Discussion Good v Evil: Morality in One Piece

[catagon87]

By the way, I think there is a rather large possibility the Big Mom plot, in the end, gets resolved peacefully. Big Mom isn't innately evil, as her memoryless version is innocent and childish.

This is kind of a long shot, but I think the key to "defeat" Big Mom is to uncover the Carmel plot and possibly reconciliate her with Elbaf.

Is anyone in OP innately evil? Sabo and Ace tried to murder Luffy for no reason initially but are good. Big Mom has some screwed up dream based on some misinterpretation of something Mother Caramel said but uses evil to achieve it, and considers herself superior to everyone.
Even Doflamingo was just born into the fucked-upedness that is being a Tenryuubito which would make anyone evil. Big Mom was manipulated pretty early on in the same way. I almost wonder how evil Streusen must be since he's the one who basically raised her.

 

[McNuss]

I thought I was the only one on the forum who sees huge walls of text and scrolls/ignores. Drives me crazy.



I think he has comedy value, and Oda values that a LOT in a character. Plus, Brook is his natural enemy being immune to lightning and able to attack him. Luffy is immune to him too, so I think him turning on the Strawhats would be pretty short-lived since they are arguably the only crew who has two people he's incredibly weak against.



Is anyone in OP innately evil? Sabo and Ace tried to murder Luffy for no reason initially but are good. Big Mom has some screwed up dream based on some misinterpretation of something Mother Caramel said but uses evil to achieve it, and considers herself superior to everyone.
Even Doflamingo was just born into the fucked-upedness that is being a Tenryuubito which would make anyone evil. Big Mom was manipulated pretty early on in the same way. I almost wonder how evil Streusen must be since he's the one who basically raised her.

Doflamingo was raised by two parents that were exceptions among Tenryubito. Homing was a naive man, but Doflamingo also has been implied to be fucked up in the head from the start.

Good and Evil are concepts though so it is open to interpretation and in case of Doflamingo it comes down to a Nature vs Nurture debate like it is characteristic of social sciences.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

Is anyone in OP innately evil? Sabo and Ace tried to murder Luffy for no reason initially but are good. Big Mom has some screwed up dream based on some misinterpretation of something Mother Caramel said but uses evil to achieve it, and considers herself superior to everyone.
Even Doflamingo was just born into the fucked-upedness that is being a Tenryuubito which would make anyone evil. Big Mom was manipulated pretty early on in the same way. I almost wonder how evil Streusen must be since he's the one who basically raised her.

I think that question can be extended to reality. There are cases where people do bad things out of necessity and circumstance; some people do evil out of the nurturing of their upbringing; some people do bad things for pleasure like a psychopath would.

To really answer the question about innately being evil, I think it comes down to how good and bad are defined. Before even going to what is defined as good and bad, we have to also ask is there objective good or bad first of all?

To me personally, there's no such thing as objective good or bad. Things that are considered good now were once considered bad, and some things considered bad are now good.

I think that somewhat proves that good and bad are just definitions. Even more precisely than definition, good and bad are just synonyms for what's accepted and what isn't accepted. If something is accepted, it's good and if not, it's bad/evil.

Murder for example is considered bad because the law say so and we've been conditioned to view it as evil. Child soldiers are conditioning to kill just to be rewarded to play football, so as far as they're concerned, what they're doing is good because it's acceptable.

Returning to the question of anyone being innately evil? I think I'd phrase that question as is anyone innately prone to doing things unacceptable to society as opposed to being innately evil (semantics at this point)? Big Mom by nature is by definition innately evil due to her upbringing or lack thereof; Joker is innately evil given he knows exactly what he's doing is unacceptable and still proceeds with it, but he was also brought up to be twisted as a child.

It's a pretty complex idea, hard to really say. Would require deep thinking to really answer such a question, but simple answer is I guess Big Mom and Joker can be classed as evil to make a long answer short.

 

[hokageji]

Only something I learnt about recently from trying out a low carb diet, worst decision ever made, lol.

Why? I mean, if you need to lose weight, its good. I lost 50 lbs on it. If you are a lazyass like me and dont wanna work out, its a great diet...

Radiowave frequencies are deadly, actually. I became EMF hyper-sensitive to them last year. They affect everyone though, and in various ways. For instance, I get headaches by using the computer too long. Speaking of...

Those headaches are a sideffect of having consumed two DFs....
jk...

Radiowaves can be dangerous and it depends on two things, intensity and exposure of the duration. I am not a medical expert so i am not sure about the hypersenstivity part> If an expert says so, better do as they say.

However, i did have a phase of headaches in front of the computer, i just got blue light block specs or something like that, and started hydrating myself more regularly.

 

[hokageji]

@Hannibal Psyche
DIdnt know you are a HxH fan too? Do you have any theories on that as well???

regarding the evil characters in OP, i think Tenyruubito are the only ones who come close.

 

[McNuss]

But wouldn't all children until some point be innately evil by that definition?

I think that definition can at least to some degree define evil in a social context, but not in a psychological context.

Young Linlin wasn't really aware of what she was causing as she clearly had a developmental delay (either acquired or innate or probably both). Her behavior wasn't really "normal" for a 5 year old in context of maturity.

In law, children generally have no guilt capacity (pretty sure that's not the word in english) until a certain age.

While the concept of guilt capacity should not be the sole defining factor of what Evil is, it definitely should be considered for children.

 

[M3J]

The Vivre Card book already lists the Weather Eggs as his favorite and for them to go away, Nami would need to lose her climate tact. If another kind of lightning were to become his favorite soon, I think the databook would have been more general with his favorite and list just "lightning" instead.

It could work though.

By the way, I think there is a rather large possibility the Big Mom plot, in the end, gets resolved peacefully. Big Mom isn't innately evil, as her memoryless version is innocent and childish.

This is kind of a long shot, but I think the key to "defeat" Big Mom is to uncover the Carmel plot and possibly reconciliate her with Elbaf.

Did it say why? I thought it's because clima tact lightning had tons of power behind it?

What do you mean? I can't imagine her and Luffy not fighting, depending on what happens with Luffy and Kaidou though. But this has nothing to do with evil, Big Mom just wants revenge because of the disrespect and dishonor of Luffy invading her territory, causing damage, and making it out alive, as well as the news saying she lost.

And knowing about Carmel's true nature would probably make things worse as Carmel's intention was to sell Big Mom to someone because of her strength. To Carmel, Big Mom was nothing but a cash cow, and she didn't care about Big Mom at all. Wouldn't be surprised if this makes Big Mom abandon any idea of peace and start wrecking shit.

Maybe she can, but I'd also assume he's a lot more intimidated by Big Mom than Nami too. I'd imagine Big Mom could kill Zeus too if she wanted.

I'd think so too, even though Zeus did comically look scared of Nami using Intimidation on him. Big MOm would normally have the stronger soul and willpower, but I think at the time, she was too hunger-crazed to bother much with Zeus. Will be interesting to see what she does, especially considering Zeus shocked her at least once.

I thought I was the only one on the forum who sees huge walls of text and scrolls/ignores. Drives me crazy.

Same unless it's actually good stuff (which is very rare). Stopped me from continuing debates here and in Naruto section a lot of times. We even had a member who did a wall of text effortlessly, and he kept deleting his post and reposting with new stuff.

But wouldn't all children until some point be innately evil by that definition?

I think that definition can at least to some degree define evil in a social context, but not in a psychological context.

Young Linlin wasn't really aware of what she was causing as she clearly had a developmental delay (either acquired or innate or probably both). Her behavior wasn't really "normal" for a 5 year old in context of maturity.

In law, children generally have no guilt capacity (pretty sure that's not the word in english) until a certain age.

While the concept of guilt capacity should not be the sole defining factor of what Evil is, it definitely should be considered for children.

Evil can be quite subjective, and children likely can't be evil unless they know what they're doing is bad. Young BIg Mom wasn't evil because she had no idea what she was doing, she didn't know what was right or wrong, so she couldn't feel guilty.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

@Hannibal Psyche
DIdnt know you are a HxH fan too? Do you have any theories on that as well???

regarding the evil characters in OP, i think Tenyruubito are the only ones who come close.

Huge fan of HxH, but I watch/read it casually, I haven't really dabbled on the HxH lore so I'm clueless; I'll probably have to watch it from the start again whenever Togashi returns because by then, I'd have forgotten the plot again, lol. OP is the only series I read this seriously.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 10, 2019, Original Post Date: Aug 10, 2019 ---

But wouldn't all children until some point be innately evil by that definition?

I think that definition can at least to some degree define evil in a social context, but not in a psychological context.

Young Linlin wasn't really aware of what she was causing as she clearly had a developmental delay (either acquired or innate or probably both). Her behavior wasn't really "normal" for a 5 year old in context of maturity.

In law, children generally have no guilt capacity (pretty sure that's not the word in english) until a certain age.

While the concept of guilt capacity should not be the sole defining factor of what Evil is, it definitely should be considered for children.

Children have no empathy or sympathy, they have to be taught these things. They have no idea what is right or wrong. They tend to be hedonists and selfish. They only see things from their own perspective and only learn to see the perspective of others from nurturing. A child would hurt another without batting an eye-lid or without remorse if they weren't told it was wrong or punished for it.

Children can be brutally wicked, but that's because they don't know how to function in society and need to be taught.

Maybe the best way to define evil is someone who knows full well what they're doing is wrong (unacceptable), know how it impacts others, but still carries on with their actions.

And as you said, the psychological aspect too. People can be born to take pleasure in doing things considered wicked through no fault of their own. I guess that's the scary thing about physiology. A little bit of head trauma can totally change someone's behaviour or even just make them violent. At that point, do we deem such a person evil? or a victim of the wrong physiology?

Perhaps, the difficulty is that there's a guilt associated with acknowledge the we can't attribute all actions to nurture and that just makes the world seem a lot more darker. Its easier to just assume evil people are evil by choice, and it's easier with that mindset to prosecute them without remorse rather than accepting that they may have just been born that way. It's a conflicting topic, lol. One of the reasons I'd hate to be a part of the jury.

 

[Hrathgrath]

The Vivre Card book already lists the Weather Eggs as his favorite and for them to go away, Nami would need to lose her climate tact. If another kind of lightning were to become his favorite soon, I think the databook would have been more general with his favorite and list just "lightning" instead.

It could work though.

By the way, I think there is a rather large possibility the Big Mom plot, in the end, gets resolved peacefully. Big Mom isn't innately evil, as her memoryless version is innocent and childish.

This is kind of a long shot, but I think the key to "defeat" Big Mom is to uncover the Carmel plot and possibly reconciliate her with Elbaf.

I don't know why I didn't consider that, but I think that would be the best way to go, as far as writing, perhaps a fight of some kind, and then Luffy find a way to work out some political shit, probably by accident, and big mom and he leave as unlikely allies.

Good point. If Nami is captured or the Clima-Tact is temporary damaged, then Zeus has no reason to stay. Or worse, he could turn against the Strawhats in no time.

I do see Zeus leaving Nami on his own will personally, but thats just my feelings on the situation.

@Hannibal Psyche
DIdnt know you are a HxH fan too? Do you have any theories on that as well???

regarding the evil characters in OP, i think Tenyruubito are the only ones who come close.

While the Tenryuubito are super fucked up, I don't know if I would call them evil per sae.. Basically they are, for the most part, SUUUUUPPPPERRRR (no Franky pun intended) spoiled children. with them it's all "I want, I want! I want!" and the world has basically given it to them. It's human nature unfortunately. They all seem to have the mind of "everything in the world is my plaything and I own it. You are just playing with my toys" so if they want something, it's not stealing or whatever, they are just reclaiming something that already belongs to them. Fucked up? Definitely. Evil? I'm not so sure...

 

[Pirate Queen]

I don't know why I didn't consider that, but I think that would be the best way to go, as far as writing, perhaps a fight of some kind, and then Luffy find a way to work out some political shit, probably by accident, and big mom and he leave as unlikely allies.

I do see Zeus leaving Nami on his own will personally, but thats just my feelings on the situation.

While the Tenryuubito are super fucked up, I don't know if I would call them evil per sae.. Basically they are, for the most part, SUUUUUPPPPERRRR (no Franky pun intended) spoiled children. with them it's all "I want, I want! I want!" and the world has basically given it to them. It's human nature unfortunately. They all seem to have the mind of "everything in the world is my plaything and I own it. You are just playing with my toys" so if they want something, it's not stealing or whatever, they are just reclaiming something that already belongs to them. Fucked up? Definitely. Evil? I'm not so sure...

They keep humans, even children, as SLAVES.

Who are you kidding? That's plain EVIL

 

[Hrathgrath]

They keep humans, even children, as SLAVES.

Who are you kidding? That's plain EVIL

In my mind, evil has to have understanding and intent. I don't believe those people were ever brought up as children instilled with the respect for fellow humans. I think it's more like, they were taught that anyone not a celestial dragon is below them, like we see ourselves to apes and monkeys. (typically anyway) Would you say a culture was evil because they killed other humans as food as long as their cultural memory? Fucked up, but not evil. I don't think the majority of the Tenryuubito understand that what they are doing is seen as despicable behavior by the rest of the world, or that they see themselves as so "above them" that they don't even give them a moment's thought as to how people "below" them see their behavior, any more than we would consider how much our pets may feel about how OUR behavior. I think the Donquixote family may be unique in that they seem to consider how they are viewed. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they are pillars of righteousness or anything like that, but they may as well be spoiled children with the way that they behave towards the rest of the world.

In the real world you can look at any children raised by super wealthy parents for examples of similar behavior, just slightly less so.

 

[Admiral Teach]

Ignorance of morals is in itself the gravest of sins. It is an excuse. I am conscious of sin. And so are all of you. Whichever between embracing that carnal selfishness or the selflessness for others is what determines whether we are evil or not. The fact that we even have a concept of good and evil demonstrates against all argument that such a plumb line and set of scales exist, somewhere.

And I think most people here are aware of where those are supposed to be and Who holds them. Haven't read up on forum rules in a while, but arguments of good and evil are religious to me. If we're not to talk of religion here, I'd honestly like to see this conversation end. It's not what I came here to read or talk about.

 

[hokageji]

I don't know why I didn't consider that, but I think that would be the best way to go, as far as writing, perhaps a fight of some kind, and then Luffy find a way to work out some political shit, probably by accident, and big mom and he leave as unlikely allies.

I do see Zeus leaving Nami on his own will personally, but thats just my feelings on the situation.

While the Tenryuubito are super fucked up, I don't know if I would call them evil per sae.. Basically they are, for the most part, SUUUUUPPPPERRRR (no Franky pun intended) spoiled children. with them it's all "I want, I want! I want!" and the world has basically given it to them. It's human nature unfortunately. They all seem to have the mind of "everything in the world is my plaything and I own it. You are just playing with my toys" so if they want something, it's not stealing or whatever, they are just reclaiming something that already belongs to them. Fucked up? Definitely. Evil? I'm not so sure...

If the definition of evil is going to be subjective, I don’t think we will ever get to labeling anyone as one.
to me, not showing a caring of others lives purely for one’s selfish needs is evil. We have seen the Don quixote members show change of heart but the majority will use humans as whatever they want. If that doesn’t come close to evil, I don’t think anything will.

 

[AINSOOALGOWN_SAMA]

OP is the only series I read this seriously.

Likewise.

HXH's unpredictable continuation makes me just forget about it till the writer resumes serious work (I know he's got health issues and all) but that's sometimes what separates a good series from a great series.
If he's (conditionally) unserious, then so am I (unconditionally).

 

[Hrathgrath]

If the definition of evil is going to be subjective, I don’t think we will ever get to labeling anyone as one.
to me, not showing a caring of others lives purely for one’s selfish needs is evil. We have seen the Don quixote members show change of heart but the majority will use humans as whatever they want. If that doesn’t come close to evil, I don’t think anything will.

Not to go off on a tangent, but the concepts of good and evil are fairly new concepts. Sorta anyway... Basically I think everyone can agree that understanding that what you are doing is going to hurt someone, whether physically or mentally, can be seen as an evil act. In my mind it's the intention and understanding that makes it an "evil" act. I mean if a 2 year old finds your grandmother's life or death required heart medication and flushes it down the toilet which causes her to die, would that be an evil act? Of course not! They don't know that what they are doing is going to have those consequences. If a kid is raised being constantly told that people of dark skin are deemed by God, or just naturally, less human than they are. when they behave in that manner, can you blame them? Like I said, I'm not saying it's right (most definitely NOT), but I don't know if I would call it evil. I mean for hundreds of years in the USA slavery was not considered evil, just a fact of life.

 

[hokageji]

@Hrathgrath

I see what you mean, but you make an interesting distinction by calling it an evil act. If you judge the act itself without putting a label behind the person who did it, i think you can consider them evil.
For instance, the kid example you mentioned, if the kid intentionally lets the grandma die, it is an evil act. But that doesn't mean that the kid is devil's reincarnation. If you know what i mean.
Extending that to Slavery, it is an evil act. The bigger evil would be not acknowledging it as one. The same would extend to colonizers too, like the Brits in India. I wouldn't say the Brits are evil, but they definitely did a lot of evil acts specially in India. If deeds continue without remorse or empathy, would you stop and not call the deed doers as evil?

Now fiction takes the liberty of moving away from the gray to a binary side. So moving back to our original discussion, Tenryuubtio are evil. All their deeds are evil, they show no remorse or empathy.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

Society is what determines what is evil and what isn't evil.

Animals kill, do we call cats evil for killing birds and bringing it to their owners? While we may find it vile and disgusting, we may also find the act cute because it's like they're trying to repay their owners for their kindness and parenting. An act is only considered good or bad based on society.

In some indigenous tribes, cannibalism is acceptable. It's not considered evil because their society accepts it. In our modern society, we see a cannibal and we deem them evil. Right and Wrong (morality) is decided by society.

Only reason we can label Joker or the Tenryuubito evil is because society doesn't find their actions acceptable, therefore, they're considered evil.

Morality or right and wrong are not objective things, they're things we decide. Being moral is simply being someone who does things that are acceptable in society. Someone might feel guilty for stealing not because stealing is objectively bad, but because it's an action we consider bad in society.

The Aztecs killed people iirc in gruesome ways, they probably didn't deem their actions of drinking blood and killing as evil. It was acceptable to society.

Only reason we don't find old traditions and such acceptable anymore is because we've advanced in science and knowledge of what best suits society the way we want it to be run, and right, wrong are defined by how actions promote the rules that govern society. If society wants people to live long and healthy, killing is considered wrong or evil because it contradicts the goal society wants.

Good, Bad, Evil, Morality... they differ from place to place because they're human constructs, not something objective.

 

[hokageji]

And where does that place Tenryuubitos? In our society, evil.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

And where does that place Tenryuubitos? In our society, evil.

Obviously, it's evil in our society.

The thing nonetheless is they're not necessarily to blame for being viewed as evil because they come from different backgrounds. They were born being told they were gods and people were trash.

We step on ants everyday, from the perspective of ants assuming they were intelligent, we're evil scum who just kill them for no reason. It's no different to the Tenryuubito here and their actions. They were groomed or educated rather to be the way they are, not that they chose to be so. They're just as indifferent to their actions as much as people are indifferent to the ants they stop on daily.

Like Joker said at the Marineford war of the best, right and wrong are determined by those who make the rules or sit in power, not that there is objective right and wrong.

 

[M3J]

And where does that place Tenryuubitos? In our society, evil.

In general they're evil because they know what they're doing is not good, but they don't care because they're selfish and know they can get away with anything. Plus, the way others react should give them some indication?

But then again, now that I think about it, who's told them about their behavior? I can't imagine anyone lower than Tenryuubito saying "hey guys, this isn't good!" out of fear of punishment. Dunno what happened to Doflamingo's dad, but didn't the other guy gain empathy after experiencing kindness or something in Fishman Island from Otohime? I forgot his name since he only appeared in the flashback and the mini-Reverie arc right before Wano.