Lately, I’ve seen a lot of people say that Usopp/Nami would beat Page One/Ulti because of plot reasons even though they don’t have Haki.
Last chapter, the entire community was saying it’s totally reasonable for a Luffy who was one-shot by Kaido two weeks earlier to solo him now because it’s 1000 chapters in and he “has to become Yonko level soon”.
The common reasoning for both of these opinions is that Oda cares more about driving the plot forward than powerscaling and people often point to Water 7/Enies Lobby as an example.
Why that doesn’t really work is the Straw Hats weren’t sure why Robin betrayed them in Water 7 and as a result, didn’t have the resolve they had in Enies Lobby which explains their drastically different performance against CP9 between both arcs. Also, that was when the villains weren’t at the top of the world in terms of strength. It’s easier to grow in power when you’re not already amongst the strongest people in the One Piece Universe.
Big Mom taking down Page One/Ulti (and thus weakening them for Nami/Usopp to later deal with them) and Luffy losing to Kaido again (until he gets more help) are proof that Oda still values powerscaling and won’t just draw victories that don’t make sense in order to rush the story forward.
*by everfolklord
