#ch396

[opbackgrounds]

There are a great many ways to illustrate the difference in size between a regular and ancient giant, but the most fun I think is to compare the difference between Oars Junior and Saul picking up a warship with their bare hands

[iiloffy]

[opbackgrounds]

Something Oda has always excelled at is balancing the huge, earth-shattering events of his world with these intimate moments between characters. The whole island of Ohara is on fire. Five thousand years of history is about to be erased forever, and the reader has just been introduced to a grand conspiracy at the highest levels of government. And yet Oda focuses on this moment between a lonely little girl and her mother. He lets them hold hands. The sense of tragedy on a grand scale is amplified by this glimpse of this heart-wrenching moment on the most personal of levels and vice versa, with each benefiting from the existence of the other.

[opbackgrounds]

I just want to say that by questioning everything he’d been told his entire life and following his personal sense of justice, Saul is one of the most courageous characters in the entire series

[opbackgrounds]

I’ve never really liked how quick Olvia is to leave Robin again. You can make the argument that she thinks Robin has a better chance of surviving with Saul and that her status as a known international criminal would prevent Robin from getting on the evacuation ship, but that’s not the reasoning she gives here. She’s choosing saving the documents at the Library over her daughter.

What makes this interesting is that Robin is more or less given the same choice at Water 7: her dream or the people she loves. And unlike her mother, she chose the people she loves.

[opbackgrounds]

Olvia’s the first person in Robin’s life to affirm her dream, and she’s really the first person to affirm her right to live

[opbackgrounds]

Not Saul having the wherewithal to protect Robin while having a literal cannon shot in his face, and then apologize for scaring her

[opbackgrounds]

This consequence of the Buster Call is something Spandine failed to teach his son. Robin tries to tell Spandam so many times that the Buster Call is indiscriminate, and even at the very end he doesn’t believe her. Part of studying history is learning from the mistakes of the past, but of course these blowhards are too bogged down under the weight of their own inflated egos to understand that.