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<\/a><\/p>\nLuffy is the protagonist in a series called One Piece<\/i> by Eiichiro Oda which is both a comic and an animated television program; Luffy\u2019s ambition is to be the King of the Pirates. Duly, I would be extremely surprised if no one in my seminar had heard of him. With seventy-two volumes and over six hundred episodes, One Piece has been going strong for fifteen years. Hundreds of thousands of people engage with One Piece, many of them children who emulate the characters, especially Luffy upon who the spotlight is generally fixed. Significantly, Luffy, as far as I can tell, is a perfect fictional embodiment of the sovereign individual, which, as I hope most people realize in this day and age, unless they are in the habit of underestimating popular culture, is no small thing<\/p>\n
\u00a0What makes Luffy a sovereign individual? To start with, Luffy is depicted as a wholly autonomous character, even as a young child. Flashbacks in the series reveal that Luffy and his brothers, Ace and Sabo, grew up among a group of retired mountain bandits, the head of which is their foster mother, Dadan; Dadan is merely a figurehead, however. The boys neither listen to her nor live under the same roof as her; they live on their own in a giant treefort which they built in the forest on the outskirts of town, gathering their own food for survival, and stealing money from local criminals which they are saving to buy a pirate ship.<\/p>\n Besides asserting his financial and comestible autonomy, Luffy also asserts his ambition to become the King of the Pirates despite his grandfather Garp\u2019s threats and relentless insistence that it is imperative for Luffy to join the Marines. Consequently, Luffy goes on to pursue his own ambitions, gathering a ship, a crew, and going on extraordinary adventures.<\/p>\n Like Nietzsche\u2019s sovereign individual, Luffy places a significant amount of importance on his freedom. In one instance, for example, Luffy\u2019s mentor, Silvers Rayleigh, asks him why he wants to be the pirate king; Luffy tells him that \u201cI don\u2019t want to conquer anything; it\u2019s just that the person with the most freedom on the sea is the pirate king\u201d. \u00a0Above all else, Luffy values and desires freedom, a sentiment which is expressed in his ultimate ambition to become the pirate king.<\/p>\n In addition, although never explicitly stated, it is no stretch to say that Luffy, like Nietzsche’s sovereign individual has a \u201cproud consciousness of power and freedom.\u201d Luffy lives his life in the manner that he desires without regret indicative of his awareness of his freedom. He frequently proclaims that in setting himself upon becoming that King of the Pirates, he does not care if he dies trying: \u201cif I die trying then at least I tried!\u201d In addition, Luffy overcomes nearly every enemy he intends to defeat. Notably, one of his favourite catch phrases is \u201cI\u2019m going to kick your ass,\u201d and when Luffy asserts this, the audience can be assured that he will do just that. Consequently, in only a short amount of time, Luffy becomes one of the most wanted pirates on the seas owing to the immense havoc that his abilities create. Among the enemies who Luffy takes down are included a group of elite government agents who threatened his crew and two of the seven warlords of the seas, very powerful pirates associated with the government. Despite his wanted status, however, Luffy is utterly fearless and when not confronting an enemy, more or less carefree suggesting that he is also aware of his strength.<\/p>\n Like the sovereign individual, Luffy is not bound by moral rules as customary constraints but as the freely endorsed commitments through which he gives expression in his own character. While the world government and the Marines often call pirates \u201cbad\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d these customary classifications have no import for Luffy. While on Fishman Island, for instance, the mermaid princess Shirahoshi asks Luffy if being a pirate makes him a bad person: \u201cLuffy, since you\u2019re a pirate, does that make you a bad person?\u201d Luffy merely responds by saying \u201cDunno. Decide that for yourself\u201d. Later on in the story arc, the citizens of Fishman Island, confused as to where the allegiances of the Luffy and his crew lie pose a similar question; they ask \u201care you friends or foes of Fishman Island?\u201d Luffy simply responds by telling them \u201cwhether we\u2019re friend or foe is up to you to decide\u201d. For Luffy, actions speak louder than words or rather, the doing is the being, and it is through his actions that he defines himself and creates his own moral values, suggesting that other people do the same.<\/p>\n In another incident, Luffy encounters a powerful enemy on the sky island, Skypiea, named Eneru who insists that he is a God. Eneru wantonly causes destruction, however, leading Luffy to scoff, \u201cquit calling yourself a God! What kind of God destroys everything and saves nothing?\u201d Although Eneru insists that he is a God, Luffy argues that his actions attest otherwise; it is actions for Luffy which have real import, not words.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, Luffy, like the sovereign individual, is a man who keeps his promises: \u201cone\u2019s deeds are criterial of one\u2019s intentions thus for the sovereign individual it is essential to a promise\u2019s being made in good faith that the agent intend to act on it and that he does indeed do so\u201d. Luffy makes several important promises in the series. One of the promises that he makes is a promise to save his brother, Ace, from execution after Ace was captured by the World Government. Consequently, Luffy goes to extraordinary lengths to keep this promise, breaking into the allegedly impenetrable prison, Impel Down, and engaging in a dangerous war at the Navy base, Marineford; in both of these incidents, Luffy comes very close to dying. Luffy does not save his brother, however, his actions, according to Owen\u2019s criteria, are excusable. Owen admits two excuses for a promise being broken; in the first case, honouring one\u2019s commitment is causally impossible due to circumstances beyond one\u2019s control hence one cannot physically do what is required. In the second case, keeping a promise is normatively impossible due to circumstances beyond one\u2019s control so one must not ethically do what is required. The circumstances that lead up to Ace\u2019s death are causally out of Luffy\u2019s control, thus, he is excused viz the first case. Luffy intended to keep his promise but despite his best efforts, it was simply impossible. Ace is killed by an Akainu, a navy Admiral who overpowers him.<\/p>\n Furthermore, like Nietzsche\u2019s sovereign individual, Luffy, in failing to keep a promise, \u201cacknowledges a debt to addressee of [his] commitment and that reparations be due\u201d. When Luffy made a promise to save his brother Ace, he made a promise both to his brother and to himself. Luffy could not repay Ace for his failure so instead inflicts physical and emotional punishment on himself as reparation. Luffy \u201cwillingly bears [the] responsibility for[the] damage when his commitment could not be kept\u201d. In addition, he makes a further promise to himself that he will \u201cprotect everything\u201d. Owen mentions that what counts as keeping a promise for a sovereign individual \u201ccannot be fully specified in advance and independently of a particular way of keeping it\u201d and indeed, the specifications of Luffy\u2019s promise are vague and only realized later in the series. \u00a0Regardless, it is clear that actions, for Luffy, have ethical purchase and salience.<\/p>\n In contrast, the enemies who Luffy faces are often deceitful, dishonest, and do not keep their promises. As Owen states, \u201cthe sovereign individual, as the positive role of Nietzsche\u2019s contrast refers to the condition of self-mastery or full competence to represent oneself to the rest of the world. At the negative pole\u2026is the liar who breaks his words the moment he utters it\u201d. \u00a0The fishman pirate Arlong, for example, promised Luffy\u2019s navigator, Nami, that he would let her friends and family go free if she collected 100 000 000 berries, which are the currency used in Luffy\u2019s world. Arlong, while insisting that \u201cfishmen always keep their promises when it comes to money\u201d pays a corrupt marine captain, Nezumi, to confiscate all of the money Nami had been saving. Arlong is too powerful for Nami or any of the other Straw Hat pirates to beat so Luffy comes to the rescue and demands reparation from Arlong.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Consequently, there is a sense in which Luffy\u2019s position as Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates could be said to be symbolic of his characterization as a sovereign individual. As Nietzsche says, the sovereign individual has the \u201cthe prerogative to promise..[which is the] privilege of responsibility\u201d. Luffy, as Captain, has sworn to protect the all the other members of his crew, a responsibility which he alone has the privilege to bear.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n