ONE PIECE SPOILERS!! (Dressrosa arc)
I want to talk about Luffy and Sabo a little bit!
I finally got to see Sabo and Luffy's first conversation in the colloseum and it made me realize some things.
I really admire Luffy as a character. I think a lot of people would agree its inspiring how tenacious he is, and until now, I think I've been dehumanizing him by putting him on this pedestal. He genuinely made me feel like he could overcome anything, and this scene helped ground me a little bit. Here, when Luffy hugs Sabo, he tells him that he "Let Ace die".
It's been proven to me again and again that Luffy's a very resilient kid. He's always dealt with the problems he's faced in a productive way. When Aokiji's ice almost froze him and Robin to death, he invented Second and Third Gear. When Ace died, instead of reuniting with the straw hats, he stayed with Rayleigh and got stronger.
Because of how good he is at learning the right lessons and moving on, I assumed he'd never look back at the past and blame himself for not being able to save Ace, since that would be "counterproductive", i guess. And this scene reminded me of his humanity in the best way possible. It felt like a slap to the face, because of course he's human! I was wrong about him and AHH I love being wrong about a character! 😭😭
Now looking back, of course he'd blame himself!! Ever since he was a child, he's been terrified of being alone. And he's always done what he wants to do all his life. He loves people, and he loves loving them! Of course it'd eat him up losing someone he cared about so much, and of course his mind kept running laps trying to think of how he could have possibly saved Ace!
And this part!! The way this scene reads, the way their dynamic was depicted here. Sabo knows that Luffy blames himself!
When Luffy says he "Let Ace die", Sabo responds "I know." But he's obviously not blaming Luffy, he's just saying he gets it. And he tells him how happy he is that Luffy survived, thanking him -in a way- for making it out alive.
It took Sabo mere moments to fit into the older brother role during this conversation, it was second nature to him. It made me emotional how composed he was throughout the whole thing, because that's his little brother! He'd die a thousand deaths before he let Luffy get hurt ever again, even if what's hurting him is his own thoughts.
Also another thing. The fact that Sabo never hugged Luffy back during this entire conversation. And me, being the impatient idiot that i am, I got PISSED OFF. Because i'm a little stupid. But hear me out.
I've thought for so long (Since Usopp and Luffy's fight in Water 7) that Oda consistently gives his "cooler" characters (Like zoro) this stupid "man pride" -and hey, maybe he does, idk but thats not my point-. And I thought thats what Sabo had going on in this scene. Maybe he was "too cool" to hug Luffy back, or maybe he felt it'd be showing weakness to a younger brother, and he couldn't afford that, or something. But I decided to stop looking at it that way during this scene. And before I could fully process my decision to change my perspective, another scene happened.
Sabo sat next to a sleeping Luffy, did not let the straw hats wake Luffy up, told them his story, and left. As he leaves, he also expresses he was happy that he managed to see Luffy's face.
That's when I was like oh, its just Sabo. He watched over Luffy the entire arc, showed up when he was needed, and disappeared again. That's how he loves. He loves from a distance, he shows it by constantly being there for you when you need it, but never being too much in your face about it.
But I don't know Sabo too well yet, and knowing my history w/ fictional characters I'm probably a little wrong about him too. But yeah! I really enjoyed this episode, made me super emotional. Reminded me how human Luffy is. Hashtag my goat
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