User blog comment:Samium/Luffy is so confusing/@comment-24850639-20161130160102

It can be annoying in certain situations, but over the course of the series I've come to understand why Oda does it. A big thing that always comes to mind for me is the speech he gave to Arlong during their fight about his crew. Luffy lays out all the things he doesn't know about swordsmanship, navigation, and even lying, and explains that's EXACTLY why he needs his friends. Since day 1 Oda has reinforced the concept of "you can't do it all alone", but for Luffy's case in particular his simple-minded approach to the world has always caused people to warm up to him and feel that they can trust him. Sure he comes off as an idiot with not much going on upstairs, but at that same time this disarms people because they know he will always mean what he says, and isn't the type of person to try to hide things. It creates a sense of innocence, and Luffy's pure heart isn't very hard to pick up on just from a few words with him. It's a big reason why his relationship with Smoker has panned out the way it has, and Smoker knows that Luffy isn't actually a bad guy despite his reputation. Same can pretty much be said for Issho, and just about anyone who's become his friend recently.