Appreciation Post: Roronoa Zoro 🗡⚔💚❤
People saying Zoro is just a meathead pisses the fuck out of me, it's almost become a pet-peeve. His character tends to be devalued a lot by those who base character complexity on having flaws. I'm no literature major but is that really the baseline?
I don't get how having no sense of direction became an indication of being dumb, or having the goal to become the strongest in the art you are passionate about, makes you less of an intellectual either. Zoro is smart, and being dumb with his friends aside (especially with Luffy and Sanji), he really is one of the most level-headed member in the crew.
I love that he can be rational, and yet do things that you would not expect him to do just because his loyalty to Luffy precedes almost all- if not all his principles. In fact, I find it hard to even define what his 'code' is. Like how Usopp's is to be brave, Sanji's is to protect women, Luffy's is to be free.
Zoro was introduced as this demon-like person, which is, by the way, how he's still perceived by characters outside the crew. I wouldn't call him kind, and he's far from being evil either. Most of the time he acts on pure instinct, both him and Luffy has this tunnel vision on their respective dreams, but they tend to do it without stepping on other people's in the process. He is a reasonable man who is very much capable of violence; if you get in Luffy's/his/or the crew's way- then you're pretty much dead meat. Being simple and straightforward is his complexity. Makes you wonder how we would see him as a character if he didn't cross paths with Luffy in Shells Town. I do not doubt for one bit that he'd be capable of gaining notoriety on his own, he already had a name before Luffy, what more without him.
The point I'm getting at is: Zoro is so much more than a man who dreams to be the strongest. He is Zoro who had a friend called Kuina; Zoro the man who gained the title of "The Pirate Hunter"; He is Zoro, the person who became Monkey D. Luffy's first crew member; He is Roronoa Zoro - the man who vowed his loyalty to the future pirate king because to fucking hell with it; He is Zoro the Strawhat Pirates' swordsman; Zoro, the man who protects his crew; Zoro, the man who Luffy can confide to; Zoro, the man who exchanged his life and ambitions for his captain's; He is Zoro, the man who will become the World's Greatest Swordsman alongside Luffy- the man who will become the Pirate King;
To see a glimpse of his past, for the sake of gaining more context to his present self, thus, making him more 'cOmPlex', is almost unnecessary, because he truly is a man of action. We know him by how he carries himself, by how he cares for his crew, and by how he treats the man he dedicated his life to.
Tuldok.
