#I thought they’d at least get to see each other again before WCI. But NO. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tsarisfanfiction · 4 years

Note

Thinking thoughts and wanted to know your opinion law went from this seemingly laid back almost easy going personality to this brooding serious man during the time skip do you think he’ll slowly ease back into his old personality once this emperor stuff is taken care of and do you think his crew miss his laid back ways?

Ooh, hello Anon! This is an interesting question for sure, but honestly? I don’t think Law’s personality really changed. What changed is his situation (and two years of additional experience).

Aaaaand my explanation/character study got super long so it’s under a cut. Oops. Vague warning for Wano spoilers at some point (I give an actual warning when I get there but a few other things may have slipped in earlier so watch out if you’re anime-only, I guess?)

Okay, so: Sabaody. Laid back, taunting so-and-so noted by Kid of all people to have zero manners and perfectly happy to poke fun at Drake (note: Drake is also former North Blue, we know their backstories intersected - although whether they know that is another matter entirely, although I headcanon that Drake knows and Law doesn’t but that’s a whole other thing, just like I headcanon that Drake, Penguin and Shachi totally knew each other as teenagers. I mean, neighbouring islands? Pirates? Don’t try and tell me the Barrel Pirates never visited Swallow Island when it was literally right there, and what little we know of pre-Hearts Penguin and Shachi they would totally have been in the pirate kid’s face, but I’m getting off-track).

Law spends a lot of time in Sabaody watching. When we first see him, he’s watching Killer and Urouge duke it out, and doesn’t do anything to influence what’s going on until Drake arrives (again: Drake, North Blue, a Known Quantity. Killer? South Blue. Urouge? Sky Islands. Unknown Quantities, and possibly the first time he’s seen either of them in person). Then we see him in the Auction House, and we all know he wasn’t there to make a purchase. One of Oda’s brilliant tie-backs - the Auction House is one of Joker’s things. Joker is Doffy. Law is tracking Doffy. It’s not rocket science that he’s there to get more info.

Then the Strawhats happen. Law sits there amid all that carnage, seeing the entire crew reunite in the middle of the Biggest Thing Ever To Happen on Sabaody (I mean… punch a tenryubito, nice one Luffy). Doesn’t join in, doesn’t try to leave. Sits and watches. His interaction with Luffy is more info-gathering: this guy just punched a tenryubito and now the Marines are here. What next?

I love the Three Captains Beatdown. (I am delighted we finally have the Part 2). Luffy and Kid are being Luffy and Kid. They’re crazy, they’re strong, they’re not backing down. Law has his pride. He’s the ‘weakest’ of the three (by which I mean he has the lowest bounty and in pirate-speak that means weaker) and both Kid and Luffy are completely not his type of pirate (again, revisited in current manga events and thank you, Oda). If he doesn’t act then, he’ll lose a whole load of respect, and also put his crew in danger because, you know, the admiral is coming and Shachi already admitted Rayleigh’s haki nearly took him out. So we have three of Law’s big traits coming out in Sabaody (imo): Protectiveness of his crew, Scheming, and being an Intentional Pain in the Ass (with a subsection of Pride but all pirates have that one so I’m not gonna focus on that too much).

As for Marineford, that’s really a case of sticking his tongue out at the World Government, let’s be honest (plus the whole Will of D schtick we still don’t know the full depth of). What better way of saying ‘screw you’ to the WG than saving someone who just broke out of Impel Down and has made themselves out to be a royal nuisance but hey it’s okay because he’s dea- dammit Trafalgar came in and now he’s not dead? Also really got his name on their radar for Shichibukai fun later.

All three of these traits still show themselves post-timeskip, but up until Zou/Wano there is one big factor that’s changed.

Law is alone.

He’s sent his crew off somewhere safe (there is no other reason for ditching most of his fighting power all the way to Zou other than to just keep Doflamingo’s strings away), his scheming is reaching its peak, and then the Straw Hats come in and make a mess of everything.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be much more serious when I’m alone in a keystone of my greatest enemy’s lair with my nakama too far away to help, and then the Strawhats crash the party.

He’s met them once before, presumably also read about them in the News Coo, so he knows they do unpredictable things at the worst times. He also knows they’re strong, so Scheming Law comes in again, allies with them to both try and stop them from messing everything up, and also get some additional firepower in to replace his crew’s strength (or at least a bit of it - considering the Strawhats are half the size of the Hearts and if anyone tries to tell me Law, Bepo and Jean Bart are the only powerhouses in that crew I will fight, how much exactly it compares is a grey area).

Too bad Luffy is, well, Luffy, and it doesn’t quiiite pan out the way Law planned (but he’s learning! Latest chapter is gold). But again, Punk Hazard: we see Pain in the Ass Law (vs Smoker), Scheming Law (basically main Law right now), and Protective Law (Heart Pirates hidden away safe).

And this continues into Dressrosa, with of course the addition of Tragic Backstory (it’s One Piece, he was going to have one. Even if Law’s ends up particularly nasty). Law is facing his greatest enemy, the one he swore to defeat after thirteen years, and then he gets outsmarted. So we have out of his depth, defeated Law - although he’s still being a Smartass to Doffy because he can. Again, I think being tense, snappy and generally not a happy guy is pretty fair in that situation. Luffy simultaneously makes things better and worse - Law has to rely on him to get him out of there, and we know Law’s not one for trusting easily (Jean Bart’s recruitment is an interesting case and I wonder if he was planning on keeping him straight away or if it was another FU to the tenryubito plus ‘hey, fighting power’ moment but then Jean Bart was actually loyal and also a goof). But Luffy does it, they win, hooray.

But now? Now we have Law alone with the Straw Hats forming a Grand Fleet and he’s really back-footed here in terms of power balance. It is Not Smart to rib the pirates who a) outnumber you like hell and you have no hope of backup anywhere and b) are the ones that are going to get you back to your own crew. This isn’t like Sabaody, where there’s Luffy and Kid and he needs to prove himself to them as well as keep his crew safe. His crew are safe (he thinks… we’ll get to that in a minute), Luffy’s seen him at his absolute worst in the last 13 years, and all his scheming for the last 13 years has reached a conclusion.

He’s lost, he’s tired, and really he just wants to go home to his nakama now. Can you blame him?

Then, we get Zou.

Zou is fun. Zou is really, really fun. We get the reunion! Which we see literally 1% of and I’m mad because that would have been so good to see. Bepo literally jumps on him and he lets him. I bet the rest of the crew did, too. We see Law with his crew of idiots and he loves them and there’s so much scope in there for Law finally being able to relax for the first time since Time Skip. And the Hearts get on well with the Straw Hats. We see Penguin and Usopp dancing together later on, we see Law teasing his crew (not introducing them? Their reaction to that is the sort of thing we would see other pirate captains punish for mutiny but he just shrugs it off. He knew they’d react like that).

But there are two big elephants in the room here (unintentional pun whoops). Number one: Sanji’s disappearance and his ally’s reaction to that. We see that covered pretty well in canon, Law realising that his ally is about to have two yonkou after his head at the same time and the problem that poses for him, Law getting dragged into a new alliance with the Minks and Samurai (Law being a total goof about Raizo but Keeping Up Appearances because Strawhats). Law presumably making the executive decision that breaking his alliance now would be a bad idea (Kaido is still annoyed with him, the Minks adore the Strawhats, Luffy is a clingy rubbery bastard that won’t let him go anyway), and once more we have a back-footed Law.

The second elephant is fun for me. It’s never fully stated in canon, but. Jack attacked the Minks. The Heart Pirates were living with the Minks. The Heart Pirates fought with the Minks (we saw that). Bepo was treated by Nami (we also saw that). The Heart Pirates got caught up in that whole mess. At the minimum, the whole crew got poisoned alongside the Minks. I reckon some of them were probably tortured, too. Law came home to his crew expecting them to have been safe and they weren’t. And now he’s asking them to go straight to the lair of the crew that did that to them. That’s not going to settle particularly well with him, either.

We don’t see the journey to Wano (disclaimer: I haven’t seen anything past WCI in the anime so I have no clue what fillers may have been added), but there’s still four Strawhats and the samurai on board, so even back in his own ship Law can’t fully relax, but I bet he’s still like Zou-Law. A little peeved, trying to work out how the hell he’s going to deal with Kaido with or without Luffy and the half of the Strawhats that have gone on a suicide mission, but genuinely happy to see his crew again.

Then he manages to kick all the intruders once they arrive at Wano, and the first we see of him, he’s chilling out. Watching. He even has his crew on info-gathering/watching (we see Penguin, Shachi and Bepo but I bet they’re all doing it). Hello, Sabaody!Law! Chilled, keeping an eye on things, scheming (just no-one to irritate because they’re trying to keep a low profile).

And then Luffy returns and we’re back to Punk Hazard, except this time, Law’s crew are in the mess, too. Law’s plans are crumbling, Luffy is being a royal nuisance, and then things go from Bad to Worse.

I don’t know how far the anime has got so vague blanket manga spoiler warning from here.

Luffy gets captured. Kaido knows they’re there. Kaido attacks his crew. If it wasn’t for Shinobu having a devil fruit useful in that situation, that would have been bye-bye Penguin, Shachi and Bepo. So there go Law’s plans and his crew are in danger. Punk Hazard but worse.

Then, thanks to the traitor, Penguin, Shachi and Bepo get captured. They’re also accused of being the traitor, and Protective Law rears his head big time. The Heart Pirates in effect leave the alliance. Not officially, because Law knows he’ll need them later even if it’s only as bait while he gets the hell out of there with his crew, if required, but he strikes out and they hear nothing from him until voila, Penguin, Shachi and Bepo are back!

And this was the return of Pain In The Ass Law. He’s smirking at Hawkins, and someone else I’m currently running with the theory of Drake. Oh look, North Blue buddies! Known Quantities. Some scheme is hatched (looking forwards to that one). He’s also protecting the hell out of his crew, because Hawkins hit him where it hurts (North Blue not-so-buddies. Known Quantities. Works both ways).

Now? Now, we’re looped right back to Sabaody again. The Three Captains are back, Law is back to being surrounded by idiots but still proving himself whilst protecting his crew and scheming (and this time knows how to include Luffy and Kid into his schemes! Character development!).

It’s been two years, he’s been through hell (again, Oda please give him a break), but the core things we saw back in Sabaody? They’re still there, and the closer he is to his crew the clearer we see them.

So to answer the question will he go back to that? No, because that’s not how character development works, but I do think we’ll see the Pain In The Ass Law more once Protective and Scheming Law aren’t needed in earnest (unfortunately, as long as the Strawhats are around, he’s always going to have some sort of guard up because he’s learnt and he’s not stupid. As they’re our protags, that means we’re probably only going to see Law much while he’s with them).

As for his crew? We know, thanks to the SBS, that Penguin, Shachi and Bepo have known him since basically the day he lost Rocinante. Whatever hell of a mess he is at the moment, it’s not going to be anything like 13yo Law after his whole life crumbled again. It’s not known exactly when he meets the rest of the crew (except Jean Bart), but it’s somewhere in those 11 years between Minion Island and Sabaody (and maybe some again in the time skip).

So some of his crew, at least, have seen him worse and basically learn to love again (as cheesy as that sounds). They might not like the blip, but they’ve seen him worse, so they’ll know that it’ll pass. And as I’ve been saying, we’ve seen him far more without his crew than with them. There’s a high chance that how he acts with them hasn’t changed as much as the change we’ve seen as readers.

This basically turned into an Essay on Law oops. But it was a very interesting question!

#ask #trafalgar law #character study #heart pirates #i tried to keep headcanons out of this and stick to the manga facts but I know a couple slipped in #essay on law #tl;dr i don't think his personality has changed just the situations he's been in #Anonymous

100 notes · View notes