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lockdaisy · 5 years

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Unpopular Opinion: Shinobu's Ultimately in the Wrong and Law’s Justified in his Feelings of Anger against Her

Ok, since it seems like everyone and their mother in the fandom and in the narrative itself has set up a Shinobu defense squad and is 100% devoted to shutting down any criticisms of her, I know that this is going to be an extremely unpopular opinion, but still, I just wanna say it

Honestly, I don’t think any of Shinobu’s treatment of Law in the past few chapters (accusing his crewmates of betraying the alliance and threatening to kill them) was justified in any way whatsoever, and I believe that Law’s right in feeling angry at her

I mean...

1. It’s at least partially Shinobu’s fault that Penguin, Shachi, and Bepo were captured and are being tortured

Before they were captured, Bepo, Penguin, and Shachi were dutifully laying low and carrying out their part of the plan in the Flower Capital. However, most likely because of the heightened security at the Flower Capital, they ended up getting captured and tortured. Now, pray tell, what caused this heightened security in the first place? Why, it was caused at least in part by Shinobu, Nami, and Robin causing chaos in Orochi’s palace and messing around in the bathhouse for no discernible reason. Consequently, Shinobu’s at least in part responsible for Law’s crewmates being captured and tortured

Granted, Shinobu didn’t mean for that to happen. Nevertheless, regardless of whether she meant for it to happen or not, she should take at least some sort of responsibility for the suffering that her fuck-ups helped inflict on Law’s crew

And just... listen, Shinobu blaming Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin for being in a situation that the consequences of her own mistakes are at least partially responsible for putting them in is a really bad look, ok??

2. The emotional reasoning underlying her accusations and threats falls flat because of her actions

Apparently, according to literally every character who was present at the scene, Law’s anger at Shinobu is overblown and unreasonable because the reason why she did what she did is that she’s frustrated over seeing the plan 20 years in the making go awry and that all of them have to take any and all precautions whatsoever to prevent their plans from falling apart since “this isn’t a game.”

On its own, this statement seems incredibly fair. However, just two chapters before she accused and threatened Law’s crew, Shinobu was just messing around in the bathhouse for no reason and ended up getting exposed because of it (which, as I mentioned before, helped cause the heightened security that led to the capture and torture of Law’s crew). As a result, because her cavalier actions contradict her assertion that “this isn’t a game,” Shinobu herself makes it seem like the situation not only isn’t all that dire, but that it certainly isn’t serious enough to threaten to kill Law’s crew, which is never a declaration that you should throw around lightly. Similarly, because her carefree and risky frolicking at the bathhouse contradicts her assertion that that they have to take any and all precautions possible to prevent the plan from getting ruined, Shinobu not only comes across as a massive hypocrite, but it also seems like she’s selectively picking and choosing which types of risks she’s willing to allow, and apparently while messing around in the bathhouse is an “acceptable” risk that isn’t worthy of censure, Law’s crew getting captured is worthy of death

3. Out of all the allies that were captured, Shinobu specifically and only accuses Law’s crew of betraying the alliance

Like... pretty much any of those captured allies--and many who weren’t--could’ve leaked the plans, and yet she automatically accuses specifically and only Law’s crew of betraying the alliance!!

Granted, in comparison to the other allies, who are presumably people she knows very well, the Heart Pirates are practically strangers to her, which might explain why she’s much more willing to lay the blame on Law’s crew rather than on any of her other allies. However, she doesn’t even entertain the possibility that it could’ve been one of them and that Law’s crew is innocent. Like, it’s not a case of her going “oh, there must be a traitor, and because I’m almost completely sure that it wasn’t any of our Wano allies that leaked our plans, do you think it’s possible that the Heart Pirates betrayed the alliance?” Instead, it’s a case of her going, “It’s 100% certainly a fact that Law’s crew betrayed the alliance, and I’m going to kill them for it.” And listen, considering the weight of these accusations and the fact that she’s apparently planning to kill whoever snitched, it looks really bad that she’s just immediately rushing to blame Law’s crew of betrayal

Also, her immediate accusation of Law’s crew looks even worse when you consider the fact that she never even entertains the possibility that other non-Wano allies that she doesn’t know all that well--such as Luffy--could’ve been the ones to leak the plan instead!! Yeah, Shinobu saw how strong-willed Luffy was when he attacked Kaido, but she still doesn’t know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t squeal if he were tortured. And while we as an audience know that Luffy would never do such a thing, Shinobu doesn’t, making the reasoning underlying her insults against and apparent decision to kill Law’s crew seem even more arbitrary. I mean, she’s just singling out the Heart Pirates for pretty much no reason by now!! And considering that she’s seemingly arbitrarily singling them out for the purposes of accusing them of being traitors and threatening to kill them, it just looks really, really bad!!!

4. Shinobu never took back her words or apologized

Listen, I understand that Shinobu said these things in the heat of the moment out of frustration and panic. I understand. But listen, accusations of betrayal and death threats against one’s crew are never things that should be said lightly. These are serious and grave things that can pretty much amount to a declaration of war. So if Shinobu took back what she said and apologized to Law after she got scolded by Kanjuro, while I would be thinking that she’s playing a real dangerous game saying such serious things, I could ultimately view her actions as not being damning

However, the fact of the matter is... she never took back what she said or apologized. As a result, Shinobu is essentially sending Law the message that she not only isn’t sorry for insulting and threatening to kill his crew without any real justification, but that she stands by it and that she really did mean every single word of it

Like can you imagine if Shinobu not only insulted but threatened to kill members of the Straw Hat crew who were captured and being tortured, but also refused to apologize after the fact?? Luffy would be furious. Like, Law’s in this exact same situation, and??? Honestly??? I don’t blame Law at all for getting upset

5. Speaking of that, think about how Luffy would’ve reacted in this same exact scenario and how we as a fandom would’ve reacted as well

If it were Nami, Zoro, and Sanji instead of Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo who were captured and being tortured, and Shinobu were accusing them of being snitches and threatening to kill them, Luffy would be unimaginably pissed at her. Not only that, but the narrative would be treating her as a bad guy as well, and we as a fandom would rake her over the coals. But apparently, if it’s Law’s crew that it’s happening to, then all of a sudden the narrative and the fandom and narrative as a whole decide to bend backwards in order to justify everything that she said??? What??????

6. She did the exact same thing she accused Law’s crew of doing and that she threatened to kill them for

Shinobu accuses Law’s crew of leaking valuable intel to the enemy and threatens to kill them for it, yet like 15 minutes after Law leaves she basically spills all the plan’s details to someone she outright admitted she doesn’t even know??? What???? Listen, this is another case of Shinobu seeming like a hypocrite--apparently if she or one of her friends does it, it’s forgivable, but if Law’s crew does it, then they’re worthy of death smh

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Overall, you gotta admit that, on every front, it makes Shinobu look bad and it makes the narrative’s depiction of them being in a “they’re both right, so you can’t blame either” situation look... really unfair to Law at best, let’s be honest here

Also, another reason why this annoys me so bad is that the narrative is??? doing everything to make Law look unreasonable in this situation???? Like

1) Nobody backed Law up during the argument at all. Shinobu literally threatened to kill his crew, but apparently nobody aside from Law was upset by this or felt the need to have Law’s back in this situation

2) Contrastingly, several characters leapt to Shinobu’s defense by trying to rationalize her behavior by saying “don’t be angry at her, think about her ~feelings~ in this situation”

3) The way several characters discuss Law after he leaves (“geez/sigh, he just stormed off”) basically makes it look like they’re portraying Law as an unreasonable drama queen throwing a hissy fit just because he’s angry that, y’know, Shinobu threatened to kill his crew

4) The casual way that they’re talking about Bepo, Penguin, and Shachi’s situation, aka conversationally musing over how long they would last if they were in their shoes, really trivializes the direness of their circumstances and makes it look even more like they think Law’s getting angry over nothing

Just... I absolutely love the Straw Hats, and I absolutely love Law (Law, Sanji, Nami, Usopp, and Luffy are like in my top ten faves of the series). So I hate how uncharacteristically callous the narrative’s defense of Shinobu makes the Straw Hats seem to be right now in regards to Law’s feelings and the safety of their Heart Pirates allies, and I hate how this basically makes many of Law’s interactions with others in this arc cases where Law has genuinely been treated like garbage by his allies when before it was more of a lighthearted “oh, Law’s suffering because of the alliance” gag

#listen is this a Shinobu hate post? No. It's more of a criticism of how the narrative's defense of her gives off really bad implications #trafalgar law #heart pirates #bepo #penguin #shachi #my stuff #opspoilers #op #queue #long post #lockdaisy rants #technically I am so I'm using the tag #tw: murder mention #tw: death mention #tw: torture mention #tw: violence mention

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