One Piece

That makes sense.

Though it wasn't just Humans that made Hody, but the constant exposure to the hatred other Fishmen had for humans that did it.

I still see your point though. I suppose it's one of those things that can easily be done wrong, and in this case it was.

I know it wasn't just the humans, but the story goes out of its way to make humans look uninvolved.

The biggest misstep, I feel, was when Hody admitted that humans hadn't done anything to him, because that's when the blame shifts. Suddenly, the mermaid princes are saying, "Truly this was our fault for allowing this hatred of humans to breed," when that's not true at all. The Neptunes were doing their best to be diplomatic and to foster relations between fishmen, mermaids, and humans. It wasn't a case of just not trying hard enough; there was active resistance from all sides complicating the issue.

Moreover, Hody saying humans did nothing to him is inaccurate. They may not have done anything to him personally, but it was human prejudice that spawned the environment of hatred that Hody grew around. The story shows us all of this, but that wham line undermines it all by implying the fishmen were just overreacting to hearsay rather than actually being affected by racism.

It's a touchy subject, for sure, so I think it's admirable that Oda would address it. I just think it wasn't handled that well.

Shiroshi kinda made things worse when she revealed she could have easily stopped the whole mess with Hody & choose not to for poor reasons.

Honestly, the "humans didn't do anything to me" part was my favorite. The message I took from that is that racism and hate are forces with a life of their own and once they exist they spread like a disease until even people completely uninvolved with the events that generated them are completely in their grasp. I found it sort of refreshing compared to the usual "the powerful and dominant group is always in the wrong and every single person from the less powerful group is an innocent victim". The idea that racism spreads and generates negative crap until you're full of assholes on both sides is more interesting, in my opinion.

Also, don't forget that fishmen supremacists are the villains of that particular arc but human supremacist Nobles are the villains of the whole setting. :P I mean, sure, Hodi and his guys are portrayed as unreedemable assholes, but they didn't have a two-page spread of their ugly face being punched for catharsis.

edited 5th May '16 2:45:06 PM by Cozzer

I definitely and massively agree.

I mean, yeah, it is worth nothing that the worst thing anyone has to say about Hodi's gang is 'they're acting almost as bad as the human nobles!'

Say what you will about Fishman Island, but that line really redefined how I looked at personal growth. Some people, like Fisher Tiger and Arlong, just cannot let go of their anger; they are either too set in stone, completely justified, or at least believe they are justified, and that's okay. The best they can do is acknowledge it, and let others come to their own conclusions rather than set an Us vs. Them mentality that will only end in two sides screaming at each other hoarse. It worked out for Koala and the present-day Fishman children, who has and will respectively grow up to have a more nuanced opinion on the world than a bunch of wannabes.

The brilliance of the Fishman Island arc was in digging deeper. Arlong was all about reverse racism on a superficial level, Hody went down and looked at how that stuff really works on a society, how racism that can be borne from real conflict can leech into social inequality and perpetuate itself among the country's disadvantaged. Hody had no reason to hate humans, he projected his human-hatred onto the human-friendly monarchy.

The ball's in the World Nobles' court now, and I have a hard time believing that the Fishmen will get anywhere with them in charge. What they need is someone like Vivi.

edited 6th May '16 3:10:44 AM by KarkatTheDalek

I'd imagine both the Fishmen and the Dressrosans will be baring down on the Nobles at Reverie. The Nefertaris possibly as well.

Otohime somehow convinced them when she met up with them. But something is definitely going to go wrong for everyone there.

Can you even do that?

I expect that the estabilished good rulers (Vivi, Riku, Neptune...) will somehow form an united front to propose reasonable change by diplomacy at the Reverie, only for the Nobles and the asshole complacent rulers to shut them out with numbers and/or threats of violence. This will estabilish the need for someone to punch somebody in the face (which is how things have to get solved sooner or later) before the good rulers can actually improve things on a global level.

It fits the pattern of the main characters defeating the villains for personal reasons and, in doing so, enabling the good people who were being kept down by force to take power.

I think Fishman Island's message has become quite relevant recently. There are so many SJWs now verbally and physically attacking whites and males (and especially white males), calling for safe spaces from them that are essentially segregation, and organizing classes to firmly make them believe that they are scum, then try to justify it all by saying "I am not being a bigot, because I am oppressed".

Putting aside the fact that misogyny and racism toward nonwhites stopped being "systemic", as they call it, several decades ago (at least in Western society), fighting prejudice with prejudice is never the answer. After all, MLK, who I assume was a major source of inspiration for Otohime, dreamed of all people simply living in harmony, regardless of their biological makeup.

Actually the possibility of making it "personal" for story purposes makes me think that something will happen to Vivi at Reverie for taking a stand.

Ouch, that's really not what they meant at all. It's about how poverty and injustice in a country can breed racism.

edited 6th May '16 7:03:52 AM by Ogodei

I get it, but I don't think it's that specific. I took it more as a need not to let one's own prejudices affect other people's way of thinking. Or in other words, just let the old attitudes fade away peacefully. Justified or not, grudges shouldn't be carried over.

Yeah, I dislike crusaders as much as everybody should but comparing SJ Ws, even the crusader ones, to Hodi and his gang is... less about the actual message of the work and more about projecting one's own issues with certain things onto an unrelated and only superficially similar work, IMO?

edited 6th May '16 7:28:13 AM by Cozzer

Yeah, Social Justice Warriors (hate that term) can be super annoying to be to say they are exactly like the group that Hodi is supposed to represent or hardcore systematic racism and sexism is now only against whites is just...yeah.

Yeah, the message with the Fishman Island arc was more about how prejudices can carry over from the generation that were actually oppressed and therefore had some reason to feel that sort of hatred to a generation that is almost completely unrelated and propagates the hatred and prejudice for its own sake. If it was an allegory for anything, it would be more akin to how Koreans and Japanese are still at each other's throats over the events of World War 2 and the Japanese occupation of Korea, even though that was something that happened several generations before. (Note, the Japanese really do need to own up and apologize, and both sides really need to tone down the nationalism and vitriol)

Also, I think we shouldn't forget that other cultures have different racism problems and have dealt, are dealing or are avoiding to deal with them differently. Judging the Aesop of a Japanese work basing on how it can be seen as an opinion about American or Western issues would be... racist. (ba dum cs :P )

edited 6th May '16 2:59:22 PM by Cozzer

Heh, reminds me of that one note on a Tvtropes page (probably Values Dissonance) that talked about how the East and West see racism due to historical background. Like for example, how Westerners may be shocked at the controversies and rampant nationalism going on in places like China, and how acknowledging even Tibet or Taiwan by name one way or the other is just a political mess waiting to happen, or how the Japanese are puzzled by American concern with skin color because they hardly ever come in contact with different skin colors in the first place.

Well there was that one point in a flashback when the New Fishman Pirates burned down a house because the resident donated blood to a human. Considering both the burning and the cloaks they were wearing, can you really not say that there wasn't an inspiration from the KKK?

My earlier point is that both Hody and Arlong think their racist views are justified because of the oppression that Fishmen and Mermaids have suffered, and the story shows that prejudice is not OK either way. And I feel that this is an important lesson for the current day because there are people like "feminazis" or some members of BLM who believe because they've been marginalized (even if said marginalization has been addressed with civil rights groups, while Fishman/Mermaid oppression is ongoing), that gives them a free ticket to act like assholes to anyone of their oppressor group (ex. Men, whites), treating every individual in said oppressor group as an enemy, failing to recognize that they themselves are being just as prejudiced. This leads to more members of the oppressor group actually becoming bigots, and it just leads to a vicious cycle.

Like I said, I see your point, but it's a touchy subject anyway.

So was Shiroshi in the really keeping the knowledge that Hody was her mothers murderer after all these years the right thing to do?

In my opinion it wasn't.

I don't think anyone did.