#op ch96

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early on in the story, zoro is clearly not used to people like nami and sanji. probably because he’s historically been very independent, he gets kind of stunned by people who willingly let themselves be used/people who take advantage of being liked. (plus i think he’s really not used to sanji’s over-the-top performance of heterosexuality… cause he’s very Not Straight but also because he’s operated in predominantly male spaces his whole life.)

the only time zoro ever calls nami a witch in canon is during the baratie arc, and it’s in response to witnessing nami leverage her femininity for the first time (to receive favors from sanji, of course.) he’s clearly surprised by the whole situation, because he cannot imagine how nami got this random waiter to fold so completely. he himself would not be swayed by a hug and a few surface-level compliments, so why is this weird blond guy acting like that?

i think this comes to a head during whisky peak, which is when nami finds a button that does work on zoro — his promises. zoro’s consternation in whisky peak mostly comes from him not wanting to feel like he’s being used, because he’s still got that independent streak and isn’t used to being ordered around.

but, crucially, whisky peak is the big moment of this. after that scene, zoro and nami settle fairly comfortably into a mutual understanding of each other, and zoro doesn’t really care about getting ordered around by her anymore because he understands that she’s asking him as a crewmate and friend. in punk hazard for example, when nami orders him to follow sanji, he does it without protest even though he complains about it. (nami does not need to perpetually hold some nebulous debt over his head to get him to do what she wants, lol.)

i will also say, it’s funny to me that zoro has so much initial resistance to taking orders from nami and can’t believe why sanji would do favors for her so readily, but he’s immediately down to take orders from luffy and swear devotion to him on his sword. zoro i think you are gay.

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i love the way the wind blows up that bit of nami’s hair. something about her pose, her expression, and that bit of wind just make this panel feel so evocative of one piece’s sense of adventure and fun.

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tiny strawhats on the merry! zoro seems to already have a bit of his tendency towards lonerism in group settings. in later moments it sometimes reads as self-isolation, but here i think it’s just his introversion.

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i believe this is an oblique reference to the will of D, which would make it the first such reference in the story.

one piece’s emphasis on fate/destiny seems on first glance to contradict its championing of free will. how i think about it is this: luffy is following his own free will, but the long arc of history always trends towards the liberation of the world, and that culminates with him. it could have happened with someone else, luffy wasn’t the only person to eat the nika fruit after all, but then, we’d be reading their story, wouldn’t we.

as marx writes in 18th brumaire of louis bonaparte: “man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand. the tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp upon the brain of the living.” people have free will, but are also shaped by their particular historical moment. marx and engels posit that the proletarian revolution could not happen before private property (in the hands of the bourgeois) became the dominant property form due to changes in the forces of production; and with the abolishment of private property via proletarian revolution, class divisions upon labor will ultimately disappear.

to bring it back to one piece: revolution involves the actions of people, but also the trajectories of history. because one piece is a fictional story, it takes an idealistic view of this this via prophecies and super special devil fruits; but hey, one piece does not pretend to be realistic. it’s a fantasy.

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that’s… the literal duomo in the background. damn. i knew that loguetown was based off florence, but i never noticed the direct reference before.

for reference, this is what the duomo di firenze (florence cathedral) looks like irl.

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the foosha villagers’ synchronized cheer in the background is so adorable.

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hilarious that some of these nameless red hair pirates are drawing swords. what are you going to do, swordfight the world’s greatest swordsman?

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i’m generally pretty positive about one piece’s writing on this blog, but i’m going to put on my hater hat for a moment because i still find tashigi utterly baffling from a writing perspective. i already am not the biggest fan of zoro’s first backstory (as much as the fandom likes to invent depth for it, kuina was fridged and that fact annoys me) and so. i don’t think “oh let’s introduce a character who looks identical to main male character’s fridged female friend and make her completely inferior to him in the thing they both care about” is anything but a misogynistic writing choice. the writing for tashigi didn’t become misogynistic over time, it started misogynistic and stayed that way. from her design to her name, she primarily exists as a device to develop a man, and that just pisses me off.

i don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with giving zoro a learning about misogyny character arc or anything. but it’s handled so poorly it just frustrates me.