User blog comment:Pacifista15/BW: Death in One Piece/@comment-4899461-20120628143811

This kind of well thought out, advanced analysis is exactly what I'd love this wiki to be full of. Very well done. Be proud of yourself for this.

One interesting idea you didn't touch on was what Sabo's death meant for Ace. Before Sabo died, Ace still didn't really care for Luffy too much, and he was a more harsh, distant and untrusting person. Sabo was the brother that everyone got along with. He understood Ace's frustrations, and he was encouraging and supportive of Luffy. In Sabo's letter to Ace, he wonders which one of them was the eldest brother. While Ace was more powerful, and more of a leader to 3 bros, I think Sabo was actually the eldest. He was more mature, and more emotionally prepared to face the world. He went out to sea, Ace did not. But as Dadan said, it was the world that killed Sabo, the very world that Sabo was prepared to face when he left. Sabo's death made Ace face the world. After Sabo died, Ace realized he had to grow up. He started to truly care for and protect Luffy. He learned to be courteous from Makino in order to thank Shanks for saving Luffy. Ace became the caring, responsible "antithesis" of Luffy that the Staw Hats met in Alabasta.

Luffy and Dadan's reactions to Sabo's death also made Ace realize that there are people in the world who cared about him. In a way, Sabo's death set in motion Ace's finding an answer to his question "Was it good that I was born?"

I think Roger's death was the most important in the series, because it created the whole environment of the world of OP. But Sabo's death created so much more character delvelopment than any other death. In a way, his death set the series in motion almost as much as Roger's did.

Wow, this was pretty long for comment. But a well written essay like yours deserves a well written response I guess. I hope you enjoyed reading it, PX15.