When I tell you to think about the words “bravery” and “One Piece”, the chances are high
that a certain character just appeared before your eyes: Usopp. But why is that? I was thinking
about this a lot when I was rereading the entire story the other day. How is it that
in a world which is buzzing with brave characters facing the most unthinkable situations, our
mind still moves to someone that often is undeniably afraid? What makes Usopp a true
symbol of bravery for us? To answer this question, we must first understand
what it actually means to be brave. Bravery is the admirable quality of being able to
confront frightening things. And since everyone is afraid of different things, being brave
means something different for every one of us. To Illustrate this, imagine two very different
characters: A knight that is used to being on the battlefield and a small boy who is
rather shy and has difficulties making friends. Clearly, both of them have very different
fears. It might take bravery for the knight to battle a dragon instead of regular people,
but it also takes bravery for the shy child to walk into a new classroom meeting new people.
A very common misconception about bravery is that being brave equals not being afraid.
This is simply not true though. Brave people DO feel fear, but they are able to manage
and overcome this fear so that it does not stop them from taking action. They have trained
themselves to manage their emotional response to being afraid. As a result, they overcome
their fear rather than the fear overcoming them. You could even say that in a way, one
cannot be brave without being afraid. It is important to understand this, since Usopp
is often criticized for still being a coward and afraid in certain situations. As we now
know, this argument is not really valid. In order to be brave, you do not have to lose
your fear, but much rather learn how to manage and overcome it. What we have to look for
in Usopp´s development as a character then, is not whether he becomes less and less afraid
over time, but rather if he becomes more and more able to deal with his anxiety. And that
is exactly what we will do in this video. We will look at the most important moments
in Usopp´s character arc and try to understand whether he truly hasn´t developed at all
over time or if he maybe is closer to his dream than we all tend to think.
We first get to meet Usopp in Syrup Village back in the East Blue. He is a cowardly and
chronically lying young man that struggles growing up without his parents. While the
villagers all blame Usopp for this behavior, apparently none of them had the idea to take
the orphaned boy in and give him the love and attention he clearly is looking for. Maybe
this was due to his father being a pirate. Still, this is no real excuse to abandon a
lonely child in my mind. As a matter of fact, Usopp started his habit of lying in the first
place, when he started yelling to his sick mother that pirates were coming, hoping that
the thought of her husband returning would strengthen her spirits enough to keep her
alive. It is truly astonishing then, that despite his understandable lack of confidence
and need for attention, Usopp still grew up to be a compassionate, extroverted and selfless
man. Based on his backstory, I would say that we
have a relatively good idea as to WHY Usopp turned out to be such a cowardly and anxious
person when he first encounters Luffy and Zoro. In other words, the starting point for
Usopp´s character arc is a lying coward, whose insecurity and deep lack of self-confidence
are rooted in a lack of love and attention he received while growing up.
In essence, similar to all the straw hats, Usopp´s character arc consists of two major
parts: His relationship with Luffy and his dream. Especially in Usopp´s case, these
two themes are very closely interconnected, as we will see over the course of his journey.
Usopp´s relationship with Luffy starts of as a mix of admiration, friendship and defiance.
Luffy safes Usopp´s village from the evil captain Kuro, who was trying to kill his dear
childhood friend Kaya for her family´s fortune. Usopp admires Luffy for his strength and decides
to set out to see with him to become a pirate like his father. The friendship he develops
with Luffy is different from the other straw hats. Both are two young men around the same
age, with similar interests and a similar sort of humor. While this friendship plays
an important role in creating the early dynamic of the crew, it also causes Usopp to continuously
underestimate Luffy´s authority as a captain. Especially in the early days of the crew,
we often see him trying to compete with Luffy over the role as captain. This is the starting
point Usopp´s relationship with Luffy. In comparison, Usopp doesn´t find his dream
and ambition until the events at Arlong Park. Only when one of Arlong´s fishman, Chu, is
shooting water bullets at Usopp, who is hiding behind a tree, does he realize that he wants
to help his friends. He decides to become “a brave warrior of the sea”. In other
words: Usopp dreams of overcoming his fear and insecurity. In this moment, for the first
time, he goes on to overcome his cowardness and actually manages to outwit and defeat
the fishman by himself. This dream Usopp found for himself, is cemented
further on Little Garden after entering the Grand Line, where he meets the two giants
Dorry and Brogy. After learning about their ever-lasting battle on the island, Usopp takes
the giants of Elbaf as a role model for his ambitions. A theme that reappears throughout
the entire series. The next big obstacle he has to overcome,
is in Alabasta, where together with Chopper he has to fight Mr. 4 and Ms. Merry Christmas.
For the first time, Usopp´s loyalty towards Luffy is put to the test. Usopp raises to
the challenge, and that in a fight where he even takes a hammer to the head. Nonetheless,
Usopp overcomes his pain, proclaims Luffy as the future pirate king and ultimately manages
to defeat the two agents together with Chopper. Battles like this continue to progress Usopp´s
dream to become a brave warrior of the sea. But with every arc, his insecurity about his
role in the crew grows worse, slowly but steadily. The reader already starts to get a feeling
that these negative emotions might end up in disaster.
What follows next, is one of two decisive turning points in Usopp’s character development:
The Water 7 and Ennis Lobby arc marked a low and at the same time turning point for Usopp.
After the straw hats learn that the Going Merry won´t be able to continue her journey
due to irreparable damage, Luffy decides to leave the ship behind. This is a breaking
point for Usopp for several reasons: Obviously, the Merry was a fond memory of his village
and his friends. But of course, it goes much deeper than this.
Usopp´s feeling that he doesn´t have a role in the crew has slowly been building up in
him over time. Even though Sanji calls him the straw hats sniper in Alabasta, Usopp is
not able to identify with this position yet. In the Merry he sees a crew member that has
grown too weak and as a result was abandoned by the crew. Not only does he see himself
as one of the weakest members on the ship, he also doesn´t feel like he has another
purpose to fulfill, like Nami or Chopper do. As a result, Usopp is afraid to be left behind
by his comrades, just like the merry was. Luffy even goes so far as to tell him that
he is not a shipwright, after he unsuccessfully tries to fight for the Merry´s remain.
Usopp then goes on to openly confront Luffy with his anxiety: “You can just cut off
those members that are useless. There's no way I could catch up to you monsters, you
don't need any weak members, right Luffy?” This anxiety of not being good enough and
being left behind combined with his lack of respect for Luffy´s position culminate in
his decision to leave the crew and ultimately fightLuffy for the ownership of the merry.
This marks the absolute low point in Usopp´s story arc. Not only was he unable to act according
to his dream, but he also broke his ties with Luffy, which removed him from the crew on
an ideological level as well. After instantly regretting his decision to
break with the crew, Usopp creates the character of “Sogeking” for himself. He is a representation
of everything Usopp wants to be and at this point in the story serves as a source of courage
for him. Hiding behind a mask gives him the opportunity to fight besides his forsaken
friends and gives him a feeling of security during the battle on Ennis Lobby. After almost
being killed by Jabra, Sanji safes Usopp and tells him: “Do what only you can do!”
Finally, Usopp accepts and establishes his role and purpose in the crew and starts sniping
towards the gates of justice to protect Robin. When the crew is about to leave him behind
back at water 7, he finally demonstrates bravery and manages to overcome his fear of being
left behind and not fitting in. He apologizes to Luffy and the crew and fully accepts Luffy
as the captain. This entire arc of redemption was of great importance to the development
of Usopp in regard to both his dream AND his relationship with Luffy. Usopp has now officially
rejoined the crew after an incredible 106 chapters of absence.
Our next stop is Thriller bark, where Usopp once again has to rely on Sogeking in order
to fight Perona. It is the first situation though, in which he is the only one capable
of defeating an enemy. This time, he has to overcome his anxiety to fight for the sake
of the entire crew. After the events of Marineford, Usopp desperately
tries to get back to Luffy, saying that if he cannot comfort his captain in times like
this, he could not call himself a true straw hat. This shows us that his acceptance and
relationship with Luffy has gone full circle. Over the course of the two years, Usopp then
tries to get as strong as he can for his captain and aims to become a true sniper, worthy of
fighting for the future pirate king. The last arc that we have to look in order
to understand Usopp´s character development is Dressrosa. This is the second major turning
point for Usopp in the story so far. When stuck in the underground harbor, Robin gets
turned into a toy, leaving Usopp as the last remaining straw hat against Trebol and Sugar.
The Tontatta, who are being wiped out by Trebol, put all their hopes in Usolando, another character
created by Usopp to hide behind. This puts immense stress on Usopp that has been building
up for the majority of the arc. Finally, he can´t handle it anymore and, as he did at
Arlong Park, he runs away to hide. Tragically, right here Usopp represents one
of the main themes of Dressrosa: Deception. All this time Doflamingo had been deceiving
the Tontatta and now they have to find out that Usopp was essentially doing the same.
Yet, as he did at Arlong Park, Usopp realizes that this is not who he wants to be. He comes
out and tells the Tontatta´s the truth. He is Usopp, the sniper of the Straw hat pirates.
And he will be their hero. In this moment, having neither Sogeking nor Usolando left
to hide behind, he finally overcomes another one of his great insecurities and stands against
Trebol and Sugar as himself. He no longer needs a mask to hide behind.
He successfully saves the Tontatta and even manages to knock out Sugar twice. His newly
found courage and self-confidence are almost directly rewarded by the awakening of his
observation Haki, that he uses to safe Luffy and Law. Finally, he was able to prove his
worth for Luffy, not to the others, but to himself and confirm his right for being part