Quick Thought: Bartholemew Kuma, Death, And One Piece

Why the saddest death in One Piece isn’t technically a death at all

*SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 1102 OF ONE PIECE*

“When do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of a pistol? No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease? No. When they drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when… they are forgotten.”
― Dr. Hiriluk

For those of us who have long been fans of Eiichiro Oda’s hit shonen epic One Piece, we know that there are a few universally agreed-upon flaws with the mangaka’s writing.

There are obvious things like the lack of variety in the female character designs, the often convoluted nature of “haki” as a power system, and of course his tendency to indulge himself a bit too much with the sheer number of characters he introduces in any given arc (Dressrosa is not an example of this… lookin’ at you Wano).

Also Sanji in Thriller Bark.

Sanji in Thriller Bark wasn’t great (although he was, in my unfortunate opinion, very very funny).

Anyway, my point is, like any author, Oda has his flaws and tendencies that would cause even the most die-hard One Piece fans to roll their eyes in exasperation. But by far the issue with Oda’s writing that is talked about the most is his approach to death.

Over the 26 years of writing this manga, Oda has earned himself a reputation as something of a fake-out-death connoisseur. There have been numerous occasions in which a character has appeared to have died only to be shown recovering or even perfectly healthy later in the story.

We’ve seen this with Charlotte Pound, whose touching sacrifice for his daughters was brutally undermined by him appearing unscathed in a cover story; we’ve seen it with Kinemon who was brutally bisected by Kaido, only to be saved on a technicality, (it was kind of set up hundred of chapters before but meh); and most infamously, we saw it with Pell, a guardian of Alabasta and a paternal figure to Princess Vivi who sacrificed his life for his princess and his country in a beautiful send-off, only to be shown to be fine a few chapters later.

I’m probably less bothered by fake-out-deaths than most purely because I tend to think that death can sometimes be a lazy or arbitrary way of raising the stakes/garnering shock value. To me, being both sparing and creative with how death is used makes actual deaths like those of Whitebeard, Pedro, or Ace much more impactful. However, I massively sympathize with those who believe that the lack of certainty around death lessens the impact of minor character deaths because the time we should have spent mourning them is instead spent questioning if they’re truly dead (again, lookin’ at you Wano). I would say this is also an issue with the inconsistent durability of One Piece characters as opposed to just fake-out-deaths, sometimes characters take a ridiculous amount of damage and are fine, but others are then killed after taking considerably less damage, creating a weird uncertainty around stakes (lookin’ at- you know what, you get the point).

Oda’s views on character deaths are very well-documented and many people have done much better analysis than I could so I won’t bother going into it. But one aspect of this topic that I find fascinating is that I believe that Oda sees death in a way that is truly unique to his contemporaries, and really vibes with the way that I, and many others who don’t necessarily vibe with Western depictions of death and the afterlife, see the concept.

To put it simply, in the eyes of Eiichiro Oda, there are worse ways of dying than simply being dead.

You can find this in my favourite quote from the series in which I began this piece, but you can also find it in the final words of the former pirate king Gol D. Roger uttered to his oldest friend, Silvers Rayleigh before he was sentenced to be executed:

“I will not die, partner.’

A simple, yet perfect distillation of Oda’s ideology around death, spoken by a character who knew that his next and final great act would both leave behind a great legacy but also serve as an inherited will to be passed onto the one who would liberate the world.

Now, the reason that I’m saying all of this and making this distinction, is that I believe there is a death in One Piece that is so sad and so brutal that Oda goes through incredibly great lengths to pay respects to it. Reading about this character’s life and death really stuck with me just because of how much it truly felt like death, more than characters who either went out in a blaze of glory, characters who went out feeling loved, cherished, or free, or even characters who went out knowing that the fight they dedicated their life to would carry on.

And the funny thing is, the death that I’m referring to, isn’t really an actual death.

The death that I’m referring to is the memory-erasure of Bartholomew Kuma.

To keep this brief, Bartholomew Kuma is a revolutionary, who after being born into slavery, escapes, falls in love, loses the love of his life, and dedicates his entire being to caring for her infant daughter Bonney before ultimately being forced to give his mind, soul, and body for the authoritarian world government to turn into a mindless weapon, in a deal to save her life.

To understand why this is so significant, it’d be helpful to point out how Oda establishes a character to be a good person: surprise altruism.

Eiichiro Oda *loves* surprise altruism.

He is addicted to writing moments of unpredictable goodness where a character subverts the expectations of the audience and those around them by doing something incredibly good-natured and unselfish when they could easily have done nothing or acted within their own self-interest.

Think of some of the most impactful acts of love or selflessness in the series.

Think of Bell-mère refusing to deny her daughters even though doing so would have saved her life and cost them nothing (a moment that the live-action kinda gets wrong.)

Think of Zoro eating a dirty riceball and demanding that the little girl who made it for him know that it tasted good.

Sanji feeding Gin, a hostile pirate.

Zeff eating his own leg to ensure Sanji’s survival.

“RAIZO IS SAFE.”

Or literally dozens of surprising acts of kindness that Luffy does.

Through surprising acts of altruism and sacrifice, Oda establishes multiple things. He establishes that we are looking at a good and noble character, he establishes that this character is caring and loving despite initial appearances, but he also establishes that this character has freedom of thought, a wild and courageous individuality that defies convention and leaves those around them in awe.

If you haven’t guessed by now, this specific writing tendency is pretty much what Kuma’s entire character is built on.

Whether it’s surprising Ginny by volunteering himself as a decoy so that he can escape, surprising us by revealing that he secretly heals the ailments of the sick and elderly by taking it into himself, or surprising Vegapunk, Kizaru, and even a (probably immortal) elder by tearfully and gratefully agreeing to sacrifice his body and mind for the sake of his daughter; Kuma’s kindness is the device that Oda uses in order to reinforce just how unique and free of mind and spirit this man is.

Every time you read of Kuma performing an act of kindness and love, you are reading an expression of how, despite being born into the worst captivity and circumstance, this man still maintains his freedom by refusing to let it stop him from caring for and liberating others. The death of Kuma’s kindness, is the death of Kuma, regardless of whether his heart beats or not, and this is solidified in this exchange with Vegapunk who, crucially, sees the order to erase Kuma’s free will as tantamount to killing him:

Also, look at what Kuma says to Luffy when he crushes (saves) the young pirate and his entire crew at Saobody or what he says the last time he sees Bonney before his mind is erased.

The message being put forward here is incredibly clear: Bartholemew Kuma is a dead man walking, just not in the way most would think.

Hiruluk’s words are important because they very firmly frame death as something beyond the physical, they’re confirmation that in the One Piece world, the death of the body is not the only kind of death there is. It’s this emphasis on the importance of memory, the ways in which entire souls and legacies can survive and be granted eternal life so long as our minds can still remember, that makes the loss of Kuma’s ability to do so, even more tragic. It’s this fundamental principle that there are other ways of dying that help us to fully understand the weight of loss that we should feel when a man loses the things that make him himself, the things that make him free.

Kuma specifically is a man defined by emotion, his backstory shows us his capacity for kindness, sadness, faith, regret, and above all love. A Kuma that cannot feel emotion is simply not Kuma; a Kuma that cannot express his love for his daughter is not Kuma.

Another aspect that makes Kuma’s death arguably the most tragic in One Piece, is the fact that not only is his freedom being taken, but his body will live on to do things that Kuma himself would not approve of. It would go on to be used as a tool for the very oppressors that Kuma dedicated his life to fighting and face the humiliation of being the plaything for the people who represent everything he stood against. There is no burial, there’s no place where his loved ones can visit and pay respects as of yet, instead the burial place of Bartholemew Kuma is the metal shell that used to be his body. Instead of being able to mourn him, his old comrades and loved ones are left confused and enraged at the mere sight of him.

I could explore this a lot more (this is meant to be a quick thought) but I truly believe that Oda went to the lengths of really fleshing Kuma out in this way to show us just how much this man felt, how he believed in freedom even as a child, how he fought for it as an adult, and how he expressed his freedom and individuality through being so kind and showing love to others. This was all done with the express purpose of making it feel like death in the truest sense of the word when Kuma would eventually have all of these things taken away from him. Look at the ways in which the people who bear witness to this act pay their respects.

I personally wouldn’t be surprised if, barring Whitebeard and Ace, Oda views the death of Kuma as one of the saddest he’s ever written, purely because this is the death of everything that makes a person a person. This is the death of his freedom, of his capacity to love, of his capacity to remember the love that others have shown him, of his capacity to think and therefore dream, of his capacity to show the kindness that he is so famous for.

Just before Vegapunk essentially pulls the trigger, Kuma has an insanely sad moment where his life flashes before his eyes. A reminder of all of the people that he’s loved, those that he’s lost, those that he has sacrificed for, but most importantly, those that will be gone forever from his mind.

It’s not all bad though. At this point in the story, we still do not know how the tale of Kuma will truly end. While his mind is gone, his body — although massively damaged- is still massively in play and has joined the battle to save his daughter. There is a hint that while Kuma is gone, he will still commit one final act of love (and therefore freedom) that will make his death worthwhile.

And if we accept that Kuma’s memory erasure might be the saddest death in One Piece, it stands to reason that the man responsible for this death has the father of all retributions coming to him.