I’ve seen a lot of takes on what it means to be a conqueror and a lot of people believe it has to do with having a kingly ambition others say it’s a genetic thing and to be fair I can see why many people would come to such conclusions but if it were just one of those things then many of the conquerors we’ve seen in the series wouldn’t make sense. So in my opinions I think being a conqueror has more to do with having a strong will and being overly ambitious (and I don’t mean it in a kingly way). There’s this misconception that conqueror have to be this to be characters that aim for the top and don’t bend the knee for anyone and many like to use Zoro as an example of that but almost all the conquerors we’ve seen have folded for someone, we’ve seen almost all of them work under someone and even go as far as begging others for help. We’ve seen Roger on his knees begging Whitebeard same goes for Zoro begging Mihawk to train him as well as some like Garp and Sengoku despite being conquerors still at the end of the day serve under the world government, Rayleigh and Gaban serving Roger. But if you shift the focus to their will and ambition you can make an argument for many of the characters with this ability at least those we know a lot about so I’ll try to go through some of them.


LUFFY as a character has made it clear many times in the story that he doesn’t want to rule or control anyone and we see this in times like when he refuses to accept the pirates of the grand fleet to become his sub ordinates in Dressrosa but what makes Luffy stand out as a conqueror is his immense drive to become king of the pirates which is a very ambitious dream especially in a world with plenty of pirates and many being much stronger than him at the start of the story. But despite all these odds he still has the guts to stand and call himself the next king of the pirates in a world with people like Kaido, big mom and even the world government as well as plenty of other strong pirates and creature out there on the seas.



ZORO wants to be the world strongest swordsman mind you this is a world with plenty of great swordsmen and this is overly ambitious of him cause when we look at the start of the story when Zoro gets beat by Mihawk that defeat would have been enough to kill his dream but he still got up and continued to chase after this dream. That level of grit and ambitous is what truly justifies him as a conqueror.



WHITEBEARD on the other hand doesn’t aim for the top and he even had the opportunity to be the next king of the pirates after Rogers death but didn’t go for it cause all he desired was a family, to sail the seas with sons and daughters and honestly speaking you’d have to be next level tripping to think you can sail the seas and find a bunch of old men who’ll willingly call you their father when they aren’t related to you on top of it all. But he still went out and did it, he went out and got all these people to have all this belief in him and rally behind him at all times as their father even those who wanted to kill him at first like Ace and even believe in his strength to protect them as their father with this you can even say he conqueror them all.



ACE is a character some people believe is a conqueror just because his dad was one but if we look back at Ace’s backstory, the thing Ace wanted the most since his early years was to distance himself from Roger’s legacy all the way to the day he died he never once acknowledges him as his father but instead is grateful to Whitebeard for making him his son. Ace being Roger’s son meant he had a legacy hanging over him that he could never escape to the point that he was even executed for it. You can see that this was ambitious of Ace to want to curve out his own path cause it was always going to matter that he was Roger’s son but despite it all he went out of his way showing so much will to not associated with Roger and even outright detesting him for being his father such a strong will and ambition to be remembered as Ace not just as Roger’s son is what solidifies him as a conqueror cause you to me I don’t think a conqueror has to want to rise above something or someone, it could be as simple as trying to conqueror your own self and legacy.



BIG MOM and KATAKURI: Big mom wanting to create a land where all races could live together in harmony was overly ambitious of her as many of the races in one piece have been shown to always be at odds with each other like the humans and fish men or the long arm tribe and the long legs. This was ambitious of her to think she would be the one to finally unite all the races after centuries of them being at odds with one another and her going actively after this dream and pursuing it is what makes her a conqueror. KATAKURI wanting to protect his family and keep them away from all harm or dangers was highly ambitious of him. If you look back to Alabasta when Luffy and Vivi get into a fight and Luffy tells Vivi that she can’t protect everyone but this is what Katakuri is trying to do, which is to protect everyone which should be impossible. Katakuri’s will and ambition to protect his entire family even if the odd will always be against him and he can’t be at all places at the same time to protect his however many sibling and trying to take on all their burden despite him not being even the eldest. Him trying to do something that is impossible and still doing it to the best he can is what makes him a true conqueror.


KAIDO throughout Wano we find out he want to create the strongest force in the world and start the greatest war the world has ever seen where only the strongest survive already solidifies him as a conqueror cause this is a world with centuries of history where there must have been wars before but him coming out and aiming to start the greatest war in history is a big enough ambition to make him a conqueror and him having the will to chase after this goal even at the cost of other’s misfortune serves as proof of how far he’s willing to go which justifies him being a conqueror.



Therefore if we look closely at any of these character with conqueror you can notice they all have this immense drive and ambition to achieve something despite all odd being against them. Same goes for characters like DOFLAMINGO wanting to take revenge against those whose executed him and his family or him believing he was better than everyone in his family and absolutely detesting his father for taking them out of the holy land up to him creating the biggest underground empire as the joker. Or CHINJAO who was immensely proud of his abnormal head and believed he could do anything and beat anyone with it and even creating the Hapo navy. Then there’s BOA who bows to no man (maybe Luffy) and is literally a representation of women superiority in the story. And of course there are characters that we still have to know more about to identify why they are conqueror like GARP (I think there’s more to his story that Oda hasn’t shown) or SENGOKU heck even KIDD and SHANKS who I think will have his own backstory soon as well as plenty of other characters that are speculated to have this ability like Mihawk or Dragon who started an entire revolt against the world government and manages to get all those people behind him or Sanji who is going after some mythical sea that might not even exist while also showing strong will to not hit women and also fighting his own self to not turn out like his family even as going far as asking Zoro to kill him if he became like them showing us how just like Ace he’s fighting himself to create a path of his own to achieve his dream and also getting people to follow him at many occasions even marines. I believe there is still more to learn about conquerors haki but it seem many fans choose to be narrow minded about it even though Oda has shown different kinds of Conquerors throught the story.


Anyway these are just my thoughts about it and I could be disproved later on in the story but I don’t think Oda would just commit to the whole genetics thing or kingly thing since he’d just be writing himself into a corner.

Conqueror's Haki (repost)