- [Narrator] When does a person die?
Well, that would be when they are forgotten.
But I have a more important question in mind
and that is when does a person subscribe?
To the Grand Line Review, that is.
And that would be when that person wants
to receive regular One Piece content uploaded straight
into their YouTube feed.
Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece.
And today we are here to talk about
that guy that everyone likes.
I think his name is something along the lines
of Trace or Space, Misplace.
Ace, that's the one.
Portgas D. Ace
And more specifically, I would like to talk
about his impact on the series as we know it
because I highly doubt that any of you would call Ace
anything less than monumentally important
to the world and its characters.
But even then I still think that his grand relevance
is heavily understated a lot of the time.
And I would go so far as to call him quite possibly
the most integral character
in the series Boa, Luffy and Roger.
Maybe, even then it's arguable.
In addition to that, I also think
that the general focus on his relevance
in the story is misplaced.
Because I imagine that most people would cite Marine food
as Ace's greatest impact on One Piece.
But I am very much of the mind that Ace's tremendous effect
on the series only truly becomes clear after his death.
Which, spoilers, I guess, for Ace's death.
In any case to begin this discussion,
I would like to very much build on our picture
of Mr. Ace in the most lackluster places,
which is his proper introduction during the alabaster rock.
And initially he certainly does not seem
like one of the most world checking individuals
that One Piece would ever feature.
Because he is presented to us
in a restaurant stuffing his face
with every morsel of food imaginable
and then even engaging in a bout of narcolepsy.
His introduction was heavily comical to say the least,
which is actually quite rare for a character in his position
or prominence within the series.
I mean, One Piece is no stranger to quirky character intros
but the greater trend is that the more top tier players
of the world have something of a serious cool debut.
Which did go on to happen
through Ace's brief conflict with Smoker.
So you know, Ace was cool.
He was funny.
He had a great design.
All of which was very evocative of Luffy
and the purpose behind that of course,
being the reveal that Ace was Luffy's brother.
All of which is great, but in retrospect,
it's superbly understated what Ace represented,
earth to Luffy and to the greater realm of One Piece,
factors that we would only become enlightened on,
over 500 chapters later.
And this was a fairly brilliant piece of seeding by Mr. Oda
because while he made short conveys Ace's
much further along in his journey than Luffy shall we say,
he also made Ace very relatable
to the readers and watchers through the use
of classic One Piece quirks.
Which are only continued on in the manga,
we would eventually follow Ace's cover story,
hunting for Blackbeard.
Which was overwhelmingly comical
and a lot of general fun.
Which solidified Ace as a sort of identifiable protagonist
on his own journey running parallel to Luffy.
With that in mind, I dare say that Ace
in this early phase of One Piece
was nothing all that special,
at least not compared to what he would become.
He was very much pushed into the background
for the time being and to be fair,
so it was his current target at the time, Blackbeard.
And together these two auxiliary figures
would become the center of an endeavor
that reshaped the entire world.
In fact, auxiliary figures is
a heavily misleading thing to say about them.
I mean, from our perspective, yes.
Ace and Blackbeard were more of background figures
but in reality, it was Luffy and the Straw Hats
who were the tertiary characters in this grand story
while Ace in particular was the central figure
and that would become apparent after the events of Sabaody.
After Ace is lost to Blackbeard,
he became quite a literal focal point of the world
as well as the series itself.
Once Ace's execution was announced,
Oda immediately shifted gears
for the very first time in One Piece,
which went from Luffy striving to become a pirate king
to Luffy striving to save Ace.
And this is one of many features regarding Ace
that I believe is understated.
Because by the simple virtue of his situation,
he temporarily changed the direction of One Piece.
Like forget what was happening in the world for a second,
Ace directly changed the form of the narrative itself.
That had not happened prior to this point
and it has not happened again since.
Thus making the paramount war era one of,
if not the most unique slice of One Piece
that we have ever experienced.
And that's just the matter aspect of it
because we haven't even started on the eye of the storm
that Ace became, which obviously begins
with the concept of his execution,
actively starting a war between the world government
and the Whitebeard Pirates,
which is the largest scale conflict
that we have seen in the series to this day.
Although that might come to be eclipsed quite soon.
But it also came with the,
minor trivial revelation that Ace just so happened
to be the biological son of
the former Pirate King, Gol D. Roger,
quite possibly the most infamous
and well known name in this global society.
Which in addition to being a literal center of attention
as a war catalyst, also pushed Ace further
to the forefront of everything.
I mean, consider this for a second.
Ace was the biological son of the only Pirate King
that we have ever known.
In addition to that, he was also
the symbolic son of Whitebeard,
the strongest man in the world
and Roger's most powerful rival.
But we definitely don't stop there
because Ace was also considered family
by the hero of the Marines, Monkey D. Garp,
another fierce rival of Roger
who took a sin and quote unquote "raised him"
by which I mean he dumped him with mountain bandits.
But still the connection is undeniably there.
So, what Ace now represents in this paramount wall
is one last clash of the old guard,
as well as the turning point into a new era.
And it's amazing to think that one count
and one fire boy can cause all of that, but he did.
And as I stated earlier,
he would go on to be tragically killed
during the paramount war
which also serves as the symbolic passing
of Roger's generation.
His last biological legacy on this planet,
Whitebeard's death, as well as Garp
and Sengoku's semi retirement from active duty,
all of that vanished along with Ace.
But that wasn't it because as is often the case
in One Piece, one character's death tends
to directly lead to the growth of another.
In this case being, of course, Luffy.
Before we get too deeply into that though,
this very much marks the point I was talking about
where Ace becomes far more relevant
to the series in death than he ever was in life.
Which is crazy to think about,
given everything I've just said about his prominence
and narrative shifting ways.
But this would begin to be delivered
to us through a highly unexpected second Luffy flashback.
Or I guess first technically,
because his childhood events
would shanks pretty much played out in real time, didn't it?
It was only the anime that made it flashback.
Whatever the case, this event really fleshed out Ace
in a way that I personally never knew I needed before then.
Because here is the thing about Ace.
Prior to now, we really didn't actually know this guy.
We knew how others felt about Ace,
Luffy, the Whitebeard Pirates,
Jinbeii and Garp in particular,
but we did not know Ace himself.
Because his appearance in the series
was primarily comical in his introduction
and during the paramount war saga, he spent almost
the entire thing just sitting in chains,
looking all sullen.
So finding out about his fairly rough heritage
and dreams for the future,
retrospectively revolutionized how I viewed those events.
Looking back on the paramount war,
I feel far, far more empathy with Ace
as well as Luffy actually,
which just adds a whole new layer of importance
to Ace's existence, which only occurred after he died,
which is kind of sad, but a tragedy.
But as stated before, the ultimate purpose
of this was to serve Luffy's growth,
which is done through some fairly clever juxtaposition.
Having two stories involving the death
of one of his brothers, Sabo in the flashback
and Ace in the modern day.
And in each case needing to overcome his grief
to strive forward and Ace's words in this flashback
after the Sabo incident really hit hard.
"We have to live our lives
so that we don't have any regrets.
Nothing's gonna stop us. We're gonna be pirates.
Those words pulled Luffy out of darkness as a child
and that sentiment is what did the same after Ace's death.
And as such to some degree, Luffy will always be carrying
the inherited will of Ace throughout the rest of the story.
I say to some degree though,
because there is an even stronger example
of inherited will in the works, in the form of Sabo.
Because another consequence of Ace's death
was breaking through Sabo's dubious amnesia,
something that I suppose may never have actually happened,
had Ace not passed away.
And as such, this activated the true inheritor
who not only acquired and consumed Ace's devil fruit
but also narratively stepped into the role
that Ace once occupied in Luffy's life,
which was the older brother figure.
And that has massive ramifications on post time skip events
and it will no doubt continue to do so.
But in these events, Ace will forever be present
because I find it quite hard to see Sabo
and not have Ace in the back of my mind.
Because say what you want about the idea
of this character being an Ace clone or not
and I have said such things in many other videos
but it is an intentional parallel
and one designed to further Ace's legacy in the story.
But even then the specter of Ace
remains extraordinarily prominent outside of that,
and this is most evident on Wano of all places.
Now I'm going to throw up a spoiler warning
for anime only watchers, because I'll briefly
be going over some fairly big stuff here,
and if you're not caught up with the manga,
you might want to just skip
to this time here.
Yeah, this one.
But for everyone else, here we go.
So the first obvious Ace connectional manor is with Tama,
a delightful little bond that we learned about earlier on,
which was important because this was the key factor
that formed the bond between Tama and Luffy.
Which given the length of Wano is easy to forget about
but even at this late stage in the arc,
Luffy still very much has her in the forefront of his mind.
Tama is directly influencing and driving Luffy's actions
and a lot of that spans directly from Ace.
But we can go much further than that
and examine Jinbei's reappearance on Wano
and this might seem like a bit of a stretch at first
but in the end, when you think about it,
Ace is the entire reason why Luffy knows Jinbei at all.
In fact, Ace is the reason why Jinbei was imprisoned
to begin with for refusing to fight
against the Whitebeard Pirates
and thus that common thread that Luffy and Jinbei
to breaking out of impel down together
with the ultimate uniting goal of saving Ace
and as a result of that entire experience,
Jinbei would eventually and I mean very eventually,
go on to join the Straw Hats.
And it's just crazy to think that that whole series
of events was sparked by Ace's very existence.
So his profound impact on the series is on full display,
even with this seemingly unrelated relationship.
Furthermore, with the arrival of Mako and Izo,
this is just emphasizing Ace even more
because Luffy's association with these individuals
began just as with Jinbei,
fighting for the goal of saving Ace.
And yes, there's a strong Kozuki element
to play here as well,
but the reason why say Mako and Luffy
can so easily form an alliance
is because of that shared experience of Ace.
And then there's the more recent,
big reveal being the son of Kaido Yamato,
who directly mentions Luffy similarity to Ace,
indicating yet another shared experience of this man
who I will emphasize has been dead
for almost half the series at this point.
So it's pretty amazing that hundreds
and hundreds of chapters later,
Ace's existence in One Piece is still continuing
to be a core driving factor.
That is the incredible power of Ace in this story.
I couldn't even begin to think about
what this world might look like without his existence
because it has formed
this giant narrative load bearing pile on
for almost every day major occurrence in One Piece.
Without Ace there is no paramount war,
there is no Blackbeard ascending to become an emperor.
Sabo may have never regained his memories
and Luffy may never have even met
much less recruited Jinbei into the crew.
In fact, Luffy may never have even embarked
on his journey to begin with,
without Ace being a strong older brother,
star role model as a child.
There is just so, so much in the series
that Ace is directly responsible for setting into motion
that his legacy has become an unstoppable snowball effect
on this planet.
Which is very much akin to that of his father, Roger,
who sparked the great age of piracy.
The results of which is still currently playing out
in real time to this day.
So I guess that does make quite a lot of sense
but in the end we need to come back
to the words of the ever wise quack doctor, Hiriluk.
When does a man die?
A man dies when he is forgotten.
And with that broad philosophy in mind,
Ace is certainly not going to die anytime soon
because he is an active driving force
not only for a main character
but for so many other wildly important figures
in this world.
And I don't think we've seen anywhere near
the last of Ace's unforgettable impact
on the characters of the series,
whether we know them
or whether we still have yet to meet them.
But what do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below
or even join my discord server.
And if you'd like to see more videos like this,
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But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review
and I'll see you next time.