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One Piece Manga |OT| ZEHAHAHAHA! The Name of this Age is Blackbeard!

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Actually, we saw one major sunflower field, that I recall, not many of them. A large one, in fairness, but I don't know if it and it alone is sufficient to be a major component of the economy. That the sunflowers of Dressrosa glow, so they wouldn't be used for lighting atleast, or atleast there would be no point. Also, do we even know if Dressrosa traded with anyone? The layout of the island has rocks on the outer rim of the island, which I would think would limit the ways traders can get in. Importing and exporting would be a bitch.

The tax part is flat out wrong. Kaido's deal was "I will not kick you" to Doflamingo, not "I will protect you". Otherwise, Law's plan makes no sense. Kaido would see his and the Strawhats as an attack on him, not Doflamingo failing to live up to his end of the deal. Doflamingo needed to be defeated for Kaido to transfer his wrath on the Strawhats. Was there even an urban development increase confirmed in the story?

Also, OP has the sheer physics of the story working against it. Again, the people of OP are capable of extreme things. If a real life kingdom got destroyed the way Dressrosa was, it'd essentially be considered unrebuildable, because the funds necessary for it would be astronomical. But no one in story seems concerned about this, so it brings into question exactly how much money even matters in OP.

So, speculation is easy if it's not put under any scruitiny. Speculation that can't be easily refuted due to being supported by information within the story is different. There is a distinction between inferencing things based on known information, and jumping to conclusions that go beyond what known facts can possibly tell us. That thread, people mostly agree on generalities and only quibble about uncertain things that might work against each other (how would horses be treated in Gondor, given their cultural significance?), but they rely on heavy support from the text. So, if you want to flat out make things up, yeah, it's easy, but once it's challenged to be supported, it mostly falls apart. That's why its not dependent on the individual, atleast not entirely, and more on what you have to work with.

That one sunflower field shows that sunflowers are important to the people there and that they grow well on the island. From there is easy to surmise that sunflowers are a staple of the economy and that sunflower fields are so common that people who move to the city feel comforted by something as simple as a sunflower field as their main park. Sunflower oil could be burned in lamps. If you look at how olive oil was used in an ancient city like Rome they used it for a lot of things that you wouldn't think of other than cooking or as salad dressing. They used it to clean their bodies with, fuel lamps and probably other things I'm not aware of.

The city has a port and there are places to dock around it. But importantly it's a black market port. Smugglers normally prefer caves to traditional docks because they can enter the cave at night and do their business without being watched. Urban development I think was shown since in the flashback to when Riku was King the city was simpler or at least this is what is accepted.

The exact details of Doflamingo's relationship with Kaidou is not known but in the new world nobody really goes against the Yonko so we know that even being associated with them is enough to protect an island. Also Doflamingo's relationship with WG was some sort of protection. Anyway it's not like he needed some massive army, fleet or diplomatic fund more that would have a huge cost above what he had for internal security. And the smile trade to Kaidou was important enough to be significant.

With Dressrosa the city has been destroyed by extreme events but extreme events happen in Lord of the Rings and we also have war and natural disaster in the real world. But what Dressrosa still has is it's land which apparently supported the population before and can do still. Possibly the city could be rebuilt but without the black market funding people will probably have to live more simple lives.

If you don't want to disagree with me and instead want to build up some picture of how Dressrosa could be imagined as a real place then be my guest. But saying that One Piece has inferior economic world building because you are in this thread disagreeing with me and not in their thread disagreeing with them is not a strong argument.
 

Veelk

Banned
6uEmXjo.jpg

I see only the one sunflower field. That is a dense field, to be sure, but only the one we see, and I don't know if it's easy to say that they can make it a major staple of the economy.

I'd like a link to Riku saying that, because I can't find it anywhere. Also, keep in mind that no one has any idea what is even around Dressrosa to presume that it has major exports/imports to begin with. For all anyone knows, Dressrosa is a hidden away place that few people ever visit.

And the fact remains that Laws plan makes no sense at all if Kaido was going to place the blame of the attack on the Law-Strawhat alliance instead of on Doflamingo for no keeping his house in order. That was literally Law's whole plan, screw Doffy over so as to rustle kaido's jimmies, which would result in him crushing Doffy. I don't deny that he might have protection from the WG, but it wouldn't be from the Yonko himself.

Dressrosa being destroyed goes beyond extreme. Like, theres...nothing left. The people of Middle Earth, as a whole, recover from war because they just kinda have to, but their cities were taken, maybe even razed, but not obliterated. A city that has been destroyed to the extent that Dressrosa has would essentially be unsalvagable. I just question where anyone would get the funds and resources to do so.

Or it would be, by any normal, real life standards. But again, the physics of OP puts that into question. Maybe they'll be up back and running within the month. I mean, if franky can build the Thousand Sunny in 3 days, why shouldn't it take Dressrosa to get back up in a week? That's why the speculation doesn't hold up in the same way it does with LotR. The wacky, exaggerated nature puts into question how much of an effect any given thing would have. In LotR, the speculation is more weighty because there are rules of what must happen and how it can happen for a city to be built, to survive. In OP, those rules may not apply, not for any special reason, but just because the way OP works is so abnormal that the complete destruction of the city might actually be just a minor inconvenience. So we're left kind of hanging in the wind of what is possible.

If you don't want to disagree with me and instead want to build up some picture of how Dressrosa could be imagined as a real place then be my guest. But saying that One Piece has inferior economic world building because you are in this thread disagreeing with me and not in their thread disagreeing with them is not a strong argument.

Hm...fair enough. As I said, I am not a huge enough Tolkien enthusiast to even argue on their level, so what right do I have to use those arguments as evidence? I'll retract it as a point of comparison, atleast.

Still, the paragraph I made above this quote remains my main objection to OP's worldbuilding. The complete seperatation from any form of realism works against OP in this case. It's not that I find your speculation completely implausible, but OP is the sort of place that simply doesn't obey logic if it doesn't want to. Where Dressrosa by all reason should essentially cease to be in any meaningful sense, it might be that this isn't even a major obstacle for them. They might use sunflower oil, or they just as easily might not. It's equally possible, and that's what I find so maddening about the series. It doesn't ground itself, speculation on this vs other series seems more arbitrary.
 
Dressrosa being destroyed goes beyond extreme. Like, theres...nothing left. The people of Middle Earth, as a whole, recover from war because they just kinda have to, but their cities were taken, maybe even razed, but not obliterated. A city that has been destroyed to the extent that Dressrosa has would essentially be unsalvagable. I just question where anyone would get the funds and resources to do so.

You are never going to get a in depth answer to something like that .
There are to many things oda would have to explain like the cost of labour , materials etc etc .
It just going to be a simple answer , they will rebuild with treasure and money from don .
And help from everyone else and that will be it .
Your not going to see that type of worldbuilding economy detail in a shonen battle manga .
 
I see only the one sunflower field. That is a dense field, to be sure, but only the one we see, and I don't know if it's easy to say that they can make it a major staple of the economy.

I'd like a link to Riku saying that, because I can't find it anywhere. Also, keep in mind that no one has any idea what is even around Dressrosa to presume that it has major exports/imports to begin with. For all anyone knows, Dressrosa is a hidden away place that few people ever visit.

And the fact remains that Laws plan makes no sense at all if Kaido was going to place the blame of the attack on the Law-Strawhat alliance instead of on Doflamingo for no keeping his house in order. That was literally Law's whole plan, screw Doffy over so as to rustle kaido's jimmies, which would result in him crushing Doffy. I don't deny that he might have protection from the WG, but it wouldn't be from the Yonko himself.

Dressrosa being destroyed goes beyond extreme. Like, theres...nothing left. The people of Middle Earth, as a whole, recover from war because they just kinda have to, but their cities were taken, maybe even razed, but not obliterated. A city that has been destroyed to the extent that Dressrosa has would essentially be unsalvagable. I just question where anyone would get the funds and resources to do so.

Or it would be, by any normal, real life standards. But again, the physics of OP puts that into question. Maybe they'll be up back and running within the month. I mean, if franky can build the Thousand Sunny in 3 days, why shouldn't it take Dressrosa to get back up in a week? That's why the speculation doesn't hold up in the same way it does with LotR. The wacky, exaggerated nature puts into question how much of an effect any given thing would have. In LotR, the speculation is more weighty because there are rules of what must happen and how it can happen for a city to be built, to survive. In OP, those rules may not apply, so we're left kind of hanging in the wind of what is possible.

Linking a screenshot from the anime doesn't mean anything. I could screengrab something from a lord of the rings movie and mock it for just having some desolate scrub lands with no hints of a viable economy. But what is the point. Not everything is drawn that can be drawn. I can assume that there is a worm in soil beneath a paving stone in Dressrosa and it's a good logical assumption to make even if there is scene were paving stones are being torn up but there is no earthworm being drawn. The lack of eathworms in a single image does not mean that there cannot possibly be any earthworms in the world of One Piece and because of that the soil quality cannot possibly be any good since earthworms are essential for soil quality. No earthworms being drawn in One Piece does not mean that any plant shown growing is a fraud you have to work the other way round if possible and assume there are earthworms from seeing growing plants. Otherwise you will not be able to build any coherent theory. If you can show me a passage from the lord of the rings where Tolkein talks at some length about the earthworms in Gondor then I would be very entertained.

Dressrosa isn't a hidden place at all. It's well known by the neighbouring kingdoms, the world government, all the pirates and underworld brokers, the revolutionary army, lots of random fighters and anyone with log pose and a ship. The only islands we can rationally assume are hidden are ones like Amazon Lily in the calm belt and Punk Hazard which doesn't show up on the log pose. Even in those cases we can come up with description of their economies that don't require trade. Like Amazon Lily relies on subsistence agriculture, hunting and the like, with other goods being provided by piracy. Punk Hazard was a government research station so almost everything was shipped in although later it became part of the black market trade still relying on imported goods supplied by Doflamingo.
 

Veelk

Banned
Linking a screenshot from the anime doesn't mean anything. I could screengrab something from a lord of the rings movie and mock it for just having some desolate scrub lands with no hints of a viable economy. But what is the point. Not everything is drawn that can be drawn. I can assume that there is a worm in soil beneath a paving stone in Dressrosa and it's a good logical assumption to make even if there is scene were paving stones are being torn up but there is no earthworm being drawn. The lack of eathworms in a single image does not mean that there cannot possibly be any earthworms in the world of One Piece and because of that the soil quality cannot possibly be any good since earthworms are essential for soil quality. No earthworms being drawn in One Piece does not mean that any plant shown growing is a fraud you have to work the other way round if possible and assume their are earthworms from seeing growing plants. Otherwise you will not be able to build any coherent theory. If you can show me a passage from the lord of the rings where Tolkein talks at some length about the earthworms in Gondor then I would be very entertained.

Dressrosa isn't a hidden place at all. It's well known by the neighbouring kingdoms, the world government, all the pirates and underworld brokers, the revolutionary army, lots of random fighters and anyone with log pose and a ship. The only islands we can rationally assume are hidden are ones like Amazon Lily in the calm belt and Punk Hazard which doesn't show up on the log pose. Even in those cases we can come up with description of their economies that don't require trade. Like Amazon Lily relies on subsistence agriculture, hunting and the like, with other goods being provided by piracy. Punk Hazard was a government research station so almost everything was shipped in although later it became part of the black market trade still relying on imported goods supplied by Doflamingo.

Is the anime really that discredited? I mean, it's not like LotR was adapted from a graphic novel, where hte visual representation was already there. So they had to take some license there, because they had no model other than the descriptions, which are naturally up to interpretation. This, on the other hand, is an overhead shot, detailing the entire island sans some cloud covering. I don't know if that image is based on any in the manga, and if not fair enough. It shouldn't be so with the manga, for obvious reasons, but from what I see here, there's a great amount of hatred toward the anime. However, at the same time, I've been told not to use anime pictures when I discussed the design of fanservice of women as well, even though they were basically the same thing in the manga, so I'm cautious whenever someone disregards the anime 'just cuz'. It's hard finding pics of the manga off hand because the damn arc went on for like 1500 pages, so unless there's some confirmation that there a deviation from the manga, I'm gonna go with it.

Anyway, bad analogy on the earthworms bit. Earthworms are basically universal, throughout the whole world. Sunflowers, going by the way the indicate that hill for being special for having those sunflowers, are not. I do agree that not everything that can be depicted is depicted, but I see little reason to assume that they are a major part of the economy. They have shown up in 2 places in all of dressrosa: 1, that hill and 2. Doflamingo's Smile factory as lights. Which is why I am doubtful they use them for lighting, because if they already have glowing sunflower bulbs, and the fact that they are glowing sunflowers might make them different from ordinary sunflowers.

When I said hidden away, I meant isolated enough from countries that entrance is difficult. That's perfectly possible, which means trade might just not happen. But as far as the black market trade goes, what did Doffy do exactly? I know he sold slaves at the auction house, but that's it. I also know he profitted off wartorn countries, but is that illegal from his position? Just selling weapons?

Edit: From what I'm reading, it seems Doffy was just a broker. There's no indication he had a whole market, other than the SMILE, going on on Dressrosa itself.
 
unless there's some confirmation that there a deviation from the manga, I'm gonna go with it.

In terms of representation of an island the manga will deviate from the manga since there is rarely a totally accurate one to one representation of a whole island. Usually you see scenes from an island and stylised views of an island to give you an overview.

Anyway, bad analogy on the earthworms bit.

It's a very good analogy. If you look into things too factually in a fictional world you create more questions than you answer. Earthworms are very common in our world but neither the world of One Piece or Lord of the Rings are our world. Many things work very totally differently in those worlds to ours so why should they have earthworms? How do they maintain soil quality unless the authors explicitly claim that earthworms exist on the world? Lord of the Rings is just some poorly thought out trash unless there is a detailed chapter on earthworms and so on. The sunflowers are at least shown as existing

I know he sold slaves at the auction house, but that's it. I also know he profitted off wartorn countries, but is that illegal from his position? Just selling weapons?

Arms sales are seen as being very illegal in certain countries in certain situations. Broker implies that he bought and sold arms and that is what others were interested in. It wasn't illegal in Dressrosa because he ran the place. Kaidou probably didn't have a law against it. The marines would see it as a crime but they would be prohibited from investigating. We don't know every single black market item in the One Piece world. We know that dance powder and adam wood are black market goods. Probably also devil fruits although they probably don't trade often.
 
Arms sales are seen as being very illegal in certain countries in certain situations. Broker implies that he bought and sold arms and that is what others were interested in. It wasn't illegal in Dressrosa because he ran the place. Kaidou probably didn't have a law against it. The marines would see it as a crime but they would be prohibited from investigating. We don't know every single black market item in the One Piece world. We know that dance powder and adam wood are black market goods. Probably also devil fruits although they probably don't trade often.

Plus he was the world biggest under ground broker so he most likely had his hand in everything .
Still we know some of what he was doing was illegal because he had to hide it from the marines .
 
Plus he was the world biggest under ground broker so he most likely had his hand in everything .
Still we know some of what he was doing was illegal because he had to hid it from the marines .

Oddly enough the slave trade was probably one of the most legal things he was involved with because it was catering to the celestial dragons and was done right under the noses of the marines.
 

Veelk

Banned
In terms of representation of an island the manga will deviate from the manga since there is rarely a totally accurate one to one representation of a whole island. Usually you see scenes from an island and stylised views of an island to give you an overview.

You don't need a totally accurate 1:1 representation in every aspect. The pic of Viola sitting crosslegged is not 1:1 from the manga to the anime either, but it's close enough that almost any feature that we describe about Viola would be fair to ascribe to either the the anime or manga. If you have a significant deviation, fair enough, but crying foul because things are an inch out of place or something is grasping at straws.

It's a very good analogy. If you look into things too factually in a fictional world you create more questions than you answer. Earthworms are very common in our world but neither the world of One Piece or Lord of the Rings are our world. Many things work very totally differently in those worlds to ours so why should they have earthworms? How do they maintain soil quality unless the authors explicitly claim that earthworms exist on the world? Lord of the Rings is just some poorly thought out trash unless there is a detailed chapter on earthworms and so on. The sunflowers are at least shown as existing

Bad analog, since animals in general seem to exist in every capacity in LotR that they do in our world. LotR is supposed to be a hypothetical past version of our world in any case. And if you absolutely need proof, there were worms used metaphorically, such as the character named "Wormtongue." So, if nothing else, inferential abilities based on the culture and working of language of the world, we can safely say without direct evidence that earthworms exist in LotR.

Look I see what your saying, in the sense that not everything depicted has to be displayed. I get that. But the fundamental difference is that stories like LotR adhere fairly strongly to real world aspects where things like magic does not interfere. One Piece, on the other hand, differentiates itself from any real life world logic to such a degree and severity, I wouldn't even blink if earthworms didn't exist in OP.

Arms sales are seen as being very illegal in certain countries in certain situations. Broker implies that he bought and sold arms and that is what others were interested in. It wasn't illegal in Dressrosa because he ran the place. Kaidou probably didn't have a law against it. The marines would see it as a crime but they would be prohibited from investigating. We don't know every single black market item in the One Piece world. We know that dance powder and adam wood are black market goods. Probably also devil fruits although they probably don't trade often.

Okay, so we have no suggestion that Doflamingo ran any sort of black market then. What would be illegal in other countries is merely immoral in his, but otherwise a perfectly legitimate means of business.

We know he made Smiley for Kaido. That's the only black market trade he participated in on his soil. With weapons, he obviously wouldn't need to bother hiding, and we didn't even catch a wiff of him being involved in the other stuff. Saying he does just seems like a hasty generalization, that just because he's involved in this and that blackmarket trade, he must be involved with all of them.
 

smurfx

get some go again
My impression was the opposite. They are only so well taken care of because the marines pamper their ass financially as well as politically. I mean, if its the case that they own money, that means they have to manage it, and I don't see them as workers of any kind to do that.

Besides, if it's just a money issue, the Marines still have the option of just robbing their ass blind. You know, for Justice.
many of the higher ups in the marines probably want to get higher status and don't get out of line for that reason. although i've always imagined there being some unknown force within mariejoa that is strong enough to counter the marine admirals. i really don't think they would leave themselves at the mercy of commoners no matter how strong they are. after all what would happen if 1 or 2 admirals rampaged at mariejoa? all countries under the world government umbrella likely have to pay taxes so that is how the royals pay the navy and fund other parts of the world government.
 
Okay, so we have no suggestion that Doflamingo ran any sort of black market then. What would be illegal in other countries is merely immoral in his, but otherwise a perfectly legitimate means of business.

We know he made Smiley for Kaido. That's the only black market trade he participated in on his soil. With weapons, he obviously wouldn't need to bother hiding, and we didn't even catch a wiff of him being involved in the other stuff. Saying he does just seems like a hasty generalization, that just because he's involved in this and that blackmarket trade, he must be involved with all of them.

What are you talking about ?
It was said in the manga he was the biggest person in the underground \black market .
We also know the he was selling weapons from there because that is one of the reason the revs were there along with pirates talking about there deals.
We also know he was into other stuff because he was funding CC and covering up for him .
 

Veelk

Banned
What are you talking about
It was said in the manga he was the biggest person in the underground \black market .
We also know the he was selling weapon from there because that is one of the reason the revs were there along with pirates talking about there deals.
We also know he was into other stuff because he was funding CC .

Key words: On his soil.

Dressrosa.

We're talking about the economy of Dressrosa, and Compute is arguing that it played a part in it. Doffy may have been a big Underworld player, but he did not shit where he ate, from the looks of it.
 
Key words: On his soil.

Dressrosa.

We're talking about the economy of Dressrosa, and Compute is arguing that it played a part in it. Doffy may have been a big Underworld player, but he did not shit where he ate, from the looks of it.

He did all of that from the underground port .
Why do you think the revs were there ?
To see where he was shipping his weapon to.
You even had pirates saying that all there stuff would be there but they can't go because a admiral is there.
I mean it only make sense he would ship \trade etc etc stuff from the country he is running and have total country over .

EDIT also don't forget that SMILE has only be around for 2 years and don was shipping \trading etc etc stuff from that port for the last 10 years .
 
Bad analog, since animals in general seem to exist in every capacity in LotR that they do in our world. LotR is supposed to be a hypothetical past version of our world in any case. And if you absolutely need proof, there were worms used metaphorically, such as the character named "Wormtongue." So, if nothing else, inferential abilities based on the culture and working of language of the world, we can safely say without direct evidence that earthworms exist in LotR.

You are reaching here. Wormtongue is obviously a reference to serpents since he calls dragons great worms from the old English wyrm which was a word for serpent.
 

Veelk

Banned
You are reaching here. Wormtongue is obviously a reference to serpents since he calls dragons great worms from the old English wyrm which was a word for serpent.

Wormtongue was meant to be a derogatory name, wouldn't refer to something as powerful as dragons, but if you need an actual worm, glow worms are mentioned. Worms that don't glow can only follow.

Check and mate, my opponent.
 
Wormtongue was meant to be a derogatory name, wouldn't refer to something as powerful as dragons, but if you need an actual worm, glow worms are mentioned. Worms that don't glow can only follow.

Check and mate, my opponent.

It's worm tongue because lizards have forked tongues and speaking with a forked tongue is a saying that means a person is a liar in that they say one thing but mean something else. It's a word play on old english and native american sayings. And a glow worm is no earthworm. Therefore agriculture is still not possible in Gondor.
 
Man, remember when Gandalf fought some dudes in Skypeia? Or when Bilbo took on the Tontattas? Me neither. Come on guys

Lol
Funny enough i was going threw the OP wiki and forgot that the Tontattas \ Dwarves slave price was 700k
Seems rather cheap now that we have seen what they can do .
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Sam is way too gentle for Luffy's crew, haha
 

IHaveIce

Banned
Comparing worldvuilding of a series of books with worldbuilding of a manga where the worldbuilding happens mostly through dialogue...

I see the sexism topic wasn't the problem, it was the poster, luckily I know how avoid that problem for me.
 

Veelk

Banned
Comparing worldvuilding of a series of books with worldbuilding of a manga where the worldbuilding happens mostly through dialogue...

I see the sexism topic wasn't the problem, it was the poster, luckily I know how avoid that problem for me.
Yes, because worldbuilding is never done through dialogue in the written medium.

Look dude, if your going to dismiss the discussion on the basis of a faulty false equivalence argument, atleast focus on the actual distinction that the stories don't share: visuals.
 

Tathanen

Get Inside Her!
Yes, because worldbuilding is never done through dialogue in the written medium.

Look dude, if your going to dismiss the argument on the basis of a false faulty comparison argument, atleast focus on the actual distinction that the stories don't share: visuals.

Well there's another enormous thing they don't share: a third person narrator. Much of the world building in Tolkien is via him just saying four billion things, things the main characters never encounter personally. You can do a similar thing with visuals sure, but to far less of a degree.

Let's agree that the occasional One Piece narrator is rare enough that it can't really be reasonably compared to Tolkien, or any narrator in literature.
 
The big difference is that One Piece as a visuall medium follows the rule "show don't tell" while Tolkien was known to do the exact
opposite. The amount of information both can bring into their stories is vastly different.

Plus, Tolkien was a professor for literature, clearly his work will please most academic readers more that One Piece.

Whats even the point of this discussion? They don't try to do the same thing.
 
Maybe after OP is done Oda can do some world building vols.
I will take my chapters \ vols to move forward the story .
Plus manga is a visual medium it won't do things the same as a book.
 

Chariot

Member
I don't agree that you can''t have massive world building with a manga, but I do agree that Oda probably doesn't even want to. One Piece isn't to be taken that serious, it's really more rule of cool and whatever fits. Again: it starts with the technology-schizophrenia.
 

Lunar15

Member
God forbid I waltz into this discussion, but it's worth noting that Tolkien lifted almost all of his world building straight from various northern european mythologies, and he wrote LOTR in a way that's a bit of an inside joke between him and other historians at the time. He studied ancient languages and a lot of the names of people are actually somewhat akin to puns.
 

Veelk

Banned
Well there's another enormous thing they don't share: a third person narrator. Much of the world building in Tolkien is via him just saying four billion things, things the main characters never encounter personally. You can do a similar thing with visuals sure, but to far less of a degree.

Let's agree that the occasional One Piece narrator is rare enough that it can't really be reasonably compared to Tolkien, or any narrator in literature.

Which doesn't mean that OP's world cannot be built in detail. I'm not arguing scope, I'm arguing depth. There are a lot of measures in Tolkien to make sure any given thing makes logical sense, stuff that isn't directly explained. For example, the linguistics of LotR is never explained in story, but he developed how words would change through the ages. For example, it's never mentioned anywhere in the Lord of the Rings or Hobbit that "Frodo Baggins" is an english translation of his actual name "Maura Labingi", but the history of it is there in the story all the same, because the world was build in excruciating detail. And if you think I'm being too hard on trivial details, lets not forget that a lesser form of this does exist in OP in how Mantra is Skypian for Observation Haki. I just doubt we're going to get an explanation for how that word was turned into the other word, when it seems everyone seems to speak the same language with no distinction in accents or linguistics otherwise. I'd like an explanation for these gaps, but that's what worldbuilding is for.

The big difference is that One Piece as a visuall medium follows the rule "show don't tell" while Tolkien was known to do the exact
opposite. The amount of information both can bring into their stories is vastly different.

Plus, Tolkien was a professor for literature, clearly his work will please most academic readers more that One Piece.

Whats even the point of this discussion? They don't try to do the same thing.
I don't see it like that. Keep in mind that the Hobbit and LotR are meant to be children stories. But even if he did mean to just show off his acedemics....a story is a story is a story. It's all the same to me. It works or it doesn't.
 
Which doesn't mean that OP's world cannot be built in detail. I'm not arguing scope, I'm arguing depth. There are a lot of measures in Tolkien to make sure any given thing makes logical sense, stuff that isn't directly explained. For example, the linguistics of LotR is never explained in story, but he developed how words would change through the ages. For example, it's never mentioned anywhere in the Lord of the Rings or Hobbit that "Frodo Baggins" is an english translation of his actual name "Maura Labingi", but the history of it is there in the story all the same, because the world was build in excruciating detail. And if you think I'm being too hard on trivial details, lets not forget that a lesser form of this does exist in OP in how Mantra is Skypian for Observation Haki. I just doubt we're going to get an explanation for how that word was turned into the other word, when it seems everyone seems to speak the same language with no distinction in accents or linguistics otherwise. I'd like an explanation for these gaps, but that's what worldbuilding is for.


I don't see it like that. Keep in mind that the Hobbit and LotR are meant to be children stories. But even if he did mean to just show off his acedemics....a story is a story is a story. It's all the same to me. It works or it doesn't.

It much harder to do that stuff when you have to write and draw chapter almost every week .
Sure you can plan out some of that stuff in advance but things in the manga can change on the fly .


EDIT That is not accounting for how crazy the world of OP is .
 

Veelk

Banned
It much harder to do that stuff when you have to write and draw chapter almost every week .
Sure you can plan out some of that stuff in advance but things in the manga can change on the fly .


EDIT That is not accounting for how crazy the world of OP is .

Normally I'd just take my usual of saying only the end product matters and nothing else and I do feel that to a degree even here...

But you do have a point. Manga is the hardest modern story medium I know of for anything long term like OP is. So I can agree that Oda has it harder than novel writers, in that sense.

But at the same time, the end product is what ultimately matters. I personally wouldn't want to base my opinion on how many excuses I can make for the faults of a given story. So while I acknowledge your point, it still is what it is.
 
I don't see it like that. Keep in mind that the Hobbit and LotR are meant to be children stories. But even if he did mean to just show off his acedemics....a story is a story is a story. It's all the same to me. It works or it doesn't.

But are they really meant to be children storys? He saw fiction as a form of escapism and escapism of the duty of everyone that values the freedom of his own thoughts. Doesn't sound like he hadn't any academic readers in mind.
And while I agree that Tolkien's work is the better of the two, I do not think that Oda can do significantly more in terms of worldbuilding without loosing focus on what is more important to his story, like fast paced action. Comics can do many things that novels can't. Visual comedy for example. Or giving a distinct image of its characters and places.

Do you really think that One Piece as a whole doesn't work because its wordbuilding is partly lacking? Because if Tolkien if your standard, there surely can't be many stories you consinder worth reading.
 

Russ T

Banned
I think he said something at some point implying that The Hobbit was written for his kids, although not necessarily that it was intended to be a children's story.

I'm fairly certain he never said any such thing about the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

DISCLAIMER: I don't think LotR is good. One Piece is better. :3
 

Chariot

Member
I think he said something at some point implying that The Hobbit was written for his kids, although not necessarily that it was intended to be a children's story.

I'm fairly certain he never said any such thing about the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Yep. You can see that at the writing style. The Hobbit is easy to read, not with too much information, while the LotR novels go on and on and on with the lore and the songs.
 

Veelk

Banned
But are they really meant to be children storys? He saw fiction as a form of escapism and escapism of the duty of everyone that values the freedom of his own thoughts. Doesn't sound like he hadn't any academic readers in mind.
And while I agree that Tolkien's work is the better of the two, I do not think that Oda can do significantly more in terms of worldbuilding without loosing focus on what is more important to his story, like fast paced action. Comics can do many things that novels can't. Visual comedy for example. Or giving a distinct image of its characters and places.

Do you really think that One Piece as a whole doesn't work because its wordbuilding is partly lacking? Because if Tolkien if your standard, there surely can't be many stories you consinder worth reading.

As I said earlier, I didn't mention Tolkien because I consider his story to be better. I mean, I do, I guess, but I was making a general point of how worldbuilding is done well. I can name other examples, more modern ones. When I bring up tolkien, I'm just saying that my idea of a world well built is one that is organized and deep in every aspect. I mean, that's how real life works. Essentially everything you see has a history, even if most people don't know it because it's not in their interest. That there is a reason something is the way it is within the story itself.

In any case, the original point is that I have so many questions about how the OP world works, and I feel there is so little that I can take on assumptions because of the wacky nature of OP makes it that things don't work the way they do in real life more often than not, that I don't have any sense of a grounded world in OP. By which I DO NOT mean realistic world in any sense, but a world that has a solid foundation, a world where I can predict the general way in which things work, a world where I have an established sense of logistics. That's why the destruction of Dressrosa is a sticking point for me. By real life rationale, dressrosa is pretty much gone. If a city was destroyed to that extent in most fiction, I feel I can reasonably say what it would take to rebuilt it and how difficult it would be. But in OP, if Franky can build a ship in 3 days, can't rule out the possibility that Dressrosa will be back up and running in a week, or month. I'm not sure why the aristocratic structure of the CD's has endured to the extent that it has when power is distributed very differently in OP that would make an aristocratic system improbable as I see it. Or just basic events, like how Luffy is able to light his hand on fire with Redhawk. I want to know how stuff works. In OP, I almost never get that. it wouldn't have to be essay after essay to the extent that it's detracting to the story, but enough that I'm not constantly left with a hundred questions of any given arc.
 

Watch Da Birdie

I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
It always bothered me how early One Piece made the world out to be a relatively closed off place where each Island sort of existed on its own with little interaction besides the occasional Pirates and Navy, but then Oda sort of changed that when he introduced a worldwide newspaper and such.

Like early one it was believable that most normal citizens were surprised by encountering people with Devil Fruits and such, but then by now it's sort of weird since you think stuff like that would be public knowledge through the newspaper and everything. But I guess that's typical in a lot of fantasy stories for the author to sort of introduce more and more crazy stuff and it eventually become commonplace when before it was treated as rare and unusual.

Dragon Ball perhaps is one of the few that does the opposite since all the crazy stuff in Dragon Ball is sort of forgotten about by the general populace by Z.
 
In any case, the original point is that I have so many questions about how the OP world works, and I feel there is so little that I can take on assumptions because of the wacky nature of OP makes it that things don't work the way they do in real life more often than not, that I don't have any sense of a grounded world in OP. By which I DO NOT mean realistic world in any sense, but a world that has a solid foundation, a world where I can predict the general way in which things work, a world where I have a grounded sense of logistics. That's why the destruction of Dressrosa is a sticking point for me. By reasonable logistics, dressrosa is pretty much gone. If a city was destroyed to that extent in most fiction, I feel I can reasonably say what it would take to rebuilt it and how difficult it would be. But in OP, if Franky can build a ship in 3 days, can't rule out the possibility that Dressrosa will be back up and running in a week, or month. I'm not sure why the aristocratic structure of the CD's has endured to the extent that it has when power is distributed very differently in OP that would make an aristocratic system improbable as I see it. Or just basic events, like how Luffy is able to light his hand on fire with Redhawk. I want to know how stuff works. In OP, I almost never get that.

Veelk some of that stuff will be explain later on for eg i expect the CD rise to power is going to tie into the true history .
But some of what you are asking for will never happen because of how crazy the world of OP is and it's characters .
In most fiction do they have characters like fuji who basically got rid of all the rumble off Dressrosa is seconds ?

It always bothered me how early One Piece made the world out to be a relatively closed off place where each Island sort of existed on its own with little interaction besides the occasional Pirates and Navy, but then Oda sort of changed that when he introduced a worldwide newspaper and such.

Like early one it was believable that most normal citizens were surprised by encountering people with Devil Fruits and such, but then by now it's sort of weird since you think stuff like that would be public knowledge through the newspaper and everything. But I guess that's typical in a lot of fantasy stories for the author to sort of introduce more and more crazy stuff and it eventually become commonplace when before it was treated as rare and unusual.

I guess that would depend on where the citizens live .
There are 5 seas in OP but most of the action and big even take place in the grandline.
So someone from north blue has a much better chance of not running into a DF person compare to someone that live in the grandline .
It's not like the citizens did not know what a DF was but they hardly saw people with them .
For eg luffy only got his DF because Shanks travel the grandline .
 

Veelk

Banned
Veelk some of that stuff will be explain later on for eg i expect the CD rise to power is going to tie into the true history .
But some of what you are asking for will never happen because of how crazy the world of OP is and it's characters .
In most fiction do they have characters like fuji who basically got rid of all the rumble off Dressrosa is seconds ?

Probably? It depends on the series.

That was probably a bad idea in any case. Aside from the rock, it probably had the remains of the Dressrosa's citizens stuff. Plenty of objects could have had sentimental value or just still have been useful. Otherwise, a lot of that rock could have been recut, used to rebuild, which is easier than searching for all the materials from scratch.

Unless he somehow only knew to throw away the useless stuff, but if that's the case, I ask again: How? How would he know? Or else maybe he didn't throw away useless stuff because rubble in OP is useless once destroyed, but that makes no sense as to why it would be like that. Or maybe he didn't actually throw away useful rubble because acquiring and moving stone from scratch isn't harder than doing it with already made materias, so....

So you can see the problem. OP being a crazy crazy world is not a compliment to it as I see it. By being so removed from our reality and not going out of it's way to establish it's own, I have no basis on how to tell how much of an impact any action has.
 
Probably? It depends on the series.

That was probably a bad idea in any case. Aside from the rock, it probably had the remains of the Dressrosa's citizens stuff. Plenty of objects could have had sentimental value or just still have been useful. Otherwise, a lot of that rock could have been recut, used to rebuild, which is easier than searching for all the materials from scratch.

Unless he somehow only knew to throw away the useless stuff, but if that's the case, I ask again: How? How would he know? Or else maybe he didn't throw away useless stuff because rubble in OP is useless once destroyed, but that makes no sense as to why it would be like that. Or maybe he didn't actually throw away useful rubble because acquiring and moving stone from scratch isn't harder than doing it with already made materias, so....

So you can see the problem. OP being a crazy crazy world is not a compliment to it as I see it. By being so removed from our reality and not going out of it's way to establish it's own, I have no basis on how to tell how much of an impact any action has.

Fuji did what he did because it look cool and was a awesome display of power .
He was planing to kill all the pirates and i sure he was not thinking about anything else.( this goes for the Oda also )
Most of the people that read shonen battle manga don't care about that stuff .
The island will get rebuild but luffy has move on so i really don't care how long it take or how it get done .
I basically know how they going to rebuild it the details not important .
 

Squishy3

Member
the country is kind of fucked anyway since pica remodeled the whole thing and was trying to punch zoro with the landmass

incoming fujitora cover story arc where he uses his gravity powers to help rebuild the country
 
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