#their hyperfixation is one piece so this won't nearly be the last thing to show up on this blog as they force me to watch it /lh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

grand-line-shenanigans · 3 years

Text

My thoughts about Luffy and Emotions

(because I am having Sad Hyperfixation Hours in this house tonight, and I am going to make it everyone else's problem)

So like. So like. Something that I've noticed, since I've caught up with One Piece but especially since Luffy's backstory was reveled post-maroneford, is how little Luffy actually deals with his emotions.

I mean. His entire life pretty much revolves around two things: becoming the Pirate King, and protecting the people he loves. He's shown many, many times that he would sacrifice nearly anything to do those things. And it might not be entirely intentional on Oda's part? But it's really fucking frightening. This sort of applies to becoming the Pirate King as well, but for me, it's way more apparent in his determination to protect his crew and family.

So starting with his backstory since that's when I really noticed it for the first time (not counting my suspicion of a Tragic Backstory™ hinted at in Enie's Lobby). Clearly he's got some real trauma. Like, a lot of trauma. It tends to be downplayed I think, or like, made to seem less Awful compared to a lot of the other characters in One Piece? But when I really started to think about it, it was actually heartbreaking.

Luffy's List of Trauma (non-extensive):

Kicked Around Like A Basketball by Bandits

His idol getting fucking amputated by a sea monster right in front of him (in an incident that Luffy was partially guilty for)

"Yo random mountain bandits, take my grandson, I'm too busy to take care of him" - Shitty Gramps

Ace trying to fucking murder Luffy several hundred times in the first 3 months of their acquaintance

Bandits are Bad Parents

Ace trying to fucking murder Luffy (but this time with Sabo)

Kicked Around Like A Basketball By Bandits (but this time with knives)

Grey Terminal. Just- Grey Terminal

"You're gonna be a MARINE and if you WON'T be a Marine, then I'll KICK YOUR ASS UNTIL YOU DO BECOME A MARINE!" - Shitty Gramps

Fire at Grey Terminal

Sabo gets kidnapped

Sabo fucking dies

Probably way more that I can't remember off the top of my head

So he's got ALL THIS TRAUMA, and on top of that is this: he's lonely. He hates being lonely. He can't stand to be lonely, he would rather die than be lonely, he will imprint on anyone in his vicinity even if they're trying to murder him, and once he gets attached to someone, he will protect them until his last breath.

So what it all boils down to is a terrifying lack of self-preservation. A lack of any value, really, in himself. He just doesn't care about his own safety. Literally he does not give a shit. He'd fight god and everyone else in the universe to save one of his friends, and if he dies in the process then, well, his friend's alive and that's all that matters, right?

Anyways. How this all connects to emotions and shit is this. Really, apart from his dream to become the Pirate King, his whole personality, his whole identity revolves around his people. His crew and his brothers. And sure, he seems like he's got it all together, most of the time- he's a bouncy cheerful idiot with way too much energy- but looking deeper into his personality, after reading all 1024 chapters of One Piece, it just seems...almost fake, to me, sometimes.

Of course, not all the time- at his core he really is cheerful, energetic, you know, all the things he acts like. But he's also traumatized. And he never shows it, like, ever, except for in a few specific situations where he has literally lost everyone he cares about, right in front of his eyes, and been helpless to stop it. By which I mean, Marineford and Sabaody.

Except really? He does show it more often than that. Really, anytime someone's trying to take his friends from him. He just shows it in a different way. He gets angry, really fucking angry. It's like a switch is flipped, and suddenly he's this almost completely different person. And it is terrifying. Especially more so when I think about it now? Because really, the whole thing adds up to what seems like this: he ignores his problems. He ignores his trauma. It simply does not exist, he does not remember or think about it, it is completely wiped from his memory. Until something triggers it; until he is forced to face the risk of losing someone he loves, again, and not being strong enough to stop it, again, and something in him just. Snaps.

Of course he acts like this with other things too, like when Mouji wrecked Chouchou's pet food shop and when Don Krieg tried to take over the Baratie and really the list goes on; but it's always felt different when it was one of Luffy's friends directly being harmed. And if you think about the other incidents, too; Luffy is also heavily influenced by dreams, and by personal treasures. And really, it all loops back to his trauma as well; Luffy knows how it feels to lose someone or something you dearly love. He knows exactly how painful the feeling of helplessness is when you aren't strong enough to protect it. And something in that, in watching other people try and fail to protect what they love, I can see how it would hurt him too. How it would dredge up his own trauma, which he purposely and/or subconsciously ignores, and how he would want to stop other people from going through the same thing when he had the power to step in.

Anyways it's, like, midnight right now and I wrote this in a half-asleep daze, so I probably forgot things or got a bunch wrong. I really like talking so this was more a brain dump than a thought-out discussion point. But I LOVE TO TALK so I would be so so so happy to talk with someone other than the void, if you think you're annoying then you're wrong, human interaction makes me happy all the time. Ok I'm going to bed now goodnight

85 notes · View notes