One Piece

What if it turns out he's Marco's son...

Can anyone find that?

I don't remember what it's called but I'm sure I've been on the page for (or relating to) it before.

edited 3rd Oct '15 9:14:42 PM by LSBK

Sounds like a form of Redemption Demotion to me.

Its like Nerd Hulk or Abomination from Marvel's Ultimate Universe. Both touted themselves as superior to the Hulk cause they were well way smarter but without the blind, destructive rage & blood-lust both sucked. The former turned into a vampire & died (I think) after a very poor short performance on the newly formed (for this universe at the time) Avengers while the latter actually got eaten by the Hulk ironically.

edited 4th Oct '15 3:24:21 AM by slimcoder

Adrenaline is a hell of an drug.

It's not a surprise really, since convention in this series has been the larger you are, the easier you go down, Whitebeard being one of the few exceptions. Heck, Hajrudin was only able to win his fight against Machvise through jobbing simultaneously!

That's not one One Piece rule. It's an overused cliche done to death. The small guy alwas win over the big brute that is supposedly much stronger than him.

It is specially ridiculous when it turns in a Curb-Stomp Battle.

edited 4th Oct '15 6:29:25 AM by MeetTheNewBoss

It's because in Japan, being a big guy means you are weaker, since the ideal form to them is a lean bishonen type or something like that.

I agree it's overdone.

The trope is So Last Season btyw.

Not many people want to watch a fight where the predicted winner wins. It's aesthetically not very pleasing and we naturally root for underdogs.

Then we need to start finding a way to make the big guys the underdogs.

That's gonna be hard to do as a general rule in the story, unless you play up a universe where being bigger/tankier is seen as inferior. Would really only work in a universe that's aware of itself enough to show off those traits, like a series with specific rules/mechanics in their fights.

With Chopper i think it's because Dosun seemed to have the strongest brute strength of any of the New Fishman officers. The kids were not only strong (undergoing giantification experiments) but he didn't want to fight them. It's like Luffy "struggling" against Bellamy later in Dressrosa.

I really am tired of the "Small guy beating the bulkier antagonist" cliche myself in all honesty; its really jarring to see a guy with lean and mean figure throw around someone half his size like it was nothing.

This is why shows like Jojo and HNK are forever timeless.

edited 4th Oct '15 9:33:00 AM by BlackYakuzu94

HNK did a fair share of Size not mattering and Kenshiro taking out guys that were 3 to 5 times his size and weight. to the point it was every other guy.

Hokuto no Ken

edited 4th Oct '15 9:40:48 AM by FrozenWolf2

I think you mean twice his size. What does HNK stand for?

I'd agree the trope in question is overused but that doesn't mean it can't still be effective in the right situation.

edited 4th Oct '15 9:39:21 AM by LSBK

I mean Tropes Are Tools after all, I don't hate the trope itself, just the predictability of it.

Rurouni Kenshin was probably the most recent good use of the trope I read; the big guy loses to the wiry protagonist not because he's necessarily weaker, but his body couldn't take the strain of the speed he was going at and literally collapsed on itself.

I just rewatched The Iron Giant yesterday, and that got me thinking about Baby 5, oddly enough.

To the best of my recollection, Baby 5's devil fruit is the only one so far that is unambiguously intended for combat. All the other devil fruits have combat uses, and a lot of them are definitely more practical for combat than others, but up until we saw Baby 5's powers, every devil fruit thus far has a simple theme that doesn't inherently imply violence (except for maybe Magellan's, and that one at least doesn't inherently imply lethal violence, since he has access to nonlethal toxins too).

Baby 5's powers, however, let her turn her body parts into blades and guns. Yes, each of those has mundane utility, but there is no common theme between those two categories of objects aside from being tools of violence. There's no question that, having eaten that fruit, Baby 5 is intended to be a weapon.

Combined with Baby 5's complex, she might have felt pressured into being an assassin because she thought that's the only way she could make herself useful. She's otherwise a very nice, very caring person - being a literal weapon might very well be the main reason she got roped into such a violent profession. She'll probably continue to do this under the Happou Navy, too, given that the only character in the series who's ever given anything close to a "You are not a gun" speech is back on Dressrosa.

Baby 5 is now the most subtextually-tragic character in the series, IMO.

You know, weapons can also be used to hunt animals. Or kill the ones you use as cattle.

edited 6th Oct '15 2:29:52 AM by MeetTheNewBoss

Or logging, cooking, sport, training etc.

Those aren't the reasons most weapons exist though.

Yeah but you don't need to use them for killing to make it useful.

They are original reasons though. It was only later that weapons "evolved" to be used for combat.

edited 6th Oct '15 7:00:20 AM by Lionheart0

I agree. No matter what a tool is made for, it's the person wielding it that decides how it is used.

I mean, we can turn anything into a weapon with enough creativity.