@giurochedadomani Really Got Me Thinking About Shanks And His Abandonment Issues.

@giurochedadomani really got me thinking about Shanks and his abandonment issues.

I think he has the terrible habit of repressing angry/hurt feelings that he has about his loved ones. Not quite toxic positivity but more like a man trying to always stay on good terms and good memories with loved ones.

It’s him not acknowledging the fact that Roger, Rayleigh his surrogate fathers and the Roger pirates his family essentially abandoned him when he needed them the most especially when from the flashback with buggy we can see that it so obviously hurt him enough to close off a part of himself causing Buggy to leave too.

All this to say it takes a lot for Shanks to get visibly angry at his loved ones and he has insane abandonment issues and guess who he decides to try and keep in his life? That right Mr I physically can’t stand to stay in one place for too long and my moods change like the grand line winds.

I do think Shanks genuinely what’s his relationship with Mihawk to be easy and he tends to do a lot to make it so and I do think it works half the time but Mihawk as much as I love him is tedious, he’s selfish, kind of childish, insanely single minded and incompetent with any emotion that isn’t a light boredom. and shanks for the most part does love all that about him and Shanks' peace loving people pleasing tendencies does mean they barely genuinely fight but when they do their emotional issues are so conflicting that its just a mess with a body count and a thousand mile radius.

Rewatching Gumball is knowing that while there is no actual real overarching plot the episodes are still so amazingly interconnected.

I love how they do foreshadowing, how they build on little moments that we see through out other episodes. It's Banana joe's mom's future paintings being a small joke in "The Shell". Rob being in the deleted place with all the forgotten things in "The Void" after we see that Gumball and Darwin have a hard time remembering him and then completely forget him once Darwin kicks him into the sewers a whole season earlier in "The Pony". He then literally still has parts of the void ingrained in his design when he comes back. It's the fact that Penny and her family being hollow shells with something inside was being played as haunting jokes for episodes before the one based entirely around it. It's the fact that characters like Sarah have always been a little fourth wall breaky and so an episode like "The Fan Fiction" is so completely in line with her character that it's unremarkable in context, hell there's an episode where she sings the ending song to end the show and avoid an awkward conversation her being able to take some control of the show feels like the natural evolution of that.

The background characters in gumball have such distinct personalities that have been pretty consistent and built upon since season 2 which is completely insane and unprecedented for an episodic 2010 children's cartoon. The show might not have had an arc but it has always been continuous.

You do really get the sense that this is a world where everyone is very hyper-aware of the rules in which they operate. The show might reset at the end of the episode but the people don't

I think we as a people deserve to see Usopp and Buggy in the ring, that would be the true event of the Strawhat x Cross Guild Davy back fight.

Their round would be about who could tell the most outrageous lie that would allow them to trip and fall upwards in life. And never before would we have seen two titans of their field go head to head like this.

I feel like the main reason this evil shanks theory is so prevalent (besides the private meeting the the gorsei which up even I can’t explain) is that his general cheeriness and lackadaisical disposition is more of a presented front, a mask to be slipped on and off at will which would be fine if he weren’t often put in the same boat as Roger and Luffy two people ( for as much as we know about roger) who have no masks at all.

Don’t get me wrong I’m pretty sure that Shanks is a naturally happy, good natured dude but he’s also the most politically minded pirate we have seen on the show (and some of these pirates were actual politicians) like I’m pretty sure Roger is more mature and secretive than Luffy ( makes sense he’s older and has seen more of the world) but with both of them you never get the sense that their silliness is something they are putting on for the direct purpose of making themselves less of a threat. They both can get serious when the situation calls for it but that feels more of an extension of their already established personality more than a hidden personality.

While with shanks it’s undeniable that something changed within him and his goals the day Roger died I don’t know if Roger actually told him something or if he just wasn’t dealing with the abandonment well it was probably a mix of both honestly. But yeah Shanks comes off as a guy with his ear to the ground someone who has schemes on schemes on schemes. he’s someone playing in the long run, kind of like crocodile but not nefarious. And when compared with a straight forward head first always kinda guy like Luffy, like he often is, he can come off a little suspicious.

There’s something that’s a little fake about his cheer, something a little too performative about his optimism and foolishness. I think it’s a mix of; he’s housing a deep sadness, he’s more of a realist that an optimist and also dudes just a pacifist unlike like luffy who loves to brawl ( like luffy knows when it’s better not to fight but he also loves a good fight) and he would rather deescalate a situation than fight it out and sometimes the easiest way to do that is with an air of cluelessness and making yourself seem less of a threat which makes it so much more jarring but effective when he reveals just how big a threat he is. but I can see why people think it’s suspicious.

(Interestingly even when luffy tries to emulate this behavior like when he first encountered Bellamy at the pub his plan is to just not react which while in the same vain is very different than Shanks actively playing the drunken good natured take it on the chin role for the bandits Luffy was still essentially himself he just refused to react while Shanks played a role which made it more terrifying and effective when he stopped)

Also it doesn’t help that until recently he’s largely been missing from the narrative with just a man echoing or a whisper here or there of how powerful he is.

But I think we should remember that Shank’s goal is essentially world peace. and peace, a true lasting peace, is just a little more of a precarious balancing act, than utmost freedom. For freedom you have to destroy the old game, for peace you have to learn to play a new one, hopefully with a bit more kindness injected into the foundation.

I think a big thing for the Mishanks break up is what if Mihawk is scared that he can only love Shanks if he’s strong? And Mihawk isn’t the type to reflect but what kind of person would that make him if even after everything, even after losing to Zoro. Shanks still loves him anyway.

That deep down he knows that even if Shanks was never able to pick up a sword ever again he’d still love him just the same. What does that say about him? Nothing good surely.

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.