Gold Roger's Strength - Did He Have An Easier Path To Pirate King?

Before we can talk Roger’s competition for King of the Pirates, we have to first define what the term actually means. The One Piece wiki states:

Quote:The Pirate King (海賊王 Kaizoku-Ō?, called King of the Pirates in the English versions) is the strongest pirate alive and owner of the legendary treasure that was later dubbed as "One Piece".[7]

http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Pirate#The_Pirate_King

Let’s talk about the four biggest obstacles to Roger’s title: Whitebeard, Shiki, Monkey D. Garp, and the other pirates on the grand line.

Whitebeard
Whitebeard was certainly an incredibly powerful pirate, even in his old age, but Whitebeard shouldn’t be viewed as an obstacle that Roger had to overcome to become pirate king.
As we already know, Whitebeard had no interest in reaching Raftel, claiming the One Piece, or becoming the pirate king.



This idea was also confirmed to us during Doflamingo’s speech in chapter 801:



Whitebeard was certainly not interested in taking Roger’s title just to be able to call himself the pirate king.

So should Whitebeard be considered a serious contender for the title of Pirate King? While he and Roger fought many times, and surviving against Whitebeard is an impressive feat for anyone, I would say no.

Shiki
Shiki was commander of the largest pirate fleet during Roger’s time. He also singlehandedly wreaked havoc at Marineford against Sengoku and Garp, so he is undoubtedly strong.

However, Shiki seemingly had no interest in Raftel or One Piece. From what we have seen so far, there is no evidence to suggest that Shiki had set his sights on Raftel or One Piece at any point in his career as a pirate, as he seemed to be more focused on individual islands or territories.

There is also little to no evidence to suggest that Shiki was interested in bringing Roger down after he became pirate king. Shiki even attempted to ally himself with the pirate king at one point.

So should Shiki be considered a serious contender for the title of Pirate King? While it is certainly possible that Shiki may have set his sights on Raftel at one point, as of the time of this post, I would say no.

Monkey D. Garp

I won’t waste too much time here. Garp should absolutely be considered a massive obstacle in the way of Roger becoming pirate king. Credit where credit is due.

Other Pirate Crews

Now let’s talk about the state of the world that Roger conquered. How rampant was piracy back when Roger was active?
I want to turn your attention to a segment from the One Piece wiki for a moment:

Quote:Pirates have long been a part of the way of life in the One Piece world. The oldest known group of pirates mentioned were the ones under Dorry and Brogy from more than 100 years ago. However, despite pirates existing back then, none of them were known to be noteworthy enough to shake the world.

Then all that changed with the arrival of the great pirate Gol D. Roger (and others like Edward Newgate andShiki). Roger set about to do what no one had done before - conquer the Grand Line. He succeeded and in doing so made his way to Raftel and left behind something somewhere in the world, his most prized possession, One Piece. Roger brought about an air of romance about being a pirate and upon his death his final words sent others to sea to become a pirate. Things would never be the same again.

http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Pirate#Be...Golden_Age

These two paragraphs were explained to us over the course of several different chapters. The implications are HUGE when it comes to debating whether or not Roger is stronger than the current Yonko.

From it, we can draw a very important point: There were no particularly impressive pirate crews before Roger’s arrival.

From this, we can figure out that Roger’s conquering of the grand line looked less like Luffy’s does (overcoming powerful pirate after powerful pirate), and would look more like a lion being released into a chicken coup: a literal and metaphorical one-sided slaughter.

So should the pirates of the world be considered an obstacle to Roger’s title? Maybe, but evidence suggests that none of them were particularly impressive, so I am personally inclined to say no.

So from this, I argue the point the only serious obstacle standing in Roger’s way on his journey to conquering the grand line was Monkey D. Garp.

In the previous section, I discussed how piracy during Roger’s time wasn’t particularly rampant, and how the few strong pirate crews that actually did exist weren’t really interested in reaching Raftel or taking Roger’s title.

Now let’s take a look at some of the competition that Monkey D. Luffy, as well as other active pirates are facing:
These are just five of the many extremely powerful pirates that stand in any wannabe-Pirate Kings way. And of these five, the three that are Yonko are ACTIVELY SEEKING TO CLAIM ONE PIECE.

You could argue that Doflamingo and Mihawk shouldn’t be considered competition for pirate king since neither one of them have ever expressed desire to reach Raftel, but I would argue that the marines quite literally allow these two pirates (along with five others) to roam free for the purposes of destroying aspiring pirate crews.

I also think it’s necessary here to point out that it’s implied that the warlords didn’t exist during Roger’s time. Since the purpose of the warlord system was created to keep smaller pirate crews in check, and piracy wasn’t out of control until after Roger’s death, we can infer that the warlords were around to keep Roger down.

I don’t even need to mention any of the other strong pirates that want to become pirate king as well, such as Crocodile, Moria, Kidd, etc. to make prove the following point: The current new world is more volatile and difficult to conquer than the grand line that Roger conquered.

While Roger’s only realistic obstacle in his path to pirate king was Garp, the current Yonko have three other Yonko to go through. Any pirate who isn’t a Yonko has to go through all four Yonko as well as the seven Warlords. And the marines.

Even if you would argue that Roger had to go through Whitebeard, Shiki, Garp, and the rest of the pirates of his time (none of which were impressive), any current pirate has to surpass Kaido, Big Mom, Shanks, Blackbeard, the seven warlords, and the plethora of veteran new world pirate crews to get to Raftel and become the king.

If you haven’t been convinced by the previous two sections that Roger is no stronger than the current Yonko, let’s look at this from a logical perspective.

The current opinion of most of the One Piece followers is this: Prime Roger and Prime Whitebeard were so powerful that they could quite literally defeat a current Yonko one on one high difficulty under any circumstance. Some fans argue that Roger would be capable of defeating multiple admirals at the same time. Some fans argue that Rayleigh in his prime was only on Yonko level.

Many fans hold Garp in the same regard, that in his old, weak age, he would have easily been able to defeat Akainu at Marineford. I have even seen a few fans (a minority, but still) argue that because Zephyr was an admiral during Roger’s time, he is by default stronger than Akainu, Kizaru, Aokiji, or Fujitora (even though he is non canon).

So what happened?
Did the entirety of the current One Piece get some kind of sickness that makes them unable to reach the same level as Whitebeard, Roger, or Garp?
Did Oda decide for some reason to never have any other character reach this level?
Are people like Kaido, Shanks, Big Mom, Blackbeard, Akainu, etc. just so pathetic that they can’t ever possibly hope to reach Roger, Whitebeard, or Garp’s level no matter how hard they’ve worked?
Why would Oda choose such a weak era as the focal point of his story?
Does it make any sense to believe that men who have devoted their entire lives to reaching Roger’s level just cannot reach it? Especially when a huge portion of the world of One Piece has devoted itself to this goal?