On the villains of One Piece
Nov. 5th, 2012 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rallamajoopAs I type, I am watching a commercial break in the middle of a random movie about gangsters or assassins or something similarly generic that would not have caught my eye at all except for two small details: firstly, one of the stars is Ryan Reynolds, and secondly, the title of the movie is Smokin’ Aces. It is possible that this means I am now crossing the steams of my current fandoms in a dangerously stupid fashion, but mostly I’m just enjoying the discovery that this movie is every bit as gratuitous as my excuses for watching it.
Anyhow, this all seemed like as good a reason as any to finish off one last post on the subject of My Thoughts On One Piece which has been sitting around on my hard drive for a while now.
You could easily write a whole essay on all the ins and outs of how Oda goes about setting up his major arc villains. When he wants you to hate someone he never does it by halves – major villains in the vein of Arlong, Wapol, Crocodile, Enel, Spandam or the World Nobles may range in character from conniving masterminds to cartoonishly over-the-top scenery-chewers (sometimes literally), but they still can hardly count a single redeeming feature to share between the lot of them, and they make sure you know it. Why settle for merely kicking the dog when you could murder its parents while it watches, take everyone it ever knew or loved hostage, exile every doctor in the country, exploit the very populace you were charged with protecting, start a civil war, finance a slave-trading operation, murder all those soldiers with the nerve to let the enemy take them hostage, nuke their homeland, and finally deliver a nice, long evil monologue for good measure? There comes a point where you find yourself going, “Man, should I have put Gekko Moria on that list? All he did was raise an army of zombies animated by the shadows of the living – that’s hardly even personal!” In retrospect, he comes across as almost sportsmanlike, if only because at least he necessarily stuck to picking on people who could fight back. Evil in the OP-verse comes in a range of pure, distilled, industrial grades. ‘Subtle’ has no part in this process. The role these people were born to play is to make you thoroughly enjoy watching them finally get taken down.
Having settled yourself into this pattern, it’s then that we start to meet the trans-arc villains – the one we’re not going to have the satisfaction of seeing beaten by the end of the current plotline, and all of a sudden all the rules have changed.
Blackbeard
Coming into the series so hopelessly spoiled, I was fully prepared to loathe and despise this guy from day 0, so it was only with great reluctance that I eventually had to admit that there’s something fascinatingly likable about Blackbeard. The guy’s still an irredeemable backstabbing bastard, make no mistake, but he has such a refreshingly jovial outlook on life that the first time Luffy escapes him he actually laughs it off. Lots of villains have a trademark evil laugh; there aren’t many who can laugh at themselves – there’s something very suitably piratical about Teach’s sense of humour. So instead of conforming to the usually brand of villainry that comes with the sort of superiority complex you can see from orbit, One Piece has a Big Bad who can quite casually accept getting rescued by a stranger in Impel Down, unashamedly turn tail and run for his life when Akainu turns up to ‘negotiate’, and spend years hiding his ambition as a lower-ranking member of Whitebeard’s crew waiting for the Yami Yami no Mi to find him. (That scene in the anime flashback where Ace is asking whether Teach minds being passed over for promotion in favour of a newcomer only to be assured Teach has none of that sort of ambition is just one of many that becomes eerily chilling when you know what’s coming.) Perhaps even more importantly still, that affable base-demeanour only makes it so much more terrifying when the psychopath lurking underneath makes himself known.
Cliché as it is for the villain to give the hero the ‘join me or die!’ speech in the middle of their big confrontation, it’s something else to hear the badguy sound so honestly enthusiastic about the prospect as Blackbeard was when he made the offer to Ace. This is, I point out, after Blackbeard killed one of his own nakama, after Ace has tracked him halfway across the world for revenge, and mere minutes after he’d made it known that his next big plan involved going after Ace’s own brother. Even then, Blackbeard seems to be having real trouble understanding Ace’s objections. He had to kill Thatch, Thatch had got his hands on his Devil Fruit! It’s not like he wanted to, nothing personal in it at all! We see more or less the whole same vibe again when he runs into Luffy in Impel Down, only with the brothers playing opposite roles. It’s not until his confrontation with Whitebeard that we see the true raw malice he’s capable of for the first time, and it’s some terrifying stuff.
But maybe the most fascinating thing about Blackbeard is how long he’s kept us guessing. He was part of Whitebeard’s crew for more than twenty years solely to give himself the best chance of finding the Devil Fruit he wanted, then he set about building himself a reputation worthy of a place in the Shichibukai as fast as possible, then we find out that he’d only been after his Shichibukai position to get access to Impel Down, apparently (as far as we know) with the goal of strengthening his crew with the worst of the Level 6 inmates. He may be after the One Piece in the long run, but we don’t know for sure. And we don’t have more than theories on how he’s managed to obtain two Devil Fruit powers at once. He also has the dubious honour of being the only D we’ve ever seen run from battle or beg for his life. There’s a real chance his role in the long run is going to involve storming Marijois and saving the heros from having to get their hands too dirty doing the hard work of dismantling the World Government, but it’s all speculation at this point. We just don’t know.
When he finally does get taken down I will be the first to cheer, but in the meantime, you can’t ask much more from your lead villain than that he be every bit as complex as the best of his heroes, but still not the least bit sympathetic.
Doflamingo
Another weird case. His introductory scene firmly established him as the sort of cackling evil who can’t keep it in his pants for two minutes while the grown-ups are talking without attempting a little murder for his own entertainment, and delivered him straight into my “oh for Pete’s sake, why?” file of villains I was going to have to tollerate. His next scene, however, actually managed to redeem him marginally – if only because I would cheer for anyone in the act of putting Bellamy in his place (and really, if a worm like Bellamy signed up under a guy like Doflamingo and didn’t see this coming, he’s officially Too Dumb To Live and deserves all of it and more). By the time we got to Marineford and it was made known that he did not give a flying fig who won today but was nevertheless positively jubilant to be present at the event that marked the dawning of a new age, I was (again) having grudgingly admit that I could see his point. Later scenes where he hunts down Gekko Moria and laughs in the face of the marine official who sent him to do it pretty well cemented that opinion. If there is just one thing to be said for Donquixiote Doflamingo, it’s that he’s refreshingly honest and open about what a completely evil bastard he is – and he loves his job. Unlike some of the other Shichibukai his relationship with the marines is purely a matter of convenience, and losing their favour holds no fear for him whatsoever. Frankly, anyone who acts surprised at the revelation that he’s been secretly working his spies into the marine ranks for years hasn’t been paying attention.
I’m quite sure my appreciation for him will drop very quickly the moment he starts causing more trouble for the heroes than for comparatively unlikeable parties like Bellamy, Moria or the Marines, but thus far watching him make the lives of people I don’t like a little more miserable has been strangely satisfying experience.
Kid
Here we go again. A guy who made it to Shabondy with a higher bounty than Luffy’s thanks to a record of killing civilians could only be bad news. However, like Doflamingo, Kid has a refreshingly honest attitude to his own villainy. The early codifier was his speech on his way into the auction house, outlining how the legal slavers of the OP world were no better than outlaws like himself, and in context it was almost too much on point. Even if this guy is a known loose canon and certainly no genius, the interesting thing about Kid is that he’s not stupid either. His most recent appearance, where he’s come to see the demonstration of a new superweapon not because he had any interest in using it but because he quite sensibly felt it was the sort of thing he ought to stay informed about (and probably a good spectacle to boot), implied more of the same. Meanwhile, back at Shabondy, the Luffy/Law/Kid team-up outside the auction house went and delivered all kinds of awesome.
It doesn’t look like Kid’s going to show much interest in allying himself with Luffy or Law next time they meet up, mind, but I have a feeling he may not get to declare himself their enemy outright the way he clearly wants either. It’s rather more likely he could end up getting himself taken out by Blackbeard or one of the other Yonko, but I’m not sure I’d put money on that either. I could see him winding up as the next Doflamingo in a few more years, though he seems to be aiming somewhere above even that. For a character who first showed up with all the hallmarks of the next big villain, he’s done remarkably little since to give the audience more than the most general reasons to hate him. Once again, I’m finding myself far more interested in finding out where exactly Oda may be headed with him than I would have expected.
Sengoku
So, watching Garp and Sengoku during the Battle of Marineford gave me some issues.
I am awfully fond of Garp. One can debate to what degree he was much of a parental figure to Luffy and Ace, but considering the long tradition of shounen mentors who practice an unusually punishing variety of tough love he represents – and considering in addition that the man is obviously completely certifiable – I am willing to make a lot of excuses for him. In his own messed up way he genuinely cared; his grandsons turned out more or less as well as anyone could expect, and even leaving them with Dadan turned out pretty well in the long run. (Much as I do like Garp, my love for Dadan grew a thousand fold the moment she punched him in the face for letting her son die at Marineford. Had Oda let the enraged fangirls themselves personally write her dialogue in that scene, she could not have put it better.) At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone could argue that he let Luffy punch him out of the way when it mattered.
I will make no such excuses for Sengoku. There’s case to be made that he’s not the worst of the marines by a long shot; he allowed Shanks to leave with Ace and Whitebeard’s bodies, he was genuinely dismayed that the government chose to suppress the Level 6 breakout, and he did do his best to leave Aokiji in charge when he resigned. But what he’ll be remembered for is the speech where he told the world that Ace was to die not for his own crimes or even for his loyalty to Whitebeard, but for the sins of a father he’d never even known. If the dilemma Garp faced at Marineford deserves some kind of sympathy, Sengoku remains the man who stood at his side and reminded repeatedly that it was his duty as a Marine to aid in the execution of his own grandson. So when we did get to the part where we were Sengoku is telling us how shocked (shocked!) he is that the World Government would suppress information about the Impel Down outbreak, my reaction went something along the lines of, oh NOW you have the gall to act surprised at what your government will do for the sake of its image, you hypocritical, two-faced, goat-fucking bastard son of a weasel. There is no circle of hell deep enough for that kind of bullshit.
I have a hunch that may not have been quite what Oda was going for there.
Mihawk
Show and tell is a tricky balance in any medium. It’s all very well to tell us that Hancock is the most beautiful woman in the world, but frankly, I don’t really see it. But you take one look under the brim of Mihawk’s hat and damn, you know why they call him Hawk Eyes. That man could stare down a wall.
I have this odd reaction to Mihawk where I love his whole character concept and even counting Marineford, I cannot at all see him as a villain, but every time he is actually on screen I deal with the faint but nagging desire to hide behind the couch. The man has that much presence. Zoro has balls of steel. The scene where Zoro begs him for training is one of those bits I ran into flicking through my sister’s manga that did it’s small piece in the role of convincing me it was way past time I got into this damn series already. That is all.
Jewellery Bonny
Okay, it’s like this: Bonny was one of all of two members of the non-Straw Hat rookie pirates who actually had me interested*. I was not pleased that she was the first taken out of the race, and I can only hope that her dialogue with Akainu (He was chilled by the thought she’d escaped? More so than rest of the Supanovas? She’s not even one of the higher bounty-heads among them) was a hint that she had some sort of untold backstory with the Marines that we’ll hear more about in time. Also, she kicked Blackbeard in the face that one time, and that would endear almost anyone to me.
Kizaru
A;slkdjgaks do not even get me started. Sleezy fucker missed his calling with the pika pika no mi, should’ve been the logia of grease.
*The other is Law. Kid remains sorta borderline; Drake may have an interesting backstory of some sort, but until we actually hear any evidence of that, I’m hedging my bets. The rest could fall off a cliff tomorrow and I would not miss them.
Anyhow, this all seemed like as good a reason as any to finish off one last post on the subject of My Thoughts On One Piece which has been sitting around on my hard drive for a while now.
You could easily write a whole essay on all the ins and outs of how Oda goes about setting up his major arc villains. When he wants you to hate someone he never does it by halves – major villains in the vein of Arlong, Wapol, Crocodile, Enel, Spandam or the World Nobles may range in character from conniving masterminds to cartoonishly over-the-top scenery-chewers (sometimes literally), but they still can hardly count a single redeeming feature to share between the lot of them, and they make sure you know it. Why settle for merely kicking the dog when you could murder its parents while it watches, take everyone it ever knew or loved hostage, exile every doctor in the country, exploit the very populace you were charged with protecting, start a civil war, finance a slave-trading operation, murder all those soldiers with the nerve to let the enemy take them hostage, nuke their homeland, and finally deliver a nice, long evil monologue for good measure? There comes a point where you find yourself going, “Man, should I have put Gekko Moria on that list? All he did was raise an army of zombies animated by the shadows of the living – that’s hardly even personal!” In retrospect, he comes across as almost sportsmanlike, if only because at least he necessarily stuck to picking on people who could fight back. Evil in the OP-verse comes in a range of pure, distilled, industrial grades. ‘Subtle’ has no part in this process. The role these people were born to play is to make you thoroughly enjoy watching them finally get taken down.
Having settled yourself into this pattern, it’s then that we start to meet the trans-arc villains – the one we’re not going to have the satisfaction of seeing beaten by the end of the current plotline, and all of a sudden all the rules have changed.
Blackbeard
Coming into the series so hopelessly spoiled, I was fully prepared to loathe and despise this guy from day 0, so it was only with great reluctance that I eventually had to admit that there’s something fascinatingly likable about Blackbeard. The guy’s still an irredeemable backstabbing bastard, make no mistake, but he has such a refreshingly jovial outlook on life that the first time Luffy escapes him he actually laughs it off. Lots of villains have a trademark evil laugh; there aren’t many who can laugh at themselves – there’s something very suitably piratical about Teach’s sense of humour. So instead of conforming to the usually brand of villainry that comes with the sort of superiority complex you can see from orbit, One Piece has a Big Bad who can quite casually accept getting rescued by a stranger in Impel Down, unashamedly turn tail and run for his life when Akainu turns up to ‘negotiate’, and spend years hiding his ambition as a lower-ranking member of Whitebeard’s crew waiting for the Yami Yami no Mi to find him. (That scene in the anime flashback where Ace is asking whether Teach minds being passed over for promotion in favour of a newcomer only to be assured Teach has none of that sort of ambition is just one of many that becomes eerily chilling when you know what’s coming.) Perhaps even more importantly still, that affable base-demeanour only makes it so much more terrifying when the psychopath lurking underneath makes himself known.
Cliché as it is for the villain to give the hero the ‘join me or die!’ speech in the middle of their big confrontation, it’s something else to hear the badguy sound so honestly enthusiastic about the prospect as Blackbeard was when he made the offer to Ace. This is, I point out, after Blackbeard killed one of his own nakama, after Ace has tracked him halfway across the world for revenge, and mere minutes after he’d made it known that his next big plan involved going after Ace’s own brother. Even then, Blackbeard seems to be having real trouble understanding Ace’s objections. He had to kill Thatch, Thatch had got his hands on his Devil Fruit! It’s not like he wanted to, nothing personal in it at all! We see more or less the whole same vibe again when he runs into Luffy in Impel Down, only with the brothers playing opposite roles. It’s not until his confrontation with Whitebeard that we see the true raw malice he’s capable of for the first time, and it’s some terrifying stuff.
But maybe the most fascinating thing about Blackbeard is how long he’s kept us guessing. He was part of Whitebeard’s crew for more than twenty years solely to give himself the best chance of finding the Devil Fruit he wanted, then he set about building himself a reputation worthy of a place in the Shichibukai as fast as possible, then we find out that he’d only been after his Shichibukai position to get access to Impel Down, apparently (as far as we know) with the goal of strengthening his crew with the worst of the Level 6 inmates. He may be after the One Piece in the long run, but we don’t know for sure. And we don’t have more than theories on how he’s managed to obtain two Devil Fruit powers at once. He also has the dubious honour of being the only D we’ve ever seen run from battle or beg for his life. There’s a real chance his role in the long run is going to involve storming Marijois and saving the heros from having to get their hands too dirty doing the hard work of dismantling the World Government, but it’s all speculation at this point. We just don’t know.
When he finally does get taken down I will be the first to cheer, but in the meantime, you can’t ask much more from your lead villain than that he be every bit as complex as the best of his heroes, but still not the least bit sympathetic.
Doflamingo
Another weird case. His introductory scene firmly established him as the sort of cackling evil who can’t keep it in his pants for two minutes while the grown-ups are talking without attempting a little murder for his own entertainment, and delivered him straight into my “oh for Pete’s sake, why?” file of villains I was going to have to tollerate. His next scene, however, actually managed to redeem him marginally – if only because I would cheer for anyone in the act of putting Bellamy in his place (and really, if a worm like Bellamy signed up under a guy like Doflamingo and didn’t see this coming, he’s officially Too Dumb To Live and deserves all of it and more). By the time we got to Marineford and it was made known that he did not give a flying fig who won today but was nevertheless positively jubilant to be present at the event that marked the dawning of a new age, I was (again) having grudgingly admit that I could see his point. Later scenes where he hunts down Gekko Moria and laughs in the face of the marine official who sent him to do it pretty well cemented that opinion. If there is just one thing to be said for Donquixiote Doflamingo, it’s that he’s refreshingly honest and open about what a completely evil bastard he is – and he loves his job. Unlike some of the other Shichibukai his relationship with the marines is purely a matter of convenience, and losing their favour holds no fear for him whatsoever. Frankly, anyone who acts surprised at the revelation that he’s been secretly working his spies into the marine ranks for years hasn’t been paying attention.
I’m quite sure my appreciation for him will drop very quickly the moment he starts causing more trouble for the heroes than for comparatively unlikeable parties like Bellamy, Moria or the Marines, but thus far watching him make the lives of people I don’t like a little more miserable has been strangely satisfying experience.
Kid
Here we go again. A guy who made it to Shabondy with a higher bounty than Luffy’s thanks to a record of killing civilians could only be bad news. However, like Doflamingo, Kid has a refreshingly honest attitude to his own villainy. The early codifier was his speech on his way into the auction house, outlining how the legal slavers of the OP world were no better than outlaws like himself, and in context it was almost too much on point. Even if this guy is a known loose canon and certainly no genius, the interesting thing about Kid is that he’s not stupid either. His most recent appearance, where he’s come to see the demonstration of a new superweapon not because he had any interest in using it but because he quite sensibly felt it was the sort of thing he ought to stay informed about (and probably a good spectacle to boot), implied more of the same. Meanwhile, back at Shabondy, the Luffy/Law/Kid team-up outside the auction house went and delivered all kinds of awesome.
It doesn’t look like Kid’s going to show much interest in allying himself with Luffy or Law next time they meet up, mind, but I have a feeling he may not get to declare himself their enemy outright the way he clearly wants either. It’s rather more likely he could end up getting himself taken out by Blackbeard or one of the other Yonko, but I’m not sure I’d put money on that either. I could see him winding up as the next Doflamingo in a few more years, though he seems to be aiming somewhere above even that. For a character who first showed up with all the hallmarks of the next big villain, he’s done remarkably little since to give the audience more than the most general reasons to hate him. Once again, I’m finding myself far more interested in finding out where exactly Oda may be headed with him than I would have expected.
Sengoku
So, watching Garp and Sengoku during the Battle of Marineford gave me some issues.
I am awfully fond of Garp. One can debate to what degree he was much of a parental figure to Luffy and Ace, but considering the long tradition of shounen mentors who practice an unusually punishing variety of tough love he represents – and considering in addition that the man is obviously completely certifiable – I am willing to make a lot of excuses for him. In his own messed up way he genuinely cared; his grandsons turned out more or less as well as anyone could expect, and even leaving them with Dadan turned out pretty well in the long run. (Much as I do like Garp, my love for Dadan grew a thousand fold the moment she punched him in the face for letting her son die at Marineford. Had Oda let the enraged fangirls themselves personally write her dialogue in that scene, she could not have put it better.) At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone could argue that he let Luffy punch him out of the way when it mattered.
I will make no such excuses for Sengoku. There’s case to be made that he’s not the worst of the marines by a long shot; he allowed Shanks to leave with Ace and Whitebeard’s bodies, he was genuinely dismayed that the government chose to suppress the Level 6 breakout, and he did do his best to leave Aokiji in charge when he resigned. But what he’ll be remembered for is the speech where he told the world that Ace was to die not for his own crimes or even for his loyalty to Whitebeard, but for the sins of a father he’d never even known. If the dilemma Garp faced at Marineford deserves some kind of sympathy, Sengoku remains the man who stood at his side and reminded repeatedly that it was his duty as a Marine to aid in the execution of his own grandson. So when we did get to the part where we were Sengoku is telling us how shocked (shocked!) he is that the World Government would suppress information about the Impel Down outbreak, my reaction went something along the lines of, oh NOW you have the gall to act surprised at what your government will do for the sake of its image, you hypocritical, two-faced, goat-fucking bastard son of a weasel. There is no circle of hell deep enough for that kind of bullshit.
I have a hunch that may not have been quite what Oda was going for there.
Mihawk
Show and tell is a tricky balance in any medium. It’s all very well to tell us that Hancock is the most beautiful woman in the world, but frankly, I don’t really see it. But you take one look under the brim of Mihawk’s hat and damn, you know why they call him Hawk Eyes. That man could stare down a wall.
I have this odd reaction to Mihawk where I love his whole character concept and even counting Marineford, I cannot at all see him as a villain, but every time he is actually on screen I deal with the faint but nagging desire to hide behind the couch. The man has that much presence. Zoro has balls of steel. The scene where Zoro begs him for training is one of those bits I ran into flicking through my sister’s manga that did it’s small piece in the role of convincing me it was way past time I got into this damn series already. That is all.
Jewellery Bonny
Okay, it’s like this: Bonny was one of all of two members of the non-Straw Hat rookie pirates who actually had me interested*. I was not pleased that she was the first taken out of the race, and I can only hope that her dialogue with Akainu (He was chilled by the thought she’d escaped? More so than rest of the Supanovas? She’s not even one of the higher bounty-heads among them) was a hint that she had some sort of untold backstory with the Marines that we’ll hear more about in time. Also, she kicked Blackbeard in the face that one time, and that would endear almost anyone to me.
Kizaru
A;slkdjgaks do not even get me started. Sleezy fucker missed his calling with the pika pika no mi, should’ve been the logia of grease.
*The other is Law. Kid remains sorta borderline; Drake may have an interesting backstory of some sort, but until we actually hear any evidence of that, I’m hedging my bets. The rest could fall off a cliff tomorrow and I would not miss them.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-05 11:14 am (UTC)He also has the dubious honour of being the only D we’ve ever seen run from battle or beg for his life.
Not quite sure about this, though, the running away part I mean. Luffy and crew have done their share of running against overwhelming enemies out of necessity.
Totally with you re Doflamingo as well! He'll very likely cross over into ARGH JUST SQUASH HIM NOW CAN'T STAND HIS EVIL FACE for me eventually, but so far he manages
And yes, Moria does rather pale when compared to the others, right? ^_^ Sure, he condemns his victims to an awful life staying out of the sunlight, but it's still a lot less than the other villains, as you point out.
And great points about Sengoku. It's possible there was a lot of pressure from the higher-ups to execute Ace for who his father was. But he certainly didn't show the least objection or reluctance to it. If you've got the wrong blood, you need to die for the sake of the world, he seems to believe. And that plain stinks.
Of course, Foxy seems to be one of the least harmful villains out there from a civilian POV. At least if we interpret his low bounty number to mean he spends most of his time and energy targetting other priate crews for more and more Davy Back Fights. There's no indication he actually plans to do much of anything with his large crew. (I mean, he's mean to horses, but that seems to be it.)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 05:07 am (UTC)I'm talking about running from battle in the traditional rather than the strictly literal sense though, where it's more about the qualities of honour and courage. It's true that standing their ground is more of a defining characteristic with Roger and Ace than Luffy, but on the rare occasion Luffy does run from a fight, it's more likely to involve him being dragged away by his companions while screaming blue murder at the enemy. I'd argue we've seen Luffy leave battle for various reasons or run to a more strategic position, but while he may beg for his nakamas' lives, he'll face his own death with a smile. He's capable of admitting defeat in extreme circumstances, at which point it becomes a matter of getting his crew first and himself second out of there alive by any means necessary, but "running from battle" when the battle would have been a fair fight is a different thing again.
By contrast, when Blackbeard ran from Akainu, he did it because he didn't feel like facing the guy yet, even though he had everything to gain (a proper ship) and probably even had a good chance of victory. It's almost impossible to picture anyone from the Roger or Monkey family doing the same in the same position, let alone as their first resort. Even Saul only ran when he had the whole might of the Marines against him, and he turned and held his ground as soon as Robin was in danger. The D's collectively have a solid record for willingness to risk their lives on the worst kind of odds. Blackbeard remains the only one who will beg or run the moment he realises that his making it out alive is less than guaranteed.
Put simply, Blackbeard remains the only one who'll avoid a confrontation for no more reason than pure cowardice. That's a spectacularly un-D-like trait.
(Feel free to trot out examples if I've missed them though, I am happy to see how well this holds up.)
Totally with you re Doflamingo as well! He'll very likely cross over into ARGH JUST SQUASH HIM NOW CAN'T STAND HIS EVIL FACE for me eventually, but so far he manages
IKR? He's the kind of totally OTT sadistic evil I usually can't stand, but I was consistently enjoying his appearances from Bellamy onwards. He's exactly the sort of shichibukai the marine brass deserve.
If you've got the wrong blood, you need to die for the sake of the world, he seems to believe. And that plain stinks.
Probably more along the lines of 'for the sake of our image, and in the name of showing ourselves able to crush every remaining bit of Roger's legacy as an example to others', but that sure wasn't the official line they were selling. I suspect Sengoku may come across better through the Japanese cultural lens, since dedicating your life to your job to the exclusion of all else is a much bigger deal over there, but from my angle what he was telling Garp to do was beyond reprehensible. In my own mind that boots him all the way up to second in line for responsibility for Ace's death, behind only Akainu. (Sure Blackbeard delivered him to the marines, but any high-value bounty-head would have done from his perspective - it wasn't personal, and it had nothing to do with Roger.)
(Actually, come to think of it, his clash with Whitebeard was about the only battle I think we ever have seen him treat as if there was something personal at stake. Maybe all those years of having to hide his ambition under Whitebeard's command took their toll on him.)
It sounds funny to put it that way, but Moria also stands out as possibly the first major arc villain who wasn't so much as tangentially responsible for the worst thing to ever happen to the newest Strawhat member. He stole Brook's shadow, but it wasn't like he murdered his entire crew and condemned him to drift in the ocean for 50 years. His defining backstory moment seems to have been when he got crushed by a real big bad (Kaidou). Compared to the real evil out there he looks practically toothless. XD
It did not even occur to me to include Foxy anywhere on this list. There's probably a reason for that.