My view on Luffy. An icon in the making, the next generations definitive shonen hero, as Son Goku was to this generation. I may continue the theme.
Luffy was strange. This was undeniable. He was an impossible sort of man, even in this world of incredulity. There were those who could see it, but looking at Luffy was like looking at the sky, you could only see what the horizons showed you.
Some were shown his enigma, his divine designation as leader, inspiration, and cause. They saw how chaos spawned and was subjugated around him, how, from where he stood, the whole world formed ranks, simple and perfect, those behind him, and those in front. They saw how he not only lead, but changed people. How the broken were made whole in his presence, the weak, indomitable, the fearful, unscrupulous. He gave people an idea, so basic that they didn't quite notice it, not beyond a slight warming in their heart, a slight quickening in their blood, that they interpreted as happiness or pleasure. In truth, the idea was that Luffy himself was a man, a human just like they were, and that by watching him, by following him, by aiding, or serving, or loving him, they might become something more alike to him. He was their aspiration. Some people saw Luffy like this...
To others, he was noble. Odd, for a pirate, but that was what they saw. It was in his loyalty, like a suffocating chain around your neck, that once earned would weigh upon you and force you to grow strong, and durable, worthy of it. For it would stay with you, even when you denied it, when you screamed for release, when you abandoned or even opposed him, when you fled and sought the end of all things, this loyalty would out do you. Whilst you screamed for death, when you roared your loathing, when you poured your own weakness upon it, upon him, and begged for him to break, to cringe away and flee, he would remain resolute. This chain would remain ever present. And it would drag you onward, screaming with vehemence, through the greatest of you triumphs, and your darkest hours, it would continue to surge forward at a pace you could never match, and yet you do, because he asked you to, long ago, when he offered you his name. When you became Mugiwara. This chain will drag you on, when death embraces you, when suffering overwhelms you, your very soul is pulled onwards, onwards... Because Luffy can't cook. He can't use a sword. He can't read a map. Luffy cannot lie. Nor can he heal any wounds beyond those on your soul. He cannot read the truth through the mire of the past. He cannot keep his ship afloat. And he knows nothing of music... You go on because when he needs you, even if he never needs you, you must be there to answer his call, to protect his nakama, your nakama. You will not disappoint him.
Some see in him those who are gone, those who they loved or followed or admired long ago. They believe he is just like their own paragon, that he embodies the same ideals. They are wrong. Luffy is not at all like their shades. Yet they see them in him, because absence wipes clean the image of their lost friends, washes away their mistakes, their fears and faults and falls, and leaves only the shining grace that could have been, but never was. This is what they see in Luffy, and still they are wrong.
They are all wrong. Luffy is not perfect, nor godly, nor beautiful, nor admirable, nor the many millions of caricatures that must be used to try and encapsulate his barrage of attributes. Luffy is none of these. He is odd, he is unique. Luffy is the son of hardship and inspiration, of unmet expectation and slavery. He is the mad man breaking himself again and again against the chains of what existed before him, against the world that has already decided who he is. Mad and broken, and yet with a compulsive need, a primal, inbreed desire for the feel of endless possibilities, of a future, of freedom, he propels his broken shell on.
Luffy is impossible.
Just want to let anyone reading this now know, I will be continuing this, possibly with reflections on Luffy from the point of view of each of the crew members.