Heroes And Villains With Similar Stories In One Piece

Summary

• Zoro and Shiryu, both former pirate hunters turned pirates with unique backgrounds and motivations.
• Shanks and Doflamingo, Celestial Dragons turned pirates, showcase diverging paths after losing their status.
• Luffy and Blackbeard, ambitious pirates who built massive followings, differ in values and approach to piracy.

One Piece often creates similar backstory elements for its many characters, with heroes and villains frequently mirroring each other. This could play into a literary device known as a “foil,” where strong contrasts are used to highlight specific characteristics of the individuals.

These stories themselves provide context for the characters’ alignment and personality traits, ultimately helping to define who they are in contrast to their counterparts. All of these strongly defined individuals have encountered at least somewhat similar circumstances, but ultimately, aspects of themselves or the situation at hand defined the exact ways in which they navigated them.

5

Zoro And Shiryu

Pirate Hunters Turned Pirates

• Zoro and Shiryu are swordsmen who escaped punishment from the government to become pirates.

Roronoa Zoro was an infamous bounty hunter before joining the Straw Hat Pirates. This was an extension of his goal to find Dracule Mihawk and ultimately earn the title of “World’s Strongest Swordsman.” Due to not being able to navigate back to his home, he became a bounty hunter of some renown in an attempt to make ends meet. However, during Zoro’s travels in Shells Town, he encountered a pet wolf of Helmeppo, the son of the corrupt marine “Axe-Hand Morgan.” Zoro killed Helmeppo’s wolf to prevent it from attacking a girl named Rika. Helmeppo ordered Zoro to remain tied to a pole for a month, after which he would gain amnesty. However, Helmeppo reneged, intending to kill him after 12 days, and Monkey D. Luffy, who was hoping to recruit him, ended up adding Zoro to his crew.

Shiryu was the former Head Jailer of Impel Down. Despite his institution’s use of torture and occasional tendency towards murder, Shiryu’s own brutality was too excessive. It led to him becoming a prisoner at the jail’s lowest level on death row, where the worst criminals are located. After multiple break-ins, Shiryu told Magellan he would be willing to escape his confines to aid in the fighting. Magellan agreed to his release, under the condition that he would still be slated for execution afterward. However, Shiryu escaped this fate by joining the Blackbeard Pirates, becoming one of their strongest members.

Both of these pirates suffered similar situations, but the devil is in the details. Zoro’s punishment was informed by his efforts to be honorable. The wolf he killed, which got him into trouble, was the result of him trying to protect an innocent girl. He was also willing to serve the whole of his sentence (though admittedly, he may not have if he knew it would be a death sentence). Shiryu, on the other hand, created his own problems through wanton violence. He bargained to commute his sentence as soon as the opportunity arose, and ended up initiating the betrayal rather than being informed of it. That said, there is at least some context added in that Shiryu knew he would die for his crimes. Nonetheless, this showcases a clear contrast between Zoro’s honor-bound nature and Shiryu’s bloodlust.

4

Shanks And Doflamingo

Celestial Dragons Turned Pirates

• Shanks and Doflamingo both lost their Celestial Status and became pirates.

Shanks was born into the Figarland family, a fairly high-profile family, even among other Celestial Dragons. However, he lost this status as a mere infant, hauled aboard the Roger Pirates’ ship in a treasure chest. Having essentially grown up in the crew, Shanks remained a pirate long after the disbandment of Roger’s crew. He subsequently led his own crew, the Red Hair Pirates, which befriended a young Monkey D. Luffy, and eventually ascended to Emperor status. All that is concretely known of his past in relation to his Celestial Dragon status is that Shanks returned to Mary Geoise at some unspecified point in the past, but apparently preferred his life as a pirate. Shanks’s brother and father are both shown to be bigoted, believe heavily in their superiority, and generally contrast with Shanks’s presently understood personality traits.

Doflamingo was born into the Donquixote Family and enjoyed his lavish life as a Celestial Dragon. However, his father, Homing, ceded the family’s right in an attempt to live a normal life. This ultimately resulted in tragedy. Homing’s wife passed away of illness, and his sons, Doflamingo and Rosinante, both lived in squalor alongside him, often attacked by lynch mobs. However, Doflamingo caught the attention of a small gang who noticed his Conqueror’s Haki and began to enable his worst vices. This led to Doflamingo killing his father, whose head he unsuccessfully attempted to exchange to become a Celestial Dragon once more. He subsequently formed the Donquixote Pirates, a crew that developed ties to the World Government (via both the Warlord system and infiltration), the criminal underworld, and the Beasts Pirates. He killed his brother, Rosinante, after Doflamingo uncovered his identity as a double agent. Doflamingo also took over Dressrosa, the kingdom his ancestors ceded to become Celestial Dragons. After suffering defeat at Luffy’s hands, Doflamingo is now incarcerated in Impel Down.

Despite both Shanks and Doflamingo losing their status as Celestial Dragons, only one of them seems hurt by this fact. This seems to boil down to who took care of them after they lost their parents. Shanks seems reverent to the Roger Pirates, who were a (somewhat) good-natured if rambunctious crew. Doflamingo, on the other hand, was cared for by individuals who taught him to embrace his vices and greed. It is also possible that Doflamingo’s experience of a Celestial Dragon’s lifestyle, while Shanks ended up being relatively unfamiliar with it, also contributed to their diverging paths.

3

Whitebeard And Kid

Pirates From Poverty

• Newgate and Kid both grew up in extreme poverty, which influenced their own philosophies as pirates.

Edward Newgate grew up an orphan on Sphinx, an island too impoverished to afford government affiliation. The result was rampant poverty and violence. Newgate ended up joining the Rocks Pirates, but he was disillusioned with the crew and eventually left to form his own. This crew came to be known as the Whitebeard Pirates. As an orphan, Newgate wished for a family, and his crew essentially served as a surrogate one. Whitebeard’s caring and protective nature led him to give his banner to territories he wished to protect and single-handedly finance the residents of Sphinx. Although he died in battle while trying to rescue Ace, he was deeply mourned by the many people he had touched with his kindness.

Eustass Kid grew up on Kutsukku Island, which was also too poor to pay for government aid, and he was subjected to a similar cycle of poverty and violence. After the death of his childhood crush, Kid and his future crewmates dealt with those responsible through their gang connections. After Kutsukku proved too small a stomping ground, the Kid Pirates were formed to torment the seas. Kid is something of a hypocrite, expressing distaste for the vile actions of the government and its top beneficiaries, but still causing mass civilian deaths for little more than his own destructive amusement. Although the present status of his crew is unclear, readers may interpret his ship’s sinking at Elbaf as a sort of endpoint, marking the moment in which Kid’s destruction was met by those who were well and truly fed up with it.

Ultimately, Newgate and Kid were both victims of the same uncaring government that enforced no laws in their homeland to protect them. However, while Newgate attempted to cultivate a positive atmosphere and aid the oppressed, Kid instead attacked civilians in the midst of his own supposed vendetta against the powerful.

2

Jimbei And Arlong

Fish-Men Orphans Turned Pirates

• Jimbei and Arlong were both Fish-Man orphans, with Arlong having been specifically abandoned, who became pirates and eventually assimilated with humans.

Jimbei was an orphaned Fish-Man who was previously a soldier for the Ryugu Kingdom. He ended up joining the Sun Pirates, captained by Fisher Tiger, who also impressed Arlong, a Fish-Man supremacist who merged his own crew, the Arlong Pirates, into the Sun Pirates. Fisher Tiger was killed after he was betrayed by the family of a human slave he had secured. This was in part due to his rare blood type, which required a human blood transfusion that he was unwilling to perform.

Jimbei ended up leading the Sun Pirates in Tiger’s absence, cutting deals with the government and becoming a Warlord for the sake of pardoning his punished crewmates, which included one ungrateful Arlong, who ended up reforming the Arlong Pirates. Arlong used his independence to take over human territories, paying off the government to allow him to act oppressively towards the nearby Cocoyasi Village, tricking Nami, whom he deputized, into paying for her freedom but then having corrupt Marines seize her assets. Jimbei ultimately cut ties with the World Government, refusing to fight Whitebeard, who protected Fish-Man Island before his passing. He eventually joined the Straw Hat Pirates, who became the territory’s new protectors. The two Fish-Men both ultimately integrated into human society through various means. While Arlong desires to replicate their oppression, Jimbei aims to foster peace between the two species.

1

Luffy And Blackbeard

Pirates With Big Dreams

• Both are deeply ambitious pirates who have built massive followings and become “Emperors” in roughly two years.

Monkey D. Luffy was first influenced by Shanks, who visited him as a child in Foosha Village. Although Shanks did not let him join his crew, he nonetheless supported the young boy’s dreams of piracy, giving him the Straw Hat that once belonged to Roger. Luffy has since formed his own crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, favoring a group of small, but especially talented individuals over a larger unit. Nonetheless, Luffy eventually gained massive support through his efforts in Dressrosa, accruing a collective of followers known as the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, comprising seven different pirate crews, two of which were previously naval fleets in their own right. Luffy has since ascended to Emperor, a rank reserved for the top four pirates whom the World Government considers the most threatening.

Marshall D. Teach joined the Whitebeard Pirates at a young age, hoping to find the Yami Yami no Mi. Once Division Commander Thatch secured Teach’s coveted Devil Fruit, Teach killed him, stole it, and left the crew. He subsequently added a mere four pirates to his own crew. He was eventually hunted down by his former superior, Ace, but Teach captured and used him as leverage to become a Warlord. Teach subsequently sacrificed this position to visit Impel Down, taking five of the prison’s worst criminals into his crew. Since the Summit War, he took over most of Whitebeard’s territories, amassed a number of followers, and stole his former captain’s Devil Fruit.

Luffy and Teach are both driven by lofty ambitions, the desired outcome of which is not presently clarified to the audience. This can be reflected at some level in their similarly massive appetites. That said, they differ in terms of philosophy. Luffy values both freedom and friendship. His desire to become King of the Pirates is an extension of his wish to be the freest individual. He is also overwhelmingly positive towards both his crewmates and almost anyone who isn’t negative towards him. Teach, alternatively, values control and convenience. His version of pragmatism tends to involve betraying individuals the moment they are no longer useful to him. It has been explicitly mentioned that Teach does not care for his subordinate crews. Luffy vs. Teach has been one of the most anticipated fights in the series. If Luffy does prevail, it will likely be, at least in part, due to the genuine care he has for others.