User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 847 - Fantastic Beasts and Marital Woes/@comment-24850639-20161129201600

I was pretty pleased with the chapter overall. The story didn't move forward a great deal from the past couple of chapters, but I saw a lot of confirmation this chapter that answered a few lingering concerns for me.

Piercing the Veil on Big Mom - We finally got a legitimate peak into Big Mom's true nature. Villains/antagonists come in all shapes and sizes. Not all antagonists of the series turn out to be true villains. Buggy, Mr. 2, and Mihawk are just a few examples of people that have opposed/contrasted Luffy in some kind of way, but aren't hardcore bad guys. Generally Oda slowly gives aways subtle hints as to how the character will turn out, until we have the full picture. He made things pretty ambiguous with Big Mom initially, showing us a country full of diversity like nothing we'd ever seen in the series, revealing Big Mom's dream of just wanting to sit eye level with her family which isn't inherently bad, and that the citizens WILLINGLY give up some of their lifespan under Big Mom's protection, and that they can leave whenever they please. At the same time however, we see her having people killed just to get the ingredients for a cake, killing her own son on a whim because of her sweet tooth, and discarding her husbands after they give her children, destroying all possible fatherly relationships. There was a tiny bit of ambiguity slowly building for her, but Oda finally decided to put a pin in that with her outburst about Lola. Pudding had made a comment that Big Mom just exploits her children for the political alliances she can forge, but this time we finally got to hear it from the woman herself. Big Mom isn't redeemable after what we learned this chapter, especially with the confrontation she had with Luffy.

Pudding - I personally held a lot of doubt and contempt for this chick after the trap she sent the Straw Hats too, but Luffy's declaration that she is his friend pretty much all but confirms that Pudding is good. Luffy has been shown to be stupid on a lot of trivial matters, but he's a genius on matters of the heart and judging character. He has seen through it pretty much every time when someone tries to be two-faced with the crew, most notably with Nami, Robin, and Sanji.

Pedro - I held on to a small amount of doubt that Pedro may have been some kind of double agent, but after seeing how gung-ho he is about risking his life for the Straw Hats I'm convinced he's a pretty good dude.

Sanji - His defeatist nature as of late has been quite annoying, though I have to give him his due for his heart being in the right place. It still pisses me off that he knows Luffy of all people would intentionally pick a fight with Big Mom even without all the current drama, but with Zeff being a major Achilles Heel I can't fault him for just wanting to know that Luffy will live another day. He doesn't need to "protect" the Straw Hats, but he absolutely has to do something about Zeff. The thing I don't think he caught though, is that Big Mom said his "current" crew is safe, which doesn't include Zeff. If she threatens him first in light of that what the individual rescue teams are trying to pull off, then I'm not sure quite how he will react.