#ch538

[opbackgrounds]

It really is quite fascinating to me that Magellan went up against Shiryu for killing prisoners willy-nilly when he's done the exact thing several times over the course of the arc, not to mention all the times he poisoned his own men, both accidentally and not.

I suppose if I had to pinpoint the difference between them it would be that Magellan's displays of force have been in service to his authority, whereas Shiryu just likes killing people. Magellan thinks that ruling Impel Down with an iron fist is the only way to keep the prisoners in line, so he's quick to pull out the poison hydra even if he gets no personal pleasure out of it. But at the end of the day the result is the same, and if anything Magellan's poison is a crueler fate than getting your throat cut by Shiryu.

[hubbe98]

Do you wanna announce it? Natsu-

Natsu?

[opbackgrounds]

Iva's best case prognosis for Luffy was that his treatment would take two full days, with another several days after that to fully recover. That's practically a decade in shonen manga years, so of course Luffy does it in less than half the time

But I don't think he manages it without Bon Clay, and despite the initial discouragement from the other Newkamas, Bon inspires them to do the same.

As Iva makes clear earlier this chapter, Luffy is on the hook for making his own miracle, but just as important as individual will are the countless others who prop him up as he muddles his way through life.

It's the exact point that Luffy made when fighting against Arlong way back in the East Blue: Yeah, he's strong enough to beat up the big bad evil guy, but he needs help managing everything else, in a continuous cycle of people helping people achieve their dreams.

[opbackgrounds]

Between this, and the strain of repeatedly using Gear 2 there's been a lot of back and forth within the fandom whether Luffy will die or not at the of the series. I myself have changed my mind a couple different times, but whatever the case Luffy isn't going to live to old age. I think this works for him, as Oda has said in multiple interviews that he writes Luffy as his idealized view of a child, it's hard to envision him in a state where he no longer has his youth

[opbackgrounds]

We see very little of Luffy's time recovering from Magellan's poison, but what we do get is quite harrowing. Oda really leaned into body/medical horror, which is befitting for how bad off he really was, and how insane he is to keep going after Ace.

I want you all to remember this once we hit the end of Marineford. It makes complete sense why Luffy's body just shuts down, because any ordinary person wouldn't have made it as far as he did to begin with

[opbackgrounds]

While it is kind of wild that the prisoners of Level 6 get to spend most of their time not getting tortured, thematically it fits quite well with the rest of the series. We've already seen with Ohara and the Void Century how hard the World Government tries to make inconvenient histories disappear, and way back on Drum Island it was established that people die when they're forgotten. In the One Piece world, being erased from history truly is worse than being forced to walk through a forest of metal spikes or being boiled alive in a cauldron of blood.

[opbackgrounds]

Morely foreshadowing!

[opbackgrounds]

I know Iva's options are pretty limited since everything within Level 5.5 has to come from a literal torture prison, but this is not how you properly restrain medical patients.