Well at least OP Donald Trump can't run for President...
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One Piece Manga |OT2| Four Emperors, One King, All Blue
- Thread starter Cloud Strife
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Well at least OP Donald Trump can't run for President...
Cindi Mayweather
Member
Team Pudding, I'm shocked and disappointed by this weeks chapter with how she has been characterized. I am having a crisis in faith. It's almost like Pudding and Sanji deserve each other. They're both losers. 
Pudding is not a loser is she? Is she?!
Pudding is not a loser is she? Is she?!
Cindi Mayweather
Member
Reminds me that the big bird newspaper bird-man is probably one of the better minor characters in a while. Dude just wants a scoop, y'all.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Team Pudding, I'm shocked and disappointed by this weeks chapter with how she has been characterized. I am having a crisis in faith. It's almost like Pudding and Sanji deserve each other. They're both losers.
We're still in the middle of things with Pudding. Once we get her full backstory, that will explain more about why she's acting this way.
Cindi Mayweather
Member
idk. Big Mom wants to be Pirate Queen. This would make a big statement.
The wait and see policy is good and all, but I feel we know the gist of it.
She had a rough childhood because of her third eye (because of all the various physical deformaties in the world of OP, a perfectly normal eye on your forehead is the one that's so bad it's worth bullying a fucking YONKO'S daughter over (ffs, Lola alone has an egg shaped body)), she got bullied and thus had to 'harden up' and be tough, so she pretends to be an evil duplicitous harpy. But in actuality, she has a heart of gold buried deep down, under all the trauma, that only a knight in shining armor like Sanji can reach in and unearth it with his wonderful kindness so that they both may be truly happ-
What does that have to do with no pointlessly burning down bridges to potential alliances? Or how does getting artificial humans ensure that happens no matter what?
Imperial Bishop
Banned
You keep saying this, but there's no indication she'd need one after this. The Emperors are in a stalemate right now, no one is strong enough to beat the others without getting taken out by a third party after. This potentially puts her over the top and into the safe zone.
Again, what proof does she have of this? I don't dispute that this will be an advantage, but why would anyone assume it's some kind of instant win button? There is no evidence of that, especially since we know the other Yonko's themselves are gathering more power. Kaidou is getting his beast army while Blackbeard is getting that special metal from the revolutionaries. It's a huge assumption to assume that you just won't ever need help after you get one advantage.
Cindi Mayweather
Member
from reddit
lmao
It's the classic powerplay. It's her announcing she's got a near-infinite army of super-tech-enhanced soldiers. It's not that complicated.
Cindi Mayweather
Member
imo, it explains why he made his kids feeling-less machines: Judge is emotional. Just like Sanji. He's a coward who hides behind might, technology, the Germa name, and his super human sons. So when he wanted children he made them emotion-less sociopaths because he's an emotional, weak person.
It also explains why he hates Sanji so much. Sanji is similar to him: a highly emotional person. Out of the sentai color schemes, Sanji even has the same color as Judge's hair. He probably sees himself in Sanji.
So when we see him crying at death's door, it explains a lot of his motivations.
That's really not an be-all, end-all in a series where armies can literally get annihilated by a single fighter with one hit
All you've established is that it's an advantage. A seriously good advantage, one worth getting. What I'm continually missing is why I'm supposed to think that this will be a key to instant victory for any force that gets it, especially when the other Yonko's themselves are getting an upgrade of indeterminant worth.
But if you're argument is that "this may not be true, but it's the reasoning big mom uses", well, then, I don't disagree with that as much. It just paints as even more of a fool for making that giant ass assumption.
These aren't armies that could be annihilated by a single fighter, if that were possible then there wouldn't be a stalemate in the first place. She's got a clone army and a bunch of tech she can give her current subordinates to make them even stronger.
How do you know that?
We've never seen the army in a real fight, unless you count skirmish between Sanji and his dad and Ichiji and Niji against that random army at the beginning, and they were only used there as meat shields.
How do you know that a powerful enough force like Kaido, whose power is also one we haven't really seen, wouldn't be able to decimate them in one swing?
So where are you getting this information?
It's part of the backstory we've been fed through the series! The Four Emperors of the New World are locked in a stalemate since if one attacked another a third could swoop in and take them out after. It was why Shanks clashed with Kaido while Whitebeard went to war with the Marines. It's why Kaido or Big Mom aren't going after each other's ponyglyphs right now. One might be able to beat the other at the current moment, but after the fight they wouldn't be able to hold the spoils. That's why they're both looking for an advantage! That's why Kaido wants the faux-devilfruits and Big Mom wants the Vinsmoke tech! They not only have to beat the other guy, they have to hold onto their spoils of war.
I feel you're trying to answer a different question than the one I'm asking.
I get all that. Which is why I have already happily granted that it's an advantage. That's established. I know why she's going after it. I agree that it will help her in fighting the other Yonko.
What I'm asking for is "What assurance that it's an instant win so much that she will not need any further alliances beyond it?" Because that's the assertion your defending here, that once big Mom has the Vinsmokes technology, she will not need any other form of aid from anybody to make her pirate king.
And how would you know that? How would you know that the Germa tech alone is enough to tip the scales so much that the other Yonko don't have a chance? How do you know that the Beast army and special metal that the other Yonko are gaining cannot match Big Mom's Germa Tech? How do you know there can't be any further complication that hinders her power?
Because as far as I can tell, she has no assurances on that front. And if that's the case, why would she be okay ruining any public trust she has and torpedo any chance of gaining additional alliances?
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.
Amazing.
from reddit
I have to agree with this, it's fairly obvious the yonko are all nigh-unstoppable armies. They own territories the already super powerful government doesn't interfere with in any substantial way and rank above the Shichibukai, who are already considered dangerously powerful pirates.
Whitebeard was able to clash with the World Government pretty much by himself. Big Mom's underlings seem just as capable as Whitebeard's. Shanks has already shown himself to have a massive and powerful crew. We don't know Jack about Kaido (see what I did there) compared to the others but there's no reason to assume he's not on equal footing, and all four of them are locked in a stalemate because one crew is not necessarily more powerful than the other and a simple fight between them might end up looking like Marineford.
Germa tech wouldn't guarantee her anything, but it would certainly give her a massive edge over the others. Even if the Vinsmokes themselves don't end up being anything yonko-level, having the technology for herself would make her army incredibly dangerous. It's not really any different from what Kaido was doing with his SMILE fruits. I don't know if BM even had knowledge of that. Either way, it goes to show how some of the yonko are trying to gain an edge in power to break the implied stalemate. Which leads us back to the Throne Wars stuff.
It's not about them no longer having a chance, it's about her being able to maintain the stalemate after attacking Kaido. They only know where two ponyglyphs are, though it seems word of the one on Zou is starting to spread. After she has them she has to maintain the stalemate to make sure she isn't attacked, announcing it like this is the best way for her to do that without having to fight one of the other emperors right after Kaido. Like I said, it's a power play.
I'm not even sorry but yeah
Wait, wait, wait! Back up. So she's not even trying to be proactive here? She's just trying to maintain the the status quo rather than gathering her army to strike for Kaido, Blackbeard or Shanks?!
(BTW, this still doesn't answer the question of why she'd burn bridges on future alliances. Hell, that makes even LESS sense since that means she's just trying to maintain the balance, which will shift in the future anyway, so she'll need more power later on. But I'm guessing I'm just not gonna get a satisfactory answer on this one, because there are very, very few circumstances where it's actually worth it to burn bridges no matter who you are, so I'm moving on)
No, she wants to fend off an attack from another Emperor after she strikes at Kaido for his ponygylph. This is absolutely proactive. After she gets the second ponyglyph she just needs to make sure the other Emperors can't come after her without risking a break in their stalemate.
It doesn't necessarily stop future alliances since she'll still have something a future partner wants, and frankly if you don't go into an alliance with a pirate expecting the worst then you're a fool in the first place.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
I wonder how much of a deterrent killing the Vinsmokes is to other pirates. Hell the Vinsmokes aren't even actually pirates, it's technically Big Mom taking out a nation, just like she always does.
Okay, I misread that then. That makes more sense.
Still, this doesn't really cop to 1. How you know it will work 2. How you know it will work so effectively that she'll never need another alliance again. She's just closing doors on gaining more potential power than before.
The only explanation I can think of is that I'm just being too realistic about human nature and people will just...ignore that she brazenly skewered her allies for no good reason and make alliances with her anyway due to her power. If no one cares that she'll kill them at any given moment, then knowledge of her doing so isn't important.
Well, the difference is that she didn't go out and fight them or anything. She lured them into her home under false pretenses and then murdered them despite having entered her hospitality and them coming in good faith.
I doubt that anyone would care that she took out the vinsmokes in particular so much that she did it by betraying her word. So I would think that no one would want to trust her after this makes headline news, but I might just be thinking with too much realism here, as I said above.
You're not being realistic enough about human nature. If you want power bad enough to ally yourself with someone like Big Mom (knowing what she does to people that offend her even a little bit) then you aren't going to be put off by this. You'll take the risk because you're just that driven by power, which is what was Judge's downfall. He never considered that "Hey, maybe I might be betrayed by this cold-hearted, ruthless pirate with a history of doing whatever it takes to get back at people."
If you want a real life example look at the truce between Nazi Germany and the USSR. The USSR figured the Nazis wouldn't mess with them, but as it turns out they were stupid for thinking it.
No, I don't think so. We have no idea if Big Mom has ever done anything like this before. If she hasn't, then at the very least, one has no material evidence that Big Mom is a betrayer. There are varying levels of trustworthiness even among the pirates in the manga. For example, you could count on Shanks and Whitebeard to not betray you like this.
So, word of an actual betrayal that happened is different from a hypothetical betrayal. That's essentially what Big Mom would really lose.. Judge fell in beside her because he assumed she would keep her word, as stupid as that is. We don't really know why he thought that, but the idea of any kind of alliance is the basic assumption that you can trust the person your shaking hands with, atleast a little. If evidence that she doesn't keep her word surfaces, then even someone like Judge won't ally with her because he won't have reason to expect her to do as she says and keep her word.
The only kind of person your talking about is someone who sees that she went back on her word, and then, for no reason at all, says "Oh, I'm sure she wouldn't do that to me." And yeah, I would think that at the very least, where the matter of their lives were concerned, most people would be smart enough not to do that. It'd be like entering a bears cave and expecting it not to maul you for no reason, even though that's what happens to everyone else. Not even the biggest of idiots think that.
Unless we get a flashback to Big Mom doing just taht and Judge knowing about it and just assuming it won't happen to him, in which case, goddammit, this manga.
I don't think that fits exactly. Because in this case, the USSR didn't think the Nazi's would stab them in the back because if they did, they'd win on their home turf. Which they did. One of the harshest cold winters froze the marching army in their tracks. It's less that the USSR was stupid for thinking it so much as the Nazi's were stupid for turning on the USSR. And they died for it.
So I don't think it counts because in the OP scenerio, the betrayer is the one whose guaranteed to come out ahead, and you have to be crazy to get in an alliance with them when you clearly cannot outmaneuver them.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
I think when you break it down, the difference is that Big Mom can assassinate The Vinsmokes and gain a subservient clone army no fuss no muss. But why would she ever pull that assassination plot on a pirate crew? When a pirate crew hooks up with Big Mom, she gains their probably strong captain and a strong pirate crew loyal to that captain. That crew is then allowed to operate with relative impunity unless called upon. Big Mom wouldn't betray a pirate crew like this because unlike a clone army, a pirate crew wouldn't really be loyal if you tried to kill their captain (although, this is a bit moot since Big Mom is being betrayed by two seemingly loyal pirate crews).
It's not like they were loyal to begin with Jinbe and his crew only joined to protect fishman island and would have abandoned her if the other yonko could guarantee it's safety
People make bad decisions all the time. You're assuming everyone's going to look at things 100% rationally and make the perfectly rational choice, well I'm here to tell you that more often than not they don't. Especially when driven by ambition or greed. The history of the world's most successful people is littered with men and women making irrational choices that just happened to work out for them.
Rationally my brother shouldn't play the lotto because he won't win. His odds of getting hit by lightning are better. Yet he does anyway because he assumes that he'll be the 1 in a million. That somehow he's different than everyone else and will somehow pick the right numbers. That everything will go his way. This exact dynamic plays out all the time in a multitude of different situations across the world at all levels.
Remember the Trump voter married to an illegal immigrant who was surprised when her husband was deported? She never thought it would happen to her, she thought it'd be everyone else. Hell, Trump voters are basically the perfect example of this dynamic. Everyone thought it'd be the other guy getting screwed by him, not them, so they took the risk and voted for him when rationally they should have known better.
So long as the reward is great enough, people will risk it. That's human nature.
Also, this. If she makes an alliance with a pirate crew, she's doing it for their strength. She gets nothing out of killing them.
If you put it like that, why betray the vinsmokes at all? Social status aside, they themselves are powerful fighters who will, as far as you know, honor their debt to you?
The Vinsmokes themselves ain't shit. Sanji was punking them. Also, they wanted to go an conqueror the North Blue with her help. They didn't want to stick around and help her.
The smartest thing for both would be for the vinsmokes to give her the tech and knowhow in exchange of enough military might to conquest the North Blue.
But where would the fun be there?
Right, but here's the thing: The rationale has to be supported by something. In your lotto example, the advertisements promote the lottery by giving you the idea that you could be the one lucky one. The lady who voted for her brother is under false illusions about Trump. They're making bad decisions because various outlets have fed a narrative to construct a false reality around them. Big Mom doesn't have media painting a good image of her (Unless....big bird?)
But here's the thing: Those are individual people. As a whole, people are more realistic about their chance at the Lotto, even if they still play it. As a whole, people are getting angrier and angrier with Trump. His popularity is dropping as everything goes on.
At the very best, you're just saying that Big Mom is shrinking her pool of alliances to crazies and idiots. That's not a negligible loss. Powerful, intelligent people that might have considered allying with her before wouldn't because now they have tangible evidence that it's not worth it. For your arguement to be valid, you'd have to say that absolutely no people would be deterred by Big Mom's treacherous nature. And I feel that's pretty unlikely.
It's possible that Judge is a hypocrite, but given his dialogue in this chapter, it seems that he would keep his word, even if he didn't like it. But even assuming otherwise, she could just set the condition that she'll only help after the Germa tech has done it's job for her.
She probably doesn't trust the family itself, the actual army is probably programmed to listen to whoever is in charge and with have we been told that is a powerful army, she probably don't want to give the Vinsmokes cards to play when they can just withdraw anytime. Plus Gemma 66 give powerful mooks the vinsmokes maybe strong but it's not like BM needs more strong pirates and nothing has been shown by them to be anything special considering that guy with a stand is not commander yer looks like a bigger challenge than any of the vinsomkes but that's just me speculating
Sibersk Esto
Banned
Judge was set to immediately use Pudding as leverage over Big Mom, and it's no secret to anybody that he wanted to use her forces to conquer the North Blue. If I'm Big Mom, and I have my own goals to reach, why waste time and resources on a campaign to take over the North Blue when I can just trim the fat, kill 5 Vinsmokes, and keep the clone army?
Did that need confirmation lol, i mean in the new world you ain't shit without haki though he has fishman karate and Vinsmokes are modified so i'm just a dumbass.
Look at it this way, tons and tons of her daughters and sons have married powerful people of many different races to accomplish her dream/make her more powerful. What the Vinsmokes bring to the table is so minor that she doesn't give a shit about betraying them AT THE WEDDING.
Sanji's family ain't shit. She'd frankly be more interested in Sanji if she only knew how good of a cook he was!
Sanji's family ain't shit. She'd frankly be more interested in Sanji if she only knew how good of a cook he was!
Especially when taking forces away from the New World might result in a disruption of the balance of power and the loss of the ponyglyph?
I'm saying people often make bad decisions when driven by greed, ambition, hate, fear, love and so on and so forth. If they decide that allying with Big Mom will get them what they want they'll take the risk.
Well like you said, Fishman Karate and what not. And like yea, it's like expected, but it's always good to have confirmation. Could've been another Ace for all we knew lol
Idk. Setting the North Blue aside to where it won't be an issue seems like it's not something that would be a big deal, especially if she just puts it as "As soon as I'm Pirate King".
Avoiding the leverage is easy. "Oh, I set up a nice cottage for Sanji and Pudding to live in, no worries." (Though this wouldn't be an issue in the first place if she trained Pudding to be worth a shit in a fight).
But the real point here is avoid looking treacherous. Maybe Morgans was going to be asked to write "and so the Vinsmokes pulled a coup on us, so we attacked back". Because that's the actual point here, preserving Big Mom's good name. Because right now, it just looks like she threw it away for no reason.
Sure. I agree with taht. My point is that the pool of people who make that bad decision driven by greed, ambition, hate, etc would be a whole lot bigger if they weren't given a reason to believe that Big Mom would just off them as soon as she got what she wanted. My point is that she is burning bridges for no reason, and you're counter seems to be "Well, she isn't burning ALL the bridges, only the ones with sane and rational people, so it's okay"
Heh. Honestly, I think I like this explanation the best. "She keeps her word, unless you're really worthless like those base ass Vinsmokes"
Edit: Dammit Lotus, post more
The more i'm seeing the new world the more i'm wondering how did Ace make it as far as he gone, i know he is supposed to be talented but i like to believe he last this far because whitebeard and he is actually shit. That is my new headcanon
Confirmed to actually have it outside of just statements.
If only Sanji could step up.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
Betraying the Vinsmokes is a strategic mistake for all of Big Mom's current and future alliances. But I'm not surprised Oda is going that route since he's obviously mimicking the Lannisters making the same mistake in Game of Thrones. It's just not nearly as well set up due to the constraints​ of the medium (an hour long HBO show with thousands of book pages backing up it's lore can do a lot more than a weekly kids manga).
Thanks Greg.
Speaking of Greg, here's is thoughts on OP anime last episode:
I wrote a blurb about it.
It was okay.
Key animation was all over the map.
Tune was good but the VAs were really MicroMachining some of those lyrics.
I don't think it deserves praise for something it *should* be doing every week.
He really is OP toughest critic at times.
because big mom knows they aren't always going to be loyal and might screw her over in the future. what she wants is their tech and that's all. big mom betraying a bunch of royals with no country isn't a very big thing at all and i don't think it would affect future alliances either. she tried to make an alliance with elbaf but they aren't affiliated with the world government so they aren't traditional royalty and they seem to have a very powerful army. i don't think big mom could betray them because that army wouldn't stay loyal to a non giant. she might not be able to get new royal alliances but there probably aren't many out there worth it either.
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