#ch573

[opbackgrounds]

The crazy thing is, if Luffy doesn't fall down and lose steam, I think there's a decent chance Ace lives--presuming of course he stops fighting Akainu like a fool, which I’ll admit isn’t guaranteed.

It was his gratitude to Whitebeard that slowed him down and his pride in his chosen father that led him to go against Akainu, but in the end Ace gives it all up to save Luffy. I've tried to point out all the times this arc where the focus has been on Ace's tattoo as well as the reiterated theme of wounds on a warrior's back being their shame, because all of Ace's pride as a pirate and a Son of Whitebeard is obliterated in service of saving his brother. Just like how his biological father Roger would face impossible odds to save his friends, and how Luffy does the same for the Straw Hat Pirates.

One Piece is not a series big on redemption nor is Ace a character that needs redeemed, but I do think that there's something to be said about how immediately after Oda shows how Ace's greatest flaws get him into trouble he flips things on their head but letting him die in an act of sacrificial love. Sacrifice without purpose is never portrayed positively within the series, but giving up your life to save the people you love is. Ace doesn't die as a dweeb getting rage-baited by Akainu, but as Luffy's big brother protecting him one last time.

[opbackgrounds]

It's an interesting choice to not put this last statement in a speech bubble. Luffy may not have inside thoughts, but Ace certainly does.

[opbackgrounds]

ahahahahaha..ha...ha...*sobs*

[opbackgrounds]

I can't quite put my finger on why, but Akainu saying pirates don't deserve a happy home truly feels to me like one of the most heinous things he's said or done in the entire series. It's probably because it's this extreme dehumanization of criminals that leads to his more obviously horrific acts of violence, while tolerating the corruption and abuse of the World Government

[opbackgrounds]

The sea in One Piece has a plethora of symbolic meaning--I wrote about some of it in my big Romanticism series awhile back--but I'm beginning to see specifically the bottom of the sea as Death, and that Death is closely associated with Darkness and Oblivion.

The Going Merry was sent to the the bottom of the ocean, specifically after being set on fire because it's "dark and lonely". Fishman Island is placed where it is because it has a bit of sunshine, and thus is the only place under the water that's habitable for mer- and fish folk. Egghead revealed that Imu raising the sea level and destroying civilizations, hiding the truth about the Void Century from the light of day. After Whitebeard dies, Teach pairs the tremor-tremor fruit with his darkness logia, and between the two of them has the power to bring the world to its knees.

So when Whitebeard tries to send Marineford to the bottom of the sea, he's trying to kill it, leaving no trace so that it will one day be forgotten. And in One Piece, that's when a thing truly dies.

And he does it all for the sake of his son.

[opbackgrounds]

The close up shot of Whitebeard's mouth as he laughs is just...This is him going out on his terms the same way Roger did. He's able to laugh as he dies because he doesn't have any regrets, knowing he made his son happy.

It just doesn't stick.

[opbackgrounds]

During Ace's flashback, Garp will explain how Ace's refusal to run is similar to Roger's.

While my preference would have been to get Ace's whole backstory before he died, this is the one aspect that I really think should have been more firmly established. We've seen a few times Ace's hotheaded nature, but it's this similarity to Roger--the man he tried so hard to reject--that amplifies the tragedy. The only real difference between the two in this regard is that Roger got lucky and Ace didn't.

The whims of fate/luck pop up frequently enough that it adds some extra weight to Ace's death. No matter what happened, he was always destined to die, and no matter how hard he fought against his father's legacy, there was nothing he could do to change it.

[opbackgrounds]

While I think Akainu is mostly goading Ace, I do think this is something he genuinely believes. He gets too shouty and emotional at the end of the exchange to be only a trick. Akainu doesn't seem to know or understand that Whitebeard's dream was never to be king and that his family is anything but a farce. To a man with such rigid principals, I could definitely see how he'd view that as a failed life.

I also like the decision to hide Ace's eyes in the last panel. He gets so angry that he's no longer seeing clearly, and that blindness ends up leading to his death