This list contains spoilers up to Egghead Island
Summary
When living in a world as dangerous as the one seen inOne Piece, it can definitely help for a pirate or marine to have a teacher to help guide them along their journey. Most of the time, a teacher and student will end up establishing a close relationship with one another, considering how much time they spend together while training, but as anyone who is familiar with the story will know, a character’s affiliations and personal ideology can change very quickly, which has inevitably led to more than a few betrayals.
On some occasions, this will result in the teacher and student taking on one another in a battle to settle their differences, but there have also been scenarios where the two would never see each other ever again after going their separate ways. With that being said, it’s time to take a look at the students seen throughoutOne Piecewho have betrayed their teachers to get a clear idea of why exactly they made the decision to go rogue.
5Blackbeard
Blackbeard Turned His Back On Whitebeard’s Crew As Soon As He Acquired A Powerful Fruit
Blackbeard may be considered immensely strong in theOne Piecestory nowadays, but he certainly wasn’t born this way. When Whitebeard first found Blackbeard, or Marshal D. Teach as he was known back then, he was a little more than a poor boy from an impoverished village who was lucky enough to earn the respect of the legendary Whitebeard, who would promptly introduce him to the rest of the crew.
While sailing under Whitebeard, Teach clearly learned a lot from his new master, including the basics of fighting and the best ways to stay alive while cruising along the vast open seas. However, as soon as Blackbeard caught a glimpse of theDark Dark fruit, one of the most powerful Devil Fruit abilities in the series, it didn’t take long for him to kill the ship’s cook so that he could steal it, before then abandoning the crew altogether. Blackbeard and his old master would come face to face one final time in the Marineford war, but unfortunately, considering the war was nearly over, Whitebeard was clearly in no shape to fight the man who inadvertently caused his teacher’s death.
4Ace
Ace’s Loyalty To His Crew Influenced His Decision To Chase After Blackbeard
Blackbeard wasn’t the only one who turned his back on Whitebeard, as another fellow crew member, Ace, also did the same thing, though it was for completely different reasons. As someone who came to seethe Whitebeard crewas his own family, Ace simply couldn’t accept that Blackbeard would cut and run so willingly. Because Whitebeard claimed to have a funny feeling about Blackbeard and his new powers, he decided to forbid Ace from chasing after him, only for the plucky young pirate to go against his word and pursue the chase anyway.
Ace didn’t do this because he hated Whitebeard, especially since this is the man who taught him everything he knows and ultimately made him the pirate that he always wanted to be. Instead, Ace couldn’t sit by idly, knowing that someone had turned their back on the family, though unfortunately, Ace didn’t exactly fare well when he finally came face to face with Blackbeard, who, by this point, had become absurdly powerful.
3Aokiji
Garp Always Saw Aokiji As The Perfect Marine, Not One Of The Ten Titanic Captains
When Aokiji was still a youngster in the Marines,Garp was there to help teach him learn the ropes, in the hopes that he would one day become strong enough to reach the position of Admiral. Part of this training involved punching Battleship Bags without using any Devil Fruit abilities or Haki, which allowed Aokiji to focus on his physical prowess, which would help him out a lot in future battles.
Though Aokiji was able to finally become an Admiral, after Sengoku retired, he would be forced to go against Akainu in battle to see who would become the next Marine leader. Not only did Aokiji lose this fight, but he would also get tangled up with the Blackbeard Pirates, much to the dismay of Garp, who pleaded for him to come back. It’s got to be heartbreaking for Garp to see his protégé not only betray the Marine way of life, but also his own teacher in the process, especially now that he’s a part of one of the most dangerous pirate crews to ever exist.
2Sentomaru
Sentomaru is a character who had only been shown in brief scenes here and there throughout the story, but during the Egghead Island arc, he was given a much bigger focus that allowed fans to get a deeper insight into his backstory. It turns out that Sentomaru, in order to become a bodyguard forVegapunk, actually trained under none other than Kizaru. While the two therefore had a very close bond when they were still young, Sentomaru would ultimately betray his lifelong teacher once the Marines ordered an attack on Vegapunk’s life.
Not willing to let her role model be killed in cold blood, Sentomaru bravely stood up against Kizaru, despite knowing he had no chance of taking him down. In the end, it resulted in a fight where both combatants clearly didn’t want to hurt the other, but since Kizaru was still on a mission, he was forced to deal with his stoic student as quickly as possible.
1Luffy
Becoming The King Of The Pirates Wasn’t Exactly What Garp Wanted For Luffy
Luffy has had multiple teachers throughout the story, but the man who taught him how to fend for himself at a young age was his grandfather, Garp. The reason Garp was throwing Luffy into the middle of a dangerous jungle and plummeting him at the bottom of a deep ravine was so that he would become strong enough to one day become afully-fledged Marine, but Luffy had other ideas. Despite the boy making it clear that he actually wanted to be a pirate, Garp would scold him any time he uttered the word, hoping to shake the silly dream out of Luffy’s head.
Once Luffy was old enough to set sail though, he essentially betrayed Garp’s dream in order to fulfill his own, that being to one day become the King of the Pirates. This doesn’t mean that the two hate each other though. In fact, Garp seems to have gained a certain level of respect for Luffy after witnessing everything he’s accomplished since he became a captain, but it was definitely still a gut punch for him to see his own son going against his wishes.
