate king and that's why Luffy's iconic I will defeat you hits so so hard in the end what's tipping Luffy over the edge here isn't Vivy it isn't Alabaster it isn't his crew it's his personal ambition the straw hat that broke the crocodiles back punched him through solid bedrock and may be the most iconic villain defeat in all of One Piece however because this is one piece a truly great villain needs to satisfy one extra criteria which is to have a satisfying character arck and like all of the best villains in one piece I think that crocodile only becomes a stronger character after his tenure as a main antagonist there's a hint right at the end of alabaster where crocodile tells Luffy the more you know about the sea the more impossible such dreams will seem which hints that crocodile's tragic dream shattered past but more importantly how does crocodile change as a direct result of his conflict with Luffy well I think the most important change is that whilst crocodile may have given up on his dream to become the pirate king he goes on to develop a certain level of respect for Luffy and perhaps even the seed of an idea that Luffy is the one who could accomplish what he thought was impossible and this comes much later in chapter 578 where crocodile saves Luffy from sakazuki at that moment he yells a jinbe if you want to protect something do it right don't let them have their way which is a pretty huge step forward for crocodile during his time in The alabasta Saga crocodile had a very black and white View on every situation he found himself in whatever was happening he knew the outcome and there was no hope of changing it however now he's renewed to the point where he's willing to attack a marine Admiral in the Hope just the hope that Luffy will live crocodile never would have done this before he would have seen sakazuki gun for Luffy and he would have considered it a done deal and then when the Whitebeard Pirates join in sakazuki says is every single one of you willing to die for the sake of that kid which is brilliant because it's the exact same question that crocodile had on Alabaster he genuinely had no idea why Luffy was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of a quote friend or two but now after his encounter with Luffy crocodile is standing on the other side of that question because he gets it now and he's looking at sakazuki with a sense of disdain because he knows that H that used to be me I can't believe I was like that this is so cringe and after the Paramount War crocodile even gets his very own Naka in Mr one during Alabaster crocodile very much mocks Luffy for doing things like having friends and also caring about said friends but now look at this crocodile has gone and made a friend and to really Hammer this home we have the greatest piece of character development in one piece history my favorite image of Sir crocodile ever is the cover page of chapter 860 where he's holding an umbrella over a very cold puppy very cute image but it hits a lot harder than you may think firstly remember that crocodile is weak to water so here he's making himself completely vulnerable for the sake of a young puppy and secondly it's also a very clever callback because during his final fight with Luffy crocodile called Luffy a pup so instead of crushing the dreams of young pups here crocodile is now nurturing said puppies at his own personal expense this is Peak character development and yes I know it was not request and therefore probably not Cannon but I don't care even if it's not Cannon I take it as a metaphorical shift but look the best part is that even after having his dreams obliterated twice once by Whitebeard and once by Luffy crocodile is still at active most villains lose to Luffy and they're done but not crocodile you cannot keep him down and even though this may not have been his plan he's now put into a position to go after the one piece and is back on track to pursue his original dream so crocodile is the gold standard not just for one piece villains but villains in meteor in general I honestly don't know if it gets better than him for One Piece we're going to find out but to open up this series we are going to start with placing crocodile in the S tier but you let me know in the comments which one piece villain would you like to see analyzed and ranked next

Channel: GrandLineReview

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Id: 3cHt2W9oSL8

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2024