Marineford: The Heart-Wrenching Battle for Freedom and Family

Joshua Noel: 00:01:10

Foreign. Would you take on the world government to save your brother?

Today we're covering the Marine Ford art and the Summit War from the One Piece anime and manga. We're gonna cry, record it and let you guys hear us weep. I am the one and only Joshua Noel.

This is both my favorite and least favorite arc in all of One Piece. And I am here with the one and only beautiful Christian Ashley. How's it going?

Christian Ashley: 00:01:48

Feeling pretty beautiful. Thank you.

Joshua Noel: 00:01:50

Yeah, you're welcome. I'm also here. We have a few. We have a few on here because basically all the One Piece folk are like, we have to talk about this.

I'm also here with the majestic Elizabeth paneling and Clyde, also known as Liz. How's it going?

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:02:06

Hello. Pretty. All right.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:07

And of course, I am here with the one who invented One Piece because he is the one who spoke and his speech created Oda, TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell. How's it going?

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:18

Great.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:19

Yeah, yeah. Good to see you. All right, guys, this is gonna be a big one. It's gonna be a hard one.

But we're only able to make ourselves cry and talk about it because we have people supporting our show. There's a few different ways they do. This one is if you're on a laptop, you can consider rating, reviewing our show on podcaster or goodpod.

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And we really appreciate it. For people who have money, not myself. We do appreciate our sponsors as well. We want to do special shout out to them.

So thank you to everyone who sponsors our show on Apple Podcast, Captivate or Patreon. Today we'll do a special shout out to Annette Noel, my favorite aunt. I had to shout her out on my my favorite arc of One Piece review.

And remember, if you guys want your own shout out, you too can support our show for $3 a month on one of those three platforms, Apple, podcast, Captivate or Patreon. Before we get to anything else, Christian Ashley, let us know with your divine wisdom. What have you been choosing to geek out on recently?

Christian Ashley: 00:03:32

I recently just went back up to Chicago to visit my brother and niece. My dad came along and I made a comment, hey, the most invincible Episode's out. Let's go watch it. And it's like, oh, we haven't watched it.

I was like, oh, why? I disowned you as family. So we watched through the entire first season and had a blast.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:48

Fantastic. Fantastic for myself.

Luckily, my dissertation for my master's includes Kingdom Hearts, so I'm playing through all the Kingdom Hearts games like I always do.

But this time, now that I have a Steam deck, I'm going through the original versions of all the games instead of all of the remastered HD 1.5, 2.8 stuff. The originals are just so much better, and it's making me so happy. Tj, what you been geeking out on lately here?

Christian Ashley: 00:04:16

Lately?

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:18

I don't know. I went on a little vacation, though I was mostly geeking out on driving.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:23

Yeah. Well, since this isn't on YouTube, do you want to show everyone your tattoo?

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:27

No, I have to stand up.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:28

Oh, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:29

And, like, stand in my chair.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:31

That sounds fun. All right, well, I'm also here with. With the tatted. Liz, what tattoos have you been geeking out on lately?

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:04:40

So I've been thinking of expanding my sleeve to my back. And so I was thinking of, like, either doing some more, like, obviously cherry blossoms. But yeah, maybe that could be a poll.

We can let them vote on the next anime cherry blossom tattoo I get, because I just want another one, if that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:57

If that counts. I've been planning a thigh sleeve.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:01

That does count. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:02

Yeah. I'm going to do, like, American traditional ocean.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:07

Well, to stick to. To my own brand.

I'm going to Japan, and I'm going to get one of the Push and Poke tattoos and one of the ones I could choose from, of course, have the Oblivion and Oath Keeper keyblades, and it has the Japanese words to simple and clean, where it has, you are the light in the darkness. Guys, if you want to see all of our One Piece episodes, the link down below, there's a whole series of stuff that we've done.

We've been going through all of the different arcs. Speaking of which, before we get into Marineford, I would say this is like, the quintessential arc of One Piece.

Tj, could you fill our listeners in on what they need to know about the story so far just to catch us up, because you're the only one who can say anything quickly.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:55

No, I don't think it's possible at this point in the story.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:59

Could you try anyway?

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:06:01

No, Lucy has a brother.

Christian Ashley: 00:06:03

All right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:07

I got it. So, like. But you know, where's.

Christian Ashley: 00:06:11

Like.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:11

Okay, no.

Christian Ashley: 00:06:12

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:12

I give up.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:14

Okay, so this show is about a group of pirates. Because pirates cool world government. Not so cool in this world. The lead pirate is named Luffy. He wants to become the king of the pirates.

Because that's a thing in this universe. Don't worry about it. For the most part, we've had a lot of silly, fun adventures. There's a lot of heartfelt moments as well.

Because you know, Luffy wants everyone to have freedom. He wants to do what he wants to. So the government controlling people and belittling and marginalizing people is bad. So that upsets him.

So he fights for people occasionally. Recently on the last episode, they ran into problems. Really. Saw the first time Luffy and them weren't able to do something.

They were taking a hiatus so they can build their skill level up. Other shenanigans happen.

Now Luffy's brother Ace is about, who's also a pirate, is about to be executed at the on stage for everyone to see in Marineford by the world government.

So Luffy, people Luffy has run into and made friends with because you know, he's fighting a against the government and bad people are there to try and save Ace. The Whitebeard pirates show up. I don't know if they show up before this or during this. They're pirates as well. That's all you need to know.

And a lot of other characters just randomly show up for one side or the other. Because for some reason, Ace's execution, him dying is a big deal to literally everyone in the entire world. So that's where we're at.

Christian, could you summarize Marineford and the summit War that happens in one piece.

Christian Ashley: 00:07:42

Okay, so we've got a lot to cover here. I'm going to skip a lot because if I did, we would be here for an hour. So for the sake of brevity, it's Aces Execution day.

Luffy and the gang that have gotten out of Impel down are heading his way to try and save him. We meet Sengoku, Admiral Sengoku, who's going to tell Garp, who has acted as father figure to both Luffy and Ace.

And Sengoku tells him, I'm going to tell everyone every everything about what happened here, about who Ace actually is. And Garp's like, yeah, whatever, man. He's gonna die either way. And he's still like conflicted by his. He wants to save his son, his adopted son.

At the same time, he's got to follow the law. Huge part of his character. And we Learn that Ace is the son of Gol d Roger, who had a lady friend known as Portcus the Rouge. Yeah.

Who, in a medical feat no one has quite done before or since, kept Ace in her womb for 20 months, which is 11 more than what you typically want to do in an effort to, you know, protect her son, who to kind of prevent a slaughter of the innocents kind of situation here. You know, the world government slash Herod going after Ace or Jesus in this scenario.

And was able to actually give birth to him and then put him under the care of Garp.

After all this was said and done and we didn't go to the present and find that Whitebeard is on his way to Marineford, he's going to try and get Ace, who has become a surrogate son to him as well. After he joined his crew. Luffy is. Their gang is still heading that way.

And you know, the Ivankov kind of is one moment like, is Dragon going to be coming here? Because this is a huge moment. It'd be like a huge propaganda win if they went that way. There's also like speculation. Will Shanks show up?

You know, it's been 500 some chapters. Will he actually appear and do something in this manga? Well, turns out, wait till the end.

And in the process of all this, Whitebeard makes his big entrance, uses his devil fruit which just creates earthquakes, disrupts everyone there. And the battle pretty much begins. We have Admiral Kiji coming in. We have Marco joining in on the fight as well from the Whitebeard side of things.

And we have the Warlords of the sea there who are also there for the execution. And there's some pick fights with the people invading. Some people join their side. Some people just kind of do their own thing.

Gecko Moria ends up fighting with. Who is it? Is it Ace? No, no. He hasn't been freed yet. I can't remember. But in the midst of all this, he sends his goons against everyone.

Doflamingo's doing his own thing. And this is at the point where Luffy and the gang actually like cause chaos.

They enter the scene and just start beating up on some people who really deserve it all for the sake of saving Ace. And just. It's a giant melee of. We're on this side right now. We're on this side. The second time this happens. Who knows where allegiances lie.

Luffy meets up with Whitebeard. They have a nice little talk in the midst of all this. Like, Bo is real happy that Luffy's made It his revelations about oh, Luffy's dad is Dragon.

This is revealed to the entire world. And Luffy doesn't care. He had in fact told his group earlier. Yeah, he's my dad. Who cares. It goes Gear three. Oh, Jinbei is the one who attacks Moria.

That's gotta love Jim. Such a great guy. Maybe a worthy person of adding to the team. Who knows. And yeah, Luffy faces off against Mihawk for a little bit.

He's kind of associated with world government. Kind of not, but kind of doing his own thing. Just looking for a strongest person to fight.

This is when Sengoku releases all the pacifista against everyone to try and quell this attack. Quell this rebellion. And Whitebeard gets stabbed a couple of times, but never in the back. And that's super important for it to happen later.

Crocodile, of course joins in with the brawl. Like whose side is he on? Crocodiles? And in the midst of all this, they finally get over to where the Admirals are standing.

Luffy, alone for a moment is there just so we can get Ace out. And eventually through the process, Ace is freed from this after kind of Whitebeard and then Akainu fight one another.

Buggy, of course, is doing his own thing, causing chaos. And he's got a bit a bunch of groupies who like love him now, who think that everything he did was planned.

And Buggy, of course is not gonna be the person telling that he didn't plan any of this. But the moment that kind of breaks the moment for where things are gonna go better for the good guys side.

Luffy unleashes Supreme King Haki unwittingly and like just brings it to the point where he's able to get to Ace after Garp kind of takes a dive and lets Luffy hit him, but doesn't actually fight at full strength because you know, he's once again like following the law or saving my kid. He's gonna let his kid punch him in the face. And Ace is free. And the two brothers are fighting side by side as Whitebeard is continuing his assault.

Until Akainu gets in and talks bad talks smack about Whitebeard. And as they're about to get away, Ace turns around and takes a blow for Luffy. And apparently someone dies in one piece for the first time ever.

Death never existed in the world until this moment in time.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:01

I never knew about that that thing. Like I had never occurred to me that people weren't dying until you guys started recording these episodes.

Like I just never Knew that ace was the first person to die in one piece.

TJ Blackwell: 00:13:11

Yeah, like two people have died in the series so far. 3. Yeah, as of chapter. Yeah, whatever. A thousand.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:19

Yeah. This is insane. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, you weren't done.

Christian Ashley: 00:13:24

Yeah, yeah. So like with his final words, he's like, mention Ace, mentions Luffy and Sabo and Whis this. Who is Sabo? We'll find out in a little bit.

Not this episode, but next time around. And his fever card just ends up in flames. And Ace is gone for good. And then Blackbeard shows up on the scene, attacks.

Whitebeard is still fighting against the Marines. It's pretty much one man army, just murking some fools. But even he can only go so long. And in the process he himself does end up dying.

And I'm trying to get to. Oh, I think right before then. No, no, it's a little after then.

That's when Shanks shows up on the scene and says, hey, by the way, this battle's over. Because I'm Shanks. So that's pretty much how he shows up.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:14

And he's like, no more.

Christian Ashley: 00:14:16

Everybody shut up. Blackbeard has stolen, which is wholly unprecedented, the devil Fruit of Whitebeard. Because you're only supposed to have one at a time.

How does that work? We'll still haven't figured out. We still got hundreds of chapters to go.

And this is when one of his things before he does go, Whitebeard does say the One Piece is real. Which then starts the new great age of pirates. And that is how we end this arc after skipping a lot.

Joshua Noel: 00:14:45

Yeah. If you want an even shorter version. My attempt. Luffy. For those who remember, the group that's with him is not his own pirate crew.

They're still making themselves better. He's with the prisoners from Impel Down. Luffy. And people run to save Ace. Other people show up to save Ace.

Other people show up to keep them from saving Ace. Luffy's will is so strong, people just fall down. He saves Ace, but then JK Lava man punches through, kills them both. It's sad. Fight still happens.

Shank shows up, not kills them both. Kills Ace. Kills them both. It seems like Luffy's dead for a second though. You're like, what the hell? Anyway, what a twist. Kills Ace. Luffy's alive.

Maybe he's alive. It doesn't seem like it. Shanks, guy with red hair who had the original straw hat from like way back. Y'all probably don't remember.

He shows up, says, hey guys, this fight's over and everybody's like, yeah, he probably right. And then it is.

Christian Ashley: 00:16:52

Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:53

And I. I would like to say Christian mentioned it, but someone did. Do, like, the math.

Whitebeard had 267 sword wounds, 152 gunshot wounds, 46 cannonball wounds. Got half of his head blasted off and got hit with an actual laser beam before he died.

Christian Ashley: 00:17:16

Still standing. Never once hit in the back.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:19

Yeah, he. For those who don't like, who want the context of who Whitebeard is, he's like giant guy, the most honorable pirate.

Maybe a lot of people are just like pirates with him because, like, they like him. Like, it really is just like, he's cool. And then he shows up and it's just.

Yeah, like Christian mentioned, he's like literally a one man army fighting all these people. And yeah, it takes a while to bring down.

TJ Blackwell: 00:17:43

He's also. He's also not a one man army because he does have an entire army. Yeah. So it's basically like fighting two armies.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:51

Yeah. Was actually a war. And it wasn't like, hey, this is a couple episodes of fighting. Nah, y'all. This was like a really long arc of just fighting.

Oh, man. So I mentioned, like, I think I've said elsewhere. There's been like three to four times I have cried because of a television show.

This has been the worst. And part of what got me really was like, it felt like Luffy saved Ace.

And for this time, up to now, like, for the most part, if Luffy wants something bad enough, willpower gets him there. And I really thought. I was like, oh, cool, he saved Ace and then. Nope. And it, like, I don't know, it felt like my heart was pulled out.

My first reaction to this was like rewatching to see if I missed something, that there's a way he's still alive. And just like, no. And like, I just. I don't know. There's only been like a few times when I binged one piece that I had to stop. This was one of them.

I was like, I. I was a mess after seeing this. I was like, I gotta. I gotta sit on this. I gotta recuperate. This is rough. So I'm gonna throw it to you guys.

Liz hasn't talked much. Let's start with her. What was your first reaction? You finished this arc and you didn't die? Apparently. My heart almost gave out. But what was your.

What was yours?

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:19:04

Gosh. Because how. How many years ago did this come out? I feel like Christian randomly.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:08

I have no idea.

Christian Ashley: 00:19:11

ould have been somewhere from: 2008

Joshua Noel: 00:19:18

I saw it while I was in college.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:19:20

Okay. So I was probably because I was up to date. I remember because you then you had to like, wait.

So, okay, I was around either 16 to 18 seeing this, and I was not okay.

TJ Blackwell: 00:19:33

to: 2011

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:19:35

Ye. So, okay, so if it's: 2010

Joshua Noel: 00:19:41

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:19:42

Like, this is one of the few times I've cried over. Like now as I grew older. I cry over anything now. Stupid hormones. But like, as a child, a little 18 year old baby, I did not cry at all.

And I wept and I was not okay. And then you just kind of made it like less fun. You know what I mean? It's like, no, we're not supposed to lose. We're the good guys, you know?

Joshua Noel: 00:20:06

Yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:20:07

But. But I respect that. You know, I respect with what Oda did.

And even though it's like one of those things, like, I was just talking about Titanic the other day. I've rewatched one piece since then, at least like one one other time through this.

And even though you know it's going to happen, it's the same feeling I get with the Lion King, Titanic. I'm like, like, you want Mufasa to live. Like, you don't want. You want Scar to not let go. You want Jack to get on the door.

You just want Ace to survive. So just kind of having that feeling.

I'm sure if we all rewatched the episode today, we would still have the same hopeful feeling just for it to get crushed again.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:45

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:46

I don't know.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:47

For me, a lot of modern movies and I include Titanic because I don't get it.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:20:51

It's not Jack could have fit on that dang door.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:53

Yeah. But the whole movie is just so boring. It's just hard to care. But I digress. I don't know.

So many times with movies specifically, like, just in general movies, I guess because it's like everything's crammed in so much when characters die. Like, sometimes I'm like, oh, that sucks. But I'm never like, I don't know. This felt personal. Like, it felt like someone I knew died.

I was like, what is this? Like, I didn't know TV could make me feel this way. Yeah. I don't know. Tj, what about you? What was your first reaction?

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:20

The thing is, like, Ace isn't even a straw. Like, Ace does not have A lot of screen time up to this point.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:26

Yeah, true.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:27

Like, imagine if a straw hat died.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:29

Don't make me think about that, because it's going to happen.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:21:32

It kind of makes me think, too, because Ace, even though he wasn't a straw hat, like, Luffy was completely and utterly devastated. And at least with me, like, I've lost a sibling. And, yes, that sucks, and it hurts.

But what hurts a lot, too, is when someone really close to you hurts and there's nothing you can do. So I feel like we kind of, like, had that sympathetic. You know what I mean?

Like, when we're hurting, we can process our emotions, and we can, like, you know, we have a sense of control. But then when someone super close to you hurts, that feeling of helplessness. There's very few things that's worse than that.

Joshua Noel: 00:22:08

Yeah. Well, my biggest mistake, going into one piece, a friend of all but Christian's actually. I think, actually Christian played a game with him once.

It counts as a friend. So. Israel Eiler, shout out to you. We love you.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:22:20

Oh, I know him.

Joshua Noel: 00:22:21

He's what made me. He made me start this show.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:22:24

I made him start it.

Joshua Noel: 00:22:25

I know we've been through this, but he made me start because he was like, the main character is you. And, like, I started watching it, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I relate to this guy. So I've gone through this whole show.

Like, everything Luffy feels, I feel for the most part, because, like, I just went into it with that mindset. So then this happening, I think, is probably why it felt so personal. I was like, I. I kind of hate this.

And then, like, I'm immediately like, what if my brother died and I had to, like, watch it and he died to save me? And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to think about this.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:22:51

Yeah, Moving on, Christian.

Joshua Noel: 00:22:54

Oh, I thought you literally meant moving on.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:22:56

No, I'm just saying, like, moving on from, like, that.

Like, if you think about how he processed, because, I mean, I mean, I guess his therapist is deceived, but he has no one to, like, give grief counseling.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:08

Yeah. Christian, what. How did you. What junk food did you eat when you were weeping after this? I don't know. How did you process this?

Christian Ashley: 00:23:16

Well, as noted on the show before, this was my actual full introduction into one piece. I knew it existed. I knew it had played on Cartoon Network with the Terrible four Kids dub, but I'd never actually watched it.

And then out of the blue, I decided one day I was just gonna check out a chapter, and it was the chapter where Whitebeard died.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:35

What a chapter. What a chapter.

Christian Ashley: 00:23:38

And I'm going through a list of this. This man took this many slashes. He took this many gunshots or cannonballs, and not a single thing on his back. I'm like, what a Chad. Who's this guy?

Let me learn what's going on here.

I went back and read everything, and now, in context of getting picking up to where the manga actually was at that time, I was like, oh, oh, this matters a lot. This is raising the stakes in a good way. This is not a senseless death. This is something where it impacts everyone in the story.

If Ace does not die here. If Ace lives. Yeah. I would rather that happen. But as from a storytelling perspective, this changes Luffy forever.

He cannot always be as goofy as he used to be, cannot always react to things in the same way. He needs to plan a little better. He needs to be a little stronger. He wasn't strong enough to do this.

And that's going to be a huge part of his character progression as we go on here. As he becomes more of a character in these past couple arcs, as opposed to the very beginning.

Not to say he was never a character, but, like, he grows far more because of what happens here. The entire world has changed because of what happens here. And it's done so effectively.

Well, like, without the buildup of what came before, this arc does not have the impact that it does.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:54

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:56

For sure.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:56

That makes sense.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:57

Then I'm pretty sure that I blocked this out. Like, I'm fairly certain I suppress the memory of seeing this for the first time.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:05

You just traumatized by this. Is that what we're finding out?

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:08

Maybe. Because I definitely watched the 4 kids dub of this growing up and then just didn't for a little while.

And one day picked one piece back up and just started from scratch. So, you know, I would, like, remember bits and pieces as I was catching up.

And I'm pretty sure that I read Marineford in your car when we were going somewhere. Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:32

That's awful. What a terrible drive. Ready?

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:36

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:37

Nowhere. Doesn't matter where you go after that. It's not gonna be a fun time.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:40

Yeah. I just put the phone down.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:42

Yeah, that's. That's wise.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:44

Yeah. I don't remember where we were going or.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:49

Yeah. How could you? Like, I don't think any real life experience really measures up to this part of the story.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:56

And it's like a crazy bad timing because it only took me a few weeks to catch up.

Joshua Noel: 00:26:02

Yeah.

I so something that was brought up in this that I hadn't thought of, that I'm just thinking of on the spot, and I'm going to make everybody else contemplate with me and see what they think. Whitebeard and Ace both die in this arc. And it's interesting. Like, Ace is the one that we feel that's, like, devastating.

But Whitebeard is really, like, the more important character. Like, he is, like, pivotal to the. To the world. And what I'm thinking of is, like, I had family members die and how much that hurt me.

And yet when Tim Keller died. So he's like a hero of the Christian faith, in my opinion, it affected me differently.

Like, I wasn't grieved, but you feel like there's, like, there's something missing in the world, and I feel like that's kind of what happens here. There's something missing in the world with Whitebeard gone. But you more feel Luffy's death is that. I don't know. Is that analysis? Does that work?

Christian Ashley: 00:26:51

Yeah, I think it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I'll always go back to the day I learned that Steve Irwin died. That man was my hero growing up. I had never met Steve.

You know, I shook his hand. I had only seen him on the Crocodile Hunter. It's like, oh, my gosh, this man cares about animals. He cares about his job.

He cares about, you know, making the world a better place.

And I was on a plane going to New York with my dad, and on the TV in front of me, and the scene in front of me, I saw on cnn, I was flipping through channels, he was dead. And it was just like I had lost a piece of myself. And it wasn't like, yeah, he wasn't a family member.

I had no personal relationship with him, but it was still a loss in the same way.

So I get that, like, in framework of the world, there's a huge power vacuum that is now there in the world because Whitebeard isn't in charge of the Whitebeard pirates yet. Okay, who's going to take the spoils, as it were?

And Blackbeard literally takes the spoils of his devil fruit, which is supposed to appear someone else somewhere else in the world later on and is now proven that you can in some way have more than one like him. Not being there affects everyone.

Joshua Noel: 00:27:52

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:27:53

I felt this way twice, I think three times. And it's Kentaro Miura's death, Toriyama's death.

And the third time, it wasn't as bad, but when the creator of Yu Gi oh died, that messed me up for a day.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:07

Yeah, well. So, yeah, this is fun. We're just gonna be contemplating death. Hopefully this releases and it's still the season of Lenten. This makes perfect sense.

It was funny. I remember when Steve Irwin died, it was the first time I ever actually had to think about what is death.

Like, I was young enough that I would, like, that was the first person that I like, was aware enough of who they were that death meant anything, if that makes sense. I mean, for other people, it was like, okay, so that just means someone was here and then they weren't here.

And, like, it wasn't till Steve Irwin died that I was like, oh, he's not here.

And then I remember feeling something really similar to all this when someone who's been on our other podcast a few times, the whole church podcast, we had a guest, Michael Heiser, who I love his biblical work, even if I disagree with the thought some of it. When he passed away, it's like, oh, we're not going to have him as a guest on our show this year, I guess, obviously.

And that, I don't know, that hit me in a different way. Probably very similar to when Tim Keller passed or Whitebeard in the story. And I don't know, it's just so weird when heroes are the ones that go.

Because you're like, they're supposed to go forever. What do you mean? Michael Eisen can't be gone. He's got another book I have to read next year. It's like, no, guess not. It's just rough.

I don't know where to go from here. Anybody else have something to say or, like, I don't know, it feels revelant to just, let's go to the next thing.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:29:27

I can't really relate and this is going to sound like I'm being a Debbie Downer, but because I've had so many personal people in my personal life die. Siblings, best friends. Like, yeah, all that stuff when people I don't know die.

Like, granted, like, if I'm invested in the show, I get sad in the moment, but I don't carry it.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:47

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's just different feelings because I know. So another shout out. Someone I used to do ministry with, J.C.

prescott, was about my age and he had a heart attack and he died. And that, for me, that was hard. Obviously, a grandparents and other family members pass away and it is hard.

Harder, I will say, when it's someone you know, I think it's a lot harder.

But I feel like it's a different kind of loss because it's not as sad or it doesn't hurt as much for me when, like, Michael Heiser or Tim Keller passed away. But the world does feel emptier afterwards. I don't know. And that's just, I don't know, a challenge of living. And that's where, you know, I go to.

Apparently. I've been learning a lot. Some of my own philosophies. I now have, like, words for where they come from. Thanks to our friend Aaron Simmons.

It's a Levinas thing of, like, I don't think of myself or anybody as, like, single things. Like, I don't just exist. I exist because of my relationships. And this is going to go to a C.S. lewis thing, and it's going to be about death.

So it's fine. In the Four Loves, which I have to bring up a lot, C.S.

lewis, when he talks about friendship, he talks about how, like, if someone dies, you don't just lose that person, you lose that part of someone else that they brought out. So, for example, Christian. I'm sorry to do this. If Christian were to die, I would be super sad about Christian being gone.

But also, there's a part of TJ that does not come out unless Christian is around. And now, even though TJ's alive, I will never have that part of TJ around anymore. And I think, what happens when these big heroes die?

There's something that, like when I'm reading a Tim Keller book like that, it changes part of me and changes part of the other people in our religious communities when he writes something that's not going to happen anymore.

So even though I don't personally feel that death, a lot of my people around me who are impacted by his words and what he does, I'm suddenly losing parts of them. And I don't have words to that because it's like, I didn't know Tim Keller, but it still is personally affecting me in that way.

I think that's kind of part of what's happening here. Okay, let's move on from. Let's move on from death 0 to 10. How would you rate Ace's death, TJ?

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:29

10. Perfect. No notes, kill him twice.

Christian Ashley: 00:32:34

You gave TJ the opportunity. He'd do it himself.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:41

I don't know why. I didn't expect that at all. Liz, are you. Are you as positive?

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:32:51

I mean, we wouldn't have had the character development without this. So I'll give it a 9.8.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:56

Okay.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:32:57

As I said before we started recording, I wish I would have thought to eat donuts during this episode.

Joshua Noel: 00:33:03

I hate you for that, Christian.

Christian Ashley: 00:33:06

She's a monster. But she's our monster.

Joshua Noel: 00:33:10

Are you killing Ace twice as well? Or.

Christian Ashley: 00:33:13

I mean, why not go for three? Perfect number. No. 7. Perfect number. 10 out of 10. This is a completely earned arc.

If we do not, like I said earlier, if we don't have everything that is established beforehand, this has no impact whatsoever.

But because we know of Luffy's weird relationship with his family, how Garp is feeling about the situation, how Whitebeard and Ace feel about the situation, and then the other 50 plus characters that are in this arc, how they feel. It matters what happens here. And one piece still hasn't recovered in the same way, even with time skips because of what happens here.

And I mean that in a good way.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:52

Yeah, I. I just. I want to say, like, by this point, Ace's Death is chapter574.574 chapters into most other series you have finished.

You're done with the series by that point. Every emotion that that series put you through is. Is done. Like Naruto in its entirety is like 700 chapters.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:14

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna do my rating. Weird. Because you guys know I compare things. That's how I do ratings. Comparing it to other things.

Here are the list of deaths that I think are the absolute best that this goes with. And I'm talking about, like, even books. Books don't usually make me feel this. This. I put it with Gwen Stacy dying in Spider Man. I put it with.

Actually, there's probably two times in Doctor who that there's deaths that make me think of this. Galateo, the book by Miller. I can't remember her first name for some reason. That goes up there.

There's just not a lot of deaths that story wise, make this big of an impact. Emotionally make this big of an impact for me or actually feel like they mattered. I don't know.

Like so many times in a story someone dies and it's like, okay, it doesn't really matter. The main point was something else. The main point isn't the death.

You can watch this arc if you have the context of what's happening and it has a point to itself. Like it's not just to do something else. Like, yes, it does have big impacts and it does more for the story, but this story stands on its own as well.

And the death matters. So I'm going to give it a zero out of ten.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:35:19

Oh my God.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:19

Because listen, I'm averaging my two ratings. I hated watching it so much that I'm giving it a negative 10. But it moved me so much and I realized what a great story it was.

I'm giving it a positive 10. So I'm going to average the two. No, I'm just kidding. It's a 10 out of 10.

I just also want to just express how much I hate that this put me through this. For some reason.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:40

I want to say, well, that's what.

Christian Ashley: 00:35:42

A good story does.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:43

I just wanted a silly little pirate show.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:46

Wrong.

Christian Ashley: 00:35:46

Go ahead, D.J.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:48

I did look it up just to see, like, there are series that are longer than one piece that are still ongoing. I think there's maybe two on the list that people have.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:35:58

One, Detective Conan.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:00

Is Detective Conan still ongoing? It's not.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:36:03

It's not okay.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:04

Or it doesn't have more towels than one piece. It might still be going okay.

But the only ones that I recognize that are ongoing with more chapters than one piece are Hajimeno Ippo, which is an absolute classic, and Grappler Baki. Apparently Baki counts as one series.

Christian Ashley: 00:36:26

Talk about your whiplash in series. What? So good. So stupid.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:31

Okay, guys, so if we all had to choose a favorite character, favorite fight, and a favorite scene from this arc, what are you gonna say? Tj, we'll start with you. Sorry.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:42

Scene. Favorite scene is definitely Luffy Ivankov, the impel down prisoners entering the battle. For sure. He's like, it's so good.

Maybe I would say Whitebeard using his devil fruit for the first time. Because that was absolutely insane. Nobody knew, like, as audience members what that could do yet. So that was absolutely nuts to watch. Character wise.

That's hard to say.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:11

Just in probably arc in this arc of all time.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's hard. It's really hard.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:17

Yeah, it is.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:19

What's a good problem to have?

Joshua Noel: 00:37:20

Yeah, Christian. Who?

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:22

Marco.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:23

Marco, Pineapple head.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:26

Yeah. All right, Christian, I knew you were biting at the bit.

Christian Ashley: 00:37:31

White beard. White beard and white beard are my answers to all three. No, in seriousness. Yes to all three.

His, like, he's gotten some build up before, but now we actually see the man in action and wow, Oda delivered and then some here. Like Shanks has a lot to live up to. Dragon has a lot to live up to as time goes on. Because if this is the precedent they need to be better than him.

And how their future fights and introductions are handled later on in the series. Because this man has class. This man has strength. This man has the love and faith of his crew.

And then he proves it by going out in the line for them to save one person. I mean, talk about, you know, going from the 99 to save the 1.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:14

So true.

Christian Ashley: 00:38:15

And it did it. That's a man that I could see myself being under leadership with.

Like, if you can inspire that much confidence in the people working under you, I want to be. I like, I want to learn under you. How do you get things done? How can I be better about leading myself? Whitebeard does that and more.

His death, perfect. I mean, yeah. Still standing. All the blows on the front, none on the back, because he's just that good.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:40

His death reminds me of. Is it Bohemir in Fellowship who gets shot twice? Am I thinking. Yeah, Boromir.

Christian Ashley: 00:38:48

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:49

Yeah. That's what it makes me think of.

Christian Ashley: 00:38:51

I'm going to the helm, Hammer hand in the newest movie kind of scenario.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:56

Yeah. Well, we're going to save the best for last. So Liz will go after me. My favorite character in this is also Whitebeard. I have to agree with Christian.

I don't do it a lot, but here. Yeah, he's right. I do have to ask a question, though, because I might be wrong about my own choice. They.

Did they show some of the backstory with Whitebeard in this arc, or is that somewhere else that we see that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:15

That'S in this arc?

Joshua Noel: 00:39:16

Yeah, I thought so.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:17

Or unless. What do you mean with him?

Christian Ashley: 00:39:20

And I remember.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:21

Yeah, I remember seeing some of, like, what happened before, and you kind of realize that, like, again, in this world, pirate doesn't mean what you think it means all the time. It just kind of seeming that he's like, he is who he is because he cares, not because he's after the one piece. Apparently, he knows it exists.

He's not after it. Yeah, he's not after power. He has power. He doesn't need any more power. Like, he is after a relationship. And like you said, he left the 99 for the 1.

And I'm like, ah, man, the amount of just gall, integrity, and just love that that takes. And for love to be shown so masculine. Like, I don't like to talk about masculinity a lot, but, like, toxic masculinity is everywhere.

Wimpy men are everywhere in tv because people don't understand that the difference of toxic masculinity isn't not being masculine. No. This is the most masculine character, I think, maybe ever. And it's because of his love. And I'm like, yeah, that's how you do It.

That is how you do it. So, yeah. Favorite character right there. Favorite scene. Actually, I'm gonna go.

Because, again, you know, the most impactful scene is no one's favorite because it's awful. Until Liz says that's her favorite, and then I'm just gonna die.

But no, my favorite scene is when Luffy knows Ace is about to be executed, and all of a sudden, all his will just boom. And everyone just falls over. Like, the way that. That was animated and everything, I was like, yeah, that was freaking cool. My favorite fight scene.

I'm cheating. It's literally every single time Jim BAE fights. I love his fighting style. I wish they brought him back in future arcs because he's so cool.

But who knows if they do?

TJ Blackwell: 00:40:54

Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:40:56

Yeah. It'd be such a wasted opportunity if they didn't.

Joshua Noel: 00:40:59

It really would. It would. All right, Liz, bring us home. Favorite character. Favorite scene. Favorite fight.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:04

All right. Favorite scene would be. Because I enjoy all the memes because I have a dark sense of humor. Is when he becomes a donut. Because my. And I've sent this.

Christian Ashley: 00:41:18

It is.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:19

And I've sent this to other.

I think I've sent this to Christian before, especially when the guy, like, he's the Marina shaking hands through Ace with the guy who also made the donut with Demon Slaver. And it's like, great work. You, too. And I just love all the dark memes of the donut. Absolutely. So that has.

TJ Blackwell: 00:41:38

I've seen, like, surprising.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:41

It helps me keep with my.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:42

I'm canceling systematic ecology.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:44

I don't care.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:45

Cancel culture. Coming back.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:46

Favorite scene. Because it. Like, this is how some people cope with grief through humor.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:52

Okay. Okay.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:53

And so you can press whatever you want.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:57

Favorite character.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:41:58

So I think, if I remember correctly, I think Garp is at Marine Fold. Right? Yeah. So I'm my favorite character because they just. The emotional, like, damage he probably felt on the inside, but he couldn't show it.

You know what I mean? Like, he literally sees, like, someone he loves dear. But, like, because he chose. I mean, unpopular opinion. Did he choose the right side?

Did he do the right thing? But the man made a choice and he stuck to it because he is thinking of the bigger picture and the long game.

And, you know, so I have respect for Garp. So he's my favorite character. I can only imagine, as I mentioned earlier, like, you know, you hurt when it's you, but when someone else hurts.

So not only is he hurting, but now he has to see his grandson hurting and all, like, the impact that he has to carry and the decision that he made or the what not to do, you know, so like that. Whoa. And then favorite fight scene, fight. I will also say like when Luffy was fighting and then just.

I'm just such a dark person and I don't understand because I'm pretty happy. But like, just like when Luffy thought he got away and then the despair that happened on his face, that's also the favorite, like, you know.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:14

Yeah. I mean, the favorite fight, it was so well done. I get it.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:43:18

It was because it just hurts too.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:19

Much to choose it for me.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:43:21

And because life doesn't work out the way you want to. And so I think it was especially like, because like I said, I was 18, but these 12 year olds watching.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:30

Yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:43:31

You gotta learn young. You know, apparently people die and they don't come back.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:36

I am also going to shock everyone and agree with something that Liz said in all this. Garp is a second, like a close second for me with favorite character.

Christian Ashley: 00:43:46

Just.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:46

Just the solid what it again, integrity. The integrity it takes to say, listen, I believe the right thing to do is to stand with the government.

Because that's what he genuinely believes is correct. But he also isn't about to kill his kid.

And instead of being like Joe Biden and being like, I'm just going to pardon everyone last minute, Garp actually has integrity. And he says, I'm going to do what I think is right. But I might half ass it because I know what the outcome I want to be.

So I'm just going to barely do what I think is right.

Christian Ashley: 00:44:14

I'm gonna let Luffy hit me.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:16

Yeah.

Christian Ashley: 00:44:16

Just so we can let it happen.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:18

I did my job stuff, technically. I just love that he like lawyered them. I was like, this is great. Yeah. Technically, I did what I was told to do.

TJ Blackwell: 00:44:29

Yeah. I tried. I did my best as far as kids. Just strong. Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:36

God. Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:44:37

So except these guys, like, they definitely think of Garp more like we do currently. And they're probably so ma.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:46

Oh, that's so funny. That's true. But all right.

I know we already touched on some of the big, big themes and stuff, but I want to go back over them because they're so important. And again, I really hope this episode comes out during the season of Lent.

Like I joked earlier, but I think it actually is meaningful that we have in the church, you know, high liturgical anyway, a season dedicated to thinking about our own mortality and our own shortcomings. So I think that's important. But so two things. First, I'm gonna start with the lighter one.

A lot of this, a lot of the show, and a lot of this arc revolves around willpower. Luffy is going to save Ace despite the entire world government. Why? Because he simply has that much will.

And if you want something bad enough, you can just make it happen. And then, as Liz pointed out, good guys don't always win. So a lot of this arc does revolve around that theme of like, can willpower be enough?

She's shaking her head violently. No, this isn't on YouTube. I have to tell you guys. Liz, give us your wisdom. Is willpower ever enough, even in a world where it actually has power?

Apparently, no.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:45:48

Absolutely not. Because you cannot change the law. You cannot defy gravity. You are not God. So willpower, you are very limited. You are not limitless.

You're very finite. So you pretty much suck my love.

Christian Ashley: 00:46:01

All right.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:46:02

How I feel. But I mean, granted, your willpower and your attitude can affect how you handle the situation though, of the outcome.

Joshua Noel: 00:46:10

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:46:11

So it's important, but it's not going to change crap. It can change you, but you can't change the situation all the time.

Joshua Noel: 00:46:18

I do think willpower goes a lot further than many of us postmodernist thoughts give it credit for, if that makes sense. I think a lot of times we're like, everything's just science based facts. You do the right thing, don't do right thing. Everything is a cold choice.

And actually I think how much will, how much umph, how much heart, how much passion we put into something actually does matter, but it can't be enough on its own, despite what Spider man comics sometimes tell us. Speaking of Spider man comics, Christian, what's your thoughts?

Christian Ashley: 00:46:50

I was just about to say one of the best moments in the early Steve Ditko and Stanley Run is Spider man underneath a bunch of broken equipment that's about to be underwater. He's going to drown after just fighting Dr. Octopus. He's weak, he's broken, he's beaten. But he's got to get out of there. He's got to deliver a cure.

Otherwise Aunt May is going to die for the 75th time this year. And if he doesn't do that, he's lost his hand and he himself is going to die.

And he's already tried lifting him up, but I can't do it until he thinks about all of his responsibility, about all the lives that he saved, about all the things that he could do in his life. And that's when it comes in and gives him enough strength to give him enough purpose to get out.

And that's such a great scene there, because it works in context there.

But in regards to the question itself, Shonen rightfully has a stereotype in it where, you know your main character, they can do anything if they've got the power of friendship and if they just believe in themselves. And friendship is magical. Yes. Oh, indeed it is. There are plenty of manga and anime I could call out for doing that.

But the general idea is, well, you need to have belief in yourself and what you're going to do. You need to have the ability to overcome odds.

And that comes from, hey, something is wrong, I need to work against it, or something needs to get done, I can be the one to do it. That's a good lesson to teach kids. But what one piece does well here is, yeah, that can apply here.

But if you don't have enough resources, if you don't arrive at the right time, if you don't fight well enough, you can fail. Willpower isn't enough. You need better intel, you need better plans. You need better people at your side to take care of things.

Like, if the crew were here, I think Ace would have been saved. But because of what happened, there was no way he could have recruited the crew because he has no clue where they are.

But I'm just saying, like, if they were there, this would have been different. But because he didn't have all the resources available to him, he was having to make up plans on the fly.

He had all these people working against him actively. Luffy can't finish the job, so his willpower isn't enough. And that's a fine lesson to teach.

Joshua Noel: 00:48:57

I'm going to say here. I desperately want our Facebook group to vote the next what if episode to be what if the crew was at the summit war? And I'll tell you my answer.

The short version is just, Zorro would have died instead. Tj.

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:49:12

I would have been more upset if Zorro died than Ace died. Unpopular opinion.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:16

I would have too. But I could see it because I know Zorro's. I just feel like I understand Zoro's heart enough.

Because I think of Zorro as tj, and I'm like, no, that's what would happen. He would have said he would have sacrificed himself first. Because again, integrity is such a big part of the show.

Christian Ashley: 00:49:32

Especially Mihawk is there and he's not ready to face him again. And that's inevitably what probably would have caused it this time.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:38

Yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:49:39

Zoro wouldn't have died, though. Not from Akainu.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:41

He has too much will. He wouldn't have died. Tj, is willpower ever enough?

TJ Blackwell: 00:49:45

Yeah, sometimes.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:48

All right, so my take is going to be a little bit longer, obviously, because that's what I'm known for, apparently. I think I really love that Spider man. And even one piece does a great job of showing us so many times. Willpower does make such a huge difference.

If you have the will to do something, if it's in your heart, a lot of the times you can manifest stuff. I agree with some of that.

Not necessarily on a spiritual level, but I think a lot of times why we aren't successful in what we do is because especially Americans, we half ass so much of what we do, which is why Garp wasn't successful. Man, if he would have tried harder, Ace would have gotten executed.

But I think one of the things that's interesting to think about here, though, is in I'm going to pronounce it wrong is alabaster. Is that the other arc I'm thinking of with Croc?

Christian Ashley: 00:50:34

Alabasta.

Joshua Noel: 00:50:35

Yeah. Yeah. Luffy did win because of willpower, but also a little bit of luck because it just happened that blood being on his fist allowed him to hit Croc.

But, like, he didn't change anything that he did. He just kept using willpower. And we saw there that it was almost not a enough. But he was lucky here. He wasn't lucky. That's.

I think that's a big difference.

I also am going to put this a little bit on the God spin on it because I think a lot of Christians preach prosperity gospel kind of stuff of like, oh, man, if you're just in God, all things are possible. So whatever you want, if you believe in God, it's going to happen. That's not what that verse is talking about. First of all, shut up.

Second of all, that's not true. And I also don't agree with the other side. Like, we have friends that are more process, open relational theology.

You know, Tom Ord's a good friend of me and TJ's, and the way that he explains it is like, oh, God just can't do it. So even if you're working with him, the reason it didn't happen is because God can't do it. I don't know if I agree with that.

I think we're just thinking incorrectly about the kind of power of God and the kind of what God is. I think we just assume God is so much like us that it's like, decisions and everything work exactly the same, except for he can do whatever he wants.

And I'm just like, yeah, that's. That's just probably a wrong way of thinking about God, but I do think it's more complicated because it is hard to explain, right?

Like, if I pray and, like, I love God, why would God's plan involve someone being raped? Obviously, that makes no sense. He's powerful enough. He can stop it. I'm willing to stop it. I have the willpower. God has the power.

Why is it not being stopped? I don't think there's easy answers for a lot of stuff, and I don't think one piece ever gives us easy answers in the stories that it tells either.

And I like that because I think sometimes we just have to accept that there's not easy answers and to just be. God is love. God is present. And sometimes I don't need to know all the other details again.

You know, I go to Lao Tzu when he says, like, not to respect the clever, not to overthink things.

And I think part of what he teaches that I think is really relevant even, especially to us Christians in the Western world, is you fill yourself up so much with knowledge and so much of, like, here's the rules of how God works or how God doesn't work, that, like, everything becomes confusing. It doesn't make sense. And now you're like, well, God must not be real because he doesn't fit this box that I made him.

And I'm like, no, be in relationship with others. Be in relationship with God. What do you need to know? God is present right now. Sometimes the other stuff might not make sense. Okay?

Sometimes just accept that it doesn't make sense. Like, it's good to study God. Theology is important. I have a whole podcast about theology. I care a lot about it.

But I also realize that sometimes you just need to accept God is there. This story wasn't real. If it were, Ace died. There's no way that Ace should have died.

There's no way the world government should have come out on top of this. It makes no sense. But guess what? God was present. Okay? Just accept it. I think that's an important thing.

In all of our deaths, you know, this story, what it's asking us to contemplate is death. And in the season of Lent, sometimes it's hard to think about your own mortality or those who have gone before us. You know, Liz mentioned her sister.

I think I've mentioned my grandparents. We mentioned Steve Irwin, Tim Keller, all these People who died, who made an impact in our lives.

And I think trying to make sense of it sometimes belittles the death instead of just saying it happened. But I want to open to you guys death in general or just in the story. How do you think about death? And how does one person's life and death.

You know, Ace wasn't the biggest character in the world, but how does one person's life and death make an impact? And how do we think about it here in the Season of Lent and in our lives? Tj?

Christian Ashley: 00:53:55

Well, I'll take it from the writing side of things. All night. Nope, go ahead.

Joshua Noel: 00:54:01

You were prepared.

Christian Ashley: 00:54:02

Yeah, I'll take it from the writing side of things. Like when you're writing a story, especially on the more supernatural Fido Fido kind of side of things, people need to dive for stakes to be there.

There needs to be the threat of death. At the very least, you need to believe that it's possible for the characters not to make it out alive.

Otherwise, you've got a boring story where, you know, my super awesome main character who has no flaws whatsoever and gets all the superpowers and is the best is. It's just better than that. Well, true, I have a character who.

Who has the ability to mimic other powers and stuff like that and can do stuff like that. But I have to make things believable. I have to give him weaknesses. I have to give ways that he can be used, people can work against him.

Well, to utilize lesser parts of his aspects to make things work. But also at the same time, you've got to have side characters and supporting characters who are. Have important roles to play in the story.

Who you want, who you would care if they die. Like, if you're just writing a story and someone just kind of like. I mean, I think overall Avatar did pretty well, but it's like the jet just die.

Well, they didn't really handle that well. It could have been done better, especially with the character that showed up multiple times before.

And you don't want that to be your audience or reaction. You want them to go, I feel a loss now that this character is no longer here.

Or I feel good that that bad guy finally got what he deserved and he got sliced in half. Or he fell off a cliff and his head was bashed in. And like, after all the evil he did, it is good. He is gone from this world.

And I think the ODA does that expect spectacularly here.

Especially after we joked about no one really dying in one piece until now that were you could die in a backstory, in a flashback, but you didn't die in a story. There were multiple times when people should have died but didn't. But this is when he subverts that in a good way.

My expectation is everyone's gonna make it. Ace is gonna make it out alive, but Ace doesn't. And it isn't done in a cruel way.

It's not done in a well, we don't care about our legacy characters kind of way, and we'll just kill them off as whenever we want to. It's no, this matters in a story for everyone involved, and I really appreciate how he handles it.

Joshua Noel: 00:56:11

Yeah, Liz, same question. How does this arc help us think about the importance of the life and death of a single character or individual?

Elizabeth Clyde: 00:56:21

I mean, as I said before, without the death of Ace, you wouldn't have had the growth of Luffy. You wouldn't have had even.

Like, it's been speculated, like, with Zorro and the teammates not being there, now they feel even more remorse, and they felt like they failed their captain, so now they have a sense of zeal and duty even more towards their captain to have his back. So since they feel like they failed.

So you wouldn't have had the same story if Ace would have survived and then even going thinking through future arcs and other people show up, we wouldn't have had the same reaction and appreciation of other characters showing up from his childhood. If Ace was still there, it would have been like a, you know, happy family reunion versus a, oh, my gosh, what a beautiful 360 that we just witnessed.

So I don't want to give any spoilers to that.

Just, I mean, granted, like I said earlier before, like, I just have, when it comes to fiction, such a strong line of, like, once the TV's off, I don't feel it anymore. So I never once question mortality or anything like that. When a character dies or, you know, did think of, did I do enough?

I definitely just with my personal life, I try. I think about if the way I react is, am I going to have regrets if so and so dies. And that's kind of like how I live my personal life.

Just because I have a lot of toxic family members. And so even though.

And I show Jesus to them because I'm like, at this point, I say it as a joke, but it's just my reality of, like, I just don't know who's going to die next because I've just had a lot of people die. I've already planned Taylor's funeral Multiple times. Because in my head, that makes sense for me to lose Taylor in this lifetime. So.

But I just always think through the lens of if someone else dies, how is that going to sound selfish but affect me because at the end of the day, when someone dies, they're dead.

Like, you know, whether you believe in the heaven after or if they go into, you know, like, purgatory or if they go into Abraham's bosom, whatever you believe, like, the reality is they are no longer a part of your daily life.

And so you have to make the choice of how are you going to live with grief and how are you going to live with people while they're here with you right now. So I guess that's kind of how, like, I deal with death, if that makes sense. Sense. Because I once the. It's Lily scripture. Let the dead bury the dead.

You know what I mean? Like, as soon as David's son actually died, he stopped mourning. He's like, all right, let's get to work.

His willpower didn't, you know, change God's mind or, like, you know, if you want to get down that rabbit trail. I don't know if I answered your question, but that's just kind of how I view death.

Joshua Noel: 00:59:05

Yeah. I mean, I'm mostly just trying to give us all space to think.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:08

And it is different because it's. It's fictional. But I think.

And this wasn't until pretty recently, but one of the most significant effects from Ace's death, specifically, they use that to show you never know how far someone can reach.

Like, you know, and I don't want to spoil anything, but pretty recently, we find out that one of our, you know, newer main characters is, you know, had a significant relationship with Ace. And we didn't know that. No one knew, but they mourned at the exact same time.

Joshua Noel: 00:59:41

So furious. I'm gonna have to binge this later now.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:45

Yeah, they mourned at the same time everyone else did because they had aces Viva card. So.

Christian Ashley: 00:59:51

Yeah, but, yeah, you have.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:52

You had, like. I've definitely had that happen before. You know, you go to a funeral and it's like, wow, who are all of these people? Like, how I had no clue.

Joshua Noel: 01:00:00

Yeah, I am. When my mom's dad passed away, I think it was the first really close to me person that I had to go to their funeral.

And it was so weird because I didn't feel my own hurt for months. You know, everybody deals with grief differently. We joked about that earlier, but it's just. It's accurate. But I felt the pain of my brother.

My brother, it wasn't just his God, his grandpa that was his best friend. They would go fishing every year in the summers, you know, like, my brother was always going up there to be with him.

And I wrestled with a lot of thoughts. And when I think about death, I always think about, like, that first experience I really had because, like, I love my grandfather.

But I remember there was a lot of times I didn't really like him. And I feel terrible about that because he was a very touchy person. I don't like being touched at all.

So, like, I would go to their apartment and sit as far away from him in the living room as possible. I loved him. I wanted to play basketball later with him. Like, I wanted to hang out. It's not like I didn't like him all the time.

It was like, I just didn't like that. And now I look back on, like, man, I wish that he would grab my knee one more time. As much as I hated it, right? Like.

Like, I missed that, even though I hated it. And even more, there's so much of my brother that is just gone. And it's buried with him, right? And that's where, like, C.S. lewis go.

That's why it sits in my brain, is like, I've seen that so much of my brother only was there when Papa was there, and now he's not there. And I sometimes don't even recognize my brother. I love him, but I'm like, it's just not the same person.

And I think you can say that a Luffy in the story. Like, you're looking at it like, he's just not the same person after this. And that's how you know it's good writing, right?

Like, you're like, oh, that's reality. And it's rough. Yeah. And I don't know, there's so much of this when you. When thinking about death. It's just difficult because it doesn't.

I don't think it makes sense to us, really. Like, I think we try to make it make sense. I don't think it ever really sets in. When C.S. lewis writes, he talks about grief observed.

He writes about when his wife passed away. And if you ever want something to just make you feel like absolute garbage, read that.

Because he goes through the experiences and the feelings, and he writes literally everything down.

And it's so interesting if you read it side by side with his problem of pain where, like, he has the nice theological answer to why God lets bad things happen. And Then you see what happens when he actually goes through bad things, right? And it's a whole different experience. It's a whole different thing.

And one of the things that he writes about that really, it kills me because I think about it all the time and I wish I just had never read it. So I apologize for everyone listening to this.

He writes about how like, he's not even sure if he wants heaven to exist because he's like, if I go to heaven and I meet my wife, it's the same thing of like when you haven't seen a friend for a long time and you're like, oh, it's like you forgot what they looked like you forgot what they sounded like. Because, like, you fill in your memories with like made up, your imagination just kind of fills in your memories.

So then the longer someone's been gone, the more it's like actually this version you made up of them rather than who they actually were. And like, you know, for us, we have pictures, we have a little bit of help with that. But like some part of that is just true.

We're like, you're making stuff up to fill in your memories. And eventually we know what happens to the human brain when you get older. You forget things.

And if you just keep filling things in and if heaven's real, you get there and you're like, who is this person? And are they going to show up a completely different age?

Like the age they were and you age another 20 years and it's like, oh, now it's kind of weird that we were married once and like I'm going through all this and I'm like, I hate it because I feel everything that he's writing. And I think that's what a good book, that's what a good story is, what a good show, good movie. It should make you feel these things.

If it's going to deal with death, deal with it well. And I think it's important that we think about these things.

Not just because, hey, death is a reality, but I think it's just healthy because death is part of the human experience. So if you believe in God like we do, that is part of what it means to be human. I don't think death is necessarily just a curse.

I think it's something that, that we are meant to have, but we can get into the weeds on that. I just think it's important that we do think about it and we think about the ultimate. Death was actually, you know, Jesus's death forget near Easter.

And I don't Think it was any less of a death just because he raised again? I think it actually makes us have to contemplate more that he actually died. And what does it mean to live again?

Is that a physical reality we're all going to have one day? Is it a spiritual reality we all get to have thanks to him?

Elizabeth Clyde: 01:04:04

Death is natural and it doesn't have to be, you know, the end all to depression. So counseling is great just to let everyone know mental health is important. There are books you can read, there's podcasts you can read.

Grief is best not handled alone. So if you are grieving, make sure you find a positive community. That's all.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:28

It's true.

Christian Ashley: 01:04:28

Well done. Well said.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:30

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 01:04:30

Also, shout out Beppo. I love Beppo the bear on on the Heart Pirates.

Elizabeth Clyde: 01:04:36

Oh, yes, underrated. Honestly, I kind of have a crush on Law, but that shocks no one.

TJ Blackwell: 01:04:42

That's not surprising.

Christian Ashley: 01:04:44

Perfect. Do you guys have any recommendations you give to the audience if you.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:49

If you enjoy thinking about death? I'm gonna do do it that way. And you want a story that doesn't actually make you go through the death.

One of my favorite graphic novels is Twig by Scotty Young.

It's fun colors, it's all the good fun stuff, but it deals with the main character, his father just passed away, and him trying to figure out who he is now without his role model and dad in his life.

And it's a really good read if you just want to think about the aftermath of death and not death itself because sometimes it's easier to think about what happens next.

Christian Ashley: 01:05:23

Yeah, okay.

Elizabeth Clyde: 01:05:25

A really fun thing I've been watching on Netflix speaking of death, and if we don't want to death anymore is Sakimoto Days, who is an ex assassin. And he is fantastic because he fell in love. And Sakimoto number one family rule is we do not kill.

But everyone's trying to kill him because he left the organization without permission and so now everyone's out to get him. But number one rule, you cannot kill and you cannot keep secrets. And fat. And he's cute now and it's fun. So go watch that.

TJ Blackwell: 01:05:58

Sakamoto Daisy is really good.

Elizabeth Clyde: 01:06:00

So good.

TJ Blackwell: 01:06:01

So really, I think Christian, I talked about it. Maybe for episode, I don't know. I recommend Invincible. If you haven't started, there's no reason not to. Unless you don't like gore.

And then you should just get over it and watch it anyway.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:15

True. I want someone to use the Vid Angel Christian app and then tell me how short Invincible is with that on. That's all. Thank you.

It edits out all life, gore and language. It's got to be like a three minute series.

Christian Ashley: 01:06:31

Interesting. Well, hadn't intended this because I selected this way before the episode started, but.

Speaking of death, but actually undeath, I'm recommending the older 30s mummy and 40s mummy films I just recently watched through the mall. I'd only ever seen the original and now I'm currently going into the Hammer films that were made in the 50s and 60s. So plenty of good stuff there.

Not the best films all in all, but still pretty good.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:57

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