Spanner In The Works / One Piece

Tropes for One Piece
Tropes A to B (Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, Arc Villain, Berserk Button, Beware the Silly Ones, Big Brother Instinct, Bowdlerise, Break the Cutie) | Tropes C to D (Call-Back, Chekhov's Gun, Cliffhanger, Combat Pragmatist, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, Curb-Stomp Battle, Dark and Troubled Past, Deconstructed Character Archetype) | Tropes E to F (Early Installment Weirdness, Famous Last Words, Foreshadowing) | Tropes G to J (Heart is an Awesome Power, Hypocrite) | Tropes K to M (Laser-Guided Karma, Logical Weakness, Mass "Oh, Crap!", Moral Myopia, Muscles Are Meaningless) | Tropes N to P (Nice Job Fixing It, Villain, Oh, Crap!, O.O.C. Is Serious Business) | Tropes Q to S (The Reveal, Shout-Out, Spanner in the Works, Superpower Lottery) | Tropes T to Z (Wham Episode, Wham Line)

• The Straw Hat Pirates in general:
  • Luffy and his crew have a tendency to do this wherever they go. Captain Kuro, Crocodile, Eneru, CP9, Shiki (from Strong World), and Z (from Film Z) all had very elaborate plans that were a stone's throw away from fruition, but then along came Luffy and crew. All of the above made the mistake of underestimating them, and paid dearly for it.
  • They also (unsurprisingly) stumbled upon the villainous plot for Fishman Island on their way to the New World, and thwarted that one as well. It helped that Big Bad Hody Jones, in spite of knowing everything that the Straw Hats had done before their hiatus, dismissed the nine of them as no threat and used Evil Gloating to outright provoke them. With exactly one ally joining the nine Straw Hats to fight, Hody and his army of 100,000 found themselves on the receiving end of what may be the most devastating Curb-Stomp Battle in the series as a result.
• Monkey D. Luffy in particular:
  • Luffy honestly doesn't care about the World Government's rule, or for that matter any of the Big Bads he faces. He just won't let anyone he cares about get hurt and will go to any lengths to protect his True Companions, hence his victories over three of the Seven Warlords of the Sea (and earning the respect or allegiance of the other four, and allying with yet another who proved to be The Mole after more were added to the roster), the destruction of Enies Lobby, and the assault upon the most powerful jerkasses in the world. Soon afterwards, we add the first successful mass-jail break from Impel Down and his assault upon the Marine HQ, just to save his big brother from being executed. The surrounding politics and larger conflict don't enter his mind at all.
  • Luffy's proficiency on this trope has been lampshaded during the Impel Down arc, when the jailers have to deal with two simultaneous riots on top of Blackbeard's invasion, both as a result of Luffy sneaking in.
    Magellan: Nothing is going our way! How could one intruder spark so much mayhem?!
• Sanji:
  • Luffy may be the biggest spanner among the Straw Hat Pirates, but Sanji Deserves special mention as well; his skills as a tactician often prove to be the linchpin to the Straw Hats' success. Enies Lobby shows his shrewdness in this twice. First, he lures a bunch of Marines and Agents into the back of the train Puffing Tom, then slips past them while they're distracted and detaches their cars behind him, stranding them and dealing with almost all of the remaining Mooks and a One-Man Army without having to fight them. Then, when the Buster Call arrives at Enies Lobby, he disappears for a while. When he returns, it's revealed he'd been looking for the controls to the Gates of Justice so he can close them, throwing the Buster Call ships into disarray by changing the pattern of the currents they were sailing on.
  • Much earlier, he shows off his skills in the Alabasta saga. First, all the way back in Little Garden, he happens to intercept a call from Mr. 0 and, pretending to be Mr. 3, tricks Baroque Works into thinking Vivi and the Straw Hats are all dead, meaning they don't have to worry about constant pursuit for a while; plus, he intercepts an Eternal Pose to Alabasta, meaning the Straw Hats could leave right away rather than wait a year for the Log Pose to reset. Later, in Alabasta itself, all of the other Straw Hats except Chopper have been captured by Crocodile and trapped in a room that will soon be submerged. He uses a bit of trickery to lure Crocodile and his Dragon out of the building and lure them far enough away to give him time to sneak in and set all of them free. He even taunts Crocodile with a note saying "Mr. Prince was here" for when he comes back and discovers that he's been outsmarted.
  • In Skypiea, the first time Eneru shows any real shock was when he discovers Luffy's rubber body is shockproof. The second time, though, was after he KO's Sanji, but his Parting-from-Consciousness Words hint he's still ruined Eneru's day... by sabotaging the Ark Maxim!
  • As of 862, Sanji might have performed his biggest spanner act ever... simply by calling his bride Pudding's Third Eye "beautiful". Up until then, the Ax-Crazy Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Pudding was fully willing to shoot him dead with a Hand Cannon... but since she had been bullied all of her life for that same Third Eye, Sanji's kind phrase shook her to the core and sent her in a sobbing Villainous Breakdown. This meant: she couldn't bring herself to kill him, Sanji managed to perceive and dodge additional threats in their surroundings (like an attack from Pudding's very badass Cold Sniper older brother Katakuri)... and then Luffy (and some clones of his) got the perfect opening to begin crashing the wedding, undo Big Mom's plans regarding Sanji's family, and put the plan to assassinate Big Mom herself in movement.
• In the Battle of Marineford:
  • Little Oars, Jr. caused the Marines strategy for fighting Whitebeard to backfire when his body blocked a piece of a huge siege wall they were trying to activate from rising.
  • Buggy the Clown also qualifies. His desire to grandstand and show off to a world audience led him to capture a video Transponder Snail, meaning that the World Government didn't have total control over what information was getting out of Marineford when they started slaughtering the pirates mercilessly with the Pacifistas, or when Blackbeard betrayed the World Government, indelibly humiliating them in the process.
• Fishman Island:
  • The Minister of the Right, Hody (indirectly) and Luffy prove to be spanners for Big Mom in her arc. As Hody stole the Energy Steroids in his plans to take over the Fishman Island, the minister fitted the treasure box with bombs in order to prevent further steps, which get accidentally sent to Big Mom herself when Luffy tries to bribe her into sparing Fishman Island. During the farce of a wedding in Whole Cake Island, hadn't Big Mom planned to open the Treasure Box after massacring the Straw Hats and the Vinsmokes, as well as Du Feld attempting to steal the box, the Big Mom Pirates would have won for good.
  • Otohime sparing Mjosgard saved her family in the long run. Hadn't Otohime spared him despite her subjects' request to kill him for revenge against part of the World Nobles, Charlos would have bought Shirahoshi, causing Neptune to attack him and trigger a war between the Ryuugu Kingdom and the World Government, as the citizens are immensely loyal to him and would have surely participated in the war, causing a lot of deaths and the Fishmen being permanently barred from the surface. Mjosgard getting his Character Development is what foiled Charlos's attempts to provoke an international incident, as he could intervene without incurring the wrath of the Admirals.
• Punk Hazard:
  • At the beginning of their journey into the New World, the Straw Hats evade Smoker this way. They were originally planning to go to Raijin island, and Smoker knew they were going there because it was the most dangerous of the New World's first three islands, fitting Luffy's adventurous personality and reckless tendencies. However, due to a timely distress call and pure happenstance, they end up going to an island the Log Pose didn't even register. Thus, began the Punk Hazard arc, where the crew accidentally stumbled upon another long term villainous plot and Government Conspiracy that they inevitably wreck. Again. And this time, they have a live audience to witness it all over the New World.
  • Going to Punk Hazard destroyed many villains' ongoing plans. This not only derailed Doflamingo's 10-year rule, but also devastated Big Mom's, Shogun Orochi's and Kaido's plans as well:
    • Big Mom could never have laid her hands on Sanji if not for the trip to Dressrosa, which in turn bolstered Luffy's own reputation as a prospective Emperor when Luffy went charging in to the rescue.
    • Orochi and Kaido's enemies were there in Punk Hazard itself. As they rescued Kin'emon and Momonosuke, they also revitalized Wano's resistance movement against the tyrannical Orochi, and Momo himself is revealed to be the son of Oden, the transcriptor of the Roger Pirates. Also, they accidentally saved Zou from being destroyed by Jack only because Kin'emon and Momo stated it as their destination. The red Poneglyph in Zou in turn provided the most important clue to the route to Laugh Tale. It's safe enough to say both Wano's resistance and Luffy's quest would have failed completely by accident if Luffy didn't decide to step on the most dangerous island to report on the distress call.
  • Smoker's obsession with catching Luffy has made him into a spanner for a quite number of villains as well. The moment where the Straw Hats evaded him upon entry into the New World led to Smoker following them to Punk Hazard. The presence of both him and Tashigi later proved to be pivotal to the Straw Hats and Law taking down Caesar Clown, as it was Smoker who got Law his heart back from Vergo, while his own heart was used to trick Caesar into accidentally killing his subordinate Monet, right before she was about to blow up the island to kill everyone except for Caesar, who, being a Gas Logia, would've been the only survivor. He also proved to be a spanner for the World Government's propaganda practices. He was absolutely disgusted by the Medal of Dishonor situation issued to him and Tashigi at Alabasta, and confessed as much to the newly conscripted Admiral Fujitora, whose goal/dream is to one day end the Warlord system, admitting the only reason he didn't reveal the truth is because he lacked the power and influence to make people believe him. This inspired Fujitora to delay his report after Doflamingo's defeat and expose to the surrounding islands both Dressrosa's current state and their true saviors, the Straw Hat Pirates and Law, preventing his superiors from trying to cover it up. And that led to the abolishment of the Seven Warlords System.
• Dressrosa:
  • In this arc, Donquixote Doflamingo hatches what looks like the perfect trap to destroy the Straw Hats with. See, this guy isn't your average villain; not only is he an extremely skilled and powerful Chessmaster and Manipulative Bastard, he's also smart enough to know that underestimating Luffy's crew would be a fatal mistake. However, outside factor after outside factor helps the Straw Hat Pirates out, rendering it all moot.
    • The Tontattas, whose people were enslaved by the Donquixote Family, provide intel on the location of the SMILE Factory and the identity of the power-user maintaining control over the country's Living Toys.
    • A familiar face from the past shows up at the colosseum, and he probably wouldn't have without the tournament Doflamingo created to trap Luffy, to switch places with Luffy, allowing him to attack Doflamingo's castle undetected.
    • But the biggest spanners came from Doffy's own crew: his officer Violet, who maintained a façade of loyalty since the time she was blackmailed into joining, falls for Sanji's chivalry and switches sides.
    • Giolla, on the tail-end of her capture of the Thousand Sunny, lets her guard down long enough for Brook to pull a You Are Already Dead.
    • Bellamy helps Luffy escape the colosseum because Doffy decided to have him killed.
    • And most of all, there's Sugar, the one turning people into toys. Knocking her unconscious is the only way for the guise over Dressrosa to be lifted, but no one can get near her. Usopp is captured, but instead of turning him into a toy like the others, she feeds him a grape she believed to be poisoned... which was actually hellishly spicy, and the resulting Jump Scare / Nightmare Face causes her to faint in shock.
  • Consequently, Doflamingo's precious Masquerade is shattered, the country sees him for the evil person he truly is, and he's forced to take the most drastic measures that he can.
  • There's also the fact that in the resulting battle, five of the eleven remaining One Man Armies in his crew are taken down thanks to pirates that came to the colosseum due to the tournament.
  • It turned out that Sugar herself commited quite the mistake regarding her plan... Due to how her powers work, once she makes somone into a member of the Living Toys group, she must manually create a contract with the victims, forcing them to follow every order given at that point, against their will. She did not do that with her first victim... who turned out to be the son-in-law of the former King, the extremely badass gladiator Kyros. As a result Kyros, now the toy Thunder Soldier, managed to retain his free will and do what he could to raise his not-turned daughter Rebecca, became the leader of an underground movement of rebels against Doflamingo's rule, and helped out the Straw Hats to overthrow Doflamingo.
• Trafalgar Law:
  • In a non-Straw Hat example, there's Trafalgar Law. The Dressrosa arc, which escalated to involve nearly every major power in the world in some form — the Seven Warlords of the Sea, the Four Emperors, the Marines, the World Government, and the Revolutionary Army — wouldn't have even happened if it weren't for him in the first place. His alliance with Luffy really did "shake the world" as the papers said, as it put the Straw Hats in the path of the Donquixote Family, leading to all of the above, and the gradual destruction of Donquixote Doflamingo's criminal empire. The thing is, Law, much like Luffy in that regard, doesn't care about any of it. The ultimate purpose of all his actions, including continuing to live to this very day, for the last thirteen years, has been to kill Donquixote Doflamingo. If the world has to spiral into chaos just so he can kill the man who murdered the most important person in his life, then so be it... though it's revealed in some chapters that he also seems to want the aftershock he knows will follow Doffy's defeat. Luffy grants his wish for the most part: Doffy's not dead, but he's clearly ruined. So when the government kicks him out of the Warlords and puts him and Luffy on equal footing, he shrugs it all off as if to say, "So Long, Suckers!".
• Lola from the Thriller Bark arc. During said arc, she supplies Luffy with the shadows that allow him to pummel the giant zombie Oars, and though that doesn't destroy Oars, it does weaken him enough for the Straw Hats to finish him off. Then, before they depart, she gives Nami a Vivre Card that apparently belongs to her mother. In Whole Cake Island, it's shown that Big Mom is Lola's mother, and that card is full of Big Mom's Soul Power, allowing Nami to control the Animate Inanimate Objects also created by Big Mom. In fact, by leaving Big Mom's territory, Lola disrupted an Arranged Marriage that would have allowed Big Mom to become Pirate Queen!
• In a larger scale, there's a woman named Sora. She foiled the plans of her husband Judge to experiment with their quadruplet sons, who she was still pregnant with by taking a dangerous drug that undid gene modifications. While only one of the boys was spared being modified and her health was damaged beyond repair and she died afterwards, it turns out the son that she did manage to save eventually escaped from his Big, Screwed-Up Family and grew into... none other than Vinsmoke Sanji, one of Luffy's True Companions, who's been helping Luffy become a bonafide example of this trope.
• The Darkest Hour in the Wano arc comes when Shogun Orochi manages to head off the heroes' attempts to covertly build up a rebellion and raid Kaido's island base, Onigashima, by sinking all the ships they had planned to use to travel by water and the bridges they would have used to go by land the night before they were all set to gather. This happened due to the actions of a traitor in the good guys' midst passing along every scrap of information they could, including a last minute change of plans orchestrated by an ally just before his execution. What results is the Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance arriving at their planned rendezvous, finding no one there, and the traitor revealing themselves in order to abduct Momonosuke. However, it's then revealed that the message that brought the main allies to this place meant something completely different. The meeting place was different than indicated and, because of the differences in distance between where they were and where everyone else was, everyone else was already in position long before the ships and bridges were demolished. Kin'emon, the leader of the samurai, is praised for such a brilliant piece of tactical misdirection, which exposed the traitor, prevented their actions from derailing their plans, and guaranteed the raid on Onigashima could proceed. The thing is, the only reason the allies were in the wrong place was because Kin'emon misinterpreted the message that changed their plans while everyone else didn't. Upon realizing this, Kin'emon can only stand there stone-faced as he realizes basically "Oh, that's what that meant..."
• Kaido's crew, the Animal Kingdom Pirates, is particularly fearsome for one big reason: the artificially produced SMILE fruits grant them the biggest Zoan army in the whole world with over five hundred devil fruits user among them. It's gotta be hard to defeat such a force, right? Well, that would be the case if not for Tama, whose Kibi-Kibi no Mi allows her to take control of any beast that eats her Kibi Dango, and unfortunately for Kaido, the nature of the SMILE fruits makes his underlings sensible to this very specific power.
• During Cobra's fateful meeting with the Five Elders, Imu willingly reveals themself to him, before attempting to assassinate Cobra after he reveals that the Nefertari Family is secretly a carrier of the Will of D.. Things don't go quite as expected when Sabo breaks into the room and tries to save Cobra by attacking Imu and the Five Elders; after Sabo is injured, Cobra gives him a message to pass on to Luffy and Vivi before sacrificing himself to allow Sabo to escape. Then, to make matters worse, Wapol bore witness to the whole thing through a peeping hole; aware that he has discovered the mother of all closet skeletons, he immediately runs for his life by eating his way through the walls of Pangaea Castle, unwittingly rescuing Vivi after she was captured by CP0. Now the World Government has at least two people who know their darkest secret on the run, meaning it's only a matter of time before it spreads. And last time they were seen in the present time, Wapol and Vivi were over at Morgans; Sabo, meanwhile, returns to the Kamabakka Kingdom after the destruction of Lulusia (which the Five Elders believe he was unable to escape) and retells his discovery to Ivankov and Dragon, the leadership of the Revolutionary Army, creating one of the worst-case scenarios for the World Government.

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