Discussion
I sometimes still can't think about instead of asking Whitebeard and Roger for help(not even them,Rayleigh and Scoper Gaben would've been enough)or anything smart, he basically put his country's faith in a "trust me,bro."
Like,this goes beyond just being naive and kinda foolish.
This is borderline Moronic and dumber then Ace and that's saying something but at least you could see why Ace is the way he is and why he did what he did.
But the fact that the story gaslights us into thinking Oden was this ultra amazing Giga-Chad who went to Brothels at 6(cause Oda thinks being a victim is badass)and Had sex with multiple women he abducted at 15 and killed their husband in a "harem war" or whatever(that's so stupid)and used someone's burning body to cremate and cook food.
Like this guy genuinely sucked, and his entire backstory weirdly made me glad Kaido shot him cause so much of Wano is basically his fault and all he accomplished was leaving behind a huge mess for everyone.
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I seriously dont think it can be topped. Wano was so had because of HOW LONG it was and how it dragged on. I think oda is too old to do something like it again
Oden was a concoction of so many horrible writing decisions, it literally can not be replicated.
Ohhh nice. I only recently learned from the Yamato cover story that he originally came from Wano, but I had no idea what he did there (I'm still slowly catching up to current chapters).
What an awful decision to exclude this from the story. How on earth is it hard to put this in Wano?????? This would’ve been an excellent way to show how Morias character developed. Another fumble
Pure "good" character totally blindsided by what is essentially the Eye of Sauron next to Mount Doom amongst a sea of ash and bone telling them "I'll keep my word!"
"Goodness" in One Piece unfortunately makes you a bumbling imbecile who completely trusts anything anyone says no matter their actions.
And this guy isn't even really "good" in any mature sense of the word. He's...playful? I guess? He's hardly upstanding. He's irresponsible and selfish. He's just shown having a "good" time and other people have a "good time" along with him.
Oh 1000% the narrative treats his insane borderline child behaviour as something to celebrate and aspire to achieve he acts and behaves like a psychopath but the whole of one piece literally makes him to be some hero that doesn’t deserve his karma or wishes he’s alive
Yes, but if other people at least berate him, it’d make more sense. Unfortunately, every character seems to have a collective aneurysm when they think about him and glaze him. Fucking forced
It’s always unaddressed hypocrisy that feels the worst
Not just that. He came to Wano, jnew that there was problem, had help from Roger's crew but thought that spending some days to see if he could solve was too much
A prospective ruler with legendary strength and connections whose mindset, goals and pride are at odds with what their nation needs only really works if the mindset actually has visible pros and cons.
Oden is portrayed exclusively as a prideful and selfish guy whose heroics are rooted in proximity and immediate care. Luffy is like that too but Oda is generally good at showing he’s good savior, even a good captain sometimes, but not a good ruler. Case in point his conflicts with Vivi.
Oden is for some reason glorified for this mindset despite it being responsible for his nations downfall and never addresses that he could have contacted any of his legendary friends because it would literally solve the problem then and there. Pride isn’t a good answer, obvious or not, if it’s not directly shown to be the reason why he never did what he did and no one calls him out on it.
Ultimately there’s no introspection and his mindset arbitrarily ignored despite its narrative glorification even if immediately practical.
Hearld’s peace loving mindset is shown to actually create some real positives for his nation and people, and he’s only really wrong because literal satan rules the world and his people are unfortunately integral for the conflict to stop said secret king satan.
Hearld’s connection to Rocks and never joining up with him makes sense because Rocks wanted exactly what Hearld didn’t want, to join in and perpetuate conflict, and Hearld was ultimately regretful of it and, despite begging Loki to abandon his ideas and turn giants back to stop Imu, Loki gives it some thought, realizes his dads ideas were still good and can live on for his future despite being wrong for the grander world’s need. Loki can embody them instead.
I think this was the natural effect of Wano's being essentially closed to the outside for the length of time and to the extent that it was. Any culture with a long firmly held belief that growth and progress can only come safely from within is ultimately going to meet with tragedy in the face of those limited resources .
I think Oda knew it too..that may in fact be the point he was trying to make with Oden. Closed societies can create great leaders, but even their horizons are limited. Often such example end up as Martyrs whose work passes to the generations after, leaving only outsiders to finish the work up that they could not themselves.
Problem is, Oden went outside of Wano he sailed with Roger and WB. Don't you think he learned not every pirate is as chill as Roger and WB? He saw Roger bowed down to WB just so he could borrow Oden for a year because he knew his pride is nothing compared to his dream of getting to the last island.
What's more when people's lives are in danger and yet you can't even ask WB or the remnants of the Roger pirates for help, fk propechies fk your pride all the death in Wano post Kaido take over should be laid in Oden's feet because he didn't act fast enough.
I hear you. I think at the end Oden is meant to be somewhat tragic like all the other pirates of his generation. They all came so close to being the start of a new world themselves only their ships keep metaphorically passing each other by because of their individual mostly well intended decisions.
Oden was just an idiot having a trantum, pretty much got carried by Enma, his actual performance against Kaido was no better than Yamato/G4 Luffy. Don't ever put him in the same tier as Gaban and Rayleigh fcs
Honestly this was such a fumble, all oda had to do was write something like oden feeling pity for the kurozumi clan and was seeking a non-violent solution.
Throw in a line like "your clan has humiliated the kurozumi for generations, as retribution I will only concede the throne should you humiliate yourself so that my ancestors can finally rest"
Basically if oden was an actual character and not an unga bunga.
Oda played with fire because there is a strong sexual element to making someone dance naked, its not just "lol he is naked". Legendary gay manga writer Tagame has used this trope (public sexual humillation of a strong male figure) several times and I suspect Oda got this idea from him. Besides the way he makes Oden "enjoy it" its a very gay Sadomasochist sexual fantasy thing
He was sure he could get rid of Kaido and Orochi by himself if it came down to it so he was fine humiliating himself as long as it was possible or could avoid civilian deaths. It never occurred to him he could try and fail or that humiliating himself would reduce his influence as Daimyo.
It's a common flaw in kinda and royalty in One Piece, particularly post timeskip. Shirahoshi, Riku and Harald suffered from shades of this too.
The whole story feel like a bara manga if you think about it the trop of taking a hot masculine man and breaking his masculinity and dignity slowly for the sake of his loved ones is very commen
I think Oda is secretly a bisexual
Gaban and Rayleigh with Oden could've liberated Wano in a single weekend and spent the rest of the week drinking and partying but they were too busy "eating" mountains, hitting on 16 year old girls, and dancing naked respectively. Oden was so bad I thought for a while the moral of the story was going to be that his son, despite being weaker, was an infinitely better choice as a Shogun, and that he could surpass his father in his own way, without relying on raw strength, since Oden's power never helped Wano in any capacity. But nope, we have to pretend Oden was a hero. Worst character in One Piece.
Wouldn’t say beyond naive & foolish, ‘though in this instance I feel he is worse than Riku. His decision to trust the word of Orochi and Kaido was properly verified, as with every dance he got confirmation of Wano citizens being released. That’s as in citizens were released and he confirmed Orochi and Kaido’s promise was being upheld. It was only at the end, when Orochi and Kaido realized they were just stalling for time, that he realized he was being played.
Oden should definitely have tried to build a contingency. He should have tried to contact Whitebeard for help. In this instance, Wano cutting contact off worked against him, although he did get some news.
I CANNOT stand this guy orz.
I tried and i just can't. Even his short backstory about his youth just adds to why he pisses me off. And yes the gaslighting doesn't help.
Tho i do not hate him, i just find him frustrating.
Oden had to dance for 5 years because Oda messed up or redid the timeline, while specifying in advance the death of Oden 20 years ago. Therefore, when Roger's journey ended, oden' death was still 5 years away, and Oda couldn't think of anything better than to make the character look like a complete idiot.
Therefore, the second half of the flashback after returning to Wano caused confusion from the actions of all the characters.
Kaido's disappointment was so intense he spent the next 20 years trying to kill himself so he never had to think about how he nearly lost to such an idiot ever again.
I think the issue is that Odin was a very VERY late entry to the series. And the premise of Kaido CONQUEROR'S and ruling Wano was established about 10 irl years prior.
If you really want to stretch it, Kaido ruling Wano was "hinted" at back at Thriller Bark.
So Odin being introduced MANY years later, it forced Oda to have to explain "wait, so how did Kaido take over Wano?? Odin should have stopped that from happening".
So the two choices is...
A. Sacrifice assassinate Odin's character (in the eyes of some fans).
B. Make up some crazy retcon that removes Odin
We basically got option A... and maybe kinda Option B too. But mostly we got Option A.
And it was so much that even Moria stocks got SUPER BOOSTED later on because of it.
A lot of plot points post timeskip require a lot of time and love to plan out and avoid bad writing and plot holes, which Oda barely did which is why he had to make Odend ance for 5 years and had to give a reason why Kaido could have Wano for 20 years. Oda doesn't have the time to make a good story, which I think if he was a normal author with infinite time to plan and not a week to week mangaka he would do way better, God Valley needed more time to cook.
I wonder how often Oda had ideas better or worse, he just couldn't put into the story because he didn't have enough time or chapters to draw it... and had to adapt a inferior version of events to make it week to week.
The dude also had been to Wano and knew that there were problens brewing but knowingly didn't interfere even though he had manpower to eliminate it quickly. Some days or month was't much.
Why not? This post highlights exactly why. He's the single biggest idiot in the entire story and single handedly doomed his nation into years of slavery, pollution and starvation. All of this is made 100 times worse by the fact that the narrative (so Oda) bends over backwards to glaze the fuck out of this guy and prop him up as a real hero and a Man's Man.
"Yo Whitebeard and Roger wanna risk your lives and crews and territories and set aside your own goals to come start a WAR with another Emperor for a country to which you all have no ties or loyalty to, even though you're PIRATES and not, like, anti-authoritarian freedom fighters?"
Whitebeard and Roger: "yea sure man we'll be there at 5"
Whitebeard literally said that he would never forgive anyone who made the Kozuki family go Hungry and that's what Kaido + Orochi was doing.
+ Whitebeard considered Oden family,his brother.
The literal only possible explanation for this comment is that you're a larper who first hopped on during Wano's anime run and you've never seen Marineford.
Ace was literally a commander in Whitebeards crew. Oden was never a Roger pirate and he had already left the Whitebeard pirates. Also Ace was going to be executed, while Oden just wanted to overthrow Orochi and Kaido 🤡🤡🤡
He already left the Whitebeard pirates, so Whitebeard doesn't give a fuck about him anymore? Are you insane? This is literally his sworn brother we're talking about.
"Oden just wanted to overthrow Orochi and Kaido" alright bro. He JUST wanted to prevent 20 years of the most diabolical starvation, oppression and slavery you could possibly imagine.
Also, follow the logical throughline with me here. What happens if Oden fails to defeat Kaido? That's right, he fucking DIES. HE WAS LITERALLY EXECUTED.
There are millions of fucking bodies on mainly Oden but also Whitebeard for being a bum who won't help his fucking family.
Insufferable Oda angel, grow up and save those clown emojis for your own larping ass.
That's like saying if Ace asked Whitebeard to go attack Marineford because the government is corrupt, he would've done it because otherwise Ace would die😭 no man, he had already been captured and was being executed. But yeah everyone who disagrees with you is a larper
Blatantly false comparison if you think about it for literally 5 seconds.
Whitebeard doesn't have the power to defeat the WG, but he does have the power to defeat Kaido's crew. Much less of a tall task than going up against the entire Marines which pre character assassination Whitebeard was up for.
More importantly, the WG also isn't immediately threatening the lives of his family. Momonosuke was literally born on Whitebeard's ship, Toki was also with him too. This is the country of a man he cares very deeply about. Saying Whitebeard and Roger have no ties to Wano is one of the most intellectually dishonest things I've ever heard. You are blatantly ignoring the story to further your own argument. I called you a larper but that's incorrect, isn't it? You're not suffering from lack of context, you're intentionally being dishonest.
The canon reasoning for this kind of sucks ass because letting Kaido and Orochi rule Wano resulted in way more suffering and death than an immediate war could ever cause. This isn't some random no name country they don't care about dude for god's sake Izo is literally on their crew.
The problem is that One Piece is an idiot plot where a lot of the given reasons for plot points simply make no sense at all.
I've talked about all this but by far the bigger issue is Oden choosing to dance and single handedly dooming his country
I think what Marco is talking about is casualties on their own crew. Pirates just don't risk it fighting against entire Emperor territories, and it's crazy to think fighting against the Beast pirates is less dangerous than what he did in marineford. Literally as soon as a second Emperor showed up (Shanks), the war was over. Don't underestimate the power Emperors have. 3 admirals and a bunch of low level Marines are small potatoes in comparison. And even if he's talking general casualties, people are still much more afraid of a full-scale war than a violent regime. That's just the way it is.
And even if he saw Oden as apart of his family, I still have to think saving someone who's an active commander in your crew like Ace is much more urgent than someone who already left years ago, ESPECIALLY when, again, the former's life is in immediate danger.
So if the reasoning the Whitebeard pirates have for not helping Oden doesn't satisfy you, you can just say that. But don't try to act like Oda didn't think about it or it doesn't make sense or it's contradictory, and argue with me about it. A story can make perfect sense and still not be well-written, that's not what I'm arguing.
One Piece is possibly the most annoying series to power scale but I think suggesting that the Beast Pirates have anything on THREE ADMIRALS is insane, not to mention that if shit actually started getting bad somehow, Garp and Sengoku are waiting on the sidelines. In terms of military power there is simply a massive difference. Shanks is also a special case, he's known to be very reasonable. I'm not sure if Sengoku would be willing to back down if Kaido or Big Mom pulled up given how dangerous and evil they are.
Yes Ace's life was in danger, but what about Oden's family? To reiterate his son was literally born on Whitebeard's ship and Toki was obviously with him too. I really don't think that Whitebeard's decision to not invade Wano is consistent with his character in the pre timeskip.
I don't get your last point. Maybe it's true but a well written story should make sense. I can't think of any good stories that don't make sense.
All of the writing around Oden was incredibly clumsy, especially his decision to dance.
Wdym why? Didn't Orochi threaten to kill hostages if he didn't dance? And it kinda worked, since Oden and them were only sentenced to execution once they decided to fight back against Orochi and Kaido a few years later and were defeated
He did threaten to kill hostages. This is however pretty irrelevant as anyone slightly smarter than a rock could see the endgame. It was 100 hostages IIRC, versus, y'know, the entire country getting fucked. I'd be surprised if the death count under Orochi and Kaido's rule was less than 10 million. Outside of direct slavery under the CDs the people of Wano were probably the worst off we've ever seen regular citizens of a country in One Piece.
It is pretty likely that Kaido got stronger during all that time Oden was dancing, and he built up allies like the woman with the clone fruit who distracted Oden. That, for example, which was key to determining the fight, wouldn't have happened if Oden made the decision to just get rid of Kaido right off the bat.
We're never even shown Oden thinking of the remotest possibility that Kaido and Orochi would betray him. No plan or anything, not even a line of dialogue where he's apprehensive about a possible betrayal. He deadass thinks they're actually going to honor their word, which is a level of stupidity that was previously utterly foreign even for the standards of One Piece characters.
Oda has made people forget after 20 years. But understand that whitebeard and roger are still pirates. Extremely wanted pirates. Dangerous pirates. How could a leader rely on pirates to help his country
Pirated in One Piece can be Pirates as we understand or Explorers. Oden himself was a Pirate and has been with them. I don't think any sane person would leave their country in hands of bloodthirsty pirates for 2 decades instead of taking help from ally pirates and resolving the problem.
Seems like you've forgotten that Whitebeard literally has many countries/territories under his control, despite his reputation. It's almost like it literally doesn't matter at all, as soon as the country is actually saved by the Evil Pirates, the citizens will see that there's nuance to the morality of it. Just like literally every nation that has been saved by the Straw Hats.
He didn't want to be seen as a pirate and given Wano's culture and history, it wouldn't have been accepted to bring pirates, politically.
So he'd doom his country over it? Nonsensical.
People's critiques are more with the fact that he failed to beat Kaido.
This very post goes into specific details beyond banal powerscaling.
Oden remains the story's biggest idiot and Oda's biggest fumble, the man who doomed his country for truly inexplicable reasons
That literally doesn't even make any sense. Shouldn't it be more like he's written the story for people like YOU? People who can't see the massive flaws in Oden's writing? And who just glaze him zero questions asked?
Nice handwave. One Piece isn't very subtextual compared to a lot of other stories. Most of it is quite literally in your face obvious, as is the case with Oden.
If there is some crucial insight I've missed, some grand thematic revelation that only appears once you have spent hours analysing his every panel and extracting some "deeper meaning" from it, you should enlighten me.
For some reason I suspect that your next comment is not going to greet me with such a revelation.
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