Donquixote Doflamingo: a character overanalysis(?) ft. Rosinante ♡
I've made two odd observations regarding Doflamingo of which one out of the two could just be me overanalysing, but:
Which parent he looks like
His hair (please hear me out)
Bonus observation from my little post earlier
This draft was made on May 14 while I was listening to Doflamingo geek rap. Do not ask why I added the date. I had a thought abt which parent he looks like. Random info gets shared just cuz. Anyway.
Mother :: 90% & Homing :: 10%, but also not.
I think it's rather obvious that Doflamingo, for a good portion, looks like his mother. However, I've noticed some things that are more reminiscent to Homing.
That specifically being his smile and his chin. Look at both Rosinante and Doflamingo, their chins differ in width, with Rosi's being smaller and Doffy's wider. It's barely noticeable, but it's there.
When we look at his parents, the difference is stark. As you can see, Doflamingo has his mother's compact face shape, but the width of his father's chin. You can also see the smile lines I was talking about. For Rosinante, it's the opposite. He has his father's elongated face but his mother's smaller chin. The final details are that they both have the sharpness of their mother's eyes and that they most of their hair complexion from her also (when compared to Homing anyway).
Final verdict is that they both, in some way, look like both parents, but lean more towards their father in different ways. This is semi-important.
Ps: I couldn't find a good enough picture of Doflamingo's nose, but there is one of 17-yo him and it's hooked (heavily). Homing's nose was also very hooked. Rosinante's nose is smaller compared to Doffy's.
What you've noticed is that Doflamingo looks more like his mother when we look at the hair, eyes, and face shape. It's opposite for Rosinante (excluding hair colour). However, in important features like the nose, the mouth, smile, it's quite the opposite (atleast imho). Rosinante looked like his mother. Doflamingo looks like his father, and he has to look in the mirror and look at the face he murdered when he was ten. There's some poetic irony when you realise that he murdered himself by having taken that gun. Even if not intentional, it was a slow rot and Rosinante—who had the stronger aspects of his mother—was the unfortunate final nail in the coffin. Which brings me to…
Doffy's hair.
First thing's first, he has the same haircut now he had as a child. That transition began at 31 after he conquered Dressrosa. Before that, his hair looked sharper, wilder, but with an air of control. That's why, despite it's spiky, windswept looks, it didn't look truly uncontrolled. It looked deliberate. Look at the picture of him at Roger's execution. Same hair, just wilder bcuz he was a teenager then. The key to note is that this was Doflamingo when everything was still perfect. From when he started building his reputation to when Rosinante reappeared in his life, everything was great. He was a man in total control of his life, who had the power to do nearly anything he wanted. But he wasn't quite there yet. He hadn't achieved the true plan. He hadn't achieved Dressrosa, he hadn't achieved the Eternal Youth operation. Things weren't quite finished.
And then Law happened. Then Rosinante's betrayal happened. Things spiralled out of control and the one man he had trusted most—his clumsy, adorable baby brother—turned out to be a Marine spy, a Marine dog, who was going to sell him out in the name of 'justice'. Of course he had to kill him. His journey to Dressrosa started, he became a Warlord, he became a very, very important kingpin in the underworld, and the to WG also. His strings were pulled taut. Far more than before. And yet, his hair didn't quite show that. That hairstyle specifically was smth he had in a period of his life when he was completely out of control and the most helpless he had ever felt. And to this day, he remains helpless in ways that no longer concern the physical world.
He was ten when he was given a gun and essentially told to 'murder' whomever he wished for without truly knowing what the weight of spilt blood felt like. He pulled the trigger on his own father in a extreme (and understandable), heat of the moment. That wasn't done without a goal in mind, but it was done with utter cluelessness of what it truly meant. He took his father's head back to Mary Geoise and he was rejected. He and Rosinante were still exactly where their father had put them and now he couldn't do a thing. Things got worse from there when he and Rosinante got separated—something that would drag on for 14 straight years and abruptly end two years later. He had only four people during that time.
Trébol, Diamante, Pica, and Vergo.
Those men told him one thing. He was a god chosen by the heavens and fate itself. He was an all powerful king who could do anything and everything he wanted. Eventually, Doflamingo believed it. He was handed the Ito Ito no Mi—the very strings he now uses to control people—with the belief that he was a god. And yet that very belief was instilled by a man who wanted nothing but to profit from a child with Conqueror's Haki. He fed him lies and nurtured a god complex that was beginning to fade. And the irony is that he gave him the String-String Fruit. A fruit Doffy regularly uses to string himself around places. Doflamingo himself is being controller by the men he calls family, and he doesn't even know it.
They say hair holds memories. Don't you find it ironic that he cut it back to when he was at rhe worst point in his life? A helpless child. And it went specifically after Rosinante died. He was a helpless child again, and this time, he was separated from his brother. Permanently. He spiralled deeper into the madness that made him believe he was a god, when it was really a 2+ decades long cry for his strings to work properly. Look at how he acts. He is a cunning beast, yes, but he has the power to do things on whims, which he does. Like a child taking a toy without paying for it and getting away with it. Look at who he surrounds himself with. Sugar. Her DF is the literal embodiment of a childhood. Sugar herself is not exactly as adult-like as one may think.
It's either that or he's seriously balding. However, his hair heavily emphasises one thing…
He is the Donquixote Family's first and biggest victim.
And the perpetrator is none other than Trébol himself. Trébol groomed him into becoming the monster he is today. He is the indirect and direct reason of each and every one of Doflamingo's crimes and the major events in One Piece. And he's the one profiting big time. When he found Doflamingo, Doffy was a lost and very scared child. He took advantage of that child, told him he was a god, and let the rest happen. To this day, he controls Doflamingo in one way or another even when it seems as if his strings are slipping. Maybe they are, but they never truly will untangle themselves from Doflamingo's limbs for the simple fact that Doflamingo believes in what he is. He has believed that for 31 years.
The worst part comes here. He associates love with control and loyalty. He wants to be in control bcuz his childhood was defined by pure chaos and pandemonium when he intially came from an environment that was anything but. His deep need for a family speaks of the 8–10 year-old who lacked the structure and security when he needed it most. That's why he fears Tsuru and respects her. Bcuz she's the only person to tell him 'no' and live to tell the tale. And that's what he needed. That's what he wanted. He wanted sm1 to tell him 'no'. He wanted sm1 to show him the edge so that he would know where not to step so he wouldn't fall. But he never got that. And because he never got that, he pushed further. He pushed boundaries that most never would cross in their lives to find an edge he would never properly get, bcuz he would be too busy killing the ones trying to show it to him.
He remains a lost and scared child to this day, and that is why Rosinante and him were doomed to fail anyway. Rosinante is a child who eventually knew structure and security, what 'no' meant, and most importantly, consequences of one's actions. He learned responsibility. Doflamingo only knew 'yes'. He never learnt to share, he never properly learnt empathy, and he never learnt 'no'. To child who grew up being taught that every1 and thing is his, what's more cruel than to take away the very toys he cherished most and kept him sane.
Rosinante grew up. Doflamingo simply grew larger.
That's why he failed. He was using the logic and understanding of responsibility of a 26-yo with an 8–10 year-old who was taught neither, and came to the conclusion that he was monster. Like every1 else in life, he, too, failed his brother, and it's far too late to save him now. Him shooting Rosinante was his biggest fear realised. He was being abandoned by his family and he couldn't do a single thing. He never could and he never will.
That's why he'd so good at manipulating. That's why he knew where and when to strike Law. Who would know the game of victim more than the first himself? Who would know the sheer terror of not having control than the one who never did? Doflamingo can have all the power he wants in the world of materials, but he will never have control of the life he tried to build, bcuz it was never his life to build to begin with. He was simply being puppeteered into placing the blocks of a house as sturdy as a house of cards.
Or I just misread him entirely, in which case you will never hear from me again. Thanks for reading this mess.
