One Piece V: Black Leg Wedding

[Kato]

While I agree it is hard to gauge Lucci's power, we can use some indicators to make assumptions..
1) he hasn't been shown to use haki. He might have been able to or has learned by now but back then he did not use it. And an inability to use it usually dampens your power quite a bit.
2) while he was about as strong as, maybe a little stronger than Luffy back then, Luffy at that point was nowhere close to admiral level.
3) vice admirals are hard to use as a measure because we know not that much about their powers.

Lucci certainly trained since then and became accustomed to his fruit so he is likely far stronger but the Lucci from back then couldn't remotely compare to an admiral or likely vice admiral

[lord_khaine]

1) He likely could not use Haki. At least not to any significant degree. But Luffy is a good example of how far you can go without Haki, and he has a Logia to give himself a massive physical boost. And complete mastery over the CP fighting style.
2) I do think he was a touch stronger than Luffy. Luffy was also completely wrecked after the battle, unable to even move. And he did have his friends to give him a last minutte moral boost. It is hard to compare Luffy back then to an admiral, since he did lack a lot of the tools he needed to even fight them.
3) True. At the same time though, they have not really shown us anything to impressive. I could see Lucci trashing one if he goes all out in his beast shape.

Lucci certainly trained since then and became accustomed to his fruit so he is likely far stronger but the Lucci from back then couldn't remotely compare to an admiral or likely vice admiral

Lucci allready had several years to get accustomed to his DF, and he likely were at the peak of training can push a normal body to. If he want to grow much more then i would say he either need to awaken his DF or learn Haki.

[Traab]

Honestly, the inclusion of haki has really thrown off the scale of all those earlier fights in a big way. Take crocodile as an example. The biggest and most important reason he was a threat was because he was made of sand and couldnt be hit unless he was wet. Having haki removes his biggest advantage completely. The luffy of today against the croc of back them would have treated croc as a scrub most likely. No need for gear 4 shenanigans. Hell, gear 2 with haki would have been a squash match. In the lucci fight, he had his iron body technique that worked LIKE armament haki, but its hard to say just how close it was to the real thing considering final attack luffy was able to punch right through it about 150 times in 10 seconds.

[Kato]

Lucci allready had several years to get accustomed to his DF, and he likely were at the peak of training can push a normal body to. If he want to grow much more then i would say he either need to awaken his DF or learn Haki.

Ah, I was thinking he'd only just gotten the fruit along with the others... My bad.

Honestly, the inclusion of haki has really thrown off the scale of all those earlier fights in a big way. Take crocodile as an example. The biggest and most important reason he was a threat was because he was made of sand and couldnt be hit unless he was wet. Having haki removes his biggest advantage completely. The luffy of today against the croc of back them would have treated croc as a scrub most likely.

I don't think you give enough credit to croc. Yeah, he probably got lazy plotting in Alabasta but while one of his alrge advantages is being a logia, he can also use his water drain attack, likely as long as you don't have armament or he catches you off guard. And that's also pretty devastating. Haki definitely helps and takes away a lot of his power but the same goes for basically anyone.

[Traab]

Yeah but he was a warlord and he got beat by a pre gear 2, pre haki rookie like luffy. There is lazy, then there is totally screwing up the power scale weak. I mean at least with that enel guy we had the excuse of luffys powers directly countering his. But this guy is supposed to be one of the warlords, super powerful pirates who are incredibly deadly. And the only advantage luffy had was eventually figuring out his weakness to water, which is something that you would expect a warlord to be able to counter.

Though in hindsight its kinda funny that at marineford he didnt get instagibbed by doflamingo when they butted heads. After all, we know damn good and well he has haki and can use it with his strings, but instead of killing croc he cut off his head with a normal thread, no haki so it wouldnt do any damage to him. I dunno, does haki work both ways? Like, can a guy like croc use haki to enforce his nonmaterial body so his opponents haki cant hurt him and it still reacts like normal, ie his body turns to sand around the punch? I think there was something about that mentioned at one point.

[Kantaki]

I dunno, does haki work both ways? Like, can a guy like croc use haki to enforce his nonmaterial body so his opponents haki cant hurt him and it still reacts like normal, ie his body turns to sand around the punch? I think there was something about that mentioned at one point.

Not sure about Haki- although it sounds like it should work, but what skilled Logia users* can do is turning their body into their element preemptively and evade the attack that way.

* Which the Crocodile should be, even if Luffy managed to catch him on the wrong foot.

[Cozzer]

It does feel like Oda is trying to have his cake and eat it too, with Haki being relatively common but people sometimes conveniently forgetting to use it when the plot requires a few non-lethal attacks to showcase the latest (or earlies, in that particular case) Logia.

Still, it's a battle shonen manga that has been going on for 20 years and still has a relatively sane and consistent power scale, so I can forgive that.

Personally, I would have liked Haki to be something pirate-specific (or at least, very uncommon for Marines). It would have fit, thematically: Marines have the six techniques (born from discipline), pirates have Haki (the physical manifestation of one's individuality).

[lord_khaine]

Yeah but he was a warlord and he got beat by a pre gear 2, pre haki rookie like luffy. There is lazy, then there is totally screwing up the power scale weak. I mean at least with that enel guy we had the excuse of luffys powers directly countering his. But this guy is supposed to be one of the warlords, super powerful pirates who are incredibly deadly. And the only advantage luffy had was eventually figuring out his weakness to water, which is something that you would expect a warlord to be able to counter.

Well.. in their 2 last fights Luffy had figured out the water weakness, and his punches could affect Croccodille. Even so he still gave Luffy a massive beating in both fights, to the point where Luffy would have died in both of them, without luck or the aid of someone else.
I honestly dont think haki would have made to much of a difference in those fights. And Crocodille is still insanely dangerous even against an opponent with Haki. Partly from his dehydrating touch.

Though in hindsight its kinda funny that at marineford he didnt get instagibbed by doflamingo when they butted heads. After all, we know damn good and well he has haki and can use it with his strings, but instead of killing croc he cut off his head with a normal thread, no haki so it wouldnt do any damage to him. I dunno, does haki work both ways? Like, can a guy like croc use haki to enforce his nonmaterial body so his opponents haki cant hurt him and it still reacts like normal, ie his body turns to sand around the punch? I think there was something about that mentioned at one point.

It should be pointed out that Flamingo did not use the instagibb move that removed Crocodille's head in his fight against either Law nor Luffy. Even though it would have been immensely useful to remove a head or two there.

Thats why i think slashing Crocodille's sand head off were less an attack, and more something akin to running up and punching Crocodille hard on the shoulder, the way immature guys sometimes do.

It does feel like Oda is trying to have his cake and eat it too, with Haki being relatively common but people sometimes conveniently forgetting to use it when the plot requires a few non-lethal attacks to showcase the latest (or earlies, in that particular case) Logia.

I more find it annoying that Haki is more or less an requirement for end-game fights, instead of just one more path to power that happens to be effective against Logia users. And it would have been nice with more information on how commen it were.

Personally, I would have liked Haki to be something pirate-specific (or at least, very uncommon for Marines). It would have fit, thematically: Marines have the six techniques (born from discipline), pirates have Haki (the physical manifestation of one's individuality).

It does fit pretty well. And might not be completely wrong either. Its only the highest ranked Marine officers who can use Haki.

[Traab]

Well.. in their 2 last fights Luffy had figured out the water weakness, and his punches could affect Croccodille. Even so he still gave Luffy a massive beating in both fights, to the point where Luffy would have died in both of them, without luck or the aid of someone else.
I honestly dont think haki would have made to much of a difference in those fights. And Crocodille is still insanely dangerous even against an opponent with Haki. Partly from his dehydrating touch.



It should be pointed out that Flamingo did not use the instagibb move that removed Crocodille's head in his fight against either Law nor Luffy. Even though it would have been immensely useful to remove a head or two there.

Thats why i think slashing Crocodille's sand head off were less an attack, and more something akin to running up and punching Crocodille hard on the shoulder, the way immature guys sometimes do.



I more find it annoying that Haki is more or less an requirement for end-game fights, instead of just one more path to power that happens to be effective against Logia users. And it would have been nice with more information on how commen it were.



It does fit pretty well. And might not be completely wrong either. Its only the highest ranked Marine officers who can use Haki.

As far as flamingo goes, we dont know that for sure. After all, there were a number of scenes showing luffy at least, not sure about law, just bouncing those strings off of him, or shattering their grip or whatever. He likely DID try, it just failed because luffy is a physically resilient bugger that tends to require an admiral level opponent to insta gib him.

[Sigh]

Is everyone forgetting that same arc when Akainu was slashed at by members of the Whitebeard crew, but he stayed lava despite them clearly hitting him and him being only slightly annoyed that they could hit him at all due to their Haki? With that being the case I think it is correct that if you're a Logia and have higher Haki than the person hitting you you'll still be able to be elemental as opposed to hitting your actual body.

[lord_khaine]

As far as flamingo goes, we dont know that for sure. After all, there were a number of scenes showing luffy at least, not sure about law, just bouncing those strings off of him, or shattering their grip or whatever. He likely DID try, it just failed because luffy is a physically resilient bugger that tends to require an admiral level opponent to insta gib him.

Slashing attacks are straight up Luffy's weakness, if he isnt actively guarding himself with Haki then he dies as swiftly as the next person to a sword slash.

Is everyone forgetting that same arc when Akainu was slashed at by members of the Whitebeard crew, but he stayed lava despite them clearly hitting him and him being only slightly annoyed that they could hit him at all due to their Haki? With that being the case I think it is correct that if you're a Logia and have higher Haki than the person hitting you you'll still be able to be elemental as opposed to hitting your actual body.

Are you actually certain that those Whitebeard crew members had Haki?

Anyway, having Haki dont magically transform the fluid logia body back, it just allows you to damage it. We have seen that even when Whitebeard slashes Akainu he still did not bleed. For that matter we also saw there how distustingly ressilient high level Logia users are.

[Frozen_Feet]

Slashing attacks are straight up Luffy's weakness, if he isnt actively guarding himself with Haki then he dies as swiftly as the next person to a sword slash.

Not really true.

Luffy's fruit bestows little special protection against slashing attacks, but Luffy is still highly resistant to them even without Haki. As early as Usop's introduction arc, Luffy is caught off-guard and hit square in the head by Django's Chakram. He shruggs it off. In Arlong Arc, Luffy catches Arlong's sawblade and crushes its blade to pieces with his fingers. I could probably find dozen similar examples if I went hunting for them.

Point is: from the near-beginning, Luffy's bones have consistently been portrayed as being stronger than normal alloys of iron. Attacks which cut or pierce his flesh are routinely stopped by his bones. I'd wager that's the big deal behind Gear 3.

[Kato]

New chapter is up.

Spoiler

Show

Pedro might actually be dead. But.. I kinda don't feel that bad? Somehow I haven't yet started liking him enough. Not that I dislike him but...

And Luffy stays behind to get rid of not-dogtooth? I guess Brule will somehow have to safe him?

[Traab]

Slashing attacks are straight up Luffy's weakness, if he isnt actively guarding himself with Haki then he dies as swiftly as the next person to a sword slash.



Are you actually certain that those Whitebeard crew members had Haki?

Anyway, having Haki dont magically transform the fluid logia body back, it just allows you to damage it. We have seen that even when Whitebeard slashes Akainu he still did not bleed. For that matter we also saw there how distustingly ressilient high level Logia users are.

That doesnt really counter my point. Which was that its highly likely doflamingo DID go for the decapitating strike with haki. Probably a lot of times given how much luffy was ticking him off during their battle. But we straight up SEE luffy, especially gear 4 luffy, smash through the attacks, or have them literally bounce off of him. He and doffy had very similar levels of haki going by how they kept clashing with each other so neither could straight up overwhelm the other (well until that last hit of course)

[Hrobar]

Okay, that's a lot of discussions going on at once. Let's see.
I guess we can all agree that Haki was thrown in there because Oda wrote himself into a corner with Rogias. He could not keep making up elemental weaknesses for all the godlike beasts he was creating. I mean, how do you punch a man made of light? You wait for the night? Haki was written in later to compensate for that and some early stuff makes less sense. Happens. However I'd say most of that stuff is still salvageable.

About Croco
Okay, he probably made a fool of himself losing against Rufy so early. Still, while the introduction of haki damaged a bit his "Competent Villain" status, I think that's still salvageable.
Firstly, I'd say that the Warlord title is taken in too high regard. It's a title that gives mostly political power, nothing else. The Marines need them to be strong, obviously, but they've made their fair share of mistakes in the past evaluating a Pirate actual strength. I mean, Gekko Moira? That handsome clown bastard? They wanted freaking Ace when he wasn't even in Newgate's crew yet. I'd say we can safely assume that when Marines choose their Warlords they consider at least three aspects:

• PERCEIVED Power
• Political Influence
• Damage Control

Warlords can be weak if they have enough influence and fame to be a formidable military deterrent regardless. If Marines happen to control/reduce the damage some rising hothead is doing by hiring them, that's a plus. Crocodile, Gekko Moira and Bagy notorious feats scare most of the scum, and that's enough by their standards.
Still, on the character himself, we can try to speculate on his pirate carrier. He started a Dreamer, like Luffy.
We can assume he got notorious enough to get the Marines attention and that he got at least to the New World, where he was utterly humiliated by Newgate. Something even more humiliating probably happened, according to Ivankov. The New World treated him like the Grand Line treated Krieg, pretty much. Croco probably gave up on becoming the Pirate King by "pirate" means and accepted the Marines offer to become a Warlord. Around this time i suppose he got in contact with Doflamingo, learning about all his Dressrosa shenanigans. Croco will never admit this, but Doflamingo was probably all he aspired to be at the time. Envy and plagiarism ensued and there, you got yourself Baroque Works, the Alabasta coup and an Ancestral-Weapon-Exploding-The-New-World Revenge Fantasy. Strong enough to scare 99% of the pirates in the first half of the Grand Line, decently experienced in fighting haki-able opponents, yet too cocky for his own good as he never tried to learn a thing about it until Rufy showed him how reliant he was on his Fruit fisting him into the dust. Pardon, sand. And here it is, Crocodile the Warlord, beatable but believable.

PS

Though in hindsight its kinda funny that at marineford he didnt get instagibbed by doflamingo when they butted heads. After all, we know damn good and well he has haki and can use it with his strings, but instead of killing croc he cut off his head with a normal thread, no haki so it wouldnt do any damage to him. I dunno, does haki work both ways? Like, can a guy like croc use haki to enforce his nonmaterial body so his opponents haki cant hurt him and it still reacts like normal, ie his body turns to sand around the punch? I think there was something about that mentioned at one point.

Doflamingo was obviously playing with Croco at that point. Hell, he was having the time of his life playing with everyone in Marineford. They are quite similar on several aspects. I'd say Doflamingo was more focused on bringing Crocodile on his side rather than killing him. Still, there's nothing stopping a Rogia user from pre-emptively dividing himself to avoid hits strenghtened with Haki, avoiding the whole "My Haki is stronger than your-> You can't hit me" shtick.

About Lucci
I don't think there's much room for discussion about his level pre-timeskip. He was a big deal...in his "niche market". We tend to forget that Lucci is an Assassin, not a front-line fighter. He was a strong hand-to-hand combatant, a Rokushiki genius and innovator but his job mostly consisted in infiltration and assassination of rather defenseless political figures. He was notorious for his ruthlessness, he was considered strong and talented for his age, with enough potential to become an important Government asset, as we saw post-timeskip. Still, he was far from the strongest fighter at their disposal. A rising star? Probably, but still quite far from the top.

Arguably he could have fought evenly with an average Vice-Admiral, but that's about it. Every marine official of that level is proficient enough in every Rokushiki and knows at least one type of Haki on top of that. The problem is that Vice-Admirals are not very consistent in their power level, they are kinda spread around in the power curve: you have Maynard on one end of the sheet and Monkey D. Garp on the other.
So I'd say that Pre-TS Lucci and Luffy were at least close to a Low Tier Vice-Admiral in terms of power alone. They could probably take on the less experienced ones, or the ones reliant exclusively on Observation, a strong advantage that's still not impossible to overcome, as proved in Skypea. However they'd be way too weak or reliant on their Devil Fruit defensive powers to be a threat to someone with a decent grasp at both types of haki like, let's say, Post-TS Smoker.

About Last Chapter

Spoiler

Show

New Crew Addictions so far into the story are difficult. Getting totally new characters out of the blue native to the new world and creating a significative bond to the Crew after that Emotional Milestone that was the timeskip is very hard. The actual crew shared too much together to make other people fit in, you could say.
I see two solutions for this predicament: the new guy should rather be a strong character already established with nothing to prove to the audience (Ex. Jinbe, Bellamy) or an actual "youngling" for the crew to nurture.
At the moment, there's nothing stopping Carrot's Straw Hat initiation. We have a long term goal/dream ("They are the ones we were waiting for") and we have a tragic backstory unfolding before our eyes to be later expanded in a flashback. The whole "Snow Rabbit" Theory is still exuberant and fun speculation at best, but we never know.
I think she'd be a nice fit for the crew. We already have a Fishman, we need a Mink. She has good gags and synthony with the crew and her character will hopefully expanded upon later. She can fit in the second scenario, having a similar role Shanks and Bagy had on Gol D. Roger's crew, as in young inexperienced pirate-wannabes. We need a cabin-boy or a lookout anyway.

I'm also happy we might be able to see an actual 1v1 fight in this arc between Luffy and Katakuri. Offing Big Mom this arc would have been absurd.

[lord_khaine]

Not really true.

Luffy's fruit bestows little special protection against slashing attacks, but Luffy is still highly resistant to them even without Haki. As early as Usop's introduction arc, Luffy is caught off-guard and hit square in the head by Django's Chakram. He shruggs it off. In Arlong Arc, Luffy catches Arlong's sawblade and crushes its blade to pieces with his fingers. I could probably find dozen similar examples if I went hunting for them.

Point is: from the near-beginning, Luffy's bones have consistently been portrayed as being stronger than normal alloys of iron. Attacks which cut or pierce his flesh are routinely stopped by his bones. I'd wager that's the big deal behind Gear 3.

If Luffy is actually resistant to slashing attacks, then you need to provide examples of people trying to, and failing in cutting him. But you will fail, because there isnt any that dont involve armament haki or gear 3.
Luffy did bleed after getting hit by Django's Chakram, it did cut him.
And Luffy did indeed crush a sword blade with his bare hands. But thats not anything special. Its just yet another demonstration of manga super strength. All the super strong people in the serie has feats of strenght that would require titanium laced bones.

What is actually relevant, is that attacks that cut or pierce is regularly stopped by the bones in the real world. There is nothing special in that, bones are unusually strong, you need A LOT to cut though them. It just doesnt matter to much. The damage has already been done when the attack hits the bone.

That doesnt really counter my point. Which was that its highly likely doflamingo DID go for the decapitating strike with haki. Probably a lot of times given how much luffy was ticking him off during their battle. But we straight up SEE luffy, especially gear 4 luffy, smash through the attacks, or have them literally bounce off of him. He and doffy had very similar levels of haki going by how they kept clashing with each other so neither could straight up overwhelm the other (well until that last hit of course)

It actually does. The counterpoint was that Luffy dies as swiftly as anyone else to a swordstrike to the neck (unless armoring himself). So if what Flamingo did was as lethal as that, then it could have been used to Kill Luffy initially. If on the other hand it can only pull the head off a sandman, then it makes more sense the move wasnt used in actual fighting.

Warlords can be weak if they have enough influence and fame to be a formidable military deterrent regardless. If Marines happen to control/reduce the damage some rising hothead is doing by hiring them, that's a plus. Crocodile, Gekko Moira and Bagy notorious feats scare most of the scum, and that's enough by their standards.
Still, on the character himself, we can try to speculate on his pirate carrier. He started a Dreamer, like Luffy.
We can assume he got notorious enough to get the Marines attention and that he got at least to the New World, where he was utterly humiliated by Newgate. Something even more humiliating probably happened, according to Ivankov. The New World treated him like the Grand Line treated Krieg, pretty much. Croco probably gave up on becoming the Pirate King by "pirate" means and accepted the Marines offer to become a Warlord. Around this time i suppose he got in contact with Doflamingo, learning about all his Dressrosa shenanigans. Croco will never admit this, but Doflamingo was probably all he aspired to be at the time. Envy and plagiarism ensued and there, you got yourself Baroque Works, the Alabasta coup and an Ancestral-Weapon-Exploding-The-New-World Revenge Fantasy. Strong enough to scare 99% of the pirates in the first half of the Grand Line, decently experienced in fighting haki-able opponents, yet too cocky for his own good as he never tried to learn a thing about it until Rufy showed him how reliant he was on his Fruit fisting him into the dust. Pardon, sand. And here it is, Crocodile the Warlord, beatable but believable.

Thats a quite interesting analysis on Crocodille. And it is likely pretty much spot at most parts. The humiliating secret Ivankov hinted at, is most likely that Crocodille has accepted one of Ivankov's miracles.
All the same, i disagree on it being a mistake for Crocodille to focus as hard on mastering his DF as he did. Logia fruits does hold insanely high potential. And Crocodille has both unlocked a invulnerability to normal attacks as a passive trait, and some really nasty attacks. Both large sweeping aoe strikes, and a focused touch of death.

[thethird]

Personally I'm pretty sure that Crocodile was born in a girl's body. I always assumed that was pretty much cannon. But perhaps it's just my headcannon.

[Razade]

Personally I'm pretty sure that Crocodile was born in a girl's body. I always assumed that was pretty much cannon. But perhaps it's just my headcannon.

Not only is it not "pretty much cannon", it's never even been brought up as a possibility outside of fan theories. What Iva knows about Crocodile is just that. They know something about Crocodile. What it is, how they know, all of that is just a mystery. It's people's assumptions that it has something to do with the Okama stuff. Wishful assumptions. Especially since we've seen Crocodile as a child and he is clearly a boy. The arguments for his androgeny are countered by Mihawk in the same group of characters as a kid and Boa right next to him.

[Hrobar]

Personally I'm pretty sure that Crocodile was born in a girl's body. I always assumed that was pretty much cannon. But perhaps it's just my headcannon.

Do you mean this cannon?


Anyway, as Razade already stated, there's no mention of Crocodile's "sex change" in the manga, it was an interesting fan theory disproven by the Child Warlords drawings.
I think there's still a chance for an iteration of that theory to be true though. He could have experienced Ivankov's power on his own skin and actually...enjoyed it. Either during his pirating carrier or when they shared a relaxing vacation at Impel Down, who knows. We'll probably see them again later.

Thats a quite interesting analysis on Crocodille. And it is likely pretty much spot at most parts. The humiliating secret Ivankov hinted at, is most likely that Crocodille has accepted one of Ivankov's miracles.
All the same, i disagree on it being a mistake for Crocodille to focus as hard on mastering his DF as he did. Logia fruits does hold insanely high potential. And Crocodille has both unlocked a invulnerability to normal attacks as a passive trait, and some really nasty attacks. Both large sweeping aoe strikes, and a focused touch of death.

Crocodile's mastery over his DF is indeed amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if Oda revealed he was actually using the "Awakening" or a primitive version of that in Alabasta. After all, he did turn everything around him in Sand by dehydrating it, when he wanted. Still, while Armament Haki would have probably been a plus more than an actual power up, I believe that a Rogia User NEEDS to master Observation Haki to be a complete fighter. In the New World, a Rogia is out of Get Out of Jail Cards. He cannot afford anymore to trust his fruit to defend him from harm, he has to actually be able to predict attacks so that he modify his body accordingly to avoid them. And for that you need good reflexes, speed and a strong Observation Haki. Ener had the right idea...accidentally.
Crocodile is indeed one of the characters in One Piece with the better grasp on his DF, but his own hubris held him down til Marineford.
Anyway, I'm sure that current Crocodile overtook his main weakness by finally learning Haki, considering he's trying to sail in the New World again.

PS By the way Rufy is not resistant to Slashing attacks, but he's not weak to them by any means. His fruit simply doesn't protect him against them, the same way the opposite element of a Rogia makes them tangible. Rufy only has his body's regular toughness to defend himself against swords and co., but he's pretty resilient anyway. The only times we saw him talking about this was against Mihawk (and I mean...most people get sliced in half by him) and Hody Jones (where he actually said nothing about his inherent weakness against his "slashing" teeth, but actually stated that his Haki still doesn't work that well against slashes as it does with bashing attacks).

[Kato]

I guess we can all agree that Haki was thrown in there because Oda wrote himself into a corner with Rogias. He could not keep making up elemental weaknesses for all the godlike beasts he was creating. I mean, how do you punch a man made of light? You wait for the night? Haki was written in later to compensate for that and some early stuff makes less sense. Happens. However I'd say most of that stuff is still salvageable.

I don't think we have to agree on that. I mean, I'm not saying it's not a possibility but we've had seastone for quite a while. And observation haki has been established in skypea.. Kind of. Garp hurt Luffy with his haki as early as Water Seven, too, (arguably Nami before that) and Shanks fought off a sea dragon by looking at it.
Yes, it wasn't called out until later, and I'd have preferred that, but to be sure Oda made it up to compensate for Logias seems unjustified.

[Traab]

It actually does. The counterpoint was that Luffy dies as swiftly as anyone else to a swordstrike to the neck (unless armoring himself). So if what Flamingo did was as lethal as that, then it could have been used to Kill Luffy initially. If on the other hand it can only pull the head off a sandman, then it makes more sense the move wasnt used in actual fighting.

Yeees, Luffy was using haki during their fight. Thats my point. Its hard to tell what attacks were haki infused threads sent to kill him or just regular attacks, because luffy was protecting himself with haki which was countering mingos haki infused attacks.

[Hrobar]

I don't think we have to agree on that. I mean, I'm not saying it's not a possibility but we've had seastone for quite a while. And observation haki has been established in skypea.. Kind of. Garp hurt Luffy with his haki as early as Water Seven, too, (arguably Nami before that) and Shanks fought off a sea dragon by looking at it.
Yes, it wasn't called out until later, and I'd have preferred that, but to be sure Oda made it up to compensate for Logias seems unjustified.

Seastone is still a thing, but it's not something Oda could make Luffy use to beat Rogias. It's totally in character for Usopp to use seastone to overcome a powerful enemy, but Luffy would never even get close to the thing. That wouldn't be him. We had Mantra on Skypea, but if feels more like something that got thrown in the cauldron later than actual foreshadowing. Garp's Fist of Love...was just a gag that conveniently opened up some possibilities later on. Shanks' feat felt more like intimidation, but again, it's a scene that happened to fit quite well with the new Power characteristics.
Oda couldn't simply stop creating Rogia Characters, he had to find a way to make Luffy able to fight them fair and square, without him running around in a scavenger hunt for the closest supply of counter-elements. And that's when Haki makes his appearance.

I think that would be highly overestimating our good Oda to think that he had Haki in mind from the start. I mean, 20 freaking years. What Oda is always been very good at is leaving plot pieces and open hooks behind to pick them up later when he needs them. That's what he did with Nolan and the Dwarfs, Lola or the Giant Warrior Pirates. That's the real reason he also avoids killing characters as much as he can. He has the ending and major events mostly figured out for sure, but no author of a series of this....scale is sure about how every little detail will unfold.
For example, even if Breaking Bad feels like a story ingeniously and carefully constructed from the very beginning, they mostly improvised every damn season. They had their plot hooks to use, a general draft of what they wanted to do with the characters, but they decided the direction of the story in a Writer's Room step after step, using what they left open behind to construct a good plot.

[LaZodiac]

Not only is it not "pretty much cannon", it's never even been brought up as a possibility outside of fan theories. What Iva knows about Crocodile is just that. They know something about Crocodile. What it is, how they know, all of that is just a mystery. It's people's assumptions that it has something to do with the Okama stuff. Wishful assumptions. Especially since we've seen Crocodile as a child and he is clearly a boy. The arguments for his androgeny are countered by Mihawk in the same group of characters as a kid and Boa right next to him.

You're kidding yourself if you don't think this piece of art isn't at least a little gender ambigious.

[Traab]

Guys, the big secret is obvious. Croc dated our favorite hee hawing okama queen and doesnt want that info getting out. Its why she has always been so familiar with croc. You dont spend significant time with someone trying to keep the sand from getting EVERYWHERE without learning to treat him casually in the process.

[LaZodiac]

Guys, the big secret is obvious. Croc dated our favorite hee hawing okama queen and doesnt want that info getting out. Its why she has always been so familiar with croc. You dont spend significant time with someone trying to keep the sand from getting EVERYWHERE without learning to treat him casually in the process.

I mean the two things aren't mutually exclusive. I'm pretty sure we'll find out sooner rather than later what the secret is.

[Kantaki]

You're kidding yourself if you don't think this piece of art isn't at least a little gender ambigious.

To be honest, if I didn't know that that's supposed to be Sir Crocodile my first question would be „Who's the little girl?”
Even with that knowledge the illustration looks like a girl to me.

So yeah, either Croco looked incredibly girlish as a kid (nothing wrong with that) or he was one.

Taking Iva’s powers into account, combined with the fact they know his secret, the „Croco was a girl in his youth” theory kinda makes sense.

[Traab]

To be honest, if I didn't know that that's supposed to be Sir Crocodile my first question would be „Who's the little girl?”
Even with that knowledge the illustration looks like a girl to me.

So yeah, either Croco looked incredibly girlish as a kid (nothing wrong with that) or he was one.

Taking Iva’s powers into account, combined with the fact they know his secret, the „Croco was a girl in his youth” theory kinda makes sense.

If I was Oda I would be so tempted to mess with everyone over this. Its TOO obvious that its something connected to the okama. For all we know it has nothing to do with any of that and while working for the revolutionary army, she learned crocs real name was Humberdink Drooperjohnson and he knows if word ever gets out about THAT his rep as a badass will be ruined! Or reveal thats not a hook on his hand, its a fancy crochet needle and he doesnt want the world to know about his passion for knitting cute sweaters for kittens.

[LaZodiac]

To be honest, if I didn't know that that's supposed to be Sir Crocodile my first question would be „Who's the little girl?”
Even with that knowledge the illustration looks like a girl to me.

So yeah, either Croco looked incredibly girlish as a kid (nothing wrong with that) or he was one.

Taking Iva’s powers into account, combined with the fact they know his secret, the „Croco was a girl in his youth” theory kinda makes sense.

In addition Crocodile's "dream" as given to him by the painter girl was a stereotypical manly pirate king outfit. It's circumstantial, yeah, but it matters.

If I was Oda I would be so tempted to mess with everyone over this. Its TOO obvious that its something connected to the okama. For all we know it has nothing to do with any of that and while working for the revolutionary army, she learned crocs real name was Humberdink Drooperjohnson and he knows if word ever gets out about THAT his rep as a badass will be ruined! Or reveal thats not a hook on his hand, its a fancy crochet needle and he doesnt want the world to know about his passion for knitting cute sweaters for kittens.

The problem is that there's nothing to suggest any of that. While yes, having a swerve of expectations is good, it's not a thing Oda always does? He puts a lot of thought into foreshadowing a TON of stuff, so I don't think something like this would be worthy of a "surprise it's actually this completely unhinted at this" moment. It's like the reveal that Tobi from Naruto was Obito. It got to the point where it was basically a non-reveal, everyone know who it was for years. But that's how the story most makes sense (for a given definition of the term given it's Naruto). I feel that based on what we know, the story "makes the most sense" if Crocodile was a girl.

[Traab]

Yeah but thats also such an in your face thing that its silly. Literally the first thing anyone in the one piece universe is going to think when the gender swapping queen of the okamas reveals she has a major secret on someone they wont want revealed is that its going to be connected to the okama life in some way. You might as well be a woman whose gynecologist says, "Hey, unless you want me to tell everyone your secret you will do what I say." Then NOT expect everyone to jump to the conclusion the secret has to do with your lady parts. Its one thing to foreshadow, but thats just one step short of straight up saying it. As for naruto, meh, there were a ton of reveals, and all of them were guessed, but mostly in the manner of, "We literally suggested every possible outcome and it turns out one of the more popular ones was correct."

While I was joking about my suggestions I still think its entirely likely that this gender idea is a red herring and the secret is something much more mundane. From him being the half brother of the dragon and thus luffys secret uncle, to a secret shame in his past he would kill to see remain secret, to not wanting everyone to know he never actually ate a devil fruit, he is a member of an alien race here to scout the planet and see if its ripe for invasion. All his people can do this stuff.

Deep down though, even money is on croc being ivas son. Just because everyone is related to someone else semi important in this series.

[Razade]

You're kidding yourself if you don't think this piece of art isn't at least a little gender ambigious.

No more or less than Mihawk up there. Which is why I pointed out that in context, it's not nearly as killer an argument as you'd like it to be. Or even further removed from all the other kid drawings he's done.