One Piece: Why Gol D. Roger Was Worth ฿5,564,800,000!

This man is worth 5,564,800,000 Berries. How much is that you ask? Given that one berry is pretty much the same as one yen, and one hundred yen are about 1 American dollar, that would make Gol D. Roger‘s head worth 55,648,000 million Dollars. In other words, catching Roger would have bought you this nice little yacht, about 1500 bitcoins or 55 million pieces of okay-tasting gum.

Unsurprisingly, it is by far the highest bounty we have seen in the story so far, an with the notable exceptions of Luffy and his father dragon, there doesn’t seem to be anyone out there who will ever be able to match it. As the first pirate king and the only known captain to ever reach the end of the grand line, it is to be expected that Roger would have a high bounty, but being a great adventurer and notorious pirate alone, doesn’t explain a bounty that in the One Piece world would basically make you royalty. The reason Gold

Roger was so infamous and dangerous to the world government lies within his character, that tells us a lot about where Luffy is heading in the story as well. It’s a story about freedom. About power. About camaraderie. About Politics, History and the most infamous treasure in the world, the One Piece itself. This is the story of Gol D. Roger.

Roger’s character was inspired by two real pirates, Olivier Levasseur and Henry Every. Leavesseur became known for tossing a cryptogram from his execution platform into the crowd, telling them, that the hidden message on it would lead them to his gigantic treasure, that to this day hasn’t been found.

This of course directly parallels Roger’s legendary speech at his execution. – But it also seems like a likely inspiration for the poneglyphs, stones written in a forgotten language, that lead to the last island of the grand line, laugh tale, where the one piece is hidden. Every on the other hand, became famous for being the richest pirate in the world, earning him the epithet ‘king of the pirates’.

Despite having the highest bounty in history of around $700,000 USD in today’s currency, placed on his head, he vanished with the legendary treasure he accumulated over his life in the Caribbean, which at that time used to be known as the new world. He was the inspiration for a new generation of notorious pirates, including Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, Calico Jack, Samuel Bellamy and Edward Low, among others, who were children at the time.

And I know what you’re thinking now: Ohara – This dude’s nose looks just like a Dong. Well, why do you think he became one of the most violent pirates of all time. Exactly, because of comments like that. Stop it! ## Roger’s role within the story is extremely interesting in many ways.

He quite literally is a legendary pirate, in the sense that his tale is a story whiting the story. By doing so, Oda advances his own world building, introduces the inspiration for Luffy and many other characters, while at the same time drawing a number of parallels between the nested story and the main story line.

Roger’s character, right form the start explains why so many people in this world are pirates, next to the injustice of the world government of course. Interestingly enough, the more we learn about him and the people around him, unlike in many other stories, where the real deal can’t live up to the legend, in Roger’s case, he becomes even more impressive a person the more we learn about him.

One of the strongest and most free-spirited characters in the story, not bound by anything or anyone. And of course the more we learn about him, the more we see the parallels between him and Luffy. First of all I think it’s really interesting to see that the apparently unattainable goal that Luffy has at the beginning of the story, in other words, becoming pirate king, has already been achieved by this other legendary character.

One Piece: Why Gol D. Roger Was Worth ฿5,564,800,000!

In fact, all the things that come with the title, that usually should be unique to the main character of the story, have all been done before. Finding Laugh Tale at the end of the grand line, learning the true history of the world and discovering the biggest treasure out there – literally from the get-go we are being told that all of these things have already been achieved by some other dude 20 years ago. Kind of unexciting for Luffy to then just repeat what Roger already did.

However, when you really think about it, what it pretty much guarantees for us, is that Luffy will in some shape or form overcome Roger and his legacy. He will do what even the first pirate king could not do, which most likely is change the unjust world order. We actually know for a fact, that while both Luffy and Roger share the same dream, this dream is not actually becoming pirate king, that title didn’t even exist before Roger in the first place.

Rather, whatever this dream is, it will have something to do with the main theme of the story: Freedom. And while Roger managed to live a life of freedom with his crew, Luffy will be the one to bring it to everyone, in whatever shape or form that will be. That’s why the parallels between them are so important.

The same hat inherited from Roger, the same will of D both carry in their name, the voices of all things, their inclusive and quirky crews and even parts of their personality seem to match, as Luffy and Roger share a number of lines throughout the story. Hell, when you look at adult Luffy, he even looks like Roger. At the same time of course, they aren’t the same person. As we have seen throughout the Oden flashback in Wano, while similar, Luffy and Roger are still different people and Luffy certainly is the turned-version of some of the traits that made Roger so special in the first place.

As we now know, Roger was waiting for someone like Luff to appear. – Most likely after abandoning his crew in anticipation of his death, he instructed his remaining crew to look for the one who could become the new pirate king and finish what he couldn’t. Crocus and Rayleigh are positioned suspiciously strategically at the entrances of the grand line and the new world respectively, keeping an eye out for whoever enters.

And both go them make explicit comparisons between Roger and Luffy. – And then of course there is Shanks, who surely didn’t bet his arm on a little boy on a whim. He is certain that Luffy will ring in a new age. So, it’s extremely likely Roger entrusted him with his hat, to find his successor and entrust that hat to him in return.

And this is already the first reason that Roger earned himself this ridiculous bounty of 5,5 Billion Berry. Being the only known person in the story so far to rave laugh tale and learn the real history, he possesses knowledge that the world government has actively tried to eradicate for centuries.

One Piece: Why Gol D. Roger Was Worth ฿5,564,800,000!

And not in the nice, ‘hey let’s all not talk about it anymore’ sort of way, but more as in, if you so much as try to learn about the past, we will come with our magma psychopath and burn your whole darn island to the ground – sort of way. As Rayleigh tells us, Roger and his crew learned about the true history, which without any other factors involved would already save him a top position on the bounty board.

Just look at what happened to Robin when she was not even a teenager. But on top of that, Roger had both the intend to act upon that knowledge AND the power to actually do so. I mean the guy clashed with anyone who is known to be strong in the story: Garp, WHitebeard, Kaido, Shiki, Big Mom, Rocks himself. What a god damn monster.

There are usually two ways to raise your bounty in the one piece world: Be extremely strong, be extremely influential or actively try to work against the established world order. Well, as you know, Roger did all 3 of these things. And so it’s no real surprise, that the most legendary character in One piece ended up with the most legendary bounty.

I this wasn’t enough legendary old guy for you yet, I strongly recommend watching this blog on Rayleigh or this one on Garp next. Thanks for reading. Peace.