User blog comment:Ultimate Law of Kaitlyn/Why I think Crocodile losing to Luffy was a fluke/@comment-4899461-20120612224447

I enjoyed reading this quite a bit. And I totally agree that it was a total fluke that he lost to Luffy and the Straw Hats. When I first got exposed to Crocodile in Alabasta, I thought he was of the most lame, 2-dimensional villans of the series up to that point (except maybe Don Krieg). But when he came back to the story completely unexpectedly in the Whitebeard War saga, I found him to be one of the most interesting characters of the series. That's the funny thing about him, almost every other main villian got some kind of explanation of their past at the time they were first exposed, but all we knew about Crocodile at the time was that he was a Shichibukai, and likely very strong. I think that's why he seemed so 2-D to me, there was no explanation of his motives or anything, everything we knew about him was so in the moment. He just seemed to be focused on taking over the country and gaining control of Pluton, and eventually the world. It seemed like such a cheap premise for a villain, all he wants is to take over the world. He just seemed to be evil, and that was the sum total of his personality.

After learning a bit about his past, especially his former dreams of Pirate King and loss to Whitebeard in the New World, you can start to imagine that he was once happy before he became so jaded. I think that conversation with Daz Bones after Marineford about emotional wounds refers to Croc's own wounds he experienced in the NW. I doubt that all of his wounds were a result of Whitebeard, it probably had to deal with many things he experienced. I think his jadedness actually contributed to his loss as well. One of the main themes of the series is people's willpower, and I think while he really did want to succeed in Alabasta, his will wasn't strong enough after his losses in the New World. Luffy's willpower is really what allowed him to win. I think the idea of killing Whitebeard, and the things he saw in the War led to him having a change of heart about his past experiences and the re-emergence of his willpower. It will be very interesting to see what he's done with himself after the war.

But I could talk about Crocodile for ages (maybe I'll make my first blog about him one day) so I think it's best I stop now while I'm kind of on topic.