User blog comment:Fliu/Chapter 976: Welcome to the Party, Jinbe/@comment-28995593-20200407090238/@comment-108.83.222.210-20200408204422

Regardding the statement about the power balance. The world government seems to support the power balance presumably because it is convenient for them at this time. They had no problem with breaking it when they saw fit to challenge Whitebeard. They wanted to show the world that the Yonko are nothing compared to them and that their power is supreme in the sense that when they desire an outcome, it becomes impossible to deny them that outcome. Much like how the Yonko themselves are perceived now that I think of it. Obviously for a number of reasons things did not go as they planned particularly with Whitebeard's final words and Blackbeard taking his powers. The real winner of the mess that was the Marineford war seems to have been Blackbeard rather then any of the other participants. Likewise they saw fit to end the seven warlords whom up until this point they seemed to see as a way of balancing things with the Yonko. Granted, the warlords have proven definitively that they are more trouble then they are worth. So the world government will eventually seek to take down the Yonko especially given that they are the biggest public opponents that they have. The revolutionaries are a problem, but up until now they seem to have been keeping their activities subtle to some extent.

As for Luffy and his crew causing trouble, first the problem goes back to the pride that the Yonko have in their strength. When the chaos started, very few of them took the Strawhats seriously. Mont-d'Or didn't take them seriously. Baron Tamago suggested doing so based on the fact that the Strawhats have caused an unusual number of "unexpected coincidences" ever since they entered the radar of the Big Mom pirates. Also, do not forget that they were being chased by Big Mom herself in a frenzied state and her children assumed that the crew was already dead being in her sights. Similar to how in Impel Down anyone who challenges Magellan is considered to already be a corpse. In fact, the escape from Totland reminded me of the escape from Impel Down, all they could do was try to get out before Big Mom caught up to them and killed them and even that took everything they had. Also they were facing problems such as children defecting from Big Mom which is also considered a death sentence and something that they assume no one would be foolish enough to do. For instance, with one of her children singing to the sea slugs, they were unable to track where everyone was going. Before that, they ended up having trouble because they didn't want to give Big Mom bad news that might end up with the messenger as worm food. An intelligence network doesn't work if information is withheld simply because one's superiors won't like it. Only at the end did they decide to gather together and only when they learned of the defeat of Katakuri (I am not here to create an argument, this is just what Brulee said. We can debate the legitimacy of that battle elsewhere) that they finally grasped how dangerous the Strawhats were. This fiasco for a lack of a better word was a result of a number of factors one of which is that the Big Mom pirates never once thought that this would happen and were not prepared for the possibility of these things occurring.

As for Big Mom's personality, I feel that this is the fanbase projecting their desires and impressions of what the characters should be like on the characters themselves. How many times has this been done for Luffy, Shanks, Dragon, Sanji, Nami, Usopp, and others. I found her singing to be rather scary myself because it shows that she has a childlike personality and is still capable of terrible things. I remember reading a game called Rule of Rose where presumably part of the reason that children are antagonists is to demonstrate how children can be just as horrifying as adults in their behavior especially when they have no moral compass to counteract them. Big Mom's mindset to some extent is like that of a child utterly convinced that she is the final authority on everything and that those who oppose her deserve her wrath. I have seen many people who say that Luffy should be more like a traditional pirate, rule by fear and threats, punish those who fail him, kill and steal wantonly from those weaker then him for no other reason then greed in other words, people want him to be different then who he is partly because they would be this way if they were in his shoes. This is the kind of behavior that other pirates In another anime called Overlord, many people complain that the protagonist doesn't just go on a mad rampage across the world, kill everyone and overall be a total badass in their eyes. That is what they would do with his power and followers, but thankfully they are not the protagonist because he has a number of good reasons for not behaving in that fashion and it has served him quite well up to this point. One of the things that One Piece has taught me is that a character can have any number of peculiarities and still be quite dangerous.

The Strawhats were only able to escape by the skin of their teeth through their best efforts, a lot of help from their friends, the sacrifice of Pedro who came prepared to die, and the general chaos that surrounded the entire event. They were quite fortunate to get out the way they did and I daresay that if one single thing had gone differently then they would not have survived this situation. Jimbe and his crew have the good fortune of being able dive underwater and escape of they could ensure that Oven wouldn't cause them issues since he seemed to be their biggest problem. The Big Mom pirates cannot follow them underwater since most of them have devil fruits and those who do not would find themselves at a significant disadvantage underwater. I wasn't worried about Jimbe for two reasons and this is one of them. The other being that he is now a Strawhat and the Strawhats do not die easily. I would be more worried about Germa, but honestly outside of Reiju who seems to be the only decent member of that family (I would include Sanji, but he has made it clear he does not want to be seen as a Vinsmoke and I respect that wish) I couldn't care less about what happens to them. If Judge and his sons are feeding the fish then their troubles are over.