Luffy as Quixote with Superpowers
I felt it necessary to add a new text to my column reviewing the live action ONE PIECE. I copy it here for any readers not wishing to reread the whole column.
Reservations that ONE PIECE glamorizes piracy are absurdly misplaced: the pirate villains invented by Odo include some of the most sadistic and reprehensible, treacherous, vile and just plain annoying creatures imaginable. And Luffy is the worse pirate imaginable, because he commits no act of piracy throughout his career. He is merely too simple and goodhearted to realize that he is a storybook pirate set down into grim reality.
In a sense, Luffy is to piracy what Don Quixote is to knighthood: a silly man deceived by tall tales. But imagine how different Cervantes’ immortal hero would have been if written by Jack “King” Kirby and given the powers of a superhero like Mr. Fantastic: imagine a simple-minded yet goodhearted adventurer actually able to wreak a holy crusade against heathens and wizards and servants of sin, and to overturn giants whether disguised as windmills or not. That is Monkey D. Luffy.
It is notable that Luffy during his career never kills anyone: he defeats them not just by kicking their asses, but, as it were, by overcoming their dreams.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
