The Marines & Slavery

[Tias]

Quick overview:

• 800 years ago 19 out of 20 kings create the world government
• 5 old men control the world government
• The Tenryubito are descendants of the 19 kings
  
• World government creates the marines as their police & military force
• WG/marines are aware of human trafficking and slavery and don't mind, even if "officially" it's taboo
• WG/marines hunt down & execute archaeologists capable of reading the ponegylphs to hide the truth of the void century.

My question is, how come so many of the marine soldiers consider themselves oh so holy and just? How do characters like Sengoku and Garp justify all the shit the world government and marine does? They KNOW slavery takes place and just let it slide. Hell, because they wanted to erase everything related to gol d. roger they even wanted to kill Ace before he was even born. Imagine that, an unborn child with no sin besides being related by blood to someone was deemed such a threat he had to be killed.
How the heck do so many of the marine soldiers justify their actions? Even if you say stuff like "it's absolute justice" it's hard to shallow. It's like nuking an entire country just to kill 1 person.

The best real world comparison I can possibly make for the world government and the marines would be North Korea.

 

[keeper1h]

Your question is interesting, but you might not like my answer.
Please consider this:
We really want to kill someone
Torture
Child Labour
And the last one.
Unfortunately, we are just like them.

 

[Tias]

Your question is interesting, but you might not like my answer.
Please consider this:
We really want to kill someone
Torture
Child Labour
And the last one.
Unfortunately, we are just like them.

I am not saying we ourselves are perfect and don't forget that we have plenty of people protesting against what our own governments do. We know that shit is going on. But in One Piece the citizens always run to the marines for help and the marines act so holier than thou while knowingly allowing human trafficking.

Imagine if the police in your country was aware of human trafficking and simply let it slide.
Actually that reminds me in terms of how corrupt they are, I guess the Mexican government is also rather close, but even in this situation the people of the country KNOW they are corrupt. But in one piece people are somehow braindead to everything the marines do.

Hell, I'd say the only marine I can think of who had any justice was Zephyr, but he's from a movie so it's not canon = /

 

[keeper1h]

Not only the police and the government of any single developed state in our world, but also you and me: we are now both aware that (also) our technology is made by slaves, but I guess that this won't stop us from buying a new phone and toss away the old one, while still considering ourselves "kind-hearted persons".
Are we hypocrites? I guess we are not.
Why?
In a system that is corrupted at its top, there are many good-willed persons that struggles day by day to follow their own moral code, while they are also forced by their role and circumstances to protect the corruption that they really want to eradicate.

In every link I posted you will find tons of human beings suppressing their feelings and opinions, just because they are not in the position to do something about it.
the ethical dilemma you raised in this thread is really deep, and continuing to make real-world examples to try to show what IMHO happens in a story like One Piece is beginning to sound silly to me... so the thing is: those Marines seems pretty plausible to me, they are even too good to be true... If I'm correct, in the last battle they will rebel against the Celestial Dragons.

 

[TrueRaiKage]

Wow just now seeing this. Extremely interesting. I wonder why more ppl haven't commented.

Mankind's nature is evil and depraved. It's our lifes journey to attempt to govern these natural impulses. Some succeed but more often most fall short. Thus is life.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

I've covered this topic in some detail in this post: https://mangahelpers.com/forum/threads/the-blank-void-century.15984/page-7#post-4208053

The World of OP is riddled with slavery.

 

[M3J]

Quick overview:

• 800 years ago 19 out of 20 kings create the world government
• 5 old men control the world government
• The Tenryubito are descendants of the 19 kings
  
• World government creates the marines as their police & military force
• WG/marines are aware of human trafficking and slavery and don't mind, even if "officially" it's taboo
• WG/marines hunt down & execute archaeologists capable of reading the ponegylphs to hide the truth of the void century.

My question is, how come so many of the marine soldiers consider themselves oh so holy and just? How do characters like Sengoku and Garp justify all the shit the world government and marine does? They KNOW slavery takes place and just let it slide. Hell, because they wanted to erase everything related to gol d. roger they even wanted to kill Ace before he was even born. Imagine that, an unborn child with no sin besides being related by blood to someone was deemed such a threat he had to be killed.
How the heck do so many of the marine soldiers justify their actions? Even if you say stuff like "it's absolute justice" it's hard to shallow. It's like nuking an entire country just to kill 1 person.

The best real world comparison I can possibly make for the world government and the marines would be North Korea.

A lot of Marines soldiers consider themselves holy and just because of how they were taught to be. Marines exist to protect people and stop bad guys, or at least that's the view most people have. THen there are some Marines who become more aware of what's going on and become disillusioned, like Smoker and I believe Drake? There's a good chance Coby is probably one of the few who saw just how bloodthirsty the Marines can be, even.

Likely because of Tenyruubito. Tenryuubito probably have the most power, if not hold the most influence, and since they're okay with slave trade and auction, the Marines can't do anything about it.

And because they assume Ace will grow up to be like his father. The Marines likely don't want Roger's traits passed on, and they believe Ace would continue what his father did. Though, would they still have been as dogged about going after Ace and Luffy if both became Marines, or would they act due to the boys' relationships? It kinda makes sense where the Marines were going with this, and it's to prevent any more Rogers from rising.

They nuked an entire country to kill off any Ohara scholars that could read the poneglyphs. They wanted to remove as much risk as possible, and I think they even gave Ohara at least one chance to stop what they were doing.

 

[Windfall Island]

Garp would still side with the marines coz of the thousands of pirates & their millions of attrocities vs world noble's slavery & their attrocity which one is the bigger thing ?
How much of a difference could he make alone ? (maybe he should have joined roger's crew :P)
Maybe thats y he rejected being an admiral coz he didnt want to be directly called up by a tenryutibo .

Even in real world u dont get to choose between good & bad.
You get to choose between more bad & less bad.
Choose the better side
or build ur own side (not practical generally)
eg: ww2 . ( i dont knw if i m allowed to mention this or not but do u think allies were completely good. Hell no. nazis were the worst & so were war crimes of imperial japan but allies also did war crimes & they too were imperialists. But still which one is the better side ?)
This is sad but true.
thats how things work. op world has lots of real world things borrowed into it.

Also i wouldnt be surprised if many of the marines believe it genuinely that world nobles have the right to do anything as they please coz of their blood.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 15, 2017, Original Post Date: Jul 15, 2017 ---

Wow just now seeing this. Extremely interesting. I wonder why more ppl haven't commented.

Mankind's nature is evil and depraved. It's our lifes journey to attempt to govern these natural impulses. Some succeed but more often most fall short. Thus is life.

If u look at the bigger picture then u'll c that despite of the evils that exist even today , they have overall reduced as compared to the medieval times.
We hardly hear of human sacrifices in the name of god etc sort of things.
Earlier there were no laws against slavery, racism etc. Then came laws & then eventually over generations ppl began to accept these laws.
We have moved forward both technologically & socially. But a lot more needs to be done.