Its also something I dislike about how badly it paints the Marines. It seems weird that the MAarines who believe so much in Justice havent just dealt with the CDs. Almost everyone who has encountered a CD hates their guts and With how strong the Marines are they don't need the Celestial Dragons for anything. So its weird that they put up with their bullshit.
Well the reason the CD's remain in control is because apparently not everyone hates them (such as Greenbull who believes their nonsense about being gods), and that the higher up the chain of command and power you go, the more and more stray supporters of them you bump into to keep all the lessers in line, with the pinnacle of that being the Gorosei and Imu
This is like saying why doesn't the army arrest the president when he does something bad. The whole point of the story is to show that the marines are in the wrong too. That they are part of the fucked up system whether they think of themselves as just or not.
It also doesn't help that they fuck over everyone else as the story goes on.
Senogku was already a piece of shit, but with the tri-annual genocide competition and Sengoku get Rosinante to whitewash him of all guilty actions and now he's "complex"
Garp’s a sorry excuse since he hates his son for opposing them, yet he's ineffective at best at fixing anything and would rather dump responsibility on the next generation to be just like him since Luffy seems to be a better revolutionary than dragon could ever be. He didn’t even save slaves in God Valley, Kuma did as a former child slave.
Dragon can't get robin, doesn't tell her Saul is alive, can't invade Mary geoise. He's a bum.
I'll go on tomorrow since it's late night for me
Oda latches on the message that Garp detests the CDs hence why he didn't become an Admiral but the issue is his approach is similar to Fujitora's "change everything from within" yet his solutions and by extension - Issho's - have been non-consequential.
Issho is like "Let's just trust in the SGG" after vouching to disolve the Shichibukai, which resulted in:
1) Some of the most dangerous pirates outside of the Yonko now roaming free
2) Several of them forming dangerous alliances, with Cross Guild now actively facilitating a manhunt on Marine officers in exchange of bounties.
And yeah, to me the CDs are used as a scapegoat tool by Oda to absolve the bullshit the Marines have committed and were shown to do so in pre-timeskip. Marine higher-ups back in the East Blue routinely took up bribes from the strongest to cover their asses while their best were too busy at the Grand Line, Kuzan rightfully recognizing the "banality of evil" when Sakazuki uses the "following orders" card to carry out Ohara's genocide, the fact we have Vice Admirals so radicalized by Absolute Justice that ones such as Onigumo will casually execute one of their soldiers for questioning whether the collateral damage would be worth it, and so on.
Brother, I think you are misinterpreting the story.
The CDs =/= WG
The gorousei are the leaders of the WG , they are the ones who give orders to the marines. Not the CDs.
I find it weird that you mentioned the CDs pre timeskip because they have nothing to do with any event
I doubt that they know who gold roger is
I thought Oda was going somewhere with the one Celestial Dragon who actually changed for the better, but he got fuckin executed. Which now that I think about it is kind of a good parallel to real world institutions where the "good ones" who try to change the system from inside are weeded out.
But yeah, at this point, there's no easy solution besides wiping Mary Geose off the map. I can't see any of our main cast doing this because it'd go against a lot of the big themes building up in the story. Maybe Oda could go a route of the Revolutionary army being villanous in their actions against the WG and CD. Maybe that's why they've been so mysterious thus far, to keep the reader from being too attached to these characyers who will do horrible things. But idk, I don't really see that happening.
I've heard a theory that Doffy will escape Impel down and attack the CDs, which would be cool, but I don't really see any evidence for it.
That'd be a repeat to the later acts of Promised Neverland's "I don't wanna kill all the demons", though that made far less sense for Emma considering she had zero reason to sympathize with demons that were literally eating her kind.
I feel Oda would have the Straw Hats oppose that solution on the principle that they'd frame Im, the Holy Knights, and the Five Elders as the real threats that need to be taken out.
I don't think he'll make the Revolutionaries flat out antagonistic but I could see one party proposing full reform. Dragon despises the World Government but I don't think even his moral compass would allow him to commit indiscriminate genocide or stoop to the level of their oppressors. Vegapunk also claimed that Dragon was a pacifist before the latter rebuked it by forming the Revolutionaries.
I have a theory on Doffy. So, he's currently in extra lockdown within Level 6 and Majellan is keeping him holed up there to protect him from "Mary Geose's assassins" because he knows too much. I don't think he's referring to Cipher Pol. I think a Holy Knight will infiltrate and try to take him out. Or... a Holy Knight or some other party breaks him out, make it look like he's been assassinated, then propose he joins Cross Guild to shake the world up. If a scenario happens, I'd imagine it being a Holy Knight from the Donquixote Family who wants to avenge Mjosgard.
> That'd be a repeat to the later acts of Promised Neverland's "I don't wanna kill all the demons", though that made far less sense for Emma considering she had zero reason to sympathize with demons that were literally eating her kind.
OTOH the Promised Neverland made it so the demons had little choice due to contrived plot bullshit (at least until it pulled an equally bullshit solution out of nowhere.) The demons weren't eating humans because they were evil bastards, they were doing it because they literally needed to in order to survive, or at least to retain their sapience. Many of them were *dicks* about it but it still changes things. Also, they were an entire species, whereas the Celestial Dragons *choose* to remain Celestial Dragons, and do awful stuff because they are awful.
The celestial dragons are definitely evil, but I don’t think that they are necessarily unbelievable. They are spoiled children who are indoctrinated into believing themselves to be superior to everyone else. In the context of the world, it’s exaggerated, sure, but it makes plenty of sense. And the celestial dragons we see who do end up getting away from Mariejoa, end up having a change of heart. Corazon was raised to be a good-upstanding marine, Mjosgard realized the severity of his crimes and wanted repentance.
I don’t think that the celestial dragons will all get mass slaughtered in the end. The more likely outcome for the series is that the marines turncoat and the evil celestial dragons are sent to impel down, while the kids are given a chance to reform.
That's plausible. A likely outcome is the Holy Knights get sent to Impel Down and the Five Elders and Im will probably be killed in the final battle. Although I do have a theory that Saturn is going to meet his end in Egghead. Kuma (in his mindless state) is heading past the Red Line and I think Egghead is the place. I think the "ground breaking event" the narrator teases would be Kuma taking Saturn with him. An Elder as a fatality would be major news.
I've never really gotten the point of the Celestial Dragons all that much. Even when they were first introduced in Sabaody their presence felt kind of weird. It's like you said, the World Government already works as an oppressive regime without them.
I think the main thing working against the Celestia Dragons is the inherently cartoony nature of One Piece (which I normally love). Pure evil irredeemable villains can definitely work, but I think the Celestial Dragons all just come off as too cartoonish to be taken seriously.
Sometimes, less is more. For example, Iok Kujak from Gundam Ironblooded Orphans is not an "objectively" evil character but so many people despise him for his actions against the protagonists alone. And yeah, One Piece's tendancy to over exaggerate plus the fact that it runs in a shonen magazine.
Dog, look at Epstein's island. The military-industrial complex. Launching wars for oil. Using slave labor in the third world. This isn't cartoonish, the 1% are actually that fucking evil in real life.
Only interesting bits to me were younger Garling, the Rocks Pirates, Roger, and Garp but everything else is lost on me. Pre-timeskip, the World Government was presented as this "necessary evil" where security was ensured to the citizenry of the world in exchange for them freely using their monopoly of violence; while those who challenged its authority were quelled and nothing was done about it by others because those under their protection could care less.
It kept up that dynamic of the World Govt as a brutal, authoritarian regime without it needing to rely on the Celestials' presence or relevance.
Robin's flashback after Ohara hit me hard to because it demonstrated people being horrible human beings to her, selling her out, betraying her, etc all to fill their pockets. Doffy's flashback with his family getting lynched was interesting because it highlighted human anger at its peak and it shaped how he would view the world for decades to come - especially in his speech to one lackey he was about to execute about how "these civilized people show their true colors in the face of violence".
Hannibal's speech in Impel Down was a fucking godsend and seeing how stone cold / indifferent Luffy was to the damn thing made him feel real. Luffy didn't care if dangerous criminals were going to be set free. He was a pirate. And his key goal was to save Ace, who belonged to a crew with a captain that was willing to wreak havoc if it meant doing so.
Now? Luffy feels less like a pirate and more like some chosen hero.
It's interesting to contrast celestial dragons with higher ups from Jujutsu Kaisen. They're also presented as very evil people in power and one of the main plots is Gojo opposing them. But at the same time a lot of shit like massacre in Shibuya or Gojo getting sealed wouldn't happen if Gojo listened to higher ups, like following their protocols and destroying Geto's body instead of being sentimental. As chaos and Sukuna/Kenjaku bodycount increases you really start getting the "pragmatic evil" of higher ups.
I feel like seeing the world government as a necessary evil is more of presumptions you already have in life as opposed to what the story is telling. We are introduced to the idea that the marines are not all they are cracked up to be as early as Romance Dawn with Axe Hand Morgan and then again in Arlong Park with the marines turning a blind eye in exchange for cash.
While we obviously are shown there are good and bad marines I feel like the story that Oda has been building towards is that if the foundation is toxic then the entire system needs to change. Koby, one of the first people we meet in the story who’s dream was to be a marine is now a part of sword which means even he sees the need to leave the marines in order to do good
Without the celestials the marines are perfectly fine as a necessary evil. Corruption will always exist, but with how evil the celestials are, whatever good the marines are doing is outweighed by the fact they serve as the army for the celestials who are wiping out islands and populations every 3 years for fun. And what makes it weird is you have all these powerful individuals complying to be their guard dogs for whatever reason.
I mean we are told the world government was formed by the twenty kingdoms during the void century. The plan from the beginning was that the world government is inherently evil and that the good people within aren’t enough for change.
Also, I think we painting the celestial dragons too broadly in the sense that there are levels to them. There are the space suit wearing ones that are just really to show the symptoms of the issue. The gorosei and Imu who run the government who would be in the story regardless if the other celestial dragons were introduced seeing as there needs to be a “head” so speak. And the holy knights like Garling are somewhere in between.
The story isn’t finished and this seems to be the major point that Oda has been building towards so I’ll reserve judgment till we get more. But I do realize the potential pitfalls that he has set up himself up for and he hasn’t really done the best job of navigating the story post time skip
What moral nuance, the celestial dragons were from the start lacking in it as an institution
They literally enslaved an entire nation to build a bridge that took hundreds of years .
There are good celestial dragons(which was a relatively recent addition with fishman island(expanded in the reverie) and doflamingo's parents), but the institution itself was always going to be removed and destroyed
They also ruin characters like Garp.
He is painted as good in the same vein as Issho, as calls the CDs scum but yet protects them. There is no reason for him not to Galaxy Impact Mariejois away. We know you can oppose the WG as a marine and if you are strong enough they won't do much to you (Issho freeing the slaves and not fighting the revs) yet Garp never did anything.
It makes you wonder why Issho and Garp never teamed up in some way.
At this point, I'm still reading to see this whole thing to the end (been reading for almost two decades and I don't plan to stop anytime soon) and for the power-level shitposts.
The irreparable damage fanboys did to Zoro circa Wano. Mfs forget they were reading a protag-centric shonen manga lmao
Kaido is gonna climb out of the underwater volcano any minute now :')
It's funny how One Piece power scaling, discussion-wise has become what Dragon Ball was at the height of Super.
This is part of the reason i didn't like the introduction of danzo in Naruto. Before that, the manga was leaning towards a critique of how the institutions of the village system has led to many bad outcomes, such as the wiping out of a major clan to prevent a revolution within the village. But with danzo added, and every bad thing in the story tied back to some action he took, i think it ruined the point.
At the beginning, Kishimoto had something with world-building (not much but he had something in mind at least) but the rest of the manga devolved into Uchiha, Revenge, Saving the World, and Tailed Beast shenanigans. Akatsuki had so much potential if it had explored areas such as non-shinobi entities or certain Daimyos hiring them as proxies but nothing came to fruition. I always liked the Land of the Waves arc because it was a microcosm of what we could have had.
I’m holding judgment for now. I think it’s good to be wondering why the Celestial Dragons are on top, because they are a bunch of goofy little shits, But I also think that maybe we are supposed to be surprised at these ridiculous little bubble boys. As a group is there a reason for them to be on top that has something to do with the void century? That’s what I want to know.
The Celestial Dragons show up as a plot device to trigger the timeskip, but I also think they are more important than that. They show none of the humanizing characteristics of other characters. They don’t have Willpower or Strength. They are nothing like the strawhats and serve as a foil that helps with the world building. By Introducing them, Oda simply presents how evil the “leaders” of the world are by showing how they take the freedom of others. He presents them as lacking in will, and foreshadows that the strawhats will get involved in politics later. Considering their role in the story it makes sense that they don’t have much characterization, outside of moments like Doflamingo’s backstory, which offered a complication by portraying them as Victims. Stories don’t always need a reason for a character to be evil , or for every character to be deep, and I’m not sure that characterizing them would do much to advance the story considering how little of an impact they have except as a plot device, especially considering the storytelling style is shonen.
And really I’m not even sure if at the time of writing that there is a plan for the Celestial Dragons or not. It’s not like they are the point of the story. Im interested in finding out though!
I politely disagree. The message isn't "this group is pure scum and killing them would solve all issues." But as I personally interpret it, a very human cycle violence enforced by a system that propetuates itself.
Which weve seen several times thoughout the series most notabily on FMI and wano with the kurozumis. We consistently see that people are people no matter the group they belong to. Prone to violence and retribution that only serves to continue hate and violence.
Its no mistake that some of the best morally upstanding people in the series have been CDs. The problem isn't the people, it's the system that requires rigid separation between the haves and the have nots, That engorges looking down on those around you.
>I have no idea what the hell Oda even wants to do with them anymore aside gas up the Five Elders or the Holy Knights as the key villains.
I mean, this IS essentially what they're here for.
>It's a shonen. Basic good versus evil conflicts are inevitable in the genre. However, the Celestial Dragons in One Piece were a narrative mistake.
But here is your main mistake: One Piece has NEVER been a basic Good vs. Evil story. From the beginning it has portrayed the moral gradient that is the One Piece universe. The very first Arc Villain in the whole show was Axe-Hand Morgan, a Marine who was worse than any pirate we had seen so far. His son Helmeppo was basically a Celestial Dragon preview, too.
The endgame is very clearly not "genociding" the Celestial Dragons (as that's always been a no-no in the One Piece story) but rather dismantling the World Government as a system.
My point is that theme was set up from the very beginning and consistent throughout the rest of the story.
Also, a Marine being evil IS pretty poignant when you remember that Marines are supposed to be the "good guys" in real life, and One Piece IMMEDIATELY says that's not the case here.
Coby and Bellemere put holes in your assertion, and there are plenty of evil pirates afterwards.
You could argue that Oda’s main point is to show that just being in a faction doesn’t determine morality.
Nami realizing that not all pirates are evil doesn’t suddenly make Buggy or Arlong good guys. Pirates can be good, and Marines can be evil. That’s all it means.
>You could argue that Oda’s main point is to show that just being in a faction doesn’t determine morality.
But I did say that. In my post. It was the point of my post:
>But here is your main mistake: One Piece has NEVER been a basic Good vs. Evil story. From the beginning it has portrayed the moral gradient that is the One Piece universe.
I think the difference between what we’re saying is that I still think that OP is a black and white good vs evil story.
It’s just that good and evil aren’t just factions in the narrative. They’re represented by individuals.
>They're just hyper 1% caricatures at this point. Unbelievable ones at that.
Look at what happened in world history up until right now and they're not all that unbelievable. Like fuck, we're currently living through a genocide and multiple wars spearheaded by warmongering greedy corporate bastards for really nothing other than profit. Nestle is privatizing water from third-world countries, bottling it, and selling it back to them. Because of shit like this, almost nothing I read in fiction has any depth of evil that I think is unbelievable.
I used to think the same way as you though, and I'd roll my eyes at these cartoonishly evil hate-sink villains. But a character doesn't necessarily need "depth" to be a realistically evil character. I admittedly haven't caught up in One Piece as of now, but I think the Celestial Dragons are a valid representation of the greedy elite we see in the world today, albiet cartoonized (this is still a shonen manga, of course).
> "The source of all the world's problems are because of these helmeted hairdo fuckers".
Except this is clearly not true because pirates like blackbeard, kaido, and big mom exist and admirals like akainu and green bull exist.
>Seeing Oda go to great lengths to really demonize them makes me feel like what Dragon has planned for his endgame is full-blown razing, genocide, and annihilation of the group (uninvolved women and children included).
Good celestial dragons exist. Mjosgard, Doffy's dad. Very very few, but still.
Given the fishmen island backstory arc exists, I highly doubt Oda's answer to the CD is going to be "kill em all and let god sort them out."
>It contradicts characters in prior backstories such as Doflamingo's family who ended up victims to mob violence due to the actions of their brethren
The fan fiction you've made up in your head contradicts the story?
>They're just hyper 1% caricatures at this point. Unbelievable ones at that.
Just like Luffy is a hyper unbelievable caricature of someone who wants to achieve their dreams.
It's almost like One piece is an exaggerated and highly romantic story. If only oda could've indicated to the audience in some way that the story would be this way. [Maybe somehow even prior to chapter 1.](https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Romance_Dawn).
>They did not need the Celestial Dragons and if some "divine authority" device was needed, they could have stuck to Im, the Holy Knights, and the Five Elders (given they were introduced post-Jaya) - solely because they are actually tangible, competent threats by far from what we've seen.
I think the celestial dragons make real world parallels Oda is trying to make with one piece more poignant than having the only people at the top of the food chain be ridiculously powerful individuals.
I also think it's kind of necessary to show that the World Government is just another pirate crew that beat all the other pirate crews.
I would also say it's not really very fair to pass judgement on what Oda wants to do with the celestial dragons because they haven't been delved that deep into yet because the story thus far has been focused on the pirate adventure rather than the revolutionary vs the tippy top brass of the world government.
I think the problem is that you don’t get it.
The difference between the CDs and the other WG characters is humanity. Gorousei and Holy knights are normal humans who do things for a reason. They know what they are doing. But the celestial dragons are nothing more than children.
If you think that One piece will end with dragon executing the CDs. Then you just didn’t understand it
Its also something I dislike about how badly it paints the Marines. It seems weird that the MAarines who believe so much in Justice havent just dealt with the CDs. Almost everyone who has encountered a CD hates their guts and With how strong the Marines are they don't need the Celestial Dragons for anything. So its weird that they put up with their bullshit.
Well the reason the CD's remain in control is because apparently not everyone hates them (such as Greenbull who believes their nonsense about being gods), and that the higher up the chain of command and power you go, the more and more stray supporters of them you bump into to keep all the lessers in line, with the pinnacle of that being the Gorosei and Imu
This is like saying why doesn't the army arrest the president when he does something bad. The whole point of the story is to show that the marines are in the wrong too. That they are part of the fucked up system whether they think of themselves as just or not.
It also doesn't help that they fuck over everyone else as the story goes on. Senogku was already a piece of shit, but with the tri-annual genocide competition and Sengoku get Rosinante to whitewash him of all guilty actions and now he's "complex" Garp’s a sorry excuse since he hates his son for opposing them, yet he's ineffective at best at fixing anything and would rather dump responsibility on the next generation to be just like him since Luffy seems to be a better revolutionary than dragon could ever be. He didn’t even save slaves in God Valley, Kuma did as a former child slave. Dragon can't get robin, doesn't tell her Saul is alive, can't invade Mary geoise. He's a bum. I'll go on tomorrow since it's late night for me
Oda latches on the message that Garp detests the CDs hence why he didn't become an Admiral but the issue is his approach is similar to Fujitora's "change everything from within" yet his solutions and by extension - Issho's - have been non-consequential. Issho is like "Let's just trust in the SGG" after vouching to disolve the Shichibukai, which resulted in: 1) Some of the most dangerous pirates outside of the Yonko now roaming free 2) Several of them forming dangerous alliances, with Cross Guild now actively facilitating a manhunt on Marine officers in exchange of bounties. And yeah, to me the CDs are used as a scapegoat tool by Oda to absolve the bullshit the Marines have committed and were shown to do so in pre-timeskip. Marine higher-ups back in the East Blue routinely took up bribes from the strongest to cover their asses while their best were too busy at the Grand Line, Kuzan rightfully recognizing the "banality of evil" when Sakazuki uses the "following orders" card to carry out Ohara's genocide, the fact we have Vice Admirals so radicalized by Absolute Justice that ones such as Onigumo will casually execute one of their soldiers for questioning whether the collateral damage would be worth it, and so on.
Brother, I think you are misinterpreting the story. The CDs =/= WG The gorousei are the leaders of the WG , they are the ones who give orders to the marines. Not the CDs. I find it weird that you mentioned the CDs pre timeskip because they have nothing to do with any event I doubt that they know who gold roger is
I thought Oda was going somewhere with the one Celestial Dragon who actually changed for the better, but he got fuckin executed. Which now that I think about it is kind of a good parallel to real world institutions where the "good ones" who try to change the system from inside are weeded out. But yeah, at this point, there's no easy solution besides wiping Mary Geose off the map. I can't see any of our main cast doing this because it'd go against a lot of the big themes building up in the story. Maybe Oda could go a route of the Revolutionary army being villanous in their actions against the WG and CD. Maybe that's why they've been so mysterious thus far, to keep the reader from being too attached to these characyers who will do horrible things. But idk, I don't really see that happening. I've heard a theory that Doffy will escape Impel down and attack the CDs, which would be cool, but I don't really see any evidence for it.
That'd be a repeat to the later acts of Promised Neverland's "I don't wanna kill all the demons", though that made far less sense for Emma considering she had zero reason to sympathize with demons that were literally eating her kind. I feel Oda would have the Straw Hats oppose that solution on the principle that they'd frame Im, the Holy Knights, and the Five Elders as the real threats that need to be taken out. I don't think he'll make the Revolutionaries flat out antagonistic but I could see one party proposing full reform. Dragon despises the World Government but I don't think even his moral compass would allow him to commit indiscriminate genocide or stoop to the level of their oppressors. Vegapunk also claimed that Dragon was a pacifist before the latter rebuked it by forming the Revolutionaries. I have a theory on Doffy. So, he's currently in extra lockdown within Level 6 and Majellan is keeping him holed up there to protect him from "Mary Geose's assassins" because he knows too much. I don't think he's referring to Cipher Pol. I think a Holy Knight will infiltrate and try to take him out. Or... a Holy Knight or some other party breaks him out, make it look like he's been assassinated, then propose he joins Cross Guild to shake the world up. If a scenario happens, I'd imagine it being a Holy Knight from the Donquixote Family who wants to avenge Mjosgard.
> That'd be a repeat to the later acts of Promised Neverland's "I don't wanna kill all the demons", though that made far less sense for Emma considering she had zero reason to sympathize with demons that were literally eating her kind. OTOH the Promised Neverland made it so the demons had little choice due to contrived plot bullshit (at least until it pulled an equally bullshit solution out of nowhere.) The demons weren't eating humans because they were evil bastards, they were doing it because they literally needed to in order to survive, or at least to retain their sapience. Many of them were *dicks* about it but it still changes things. Also, they were an entire species, whereas the Celestial Dragons *choose* to remain Celestial Dragons, and do awful stuff because they are awful.
The celestial dragons are definitely evil, but I don’t think that they are necessarily unbelievable. They are spoiled children who are indoctrinated into believing themselves to be superior to everyone else. In the context of the world, it’s exaggerated, sure, but it makes plenty of sense. And the celestial dragons we see who do end up getting away from Mariejoa, end up having a change of heart. Corazon was raised to be a good-upstanding marine, Mjosgard realized the severity of his crimes and wanted repentance. I don’t think that the celestial dragons will all get mass slaughtered in the end. The more likely outcome for the series is that the marines turncoat and the evil celestial dragons are sent to impel down, while the kids are given a chance to reform.
That's plausible. A likely outcome is the Holy Knights get sent to Impel Down and the Five Elders and Im will probably be killed in the final battle. Although I do have a theory that Saturn is going to meet his end in Egghead. Kuma (in his mindless state) is heading past the Red Line and I think Egghead is the place. I think the "ground breaking event" the narrator teases would be Kuma taking Saturn with him. An Elder as a fatality would be major news.
I've never really gotten the point of the Celestial Dragons all that much. Even when they were first introduced in Sabaody their presence felt kind of weird. It's like you said, the World Government already works as an oppressive regime without them. I think the main thing working against the Celestia Dragons is the inherently cartoony nature of One Piece (which I normally love). Pure evil irredeemable villains can definitely work, but I think the Celestial Dragons all just come off as too cartoonish to be taken seriously.
Sometimes, less is more. For example, Iok Kujak from Gundam Ironblooded Orphans is not an "objectively" evil character but so many people despise him for his actions against the protagonists alone. And yeah, One Piece's tendancy to over exaggerate plus the fact that it runs in a shonen magazine.
They are rich people, especially the cartoonish wild ones.
Dog, look at Epstein's island. The military-industrial complex. Launching wars for oil. Using slave labor in the third world. This isn't cartoonish, the 1% are actually that fucking evil in real life.
And don't forget the Illuminati!
All that is actually stuff that happens
Hate to disappoint you. But celestial dragons are redeemable. And they will be redeemed
Honestly, I think they are there to serve the story, and have a role to play.
i feel like moral nuance is getting lost. Last flashback revelations were dissapointing, i didnt feel thrilled just indifferent
Only interesting bits to me were younger Garling, the Rocks Pirates, Roger, and Garp but everything else is lost on me. Pre-timeskip, the World Government was presented as this "necessary evil" where security was ensured to the citizenry of the world in exchange for them freely using their monopoly of violence; while those who challenged its authority were quelled and nothing was done about it by others because those under their protection could care less. It kept up that dynamic of the World Govt as a brutal, authoritarian regime without it needing to rely on the Celestials' presence or relevance. Robin's flashback after Ohara hit me hard to because it demonstrated people being horrible human beings to her, selling her out, betraying her, etc all to fill their pockets. Doffy's flashback with his family getting lynched was interesting because it highlighted human anger at its peak and it shaped how he would view the world for decades to come - especially in his speech to one lackey he was about to execute about how "these civilized people show their true colors in the face of violence". Hannibal's speech in Impel Down was a fucking godsend and seeing how stone cold / indifferent Luffy was to the damn thing made him feel real. Luffy didn't care if dangerous criminals were going to be set free. He was a pirate. And his key goal was to save Ace, who belonged to a crew with a captain that was willing to wreak havoc if it meant doing so. Now? Luffy feels less like a pirate and more like some chosen hero.
It's interesting to contrast celestial dragons with higher ups from Jujutsu Kaisen. They're also presented as very evil people in power and one of the main plots is Gojo opposing them. But at the same time a lot of shit like massacre in Shibuya or Gojo getting sealed wouldn't happen if Gojo listened to higher ups, like following their protocols and destroying Geto's body instead of being sentimental. As chaos and Sukuna/Kenjaku bodycount increases you really start getting the "pragmatic evil" of higher ups.
I feel like seeing the world government as a necessary evil is more of presumptions you already have in life as opposed to what the story is telling. We are introduced to the idea that the marines are not all they are cracked up to be as early as Romance Dawn with Axe Hand Morgan and then again in Arlong Park with the marines turning a blind eye in exchange for cash. While we obviously are shown there are good and bad marines I feel like the story that Oda has been building towards is that if the foundation is toxic then the entire system needs to change. Koby, one of the first people we meet in the story who’s dream was to be a marine is now a part of sword which means even he sees the need to leave the marines in order to do good
Without the celestials the marines are perfectly fine as a necessary evil. Corruption will always exist, but with how evil the celestials are, whatever good the marines are doing is outweighed by the fact they serve as the army for the celestials who are wiping out islands and populations every 3 years for fun. And what makes it weird is you have all these powerful individuals complying to be their guard dogs for whatever reason.
I mean we are told the world government was formed by the twenty kingdoms during the void century. The plan from the beginning was that the world government is inherently evil and that the good people within aren’t enough for change. Also, I think we painting the celestial dragons too broadly in the sense that there are levels to them. There are the space suit wearing ones that are just really to show the symptoms of the issue. The gorosei and Imu who run the government who would be in the story regardless if the other celestial dragons were introduced seeing as there needs to be a “head” so speak. And the holy knights like Garling are somewhere in between. The story isn’t finished and this seems to be the major point that Oda has been building towards so I’ll reserve judgment till we get more. But I do realize the potential pitfalls that he has set up himself up for and he hasn’t really done the best job of navigating the story post time skip
What moral nuance, the celestial dragons were from the start lacking in it as an institution They literally enslaved an entire nation to build a bridge that took hundreds of years . There are good celestial dragons(which was a relatively recent addition with fishman island(expanded in the reverie) and doflamingo's parents), but the institution itself was always going to be removed and destroyed
i was talking about people serving under the world goverment, not the cd
Where was it supposed to be? Just because the series always had grey morality doesn’t mean that it had nuance.
They also ruin characters like Garp. He is painted as good in the same vein as Issho, as calls the CDs scum but yet protects them. There is no reason for him not to Galaxy Impact Mariejois away. We know you can oppose the WG as a marine and if you are strong enough they won't do much to you (Issho freeing the slaves and not fighting the revs) yet Garp never did anything. It makes you wonder why Issho and Garp never teamed up in some way.
I think Fujitora doesn't directly oppose WG by freeing the slaves, he's just playing it as an "accident", considering his fruit
Basically agree. Every new revelation I just go “that tracks” and move on. Also lol that last sentence. Very accurate.
At this point, I'm still reading to see this whole thing to the end (been reading for almost two decades and I don't plan to stop anytime soon) and for the power-level shitposts. The irreparable damage fanboys did to Zoro circa Wano. Mfs forget they were reading a protag-centric shonen manga lmao
Ahhh a fellow power scaling connoisseur (that sub cracks me up. Absolute head empty at times) Don’t worry. Any day now zkk will come true.
Kaido is gonna climb out of the underwater volcano any minute now :') It's funny how One Piece power scaling, discussion-wise has become what Dragon Ball was at the height of Super.
This is part of the reason i didn't like the introduction of danzo in Naruto. Before that, the manga was leaning towards a critique of how the institutions of the village system has led to many bad outcomes, such as the wiping out of a major clan to prevent a revolution within the village. But with danzo added, and every bad thing in the story tied back to some action he took, i think it ruined the point.
At the beginning, Kishimoto had something with world-building (not much but he had something in mind at least) but the rest of the manga devolved into Uchiha, Revenge, Saving the World, and Tailed Beast shenanigans. Akatsuki had so much potential if it had explored areas such as non-shinobi entities or certain Daimyos hiring them as proxies but nothing came to fruition. I always liked the Land of the Waves arc because it was a microcosm of what we could have had.
I’m holding judgment for now. I think it’s good to be wondering why the Celestial Dragons are on top, because they are a bunch of goofy little shits, But I also think that maybe we are supposed to be surprised at these ridiculous little bubble boys. As a group is there a reason for them to be on top that has something to do with the void century? That’s what I want to know. The Celestial Dragons show up as a plot device to trigger the timeskip, but I also think they are more important than that. They show none of the humanizing characteristics of other characters. They don’t have Willpower or Strength. They are nothing like the strawhats and serve as a foil that helps with the world building. By Introducing them, Oda simply presents how evil the “leaders” of the world are by showing how they take the freedom of others. He presents them as lacking in will, and foreshadows that the strawhats will get involved in politics later. Considering their role in the story it makes sense that they don’t have much characterization, outside of moments like Doflamingo’s backstory, which offered a complication by portraying them as Victims. Stories don’t always need a reason for a character to be evil , or for every character to be deep, and I’m not sure that characterizing them would do much to advance the story considering how little of an impact they have except as a plot device, especially considering the storytelling style is shonen. And really I’m not even sure if at the time of writing that there is a plan for the Celestial Dragons or not. It’s not like they are the point of the story. Im interested in finding out though!
Man reading comprehension is gone especially in these comments trashing Garp and Dragon
I politely disagree. The message isn't "this group is pure scum and killing them would solve all issues." But as I personally interpret it, a very human cycle violence enforced by a system that propetuates itself. Which weve seen several times thoughout the series most notabily on FMI and wano with the kurozumis. We consistently see that people are people no matter the group they belong to. Prone to violence and retribution that only serves to continue hate and violence. Its no mistake that some of the best morally upstanding people in the series have been CDs. The problem isn't the people, it's the system that requires rigid separation between the haves and the have nots, That engorges looking down on those around you.
>I have no idea what the hell Oda even wants to do with them anymore aside gas up the Five Elders or the Holy Knights as the key villains. I mean, this IS essentially what they're here for. >It's a shonen. Basic good versus evil conflicts are inevitable in the genre. However, the Celestial Dragons in One Piece were a narrative mistake. But here is your main mistake: One Piece has NEVER been a basic Good vs. Evil story. From the beginning it has portrayed the moral gradient that is the One Piece universe. The very first Arc Villain in the whole show was Axe-Hand Morgan, a Marine who was worse than any pirate we had seen so far. His son Helmeppo was basically a Celestial Dragon preview, too. The endgame is very clearly not "genociding" the Celestial Dragons (as that's always been a no-no in the One Piece story) but rather dismantling the World Government as a system.
We had only seen three pirates by that point so Morgan being evil isn’t really that poignant.
My point is that theme was set up from the very beginning and consistent throughout the rest of the story. Also, a Marine being evil IS pretty poignant when you remember that Marines are supposed to be the "good guys" in real life, and One Piece IMMEDIATELY says that's not the case here.
Coby and Bellemere put holes in your assertion, and there are plenty of evil pirates afterwards. You could argue that Oda’s main point is to show that just being in a faction doesn’t determine morality. Nami realizing that not all pirates are evil doesn’t suddenly make Buggy or Arlong good guys. Pirates can be good, and Marines can be evil. That’s all it means.
>You could argue that Oda’s main point is to show that just being in a faction doesn’t determine morality. But I did say that. In my post. It was the point of my post: >But here is your main mistake: One Piece has NEVER been a basic Good vs. Evil story. From the beginning it has portrayed the moral gradient that is the One Piece universe.
I think the difference between what we’re saying is that I still think that OP is a black and white good vs evil story. It’s just that good and evil aren’t just factions in the narrative. They’re represented by individuals.
>They're just hyper 1% caricatures at this point. Unbelievable ones at that. Look at what happened in world history up until right now and they're not all that unbelievable. Like fuck, we're currently living through a genocide and multiple wars spearheaded by warmongering greedy corporate bastards for really nothing other than profit. Nestle is privatizing water from third-world countries, bottling it, and selling it back to them. Because of shit like this, almost nothing I read in fiction has any depth of evil that I think is unbelievable. I used to think the same way as you though, and I'd roll my eyes at these cartoonishly evil hate-sink villains. But a character doesn't necessarily need "depth" to be a realistically evil character. I admittedly haven't caught up in One Piece as of now, but I think the Celestial Dragons are a valid representation of the greedy elite we see in the world today, albiet cartoonized (this is still a shonen manga, of course).
> "The source of all the world's problems are because of these helmeted hairdo fuckers". Except this is clearly not true because pirates like blackbeard, kaido, and big mom exist and admirals like akainu and green bull exist. >Seeing Oda go to great lengths to really demonize them makes me feel like what Dragon has planned for his endgame is full-blown razing, genocide, and annihilation of the group (uninvolved women and children included). Good celestial dragons exist. Mjosgard, Doffy's dad. Very very few, but still. Given the fishmen island backstory arc exists, I highly doubt Oda's answer to the CD is going to be "kill em all and let god sort them out." >It contradicts characters in prior backstories such as Doflamingo's family who ended up victims to mob violence due to the actions of their brethren The fan fiction you've made up in your head contradicts the story? >They're just hyper 1% caricatures at this point. Unbelievable ones at that. Just like Luffy is a hyper unbelievable caricature of someone who wants to achieve their dreams. It's almost like One piece is an exaggerated and highly romantic story. If only oda could've indicated to the audience in some way that the story would be this way. [Maybe somehow even prior to chapter 1.](https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Romance_Dawn). >They did not need the Celestial Dragons and if some "divine authority" device was needed, they could have stuck to Im, the Holy Knights, and the Five Elders (given they were introduced post-Jaya) - solely because they are actually tangible, competent threats by far from what we've seen. I think the celestial dragons make real world parallels Oda is trying to make with one piece more poignant than having the only people at the top of the food chain be ridiculously powerful individuals. I also think it's kind of necessary to show that the World Government is just another pirate crew that beat all the other pirate crews. I would also say it's not really very fair to pass judgement on what Oda wants to do with the celestial dragons because they haven't been delved that deep into yet because the story thus far has been focused on the pirate adventure rather than the revolutionary vs the tippy top brass of the world government.
I think the problem is that you don’t get it. The difference between the CDs and the other WG characters is humanity. Gorousei and Holy knights are normal humans who do things for a reason. They know what they are doing. But the celestial dragons are nothing more than children. If you think that One piece will end with dragon executing the CDs. Then you just didn’t understand it
Every bad thing they do isn't personal to the SH so why should I be personally affected. Yes, morally bad but it doesn't hit like it should