The One Piece world is a crazy place. One of my favorite things about it has always been how it’s a story about the craziest, most interesting, and most powerful people crossing paths. Everybody’s got their story, everybody has their own unique thing that makes them strong or impressive in a way that nobody else is. Right from the outset of the series, characters like Luffy and Zoro are seen as exceptional. They’re strong and they know what they want in life. Even when hardships befall them, you can still take comfort in the idea that fate has big things in store for guys that strong and naturally ambitious.

There’s something inherently optimistic in One Piece’s blood. I can’t think of a single “follow your dreams” narrative more compelling than it. This is a series hellbent on making you want to become the best in the world at something, no matter the odds or who laughs at you. “In the oceans ahead, those who don’t have the guts to say it will die first!” says Eustass Kid in response to Luffy’s verbal claim of Gold Roger’s treasure. I always liked that moment between the super rookies, as it demonstrates these strong people sweeping away all notion of odds. The single most important thing is to believe in yourself, gosh darn it! See? It’s almost like these supermen are just like us!

Except, boy oh boy, are they not like us.

As great as characters like Luffy and Zoro are, there’s a limit to how relatable they can be. Running on the (safe) assumption that both of them will accomplish their dreams by the end of the series, the story frames them as being genuinely special people. I always found it convenient, story-wise, that Usopp never really expressed interest in becoming the Pirate King, because clearly the series would not believe in him to that extent like it does for Luffy.

I think One Piece is actually a surprisingly cynical series when it comes to weak characters. This really struck me recently in the Dressrosa arc, both during Rebecca’s storyline of having to leave the fighting up to her dad as well as Usopp’s (semi)failed attempt at challenging both Trebol and Sugar. When it comes to Rebecca, it sort of feels indicative of the series’ treatment of female characters as a whole, but I think it ultimately falls on the same themes that we’ve seen with characters like Tashigi and Kuina: There’s just a limit to their physical strength. We’re in the era of One Piece where bad guys can practically throw continents, and the days where somebody gets by purely on ingenuity and skill seem to be moving further and further away.

As for Usopp, I remember thinking he was going to win that fight. The readers at the time had very strong feelings about Usopp’s character progression, being frustrated with his cowardice and whatnot, but I was sure it was going to pay off with the long nose sniper pulling off a miracle and defeating two of Doflamingo’s officers all on his own. What actually happened was… something else.

Savagely beaten. At the end of the day, it wasn’t the same trickery and smarts that won his fight in the Arlong arc that got him through this encounter, but dumb, pathetic luck. There’s something a little bit twisted in the way that fate decided to cut the poor guy a break. I think it’s easy to point back to Water 7 as the turning point where Usopp began to represent something more than just the weakest member of the ship. He’s not somebody who just has to get stronger, he’s somebody who can never be on the level of the monster trio, and has to actively make sacrifices to things that he wants (like his constant bragging about being a “captain”) just to stay afloat.

So what does that say about us? Usopp is widely accepted as the everyman who us mortal humans are supposed to relate with. Here’s One Piece, the series that makes us believe we can accomplish anything we want as long as we greet it with a smile, and now it’s telling us that we have limits. Because again, we are not Luffy, or Zoro, or Whitebeard or whoever. We are Usopp. We are Tashigi, Rebecca, Coby or whoever else you want to plug into this comparison. So what do we do?

I think of One Piece as one of the biggest motivations in my life. I think of it as a miracle that I connected to it in high school, because if I didn’t I probably never would have pursued a college education or believed that I could have my dream career in film or anything like that. I think of myself as an unusually smart person, and sometimes I even have that belief reinforced by others. I think of myself as somebody who has a unique set of skills who should be capable of things nobody else is, but I’m also lazy and scared of the world just like everyone else. Even if I am right about what I’m capable of, I’m no Luffy. Do I have what it takes to be my own version of the Pirate King? Who knows.

One of my bigger curiosities for the endgame of the series is to see where Coby ends up after everything. Once upon a time I would have been sure that he’d be leading the Marines by the end, at an Admiral position or higher. All that hard work and training he went through with Helmeppo under Garp would serve as a quintessential “anybody can become anybody” story, but taking the general development of the series into account raises a few new questions. Is it even possible for somebody like Coby to become one of the strongest people in the series? As demonstrated during the Marinford war, he’s still miles behind Luffy, who is only accelerating in strength. Do we have any reason to believe that Coby has a higher ceiling than Usopp?

The fact that all these things are still questions is important to note. Obviously those characters are going to continue to grow stronger and accomplish great things by the end, but there definitely seems to have been a shift in tone in the series in regards to the “follow your dreams!” narrative. “Believe in yourself!” has developed more into something like “Believe in yourself… if you’ve got ‘chosen one’ superpowers. Otherwise just aim for second place.”

There’s a lot in One Piece that demonstrates weak characters with moments of strength, or strong characters with moments of weakness, and the unifying theme is usually friendship or something or another. The million dollar question is asking ourselves where we fit in to that continuum. Are we happy with our place? Do we feel like we have the relationships and tools to make our life the adventure that we want it to be? A series as inspiring as One Piece is always bound to make us wonder this about ourselves.

I guess my big question is, what do I believe is possible? As I said, One Piece is an important story to me, and what it wants to tell me about what I’m capable of is going to have an effect. I get sad that I’m clearly not a Luffy-type personality, one for whom trying hard and never giving up comes easy 99% of the time, but then I wonder if it’s fair to compare myself to a fictional character at all. I think my biggest takeaway from the series has nothing to do with whether or not my life’s story shares an arc with such-and-such character, but rather the fact that the series gave me any optimism at all. I was once a cynical teenager and now I’m an optimistic adult. That’s not something that’s ever going to change back.

Whether we overestimate or underestimate ourselves, whether dumb luck is going to save us or if we just need to try a little harder is always going to be life’s big mystery. I have a lot of feelings about what Oda is trying to tell us about ourselves and, while it’s still got that hint of cynicism these days, the series still is not over yet. Things change. People change. Maybe we still have time to become that Luffy-type or maybe it’s just not in our blood. Who knows.

In what ways do you relate to the strengths and weaknesses inside the characters of One Piece? Let us know. Let’s talk about it like a big family of a pirate crew.