 Well yes, yes I am using more or less the exact same thumbnail for this video as the first one, and guess what? We're also going to be using the same subscribe joke as well, so sit down and get measured, and oh you're powerful enough to subscribe etc, look you guys know the drill, let's get into this video. Hello and welcome to the ground line review your source for everything One Piece and today we are going to be donning our scouters once more to dive into the realm of power levels, power scaling, and tier ranking. And this is mostly going to be a response to a video by BDA law that was responding to my original video entitled Common Misconceptions Regarding Power Levels in One Piece. Now I want to say right at the beginning that Brago's video was very polite, super chill, and I think a fantastic example of how all internet discourse should be, so I would like to thank him for his very measured response that did provide a lot of great points for me to think about, which I would like to address and expand upon for all of you here today. So no this is not going to be a shots fired video or any kind of YouTube drama like a fair few of you out there in the comments section, you know who you are, might have been hoping for, because to be perfectly frank this world is full of a plethora of extremely real and dire problems and power scaling in any series just isn't one of them. But with that in mind I also do recommend that you watch Brago's video, I have a link to it in the description below, because it's one thing to just sit here and listen to me rant at great length, but you should very much hear both sides of the argument make up your own mind and who knows maybe it's not as simple as someone being right and someone being wrong, in fact it rarely is. There's a lot of different aspects and subtleties to consider especially when it comes to the realm of semantics, so it's not a cut and dry discussion, kind of like power levels, smooth transition, tick. Alright let's begin though and I'll just be going through a list of points as Brago mentioned them in the video, the first of which being the primary rebuttal that power levels do in fact exist and I want to play his exact statement here. Power levels absolutely exist in one piece, they may not have names and they may be fan made and things we just make up to make things easier, but they exist. And initially what I thought Brago was saying here is that power levels do exist because we made them up, and I know that's not what he's saying and without putting any words in his mouth I think his meaning here is that there does exist a defined spectrum of forces within one piece and the fan base has simply taken it upon themselves to label them for the sake of discussion. And I think that this is just a bit of a stark difference between us, because firstly I don't think that those forces are defined particularly clearly at all in one piece, broadly speaking that is, individually that's a very different story, but I also personally don't believe that anything fan made can or should be applied to the canon material, at least not in a particularly zealous way, which is generally how I experience these labels being used. And I don't think it should be done primarily because it warps the perception of the overall story, especially if those fan made terms become so widely used and accepted. And so when I said that power levels do not exist, this is what I was referring to, there is no system however formal or informal in one piece, and no matter what the fan base attempts to construct, that creation should, under no circumstances, be applied without great skepticism involved. And I do think that one of my personal problems with power scaling is that in my anecdotal experience, a lot of people do tend to fling these terms around, like they are a set of commandments bestowed upon us by Oda, but more on that in a bit because Bargo does go into that topic. Firstly though, he does bring up Doriki, and this is certainly a flaw in my original video, I absolutely should have mentioned it because it is the closest thing to a power scaling construct in one piece. Now, Bargo doesn't dwell on this because he says it's a completely different thing, which it is, but for the benefit of those of you who did mention it in my comments, it is in no way reliable because it can only be measured by a single character, and it only takes physical power into account. So with that in mind, someone like Elizabetho is highly likely to be at whatever the Yonko level equivalent of Doriki is, because it doesn't examine speed, durability, intelligence, double fruit abilities, Haki or even quirky individual fighting styles, which makes it in my opinion a fairly pointless system. However, I will admit that it does purely semantically counter my statement about a power level system not existing, and that's fair enough. I should have delved into it there like I did here. But then we come to a potential misinterpretation of my argument, which to be fair, I think I could have been clearer in making. Bargo takes my statement about power levels not existing very, very literally by posing the example that they must exist because otherwise all characters would be equal at all times, and that is most certainly not what I was implying. My argument there once again is that there is no systematic designation in the series outside of what is fan-created. However, there is certainly a spectrum of power in the series, one in which you would say find Kaido on one end and say whoops, slap on the other, and from there you could maybe villain that spectrum appropriately, but it would become incredibly difficult eventually because I stand by my statement of one piece being a very scissors paper rock universe. There are too many possible differing interactions between characters, which are based in every realm imaginable, like devil fruits, Haki subtyping's weaponry, intelligence, everything, all of which make it exceedingly difficult to construct broad levels. I feel like what you would more likely need to do would be to create multiple spectrums to measure, for example one based on raw power where Kaido would be in A and whoops, slap would be in F, and then do the same for speed, intelligence, durability, whatever you want, and then stack individual characters up against each other using those statistics as reference, but even then it definitely doesn't truly account for the nuance of one piece. But I personally think that a tier-based system is even more of a muddled exercise because it just lacks the precision and meaning that at least I think such a system should hold. But I want to jump ahead here a bit because Braga mentioned something that did quite enlighten me actually, which is that in his usage these power tiers, primarily being Yonko level, Admiral level, Commander level etc, are intended to be a launching point for discussion rather than a strict designation, with the idea being that they are kept intentionally broad so that they can invite further discourse. And this is an idea that I can actually get on board with in theory, the idea that say we select a character for discussion and then begin to narrow things down by applying a tier level. It does admittedly provide a clearer structure to work with rather than trying to keep a whole world of characters in mind. And hey if that is your sole usage of the system then go for it. I think a lot of my frustrations in anecdotal experience is that that is not the case. I am more often than not experienced people using these fan-made tiers as a full-stopped argument rather than an opening sentence. I see an awful lot of X can't take on Y because X is this fan-made level and Y is that fan-made level. And in my experience a lot of this stifles discussion rather than encourages it, especially when vehement disagreements break out about the technical classification of these various fan-made tiers. So I do take Brago's point about using them to start a discussion though. And I'm all on board with that so long as they are never taken as gossful. But what Brago conveys here and at several points in the video is that these levels are once again supposed to be taken as a broad spectrum rather than a specific measure of power. You know like say the spectrum of Yonko level ranges from Luffy to Widebeard. I guess I just think that a title based system is not the best way to convey that meaning because if you assign a title and then immediately need to clarify what that means then to me that could just be redundant communication. But that is not the case for everyone and clearly a lot of you do find value in this process. So I get where Brago is coming from. This is not something that is meant to be set in stone. And once again I'm all for that but that has not been my experience with the subject. Generally what I encounter are people who use these tiers to be dismissive and end a conversation rather than begin one. Now we're going to dive into some more specific level discussion and I should say that I am skipping a whole ton of discussion regarding Blackbeard which I will return to closer to the end of the video because that topic deals more with how Blackbeard and Luffy became emperors and it's another interesting discussion but it is going to veer away pretty heavily from power levels so I'll tackle all of that stuff first. So Brago continues by stating that yes I, Grand Line Review, am more or less willing to accept the specific admiral level as a potential tier and it's because I believe that admirals have more or less been displayed to be on an equitable level. The differences between them in my view come from specific ability matchups and Brago mentions the example of Fujitora versus Kizaru and then later on in the video he claims that the general consensus would be that Fujitora is not as strong as Kizaru and here's another thing that I just find simply fascinating because I would personally say that it was completely the opposite way around. Fujitora would be my winner but that's only because he has demonstrated the finest use of observation hockey amongst the admirals and because gravity is one of the very few forces other than reflection or refraction that has the potential to influence the travel of light. So there is every possibility that Fujitora just plain hard counters Kizaru but that doesn't necessarily apply to the other admirals of course and I think they're a fantastic example of how one piece is a scissors paper rock system. Later in the video Brago also brings up two of my favorite tertiary characters being Chaton and Momo Usagi both of whom were canonically considered for the admiral position according to an SBS segment and Brago uses them as evidence for the potential diversity and construction of a spectrum of the admiral tier and it's a very specific and niche disagreement but I do have one here because according to the marines no they did not meet the admiral standard and there is no tangible evidence of anything to do with either one of them. You can make the assumption that they are both vaguely powerful I suppose but that that's literally it we have nothing to place them anywhere and that's before we even consider the fact that they were created entirely as Joe characters by a fan and Oda decided to draw them and make them official so I just don't feel like they can be used as evidence to support the diversity of an admiral tier and I just oh my god I need to point out just how strange this is because now the argument has kind of flipped and I'm actually defending the integrity of a particular power tier which is look it's mind-blowing but like I said in the original video I think that admiral level is the only one that does have the potential to hold any meaning but the general point that Brago is making is that if the admiral tier the one I am willing to accept is also a broad spectrum of individuals then why couldn't that be used in relation to the Yonko commander level for example and that would be because I do think that admiral's are the most clear system because there are official standards to becoming an admiral there isn't as high variance here because they are selected by the world government having met particular bars of power hockey special abilities whatever the criteria is and I really don't think that the same can be said elsewhere especially for the commander level because those guys are a much more informal hodgepodge of beings so moving to the commander level now Brago used my example of karakuri and kraka where I made the claim that they should not be considered on the same level and he disagrees with this with some fair points actually about how their fights against Luffy lasted similar amounts of time and that they both involved Luffy needing to dissect his opponents in order to break through both of them because of specific ability related matchups which is interesting but I don't necessarily accept the premise that just because both of them caused Luffy trouble in their own way that they would be on the same level because what we're doing there is comparing them against Luffy rather than how they stand in relation to each other Luffy is not a universal metric the fact that Luffy struggled against kraka does not automatically mean that kata curry would find himself in a similar situation matching the two of them directly against each other I would honestly say that kata curry is unquestionably the victor because he has the key advantage in highly advanced observation hockey as well as being significantly more potently powerful than Luffy potentially enough to force his way through the biscuit or at least dissect it with the help of future sight last kraka is in no way as durable or as driven as Luffy in terms of sheer willpower so a series of clean hits by kata curry and this delicious biscuitty man is probably going to go down quite swiftly and that's why one piece operates on the scissors paper rock system sure both of them can give Luffy trouble for different reasons but that doesn't mean that they are going to be placed in a fair fight when matched against each other and the high variance of these results makes specifically the commander tier so broad that I very much question why we would bother to use it in the first place and just jumping ahead again in the video a bit there's also some discussion surrounding me hawks common classification as a yonko level and my comment about the use of the title warlord level is brought up and here I want to address some of my commenters more so than brago I know that nobody or at least I really really hope that nobody uses the term warlord level in this fanbase it was more intended to be a clear example of why using title specifically as a classification tier is a bad idea and maybe this is where I just have a ton of semantic issues because in my eyes power scaling if one was to engage in it on a broad level should probably be based more on feats rather than titular status and here I'm going to make the mistake of referring to the world of western comics for a bit I will emphasize that I really dislike power levels here as well but they do have what I would posit as a more intriguing system where characters are classified as say a building buster planet buster galaxy buster universe buster and so on and so forth and don't get me wrong these terms also come with a wide array of problems of their own but at the very least they do evoke a solid portrayal of power when they are applied if a character is classified as a planet buster then that tells me that they at the very least have the power to destroy a planet if they so chose however if a character were to be classified as say a vengeance here then that would tell me almost nothing and if anything it defeats the purpose of even saying it because you then need to dive deep and actually define what it is you were saying whereas with the various buster tiers at the very least they accomplish the broad goal and provide a balanced ignition point for the discussion and they very much feel like the one piece tiers that are based on titles don't quite accomplish that not for me anyway so here's a dumb example I'm warning you it's a dumb example but for example if instead of yonko level we called the characters like white beard big mom kaito and shanks sky splitters or something then that would actually evoke some sort of decent meaning it's a stupid stupid classification of course and no one should use it but I actually think it's more accurate than using a title because for example it immediately clears up any debate about luffy and blackbeard being on yonko level and it does provide a solid tangible basis of equality for all the characters who are included in it because they have all accomplished that particular feat and from there you could drive into the beautiful realm of nuance and staying on the topic of yonko level for a bit more there is this whole part about the question over whether or not one could properly classify shanks and I do think that's a very engaging topic that brago and I take opposite stances on but it's probably best suited for another type of video maybe because it's going to take me pretty rapidly off point but then quite possibly my favorite part of brago's video is when he brings up my other profound love in the anime among world being hunter hunter with a very iconic quote from mr. moral and hunter hunter is very much the epitome of not really being able to power scale because nen abilities interact on an even more insane level than devil fruits could ever hope to and you know what this is actually your mid video reminder to go and check out hunter hunter if you haven't already and I don't disagree with anything brago says about it but I am very happy to know that he is also a man of culture next up though there's a point brought up surrounding my use of Caesar as an example of unpredictable occurrences that could mess with a tier system and that example is when Caesar removed all of the oxygen within a given area and pretty much instantly chaos loofy various draw hearts mocha to shiggy many of whom were in different bodies at the time but still and brago posits that yes these characters do exist and I believe he mentioned sugar specifically throughout the video but there are a whole collective of left field characters in one piece that do have this potential I'll emphasize that word though potential to win against any given opponent however brago's response to that is that nobody expects them to be able to use that strategy on high level players in the world and you know I think that's kind of the entire problem that caused me to make my original video as a result of these tears there are a segment of fans who hold this headcanon like some sort of devout holy text to think that sure a character has a weird power but no that would never work against someone so clearly high ranking such as an individual on the prestigious yonko commander level but then you know what it's one piece and it actually happens like Caesar defeating luffy on punk hazard and when that happens these guys go absolutely wild because that eventuality did not fit their intricate tear headcanon and that is what happened with chapter 980 a certain character who had a poorly established ranking in the minds of certain fans pulled off an attack and regardless of the context of the situation which was largely ignored this segment of people lost their shit and I want to be very clear here I'm not saying the brago is one of these people not at all I mean I haven't seen his chapter reviews but given how eloquent and nuanced his thoughts are on this broad topic of power levels as well as his lengthy career in the realm of one piece I would expect that he had nothing less than a solid take on the matter but one piece is a series where you should be prepared for anything and everything to happen however at the same time I do understand that that makes discussion quite boring because if you're always needing to account for every obscure potential scenario then you will never get anywhere now we move to the topic of toxicity and here I think that brago is 100% correct where he says that it is not the specific power leveling system that is toxic but the entire concept of power scaling in one piece and I guess any battle focus series in general because should we somehow or universally decide that yonko level admiral level and etc should all be removed from the vernacular fan discussion then that really doesn't solve anything because the people who misuse these terms either on purpose or because they're just not familiar enough with the strict fan definition which is the most likely scenario and just to expand on that a bit because this is not a formal system like to my knowledge there is no quick written guide to consult a reference and as a result of that everyone kind of ends up with their own heavily subjective definitions of yonko level yonko commander level and etc and they go on to use them for what I'm hearing from brago is an unintended purpose and so this goes back to my issue of vagarty within said system when these levels are deliberately designed to be broad then that is always going to lead to heavy misinterpretation amongst their users in the quest for meaning especially because say we have an in-depth discussion about sanji and where he belongs for argument's sake let's say that we place him on the commander level and we go through the detailed nuance of why he is there and how he is separate from every other commander level being what next though that might be one solid discussion but in the end sanji is still going to be saddled with the label of commander level because there is no titular outcome from further discussion so after discussing the intricate nuance we then retreat back to our broad classification which would be fine for the two of us because we we know what we're talking about however if either of us then make the statement to a third party that sanji is clearly yonko commander level then they are likely going to very rapidly succumb to thoughts like no no way is sanji as strong as kata kuri or queen or king are you insane ground line review as talking about one piece roughly three to four times a week for the past three is literally melted your brain and they probably won't say that exact statement but they don't have the benefit of our intricate discussion where we very carefully place sanji on our fan made spectrum all they have is the broad title because in the end that's the only tangible result that the two of us actually have as well and as such we then need to have the exact same discussion again with a new person and again and again and again for as many times as we make the statement that sanji is commander level i think i just went on a bit of a super tangent there because brago's original point is that even without this particular system people are going to be pains in the arse anyway because it's power scaling and that i can wholeheartedly agree with i don't think that the system brago has elected to use is the core problem at all i think the broad concept of power scaling is a problem and i believe that the only effective way it can really be done in this series anyway is by taking two individuals and stacking them up against each other i don't personally see the point in putting up vague thresholds of tears in the way first i think it muddles discussion generates unclear conclusions and at the very least in my experience can often lead to some very very unpleasant heated discourse but that is not the same for everyone and to a large segment of individuals in this fan base they do claim it to be helpful and i don't begrudge anyone for engaging in power scaling it's a prolific topic that forms a part of the lifeblood of many fan bases and we all do it to some degree whether we want to admit it or not all right next up though we are moving away from power levels for a bit and we now have a very different criticism this one is more on the topic of emperors and how one goes about attaining that status specifically the difference between how blackbeard became an emperor as opposed to luffy one which brago paints as quite stark and i guess this is just another one of those many many things that i disagree with so basically brago takes us on a journey through blackbeard's impressive cv to demonstrate that he made it to the status of an emperor not just by fate or luck which i wholeheartedly agree with despite flagging fate as a primary force cast upon him in my video i do stand by that though blackbeard is a creature of fate just like luffy but blackbeard also like luffy is an incredible force of disruption in this world and he has more than earned his place as an emperor however brago then goes on to state that the only reason why luffy is considered an emperor is because of big news morgan's publishing it in the bold economic times and here we have rather accidentally stumbled upon one of my other great cripes within the fanbase which is the idea that luffy did not earn his place as an emperor and is only here through fabrication so i for one have quite a bit of difficulty seeing how you could go through blackbeard's entire career as a pirate say he earned the title of emperor which once again i agree with but not stop and do the same for luffy because it's not as if luffy was some no-name chump when morgan's ordained him with the emperor title and you know if anything luffy cv is actually far far more impressive than blackbeard's i mean he is the only individual in this world to have led an assault on all three primary marine facilities including the complete destruction of one and instigating the only mass breakout of impel down in the history of the prison he also had the gold strolled directly into the territory of an emperor of the sea defeat two of her commanders and destroy her delicious wedding cake as well as live to tell the tale furthermore luffy has defeated no less than three warlords of the sea and made allies or acquaintances of six including one that has become his direct subordinate and speaking of luffy commands a powerhouse crew of ever growing infamous individuals one of which is a fellow worst generation member as well as having indirect command of a force of over five thousand members of the straw hat grand fleet which is more than three times the size of the entirety of the whitebeard pirates and these are just the feats that we as fans can directly attribute to luffy as far as the general public know he is also the man who destroyed whole cake chateau fought directly against the admirals of marine food along with various warlords effectively told the strongest man in the world to shove it punch the hero of the marines right in the face punch the world noble in the face and tanked a hit from a fleet admiral during the process of freeing ace his brother which also brings luffy's pedigree into the public eye he is the son of literally the most wanted man in the world the grandson of the greatest marine to have ever lived as well as the brother of one of the most prolific commanders of the whitebeard pirates and furthermore as far as the public knows luffy is actually directly tied to silver's relief the second in command of the former pirate king so in the public eye luffy appears as quite possibly one of the most dangerous individuals to have ever lived and morgans didn't make any of this up he just had to collect and collate luffy's short career as a pirate and he was the first to say the words luffy and emperor out loud but you know morgans didn't just anoint luffy to that position from nowhere luffy 100% earned his place here by causing more chaos than any singular character in the modern day and having gathered an exceptional following that even now includes entire kingdoms directly associated with the bulk government and just to flip things for a second here who's to say that morgans didn't do the exact same thing with blackbeard what if after the payback war morgans published an article calling blackbeard an emperor and that's how he consolidated that influence i mean blackbeard certainly didn't name himself an emperor and the other emperors don't have the power to do such thing so where did it come from the only place it can come from public perception which was probably as a result of morgans but in the end there's just too much we don't know and too many assumptions at play regarding blackbeard's almost entirely shrouded path to power but i don't think it's a reasonable statement to say that blackbeard deserves the emperor title whilst luffy does not and i already know the main thing this is going to come back to which is individual power most of the fans who don't accept luffy as an emperor hold that belief because he does not possess the individual power of the emperors that we've explored thus far and here is where the whole title power system has the ability to really really damage the narrative perception of one piece the fact that there is a yonko level in the realm of fan base power scaling comes with this side effect of skewing what it actually means to be an emperor in the series it's not about personal strength yes you will need a certain degree of it but it has much more to do with the influence over the world and luffy by this point has some of the most profound influence and quite possibly the single most loyal following amongst any organization bar the marines individual power is not the sole deciding factor it is a common one but not an exclusive one so for example just because the average height of nba players is 200 centimeters a six foot seven that doesn't mean that significantly shorter players can't make the league it's rare but it shows that while height is a common factor it is not an exclusive one just like individual power in the one piece world definitely the easiest path to becoming an emperor is raw power but that is not the only way to get there but aside from the issue of power the primary argument i see referenced against luffy being an emperor are the statements that his fellow emperors make about him specifically the one that blackbeard stated that luffy was not ready to be an emperor and brago argues that this is because blackbeard has traveled that path and knows what it takes to consolidate that spot which might be fair enough in his own individual case because blackbeard yes would understand his own personal journey what i find very interesting and often left out of this discussion though is shanks's reaction to the news on that exact same page of manga because he just reads the newspaper and says looks like we'll be meeting soon luffy so shanks who obviously also knows what it takes to become an emperor just immediately accepts luffy which is a complete counterpoint to the blackbeard argument so from my perspective blackbeard big mom kaito they're all making the same mistake that many members of this fanbase are they are looking at luffy from a pure sense of force and disregarding him because he does not fit in with their own personalized portrayal of an emperor which i'll say again is not helped by the existence of a fan made yonko level tier because it gives people the wrong impression of what an emperor is so is luffy ready to fight the other emperors one-on-one almost certainly not with an argument to be made for blackbeard not in this video though but did luffy earn the spot absolutely yes he is a unique emperor who has reached this position by the road less taken and that's why he shunned for it it's very similar to the real world actually you know if you don't follow the establishment path then you are illegitimate even if it gets you to the exact same outcome but as for the rest of brago's video look i don't necessarily disagree with anything a lot of it is just reinforcing his ideas and i very much appreciate that he took the time to present the power scaling case because quite frankly i have not encountered a single person who was able to do so with the clarity that he presented i do love that we come at this and evidently many many other issues from such extremely different viewpoints and i hope that this dialogue has been valuable in some way shape or form to the fanbase at large because i know that there are an incredible legion of people out there like me who do tend to dislike discussion around power scaling but there is also a huge legion of people who take great pleasure in it so thank you very much mr bda law for taking the time to respond so thoroughly to my ramblings and yeah look i'm tired now so i'm just i'm just going to stop talking so what do you guys think please leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my discord server and if you'd like to see more videos like this and please do come check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious one piece business uploaded straight until youtube feed but for now this has been the ground line review and i'll see you next time