#anyway you’re very right about grief playing a big role in the roguetown split | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-obnoxious-sibling · 6 months

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Hello,

I found your takes very interesting and I would love to discuss them a big more.

Your analysis of the Shanksbuggy break up is really great based on what we have (Buggy pov of what happened) but I also want to add that they are teenagers that just saw one of the most important person in their eyes died. Obviously they're not in the best position to have a very clear discussion about future and it's even worse if you add to the mix the tendency of Buggy to jump to conclusion and the love of mystery of Shanks. And I also think in a way it a discussion about grief and mourning and how different people have different reaction to it.

I also have some hypothesis about why they changed their opinion about separating each other because they don't have the same dream.

- The first one is what happened quickly after their discussion: Buggy eating the devil fruit. The fact this incident is what Buggy uses as an excuse to explain his hatred of Shanks is obviously now a lie to himself but there is probably a part of true in that this incident changed their relationship and makes them more codependent due to Buggy's inability to swim while living on a boat. There is also probably a discussion to have with the quite weird relationship of Roger's crew and devil fruit (The fact that no one except Buggy have one).

- The second one is the circonstances of them leaving the crew. When discussing their plan, they speak about Leaving the crew and building something in a way which is very similar to a child leaving their parents house to go study or work. It's an active decision. (Even if Buggy's action at the time is closer to a teenager running away than a future adult 😅). But that's not what happened in the end, their departure from the ship is a decision which is forced on them and with quite a traumatic end. It willmakes sense then that they stick to each other.

- The third hypothesis is that they become teenagers and they went from best friends to lovers.

(Sorry I did end up writing a lot) 😅

hello! don't apologize for writing a lot, i am a big fan of writing a lot myself! …as you’ll see in this post. >>;

and you're very right, these are good points to bring up that i haven’t really gotten into before. grief, and the ways their circumstances changed (or might have changed—as you’ll see, i’m not totally convinced about one of your hypotheticals) after that first conversation. let's get into it!

grief.

the context for their fight, and the grief they must be feeling in that moment, is definitely worth taking into consideration. there's something of a truism that you shouldn't make big decisions in the first six months to a year after suffering the loss of a loved one, because during that early mourning period you simply aren't thinking clearly. you may make hasty, impulsive decisions that you'll regret later, or the additional stress of attempting to take action while emotionally burdened will cause things to go wrong. it's better, we tend to agree, to wait.

if buggy is asking shanks to go to laugh tale right now, that’s a textbook hasty decision, and one likely to go poorly if acted on. (i’ve stated my opinion to the contrary in tags before, but that is just my opinion.) and buggy’s rejection of shanks’ offer also seems impulsively made! a knee-jerk reaction to getting an unexpected response, that could also be the influence of grief though buggy is pretty impulsive in general so who knows.

in contrast, shanks deciding not to go to laugh tale ‘for now’ can be seen as recognition that it would be better, smarter, to wait.

at this point, i’d like to point out that we don’t know what life was like for buggy and shanks between dropping oden off at wano and this conversation in roguetown. as far as we know, nothing of significance happened after the roger pirates disbanded—emphasis on as far as we know. we don’t even know if buggy and shanks spent those months together, or if they met by chance at roger’s execution!

all that to say: we don’t know what the status quo for these two looks like in this moment. is shanks asking buggy to come with him asking him to stay together, to continue as they have been, or is this yet another impulsive decision? are they both trying to take action too quickly?

i think this was definitely a bad time to be discussing these topics—but there might not have been another time available to them. we know there were a lot of pirates in roguetown that day—and a lot of marines, too. there may have been an urgency to this moment that we can’t appreciate right now, with the information we have.

changing circumstances 1: the chop-chop fruit.

i used to think it was curious that buggy was the only devil fruit user on the roger pirate crew, until i remembered what other crews around at the time were like. specifically:

whitebeard, himself a devil fruit user, is all about embracing weird outcast types and bringing them into his crew (and his family). so to people who were already devil fruit users, who consider becoming pirates because they’ve been shunned and cast out of their home and society, whitebeard’s gotta be the go-to guy. he already knows what it’s like! he must have extra measures in place to keep his sons from falling overboard! you’ll be safe with him!

kaidou, also a devil fruit user, loves getting devil fruit users in his crew. he’s not as friendly or paternal a captain, but if you aren’t interested in that energy—if you got yourself a devil fruit for power’s sake but found the downsides made it hard to be on your own—he’s a good option.

basically, i think most people who went into piracy in those days already in possession of devil fruit powers found themselves drawn to captains who had one too—understandably so, in my opinion. a ship where no one has a devil fruit, would they know how to look out for you? for all you know, they’re one of those superstitious crews who take the “ocean’s curse” line seriously! better to stick with someone you know has devil fruit experience.

buggy’s one of the uncommon few to eat a devil fruit after becoming a pirate. that whole crew was offered the opportunity to eat the thing, and he was the only one who dared—because the rest knew that it was a risky move at best, especially with an unknown fruit. the power you get might not be worth the cost, especially for someone who makes their living on the sea.

we forget this, i think because there’s so many devil fruit users in one piece, but devil fruits are hard to come by! we’re seeing a small sliver of the population who managed to get their hands on one and then managed to survive the downsides. that the roger pirates ever found one was a rare thing. they didn’t even know for sure if it was real when buggy ate it!

all this to say, i don’t know that i believe the chop-chop fruit changes much about the shanks-buggy dynamic, except in the “he betrayed me!!” angle it brings to buggy’s future grudge against him. (not that i think this is what buggy considers to be shanks’ real betrayal. it’s just the one he can talk about without revealing his roger pirate history.) so buggy can’t swim anymore! so what?! neither can whitebeard! shanks, you better not look down on me for this!! etc, etc.

now, how much of that would just be talk from buggy? (i.e., claiming ‘you better not look down on me, i don’t need your help’ but clinging to shanks’ arm the second a wave looks like it might crash over the deck?) probably a fair amount! but i don’t think that’s a significant change in behavior from buggy, his words and actions often disagree.

changing circumstances 2: roger pirates disbanded.

it is one thing to boldly claim as a child that you’re going to be a great pirate captain, and quite another to actually do it. it probably helps to spend years on a great pirate captain’s ship, to see how he does it, to eventually start to wonder to yourself, would i do it that way, if it were me in charge? but even then, when you’ve been quietly thinking about it, maybe announcing your intentions a few times, setting aside the most important things to take with you on the day when you finally leave, on the day when you’ll finally feel ready to leave—

all that is very different from being told that everyone is leaving. that you don’t have a choice about when to go. that there will be nowhere and no one to return to if it turns out you weren’t ready to be on your own after all.

as i mentioned earlier, we don’t know what the time after the roger pirates disbanded was like for shanks and buggy. were they relying on the kindness of near-strangers, people who half-remembered them as members of roger’s crew from their first trip through the GL? were they lucky enough to be the last ones let go, at a trusted island in that early part of paradise? did shanks have enough understanding of conqueror’s haki at that age to get his ship through the calm belt when the news about roger’s arrest went out, or did a ship traveling into east blue end up with a stowaway or two?

any way you look at it, i have to imagine being a teenager alone (or nearly alone) on the grand line must have been terrifying. who wouldn’t think back on childhood dreams of independence and wince at that poor child, who didn’t know how good they had it? after going it alone against your will, who wouldn’t cling to a familiar face?

circumstances change 3: relationship upgrade.

kind of in line with the above: after being thrown into the world alone, unexpectedly, who wouldn’t cling to a familiar face? or… more than cling? 😉 but seriously, i’m a bit of a pessimist about this hypothesis. i think it can make sense, it just also makes me sad.

because if shanks wants buggy to come with him because they’re romantically involved, i think that would make buggy less certain of his place in shanks’ life. crew is crew forever! even when you leave the ship, you’re still a part of its crew deep down. a kissing relationship, though… that can go away easy as the wind. if shanks wants him around to kiss, what happens if they stop kissing? does shanks stop wanting him around?

but also: does buggy want to be around shanks, if he only wants buggy around to kiss? isn’t buggy a pirate worthy of shanks’ respect?! didn’t he grow up on the same ship, learning the same lessons? why shouldn’t he be captain of his own ship?! why is he even kissing this idiot in the first place?!!

of course, shanks doesn’t mean it to come across this way. when he asks a buggy he’s involved with to come with him, he means that he loves buggy and would miss him if they weren’t on the same ship. but you know how buggy always hears the worst possible meaning to any sentence spoken to him.

#asked and answered #my meta #jyanadavega #one piece #shuggy #shanks #buggy #sorry this took so long! i wanted to give this response as much consideration as you did your ask #and work was… so rough last week. hard to think good thoughts.#anyway you’re very right about grief playing a big role in the roguetown split #though i imagine much of that year post-disbanding was spent working through that grief in theory… the reality HAD to hit different #& in the last section i say ‘kiss’ but. feel free to substitute whatever verb you like. the essential meaning remains the same.#*the shuggy roguetown breakup #*the roger pirates disbandment #*the chop-chop fruit

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