Doflamingo

The Don

I'm currently reading the Wano arc in One Piece and I can confidently say Flamingo is one of, if not the BEST Villain in the whole series (Crocodile, Enel, Big Mom and Blackbeard are all close to my heart). Oda nailed his character design and backstory. If my dad was part of the top 1% and he chose to throw that all away and be the main cause to why our great family fell to poverty AND my mother dying to an illness...I'd become a sky demon too. His character design is premiummm, he just looks so cool man. I'm happy we never get to see him without his glasses on, it's kind of like his trademark (along with the fur cape). His abilities, moniker and role in the story is top tier. Doffy is one of the reasons why I think Oda is a top tier mangaka.

Personality

Boujee is the only word I think of when I see Doffy. He just doesn't believe he should be here. HE SHOULD BE IN THE HOLY LAND, NOT DOWN HERE WITH THESE MONGRELS.

I think I’ve mentioned this in another post, villains who are evil for the sake of being evil are the best type of villains (Mahito, Grimmjow, Cell etc). In Doffy’s backstory, Oda shows that flamingo has been sadistic and evil since the age of 10. Before, I would have said him growing up as a celestial dragon is the main reason why he is the way he is, but after giving it some thought…nahhh. His parents really tried raise him and his brother to be different to other celestials and he STILL turned heartless. I knew this guy was serious when he beheaded his own father and offered his head to the other celestial dragons. The only people we see Flamingo care about is his pirate crew and his younger brother. I know other people disagree with this but, I personally think he became even more unhinged after shooting his brother. We see how much he trusted him and that betrayal did affect him. He hesitated before shooting his lil bro so I take it back, he isn’t completely heartless (he’s very close though, I just thought of this rn).

What I find funny is how prestige celestial dragons are. Actually while I’m currently writing this, I realise Doffys behaviour is just that of a celestial dragon who’s prestige and status has been taken away. Its basically Oda holding a giant sign with an arrow pointing towards Doffy saying:

 

“This is how a celestial dragon would act/behave if they believe everything has been wrongfully taken from them”

 

Let me try and explain how crazy celestials are. Whenever they leave the holy land, they wear “bubbles” on their head so they don’t breathe the same air as “lesser beings”. Oda does a good job on showing how boujee these man are. (They also own slaves, so there’s that). Oda also uses Flamingo to show how a celestial would react to experiencing hunger and poverty for the first time EVER. During the Dressrosa arc we seem him wake up from a nightmare, that nightmare was him realising he is truly hungry and poor (ay I wish I was rich to the point where getting hungry and poor for the first time will cause me to have nightmares for 15 years and counting). Its clear as day that Doflamingo’s past experiences play a big part in why he is the way he is. Celestials believe everyone else are lesser beings, so for Doffy to be kicked out and mingle with those lesser than him…. of course he’ll be on demon timing all day everyday. To have everything taken from you that you believe is rightfully yours….shiii you’d do anything to get it back. Kind of like Franklin Saint (Snowfall is one of the best tv shows of all time, you should watch it, thank me later <333).

Abilities

"Donquixote Doflamingo"

Doffy ate the string string fruit so he can create and control strings. I’m just going to say this now, I don’t think there’s another string user in anime or manga who is as cool and creative as Flamingo (Jolyne is my girl, but she’s got nothing on big Doffy). When I first read what his powers were, I instantly knew why he’s a major antagonist. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know being able to shoot out and control extremely thin lengths of string is very dangerous. Like in movies, durable and thin string can cut almost anything. With Doffy he can cut people like its nothing, I like how Oda draws his strings too. 

Oda shows off Doffy’s creativity too:
Travel: He got the moniker “Sky demon” from how he travels. Doffy’s strings can latch on to clouds, letting him move around different islands and seas like its nothing (only when clouds are present). The panel where it shows him rushing towards the Straw hat crew from the sky, boyyy
Cutting: His strings can cut people, stone, and buildings. Like, your haki game has to be very serious to firm these things man. Sukuna must have been partially inspired from Doffy because at times, Oda doesn’t even draw his strings, you just see the person or object being cut
Smashing: He can twist his strings together to make a thick rope that he can use to smash his opps, just think about real life rope, its made of strings and fiber twisting around each other
Piercing: Obviously the strings are sharp enough for him to shoot it out like bullets. This Donquixote Doflamingo ffs
Puppeteering: You cant tell me this move is sick. He can control people with his strings like a puppeteer with his puppet. This is the move that starts off the Dressrosa arc, goated.
Stitching: Flamingo can stitch his own wounds, preventing them from worsening
Doflamingo’s devil fruit powers have awakened. Awakening is when a devil fruit user’s powers increase to another level. This allows users to have better control of their powers, stamina and abilities overall. This is superrrr rare though, only a handful of characters in One piece are awakened. In Doffys case, awakening his fruit allows him to turn inanimate objects he touches into string, I’m telling you Luffy would have lost to him if Law wasn’t involved. He has several different techniques that came with his awakening but I’m only going to mention one. The best one. GOD THREAD SIXTEEN HOLY ASSASSIN’S BULLETS. Hear this hear this, the sixteen bullets come from Doflamingo’s childhood, where a father shouted at him, stating the celestials shot his son sixteen times. Doflamingo is evil bro.

Smoke

9/10, there are only 2 things that scare him and that is Kaido and the will of “D”. Apart from that, there’s nothing stopping Flamingo from doing what he wants. We see how bitter he is when it comes to his status as a celestial, there’s honestly no fixing him. He is dead set on getting back his status as a celestial dragon, his brother and father only fuelled his determination even more tbh.