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One Piece, 552-554 · Spoil Me! One Piece

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This is an Unspoiled network podcast. This is spoil Me, covering one piece
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episodes five point fifty two through five point fifty four, a surprise and confession,
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the truth behind the assassination of Otohime Shihiroshi's tears. Lufy finally shows up
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and a big clash the straw Hats versus one hundred thousand enemies. In these
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episodes, we get to see Lufy unleash his power on a big group,
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and it's even more impressive than I was thinking it was going to be.
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To be honest, Also, it turns out the Princess knew who killed her
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mom. Okay, welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to the show everyone.
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I am Natasha. Thank you very much too, Is it Florian today?
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Let me triple check for commissioning this episode. It is indeed, thank you
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Florian. So guys, Okay, you know, I sometimes can't help but
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start talking about things out of order because I just have very strong opinions or
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reactions to a certain plot point. And I'm going to say that for me,
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this revealed that the Princess already knew. Doesn't feel right now when I
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say that, I'm not suggesting you know that it's her lying or anything like
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that. I'm just saying like there was a sense for me of almost I'm
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going to back up a little bit, so the first of the three episodes
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is the one where Hordy confesses that he is the one who murdered the queen,
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which is what I had been theorizing, and I didn't expect at all
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that he was going to tell everybody about this, And honestly, it doesn't
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make a lot of sense that he did tell everybody about this, because the
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whole like takeover was predicated on the fact that we can't get along with humans.
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That it's been proven time and time again. We have to do our
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own thing, and I'm here to ensure that we don't start going down the
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wrong path with people who are dangerous for us. If you create that as
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your sort of platform, then just coming out and confessing that you're the one
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who killed the beloved queen that was working on this, you know, partnership
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between fishmen and humans, it doesn't really work for me. I think the
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way that this is supposed to be seen is simply that he has reached such
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a point of power so quickly that he is taking it for granted, nobody's
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going to check him. I think it's supposed to be that he is maybe
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like a little too cocky and confident and thought that blurting all of this out
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was going to be him poning the populace because he does sort of crow over
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it and be like, I can't believe you guys fell for you know,
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like the whole thing. So I think that's the way I'm supposed to see
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it. But I do find it like doesn't really make sense. It would
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be one thing if he was sort of so okay. I think Hordy as
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a villain is weak sauce. I'm just gonna come out and just say that
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off the top so that you guys can kind of understand where I'm coming from
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here. I think this arc is weak sauce, and I maybe proved wrong.
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There may be something that comes up later that it's gonna be like,
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see, you didn't see that coming, did you? And I hope there
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is, I really do, But Hordy just standing in front of everybody,
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like just proclaiming this and being out in the open with his bad guy self,
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it is so one dimensional in comparison to the kinds of like subterfuge that
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I have gotten used to with certain other baddies that I was genuinely a little
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disappointed at the fact that he seems so basic, Like I'm not sure if
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this is a purposeful thing that we're supposed to be sort of hearkening back to
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ourlong and this was sort of the way he rolled. So maybe that's it,
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and we're just meant to like be seeing the parallel here between the two
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of them as villains. But for me, it feels like this is the
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way that you play it when you've begun to run out of ideas or you're
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just sort of phoning it in and you don't want to think that hard about
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how everything is happening. And I can't help but feel as if we should
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be past this sort of villain by now. We should be dealing with somebody
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who is a little more clever, a little bit more Uh, what's the
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wording I want here? Somebody who feels like they are wise to the I
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keep picturing Crocodile. I can't help myself. Crocodile was a very competent villain.
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That was part of what made him so effective was that he was able
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to predict how a lot of people would react to things and what they would
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do and think, and he even just toyed with them because he could.
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And Hordy just feels like a playground bully. So I think everything that isn't
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working for me sort of starts there with not really being impressed with him,
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not impressed with his plan, like the way that he is. He's so
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obvious, you know, So I think him blurting all of this out in
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front of everybody is meant to be him being overconfident. But because we have
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gone so far, we're almost at episode six hundred here, We've been on
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this journey with the straw Hats and seeing them improve and grow in these ways
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that are beyond belief for a lot of the people that have run into them.
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Nobody seems fully prepared for what they are capable of doing now. And
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I was just wanting to see the same kind of growth with our villains to
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see. And it's not exactly even about power, like you know, when
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I say that, I mean not necessarily that they have eaten a devil fruit,
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not necessarily that they are a badass fighter, maybe even explicitly not those
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things, because our friends have grown really strong in terms of an outright brawl,
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but are they more intelligent about the way that they approach conflicts and being
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able to predict the moves of certain types of people. So I guess what
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I'm saying is I'm very pleased that they have reached a point where they can
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totally kick ass and take out fifty thousand guys in a shot. Don't get
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me wrong, deeply in and like I said earlier, it was more than
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I was expecting for sure. However, that kind of power can only like
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be super interesting to watch for a limited amount of time before it's just the
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same punch punch punch kinds of fights over and over again, which become a
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little bit tedious to watch. So I think I was just sort of wanting
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there to be in a different angle to this guy that they are coming up
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against as the first big bad since they have all taken off for two years
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and done their own thing and improved, and I was waiting throughout Hordy's takeover
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for things to go in a slightly different direction with the way he was doing
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takeover, and instead it's all as obvious as it has ever been. So
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the fact that he is blurting all of this out, it's much less about
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like this is a foolish thing to do period as it is. I was
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hoping we would have a villain at this point who wouldn't do this sort of
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like really big fumble, you know, something that is so blatant that you're
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like, yeah, but we've done this before, haven't we haven't we been
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here? And because of this like big speech that he's giving to try and
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make everybody feel like fools, I guess forever trusting his word or believing that
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the humans were evil. Excuse me, I think he's got his one hundred
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thousand men and he's just really not concerned that any is going to be able
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to do anything to him to stop him, So he's just rubbing it into
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everybody's faces. But then you come up against the way the princess reacts.
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So Shira Ho she is there's a real moment of like pause and concern as
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she is hearing this news, and we know as viewers that she isn't in
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control of her power and that she doesn't like that any sort of big trauma
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or shock that makes her really emotional could potentially hurt the people around her,
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Like now there may be an answer to this question. And I really wish
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there was somebody here in the chat because I kind of feel as if I
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must have missed something. But Hordy knows the shira Ho she has this power
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to summon the sea kings. He doesn't know that she isn't in control of
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it, and yet he decides to like be really flagrant with his like crowing
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over this victory of fooling everybody in front of a girl that has this power
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and hasn't been She's been like chained up. But that's really all. And
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I don't know if there is something about the way she's being restrained that I
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missed that would make it so that she can't summon those sea kings. Why
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would he take this route if he knows that she has this incredible power that
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is super dangerous. It just feels like he's really taking his life in his
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hands. And I don't get what his motivation is here. So that's the
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first thing. The second thing is that she or Ho she it turns out,
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new that he had murdered her mother because her shark friend told her,
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which I do like in principle that she knew this, just because it adds
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a little bit of interest to the story, and everybody being fooled except for
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her is like it's something you know, It mixes it up a little bit.
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But I really cannot figure out her not telling anybody about it. Her
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reasoning is ludicrous in my opinion, and Horty like makes fun of her,
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but he may fun of her in a like oh, because of a promise
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to a dead woman, and it's obviously meant that he is, like,
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I'm going to make fun of you for honoring your dead mother's wishes because I
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don't hold anything sacred and I think that your mother was an idiot already.
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And I that's not the reasoning for me of why this is such a foolish
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move on her part. I understand why he would play it this way to
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be as disrespectful as possible personally, though what I'm feeling is like her her
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explanation is that I thought that if I told everybody, they would hold a
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grudge against Hordy, and that wasn't what my mother wanted. She didn't want
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her death to inspire hate. She didn't want people like looking for vengeance afterward.
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She wanted us to learn to coexist. And I want to know why
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this dumb bitch thought what her mother did want was for everybody's faith in humans
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to be fundamentally shaken because they thought her mother had been murdered by a human.
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That doesn't make any sense at all. So you decided that rather than
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people wanting to take vengeance on one man who was trying to assassinate your mother
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to unravel a whole peace treaty that was being worked on and a whole like
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coexistence that was so terrible an outcome that you just decided to let everybody think
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that all human beings can't be trusted, which is explicitly what your mother has
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been working against for the last god knows how long. I'm sorry, but
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that doesn't fucking wash in any way. And it feels to me like the
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only reason we're really having her already know this is because the author didn't feel
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like this reveal could possibly happen without Shira Hoo, she calling the Sea Kings,
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and he needed it to be less of a shock to her so that
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she wouldn't get over emotional and put everybody else in danger. That's what it
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feels like to me. Florian just got here, so people listening forgive me.
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I'm going to repeat a couple things because I'm genuinely a little bit confused.
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Florian, help me out. Here. Is is the way that the
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princess being held prisoner in chains? Does this do anything to keep her power
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from of summoning the seekings from working? And if it doesn't, which I
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don't think it does, but I may be wrong, I may have missed
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something. I would I would say if it were a type of power that
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comes from a devil fruit, that this might be, you know, the
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seastone kinds of chains. But that's not what her power is. So that
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isn't it? And so if there isn't anything restraining her power, Hordy announcing
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to her that he's actually the one who murdered her mother when he knows what
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her power is and thinks that she has control of it, is idiotic and
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makes no sense. That's just my first one, and my second one is
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her motivation for key being a secret that she did know in fact that Horty
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had killed her mother and not some human. Her explanation for I didn't want
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people to hold a grudge against Horty because it's not what my mother would have
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wanted and instead deciding to sacrifice the potential peace between humans and fishmen that her
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mother had been working toward for like a decade. That doesn't make any sense
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either, Why, Like holding onto a grudge against Horty is not a good
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enough reason to keep that to yourself when everything else that your mother has worked
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for falls apart due to what people believe and delays the forward progress of the
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relationship between humans and fishmen by ages. So my thesis here is that the
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only reason she knew about it ahead of time was so that she wouldn't get
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so so emotional at the reveal that Hordy had done it, and that way
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there won't be a scene where she accidentally summons the sea Kings because she's just
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overwhelmed by her grief and horror at this thing. So I just just it's
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a shame, because, like, I have been enjoying these episodes, but
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I feel like when we've got now that we've gotten to this point and we're
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really starting to see like how Hordy operates, I have lost a lot of
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respect for the plot overall, and I'm just feeling really frustrated because all of
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the motives behind certain things are weak, as hell, and it's one thing
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for one motive to be really weak. And you're like, okay, well
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I get it. That had to be sort of contrived for a thing to
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happen, But at this point it's so many things that feel really contrived that
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the whole story really doesn't work. Florian says, and, uh, he's
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truly blinded by hatred. That's how I take his character. So he's clear
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enough that he knows he needs to take her out because of her ability,
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but he's stupid enough to still inadvertently maybe bait her so that she could take
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all of his people out using sea kings. That doesn't really work, and
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Floren says, and the second one I think is just that she's a child,
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but also not happy with that. Yeah, it doesn't like And like
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I said earlier, Horty makes fun of her for being stupid and not telling
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anybody, but he makes fun of her because of her honoring the the promise
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she made to her mother, Because the whole point of him mocking her is
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meant to be how disrespectful he is of her mother's memory and all of that.
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When really mocking her, I like I would also, but for very
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very different reasons which don't really get brought up. Her mother's whole life was
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dedicated to this like attempt at peace between the two of them, and her
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just being willing to throw that away to keep the secret about Hordy. It
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doesn't it doesn't work at all. And then considering that Hordy has come back
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and has taken her father prisoner and she still hasn't told anybody, well,
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now what are you doing? You know? So it just seems like we're
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coming up with a reason that she will be able to hold it together when
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he does this big confession, and that way we don't have to deal with
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any inconvenient outbursts of her ability because the author doesn't want that to happen yet.
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So this is just like the beginning of the issues that I'm having with
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this. And I will say that like personally, because I already knew that
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Hordy had been the one to kill her, I was like, yeah,
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okay, can we get on with this? And we spend a lot more
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time with this than I was expecting, because we have to like go back
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and see the way that he sets all of this up and the way that
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he gets like some human drunk and you know, puts it. It puts
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this person right in the spot that he needs so that he can frame him.
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And it's a human, so he doesn't care. But obviously he clearly
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doesn't care either way whether or not it's a human or a fishman. If
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he decides that you are worth killing, then that's all. Like he doesn't
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take any consideration in anything else. So this, this, like all of
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this is mixed in with some other things that are being revealed. First of
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all, because the princess is dumped in front of him and has been kept
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a lot of the townsfolk are sort of confused because they had thought Loofy was
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the one who kidnapped her, So wait, why is she being like re
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kidnapped because we thought he was working with you and Jimbay's with them, and
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we know he's not working with Horty. So was jimbe trying to rescue her
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from straw app but just got her trapped? And Hordy is like this is
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when he's like, the only concern I have left is the straw Hats,
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although I'm sure they're more than a little preoccupied at the moment trying to find
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a way into the palace. He really still thinks that they are going to
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go and find their friends, who will have drowned according to his plan,
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and he is not concerned about them at all. We find out later,
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of course, that they were able to get out of this because there's they
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managed to get Papa Goo to listen, I say they Brooke really is the
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only one he manages to get Papago because he uses his name. Papa Goo's
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like, wait a second, why uh, how could this ghost know my
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name? And honestly, personally, I'm like, if it's a ghost,
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that's already them doing something that I didn't think was possible. So I'd be
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perfectly willing to accept that a ghost knows my name because they're already like capable
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of some shit that's wild and out of pocket. Florian says, I did
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not see this coming when I first saw this Who killed the Queen? I
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mean, so you were really surprised by this reveal. I'm sorry if anybody
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was like looking forward to me being surprised, and I just like knew what
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was going on right away and took the fun out of it. But you
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know, this one felt for me like kind of a classic setup, and
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especially because of the way in which it was like at this pivotal moment.
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But uh so we'd be to see all of these people who are being led
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in at gunpoint, and we find out that Hordy has a bunch of slaves,
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human slaves, thirty thousand of them that he has forced to fight.
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They have become part of his army. This is sort of a weird thing
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because I know that there are I know that that slave armies have been a
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thing, but it's really difficult for me to comprehend how a like an army
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built out of people who have who don't want to be here. Basically,
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how do you set them loose to do the fighting without them just fucking bailing
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and screwing you over? And this is not when I livey, this accusation
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or this sort of like question, it's not against the show. I really
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am curious, like, how do you get a slave army to work for
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you instead of trying to flee and leave you stranded with your dick in your
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hand? I don't really get that. I And this is thirty thousand and
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then he's got the fishmen, who are actually trained in combat, and he
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has seventy thousand of them y'all. Does this seem like more fishmen than really
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should exist to anybody else? I think, like, I think that the
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numbers are not just shocking in the sheer, you know, quantity, but
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it's also where have you gone to find seventy thousand fishmen? Are you?
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You're all supposed to be able to coexist on this island. Like, I
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don't mean coexist, because obviously later on he tells all of the townspeople,
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like, so, you're gonna have to give up your houses to my guys,
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you know so. But I like the the the scope of how much
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planning would have had to go into this, and the length of time it
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would take, and the size of the army that he winds up with.
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It's more than I thought the whole population of Fishman Island was. And I
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may just have really underestimated the size of the island. I think that I
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was thinking. I was considering the island a sort of like I like my
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hometown and the town next door, which I think would add up to about
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sixty thousand people, because my hometown's pop is like twenty and the next one
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I would I would be willing to hazard a guest. It's double that.
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But I think this is also something that comes up for me in one piece
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a lot is like the size of things, because of how fast and loose
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we play with the size of buildings, the size of people versus other people.
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Depending on what their power levels are, some people just turn out to
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be huge, and just a lot of this stuff I can't ever really get
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a good handle on it. But yeah, I uh, he leaves all
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of these people out, and it's just, you know, really meant to
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dampen everybody's hopes and be really discouraging because there are so many how are we
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supposed to stand up against them? And he says there are also people outside
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the wall, women and children. They can't fight, but I'll find a
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use for them later. And maybe I'm tempted to like sort of give a
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little bit of credit to the author and infer here that this is just Hordy
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being misogynist and shitty, but I can't really do that in good faith because
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the armies everywhere that we have seen are always all dudes. Women aren't ever
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fighters unless they have a superpower. And I have got to say it's bumming
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me out a little bit at this point. Guys. It really is like
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the only fighters that we have seen have been the ones that are on Maiden
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Island, and the whole thing with them is that they don't really go anywhere
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and mix with men, so they are still sort of it's almost a superpower,
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you know, it's still a special case. And I feel like we
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could have mixed bunch and it would be okay, Like why are we so
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afraid of doing this? So yeah, for him to just be like,
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oh and they can't fight, and I'm like, can't they? How do
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you know? Why would you like not want to exploit every able body that
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you had at your disposal at this point, you know? And I should
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mention too that Hordy is sitting on this huge throne and it's like exactly his
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size, and I was sort of like, is he meant to be the
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same size as the King? Was this this already here? I wanted to
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see, like how this thing appeared because Hordy has grown from I said this
30:44
last time, and I don't feel like I got like a completely concrete answer,
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But I have been under the impression that Hordy's transformation into his like albino
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version of himself also made him gigantic. So this is when Charlie shows up,
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the woman who has visions, and she has a strange, almost forked
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tail. It's not quite because that tale is like a crescent, but it
31:18
is a really cool design. She shows up to tell him that I had
31:23
a vision of the destruction of our island, brought on by a single man.
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And it's kind of funny because like I expected Hordy to be more like,
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I'm not destroying, I am freeing, you know, like I am
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doing something that you guys don't have a proper appreciation for, but eventually you'll
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think. Me. I thought it was going to be that sort of like
31:55
self what's the word I want? Like rationalization? Instead, he seems pretty
32:07
happy with the suggestion that he is so important that he could accomplish destroying the
32:14
whole island. And he says, I guess you could call what I'm doing
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destruction and gets this little like grin on his face and then says, so
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was it me you saw in the prophecy? And she tells him no,
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and he does not like hearing that, and she tells him the man that
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I saw is straw hat Loofy, and Hordy says that can't be and she
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says, oh, but I'm afraid it can. That said, I don't
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know how. The means are a mystery to me, and he says,
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so, what's my point and she says, it's not for you. My
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point is, no matter what you think you're accomplished, the person who decides
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the fate of this island isn't you. It's a human And everybody around her
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is like, well, she's never fucking wrong. So all of this coming
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together means that Hordy won't ever truly be in control of the island. I
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appreciate wanting to think that's what this means, but that's not exactly true,
33:28
is it? Because saying like Lufy is the one who's going to be responsible
33:31
for what happens to the island, she freely says later that she has no
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inkling of when something is going to happen. She will see the outcome,
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but she can't predict the date and she can't predict the means. So everybody
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being like, oh, well, if that's true, it means that Hordy
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isn't going to be able to manage to take us down. That's jumping to
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a whole lot of conclusions that I don't feel like you should be my friends.
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I feel like there's plenty of room for Hordy to take over the island
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and run shit for a little while, and then Loofy be the one to
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like do something that. And it's weird because they sort of eventually get to
34:14
a point where they're like, Okay, why don't we root Loofy on and
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get him here as fast as we can because we don't really care what happens
34:25
to the island as long as he takes Hordy out, which is a very
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strange direction to go in. I thought it was going to be like,
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well, now we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We've got
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this guy who is, you know, taking our homes away, who it
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turns out, is a huge liar and killed our queen. And instead it's
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well, lufy, we need you, even if you like tear this island
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apart, we don't care. Just please come as soon as you can.
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And I was like, that is a really odd direction to go in that
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they're sort of be like implicitly saying that they are okay with their own destruction
35:16
as long as he stops Hordy, which is a very big leap to make
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when you don't even know how things are meant to go yet with all of
35:30
the with like how Hordy is going to set things up for your the situation
35:38
of living on this island. Most people aren't that type of I don't even
35:46
know if I want to say it. It's selfless exactly self sacrificing, I
35:51
guess, And they certainly aren't this way immediately upon something like this happening,
36:00
because most of us are going to kind of try and keep our heads down
36:05
and stay as focused as we can and try and see whether or not we
36:09
can make it through this just as is. And so yeah, they just
36:15
really do this like weird healed turn where it's like, we don't mind that
36:19
Lufy's going to destroy the island as long as he destroys this guy as well,
36:24
and it just feels very abrupt to me. So this is when Hordy
36:34
ends up like telling them all about how he killed the queen and he is
36:39
very proud of himself, and we have shiro Ho she saying I knew,
36:44
and then the episode ends and we jump to the next one and she confesses
36:51
that she knew already and that her friend the shark Megalow told her, and
36:55
then her really really weak, sauce fucking explanation of why she didn't tell anybody.
37:02
It's asinine, it doesn't make any sense. And then and her brothers
37:09
all like hearing this, are just like all these years and not and I
37:15
was like, yeah, that's kind of fucked up. Like they're kind of
37:17
admiring it. Sounds like the fact that she kept this bottled up and didn't
37:22
tell anybody and so bore the burden of it, you know, But that
37:29
doesn't ring true for me. I think all of them would be like,
37:31
are you fucking kidding me? It doesn't it Just the reaction of everybody to
37:37
this is much more tolerant in a sort of way. That means like,
37:46
oh, well, we understand, we know what it was that you were
37:50
doing, and you were trying to honor our mother's wishes, and that was
37:52
like, uh, you took on this burden in order to uphold the promise
38:00
that you made, and so we admire that. But I am so sorry,
38:06
absolutely fucking not. Somebody has to be and it has to be mad
38:10
at her. It doesn't ring true at all. But everybody is like,
38:19
oh, what a selfless saint she is for taking this on and holding this
38:23
secret. There has got to be somebody amongst them who is like, what
38:30
the fuck is the matter with you? Her? Not wanting people to like
38:35
go around with hate in their heart is not the same thing as not holding
38:38
a murderer responsible, Like, that's not at all the same thing. She's
38:43
talking about racism, and you're talking about a single assassin that you just fucking
38:49
let get away with it. What do you mean? But nobody calls her
38:52
out on this, Nobody disagrees with her, like in a way that feels
38:58
like they're admonishing her. And maybe that will happen later, But I don't
39:01
really think it will because their first reactions would be what I would expect to
39:07
like display that sort of irritation, and we don't see it from anybody.
39:16
Florian says, I think what the people think with Hordy will be oppression.
39:21
And they live like this for years, and lately it has been on an
39:24
upswing. They'd rather choose destruction than going back. I take it that way
39:30
at least, and I think that's what we're meant to be. But I
39:34
think that's what we're meant to think here but I don't think it rings true.
39:37
I just don't. That's not really how people work. People will scrape
39:42
by, and as long as they are able to survive and their close family
39:45
are able to stay alive, we will put up with a lot before we
39:51
are ready to destroy ourselves and destroy our families. You know, the people
39:54
who are like, we don't care if you tear this island apart. They're
39:58
saying this also about their spouses and their siblings and their children. That is
40:02
just not reality. And I like because this show waffles so wildly between the
40:12
way that they want to portray the average person and how like moments like this
40:17
hit Sometimes we do see that, like the attitudes of the average person are
40:25
venal and selfish and sort of base. But here, all of a sudden,
40:32
everybody is like understanding shiro Hooshi's motivation, and everybody is like, yeah,
40:38
we are all willing to sacrifice ourselves as long as Lufy comes in.
40:43
I just I find this so basic. This plot is like, from the
40:50
first hundred episodes, this doesn't feel like, after everything our friends have been
40:52
through, they deserve better than this. It doesn't make any sense coming from
40:57
any direction, and everybody being so in sync with how they feel things should
41:04
be handled. It's because we have put Hoardy in this position where he is
41:09
basically standing on a stage in front of everybody. We have to have it
41:15
be that everyone's united against him. But we could have just not had him
41:22
standing on this stage blatantly telling everybody what a terrible person he is and how
41:29
much he delights in it. We could have done something so much more interesting
41:32
with him as a character, and instead we just sort of went back in
41:37
time and did like our along but worse, and it's played We've been here
41:46
before. It's not interesting to watch. It doesn't make him a fun character.
41:52
I'm not really feeling threatened by him or worried about him, and all
41:58
of the townsfolk being equally like on this like we can't believe what you did
42:04
to our queen, and we all were trying to make it. Some of
42:07
the people who live in this town should be on his side a little bit.
42:10
Some of the people should be like, you know what, you're right.
42:13
I didn't even want to sign it, but people were pressuring me.
42:15
But I felt like we can't trust humans and he should be cultivating that and
42:20
not telling them that he committed the murder because it pays for him to get
42:25
them on his side and believing in this. It doesn't make sense that he
42:30
would confess to everybody in front of them all so that they all know that
42:35
he's a massive liar and that their hatred that has been in their hearts for
42:38
humans is invalid. In a lot of ways, he's just turning more people
42:45
against him in a moment that is, Oh, well, he's just not
42:50
that smart a villain. He's just overwhelmed by his rage and desire for power.
42:53
Boring. That is so boring. It's just this. We deserve better
43:00
as viewers at this point, and the straw Hats deserved way better For a
43:05
villain that's like the first one they're really going to be going up against since
43:08
they advanced after two years of training. It feels like a regression in every
43:16
sense. So I'm just this is just not it, guys, It's just
43:22
not it. I'm sorry. I don't like to be hard on this show
43:25
for things that I feel like I need to be able to let go of
43:30
because to a degree it's a cartoon. To a degree, it's a heightened
43:34
reality, this world that they're living in and the ways that certain things would
43:38
work are irrelevant to the show, but because of the way that this plot
43:45
is constructed around a very real allegory for racism, you better be fucking careful
43:53
the way you decide to set this up, and they are not being careful,
43:58
and it's not yeah, a satisfying payoff to like have it be this
44:06
sort of ghoulish dude who's in the background manipulating everybody and then just pulls the
44:13
curtain back and is like, a, ha, it was me. If
44:15
you really want your people to take control and to mistrust humans, what Hordy
44:22
should have been doing was framing more humans for more awful things. This would
44:28
be so much more fascinating for me to watch that, Like we're hearing about
44:32
the terrible things that humans have done to fishmen, and then eventually we find
44:37
out that almost all of those things were Hordy gathering supporters, but then framing
44:44
humans for it, so that there could be this like trail of destruction behind
44:49
him that was entirely hidden from view of fishmen because they thought it was just
44:54
more persecution from humans, when in fact it was somebody who was organizing a
45:00
coup, And so they then realize everything that was set up. We've been
45:06
played repeatedly that this whole history that we have in our heads of the way
45:10
humans have treated us, some of it's true, but a lot of it
45:14
isn't, and we don't know what's what we can't tell, And that makes
45:17
for a really complex conversation on how much do we let humans off the hook
45:22
for how much do we realize now Horty orchestrated, how much of it was
45:31
him orchestrating, and how much of it were human beings fighting back against him
45:37
and maybe there being atrocities, but they were actually in self defense. So
45:40
now how does that look? All of this for me would be like a
45:45
slow build of hearing about him and seeing him at work and then coming here
45:52
and seeing that all of it was him, and that he has organized this
45:54
really well put together, thought out coup and isn't letting any not putting any
46:02
of his cards on the table, in letting anybody know about this except for
46:06
like his top people. They're the only ones that get to find out.
46:09
And then you have this sort of like, well, it feels justified that
46:14
he's doing this coup because the king isn't doing anything because he is so bound
46:20
to the promise of his wife and his children, that he feels like he
46:25
can't fight back the way he wants to, and his own people are getting
46:31
frustrated with that that he is losing support among his own people because they are
46:37
seeing him just take no action whatsoever, so that when Hordy comes in,
46:42
he's supported. The coup is something that they want, and it's not until
46:45
it's too late and he is fucking in that they begin to find out a
46:51
lot of the things were set up, and once he's established that is a
46:55
much much harder villain to deal with. This dude who's just standing outside the
47:01
palace with the king and fucking like blurting out his whole plan to everybody and
47:08
just really feeling himself on the fact that he fooled them all. This is
47:14
not a villain that I am worried about. This dude is a fool.
47:17
He's gonna be taken down, no problem. I am not at all concerned
47:22
that there are going to be other people that have his back, because he
47:25
has alienated everybody around him except for like his guys. But those aren't guys
47:32
I'm worried about either, because it just all feels so like thrown together.
47:39
So I just this is just so frustrating because it has the potential to be
47:45
a really really interesting situation where, if anything, we could have the straw
47:53
Hats coming to Fishman Island after the coup. Horty is already in place,
48:00
King has been if not like actually executed, he could have been exiled and
48:06
there could be a whole other thing going on with him, like with the
48:10
crew uncovering what has happened. Or we could even have it be that they
48:16
don't go right to Fishman Island from Sabaode, that there are some things happening
48:21
on Sabaote that they are hearing about, and they find out like all these
48:25
horrible things that humans have been doing to fishmen, and so they head down
48:30
there to like offer their help and services and be like, can we team
48:32
up with you because we think this is wrong. And then they get there
48:36
and this is guy who pretends to be welcoming and to be on like in
48:43
good faith, and what if they get kind of bamboozled by him and find
48:49
out that the things that they have been sent to do, it's actually not
48:52
in defense of the fishmen. He's just using them as another group of humans
48:58
who are screwing over fishmen because he had them do something that it turns out,
49:01
was like actually looking pretty evil from the outside. I just think there
49:07
is so much here that you could work with that could be so much more
49:12
intricate, and considering the way that like racism was at the center of this
49:17
plot. Racism is a really complex situation in real life. And I'm not
49:24
saying that we have to do anything like the intensity of the situation in real
49:30
life. I'm saying that it's complex because it has its gray areas, It
49:37
has its people who, while they understand that another race may not necessarily be
49:42
all bad people, they still have this like innate loyalty to their own race
49:46
that they can't really seem to put away. Or the way that systems get
49:52
put into place, and then you can find ways to like exploit that system
49:55
or the ways in which that system are almost unbreakable because of the human beings
50:00
involved in their biases, And there's just so much that could be done.
50:06
And so him just like blathering on gleefully the fact that Lufy takes as long
50:15
as he does to come out of the shark's mouth. The whole thing we
50:22
find out later is that the argument between Jimbay and Lufy about well, I
50:29
want to go fight, and I know you told me that I can't because
50:31
I'm going to make people angry because I'm a human. But I have to
50:36
do what's right and they're also hurting my friends, so this is personal for
50:39
me. All of it. It turns out, is sort of like again
50:46
another moment of Jimbay actually kind of meaning something else and taking his fucking sweet
50:53
ass time getting to the point. So I am the one who let our
50:59
along out. Fucking three episodes later, we finally get the story on what
51:05
happened with that, and then you can't go fight because a human it's going
51:08
to look bad, and like two episodes after that, so what they need
51:14
is a hero and you're gonna save the day. Come on, come on,
51:20
this is all so contrived. It's all just like I feel like,
51:24
if one of these things were happening, it wouldn't be so egregious. But
51:30
every part of what's going on is so like first draft, you know what
51:38
I'm saying. So it turns out that Jimbei is like, you need to
51:44
be able to prove to them that you're a hero. So we're gonna hide
51:46
you in this shark's mouth so that they don't see you, and then you
51:52
can swoop in and save the day as a hero. I don't know if
51:57
I'm alone in this, but if I found out that a person with the
52:02
powers Lufy has had been hiding in that shark's mouth this whole time and had
52:07
just let this man continue to talk and let this whole thing go on and
52:12
on, I don't feel like I would really see him as a hero.
52:15
The way I meant to buy Jimbay's plan, it just would feel like,
52:21
why did you wait? You were here the whole time, then what are
52:23
you doing? I would be deeply confused and frustrated by that. So if
52:31
we had set it up that like Lufy was hidden somewhere like near by,
52:37
or that he had to meet them or something that delayed him in a real
52:43
way, but because of the way, the fact that it was the conversation
52:47
between him and Jim Bay and this was the plan the whole time, that
52:50
doesn't work. I would like for Jimbay to have just tried to put his
52:53
foot down and Loofy to be like, I know, I told him I
52:59
wasn't going to interfere, and I let him go off with the princess,
53:01
and he's gonna just think I'm staying here the fuck I am. I am
53:05
definitely getting there and I'm going to help. I am just letting him get
53:10
a bed of a head start because I don't want him to fucking stop me.
53:14
And then by the time he gets there, shit just begin to pop
53:17
off and he can jump in as a hero and really look like a hero
53:22
who has run into save the day and not just some weirdo who's hiding in
53:27
a corner until things actually like get bad enough that he can make himself look
53:31
good. It just feels very like everybody is misunderstanding the way that human beings
53:39
react to things, and so because the story needs people to react a certain
53:45
way for the next piece of the plot to work, all of our people
53:51
are just not reacting like people. It just feels like none of the the
53:59
human nature, for lack of a better term. Although these are fishmen,
54:04
human nature gets brought up a lot in this show, and the way that
54:07
people behave and how fear can keep people from doing the right thing or they
54:13
can get caught up in a sort of mob mentality, and then like that
54:16
is just completely not part of the plot here at all. Sorry, Florian
54:23
says, Hey, I'm gonna tell you the phantom things. Horty is one
54:25
of the least interesting villains in the show. Yeah, and like it really
54:31
it almost makes you think. And it's not really a one to one comparison
54:35
here because of the way that the show has done this in the past,
54:39
So I don't I'm not accusing the show of doing this with Hordy the way
54:45
I am accusing other properties, because this is just how one piece works.
54:51
But when I am thinking about a character like Hordy, I think of,
54:57
of course Killmonger from Black Panther. And there were a lot of think pieces
55:01
that came out around when the movie dropped where people were pointing out the fact
55:06
that, like kill Monker actually has valid points across the board until he gets
55:14
into power, at which point he is suddenly abusing women, at which point
55:17
he is suddenly encouraging the murder of children, and that it's very obvious the
55:22
show is like, or the movie is like, well, we need him
55:25
to be a battie that you can sympathize with, right up until the point
55:30
where he needs to be a baddie that we have to take out and then
55:32
we're gonna turn all these knobs and flick all these switches. So there's suddenly
55:37
a whole bunch of beliefs that he never mentioned before that you can be like,
55:40
okay, but that's really fucked up, and it makes the whole attempt
55:45
to have him be a villain you can identify with a little bit and understand
55:51
ring very hollow, you know, and it kind of comes across as lazy.
55:57
And I feel like they're trying to do that a little bit with Hordy,
56:05
but because like none of his points have really been valid, like human
56:10
beings have abused fishmen, but he's framing them as well. There's a lot
56:16
about this that once you reveal yourself, then your whole motive falls apart.
56:24
So anyway, I'm sorry, guys, I'm getting bogged down in this.
56:29
And I've talked about like what's going on in these episodes, like the first
56:34
two pretty well as much as they need. But then we get the reveal
56:39
of Loofy jumping out of the shark's mouth, We get Nammy, and it
56:45
turns out, of course that Brooke and Oosap and Zorro even got away,
56:52
so they wind up joining us, and there's just a whole like sort of
56:59
montage of all of them strutting I guess is the word I want and the
57:07
people around them being like, well, are you on our side or not?
57:09
Did you kidnap the mermaid? Like what's going on? Is this the
57:15
Are we supposed to be glad you're here or not? And I was sort
57:19
of confused because they were just yelling, loofy, come help us. We
57:23
don't care if you destroy the island, just stop hoardy. But then when
57:28
his like cohorts show up, everybody suddenly like, tell us, who's sider'
57:31
on? Tell us what you want with us, tell us why you're here?
57:36
Y'all didn't seem to care like five minutes ago, and now you're yelling
57:39
all these questions. It feels a little bit late to ask when you begged
57:44
them to come, So what is it? Do you want to know?
57:47
Do you care or not? It doesn't you know, Like these just don't
57:52
go together. So oh, and I forgot to mention, of course that
57:57
uh, that Hordy like shoots I put in quotes the seer who told him
58:02
that he wasn't gonna be the one to destroy the island. But it's nothing.
58:08
Even though it's a real dramatic moment of him like shooting her, she's
58:13
fine and just gets up here, and it turns out was like knocked out
58:16
or something in a way that I'm once again sort of well, what are
58:21
we meant to think about this villain if he's not actually he's like shooting at
58:27
the princes and the king, and evidently that's not really doing anything either,
58:32
And so Horty just in every sense, is just not somebody that I am
58:37
intimidated by it all, you know. So the long montage of everybody showing
58:45
up is like carried into the next episode, the third one, and it
58:51
is a lot of that of everybody like getting into position and talking about why
58:55
they're here and what's happened so far. It takes a really long time for
59:00
everybody to like get into place, and we the whole thing with like going
59:10
up against one hundred thousand doesn't happen until the very end of all three.
59:19
But all the people in town are like, well, they're super outnumbered,
59:22
how is this going to happen? Like there's no way that they can they
59:28
can come out of this. And Lufy had like when he erupted from the
59:34
shark's mouth. He just knocked Hordy down. And it's not it doesn't seem
59:42
like the pirates are worried about that which Chopper brings up, and it's because
59:46
they have this drug, you know. So this is when all the pirates
59:52
begin to circle Loofy and he just gets that expression on his face, and
59:58
we see all of them with their weapons lifted, group by group, their
1:00:02
eyes turning white and then falling to the ground, and Lufy just standing in
1:00:07
the middle of a carpet of bodies and not a soul has been able to
1:00:13
touch him. And I'll say that I really didn't think he could affect that
1:00:16
many people. So that was a fun reveal that he is this strong.
1:00:22
But because everything around it feels so silly, it does it's just like robbed
1:00:28
of the gravity that this moment should have, and it doesn't hit like it
1:00:34
would if I had been worried in the first place. And they basically that
1:00:39
was like half the pirates that have gone down, and Hordy has a look
1:00:44
on his face like he genuinely has no idea what to make of this fifty
1:00:50
thousand people and they didn't even get in arms reach of him, and of
1:00:54
course all of the townsfolk looking around and being like, wait, what did
1:00:59
he do? So then Lufy says, your name's Horty, Right, I'm
1:01:05
about to kick your ass. You want to become the king of a country
1:01:08
or whatever, fine, I don't care. But king of the pirates,
1:01:15
nah ah, that's my job. And then we go to to be continued.
1:01:21
So all I can say, guys, is I really hope we're closing
1:01:27
in on the end of this arc because it feels like we've squandered the interesting
1:01:30
parts of it and Horty is even less interesting than I thought. And I'm
1:01:37
just disappointed. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. What can you do?
1:01:42
They can't all be winners. All right, I'm gonna wrap up.
1:01:45
Thank you guys again so much for listening, and share your thoughts in the
1:01:50
No Spoilers channel on Discord if you are inclined, And until next time,
1:01:54
to the lou motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled network