Backstory and dreams:
When I first analyzed Carrot's character, I was like most people: "to join the crew, Carrot will need a backstory and a dream".. But the fact are here, Carrot is 15, she most likely had a happy life on Zunisha, so there are really no reasons for her to get a real and tragic "back"story. And even if we had some clues about it, we don't really know for sure what Carrot's dream is. There is still a possibility to get a backstory of course, but in the meantimes, we have to accept that Carrot might not have the same "past treament" as other mugiwara? But what then ? Is Carrot not a real potential as a crewmate ?
Of course yes, she is. That's why I wondered, Could the premisse "a Nakama needs a backstory and a dream" be wrong ?
After quite some time, I realized that if that was partially true, this was also partially wrong. Now bukkle up, because we are diving deep into the theory of Storytelling for this one, this will need a lot more explanations that the rest.
Let me explain to you a storytelling concept and neologism of mine, I like to call:
The driving forces!
To begin.. let's define a "Dream"! A dream is something that makes us wonder. Most of the time a dream appears early, some other times it appears after experiencing something important or someone. But is a dream something we always seek ? Well.. no. Most of us don't chase after our dreams.. Lazyness, difficulties, others reasons.. A dream can be just that, a little voice in the back of our head that will sometimes tells us: "hey you, that would be cool, right?"
But what is a dream when it's something more, something we go after? A GOAL, a purpose, something we will go after against all the difficulties of life.
In One Piece, dreams are really goals. Goals that are worthy to die for. In storytelling, John Truby (a script doctor) calls the goal "The desire".
The desire:
The "desire" is what the characters wants and their objective during the story. This is one of their "driving forces", one of their "motor" in life. For example (Spoilers warning about Avengers Endgame, Pirates of the caribbean - At world's End and Indiana Jones and the last crusade):
In "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End", the desire of Jack Sparrow is to kill davy jones in order to be safe and immortal
In "Avengers EndGame", The desire of Tony Stark is to beat Thanos
In "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade", The desire of Indy is to find his father and the Graal.
In One Piece, it's:
Taking down Kaido for Momonosuke
Getting the One Piece and becoming Pirate King for Luffy (at least that what we are lead to believe)
Liberating Alabasta for Vivi
That said.. In most stories, The "desire" is not the only "driving force" of the characters, there is another one: "The need"!
The Need:
The Need is the other "motor" of a character, but it is something deeper, something hidden and the character is - most of the time - not aware of it. This is what they must become or overcome to be a better person. In most stories, the "need" is hidden under layers of character development, it is all about overcoming the character's weaknesses. It's the center of the story, the main meal. Let's look at the exemples:
In "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End", The need of Jack Sparrow is not to become immortal, it is to overcome his selfishness in order to help his friend. In fact, Jack will let go of his desire to become immortal in order to save his friend Will Turner, in what might be one of the best scene of the Trilogy.
In "Avengers EndGame" the real need of Tony Stark is not to beat Thanos, even if he will manage to do that. But to be a hero, to be someone greater, to let go of his fears and his selfishness and to embrace death.
In the Last Crusade, Indy needs to forgive his dad in order to find again his love for him and let go of the past.
In One Piece:
The real need of Momo is not to beat Kaido, but to overcome his fears and become someone we can rely on.
and yeah .. The real need of Luffy is not the One Piece. One could say that it is freedom, but I will say that it is something more: The storytelling is leading us to something quite specific.. and enigmatic.. but one could argue that Luffy needs to accept the responsibilities that come with the status of a King...
For Vivi it's more simple. She needed to take the burden of responsibilities off her shoulders and rely on her friends. She needed to accept help and the struggle of war.
As you can see, the "needs" are sometimes not related to the "desire". Still... they are - most of the time - what will push the character into their journey and toward those desires. Once the character overcome the weakness (Momo's fear, Vivi's overresponsibilities, Jack Sparrow's selfishness) they will end there journey or start a new one.
Now, Let's look at One Piece and how those "driving forces" are really applied:
Most of the major characters in One Piece have those "driving forces". But there is something that differenciate a Mugiwara from a main arc character (like Rebecca or Vivi for example)..
Indeed.
A mugiwara have THREE DRIVING FORCES, one desire, and TWO type of needs:
A desire:
- Be the Pirate King
- Be the best
- Find All Blue
- Make the map of the world
- Become a brave Warrior
- Be able to cure all diseases
- Find out the truth about the world
- Witness The Dream Ship
- Meet a friend again
- Free his people...
A primary need:
Here this is where One Piece takes a different pass from the contemporary litterature, some of the mugiwara may have already fullfiled their primary needs. It can be tricky as we are not at the end of the story yet. The primary needs rely on the weaknesses of the character. Some are obvious, others not so much. Here are my current interpretation for some of them:
- Nami needed to accept Luffy and the others as her friends.
- Robin needed to accept that she was not a burden and accept life.
- Chopper might need to accept that death is a part of life and that not every thing can be cured but Oda could also go the opposite way and make in need of understanding and overcoming his own weaknesses in order to become a living panacee.
- Brook as a more obvious need : staying alive in order to keep a promise to his old friend.
- Zoro is not obvious but. The story hints that becoming the greatest is not really what is driving him.. In order to overcome the death of his childhood friend, Zoro felt the responsibility to honor her. For that, Zoro needs to become someone important enough for his aura to reach the other world and honor Kuina but Zoro's real need might be the simple need to Grief and through that, to accept that Honor and strenght can come in the form of a woman.
- Sanji needed to rely on his friend to overcome his situation
- Jinbe needed to let go of his responsibilities and think about himself.
- Usopp is the most obvious one he simply needs to trust himself fully, by doing that, he can achieve greatness
- Franky needed to forgive himself for his past and also needs to keep his pride of his work up. (sometime in the future, one of his creation could become armfull again)
A third driving force If there is in all story two driving forces at play. In One Piece, there is a third. I call that driving force the "Nakama need". But this "Nakama need" deserves to be another pillar.