calgaras:

Anonymous said: Whats your take on Baby 5’s treatment this chapter? Personally I dislike how her backstory was just squished in and pushed to one side, just to then objectofy her as a trophy for Sai or Lao G, dismissing her loyalty to Doffy. lackadaisicallexicon said: Yo! What do you think about Baby 5 and the new Don in light of Baby 5’s past and the way they interact with each other?

I’m having a hard time sorting out how I feel about this chapter, but the more I think about it the less happy I am with it. First off, suicide is an incredibly serious topic and Oda having Baby 5 point a gun at her head and offer to kill herself while smiling made me uncomfortable. Oda did go on to take some time to illustrate what a difficult childhood Baby 5 had and give her a reason for being so focused on other people needing her, but the uncomfortably still remains. (Especially with the way Mangastream chose to translate Sai shouting at her “Quit it, crazy bitch,” and then slapping her to make her stop.)

I’m really not happy that Baby 5 was made into a character who isn’t even an enemy. She switched sides and is now an ally of the people fighting against Doflamingo all because Sai gave in and said he’d marry her. That’s how Baby 5 is being “saved” this arc. Not by accomplishing anything herself, not by better accepting herself, but because the right man finally said he’d marry her. It also felt so fake what Lao G said to her

When has Baby 5 been shown to be disrespected by the Donquixote Family before this? When has it been indicated that they don’t care about her at all, and just have her around because they can “conveniently” manipulate her by telling her they need her? One of the reasons I care about Doflamingo as a character is because it has been demonstrated that he actually does care about his crew (and no one else), and does view them as a family (which I explained in this post). Baby 5 may not be the strongest member of the Donquixote Family, but neither is Buffalo or Jora and they’ve all been forgiven for their failures by Doflamingo himself. Remember when Baby 5 and Buffalo failed Doflamingo on Punk Hazard? Baby 5 was in tears over it and all Doflamingo had to say to them was, “It’s fine… say no more. You two were just following my orders” (this and this page). Doflamingo has made it clear that even though his officers fail him sometimes, he still wants them around. So why is Baby 5 being singled out here as someone who is not actually cared for and is only there for being easy to manipulate?

Baby 5 has been with the Donquixote Family for over 16 years. She is only 24 years old. She has been with them for over half of her life, yet Oda chose to downplay and ignore this and instead, in just a single page, discredit and disregard her entire history with them (which was shown to be hard but filled with many happy moments in her time with them as a child) so that he could destroy Baby 5’s relationship with them so that Sai could save her by announcing he’ll marry her. (People have pointed out that it is likely just Lao G who feels that Baby 5 is just “convenient,” but nonetheless Oda scrapped her entire relationship with ALL the Donquixote Family through what Lao G said, even the ones she’s been shown to be close to (Buffalo being the main one). Talked about that more here.)

First it turns out that Viola was just a prisoner to Doflamingo and Sanji’s refusal to believe she was actually a villain saved her and got her to finally leave. Then Rebecca, who began the arc as a character who wanted to defend the Toy Soldier just as he has defended her, was reduced to crying and begging to be saved. Then there was everything with Frakny and Senor Pink, with a whole chapter dedicated to how women love it when men forcibly kiss them and talk down to them. Now Baby 5 is being saved, despite never previously being indicated to NEED ANY SAVING, just because a man took pity on her and agreed to marry her. We even have the Tontatta Princess, Mansherry, being locked up and getting saved by Leo. On an individual basis none of these things would be huge problems (except for the stuff with Franky and Senor Pink, which IMO is a big problem), but collectively the Dressrosa arc has been pretty terrible to women. They’ve done almost no fighting for themselves, and instead are being written so that they need to be saved instead, or are simply not given a chance to fight at all. Nami, Robin, Viola, Rebecca, Koala—none of them have gotten actual fights. And Sugar, who is the female character who was the biggest threat this arc, was handled with kid gloves and everyone refused to actually hurt her (talked about this in asks here, here, here, and here). The only female character who has been treated as an actual enemy this arc and fought seriously was Jora. That’s 1.

So yeah. I’m not thrilled about what Oda has done with Baby 5. It feels to me like another easy way for Oda to avoid someone defeating her and hurting her seriously, instead making her into an unwanted woman who is saved by a man winning her in battle.

(Edit: I’ve answered more asks about this here, here, and here.)