Doflamingo, you evil, evil man...
For a series known for having an idealistic hero as the protagonist, One Piece contains some of the most monstrous and despicable actions committed by villains.- Captain Morgan ordering that a little girl be killed just for entering his base without permission and even killing the Marine who refused his orders. Tellingly, even Helmeppo objected to that decision.
- Captain Kuro spent years posing as a man named Klahadore and serving as the butler to Kaya, whose father had supposedly saved his life and let him work there. Since her father passed away, he became the closest thing she had to a father figure, and the two of them did many things together. As it turns out, he was biding his time all for the day when he could kill her and claim her inheritance money, which he'd use to retire from piracy for good. The real sick part? Killing her wasn't truly necessary — he wanted to do it for peace of mind, because he'd secretly hated her all these years, finding tending to her whims to be degrading! And he tells this all right to her face when confronted about it, leading to a big Break the Cutie moment that rightfully enrages Usopp. It's no wonder he is deemed irredeemable.
- Don Krieg crosses it with how he repays Gin's loyalty to him. Gin, unable to kill Sanji, who'd fed him when he was starving, asks Don Krieg to give up on seizing the Baratie. In response, Krieg not only prepares to launch a poison gas attack, but orders Gin to throw away his gas mask, planning on killing Gin with the rest of his enemies. Gin is fatally poisoned as a result of the attack, and while Gin's fate remains unknown, Krieg's callousness and ingratitude toward a man who repeatedly risked his life for him earns Luffy's fury.
- Arlong killed Nami's adoptive mother for not having the money to pay a toll that he just imposed on the town, it looks as if he's at least willing to let Nami work to buy her town back. So he lets her join his crew and work tirelessly for 8 years to earn the 100 million berries that she needs to meet his price by going out and robbing pirates on the side. And then, when she only has one voyage's worth of money left to earn, he sends a corrupt Naval officer to steal all of the money she worked for eight years to collect. And when she confronts him about it, he has the gall to simply smile at her and ask "What promise did I break?". And then? He laughs right in her face. He later reveals that he had no intention of letting her go, and would only do so after she had drawn the map for the whole world. And considering his hatred of humans, if Luffy hadn't done anything, Nami would be "let free" of her association to the Arlong Pirates.
- This becomes apparent with Hody Jones, a member of the Big Bad Duumvirate in the Fishman Island arc and Arlong's would-be successor. He's an even bigger racist and more merciless fisherman than Arlong ever was. He has the queen promoting peace killed and frames a human in order to cover his tracks. He planned to make a Fascist state out of his home country in order to spread these racist ideals and frequently uses his crew as meat shields (Where Arlong's love for his fellow Fishmen was his one and only redeeming quality). Because Hody despises humans and Fishmen who have compassion for them, after he takes over the kingdom and has King Neptune taken prisoner and condemned to execution, he decides to start killing all those who signed the peace petition that Queen Otohime had worked for. Judging from her success, he's willing to kill thousands. Finally, he has NO reason for doing this other than blind racism.
- Vander Decken IX, the other half of Fishman Island's Big Bad Duumvirate, willingly partnered with Hody to overthrow Fishman Island's monarchy, with the side benefit of getting Shirahoshi for himself... and when Hachi (a former ally of Arlong, who Hody held in high regard) tried to persuade them to call off their plans, what was Decken's response? He used his Devil Fruit ability to impale Hachi with arrows to the point of near-death. Oh, and his willingness to flatten Fishman Island with Noah, the world's biggest frickin' boat, which by the way, was a precious artifact and promise created during the Void Century, just because he's a Stalker with a Crush and Shirahoshi rejected him.
- Crocodile disgraced the reputation of both the Seven Warlords of the Sea (whom he was a part of) and, partially, the World Government (whom said Warlords worked for) by creating the Baroque Works crime organization and invading the kingdom of Arabasta, one of the few kingdoms uninvolved in the pirate/World Government conflict (formerly) for kicks, and to get his one greedy hand on a legendary superweapon, Pluton; along the way, he kills some of Arabasta's most loyal soldiers, and actually manages to defeat Luffy in combat. Crocodile crossed the line when, after it was revealed that he had hidden a bomb in the city that would reduce it to a crater, despite becoming its new ruler at the time, and the heroes manage to find it, it is discovered that it is a time bomb right near the end of its timer, meaning he had anticipated that they would find it and made sure they would still explode even if they found it. The fact that the ones who found the bomb (the princess being one of them) went down on their knees in despair and shouted to the heavens what a monster he is should say it all. And he kept on sending sand storms to Toto's village, and during his first bout with Luffy, he sends a massive sand tornado to finish him because Toto was being optimistic and Crocodile felt like punishing him. The next time Crocodile meets Luffy, in Impel Down, even though he acts "slightly" civil towards his old enemy, Cloudcuckoolander Luffy just looks at him in quiet disgust and, knowing better than to trust him, outright refuses to let him out of his jail cell, only doing so when he was out of any other options (he was trying to escape with his brother Ace).
- Enel already establishes himself as a power-hungry narcissist with a god complex. However, what really crosses him over the line is when he blows up Angel Island. He didn't even have a reason to do it; he just did it for the hell of it.
- Spandine, Spandam's father crossed the line by executing Clover and issuing the Buster Call on Ohara, turning a CP0 investigation into genocide, while not allowing Robin to evacuate.
- Spandam crosses the line during his introductory appearance when he has his subordinates in Cipher Pol 5 steal Franky's Battle Frankies and attack the judicial ship in order to frame Tom's Workers for the crime. He intends to use their crime as a pretext to seize Pluton's blueprints from Tom and allow the World Government to use the weapon to bring an end to the age of piracy. This attack endangers the lives of the civilians and Marines aboard the ship, and results in Franky, Tom and Iceberg being unjustly sentenced to death, forcing Tom to use his pardon for this crime and be executed for building the Oro Jackson. Despite Spandam initially coming of as a clumsy and not very bright government official, this incident proves that he's also a sociopath who doesn't care how many innocent people come to harm if he gets what he wants.
- Admiral Akainu, in his debut, orders the destruction of a civilian ship, all because it might just contain an escaped archaeologist. He would then show up later to execute a lowly mook who, after he saw how outclassed he was fighting with the upper class pirates and marines at Marineford, just wanted to go home and be with his family and tried to flee the battle.
- Charlos crossed it with the shooting of Hachi and the attempted buying of Camie, which left him at the brunt of brutal retaliation by a very much enraged Luffy.
- For the longest time, even after it was revealed they ordered Ohara burned to the ground, some fans were willing to give the Five Elder Stars a pass. After all, they were trying to protect the world from ancient weapons of mass destruction. Then came the ending of the Paramount War, in which they order the escape of many vicious criminals from Impel Down covered up, and it became apparent that they're more concerned with their own power and image than protecting the world. This one was so bad that Sengoku resigned on the spot rather than work for a government that would condone such things.
- Jay Garcia Saturn, Godhead of Science and Defence solidifies how horrible the World Government really is by using Ginny as a test subject, resulting in her getting the Sapphire Scales disease, making him responsible for most of Kuma's suffering - and then applying all of this as leverage to bring the last Buccaneer under his heel, as if he weren't himself the cause of it all in the first place. He feels no shame whatsoever when called out on this: according to himself, he would feel no more towards them than they themselves would feel towards an insect they stepped on.
- The Punk Hazard arc seems to show Caesar Clown gleefully doing his latest heinous actions. That subordinate of yours that sang praises of you helping prisoners/ex-pirates like him? Kill him, he's just getting in the way. Those giant children found in your labs? Hey, turns out you've drugged them (in the form of candy) to make sure that they don't leave their island. Also, their addiction to said drug causes them to go berserk when they don't have access to it. Then there's the fact they weren't giant when he first kidnapped them. And oh golly, it turns out that if they keep on using them, they'll end up dying in 5 years and he wouldn't bat an eye.
- Donquixote Doflamingo always seemed to be a nasty character, but revelations during the Punk Hazard and Dressrosa arcs that he does have genuine shared loyalty with his crew had redeemed him to an extent. Then we learned that during his takeover of the Riku Kingdom, not only he blackmailed King Riku into giving him the wealth of the entire nation, but it was actually a ruse to literally manipulate the King with his String-String Fruit into slaughtering his own people, intending to portray himself as their savior. Even In-Universe, learning the full truth of this even has Nico Robin, a character whose pragmatism would normally have her advise against fighting someone like Doflamingo, declare This Is Unforgivable!.
- Jack the Drought crosses it when, after the Mink tribe fight him to a stalemate when he arrives in search of Raizo, he proceeds to use chemical gas weapons against the tribe. He then brutally tortures the Cat Viper and Duke Dogstorm, among others, cutting off their limbs in order to force them to reveal Raizo's location
- Vinsmoke Sanji's brother, Niji, crossed it when he brutally beat Cosette, an innocent chef, into unconsciousness, just because Sanji defended her cooking. All three of Sanji's brothers crossed it with their downright monstrous abuse of Sanji in the past. At the same time, it should be noted that all of their evil can also be directly attributed to their "father" Vinsmoke Judge's actions, since he literally experimented on them in the womb to turn them into emotionless Tyke Bombs, making them almost literally incapable of understanding that what they're doing is wrong. Considering how Reiju and Sanji turned out otherwise...
- Speaking of Vinsmoke Judge, the man was a complete asshole from his very first apparition. He was shown as an even bigger asshole as he was revealed to be Sanji's Archnemesis Dad, plus the horrible circumstances that led to this and how he only wants Sanji back to force him in an Arranged Marriage. But what made all of this worse was The Reveal that he experimented with Sanji and his quadruplet brothers (Ichiji, Niji and Yonji) when the four were still in their mother Sora's womb, intending to make them Tyke Bomb super soldiers with zero empathy from before they were born. The reason why he hates Sanji so much is that, thanks to a risky gambit from Sora, he was the only one who escaped to this. What Judge did to his own family is considered irredeemably evil and repulsive even by the standards of pirates. Even Queen, who has no qualms about killing his own men with an artificial virus, as stated below, makes his disgust with Judge clear during his fight with Sanji.
- Big Mom crossed it when she tells a captive Nami that she plans to send assassins after Lola, her own daughter, just for fleeing from an Arranged Marriage with Prince Loki of Elbaf. Not only that, but she tried to have Lola's twin sister Chiffon take her place, only to be rejected. This infuriated Big Mom so much, that she beat Chiffon bloody every time she saw her, just to vent out her anger since Lola wasn't in Totto Land anymore.
- Even before that, SBS Vol. 90 reveals that she kidnapped men by the dozens and forced them to have children with her, before throwing them out when she had no further use for them. To call a spade a spade, Big Mom is a serial rapist.
- Kurozumi Orochi crossed it when he mixed SMILEs that failed to produce Gifters into the usually rotten leftovers sent to the impoverished Ebisu Town, knowingly tricking the inhabitants into becoming Pleasures incapable of expressing emotions like grief due to being unable to turn away actual fresh food. Why? The twofold reason of both being tired of them constantly mourning their dead and out of pure unadulterated spite towards the former Daimyo, Yasuie.
- Daifugo/Scorpion, the vicious warden of Udon Prison, crosses this when he starts murdering Udon's prisoners completely at random with bullets filled with the "Mummy Virus", until the infection spreads to Luffy and his allies. Said virus inflicts unbearable pain on its victims, as if their entire bodies are on fire, as Daifugo himself sadistically explains.
- Queen at first seems to be Affably Evil, being a Camp Straight who enjoys partying and is a source of humor. He also fired the ice oni plague into the middle of a battle, infecting not only enemies, but also the Pleasures and the Waiters of his own crew. And when they ask why he did so, he states that they're disposable and only useful by being infected by the ice demon virus to "bloom in death". He also repeatedly beat O-sore the oiran in the past out of pure jealousy, and because he copied Germa Technology, he did so while invisible, with the added bonus of sending Sanji into a brief Heroic BSoD as the latter thought he became more like his brothers by violating his Would Not Hit a Girl policy; luckily, he found the truth and the ensuing asskicking to Queen was beyond satisfying.
- Kurozumi Kanjuro continually proved himself to be exceptionally nasty after revealing his true colors, but everyone lost every ounce of sympathy for him when he heartlessly stabs Kikunojo through the chest under the guise of her long-dead foster father, Kozuki Oden. He gets cut down by Kinemon shortly afterwards for his trouble.
- The pirate emperor Kaido crossed it 20 years ago when he beat Yamato, his own son, to near-death for his pronounced admiration of Kozuki Oden, and locked him in a cage with several rebellious samurai and enough food for only one person, with the expectation that Yamato will either starve to death or the samurai will kill him in retaliation for him being Kaido's son. Instead, the samurai free him, and Kaido slaughters them in anger.
- Marshall D. Teach AKA Blackbeard has so many potential MEH-crossing events it’s not even funny.
- His first major atrocity is killing Thatch, a commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, to steal the Yami Yami no Mi. This is what spurns his disownment from the crew, as well as causes Ace to pursue him.
- In the pre-timeskip present day, he later captures Ace and turns him in to the World Government for execution, instigating the Paramount War and granting Teach a spot in the Warlords of the Sea.
- Blackbeard then stages a mass-breakout of Impel Down, having the prisoners slaughter each other until only the strongest remained, recruiting the villains as commanders in his crew.
- Finally, during the Paramount War, he and his closest crew mates personally murder Whitebeard, Teach’s old captain. This is followed by Teach stealing the powers of Whitebeard’s Guru Guru no Mi and using it to cause mass destruction at Marineford. It is only thanks to the intervention of Shanks that Marineford isn’t totally demolished.
- Ever since their introduction in Chapter 906, Imu, the secret top dog of the World Government, has remained both figuratively and literally in the dark, their motives and concerns completely unknown to the audience. Given the Morality Kitchen Sink of the rest of the setting, they could conceivably have ranged anywhere from Well-Intentioned Extremist to a true Complete Monster. Wiping an entire kingdom off the map in Chapter 1060 was a bad sign, but things were still far too muddled to say anything for certain since it's implied through the Five Elders that Sabo being nearby was just a coincidence. But come Chapter 1086, these things are made clear in the worst of ways: Lulusia was destroyed simply to test a new weapon of mass destruction, and was chosen as the target for no greater reason than its close proximity. One of the Five Elders even reminds Imu of all the people living there, only for the latter to brush this off as a non-issue. All of this marks beyond a shadow of a doubt Imu's pettiness, callousness, and bloodlust, the means they prefer to control the world, and just how little their people's welfare actually matters to them: the leap past the Horizon has been completed, their villainy well-established.
- Practically all Celestial Dragons were believed to be way too past the horizon to be redeemable. However, with the reintroduction of St. Mjosgard, and his new self, there came a little bit of hope that they could see the error of their ways the same way Mjosgard did. And then comes the Egghead arc; not only did they have the aforementioned Mjosgard executed just for standing up to the royal Fishmen family, but it's also revealed in chapter 1095, that every three years, the Celestial Dragons would host a population eradication tournament on islands unassociated with the World Government. Repeating. THEY TREAT GENOCIDE AS A SPORT. In particular, the Native Hunting Competition in the God Valley flashback had 100,000 designated victims, with Ivankov stating that the World Nobles leave no survivors while giving the "rabbits" false hope that they will be freed if they survive because it's more fun to chase their victims.
- Saint Figarland Garling, in particular, shows himself to be just as if not more, heinous than the rest of Celestial Dragons by being Mjosgard's executioner, making it clear he considers Merfolk to be subhuman, and anyone who supports them as trash. He also participated in the aftermentioned Native Hunting Competition, starting by cutting down God Valley's king for simply protesting.
- If King Bekori didn’t cross this during his reign when he forced sick people who couldn't pay the Heavenly Tribute to the World Nobles to prison, letting them starve to death, and allowing his soldiers to enslave the poor southern region of the Sorbet Kingdom, then he definitely crossed it when he decided to reenact the Goa Kingdoms burning of the Gray Terminal in an effort to reclaim his throne.
- York crossed this instantly by selling out Dr. Vegapunk and all her other allies to the World Government in hopes of becoming a Celestial Dragon, even going so far as to murder Shaka in cold blood to keep Stella-Vegapunk's location a secret.
- After spending most of the series being somewhat of a
morally grey antagonist, Admiral Kizaru finally crosses it when he deals a killing blow to Dr. Vegapunk.
Movies, specials, anime filler
- General Gasparde from the fourth movie passed this in a flashback when he abandoned the Marines and proceeded to invade numerous towns and villages, killing numerous innocent civilians and taking in the survivors as his slaves, all because he was "bored". This action caused him to be known as the Marines' "greatest stain".
- Baron Omatsuri had every right to grieve having lost all of his crew at once in a storm, even to never move on. But the measures he took, including making sure all other crews that get on his island share his grief, making the Straw Hats fight each other, and feeding people to a demonic plant so it can make illusions of his dead crewmates can never be excused.
- Z from the eponymous film was trying to have the entire second half of the Grand Line explode into a fiery wasteland, killing thousands of civilians and marines in the process. Even Fleet Admiral Akainu thought he must be stopped at all costs.
- Byrrndi World from "3D2Y" has lost sight of the person he used to be, sees his subordinates as expendable, kills anyone who disobeys him or tries to leave, and plans on using his ship's enormous cannon, originally intended as a deterrent against anyone who would come to fight him, to destroy Mariejois. But what really puts him over the line is trying to kill his sickly older brother and Morality Pet when he tries to get him to see the error of his ways.
