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fan-tasmic · 5 years ago

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Ho boi. Okay let me preface this by saying that everyone has a right to their own opinion. I’m not out to try and sway people one way or the other. Secondly, it’s been a good bit since I’ve seen the show, and even then I didn’t finish it. I did leave off after the Impel Down arch, so I only have a surface level of knowledge about Boa. Lastly, and I can not stress this enough, this is my personal opinion. That being said, stop and scroll if you don’t want to read, continue if you do.

So the screen shot OP posted of Boa and Luffy I have problem with. One because it’s being used as evidence to justify the presumed ‘predatory’ behavior that Boa shows toward Luffy. It is also implied that anyone who hasn’t seen the show or does not know the context of the shot will also agree that that is a predatory behavior. For me, that’s a weak justification for their argument, especially as they appear to be a long standing fan of the show. As an example:

^ What does this scene look like to anyone who hasn’t seen or know about the Seven Deadly Sins anime? Well for me without context, it looks like a grown woman kissing a 14 year old kid. Is this predatory? Absolutely. ESPECIALLY if their genders were reversed.

But here’s the thing. I love Seven Deadly Sins. It’s one of my favorite animes. So this shot, doesn’t bother me at all. Why? Well for one the blonde haired kid? He’s an immortal demon. So even though he looks 14/15 at the most I know he far surpasses her in age. As far as the girl who’s kissing him? She’s the furthest thing from predatory you can find. In fact she spends most of the show trying to keep demon boi from stealing her panties. She’s a very sweet, wholesome person (despite the fact that my one grip is she whines a lot, but meh).

Now, what does this example have to do with Boa? Well a good bit. Age in anime is tricky. So unless we actually watch the show we don’t really know how old Luffy is. To me Luffy looks like he could be 16. If I take OPs word for it he’s 17, or if I was a long standing fan of the show, the show itself could confirm that he’s 25 by the time he gets to see Boa. Anime is also a prime culprit for having girls that look 12-13 actually being 500-1,000 years old. So again, using an out of context screen shot is a weak, lazy justification.

As for Boa herself, I will admit, I myself didn’t have a very high opinion of her. In fact the only thing I really liked about her was the fact that she had a pet snake and that she had two sisters that turned into giant snake gorgons. I found her justification for being shitty to other people overall childish and vain. Because she excused a lot of her behavior for the fact that she was beautiful. Over the course of watching the Amazonian arch, I was then introduced to her back story. Now anyone whose a long standing fan of One Piece should know that each time a character gets introduced their back story is often more gut wrenching than the last character who was introduced. (At least that was a trend I noticed in the strawhat crew. Like I said it’s been a while since I’ve seen the show.) Boa and her sisters was....pretty horrible.

Not only were they slaves to the celestial dragons, they were branded as such, and they live in a society that values strength above all else. So showing any kind of vulnerability could lead her to being homeless at best or killed at worst. With that trauma in mind it became understandable as to why she acts the way that she does. She has the character philosophy of ‘They can’t hurt me if I don’t let them get close.’ and honestly, that’s something that I can personally relate to.

As far as trauma not justifying shitty behavior. That, for me anyway, is a bit of a complex argument. My personal take is that it’s a two way street. Trauma influences on how a character is able to process their emotions and deal with the world around them. It’s obvious that being a slave emotionally stunted Boa. The references she makes to her beauty helping her get her way could also note to a possible case of bullying while she was a slave. It’s likely that despite the horrible trauma she went through there were instances that her beauty could have gotten her out of sticky situations with her captors and as such she was bullied by other slaves for her captors showing her some semblance of leeway when they wouldn’t be able to get away with the same sort of stunt. Her freedom in a way would have been a godsend right? Well it kind of did the opposite. Boa for whatever reason, couldn’t process through the trauma, and instead buried all of anxiety, fear, and sadness away. She didn’t want to be seen as weak or have people take pity on her. So she threw herself into her duties as an Amazonian tribe member, and became the youngest leader in the tribal history. This not only further stunted her, but now she is being overly adored because of her beauty, strength and leadership.

This has obviously stunted her adult growth even further. Boa has unrealistic ideals of how normal adults actually form relationships and functions. She went from people beating her, to people willing to not only kill themselves on her order, but also willing to do anything she ever asks them. So by the time Luffy rolls around and is somehow unaffected by her power and beauty she doesn’t know how to react to him. In a way it’s almost refreshing for her and it’s no wonder she falls head over heels for him. Now can Boa seek help to process through her trauma? Yes. Have people offered to help her? Probably. Does she still remain vain despite all this? Well, that’s until Luffy comes into the picture. Now I admit, I had to do some research because, again, I have not seen anything past the ending arch of Impel down. But in my discussion with chinesegal I admitted that my opinion of Boa would have most likely changed because of the fact that I would have seen her character growth if any had occurred. Through my reading it is confirmed that Boa, through her meeting of Luffy and friendship with Luffy actually grows as a character. The ice of her heart melts and she starts opening up more. That shows signs of improvement and in a sense letting go of past hurt and anger and reshaping how she deals with the world around her. These are good signs to show that she’s letting go of her trauma and that’s important.

Now as far as predatory behavior is concerned I just don’t get that vibe from Boa. Like at all. As far as her repeated attempts at marriage proposals that Luffy constantly turns down, it mimics the personality of another character we all know and love. Who we’ve seen since season 1. Wonder who that is? Well, it’s Sanji. As much as I love Sanji, he doesn’t get a free pass because we’ve known him longer. Sanji exhibits the same type of behavior with Nami and Robin as well as other female characters on the show. In fact, most of the time Sanji gets into trouble is BECAUSE he’s actively pursuing some kind of relationship with some new girl who was briefly introduced. Sanji can be down right cringy at times, and the fact that OP can ignore that type of behavior in him, while at the same time criticizing Boa for it, is just blatantly hypocritical. It also shows an obvious favoritism without being able to look at character traits objectively. (Also to put on the record I’m not a huge fan of this womanizing trait in Miroku in Inuyasha, or Brock from pokemon. Even though Brock has it to a lesser degree than Sanji or Miroku).

In any case, my final thoughts on Boa is that she’s a well written character. In the sense that we actually see how her trauma influences her view on the world and how she grows as a person through her friendship with Luffy. If I had continued with the show and seen her character growth more she probably would have been one of my favorite characters. I don’t think she deserves the amount of hate OP gives her especially as a longstanding fan of the show. But again, that’s their opinion. Agree to disagree and all that jazz.

Anyway thanks for reading.

-Fan

In defence of Boa Hancock, again

To preface: today I encountered an ask with a response so bad it made me boil with anger:

the op hates Hancock’s character, which is something I try to accept despite my personal feelings, however I do not believe its disrespectful to post this, its a public post on a social media forum and I don’t have enough followers that can make harassment campaigns possible.

So right now, I will refute their points bit by bit, each time copypasting their words into quotation marks, and my refutations below.

Their words:

“ Can you imagine how outraged the fandom would be, if they were cisswapped? For two seconds, let’s imagine a Luffyko & male!Boa: there would be oodles & oodles of posts about how he’s sexually harassing Luffyko, how No means No, & breaking down the fact that this character is not a good person by any means. That doesn’t happen though, because Boa’s a woman & Luffy’s a 17 yr old in this screenshot. “

Nope. Sanji turned to stone when seeing Shirahoshi because of the sheer lust he was feeling at the time, and then went on acting servile and adoring around her, serving her tea because she’s a woman/girl he’s attracted to, like many:

And Shirahoshi is 16, Sanji was 21. Brook asked to see Shirahoshi’s panties, and asked this question to many other women. The fandom in general doesn’t seem to care, which is a problem. Their actions are creepy, but no one cares.

But what makes me truly angry is the one screenshot they try to use to prove that Boa’s predatory:

this one. “Luffy’s only 17 in this screenshot”, they say.

“What’s the context for this image?”-you might ask. The answer: sure as fucking hell not Boa trying to seduce or take advantage of Luffy. Here, she is revealing the brand on her back that would forever mark her as property, as less than human for life. Its an eternal reminder to her of the years of abuse and trauma she went through as a child. She is definetely not being “seductive” or sexual here, and nudity isnt the same as being sexual, especially not in this context.

It enrages me that they try to portray this shot where Boa is opening up about her abuse and trauma as her trying to “sexually harassing” Luffy.

they then goes on about how men can be raped and abused by women, which is true but Hancock has done absolutely nothing abusive to Luffy, not in the screenshot unless you count trying to kill him as “abuse”.

“Bias that men can’t be abused influences do-Gooder purity warriors that try to claim Sanji’s a sexual predator”- they say, a quote I feel distasteful. I dont think Sanji’s a sexual predator but if you do like him and ignore his behavior towards girls younger than Luffy, then you are just as hypocritical.

“ There is no reason why a 29 yr old should be almost violently, definitely insistently pursuing a 17 yr old. It’s disgusting, it’s creepy, it’s gross. Her tragic backstory does not give her leeway either. “

Boa Hancock has never been “violent”, nor said or done anything inappropriate to Luffy. She fantasizes about being his wife sure, and the agegap is awkward, but she acts like a 12 year old girl experiencing her first crush. She’s so naive that she thinks Luffy’s hug means they are married. It is very likely, if not explicitly canon that she doesnt know how healthy adult relationships function because of her whole backstory. That is the reason it’s impossible for me to see her as predatory, not because of gender but because how innocent she actually is when it comes to sex and romance.

Luffy is also not a tactful person; he would tell her if her behavior creeps him out but never does, showing that Boa’s actions doesnt make him uncomfortable at all.

And yes, her backstory does explain a lot, and it is the entire reason I sympathize with her despite her actions, which aren’t even that bad when compared to other pirates.

“Even when she tries to do something good for Luffy (breaking him into Impel Down), she still finds some way to make it about how Luffy is going to love her finally & “”””marry her”””” like… congrats, you have no redeeming qualities about yourself, Hancock. You’ve gone & botched up the only good things you do by somehow turning it into a selfish endeavor all over again. She is just an awful person all around, & surrounded herself with enablers. She knows she does shitty things, she boasts about it even, but she also knows she can get away with it because of her “””beauty”””” & her devil fruit ability. “

This made me almost as angry as the use of the screenshot.

Boa fawns over Luffy during the Impel Down escape, but to say she isnt “selfless” enough despite the fact that she’s breaking into a maximum security prison where visitors like her have to be completely helpless, a place controlled by the very people who enslaved her when she was a child.

A single word from Magellan, someone in the World Government, or the Celestial Dragons themselves and she would have been doomed. What if she was searched and the brand identifying her as a slave was discovered? What if the Celestial Dragons have long known that she is their former slave and the World Government has been waiting for an opportunity to catch her in a situation like this so they can take her back to Mariejois and “return” her to the Celestial Dragons? Those are real, valid, and terrifying concerns for someone in Hancock’s position, and yet she did it all anyway for Luffy.

Yes, she fantasized about Luffy loving her during the infiltration, but y’know, that is ridiculous to focus on when characters like Sanji rants about wanting to cook and dote on women the straw hats are trying to save, fantasizing about being their “prince charming”. The SH themselves never aid innocents unless to help someone they befriended, they are not gonna intervene in a conflict even if thousands of people die. So no, Boa would never help anyone she didnt care about, she helps Luffy because she loves him and to focus on the 5 seconds she fantasizes about their “romance” is silly and shitty.

About her “boasting” about the bad things she’s done, words arent the same as actions and her shown actions were not shown to be worse than any other pirate. She turns other pirates and marines to stone, but Mihawk killed almost 5000 people just to pass the time and he gets no flack for it. The SH have contributed directly to the death of marines who just do their jobs. Her kicking baby seals, throwing away expensive gems and destroying children’s statues are petty things I dont care about, and just part of a persona to dissuade others from thinking she’s weak, she doesnt truly believe her own people would love her unconditionally if she spends years lying to them about her past. Hancock is no remorseless murderer like Enel and Crocodile, the reason she became a schischibukai was to protect her people.

As for surrounding herself with “enablers”, there’s not exactly any living person other than Nyon and Rayleigh who knows about her past and she can open up to. Her own culture demands she show no weakness, which would make that even harder.

Lastly, they finishes the post with “she isnt that pretty, there are many beautiful women in one piece and her design squicks me out”. That was petty, but I do wonder why her design is “squick”. When OP is criticized for their female character designs its often pointed out how small their waists are, and them having breasts larger than their heads. Boa isnt built anymore different than Nami, Robin, Rebecca and Shirahoshi’s designs somehow arent “squick” to them.

@the-cat-under-telperion

@chromatic-lamina

@fan-tasmic

I want your take on this.

#one piece #boa hancock #fandom disscussion #my opinion #my hot take #i really need to watch the entire show #blep

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