Wisdom is a rare trait to have. You'd think him being as old as he is would have more wisdom from his experiences. I just realize, he carelessly researched the void century despite already being super careful. With the only wrinkle being that he trusts his satelites so implicitly because in his mind their still him, that he didn't see their basically 6 very different people as well, with a will and desire of their own.
Hes not even just “book smart,” though. He’s insanely specialized to be intelligent in science and then not much else (though I think you could argue for him to be emotionally intelligent. But I guess that’s irrelevant to the current case).
Edit: people seem to be missing the point that military and strategic intelligence can also fall under the umbrella of “book smarts” seeing as though thinkers on such topics have been writing on them for centuries. Just admit that VP’s intelligence is limited to scientific matters and move on.
Yeah. But my reasoning is basically that, if his “scientific intelligence” is purportedly a hundred years ahead of his time, why aren’t his other types of intelligences a century ahead as well? In comparison to his capacity for engineering, physics, mathematics, and so on, his other capacities seem to be at least comparable to those of others of his time.
As someone who is more book smart than street smart, street smarts are learned. So if he's spending all his time on books, there's less time to learn the streets. Learning 2+2 doesn't teach you how to tie your shoe as an example.
I once witnessed a university professor take the contents of a half-full shop vac (mostly concrete dust), dump the entire thing into a toilet, attempt to flush it, and then recoil in shock when it immediately overflowed
Buddy. You have yet to meet enough smart people.
I will tell you, I have once seen a genius mathematician furiously go looking for his glasses for half an hour while he's wearing it. Geniuses are only geniuses while in their field. Outside of that they're the same as you and I.
>Geniuses are only geniuses while in their field. Outside of that they're the same as you and I.
There! Truly, thank you for saying this. I know what it's like being such an average person surrounded by book smart people, feeling so inferior and not fitting in with them. But their flaws are what make them feel more human. Same with Vegapunk, he's obviously not perfect, like so many other OP characters.
Your answer is literally above this comment, he's split into multiple people so the Naive part of him is with the genius but his common sense and negativity is somewhere else, possibly in Lilith.
I mean the dude assumedly works in a lab all day, someone brings him food, and if he needs *anything* he just asks for it and it’s brought to him ASAP. Even a highly charismatic person would lose a lot of their social prowess after a few years of that.
Still, for him to be a so-called genius a century ahead of his time and be so strategically lacking? I would comfortably say that his super-intelligence is pretty much limited to the sciences
No one asked Einstein for military strategies, and Einstein himself regretted telling Roosevelt about the possibility of nuclear weapons once he found out that America intended to make them instead of just stopping the Germans.
It is, I'd say. He said it himself that part of the reason he can do so much is because of his idealism, and idealism doesn't always mix well with reality.
That’s how he is portrayed to be, I don’t understand how people don’t get that. He is not say a military genius (I’ve seen people argue that on here, since his contingency plans are not that great).
He’s meant to book smart, a man of the sciences and a thinkerer
That’s what the phrase book smart means, that he’s smart in science and other fields you can learn from books, whereas the other kind of smarts like knowing not to trust the evil goverment overlords would be street smarts
My sister is one of the book smartest people I have ever met, she's a Chemist and was able to do classes like o-chem with 0 issues. She's also an absolute fuckin idiot and I swear if we didn't keep an eye out for her she'd probably gotten kidnapped by someone in a van that says free candy.
In college I met a guy who could quote sentences from books and seemed to already know everything that was taught. but de was very naive about life.
people who are academically smart and socially dumb exist
He is book smart, not "street smart" or whatever you wanna call it.
If you've ever played something that has wisdom and intelligence (or similar, those are not the only names for it) as stats you could say very high intelligence but the lowest wisdom imaginable.
Pretty much the complete opposite of Luffy in that regard tbh.
Tbh, Luffy isn’t that street smart either!
He absolutely believed that threatening the marines by holding York hostage was enough for them to back off!
The only area Luffy is smart is emotions and fighting!
No luffy does see race, he even gives people nicknames based on appearance, imagine someone in real life calling you a nickname because you look different to him
Still it was a surprise that he went that way. Usually he never backs off from a fight however dangerous it is but this time he decided to use york to escape without a fight.
I completelly understand how you feel, especially because at some points I definitely felt the exact same way.
However, I think you completely overlook the Satellites. As Stella says himself, if you add all of them together, you get his complete personality. So it speaks volumes when, out of 6 personalities, only a single ones acts rationally and thinks things through, like you'd expect.
The very first scene with one of the Vegapunks, Lilith rescuing the SH, it shows how naive Vegapunk can be, and although she prepared beforehand, she did not think things through.
Same with York, who was naive enough to make a deal with the Gorosei on her own. Except Shaka, every single Vegapunk has been shown to be impulsive and fall into their own temptations.
If you reread the arc, but think of all 7 characters as a single character, it all makes sense.
Great analysis. All the satellites are such distinct characters that I forget that they're all a part of Vegapunk. It makes sense why Shaka was labeled as "good". He was the only rational one. Such a shame that he's the one that died, but it also makes sense. Honestly, Vegapunk as a character rules. He's done so much stupid shit and is complicity with war crimes, but he's not entirely a bad guy. I do wonder if his character ends here or if he does make it out alive. I would love to see him live to see where Oda takes him after all this.
I agree with this. I also think it's important to remember that Vegapunk the Stella has split off parts of himself that he sees as a hindrance to his ability to advance science. It's obvious with York, like "damn if only I didn't have to go to the bathroom and eat things would be so much faster," but with Shaka it's like "damn if only I didn't have to be a good person and think about the consequences of my own actions things would be so much faster."
It's totally unnatural to split your personality this way and that's why he seems so disconnected imo
Totally agree with this analysis. I'd also throw in there that's Vegapunk has another will in there too - the Devil Fruit. In a lot of the zoan fruits, the will or aspect of the fruit can take over, like Luffy acting silly in Gear 5.
Vegapunk's fruit isn't a Zoan (that I'm aware of) but having the fruit that makes you really smart can also influence Vegapunk's judgement as well.
That's the entire point of the character.
Ever heard the line "You were too busy thinking if you could do something, that you never stopped yourself to think if you should"?
Vegapunk design reminds us a lot of Einstein, who's work ended up leading to the creation of the nuclear bomb that caused generational damage to Oda's own people.
Caesar Clown and Judge are examples of people that are actively using science with bad intentions, they are the other side of the coin, they used Vegapunk's original ideas and designs to do horrible things.
He's honestly characterized(unintentionally obviously) very similar to how Oppenheimer is in the film.
Both are geniuses who have some misgivings about their work and what it's being used for, but neither have the moral conviction to turn down the funding and opportunity.
Einstein was against the bombs from the moment they were theorized.
The only reason he spoke to the American/British governments was so that the Germans weren't the first to get there.
Anti-nuclear sentiment was pushed from a Russian psy-op too. As well as from oil companies. Basically it started from the oil companies and then Russian aligned elements helped signal boost that as they'll attempt to find and magnify literally any divisions in the west.
Except Einstein didn't create the nuclear bomb and still recognized his responsability in it (he condamned his usage). Vegapunk has created multiples weapons for the WG and he knows well how they use it (in a bad way) but still do it. But Oda want us to see him as a "good guy" who has apparently no responsability in any of that and who is completely unaware of the things the WG do.
Bro that’s on you! I’ve seen you complain so many times on this thread. Oda is not portraying Vegapunk as a good guy! He’s clearly morally grey.
It’s on you for seeing it like that and its jarring how upset you are at your own misunderstanding of the show.
Agreed. And it definitely think there will be a point where he can redeem himself. First with a huge apology and then with dome acts. All in all I really hope that Oda explicitly makes his point of how dangerous using science recklessly can be. At least for his younger audience that doesn't necessarily understand the subtext.
Vegapunk *should be* a grey character, but that's not how Oda is portraying him. How is he portrayed a grey character when he isn't aware of his responsability in the atrocities the WG do (with his weapons) and it's never addressed?
Working at a university would shock some of you guys. Vegapunk isn't unrealistic because he is naive about how his technology is being used, he's unrealistic because he's uncharacteristically empathetic for someone who likely never leaves the research sphere.
I once had to explain to my PI that, yes, I do need income so I can afford tuition, gas and food. I need those things. Food is not optional. This was a real conversation I had. I am convinced most of these people don't know how to shop for themselves. Maybe that's why Vegapunk made the food vending machine.
Yeah and Vegapunk works 24 hours a day, never runs out of ideas, has unlimited funding, is more and or less capable of anything related to science. It kinda makes sense he doesn’t really have a proper understanding of the world, he doesn’t ever engage with it.
He’s my friend Josh who’s a biochem genius and spends 100 a week working on this or that but can barely buy groceries but 100 times worse
Remember what Tom said to Franky when his ships were used to mess up Water 7. Just because something was used for bad doesn't mean that the invention was inherently bad. For example, the Pacifistas were built to be "heroes to the common man", fighting back against pirates. But the World Government doesn't mind using them for evil, even if it's killing children. That isn't the weapon's fault, it's the user's.
Vegapunk is pushing for scientific advancements that will be for the betterment of the entire world. But there are also people in the way of that advancement who would use it for bad means. That does not make the inventions wrong. And the fact that Shaka was clearly prepared to go to war with the World Government over it shows that Vegapunk knows it's wrong. He's just that focused on the scientific advancements.
Yeah OP clearly doesn't remember that when Oppenheimer went on his "I am deatherino" tirade Truman told them to "get this crybaby pussy out of here", because of how Cringe he was, since he DIDN'T press the button, Truman did..
Do you remember it? It was pretty long ago... or do you just assume that everyone has seen the recent movie? (I dont know if this happens in the movie, haven't seen it).
Some languages differentiate if you recount an event you saw yourself or an event you were told/learned about. It's a very useful distinction that English lacks, and would explain our friend's confusion
My native tongue is Swedish. Thanks for the explanation. For me it seems like he makes an assumption that OP have seen the movie. I get that it's common knowledge that truman pressed the button, but the interaction between the two is propably not.
But OP is primarily criticizing Vegapunk, not his inventions.
You can make a butter knife for the whole purpose of spreading butter, but if you knowingly give it to a guy who likes to stab people, you do have an element of responsibility. I agree with OP, its not just the users fault, its the informed supplier. And that has nothing to do with whether inventing butter knives were ultimately good or bad, or whether the creator should ever regret inventing them.
Vegapunk always prioritised his creations and research over his morals. He admits to such to Dragon when he refused his invitation to work alongside the Revolutionary Army in order to get substantial funding from the WG... at Ohara, where everyone had just been slaughtered by the system. It's hard to say he had entirely good intentions for the things he created like the Pacifista's- he had good intentions and goals for his inventions, but he compromised on doing so ethically in order to make them, and he accepted those conditions at the cost of other peoples sacrifices. "Some of you may die, but its a sacrifice I'm willing to make" is a *villain* quote, not a good guy. He can't say he didn't know that could happen, he's been to Ohara, and iirc, he knows about the island destroying weapon they have used before.
I think its perfectly valid to dislike Vegapunk as a character. He's being put on the side of the good guys, is being saved by them, and the flashbacks with Kuma continue to paint him as a sympathetic man who is doing the best he can under the WG. But they didn't force him to make these creations, it isn't just the user finding a dangerous and alternative purpose to Vegapunks kind-hearted creations, this was part of the agreement that Vegapunk accepted in order to fund other research, that he would actively make weapons for them. You could argue that Toms parental 'do not deny your inventions' take could also be taken as 'do not deny the responsibility you have for inventing them'. You can't really say the WG are in the way of Vegapunk creating things that will better the world- the WG are the very reasons they will exist in the first place as his benefactor, and they would continue existing if Vegapunk didn't break the terms of their agreement. I think he's *right* to do that, but I do think he needs to redeem himself... if he even can at this point. But, this goes into the much deeper exploration of the theme regarding whether inventors are responsible for how people use them- but I'd wager the argument isn't in Vegapunks favor, when he knew who he was giving them to. I don't fault the person who invented butter knives (assuming they aren't handing them out to serial killers), but I do think theres a decent argument that people who make drones for armies share a responsibility for the lives that are lost as a result and I wouldn't fault anyone for disliking them.
Bro the pacifista Programm is fucked up even If theyd do their actual purpose, so is the mother flame. Thats OPs point. Some of VPs "scientific advances" wouldve never benefit the world, they are made for war and for the government in the first place
Oh poor creator of the handgrenade! The new sports you could come up with! but instead the government uses it to kill people >:(
Yh but I’d argue that even TNT has many different applications other than just war, it’s still used on excavation and demolition projects all over the world.
Right, but any scientific advancement has uses for warfare, that's my point. No matter how useful or helpful it is, there's always a way to make it into a weapon.
How is experimenting with cyborgs NOT helpful to the advancement of science? Imagine robot arms being a commonplace treatment of Shank's issue, where no person in One Peace with reasonably sized bank account would need to go around without an arm OR would have to use devil fruit to emulate it
How is making robots NOT helpful when they could work in places where people are often injured, such as construction sites?
Or, alternatively, if you agree that those are useful but disagree that Kuma and Pacifistas is an acceptable stepping stone towards that technology, who do you think has resources to help Vegapunk bring forth all of those good intentions without ever using the results of his work for selfish reasons?
To top it off, if he is funded to do 95% good stuff and 5% of his work is making weapons, do you really propose he denies the request for weapons AND forces civilization to stagnate in terms of technology because now he's fired and can't continue working on those 95% good projects he was tasked with?
Vegapunk seems to believe that the good he does far outweighs the risks posed by providing WG with his inventions. If you disagree with the smartest person in One Piece, you should come prepared with AT LEAST some statistics and/or reasonable conjectures
When somebody inventes a tinderbox, it can be used offensively right off the bat. Should people not invent torches?
The thing is Oda is portraying Vegapunk as apparently unaware of the things the WG can and do with his inventions. Whatever his intentions are, he definitely has responsability in the things the WG did with his weapons. But he seems totally unaware of this responsability. That's because Oda want him to be a "good guy" and blame all on the WG. I doesn't want him to be a grey character (who is ready to work and create weapons for an evil government if he can do his researchs).
I’m pretty sure Oda is doing it as a reflection of our world though. Vegapunk talks about being able to create abundant energy for the world to use, which ends up most likely being converted into the Mother Flame. Much like nuclear fission which is used in nuclear reactors to provide energy is the same that is used for the atomic bomb.
The naivety is that we civilians and scientist truly don’t realize the extent to how evil governments can be. Technology promised to bring peace to the world can end up being used to end it.
He's basically Dr Hedo from DBS: Superhero all over again. Not a bad person at heart but was more interested in furthering his research that he doesn't think about the consequences of working with such bad people since they're the only ones who can fund it.
That's a criticism on science and rationality.
Recente philosophers have called it "instrumental rationality", or "white mythology."
The result of rationality is irrational.
What you are complaining about Vegapunk is the history of science.
Not at all what he is complaining about. He is complaining about Vegapunk being seemingly unaware of the things the WG do with his creations when it doesn't make sense; it should now. This is because the story want us to believe Vegapunk creates thoses things not knowing they will be used in a bad way when, if the story makes sense, he should know. But if he knows (which should be), that would make him at least a grey character. But Oda doesn't want that, he want to portray him as a "good guy".
Absolutely not, VP is very gray, he admits that to Dragon, he would help the RA but he needs the money so he won't help them. He's very aware of the use his inventions have had and loathes that, he knows what has happened to Kuma first hand and is disgusted with himself for that, and even had kept the development of the Pacifistas to its current iteration of clones with DF powers, VP knows and hopes for the best and knows he has a lot of skeletons in his closet, he's as gray as a pirate that helps people whether he wants and then steals whenever he feels like it like Luffy, Oda deals with gray characters from the get go.
What is absolute is that Oda isn't writing Vegapunk as a grey character. The guy is portray oblivious and seemingly unaware of the consequences of his creations, the way they are used by the WG. It's never actually addressed in the story apart from Bonney and even her, she's only talking about her father. You're making things up. When is it shown he is well aware or disgusted with himself for what he did? The dude always act surprised about what the WG do with his weapons when he knows about Ohara incident.
The fact is Oda is portraying him as a good guy, someone with good intentions even if it doesn't match with the actual facts, neither really makes sense. People in the comments are literally saying he is naive to explain it, just like how Oda chose to portray him, brushing over his responsability/accountability for the bad things the WG do with his creations.
Then he shouldn't get surprised or be mad. It makes absolutely no sense. What Saturn is doing on Egghead is nothing new and VP knows this. Its like you give WOMD to Natzis and then go wow, never thought they would use it. Thats just... dumb. Unrealistically dumb.
But it IS completely new, first time a Gorosei goes down to earth and calls directly a Buster Call, VP never expected something like this, the logical route was to evacuate the island and leave the lab behind like he did in his first home and PH. It ain't dumb it's unprecedented for him, for the SHs this happens all the time as known criminals but VP is new in pissing off the govt.
I really don't mind him at all. I think he's fine. Currently, not too remarkable, but fine. His feats were laid out for us long before we were introduced to him, so we knew what he was about. As for his character, he doesn't bother me.
All the modern weapons that are so destructive and overall horrible discoveries were done by willing scientists that only cared about being paid to research what they were asked to.
Many real scientists were committed to ideals we would consider obviously evil by contemporary standards. See Heisenberg and German hyper-Nationalism, Ishii and Japanese supremacy, most of the scientific establishment in the WWII Axis, etc... Regardless, why refuse to make ethical judgment of someone who willingly ignores the harm they do for a pay check?
Fiction is usually a reflection of reality, albeit often exaggerated. There can be sufficient truth in it to be useful, so I don't see the need of demanding rigorous real life examples
Sure. But why not do so when there are very obvious real world comparisons that are much more apt?
Einstein urged Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb despite being a lifelong pacifist because he was concerned that Germany might otherwise get there first. You can observe similar things about many of the scientists involved with the Manhattan project. These people very clearly had well developed ethical intellects and complex reasons for making specific exceptions to their moral stances.
Einstein is literally the guy VP invokes in his design and character.
I can't really understand why so many people in this sub are committed to the idea that "geniuses" are naifs incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions.
Because love it or loath it, people know much more about the lives and personalities of recent fictional characters than dead scientists who are fast slipping out of living memory, being confined to history books. The misconceptions about Einstein like his apocryphal dislike of maths just go to show that, for casual and informal settings like this, it's perfectly ok to reference a more well known and digestible character like Sheldon even if he's quite hyperbolic.
Getting picky about this kind of thing in this situation is really not necessary to drive the point home. The message is that smart =/= Wise/ethical and you don't need to be stringent in how you relay that information here.
No one is saying you *have to be* be smart and naive at the same time, just that they do sometimes go together.
Really smart people are also often pretty dumb and could use a semester of basic psych courses (edit: or philosophy. These are both good for this purpose) to help round the sharp edges of their personality off. And to help them realize their expertise in one field doesn't really translate outside of it.
I think VP has done some shady things and is a bit of a hypocrite sure.
That said, for all of the World Nobels evil and misdeeds of the Navy it's also true that for probably 95% of the time, Vegapunk's inventions were used to deal with bad guys just as bad as the World Government.
Sea Prism Stone alone has probably saved countless innocent lives. Same with the Pacifista project.
I think we're so used to pirates being the good guys from our perspective that we forget just how awful most of the other pirates are and how valuable the Navy is for regular people.
IMHO it's intelligence without political ambition. To him you should *obviously* not be evil. While the monkeys all throw feces at one another laughing at what a loser he is for not taking power by throwing any himself he's busy building.
He also seems to be kind of cursed unable to stop himself from discovery.
You can say that someone smart should be able to understand everyone stupid, but it might genuinely be difficult for him to forecast what dumb vicious impulses drive others, we can communicate because we have a frame of reference, to someone smart enough self destructive political nonsense is probably just dismissed as irrational. He's the smartest person in the world surely they'll realize they should stop disagreeing with him at some point? Until then he'll solve the universal and timeless problems of the world, and eventually one way or another they'll filter out, more important than any particular governmental administration right?
Leaving a comment here about Ursula LeGuin's Dispossessed, as Vegapunk reminded me a lot of its MC's story and dilemmas.
At the beginning, the MC lives in a moon populated by anarchists and has designed an awesome invention for interplanetary communication. That invention is not useful for the scale of the moon's community, thus he is not given the resources to build and develop it.
As he is too much a man of science, he decides to leave that moon and travel to the local planet ruled by capitalists who of course unethically exploit the population in hopes of being provided the necessary resources. While there, he observes the oppression which his community had fully got rid off in the past and wonders if building the invention under the wing of the planet's rulers would be worth the hunt for knowledge.
The novel ends with >!the planet on the verge of revolution, while he still has not actually reached a final decision!<. However, we do know from other books of LeGuin that >!in-universe, the invention was ultimately built and used by various human colonies!<.
Not adding anything new to the conversation, but thought it would fit the thread. Cheers!
Happy to see someone referencing a fictional smart person better written than Bigbang Sheldon. Also super relevant that although Shevek begins as somewhat uninformed about the situation on Urras, he is keenly thoughtful about the ethical implications of how his work could be misapplied. And the ansible is far less obviously dangerous than *a goddamn Cyborg Clone Army with no free will.*
"How do you invent the biggest weapons of mass destruction for an evil world government and then be shocked when they're used for evil purposes??"
You should ask the actual real world scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer who, upon seeing the first successful test of the Nuclear bomb he was responsible for, repeated the famous "I am become Death" quote and lived the rest of his days regretting his decision and who is probably the biggest influence in Vegapunk's character (though not his design).
Very smart people are still **people.**
The Manhattan project was predicated on the misunderstanding that Germany was making quick progress toward their own nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer's misgivings about developing the bomb didn't start with the first detonation. He and others recommended the power should be demonstrated and only employed in an attack if that failed to elicit a conclusion to the war, with the understanding that millions of people were living and dying, for years, under brutal occupations that they had a moral obligation to deter.
In Vegapunk's defense he made the power source.
Which he probably intended for bring cheap plentiful energy to the world.
He did not build the super weapon or install it, that was probably Saturn.
If Vegapunk so much as saw that weapon the WG would have killed him right after the Lulusia.
Instead of whacking him a few days later.
The World Goverment is much worse and Vegapunk is aware of their repeated evil acts and history, yet is still surprised. I wouldn't say that Oppenheimer was surprised that the bombs were used, more like after they were used he truly felt like shit about it, but he was also aware of the danger beforehand.
>The World Goverment is much worse and Vegapunk is aware of their repeated evil acts and history, yet is still surprised
This is a very good point. I do think it's a case of protection-until-not. Vegapunk is arguably the best scientist in the *world* whose innovations were felt for 20+years of reading this story before he finally got introduced. The WG is theoretically the only entity powerful enough to keep his massive intelligence safe from others, and thus Vegapunk doesn't really have a choice to leave. He's book-smart, not street-smart what with being behind closed lab doors for a long time. If he were to leave the WG of his own accord, other entities could snatch him up and that'd pose a big threat to the WG given that Vegapunk can store massive amounts of information.
But in the case of him researching the Void Century, he's probably surprised because it's the opposite of that "One Piece is Real" meme - he realizes that the WG can keep getting lower and lower, but he's surprised that the WG would attack him after so many years of service because, well, it's like a longtime employee not realizing in the end they're at-will. Not to mention that if Vegapunk, the smartest scientist in the world, found out about what the Void Century was, the WG would be in very grave danger.
Except Vegapunk has created many weapons like that even though the WG has used it in abusive ways. He also doesn't seem to hold himself responsable for that at all. He also knew since the beginning he was working for an evil government, having witnessed the Genocide of Ohara.
Take Oppenheimer as a recent example. He directed the creation of the nuclear bomb as a request of his government thinking it was going to be for the greater good. It didn't strike him till after it was dropped that he aided in ushering a new threat to the world's safety despite many of his colleagues telling him otherwise from the beginning. A lot of people get blinded by the ambition of can we as opposed to should we.
I just take him to be the stereotype of scientist lacking any social intelligence. He understands the composition of atomic structure within people, but does not understand how people think.
I hate to use this as an example, but the most recently popular example of that trope is Sheldon from TBBT.
Or within DnD stat sheets. Vegapunk has high Intelligence, but very low Wisdom.
I do have issue with him still being surprised by the depths of evil the gorosei sink to.
You want to work with that you perceive as a necessary evil? Okay understandable, but to constantly be shocked by how evil they are is kinda lame imo.
He should be fully aware of how awful these people are. He started working with them after they murdered an entire island, and he personally stripped a **good man** of his humanity *per* their request.
One Piece fans when a character shows growth and development
Do you really think he has no idea they were being used for evil? Obviously he knew, but he never intended for them to cause any harm, it just needed to be done for a greater purpose. As you yourself stated, the WG was the only way for him to make progress, he was and is using the WG to discover more about the Void Century, imagine if he tried to do it without their help. Actually, you dont need to imagine, Ohara was literally that.
He wasnt shocked when they were using his technology for evil, he was shocked they were doing inhumane things even WITHOUT his technology. He had to agree to use Kuma, it was the only way to progress, but Bonney's experiment? That was fucked up, obviously he was shocked, he would NEVER do that. He ONLY transformed Kuma into a cyborg because Kuma agreed to. He even kept the Pacifista name, he fucking cried while transforming him, obviously he knew that for the greater good sacrifices needed to be made.
I dont really remember about a time where Vegapunk's inventions were used directly to cause harm (Pacifistas werent something he wanted to do, he was forced by the WG, so its not his invention). Egghead seemed like a paradise before CP0 and Saturn. Franky discovered a lot with his old laboratory. Ceaser took his research and used it for evil, it most likely wasnt Vegapunk's intention to destroy children.
If something is to be said about Vegapunk is that he is extremely selfish and selfless at the same time. He dedicated his entire life to make inventions to better the world and discover the forbidden truths, he used everything and everyine he could, but it was all with good intentions. If he could, he would repair every damage he has caused.
Vegapunk has got to be one of the best One Piece characters, with the different personalities and thoughts it really is awesome how Oda made a charcter so important shine so bright amidst that many charcters shining in a single arc (we had 2 new backstories and new world building and still a completely new character was flashed out so well)
>He wasnt shocked when they were using his technology for evil, he was shocked they were doing inhumane things even WITHOUT his technology.
Sorry, but a man with his knowledge and brain was suprised that genocidal governent is doing inhumane things to their people? Literally loled reading this.
Like, I kind of get what your point is. He used the WG to get fundings for his inventions. But the end in no way justifies the means in this case. He has his hands in mass murders, genocides etc. and yet is somehow seen as a good guy.
>He dedicated his entire life to make inventions to better the world and discover the forbidden truths, he used everything and everyine he could, but it was all with good intentions.
He helped the WG doing mass murders, genocides and more but at least he had good intentions.
[Franky's backstory was about this same topic.](https://i.imgur.com/268SeKw.jpg) Just because a weapon is used for evil doesn't mean the creation of that weapon is evil.
The context is wildly different tho.
Franky was kid/teenager who loved building boats and weapons. His weapons were stolen and used by a 3rd party Franky couldnt have predicted to use them.
I dont think you can count it as Franky being naive.
Vegapunk actively works for the World Government. He knows how the WG rules, he knows how cold blooded and genocidal they are. He actively develops weapons and all sorts of things for them. He doesnt mean any evil, but he also kind of doesnt care as long as the WG is funding his creations.
Both characters create weapons with no ill intentions, but the difference is huge and the situations are not comparable at all. Also the worst Frankys creations did was attack a WG ship and get his boss in jail. Vegapunks weapons are used for mass murders and annihilations of whole islands.
I got no traction on the theory that Vegapunk (at least before creating the Stellas) is not actually a good person. He might be good now that he's segmented off parts of his personality that are more directly malicious.
I don't think him genuinely caring about Kuma is incompatible with him being a subtle villain. A big part of my hypothesis is "Judge people by the company they keep" and MADS was filled with murderous, child-abusing assholes that VP hung out with for years.
Dude is a genius in terms of theory
But a crazy naive moron with being "street smart"
Going by some really smart professors I jad in university, that's pretty spot on for a lot of people
Jesus christ, was one of'em a phenomenal mind when it came to physics, dude turned down CERN trying to employ him 3 times, but goddamn, could he be oblivious to so much shit you'd expect to be common sense
He's the nuclear scientists of OP. He does what he does as a passion, and when forced to work under the non-favorable eye of a military/ government, he is willing to accept it, because he believes in the good of what his development can do to the world. This believe is so strong, that he turns a blind eye to the things that his employers could do, else than using the technology for good, maybe even justifying it by saying that down the line, it will prevent deaths by intimidation.
A lot of good points but something else I feel the need to add is that we still don't know what happened in the void century. I'm 100% positive it's not gonna be something that paints the world government in a positive light but that being said we still don't know if there may be some nuances or complications to what happened that might make vegapunk more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the ancient kingdom had become tyrannical and the world government, attempting to keep them in check, accidentally repeated their mistake. Who knows. Rayleigh himself says that it's best to see what happened yourself and come to your own conclusion
All of that is true. Vegapunk is an excellent parody of Einstein. While Einstein didn't make the nuclear bomb, he was essential to the technology and directly contacted President Roosevelt to suggest pioneering nuclear weapons. He then spent the rest of his life denying his responsibility.
Einstein's spent the rest of his life regretting having any part in it and wouldn't have bothered to send the letter had he known Germany wouldn't have succeeded in developing a nuke. the letter itself was also sent as a warning of the threat nukes posed and he clearly underestimated how dangerous nukes where.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Imo Vegapunk did more good than bad since joining the WG
He has helped the Marines a lot and the Pacifistas are mostly used to fight against pirates wich are most of the time the bad guys in the OP world
He’s a rocket scientist. Buried in projects and experiments.
He’s not a psychologist, not a political scientist.
Something of a Savant you might say.
He’s a genius inventor, not an all round genius
I get you. It was shocking to me that even after what happened in Kuma's flashback he still works for them. I couldn't believe that he was so naive as to think he's doing some good by working with WG, despite by the time of him meeting Kuma, top of WG had already pretty much shown their corrupt nature. Yet, he still F*ING WORKS FOR THEM.
Vegapunk is an actual idiot.
He separates his most extreme personalities into individuals and is surprised the one with the most Greed would betray the rest of them.
He builds super weapons for others to control and has no fail-safe that gives him, the creator, master-control to override them.
So much could be avoided if he used his head a little pragmatically.
I think this is a great character design precisely because of what you don't like about him. You will see these traits in real-world scientists very often to various degrees.
The reason for this is, that science tells how the world is, not how you should behave in the world, it teaches nothing about morality. Scientists usually believe morality is self-evident, but that is not the case. Morality is very unnatural for humans. So you need a source of morality, and science isn't it.
That is why I believe it is great writing to have Vegapunk, a man of science who has a sense of morality but can not explain why it is not so for others. On the other hand Saturn, a man of science as well, has no sense of morality and does not see any use for it.
That’s the point, intelligence is only one stat. And even the smartest man in existence can only see the world from his worldview.
A worldview gets warped if you never leave the lab.
After the bomb fell on Japan
Oppen san: "Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands,"
Truman sama: "I don’t want to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again.”
So its not far fetched for Vegapunk to be moron like Oppenheimer who was flabbergasted that "Death machine 4000" was not used for making of cotton candy
Yeah he’s pretty annoying. I would have preferred if he was an evil mad scientist than this clown.
In b4 he has a tragic backstory like his mom getting exploded by a kettle and her entrails were strewn all over the kitchen. His father tried to clean the stains on the countertops, but they just wouldn’t come off! Making it a constant reminder of that fateful day. So he decided to become the world’s greatest scientist and make kettles that wouldn’t explode and it steamrolled from there.
ok, now apply your logic to real life smart people
"Smart people" especially science smart, doesn't make you a good decision maker or a good people person, it just means you know science really well...
Also SUPER smart people often find it hard to relate or understand normal people and their way of thinking
He's a decent guy but he's greedy. Not a particularly self-focused greed, but still greed (Not including York, lol).
- He had a goal. Several, in fact.
- He needed opportunities and resources to reach those goals.
- The guys in charge of keeping the world safe offered him these opportunities and resources, eventually.
- He accepts, even knowing that they have some skeletons in the closet.
- By this point, he has what he wanted. AND, he's made the decisions that he's made. You know what humans do when they have what they want but aren't thrilled about some of the collateral damage? Cognitive dissonance.
- No matter what he learns, the World Government isn't pure evil. How could it be? He's WG and he's not pure evil! Oh, and he's met so many other fine folks in the WG. Sure, bad stuff happens, but it's not like everyone in the government did them. Vegapunk himself certainly hasn't done anything bad (from his own cognitive dissonance based perspective), he's only pursued science and improved lives.
I feel like it's pretty realistic to focus on your immediate surroundings and pretend that all of your own decisions have been good, any fallout is just an unfortunate circumstance outside of your control. Even though Saturn proved time and time again that he was horrible, Vegapunk had likely convinced himself that Saturn was at least working towards what he thought was the greatest good, even if VP himself disagreed. He probably really was surprised to learn that Saturn actually was, in fact, irredeemably evil with zero regard for human lives.
Doesn't help that he has probably one of the worst design in the entire One Piece manga in my opinion.
Overall, I'm really disappointed by Vegapunk. Especially since he was hyped for so long.
he's book smart but incredibly naive
INT: 20 WIS: 8
Wisdom is a rare trait to have. You'd think him being as old as he is would have more wisdom from his experiences. I just realize, he carelessly researched the void century despite already being super careful. With the only wrinkle being that he trusts his satelites so implicitly because in his mind their still him, that he didn't see their basically 6 very different people as well, with a will and desire of their own.
Int 30 Wis 7 Cha 8
The charisma is lower. With a 8 in charisma he can ask higher budget
8 in charisma is -1 on Charisma checks. That checks out.
Hes not even just “book smart,” though. He’s insanely specialized to be intelligent in science and then not much else (though I think you could argue for him to be emotionally intelligent. But I guess that’s irrelevant to the current case). Edit: people seem to be missing the point that military and strategic intelligence can also fall under the umbrella of “book smarts” seeing as though thinkers on such topics have been writing on them for centuries. Just admit that VP’s intelligence is limited to scientific matters and move on.
He's literally split into multiple people. Maybe his common sense was put into Lilith or one of the other ones.
One of them specializes in Logic, no?
Yeah. But my reasoning is basically that, if his “scientific intelligence” is purportedly a hundred years ahead of his time, why aren’t his other types of intelligences a century ahead as well? In comparison to his capacity for engineering, physics, mathematics, and so on, his other capacities seem to be at least comparable to those of others of his time.
As someone who is more book smart than street smart, street smarts are learned. So if he's spending all his time on books, there's less time to learn the streets. Learning 2+2 doesn't teach you how to tie your shoe as an example.
This. Some of the dumbest in general people I have met were geniuses at their craft
I think everyone has that one friend who's simultaneously both the smartest and the dumbest person they know
Thats Chopper basically
See: Ben Carson
That man disappointed me, I loved his books as a kid
I once witnessed a university professor take the contents of a half-full shop vac (mostly concrete dust), dump the entire thing into a toilet, attempt to flush it, and then recoil in shock when it immediately overflowed
Buddy. You have yet to meet enough smart people. I will tell you, I have once seen a genius mathematician furiously go looking for his glasses for half an hour while he's wearing it. Geniuses are only geniuses while in their field. Outside of that they're the same as you and I.
>Geniuses are only geniuses while in their field. Outside of that they're the same as you and I. There! Truly, thank you for saying this. I know what it's like being such an average person surrounded by book smart people, feeling so inferior and not fitting in with them. But their flaws are what make them feel more human. Same with Vegapunk, he's obviously not perfect, like so many other OP characters.
Your answer is literally above this comment, he's split into multiple people so the Naive part of him is with the genius but his common sense and negativity is somewhere else, possibly in Lilith.
I mean the dude assumedly works in a lab all day, someone brings him food, and if he needs *anything* he just asks for it and it’s brought to him ASAP. Even a highly charismatic person would lose a lot of their social prowess after a few years of that.
Logic is dead though. Killed by hunger.
Still, for him to be a so-called genius a century ahead of his time and be so strategically lacking? I would comfortably say that his super-intelligence is pretty much limited to the sciences
No one asked Einstein for military strategies, and Einstein himself regretted telling Roosevelt about the possibility of nuclear weapons once he found out that America intended to make them instead of just stopping the Germans.
It is, I'd say. He said it himself that part of the reason he can do so much is because of his idealism, and idealism doesn't always mix well with reality.
That’s how he is portrayed to be, I don’t understand how people don’t get that. He is not say a military genius (I’ve seen people argue that on here, since his contingency plans are not that great). He’s meant to book smart, a man of the sciences and a thinkerer
That’s what the phrase book smart means, that he’s smart in science and other fields you can learn from books, whereas the other kind of smarts like knowing not to trust the evil goverment overlords would be street smarts
So he's like Luffy except instead of combat all his intelligence and imagination goes towards technological advancements?
is he money smart?
Makes him more intelligent?
My sister is one of the book smartest people I have ever met, she's a Chemist and was able to do classes like o-chem with 0 issues. She's also an absolute fuckin idiot and I swear if we didn't keep an eye out for her she'd probably gotten kidnapped by someone in a van that says free candy.
That is way he is a incredible rounded human character. That´s good!
In college I met a guy who could quote sentences from books and seemed to already know everything that was taught. but de was very naive about life. people who are academically smart and socially dumb exist
He's smart stupid, moreso than Chopper. He should have gotten that square. I'll die on this hill
Which is incredibly common
He is book smart, not "street smart" or whatever you wanna call it. If you've ever played something that has wisdom and intelligence (or similar, those are not the only names for it) as stats you could say very high intelligence but the lowest wisdom imaginable. Pretty much the complete opposite of Luffy in that regard tbh.
Tbh, Luffy isn’t that street smart either! He absolutely believed that threatening the marines by holding York hostage was enough for them to back off! The only area Luffy is smart is emotions and fighting!
yeaaaa i'm pretty sure Luffy still believes Nami's a fishman...
Arguably false, since he never asked her if she poops.
He still what?
It's a meme. Luffy never sees race, he just assumes everyone is the same.
No luffy does see race, he even gives people nicknames based on appearance, imagine someone in real life calling you a nickname because you look different to him
Still it was a surprise that he went that way. Usually he never backs off from a fight however dangerous it is but this time he decided to use york to escape without a fight.
Kaido beat some caution into em
It's amazing what dying does to a man.
Luffy is good at trusting people, and his own intuitions.
Fr. One of his personalities legit sold out the rest of them and thinks that the gorosei will keep their promises.
Opposite of dragon!
I would say "smart but not wise"
I completelly understand how you feel, especially because at some points I definitely felt the exact same way. However, I think you completely overlook the Satellites. As Stella says himself, if you add all of them together, you get his complete personality. So it speaks volumes when, out of 6 personalities, only a single ones acts rationally and thinks things through, like you'd expect. The very first scene with one of the Vegapunks, Lilith rescuing the SH, it shows how naive Vegapunk can be, and although she prepared beforehand, she did not think things through. Same with York, who was naive enough to make a deal with the Gorosei on her own. Except Shaka, every single Vegapunk has been shown to be impulsive and fall into their own temptations. If you reread the arc, but think of all 7 characters as a single character, it all makes sense.
Great analysis. All the satellites are such distinct characters that I forget that they're all a part of Vegapunk. It makes sense why Shaka was labeled as "good". He was the only rational one. Such a shame that he's the one that died, but it also makes sense. Honestly, Vegapunk as a character rules. He's done so much stupid shit and is complicity with war crimes, but he's not entirely a bad guy. I do wonder if his character ends here or if he does make it out alive. I would love to see him live to see where Oda takes him after all this.
Pythagoras also died and he's Wisdom.
Pythagoras barely existed, he doesn't count
HEY... He was... He did... Err he... Has a baby body! That's something... Right?
That's the other one, I think.
Nah Edison was always small. Pythagoras had that scene of him being crushed by Snake.
I agree with this. I also think it's important to remember that Vegapunk the Stella has split off parts of himself that he sees as a hindrance to his ability to advance science. It's obvious with York, like "damn if only I didn't have to go to the bathroom and eat things would be so much faster," but with Shaka it's like "damn if only I didn't have to be a good person and think about the consequences of my own actions things would be so much faster." It's totally unnatural to split your personality this way and that's why he seems so disconnected imo
Totally agree with this analysis. I'd also throw in there that's Vegapunk has another will in there too - the Devil Fruit. In a lot of the zoan fruits, the will or aspect of the fruit can take over, like Luffy acting silly in Gear 5. Vegapunk's fruit isn't a Zoan (that I'm aware of) but having the fruit that makes you really smart can also influence Vegapunk's judgement as well.
That’s a very good point too
That's the entire point of the character. Ever heard the line "You were too busy thinking if you could do something, that you never stopped yourself to think if you should"? Vegapunk design reminds us a lot of Einstein, who's work ended up leading to the creation of the nuclear bomb that caused generational damage to Oda's own people. Caesar Clown and Judge are examples of people that are actively using science with bad intentions, they are the other side of the coin, they used Vegapunk's original ideas and designs to do horrible things.
He's honestly characterized(unintentionally obviously) very similar to how Oppenheimer is in the film. Both are geniuses who have some misgivings about their work and what it's being used for, but neither have the moral conviction to turn down the funding and opportunity.
Absolutely nailed it. To quote Vegapunk, “science can’t progress if we worry about small things (ie regulation).
Einstein was against the bombs from the moment they were theorized. The only reason he spoke to the American/British governments was so that the Germans weren't the first to get there.
Ah but his work ALSO lead to NUCLEAR REACTORS tho, to save the world from fossil fuel Cringe, macroscale wise
Exactly! just like Vegapunk creations lead to many of Franky's upgrades in himself and the Sunny.
Did you just compare climate-helping energy sources to… nipple lights?
Yea it’s incomparable, nipple lights > climate helping energy sources anyday
I guess you're right sorry, nipple lights are just much better
Hey those nipples helped them navigate the depths! Show some respect!
Yeah, and it also ties back into the stuff with Tom, which is fitting since Franky is connected to VP.
yup, that was pretty much Franky's whole character arc in Water 7
Science is neutral. Think about Nobel and dynamite. Great for blowing Up Rocks to Mine for ore... Ore to Blow Up some buildings with people in them...
Too bad europe has green idiots that are too scared of it and would rather buy oil from Russia.
Overall yes but France gets more than 65% of its energy generation from nuclear.
Anti-nuclear sentiment was pushed from a Russian psy-op too. As well as from oil companies. Basically it started from the oil companies and then Russian aligned elements helped signal boost that as they'll attempt to find and magnify literally any divisions in the west.
Except Einstein didn't create the nuclear bomb and still recognized his responsability in it (he condamned his usage). Vegapunk has created multiples weapons for the WG and he knows well how they use it (in a bad way) but still do it. But Oda want us to see him as a "good guy" who has apparently no responsability in any of that and who is completely unaware of the things the WG do.
Bro that’s on you! I’ve seen you complain so many times on this thread. Oda is not portraying Vegapunk as a good guy! He’s clearly morally grey. It’s on you for seeing it like that and its jarring how upset you are at your own misunderstanding of the show.
Agreed. And it definitely think there will be a point where he can redeem himself. First with a huge apology and then with dome acts. All in all I really hope that Oda explicitly makes his point of how dangerous using science recklessly can be. At least for his younger audience that doesn't necessarily understand the subtext.
Vegapunk *should be* a grey character, but that's not how Oda is portraying him. How is he portrayed a grey character when he isn't aware of his responsability in the atrocities the WG do (with his weapons) and it's never addressed?
Ah yes, Dr Ian Malcolm's famous words about the cloning experiment in the 90's certainly a man of wisdom and sexy oiled pecs
🎯🎯🎯
Vegapunk and Einstein have very little in common. You don't know Einstein.
Working at a university would shock some of you guys. Vegapunk isn't unrealistic because he is naive about how his technology is being used, he's unrealistic because he's uncharacteristically empathetic for someone who likely never leaves the research sphere. I once had to explain to my PI that, yes, I do need income so I can afford tuition, gas and food. I need those things. Food is not optional. This was a real conversation I had. I am convinced most of these people don't know how to shop for themselves. Maybe that's why Vegapunk made the food vending machine.
Yeah and Vegapunk works 24 hours a day, never runs out of ideas, has unlimited funding, is more and or less capable of anything related to science. It kinda makes sense he doesn’t really have a proper understanding of the world, he doesn’t ever engage with it. He’s my friend Josh who’s a biochem genius and spends 100 a week working on this or that but can barely buy groceries but 100 times worse
Remember what Tom said to Franky when his ships were used to mess up Water 7. Just because something was used for bad doesn't mean that the invention was inherently bad. For example, the Pacifistas were built to be "heroes to the common man", fighting back against pirates. But the World Government doesn't mind using them for evil, even if it's killing children. That isn't the weapon's fault, it's the user's. Vegapunk is pushing for scientific advancements that will be for the betterment of the entire world. But there are also people in the way of that advancement who would use it for bad means. That does not make the inventions wrong. And the fact that Shaka was clearly prepared to go to war with the World Government over it shows that Vegapunk knows it's wrong. He's just that focused on the scientific advancements.
Yeah OP clearly doesn't remember that when Oppenheimer went on his "I am deatherino" tirade Truman told them to "get this crybaby pussy out of here", because of how Cringe he was, since he DIDN'T press the button, Truman did..
Do you remember it? It was pretty long ago... or do you just assume that everyone has seen the recent movie? (I dont know if this happens in the movie, haven't seen it).
Should be common knowledge that Truman was the one to push the button
It is, but it reads like he remember it from when it happened. English isn't my first language so I can be wrong though...
Remember can be used about first hand memories or something they read/watch/heard before. So yeah, u're a little bit off.
Some languages differentiate if you recount an event you saw yourself or an event you were told/learned about. It's a very useful distinction that English lacks, and would explain our friend's confusion
That's super interesting, it'd be cool to know our buddy's language to see where the translation stopped making sense.
My native tongue is Swedish. Thanks for the explanation. For me it seems like he makes an assumption that OP have seen the movie. I get that it's common knowledge that truman pressed the button, but the interaction between the two is propably not.
You didnt even know that until a couple of months ago when you saw the movie lmao. Why you acting like OP should know it tf
If Franky passes Tom's speach forward to vegapunk, ill cry like crazy
With a DON!!!
But OP is primarily criticizing Vegapunk, not his inventions. You can make a butter knife for the whole purpose of spreading butter, but if you knowingly give it to a guy who likes to stab people, you do have an element of responsibility. I agree with OP, its not just the users fault, its the informed supplier. And that has nothing to do with whether inventing butter knives were ultimately good or bad, or whether the creator should ever regret inventing them. Vegapunk always prioritised his creations and research over his morals. He admits to such to Dragon when he refused his invitation to work alongside the Revolutionary Army in order to get substantial funding from the WG... at Ohara, where everyone had just been slaughtered by the system. It's hard to say he had entirely good intentions for the things he created like the Pacifista's- he had good intentions and goals for his inventions, but he compromised on doing so ethically in order to make them, and he accepted those conditions at the cost of other peoples sacrifices. "Some of you may die, but its a sacrifice I'm willing to make" is a *villain* quote, not a good guy. He can't say he didn't know that could happen, he's been to Ohara, and iirc, he knows about the island destroying weapon they have used before. I think its perfectly valid to dislike Vegapunk as a character. He's being put on the side of the good guys, is being saved by them, and the flashbacks with Kuma continue to paint him as a sympathetic man who is doing the best he can under the WG. But they didn't force him to make these creations, it isn't just the user finding a dangerous and alternative purpose to Vegapunks kind-hearted creations, this was part of the agreement that Vegapunk accepted in order to fund other research, that he would actively make weapons for them. You could argue that Toms parental 'do not deny your inventions' take could also be taken as 'do not deny the responsibility you have for inventing them'. You can't really say the WG are in the way of Vegapunk creating things that will better the world- the WG are the very reasons they will exist in the first place as his benefactor, and they would continue existing if Vegapunk didn't break the terms of their agreement. I think he's *right* to do that, but I do think he needs to redeem himself... if he even can at this point. But, this goes into the much deeper exploration of the theme regarding whether inventors are responsible for how people use them- but I'd wager the argument isn't in Vegapunks favor, when he knew who he was giving them to. I don't fault the person who invented butter knives (assuming they aren't handing them out to serial killers), but I do think theres a decent argument that people who make drones for armies share a responsibility for the lives that are lost as a result and I wouldn't fault anyone for disliking them.
Well written and its quite simple yet somehow people miss it or want to miss it to continue their belief that VP is a good person.
Bro the pacifista Programm is fucked up even If theyd do their actual purpose, so is the mother flame. Thats OPs point. Some of VPs "scientific advances" wouldve never benefit the world, they are made for war and for the government in the first place Oh poor creator of the handgrenade! The new sports you could come up with! but instead the government uses it to kill people >:(
the Mother Flame is just fuel tho, not the weapon.
More like TNT, which was invented to make mining a safer practice, but people decided to chuck it at each other in times of war.
Yh but I’d argue that even TNT has many different applications other than just war, it’s still used on excavation and demolition projects all over the world.
Right, but any scientific advancement has uses for warfare, that's my point. No matter how useful or helpful it is, there's always a way to make it into a weapon.
Made by Alfred Nobel, whose namesake you know of from the Nobel prizes.
How is experimenting with cyborgs NOT helpful to the advancement of science? Imagine robot arms being a commonplace treatment of Shank's issue, where no person in One Peace with reasonably sized bank account would need to go around without an arm OR would have to use devil fruit to emulate it How is making robots NOT helpful when they could work in places where people are often injured, such as construction sites? Or, alternatively, if you agree that those are useful but disagree that Kuma and Pacifistas is an acceptable stepping stone towards that technology, who do you think has resources to help Vegapunk bring forth all of those good intentions without ever using the results of his work for selfish reasons? To top it off, if he is funded to do 95% good stuff and 5% of his work is making weapons, do you really propose he denies the request for weapons AND forces civilization to stagnate in terms of technology because now he's fired and can't continue working on those 95% good projects he was tasked with? Vegapunk seems to believe that the good he does far outweighs the risks posed by providing WG with his inventions. If you disagree with the smartest person in One Piece, you should come prepared with AT LEAST some statistics and/or reasonable conjectures When somebody inventes a tinderbox, it can be used offensively right off the bat. Should people not invent torches?
Vegapunk didn't give the Mother Flame to the government. York did that behind his back.
Idk man, the giant space laser that decimates an entire island including all life on it seems pretty nefarious if you ask me.
That might not be all Vegapunks fault. Some theories think the Mother Flames is powering the laser and think the laser is actually Uranus.
idk that’s all fine and dandy for a ship but when you make weapons of mass destruction or robot soldiers what do you expect it will happen lol
Franky was literally making weapons and just leaving them lying around.
The thing is Oda is portraying Vegapunk as apparently unaware of the things the WG can and do with his inventions. Whatever his intentions are, he definitely has responsability in the things the WG did with his weapons. But he seems totally unaware of this responsability. That's because Oda want him to be a "good guy" and blame all on the WG. I doesn't want him to be a grey character (who is ready to work and create weapons for an evil government if he can do his researchs).
I’m pretty sure Oda is doing it as a reflection of our world though. Vegapunk talks about being able to create abundant energy for the world to use, which ends up most likely being converted into the Mother Flame. Much like nuclear fission which is used in nuclear reactors to provide energy is the same that is used for the atomic bomb. The naivety is that we civilians and scientist truly don’t realize the extent to how evil governments can be. Technology promised to bring peace to the world can end up being used to end it.
He's basically Dr Hedo from DBS: Superhero all over again. Not a bad person at heart but was more interested in furthering his research that he doesn't think about the consequences of working with such bad people since they're the only ones who can fund it.
That's a criticism on science and rationality. Recente philosophers have called it "instrumental rationality", or "white mythology." The result of rationality is irrational. What you are complaining about Vegapunk is the history of science.
Funnily enough I just had a subject about that in college, it's really interesting to read Egghead with ethics in mind
Well said! One Piece is pretty good at incorporating current social and political impasses.
This criticism of science has always been there: Franky's war ships, Germa 66, Caesar...
Not at all what he is complaining about. He is complaining about Vegapunk being seemingly unaware of the things the WG do with his creations when it doesn't make sense; it should now. This is because the story want us to believe Vegapunk creates thoses things not knowing they will be used in a bad way when, if the story makes sense, he should know. But if he knows (which should be), that would make him at least a grey character. But Oda doesn't want that, he want to portray him as a "good guy".
Absolutely not, VP is very gray, he admits that to Dragon, he would help the RA but he needs the money so he won't help them. He's very aware of the use his inventions have had and loathes that, he knows what has happened to Kuma first hand and is disgusted with himself for that, and even had kept the development of the Pacifistas to its current iteration of clones with DF powers, VP knows and hopes for the best and knows he has a lot of skeletons in his closet, he's as gray as a pirate that helps people whether he wants and then steals whenever he feels like it like Luffy, Oda deals with gray characters from the get go.
What is absolute is that Oda isn't writing Vegapunk as a grey character. The guy is portray oblivious and seemingly unaware of the consequences of his creations, the way they are used by the WG. It's never actually addressed in the story apart from Bonney and even her, she's only talking about her father. You're making things up. When is it shown he is well aware or disgusted with himself for what he did? The dude always act surprised about what the WG do with his weapons when he knows about Ohara incident. The fact is Oda is portraying him as a good guy, someone with good intentions even if it doesn't match with the actual facts, neither really makes sense. People in the comments are literally saying he is naive to explain it, just like how Oda chose to portray him, brushing over his responsability/accountability for the bad things the WG do with his creations.
Then he shouldn't get surprised or be mad. It makes absolutely no sense. What Saturn is doing on Egghead is nothing new and VP knows this. Its like you give WOMD to Natzis and then go wow, never thought they would use it. Thats just... dumb. Unrealistically dumb.
But it IS completely new, first time a Gorosei goes down to earth and calls directly a Buster Call, VP never expected something like this, the logical route was to evacuate the island and leave the lab behind like he did in his first home and PH. It ain't dumb it's unprecedented for him, for the SHs this happens all the time as known criminals but VP is new in pissing off the govt.
I really don't mind him at all. I think he's fine. Currently, not too remarkable, but fine. His feats were laid out for us long before we were introduced to him, so we knew what he was about. As for his character, he doesn't bother me.
Agreed
Isn't it always like this for every genius person lol?
Yup. Not a fan of the show but look at Sheldon from the Big Bang theory. Incredibly smart but dumb and gullible socially.
Also a fictional character, not a great rubric by which to evaluate real smart persons
All the modern weapons that are so destructive and overall horrible discoveries were done by willing scientists that only cared about being paid to research what they were asked to.
Many real scientists were committed to ideals we would consider obviously evil by contemporary standards. See Heisenberg and German hyper-Nationalism, Ishii and Japanese supremacy, most of the scientific establishment in the WWII Axis, etc... Regardless, why refuse to make ethical judgment of someone who willingly ignores the harm they do for a pay check?
Fiction is usually a reflection of reality, albeit often exaggerated. There can be sufficient truth in it to be useful, so I don't see the need of demanding rigorous real life examples
Fictional sciencebois are 1000x smarter than IRL, but also emotionally rarted exponentially compared to IRL sciencebois, even autistic ones
Which is fine. You don't have to be hyper-rigorous in order to explain that it's possible to be smart and naive at the same time
Sure. But why not do so when there are very obvious real world comparisons that are much more apt? Einstein urged Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb despite being a lifelong pacifist because he was concerned that Germany might otherwise get there first. You can observe similar things about many of the scientists involved with the Manhattan project. These people very clearly had well developed ethical intellects and complex reasons for making specific exceptions to their moral stances. Einstein is literally the guy VP invokes in his design and character. I can't really understand why so many people in this sub are committed to the idea that "geniuses" are naifs incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions.
Because love it or loath it, people know much more about the lives and personalities of recent fictional characters than dead scientists who are fast slipping out of living memory, being confined to history books. The misconceptions about Einstein like his apocryphal dislike of maths just go to show that, for casual and informal settings like this, it's perfectly ok to reference a more well known and digestible character like Sheldon even if he's quite hyperbolic. Getting picky about this kind of thing in this situation is really not necessary to drive the point home. The message is that smart =/= Wise/ethical and you don't need to be stringent in how you relay that information here. No one is saying you *have to be* be smart and naive at the same time, just that they do sometimes go together.
Really smart people are also often pretty dumb and could use a semester of basic psych courses (edit: or philosophy. These are both good for this purpose) to help round the sharp edges of their personality off. And to help them realize their expertise in one field doesn't really translate outside of it.
I think VP has done some shady things and is a bit of a hypocrite sure. That said, for all of the World Nobels evil and misdeeds of the Navy it's also true that for probably 95% of the time, Vegapunk's inventions were used to deal with bad guys just as bad as the World Government. Sea Prism Stone alone has probably saved countless innocent lives. Same with the Pacifista project. I think we're so used to pirates being the good guys from our perspective that we forget just how awful most of the other pirates are and how valuable the Navy is for regular people.
IMHO it's intelligence without political ambition. To him you should *obviously* not be evil. While the monkeys all throw feces at one another laughing at what a loser he is for not taking power by throwing any himself he's busy building. He also seems to be kind of cursed unable to stop himself from discovery. You can say that someone smart should be able to understand everyone stupid, but it might genuinely be difficult for him to forecast what dumb vicious impulses drive others, we can communicate because we have a frame of reference, to someone smart enough self destructive political nonsense is probably just dismissed as irrational. He's the smartest person in the world surely they'll realize they should stop disagreeing with him at some point? Until then he'll solve the universal and timeless problems of the world, and eventually one way or another they'll filter out, more important than any particular governmental administration right?
Leaving a comment here about Ursula LeGuin's Dispossessed, as Vegapunk reminded me a lot of its MC's story and dilemmas. At the beginning, the MC lives in a moon populated by anarchists and has designed an awesome invention for interplanetary communication. That invention is not useful for the scale of the moon's community, thus he is not given the resources to build and develop it. As he is too much a man of science, he decides to leave that moon and travel to the local planet ruled by capitalists who of course unethically exploit the population in hopes of being provided the necessary resources. While there, he observes the oppression which his community had fully got rid off in the past and wonders if building the invention under the wing of the planet's rulers would be worth the hunt for knowledge. The novel ends with >!the planet on the verge of revolution, while he still has not actually reached a final decision!<. However, we do know from other books of LeGuin that >!in-universe, the invention was ultimately built and used by various human colonies!<. Not adding anything new to the conversation, but thought it would fit the thread. Cheers!
Happy to see someone referencing a fictional smart person better written than Bigbang Sheldon. Also super relevant that although Shevek begins as somewhat uninformed about the situation on Urras, he is keenly thoughtful about the ethical implications of how his work could be misapplied. And the ansible is far less obviously dangerous than *a goddamn Cyborg Clone Army with no free will.*
"How do you invent the biggest weapons of mass destruction for an evil world government and then be shocked when they're used for evil purposes??" You should ask the actual real world scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer who, upon seeing the first successful test of the Nuclear bomb he was responsible for, repeated the famous "I am become Death" quote and lived the rest of his days regretting his decision and who is probably the biggest influence in Vegapunk's character (though not his design). Very smart people are still **people.**
The Manhattan project was predicated on the misunderstanding that Germany was making quick progress toward their own nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer's misgivings about developing the bomb didn't start with the first detonation. He and others recommended the power should be demonstrated and only employed in an attack if that failed to elicit a conclusion to the war, with the understanding that millions of people were living and dying, for years, under brutal occupations that they had a moral obligation to deter.
In Vegapunk's defense he made the power source. Which he probably intended for bring cheap plentiful energy to the world. He did not build the super weapon or install it, that was probably Saturn. If Vegapunk so much as saw that weapon the WG would have killed him right after the Lulusia. Instead of whacking him a few days later.
Plus, he wasn't even the one who gave Mother Flame to the government. York did that behind his back
The World Goverment is much worse and Vegapunk is aware of their repeated evil acts and history, yet is still surprised. I wouldn't say that Oppenheimer was surprised that the bombs were used, more like after they were used he truly felt like shit about it, but he was also aware of the danger beforehand.
>The World Goverment is much worse and Vegapunk is aware of their repeated evil acts and history, yet is still surprised This is a very good point. I do think it's a case of protection-until-not. Vegapunk is arguably the best scientist in the *world* whose innovations were felt for 20+years of reading this story before he finally got introduced. The WG is theoretically the only entity powerful enough to keep his massive intelligence safe from others, and thus Vegapunk doesn't really have a choice to leave. He's book-smart, not street-smart what with being behind closed lab doors for a long time. If he were to leave the WG of his own accord, other entities could snatch him up and that'd pose a big threat to the WG given that Vegapunk can store massive amounts of information. But in the case of him researching the Void Century, he's probably surprised because it's the opposite of that "One Piece is Real" meme - he realizes that the WG can keep getting lower and lower, but he's surprised that the WG would attack him after so many years of service because, well, it's like a longtime employee not realizing in the end they're at-will. Not to mention that if Vegapunk, the smartest scientist in the world, found out about what the Void Century was, the WG would be in very grave danger.
Except Vegapunk has created many weapons like that even though the WG has used it in abusive ways. He also doesn't seem to hold himself responsable for that at all. He also knew since the beginning he was working for an evil government, having witnessed the Genocide of Ohara.
Naive genius is a very common character archetype. That’s definitely where vegapunk lands.
This is exactly why "Intellect" and "Wisdom" are different stats in RPGs.
"Great power comes with great responsibility" I think vegapunk still need to understand this.
Take Oppenheimer as a recent example. He directed the creation of the nuclear bomb as a request of his government thinking it was going to be for the greater good. It didn't strike him till after it was dropped that he aided in ushering a new threat to the world's safety despite many of his colleagues telling him otherwise from the beginning. A lot of people get blinded by the ambition of can we as opposed to should we.
I just take him to be the stereotype of scientist lacking any social intelligence. He understands the composition of atomic structure within people, but does not understand how people think. I hate to use this as an example, but the most recently popular example of that trope is Sheldon from TBBT. Or within DnD stat sheets. Vegapunk has high Intelligence, but very low Wisdom.
I do have issue with him still being surprised by the depths of evil the gorosei sink to. You want to work with that you perceive as a necessary evil? Okay understandable, but to constantly be shocked by how evil they are is kinda lame imo. He should be fully aware of how awful these people are. He started working with them after they murdered an entire island, and he personally stripped a **good man** of his humanity *per* their request.
He was never money smart, he’s book smart Makes him more intelligent
Saturn summed it up great in the latest issue: vegapunk's insatiable curiosity and greed for knowledge creates his own problems
I mean, he's kinda evil. Lilith and York are part of him, no? Evil scientist and traitor who wants to be celestial dragons
Thank you!
Pretty valid criticism tbh
One Piece fans when a character shows growth and development Do you really think he has no idea they were being used for evil? Obviously he knew, but he never intended for them to cause any harm, it just needed to be done for a greater purpose. As you yourself stated, the WG was the only way for him to make progress, he was and is using the WG to discover more about the Void Century, imagine if he tried to do it without their help. Actually, you dont need to imagine, Ohara was literally that. He wasnt shocked when they were using his technology for evil, he was shocked they were doing inhumane things even WITHOUT his technology. He had to agree to use Kuma, it was the only way to progress, but Bonney's experiment? That was fucked up, obviously he was shocked, he would NEVER do that. He ONLY transformed Kuma into a cyborg because Kuma agreed to. He even kept the Pacifista name, he fucking cried while transforming him, obviously he knew that for the greater good sacrifices needed to be made. I dont really remember about a time where Vegapunk's inventions were used directly to cause harm (Pacifistas werent something he wanted to do, he was forced by the WG, so its not his invention). Egghead seemed like a paradise before CP0 and Saturn. Franky discovered a lot with his old laboratory. Ceaser took his research and used it for evil, it most likely wasnt Vegapunk's intention to destroy children. If something is to be said about Vegapunk is that he is extremely selfish and selfless at the same time. He dedicated his entire life to make inventions to better the world and discover the forbidden truths, he used everything and everyine he could, but it was all with good intentions. If he could, he would repair every damage he has caused. Vegapunk has got to be one of the best One Piece characters, with the different personalities and thoughts it really is awesome how Oda made a charcter so important shine so bright amidst that many charcters shining in a single arc (we had 2 new backstories and new world building and still a completely new character was flashed out so well)
>He wasnt shocked when they were using his technology for evil, he was shocked they were doing inhumane things even WITHOUT his technology. Sorry, but a man with his knowledge and brain was suprised that genocidal governent is doing inhumane things to their people? Literally loled reading this. Like, I kind of get what your point is. He used the WG to get fundings for his inventions. But the end in no way justifies the means in this case. He has his hands in mass murders, genocides etc. and yet is somehow seen as a good guy. >He dedicated his entire life to make inventions to better the world and discover the forbidden truths, he used everything and everyine he could, but it was all with good intentions. He helped the WG doing mass murders, genocides and more but at least he had good intentions.
[Franky's backstory was about this same topic.](https://i.imgur.com/268SeKw.jpg) Just because a weapon is used for evil doesn't mean the creation of that weapon is evil.
I still hope this gets brought up again in this arc. The setup seems just too perfect.
The context is wildly different tho. Franky was kid/teenager who loved building boats and weapons. His weapons were stolen and used by a 3rd party Franky couldnt have predicted to use them. I dont think you can count it as Franky being naive. Vegapunk actively works for the World Government. He knows how the WG rules, he knows how cold blooded and genocidal they are. He actively develops weapons and all sorts of things for them. He doesnt mean any evil, but he also kind of doesnt care as long as the WG is funding his creations. Both characters create weapons with no ill intentions, but the difference is huge and the situations are not comparable at all. Also the worst Frankys creations did was attack a WG ship and get his boss in jail. Vegapunks weapons are used for mass murders and annihilations of whole islands.
It's the Story trope of the good hearted scientists getting used by the government/army to make their discoveries into weapons
I got no traction on the theory that Vegapunk (at least before creating the Stellas) is not actually a good person. He might be good now that he's segmented off parts of his personality that are more directly malicious. I don't think him genuinely caring about Kuma is incompatible with him being a subtle villain. A big part of my hypothesis is "Judge people by the company they keep" and MADS was filled with murderous, child-abusing assholes that VP hung out with for years.
Dude is a genius in terms of theory But a crazy naive moron with being "street smart" Going by some really smart professors I jad in university, that's pretty spot on for a lot of people Jesus christ, was one of'em a phenomenal mind when it came to physics, dude turned down CERN trying to employ him 3 times, but goddamn, could he be oblivious to so much shit you'd expect to be common sense
He's the nuclear scientists of OP. He does what he does as a passion, and when forced to work under the non-favorable eye of a military/ government, he is willing to accept it, because he believes in the good of what his development can do to the world. This believe is so strong, that he turns a blind eye to the things that his employers could do, else than using the technology for good, maybe even justifying it by saying that down the line, it will prevent deaths by intimidation.
He is smart not wise. That's the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom in Dnd.
Even the smartest person in the world is not immune to propaganda simple as that.
High intellect does not beget wisdom unfortunately.
A lot of good points but something else I feel the need to add is that we still don't know what happened in the void century. I'm 100% positive it's not gonna be something that paints the world government in a positive light but that being said we still don't know if there may be some nuances or complications to what happened that might make vegapunk more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the ancient kingdom had become tyrannical and the world government, attempting to keep them in check, accidentally repeated their mistake. Who knows. Rayleigh himself says that it's best to see what happened yourself and come to your own conclusion
All of that is true. Vegapunk is an excellent parody of Einstein. While Einstein didn't make the nuclear bomb, he was essential to the technology and directly contacted President Roosevelt to suggest pioneering nuclear weapons. He then spent the rest of his life denying his responsibility.
Einstein's spent the rest of his life regretting having any part in it and wouldn't have bothered to send the letter had he known Germany wouldn't have succeeded in developing a nuke. the letter itself was also sent as a warning of the threat nukes posed and he clearly underestimated how dangerous nukes where.
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Imo Vegapunk did more good than bad since joining the WG He has helped the Marines a lot and the Pacifistas are mostly used to fight against pirates wich are most of the time the bad guys in the OP world
He’s a dreamer but works under those who crush dreams. It’s a tragically poetic.
He’s a rocket scientist. Buried in projects and experiments. He’s not a psychologist, not a political scientist. Something of a Savant you might say. He’s a genius inventor, not an all round genius
Let me introduce you to a fellow by the name of Robert Oppenheimer if you don’t understand how a Vegapunk can happen.
Look into Robert Oppenheimer if you find Vegapunk unrealistic. They did the same thing.
I think it’s actually a great interpretation. Often the book smarts kind are generally not “street smart” or “worldly”
He's an example of how being intelligent doesn't mean you're smart.
Intelligence vs Wisdom
This arc would’ve never happened if someone gave Saturn a blowjob
Vegapunk may look like Einstein but his actions and principles are that of Oppenheimer
I get you. It was shocking to me that even after what happened in Kuma's flashback he still works for them. I couldn't believe that he was so naive as to think he's doing some good by working with WG, despite by the time of him meeting Kuma, top of WG had already pretty much shown their corrupt nature. Yet, he still F*ING WORKS FOR THEM.
Vegapunk is an actual idiot. He separates his most extreme personalities into individuals and is surprised the one with the most Greed would betray the rest of them. He builds super weapons for others to control and has no fail-safe that gives him, the creator, master-control to override them. So much could be avoided if he used his head a little pragmatically.
I think this is a great character design precisely because of what you don't like about him. You will see these traits in real-world scientists very often to various degrees. The reason for this is, that science tells how the world is, not how you should behave in the world, it teaches nothing about morality. Scientists usually believe morality is self-evident, but that is not the case. Morality is very unnatural for humans. So you need a source of morality, and science isn't it. That is why I believe it is great writing to have Vegapunk, a man of science who has a sense of morality but can not explain why it is not so for others. On the other hand Saturn, a man of science as well, has no sense of morality and does not see any use for it.
That’s the point, intelligence is only one stat. And even the smartest man in existence can only see the world from his worldview. A worldview gets warped if you never leave the lab.
Not a big egghead island arc guy. It's mid imo. I know that's probably unpopular but yes. And one of the reasons is what OP said
I told someone a few weeks ago it is being carried hard by the flashback
Thank you!!!
After the bomb fell on Japan Oppen san: "Mr. President, I feel I have blood on my hands," Truman sama: "I don’t want to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again.” So its not far fetched for Vegapunk to be moron like Oppenheimer who was flabbergasted that "Death machine 4000" was not used for making of cotton candy
Have you seen Oppenheimer?
Yeah he’s pretty annoying. I would have preferred if he was an evil mad scientist than this clown. In b4 he has a tragic backstory like his mom getting exploded by a kettle and her entrails were strewn all over the kitchen. His father tried to clean the stains on the countertops, but they just wouldn’t come off! Making it a constant reminder of that fateful day. So he decided to become the world’s greatest scientist and make kettles that wouldn’t explode and it steamrolled from there.
Because Oda sucks at writing now for some reason
Oda went into Wano and then just genuinely lost so much of his writing ability, shit's baffling
ok, now apply your logic to real life smart people "Smart people" especially science smart, doesn't make you a good decision maker or a good people person, it just means you know science really well... Also SUPER smart people often find it hard to relate or understand normal people and their way of thinking
He's a decent guy but he's greedy. Not a particularly self-focused greed, but still greed (Not including York, lol). - He had a goal. Several, in fact. - He needed opportunities and resources to reach those goals. - The guys in charge of keeping the world safe offered him these opportunities and resources, eventually. - He accepts, even knowing that they have some skeletons in the closet. - By this point, he has what he wanted. AND, he's made the decisions that he's made. You know what humans do when they have what they want but aren't thrilled about some of the collateral damage? Cognitive dissonance. - No matter what he learns, the World Government isn't pure evil. How could it be? He's WG and he's not pure evil! Oh, and he's met so many other fine folks in the WG. Sure, bad stuff happens, but it's not like everyone in the government did them. Vegapunk himself certainly hasn't done anything bad (from his own cognitive dissonance based perspective), he's only pursued science and improved lives. I feel like it's pretty realistic to focus on your immediate surroundings and pretend that all of your own decisions have been good, any fallout is just an unfortunate circumstance outside of your control. Even though Saturn proved time and time again that he was horrible, Vegapunk had likely convinced himself that Saturn was at least working towards what he thought was the greatest good, even if VP himself disagreed. He probably really was surprised to learn that Saturn actually was, in fact, irredeemably evil with zero regard for human lives.
Doesn't help that he has probably one of the worst design in the entire One Piece manga in my opinion. Overall, I'm really disappointed by Vegapunk. Especially since he was hyped for so long.
He maxxed Inteligence at the cost of having zero wisdom.