Is Luffy’s journey easy compared to Roger’s journey? I can’t help but ask myself this question. Obviously, we don’t know a lot about Roger, so my thoughts are based on the few evidence we have and the assumptions we can make from them. I will expose my thoughts as clearly and organized as possible.
- Roger is the first and only Pirate King. He is the only pirate who has reached the end of Grand Line and Raftel. Therefore, nobody could have helped him and gave him free information about how to reach Raftel. On the other hand, Luffy had free information given to him by Roger’s allies or pirates from Roger’s era: Crocus, Gan Fall, Rayleigh, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, Whitebeard. Roger had to go to the end of the Grand Line to learn about the Rio Poneglyphs to locate Raftel. Luffy has a shortcut.
- When he realized he was ill and only had a few years left to live, Roger decided to travel the Grand Line and reach Raftel. Therefore, Roger was ill and kept alive by Crocus during the time of the travel. Luffy is completely healthy right now, even though he is losing years of his life while fighting.
- Luffy met Robin early, where she taught the crew about the Poneglyphs. She is also the only person capable of reading the Poneglyphs right now. Oden is dead and didn’t teach Momonosuke how to read them. Pudding hasn’t awaken her third eye to read the Poneglyphs. It is said that Roger could hear the voice of all things, which probably has something to do with Conqueror’s haki, and that is how he was able to read the Poneglyphs. However, this information is tricky. How did Roger learn about the Ponglyphs and when? Could Roger really read the Poneglyphs? Did Roger learn about the Poneglyphs before meeting Oden at Wano? Roger did leave a message in the Poneglyphs at Skypiea. Did Roger carve it in the stone? Will Luffy be able to read Poneglyphs? If yes, what will Robin’s role be? All those questions remain unanswered. However, I believe Roger learned about the Poneglyphs and what they are the hard way compared to Luffy who met the only woman able to read them early on.
- Since they were the first to reach Raftel, Roger’s crew had to be strong. Roger’s crew was older and bigger in general than Luffy’s crew. It is assumed that they learned about haki alone and that they trained alone to reach their strength. I say this because we don’t know older people, named or seen, that were as strong as them. The older generation was: Roger, Rayleigh, Crocus, Garp, Shiki, Sengoku, Whitebeard, Big Mom… We don’t know any older person who could have trained them. As for Luffy, the crew got saved multiple times: Crocodile underestimated Luffy and got rekt. Enel would have wiped everyone if Luffy wasn’t rubber. Aokiji let them go after freezing them. Kuma let them go at Thriller Bark. Then Kuma saved them from Pacifistas, Kizaru and Santomaru at Sabaody. Then, they got trained. Luffy got trained by Rayleigh, who probably mastered haki alone. Same for Zoro who got trained by Mihawk. Sanji benefited from Iva’s teachings… etc. All the Strawhats got mentors during the time-skip. I believe Roger’s crew had to learn by their own.
TLDR: In conclusion, I think Luffy’s journey is easy compared to Roger’s journey because Luffy had people give him information about a shortcut on how to reach Raftel, because Roger was ill during his journey while Luffy is healthy, because Luffy met Robin early on in his journey and because Luffy and his crew had mentors while Roger’s crew probably had to learn on their own about haki and how to get stronger.
These reasons make me think about how amazing Roger’s crew and their journey were. I can’t wait to learn more about it. What do you think?
*Theory by Miss_Eliquis
