Antagonistic Force: One Piece, Not Everything Is Black And White
If you have any battle shonen, one of the weaker aspects of the genre tends to be the antagonist. Either they are written as one-note or comically evil for the sake of being evil. At that point, the only thing that gets you to continue reading the series is the inevitable fight with the main character and the villain.
However, One Piece has done a good job in adding depth to one of the main antagonistic forces in the series, that being the marines.
Spoilers For One Piece
Romance Dawn - Captain "Axe Hand" Morgan
Eichiro Oda is a master at setting up an idea early on in order to later execute it. The first instance of this is with the marines during the Romance Dawn arc.
We are introduced to the marine captain "Axe Hand" Morgan, where he is essentially lording over Shells Town. He lets his son, Helmeppo, do whatever he wants, as we see his son go into town with a wolf, where he threatens and harms the citizens. To cap it all off, we see him ordering his men to erect a station of himself at the top of the base.
We see that although Morgans and Helmeppo are awful people, the rest of the marines were forced to follow their orders and arent evil. But our first impressions have already been made and as we see the next marine, our impressions would have been right.
Arlong Park - Nezumi
When we get to Cocoyashi village, we see that the town is not being terrorized by marines, but by the Arlong pirates. So when we see a marine ship approaching the island we expect them to step in and fight the pirates. But we soon find out that Captain Nezumi is in fact taking bribes from the pirates.
This reinforces the notion that the marines are definitely evil in the minds of the audience. To go even further he steals all of Nami's money, the money she has been saving for ten years to buy back her village from the Arlong pirates. Later when the Arlong pirates are defeated, he tries to take credit for their demise but quickly gets beat up.
We the audience are given no reason to believe that the marines are in any aspect "good" or are just. This was on purpose so that when we meet the next marine captain, it gets us thinking.
Logue Town - "White Hunter" Smoker
This is where all of that setup pays off, as in the Logue Town arc we are introduced to Smoker. When we see people talk about him they make him sound like a monster that one should never encounter.
This culminates into a scene where Smoker is walking and a little girl accidentally covers his pants with her ice cream. Everyone is freaking out and telling him to please spare her as she is just a child, but all smoker does is apologize for his pants eating her ice cream and gives her enough money to buy a few extra scoops.
This sets up for the rest of the series, the idea of everything in the world not being black and white. For instance, there is no doubt that there are evil pirates, but we the audience know that there are "good" pirates, the Strawhat Pirates.
But this also applies to the marines, as although we have only seen evil marines in the past, that does not mean that the rest of the marines are also evil. As the series continues we get to see the different types of marines, some good and some bad.
Marine Justice
An important thing we get to see is the marines talk with one another from time to time, and we learn about how certain marines follow different forms of Justice. Take, for example, Absolute and Humane Justice.
Absolute Justice
One of the major forms of justice we see upheld is Absolute Justice, which is the idea that if you go against the world government in any form you are liable to get executed. We see this in full effect during the Marineford arc, when the pirates are retreating the marines decide to hunt down and kill them all.
They have essentially won the war, and have many injured men that can still be saved. But since the marines are hellbent on killing the remaining pirates, are letting their comrades die. They are blinded by their idea of justice, which leads them to commit injustice.
Humane Justice
On the other hand, we have characters like Issho, who embodies the idea of humane justice. Where they are okay with bending the rules, as long as the end result is a fair and just world.
For instance, Issho is okay with working with pirates to stop a greater evil and letting them get away since they did a good deed. He judges people by their actions and not predetermined notions.
Since we get to see these ideals in action we get to understand that this world isn't two dimensional and it goes further than what we see.
Take-Aways
- When coming up with an antagonistic force, letting the audience spend time with them to let them get to know them is important
- Adding depth to them can make them feel real, everyone has their own motives and goals
That's all I have for now, have a great day!
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