So I just reblogged this gif of young Sanji showing his hurt hand to Zeff && he looks kind of afraid but also kind of like he knows he's messed up. && it got me thinking of how Sanji would have expected Zeff to treat him based on how his own father had treated him. What are your thoughts on Sanji's early experiences with his dad? (Zeff is his dad and anyone who says otherwise can fight me)
Zeff is his dad! ZEFF IS HIS DAD! If anyone asks about his family, he’ll default to the Straw Hats and Zeff ( and the rest of the guys at Baratie. ) Vinsmoke Judge who? Never heard of ‘em. Sounds like an asshole.
As for how he expected Zeff to treat him, he most likely assumed it would be more of the same. Failure would be met with ridicule and disappointment. And it was in a very tough-love way. Zeff wasn’t and never has been soft on him, but he had something very important that Judge didn’t— love. He can hide it all he wants behind a wall of rock-solid grumpiness, but Zeff loves Sanji. He wasn’t good at showing it, but I highly doubt that Zeff thought for one second during his career as a pirate that a small, mess of a child would be plopped into his lap. There was no time for him to prepare for fatherhood, but there it was! They both worked with what they had.
Sanji wouldn’t have known that at first, though. The first few months were rough as hell, I bet. Little mistakes probably made lil’ Sanji flinch, and he would self-reprimand because he thought it was what he deserved. If an adult wasn’t there to call him a failure, he’d do it himself. And when he did make a mistake in front of Zeff, Zeff would berate him for it and he’d be discouraged a little.
Aaaa it’s so hard because Zeff isn’t super great at parenting either, honestly?? But I feel like over time, Sanji would see the difference between Judge’s hatered for Sanji’s failure and Zeff’s determination to make him better.
Because some people grow up hating that their parents scolded them. Some people, when they were little, thought it was unfair that they were being scolded and corrected and molded. In some cases ( like mine ) I got to the age where I was like, “Oh. . . I see why she was like that now.” Sanji will have reached that point only as a teenager, I think.
As a kid, he would think Zeff is totally an unfair jerk that babies him and won’t let him learn. But there’s something behind it that Judge didn’t have, and I think he’d know it. Not know-know ‘cause he’s a kid, but whatever that feeling is, it makes him want to push back and prove he’d good enough to be as great a cook as Zeff. Whereas with Judge, he didn’t want to push because it might lead to a punishment so bad he wouldn’t come back from it.
Geeze, this is such a messy and convoluted answer.
TL;DR Sanji’s early experiences with Zeff were extremely rough and filled with tough love that he didn’t understand until he was older, but it motivated him to get stronger and get better because Zeff didn’t have the bar set so far out of reach that Sanji kept failing. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he knows now that it was what he needed.
