History Characters / OnePieceSevenWarlordsOfTheSea

* DramaticIrony: [[spoiler:The Egghead Arc reveals that Kuma learned about the Nika myth from his father. In spite of this, he never learns that Luffy has eaten the Nika Devil Fruit, merely noting that he is a man with rubber-powers who opposes the oppression of the World Government just like Nika before him. In the end, it is Luffy’s extraordinary action of punching a Celestial Dragon that shakes Kuma, moves him and makes him [[LeapOfFaith place his faith in Luffy]] .]]

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: His current status as a heavily-abused slave-for-rent is a result of the World Nobles and Government catching onto his selfless actions in helping the Straw Hat crew, like helping facilitate their escapes in ''Thriller Bark'' and Sabaody Archipelago as well as guarding their ship for two years straight. As such, they have chosen to make an example of him for his defiance.

* DramaticIrony: [[spoiler:While the readers know at this point that Luffy is Nika, Kuma never finds this out, merely noting that Luffy is a man with rubber-powers who opposes the oppression of the World Government just like Nika before him. In the end, it is Luffy’s extraordinary action of punching a Celestial Dragon that shakes Kuma, moves him and makes him [[LeapOfFaith place his faith in Luffy]].]]

* TheDreaded: [[spoiler: Even after his personality gets completely wiped Saint Saturn fears him enough to order Vegapunk toinstall a SelfDestructMechanism, just in case he decides to go rogue regardless.]]

* NotSoStoic: Kuma puts on an unemotional front while working as a Warlord and as a revolutionary, completing missions with a seemingly robotic sense of duty. His flashbacks, however, show that this was not at ''all'' the case in his personal life, such as when [[spoiler:he blushes bashfully after Ginny proposes to him and sobs tears of joy while raising Bonney]]. It's clear that, under the surface, Kuma was very much a kindhearted family man through-and-through.

* BestFriend: To Vegapunk. Even though both Kuma and Vegapunk have other acquaintances, Kuma is the only person shown having open friendly conversations with the man and the two are shown to trust each other completely, with Kuma even entrusting Vegapunk Luffy’s lineage as Dragon’s son. [[spoiler: Which is why Vegapunk completely [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness slouches down and screams after being forced by Saint Saturn to erase Kuma’s personality]].

-->'''Kuma:''' (''as he is about to "push" Luffy'')[[spoiler:This is just the level of the New World. It is still too soon for the likes of your crew!! Don’t come here yet. One day in the future… You will be the man who saves the world.]]

* {{Irony}}: A flashback shows that as a child, Kuma's greatest dream [[spoiler:was to be a hero who liberated slaves like the legendary Sun God Nika, who his father told him stories about to keep his hopes of freedom up. Decades later, one of Kuma's last acts of free will is to save the life of Monkey D. Luffy, the man destined to become the next incarnation of Nika, the hero Kuma strove to be like so long ago.]].

* SaveYourDeity: [[spoiler:Kuma saves the lives of the Straw Hat Pirates, including Monkey D. Luffy -- and in turn unknowingly rescues the next avatar of the Sun God Nika, the Buccaneer FolkHero who he modeled his dreams and ideals after. A later chapter reveals this isn't a coincidence; the reason why Kuma saved Luffy and his crew is ''because'' Luffy reminded him so much of the stories of Nika, completely unaware that Luffy was Nika all along. Even then, he still believed to the end that Luffy would be the one carry on his hero's will, and save the world]].

* DramaticIrony: [[spoiler: While the readers know at this point that Luffy is Nika, Kuma never finds this out, merely noting that Luffy is a man with rubber-powers who opposes the oppression of the World Government just like Nika before him. In the end, it is Luffy’s extra-ordinary action of punching a Celestial Dragon that shakes Kuma, moves him and makes him [[LeapOfFaith place his faith in Luffy]].]]

* FatalFlaw: Quite simply, he doesn’t value his own life ''at all'', and [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth neglects his own health and needs to the point he actually needs other people (like Ginny) stepping in to prevent him from giving too much of himself to others]]. [[spoiler: When he makes the DealWithTheDevil with the World Government, he is all too happy that the only price he will have to pay for curing Bonney is his own life]].

* {{Irony}}: A flashback shows that as a child, Kuma's greatest dream [[spoiler:was to be a hero who liberated slaves like the legendary Sun God Nika, who his father told him stories about to keep his hopes of freedom up. Decades later, one of Kuma's last acts of free will is to save the life of Monkey D. Luffy, the man destined to become the next incarnation of Nika, the hero Kuma strove to be like so long ago]].

* LeapOfFaith: [[spoiler: He never finds out that Luffy is the current incarnation of Nika. However, the fact that Luffy is a man with rubber-like properties who opposes the oppression of the World Government and the fact that he dared ‘’to punch a Celestial Dragon’’ is enough to convince Kuma that Luffy will be the one who will eventually save the world, right before he saves him and his crew by pushing them away from danger]].

* OnceMoreWithClarity: During his flashback, we see the events of Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark and Sabaody Archipelago from his point of view. We also see what he is thinking as he “pushes” Luffy and his crew to the places where they can [[TookALevelInBadass take a level in Badass]].
-->'''Kuma:''' (As he is about to «push» Luffy)[[spoiler: This is just the level of the New World. It is still too soon for the likes of your crew. Don’t come here yet. One day in the future… You will the man who saves the world.]]

* SaveYourDeity: [[spoiler:Kuma saves the lives of the Straw Hat Pirates, including Monkey D. Luffy -- and in turn unknowingly rescues the next avatar of the Sun God Nika, the Buccaneer FolkHero who he modeled his dreams and ideals after]].

* FatalFlaw: Quite simply, he doesn’t value his own life ‘’at all’’, and [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth neglects his own health and needs to the point he actually needs other people (like Ginny) stepping in to prevent him from giving too much of himself to others]]. [[spoiler: When he makes the DealWithTheDevil with the World Government, he is all too happy that the only price he will have to pay for curing Bonney is his own life]].

* LanternJawOfJustice: Double subverted. Kuma has a protruding jawline and is a frighteningly powerful enforcer for the corrupt World Government, but eventually, it's revealed that he's downright Supermanesque in his nobility and compassion.

* GoodAllAlong: Luffy outright states he's actually good after he finds out that he's one of the Revolutionaries and he sent the crew away in the Sabaody Archipelago to save their lives. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. During the Egghead arc, all the questions and mysteries surrounding Kuma are weaved together, revealing the Warlord's entire life to have been one [[DarkAndTroubledPast awful]] '''[[TragicHero awful]]''' [[TheWoobie tragedy]]. Despite the ''constant'' suffering Kuma endured at the hands of the World Government, he always kept the wellbeing of others, [[spoiler:his adopted daughter Bonney]] in particular, at the center of his heart. Kuma wasn't merely "good" all along; he was an honest-to-God saint who always chose to do the right thing no matter what the world put him through.

* HandBlast: His ''Pad Cannon'' which is a paw-shaped [[BlowYouAway air bullet]] created by pushing the air at extremely high speeds.

* GoodAllAlong: Luffy outright states he's actually good after he finds out that he's one of the Revolutionaries and he sent the crew away in the Sabaody Archipelago to save their lives.

* HumanizingTears: Kuma never shows any emotion when the Straw Hat Pirates encounter him, but later flashbacks remind the audience that he was still a human being with emotions. [[spoiler:When Bonney [[MemoryJar decides to take on his memories]], she encounters Kuma as a child crying alone in a field. The scene shifts to Kuma sobbing as he's horribly beaten by a crowd of people, pleading in vain for them to let him go. It then cuts to silhouettes of the Celestial Dragons, making ''very'' clear what [[DarkAndTroubledPast kind of childhood]] Kuma had]].

* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:During his brief encounter with Sakazuki, Kuma loses one of his legs from magma.]]
* AuthorityInNameOnly: {{Justified|Trope}}. [[spoiler: While Kuma becomes the King of Sorbet Kingdom to appease its citizens, he doesn't have the slightest idea on how to run a country so he assigns King Bulldog, Bekori's [[TheGoodKing more competent predecessor]], to do it for him. He later steps down completely and gives the position back to Bulldog after turning to piracy and beginning his journey to find a cure for Bonney's disease]].

* TheMillstone: They cause just as much if not more damage to their employers than the very pirates they're supposed to keep in check. With several public betrayals, multiple losses to the Straw Hats (only their fearsome reputations gave the system any merit), and the fact that they generally don't ever listen to legal authorities, even the corrupt World Government has to admit that the Warlords are much more trouble than they are worth. The only one who follows their orders with any regularity is Bartholomew Kuma, and that's because [[spoiler:the World Government [[IHaveYourWife had his daughter hostage]]. Inevitably, when two kings whose kingdoms were devastated by the treachery of Warlords motioned to have the system abolished, it eventually passes with a majority vote.]]

* TheMole: He turns out to be a member of the Revolutionary Army. He is no longer The Mole after he consented to his full conversion into a cyborg with no free will of his own. We're still unsure of why he agreed to such a fate.

* BadassPreacher: Kuma's bible isn't just for show, he's a genuine man of the cloth.

* AmbiguouslyChristian: Kuma carries a Bible and is even seen living and praying in a Christian style church, complete with a cross, after [[spoiler: escaping from God Valley with his friends Ginny and Ivankov.]] It's later revealed that prior to joining the Revolutionary Army, he worked as a pastor. The only real ambiguity comes from the fact that it's unclear whether Christianity is the same in the One Piece world as it is in real life.

* {{Deuteragonist}}: Alongside [[spoiler:his daughter]] Jewelry Bonney, Bartholomew Kuma is one of the main points of focus in the Egghead arc, with their relationship serving as the driving force behind each of their stories and the emotional core of the arc.

* INeverGotAnyLetters: [[spoiler:During his flashback he is shown sending an enormous amount of letters to Bonney. Sadly, none of them reach their destination, since they are intercepted and destroyed by [[BattleaxeNurse Alpha]], Bonney's "caretaker". This leaves Bonney devastated. Retroactively however, it's zigzagged as Bonney later looks through Kuma's memories, meaning that she watched him write out each of the letters that never made it to her]].

* INeverGotAnyLetters: [[spoiler: During his flashback he is shown sending an enormous amount of letters to Bonney. Sadly, none of them reach their destination, since they are intercepted and destroyed by [[BattleaxeNurse Alpha]], Bonney's "caretaker". This leaves Bonney devastated]].

* DotingParent: [[spoiler:He spent just as much time assisting the Revolution as he did raising Bonney, and was an incredibly loving and attentive father. A scene shows him crying TearsOfJoy when a baby Bonney calls him "Daddy" for the first time]].

* DramaticIrony: [[spoiler:Egghead Arc reveals the reason why Kuma let Vegapunk erase his mind was the World Government was holding his daughter Bonney hostage. However, Bonney managed to escape custody before the operation was complete and was running around at Sabaody Archipelago as a free girl at the same time Kuma was there too. They were so close to reuniting again and freeing Kuma from the World Government's yoke, yet they [[MissedHimByThatMuch never did]], tragically leading to his death when he no longer had any reason to obey.]]