I know Law is like THE Revenge Character of One Piece, and that it's over Corazon/Rocinante's sacrifice and death, but while I fully recognise why Law is fucked up and grieving due to that, I feel like a lot of people forget about his familys part in it?
As in, Law's birth family, his father and mother and little sister, and also his teachers and friends/classmates.
The point I'm trying to make here is how Law's upbringing and relationship with his family, and the terrible way he lost them, goes on to shape his relationship with Corazon and his reaction to losing him.
Law is a rare One Piece character who actually had a good childhood, for at least 10 years or so. He was raised by two loving parents, lived in a wealthy and comfortable home, was sent to a good shool to study something that interested him (medicine) and just overall had a pretty nice and peaceful life. His parents(?) or at least his father was a doctor, so I'm sure that Law was taught compassion from an early age, and I feel like that's something that sticks with him even as he goes through horror after horror: Kindness. Compassion. Mercy. All things Doflamingo tried to stamp out of him, and Corazon unwittingly fostered by showing Law all three.
Rocinante didn't make Law kind; he reminded him how to be.
It was a lesson taught to Law by his family first, but suppressed and forgotten about due to a need for self protection and survival. The world was cruel and called Law a monster, so he decided to be one, until Rocinante stepped in and shattered that by treating Law like what he was: a poor, sick, child.
I remember during the flashback of Flevance's destruction, one of Law's classmates say something like, "My parents are dead, but they'd have wanted me to survive. I'm going to live!" (He doesn't)
Meanwhile the Nun tells Law that the soldiers will let the children go (a lie), and that no matter how bad things get, there is still kindness and mercy in the world.
We then cut to the sight of their dead bodies, left spread on the ground where they were gunned down/slaugthered like animals. Law finds his parents in the same manner and watches the hospital with his little sister go up in flames, while she burns alive inside.
All this is to show us how Law loses faith in kindness and mercy.
Then Corazon, a man whose name literally means Heart, comes along and shows Law that no, those things do exist, (though Law will struggle to accepts this for years to come.*)
That's why Law goes on a revenge quest over Cora's murder. Because Corazon gave him his heart back: and I don't just mean the thinly veiled allegory in the form of a heart shaped devil fruit.
The big emotional break through in Law's and Corazon's relationship comes when Cora weeps over Law while he thinks that Law is asleep, and the show of compassion causes Law to cry, because no one else has pitied Law for his illness or misery before that: they've just tried to kill him.
Through his actions, Corazon comes to symbolise something Law had thought lost when he lost his family: unconditional love.
Cora's last direct words to him are, "I love you, Law!" While smiling a big bloody smile, because that's what he wants Law to remember: that he is loved. That even if Law lost the first people to love him, and then the second, Cora represents the hope that as long as Law stays alive, he'll meet more people and receive more love.
That's why you really can't seperate Law's relationship with and loss of his family, from his relationship with and loss of Corazon. The two become interconnected, and Corazon becomes a kind of figurehead representing Law's losses.
Law is just one person. He can't bring down the entire World Government, who caused the destruction of his homeland and the death of his family. But he can conceivably bring down Doflamingo, who symbolises many of the same things, and who killed Corazon.
Ahhh man, I just love the themes of Law's backstory so much. The main one being love and the shapes it takes: mercy, compassion and reciprocity vs. unconditional love, but also; freedom of choice.
They keep cropping up in real time with Law too: What was saving Luffy and Jinbe after Marineford? A whim, according to Law, but also an act of compassion and mercy. I'm sure he'd have saved Ace too, had it been possible for him to do so. Later that act of compassion comes back around to Law, when Luffy teams up with him to bring down Doflamingo-- Luffy becoming the one to finally break the shackles (or should I say strings) that are keeping Law a prisoner to his past, and setting him free.
During the Dressrosa showdown, when Law tries to stay behind, saying he dragged Luffy into this so he should either stay to witness him win, or die together with him if he loses, Robin informs him that Law couldn't have made Luffy do anything. Luffy is free, and is only doing what he wants. There are no secret terms or conditions tied to this.
Again, unconditional love, loss, compassion and freedom.
The other sub plots of Dressrosa are stock full of these themes too. Just looks at Rebecca and Kyros (and Scarlet), or Baby 5 and her whole deal with needing to be needed (to be loved)
*I believe part of Law's revenge is grounded in survivors guilt. After Dressrosa, when Law is still struggling to understand why Rocinante saved him, and brings up the Will of D, Sengoku tells him "Don't try to put a reason behind someone's love" and Law is seen holding back tears, looking like this is when he finally starts to accept it: Rocinante didn't want Law to succeed his mission, he just wanted Law to live, and to do so freely.
In short, Law is such a good character. 10/10, would torture again. I mean hey, it's not my fault that Law looks so pretty when he's covered in blood and suffering. Take it up with Toei/Oda. They know what they're doing
