I’ve seen a few people disliking Yamato, mostly for being a sheltered princess with a bland character pretending to be Oden, and disliking the possibility of her joining the crew ever since she made her apperance. Let’s talk about both points.
What is Yamato’s character like?
Hard to say as she’s trying to emulate Oden all the time. She’s willing to risk her life, cause she believed Oden would’ve done so. She loves fighting, but so did Oden. Everything we know about her revolves around being Oden. She does however view “Yamato” as her other name and didn’t like Luffy giving her a nickname. She wants to go out to the sea as that’s what Oden did. We can only guess that we saw some of the real Yamato (little naive, compassionate, excited, quirky, fun, ambitious, strong willed) before she found the notes, in the Ace flashback and in her mannerisms in Wano.
Why is she that way?
Yamato was Kaido’s prisoner (almost?) all her life. There was no room for her to grow, no air to develop freely, no freedom to gain depth. Her only straw in life was Oden’s notes, and later Ace to reinforce her clinging to the notes, while also giving her a time to wait for: Ace’s return or Luffy’s arrival. Only once Kaido is defeated (now), will Yamato get the chance to shine and become more than the rather bland person she was shown to be.
She couldn’t have character development in the past because she wasn’t allowed to be herself. Getting beaten to a pulp by her monster of a dad whenver trying to express her will didn’t really help. Neither did growing up in a toxic environment where encountering torture, slavery, war and killing of innocents was just another Tuesday. She had to cling to these notes that gave her a beacon of hope by presenting an alternative – fun adventures in a wonderful world that seemed so far away from her suffocating bubble. That was a traumatized kid’s way of dealing with her problems. Yamato couldn’t handle these problems, but you know who could? Oden. He was a chad and got things done. He was willing to be a dork for years to protect others. He laughed while suffering. That’s what Yamato needed, so she became Oden to be able to live that shitty live and actually start being rebellious towards her abusive pos dad. She didn’t want to be Oden – she had to.
Now that she can close this chapter of her life, she might actually find out who she really is. She’ll have to realize that the Yamato inside can actually be just as awesome as Oden, in her own way. She’ll never be such a chad though.
So should she join the Straw Hats? Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
- She’s extremely strong, just what our yonko level crew needed;
- Another devil fruit user, makes for interesting fights and matchups;
- It’s the point of her whole involvement with Ace;
- It’s been her goal for more than half her life;
- Another race on Luffy’s ship;
- She’ll fit into the crew greatly – she’ll be excited about everything she sees, will show Brook her panties, won’t understand Sanji’s simping, will believe Usopp’s lies, will confuse Chopper by claiming to be Oden, maybe she will train Conqueror’s Haki with Zoro and will blindly charge ahead with Luffy.
- Joining it’s the catalyst for her to stop being Oden and beginning to be Yamato;
- If she’s Gloriosa’s daughter, we’ll get some nice interactions once the Kuja join the Grand Fleet.
Cons:
- Her devil fruit represents the guardian deity of Wano as Kaido said, that does kinda bind her to Wano;
- Oden wanted to set sail, which is why Yamato wanted it too, but what does the real Yamato actually want? She’ll have to find out.
- She could just become a member of the Grand Fleet and protect Wano.
*by Jail_Chris_Brown
