User blog comment:12th Supernova/Chapter 789: The Final Countdown/@comment-36.68.182.254-20150607164354/@comment-24.235.56.170-20150607203850

The emotional impact is important, and you can always trust Oda to get that right.

But the problem is not whether or not she's staying consistent as a character; it's that she's kind of a hopeless character altogether. She could have been so much more than the scared, helpless little girl that she is now.

For instance, she definitely should have been able to overcome Parasite.

I'll remind you that Luffy, Law and Kyros ALL fought Doffy at some point WITHOUT being taken over by parasite. And with Luffy, we even saw him beat it when he dodged the string using Haki.

Remind me: what's Rebecca's ONLY power? Haki? The same Haki that Luffy used to overcome Parasite in his first fight with Doffy? Well hey, wow, why didn't she use it here? After all, Hakuba is apparently too fast to see and she was able to dodge his attack with no more than a broken helmet, so why wouldn't she be able to dodge a man pointing his finger at her?

I get that she's a passifist, and she can't completely control her haki yet, but Oda didn't need to write her as helpless, even if it's just to ramp up the stakes for Luffy's final bout. She has consistently shown herself to be no match for stronger opponents. And that's fair given what's been established for her character, but the character we started with could have been so much different. I think we all wanted to see a warrior passifist who could fight against powerful opponents without so much as a scratch to either of them. Someone whose commitment to not hurting others was just as strong as it is now, but with the strength to back it up. That would have been far more compelling, interesting, and fresh than having just another victim princess wailing for Luffy to save her.

So yes, it's fine for her to cry when faced with something as intense as being forced to kill a family member, even when confronting the man who murdered her mother, but when she freezes, or runs, because she's just no match for an executive, it takes away from her potential. I don't even need her to hold her own with the top guys; if she gave it her all in the Diamante fight, and just barely kept him at bay for a few pages, until he finally got the upper hand, then Kyros swooping in to save her would have been so much less disappointing than it was. (Plus, as a bonus, having her strong enough to fend off his attacks, but not to beat him would mean that Robin wouldn't have needed to protect her, which would have freed her up for her OWN fight.)

For contrast, even when Usopp runs away crying, he still comes back to save the day when it's important, even against a much stronger opponent. And Usopp is the biggest bitch on the crew. Hell, even Viola stood up to a stronger opponent, and that was in the same damn fight.