User blog comment:Fliu/Chapter 980: This Is Where the Fun Begins/@comment-29391896-20200525133213/@comment-108.83.222.210-20200527195803

The Strawhats have had their moments where they have been caught off guard in the past before. The example with Luffy vs Caesar was caused by the fact that Luffy had absolutely no idea that Caesar could in fact remove all the oxygen in the area around him. It is difficult to prepare for an ability like that because the biggest advantage of it is that there is no way of predicting it before it happens unless you know of it in advance. Same thing here, Apoo has never interacted with the Strawhats before so they had no way of knowing that his music could harm them. As for Zoro falling unconscious that way quite a surprise at the time since he had indeed taken much worse then that. As for your statement about the fact that they should have died in East Blue, If they were as cautious as some of the fans say that they should be then they never would have accomplished what they have and achieved everything that they have. The smart move at Enies Lobby would have been to abandon Robin, the smart move in Alabasta would have been to let the kingdom be destroyed, the smart move in Whole Cake would have been to seek a replacement for Sanji. Based on what I have seen, some people believe that Luffy should act like Buggy, always avoiding any fight that he is not absolutely certain he cannot win. If that is done then they will never get anywhere. While we are on the subject of smart decisions arguably Luffy should have done the smart thing and become a marine like his grandfather wanted. It would mean giving up his dream, it would mean keeping his mouth shut at the world government's various atrocities, it would mean compromising his principles most likely but he would probably live longer and be safer. That is who he is. As for Rob Lucci, Luffy was already determined to fight him anyway and in that case staying to fight him was the best decision he could make to help his crew. As for knocking them out with conqueror's haki, that doesn't hurt as much as a fist to the head. We cannot know how he would act if Tama was here because thankfully she is not.