This is really my point. Ace didn't have much feats but was narratively said to be strong, with his comparison being to a Warlord and later being a Commander in WBs crew. At this point in the story we hadn't seen what the upper echelon could really do e.g. seeing YC & above fights post timeskip with all these advanced haki's, awakening etc.
Now that we have seen this level of fighting, Oda is basically making every character from earlier on in the story that narratively was in this tier of strength (YC & above) now be shown as strong. For some characters that had no known on screen feats this isn't a problem but for characters we've seen "go all out" it did become a consistency problem, which Oda has chosen to fix with a Retcon.
What? I just showed you that there were feats suggesting Ace was at upper Yonko commander level.
None of the Shichibukai, except Mihawk, had any portrayal similar to or above "right hand men" type Yonko commanders.
Doflamingo had consistently had one of the best portrayals of the Shichibukai, from his very intro in pre TS, to his arc in Dresrossa/PH. And he was low-mid commander tier.
And this is inspite of Doflamingo being awakened, having one of the greatest will power in the entire series, being a conqueror's haki user and having one of the greatest representations of being an actual conqueror.
His crew didn't obey him out of fear, but out of unending admiration and willful subordination. They were all ready to give their lives for him, and believed in his dream of being the PK/king of the world, almost a warped Strawhat crew to Luffy level admiration for Doflamingo.
In spite of all that, he was just low-mid commander tier.
This is just what Shichibukai were meant to be. Largely speaking, low-mid commander level characters.
The Warlords were introduced as a global force that rivaled the Yonko. The only world this would make narrative sense is if all of them are at least YC level or else they would just be fodder. The showings we have gotten out of them early on in the story (Crocodile &Moriah) were far below YC level of strength. Now post time skip both of them have been shown to matter. Crocodile clearly is a lot stronger now. Moriah lost to pre time skip Luffy who struggled against a Pacifista. Now we have seen him invade a Yonko island and take out all the fodder, when in reality Moriah should also be fodder. We saw Yonko Fodder take out Pacifista in Marineford and now we're expected to believe that Moriah is strong enough to warrant the officers of a Yonko crew (Devon & Shilew were the ones to take him out). He hasn't had much of a showing yet but he's already being narratively portrayed as if he is a stronger threat than what he should be.
The heart of the matter to me is - the Warlords were narratively a global force of elite pirates and as a group were later compared to Yonko. And now that we have seen Yonko & their crew fight, the Warlords are being retconned from paradise displays of power to match up with new world displays of power. This doesn't apply to every member, just the ones that had showings early on in the story.
I agree Shichibukai combined, is roughly equivalent to a typical Yonko crew.
Shichibukai don't necessarily need to be on upper commander level for that to be true. Even it it may very well be.
If you treat Shichibukai as Mihawk = Yonko, other Shichibukai = commanders, this would very well fit as well. There is no "Shichibukai level", it can go from Yonko level to Yonko commander level to even Yonko executive level. Though anything below Yonko executive level, doesn't make sense from a narrative perspective, I agree there
Yonko fodder never took out Pasifista in Marineford, those were the WB commanders (the 6-16 numbers, who are likely low commander level characters after seeing how strong Izo was in current arc) and veteran pirate captains who one shotted the Pacifista.
This is very much consistent with how the monster trio one shotted Pacifista as well.
Moria never got retconned either. In fact he was kicked out for being too weak.
Moria very well can be a lot stronger than Yonko fodder, but still be below commander leve
This age thing is a completely separate argument to me from retconning but I still disagree about their being consistency. People are as strong as they need to be for the story to work regardless of age.
There has been no consistency in when a person peaks or when a person is old how much weaker they are if they are weaker at all. For example:
- Luffy & peers (Zoro, Kid, Law, Yamato, Sabo, etc) reaching the highest level of power OP has displayed (or likely to reach it by EOS) in their 20s
- Unless the ceiling on power levels gets removed (this would start making this whole argument moot if power levels don't have a ceiling), these characters are peaking before their 40s
- Big Mom is still strong well into her 60s (she is 68) without any one explicit mention of her being too old for combat in the same way we got for White Beard
There would have to be too many exceptions for their to be considered consistency. For every character you could argue follows the rule you can find another that doesn't.
You may say there is no consistency, because things don't fit 100%. As is with real life, nothing fits 100%, because there are rare exceptions to the rule.
But an clear pattern is evidently there, with characters peaking in their middle-age, and getting weaker in old-age
1. Luffy and co are reaching that level, because they fight and push themselves non stop, resulting in haki bloom and improvement in stats
2. BM is a mutant freak, this is established within the story.
Look at other top tiers - Garp, Sengoku, Whitebeard and Rayleigh. All got nerfed from old age
Yes Oda could have done it without a retcon but that is not what he chose to do. Oda retconned characters from earlier on in the story to keep them relevant and have narrative consistency is all I'm arguing.
You maybe right. But I'll wait for Crocodile's feats, and narrative before I say something for sure.
These are also possible scenarios:
- Crocodile may very well turn out to be nowhere near YC1 tier. Which mean, there is no retcon relative to his Marineford feats
- Crocodile may become YC1 tier or above. But Oda explains it away by something similar to what I pointed out.
If Crocodile turns out to be any of the two above mentioned scenarios, I am right.
Or else, he got retconned, and I will readily accept my L
