orange_smaug | What's In A Name?

Entry tags:

fic,
one piece

What's In A Name?

Title: What's In A Name?
Rating: G
Characters: Franky, Robin
Topic: Shower
Summary: There's a question Robin would like answered...
Notes: My thought process was something like: Shower -> April Showers -> Rain -> Raining Fireballs XD. Slight spoilers for recent chapters.

Franky sighed. Only his first day on the job, and his captain had already broken part of the ship's railing. It was probably a minor miracle their previous ship had managed to survive for so long, and he could tell he had his work cut out for him. Quickly occupying himself, he was so focused on his work that he didn't sense anyone approaching until a gentle voice spoke.

"Shipwright-san."

He turned and looked at her through protective goggles, surprised. "Nico Robin! Did you need something?"

"If you have the time, would you mind answering a question of mine?"

Franky slowly lowered his hammer. "Depends on what it is."

She chuckled. "Nothing serious. I was just curious about your reasons for naming your King Bulls as you did."

"Oh, is that it?" he exclaimed. "I saw a pair of absolutely beautiful clipper ships with those names once. Truly magnificent, and I wish I could have had a hand in building them." He felt his eyes start to water. "But they were later destroyed by Aqua Laguna, and--and I thought it was a shame their spirits had to die so earlyyyyyyyy." He started bawling, blowing his nose on the handkerchief Robin produced for him while she patted his arm soothingly.

"So they weren't intentionally named after cities so filled with vice and sin that the Lord in Heaven smote them from this earth with rains of fire and brimstone?"

"Huh?"

Robin smiled. "Nothing. Well, thank you for your time. I'll let you get back to your work now." She withdrew her hand and sauntered off, probably to do mysterious things known only to herself.

Franky scratched his head and stared after her retreating back, then shrugged. Some people--you just didn't know what to make of them.

~end~

Notes: I've always been curious about this from the time I learned their names. My thought is that we're supposed to draw a connection between the Buster Call and the cities Sodom and Gomorrah, with the agent of destruction this time being humans instead of some divine power. Oda might be saying something about the arrogance of humans thinking they can play God (Ener on a larger scale), or perhaps that no society is so uniformly corrupt that wholesale purging of this sort should be necessary. None of which explains why Franky decided to name his rather good-natured pets this way, and it doesn't seem like the kind of question people would ask for SBS so I suppose it'll forever remain a mystery XD.

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I hate to be religiously anal, but it's a vastly common misconception that Sodom and Gomorrah were filled with vice and sin and homosexuality - what actually happened was that the people of the cities were extremely unhospitable to these three angels who went to visit. God wanted to smite them, but I can't recall the characters' names, but they argued with God against it, challenging Him by saying if they could find at least one righteous person within the city, He could not destroy them.

Yadda-yadda-yadda, sorry for being so long winded. XD;

Oops, sorry, I forgot an important part - they were unable to find a righteous, hospitable person, and THAT, my friend, is why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Which could possibly mean that in the context of One Piece, everybody in W7 was completely corrupt. It would be the case for the members of CP9, I think...

Oops, took too long to reply >.>. Though I'll say that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah bothers me, in that I really can't buy that Abraham could find only one righteous person in the entire population (and his nephew, at that). As far as One Piece goes, Ohara obviously didn't deserve the Buster Call. And even at Enies Lobby, though their actions are corrupt I'd say that the majority of the marines really believe they're doing the right thing. That is to say I don't think ignorance, however willful it might be, is a good enough reason for an entire city to be wiped off the map.

As far as One Piece goes, Ohara obviously didn't deserve the Buster Call.

That flashback really made me reconsider the marines as a whole. Because while seeing the occasional corrupt marine happens (Early on, too: Axe-Hand Morgan is the first marine you encounter.) there's something chilling about finding out that the people up top have so little regard for human life.

I don't think that anyone* at Enies Lobby deserved the Buster Call -- they were marines doing their jobs, for the most part. While it was rationalized as "They let the pirates in! They are traitors!" -- well, that's one view, but I suspect it's not the one we're supposed to sympathize with.

*Well, maybe the guy who called for it. Power-hungry bastard.

I think shuraiya needs to find an uncensored Bible ^^; - I clearly remember that the men of the city of Sodom asked if they could have sex with the (male) angels.

Yeah, and Lot offered his daughters for them to rape instead. The Old Testament's got all kinds of messed up shit they don't tell you about in Sunday School :o.

@ Shuraiya: So really, the whole thing was a product of a variety of factors, but the sinfulness of the people *was* one of them.

yeah, and after the city was destroyed and Lot and his daughters were the only ones left they got him drunk and slept with him so that one (or was it both?) of them had his baby. 0_o I remember reading it and puzzling over how it was the men of Sodom who were the evil ones when all they did was offer consensual sex to a few adult males...

Well, the consensualness of the offer can be debated, but Lot and his family certainly didn't strike me as the epitome of righteousness :/.

Wow, that wasn't a dickish comment or anything.

Ummm... sorry. I just thought I'd say something as you were correcting orange_smaug and, as far as my knowledge of the Bible goes, they were pretty much right.

"Ezekiel 16:49-50: Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

But, okay, whatever.

Well, there's more than one account of it; I was basing it on the one in Genesis.

Juuuust sayin'.

Genesis 19:4-5: "Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." "

(actually yeah, now i re-read it, that doesn't look very consensual, does it? o.o)

If you read on, he offers his daughters to them instead of the angels - so technically, TECHNICALLY, there never was any homosexual fun.

Buuut hey, I'm watching Jumanji and it's way more interesting than this argument.

Fair enough; it didn't happen, but they were obviously that way inclined. The Bible is all about interpretation anyway. Sorry for nitpicking, but the family I was raised was very, very, Catholic so I can't help it when it comes to the Bible! XD'

More to the point, it was still a great drabble, and even more to the point, I'm going to bed because it's 3AM here.

Just to clarify, I didn't mention any homosexuality in the drabble because it wasn't about the angels being male so much as them being angels, divine beings.

...and I'm still not any closer to figuring out why they were named that ^^;;;.

(All angels are male, according to the Vatican, but as you guys are probably not Catholic - and nor am I though my Gran would kill me if she knew - I guess we can ignore that =p)

I'm sure Oda would come up with some complicated reason for their names if he were asked but I think he was just trying to see if he could get away with it. He wouldn't have done in the UK or the States. In some ways it's a shame that 4KIDS has dropped One Piece:'d have liked to see how they would have got round it!

Oh, I'm not saying the angels weren't male, just that it less that they wanted to rape males and more that they wanted to rape divine beings that was the major taboo. And raping human women is apparently a lesser crime than either of these :P.

Sorry to chime in so randomly: another reason it was such a sin was because the angels were guests, and so allowing them to come to harm violated the rules of hospitality. So one could argue (and I'm sure people have) that offering up one's daughters in the place of one's guests is one of the holiest/best-mannered/hospitable things a man could have done. I happen to feel bad for the daughters, personally.

But, yeah. Abuse of hospitality = Very Bad Thing.

The incident with the angels was the tipping point, but the reason the angels visited in the first place was to warn Lot that God was already thinking about destoying the cities for their sin. Though I read NIV, so the implications might be slightly different in other versions. (And 'filled with vice and sin' is catchier than 'inhospitable' >.>)

And if there's anyone who could be accused of being long-winded here it's me XD.

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Hee, I'm hoping for lots of amusing Robin and Franky interaction in future chapters :D.

This was cute. I've always wondered the samething as Robin. Good Job.

Thanks! And yeah, when they were introduced I spent quite a long time just staring at them going 'brain does not compute' XD

I like seeing Robin and Franky interact, here. His awe at the ships comes across very well.

And, yeah, when I saw the names of the bulls, my eyes just about fell out of my head. There's gotta be meaning behind that, but I can't put my finger on it.

It's particularly interesting because Sodom and Gomorrah survive, as does the Franky Family, which was introduced initially as pretty scummy low-lives (according to W7 residents). But the Marines are gone, wiped out by their own Buster Call. That's a pretty serious inversion -- the 'bad' survive while the 'good' are killed?

It's interesting seeing Oda refuse to draw hard and fast lines, saying "This person is evil BECAUSE she's a pirate" or "This person is good BECAUSE he's a marine." People are defined by their actions rather than their labels, and the divisions within CP and the World Gov't show up very clearly for it.

To carry the idea of men-playing-god a little farther: Could this be a meditation on the corrupting influence of power? Is the World Government corrupt enough that it really will kill innocent marines to get the StrawHats? We know they are: they kill all of Ohara to make an example; not just the scholars and archaeologists. But Enies Lobby shows us that they're willing not only to kill civillians, but to kill their own men, and on the accidental call of a power-crazed idiot.

Hmm. How do the SBS questions get picked, anyway? We could try to stack the deck.

I actually didn't really think further about Sodom and Gomorrah surviving (because nobody dies in One Piece XD), but that's a good point about the complete reversal of fortunes.

I was worried at the (very) beginning that Oda was just painting all marines as bad, as the first really prominent ones we meet are Morgan and Nezumi, but the presence of marines with morals and the delineating of different factions within the institution put that to rest.

And yeah, the rank and file marines we see on Enies Lobby really get the short end of the stick, following orders because it's not like their superiors are really going to let them in on the less savory reasons for some of their decisions. Even within the CP9 we get a few (I'm thinking of Kaku and Kumadori mostly) members who could be seen as thinking they're actually doing the right thing instead of just enjoying being douchebags. I hope we get a cover story for them in a less assholish capacity (we probably will huh :D).

...of course I'm not thinking of spamming Japanese school children with this question in hopes that it'll be answered >.>

because nobody dies in One Piece

I actually considered making up a list of "People who are definitely dead" -- but I don't know if there are enough people to even count as a list!

I would have gotten very jaded very fast if Oda had simply painted all marines with the same brush, but the more of them I see, the more characters he brings out: they all have motivations; they're not all cardboard cutouts of marines.

I would love to be able to read Japanese to get the exact meanings and subtexts down when Kaku speaks -- translations are awesome and amazing, but there's that something that's always lost. (I have a slightly irrational soft spot for Kaku: he doesn't seem to be as much of a bloodthirsty bastard as Lucci, or as much of a killing machine as Jyabura. Kumadori didn't really register as much of a character, for me. He was an opponent, yes, but possibly because we don't see anyone interact with him outside of fights (whereas we see Kaku inspect Going Merry etc) I don't get much sense of personality.)

Um. I could go on for ages about CP9, especially Kaku. I won't.

I certainly don't mind as he's my favorite member too (jumped straight to the top of my list the moment he turned in to a giraffe XD). It's after he's defeated by Zoro that you really see the difference between him and the others, the way he's able to joke about his own situation and Paulie's message ;_;.

As for Kumadori, I mentioned him mostly because along similar lines he seems less bloodthirsty and more just doing what he thinks should be done. And for all that he's supposed to be a sort of silly character along with Fukurou, his fight with Chopper was surprisingly brutal because he respected Chopper's determination and reasons for fighting. It's true you don't really see much of him though, which is a shame since I have a huge weak-spot for Kabuki themed characters.

Have you seen the recent drawing of CP9 as kids (http://that.animeblogger.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/img_0258.jpg)? It's so 'wtf happened!?' XD

It seems like there's more to Kaku than simply "Kill who I'm told to kill." or even "Kill those who break the law." That makes him a much more interesting character, because it implies that once you take away CP9 (if you do) he may survive it.

I had not seen that drawing. It makes my head spin very strangely. I'm torn between cuddling them because they're so cute, and running away because they can probably all already kick ass.

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What's In A Name?

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