 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today I'd like to have another one of these fancy opinionated discussions on the topic of Big Mom, and more specifically the hate she's been getting in the fanbase recently. For example it now seems like a semi-fashionable thing to refer to her as Big Meme, so I'm going to be attempting to break down why people feel this way as well as why I think it's quite unwarranted. To be clear right from the beginning if you dislike Big Mom as a character I am not attacking your opinion. We all have favourite and least favourite characters based on their portrayal in the story. Instead what I'll be referring to is a particular brand of hate that has sprung up as of late, which I believe is purely a concoction of the fanbase and is in no way a reflection of Big Mom as a character. But before we go any further this video will cover spoilers from the 1-0 arc. These spoilers are not insignificant and it will be covering a major early plot twist in the arc that I guarantee none of you will have predicted. So if you're an anime only watcher or just not caught up with the manga proceed at your own risk, because from here on out it's an anything goes spoiler filled discussion. So there's your warning and now we're just going to jump straight into it. The event that's caused such a ground swell of dislike from the One Piece community is the whole Big Mom amnesia plot on Warner. And to be fair I really do not like any time amnesia is used as a plot device and it's because it's just too easy cliche and quite often just plain lazy and you can point to various other forms of media but One Piece itself has an example of misusing amnesia and that is Sabo. Sabo having convenient amnesia was a very easy fix to a gaping plot hole in the series and it felt like uncharacteristically lazy writing from Oda. However in defense of the Big Mom situation amnesia is being used very differently. In Sabo's case his amnesia was sort of a deus ex machina to solve a problem however Big Mom's amnesia is being used to add complications and potential for the future. It's a springboard for other things and as such it's hard to judge until those other things come to fruition. So as jarring as sodden amnesia did feel in the chapter it's already a million times better than its previous use in the series. But in the end the major point of discontent is not so much the amnesia as it is the character who it is being applied to. Big Mom. One of the Yonko and quite possibly the most powerful human being on the planet in terms of raw strength. And now she's being turned into a joke. Or so the argument goes. It's as if somehow her status as a Yonko in this world is supposed to prevent her from being subject to this kind of bizarre plot twist because you know being a Yonko is serious business and oh my god Oda how dare you try to inject any form of fun or unpredictability into your story. That's just not on. It's not a new argument though and we've been tackling this sort for most of the whole Cake Island arc. As in the minds of disenfranchised fans Big Mom has been portrayed as consistently dim-witted and grossly incompetent when what they expected was an all-powerful all-knowing being that stands at the apex of this world. And I definitely don't disagree with the dim-witted incompetence but I do need to ask exactly when has she ever been portrayed as otherwise. Big Mom's entire character is the fact that she is essentially a child with the power of a god. Her mental development is limited because she's never had to actually think to get anything she wants. She just takes it because of her natural strength. And no that's not enough to become a Yonko on its own but that's where her crew comes in. Streusen has manipulated her from the very beginning of her piracy career and Big Mom eventually spawned and gathered a large and powerful following to take care of any sort of thinking for her. Big Mom lives as a simple dictator. She makes demands and it's up to her crew to meet them or else she'll go on a rampage. There is no further thought at play and that is precisely what makes her so interesting. If anyone in the series is going to have access to raw power like this I'd much rather it was placed in the hands of someone so heavily flawed that they will never really be able to properly wield it instead existing purely to so further chaos in the world through a wildly unpredictable nature. But yeah a lot of this disappointment does seem to stem from some sort of expectation not being met and I've encountered a lot of people who thought that Big Mom was going to turn out to be some sort of Sengoku level mastermind whose wits were every bit as important as her power in securing a place amongst the Yonko and I don't understand where that perception came from. I mean let's examine her official introduction in chapter 651. She was portrayed as an irrational volatile glutton who was not above completely destroying islands for not providing her with Gandhi as noted by Thrifty Bobbin. The only hint of some sort of further intelligence was the fact that she became intrigued by Luffy's nerve and altered the target of her wrath to him. But even that is a very childlike response to the situation as Big Mom was essentially baited by Luffy a character who you know also isn't well known for his intelligence. So that should have been another big hint that she was not going to be the most mentally sharp of antagonists. But to be comprehensive let's also go to Zou because Big Mom was flagged and hyped up there as well as an upcoming enemy. And I've heard the argument that Pekom's verbally built her up as some sort of master of intelligence due to how they blackmailed Sanji using someone he knew from the straw hats paratier or even the Kanbaka Kingdom. But if you look back on the chapter the fact is that all Pekoms actually said when being asked how they know all of this about Sanji is quote because this is true power straw hat. It makes no comment on Big Mom's intelligence. Only that she and her crew have access to a vast network of information. To which I say so do we. It's called the internet. Is everyone on the internet a mastermind? Is this guy a mastermind? And then we get to Whole Cake Island and discover that it was crafted to be a child's wonderland focused on the task of perpetually feeding Big Mom who spends her time amusing herself by creating Disney-esque creatures going through her collectibles and of course demanding food. What exactly is it about this character that struck people as anything more than what we actually got? She presented us with the mentality of a child from the get-go and then somehow people are disappointed when she doesn't make smart choices. When that's legit the core reason as to why she's interesting at all. If Big Mom were the highly calculative character that some fans wanted her to be then she would become quite possibly the most boring character in the entire series. I mean what fun is giving someone god-like power if they wield it perfectly. That's not chaos, that's not flare and that's definitely not One Piece. And to illustrate all we need to do is compare Big Mom to Kaido. He is a being with similarly god-like power and his fatal flaws consist of alcoholism and tremendous mood swings. Something else the fan base complained about at great length when he was shown in his goofy dragon form. Or Kaidakuri, the so-called perfect being who can see into the future in everything. Well turns out he's also a massive glutton with a weird fetish for donuts. Once again this was met with complaints about ruining his character. But this goes all the way back to early One Piece as well. Think of villains from like Baroque works or Buggy or even Alveda. They were all crazy goofy weirdos and that was their charm. And yes there have been villains who were cool for the sake of cool like Crocodile or Roblochy. But overall giving incredibly powerful individuals wildly debilitating character quirks is what One Piece is all about. And that's what makes Big Mom so great. She is wildly unpredictable due to the fact that she doesn't follow any form of logic. There is just so much potential to be had with this character I don't understand why people feel the need to try and restrict her into being a traditional boring antagonist. If that's what you want go back and read like post soul society bleach or something. Because that is exactly what fans would get if their personal expectations of Big Mom were met. So yeah I'm a fan of this amnesia idea because it's giving us as readers the opportunity to explore the core of Big Mom's character, the time prior to her corruption. And you know what the fact that one of the strongest beings on the planet is now in a state of complete unpredictability, yes even more so than usual, is so much cooler than if she'd just shown up and was perpetually trying to break into one who's screaming straw hat over and over again. Instead Big Mom is now a true X factor. A ticking time bomb of memories that could go off at any second and cause untold anarchy on Wano for both Kaido and the straw hats. And if you're still going to complain and call her things like Big Meme then I'm honestly surprised that you like One Piece at all. Because this is how the series has always been and they guarantee you this is how it's going to continue. Of course that obviously doesn't mean that you need to like Big Mom as a character. It's a very different situation if Big Mom's primary characteristic of having the mental capacity of a child is the reason why you dislike her. Or the fact that she spent 30 chapters or so screaming nothing but wedding cake or even a much more simple reason such as not taking to her design. All of that is perfectly reasonable. But what I am tired of are people hating on Big Mom for not living up to expectations that were conjured externally within the fan base contrary to all of the evidence initially presented. From the moment we encountered her it was a fact that she was not a big thinker, she had very few concerns in life outside of her next meal and the only reason why she has risen to any form of prominence in the world is her deity level natural physical abilities. That is the character. How you react to the character from there is obviously up to personal interpretation. I quite like her because I find her volatility to be a very exciting aspect of this world and others don't because they're looking for something different which is fine. But don't spout hatred because she didn't live up to expectations that were artificially placed on the character. I mean the One Piece fan base is so very, very good at building up their own set of expectations and a future canon through theories and a variety of endless discussions with an infinity of hypotheticals. All of which is really, really great for keeping the base active but when something turns out not to match those expectations a lot of people become irrationally infuriated and take that anger out on the series itself. Because you know for whatever reason Oda isn't writing the story based on comments from the rabbit hole of thought that are Reddit, Orijax and Arlong Park and any other hub. So maybe once every now and then just take a step back because it will do wonders for your own interpretation of the series. I've said it before and I'll say it roughly a thousand more times on this channel. One Piece has problems but this is not one of them. Big Mom is another classic Oda character. She was not made to please your expectations of a Yonko. She was made as a unique existence of her own to further the story and add to this incredibly quirky and insane world. So if you're going to endlessly whinge about her every time she appears in a chapter then at least do so for a reason grounded in the series. And if you'd like to endlessly whinge about this video wait no not endlessly whinge if you enjoyed this video that's the one and the content this channel produces in general then please do consider donating to the ground line review patreon because the support of all of you amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. Also do check out my teespring store if you're interested in shirts hoodies and other miscellaneous items but the proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. And if you'd like to join the fun at any time then please do head over to my discord server where a wide array of shenaniganry takes place on a daily basis. And finally please do comment with your thoughts on the big mom hate train. This has been the ground line review and I'll see you next time.