Dracule Mihawk occupies a moral grey zone in One Piece, and fans have debated whether the World’s #1 Swordsman is a friend or foe to the Straw Hats.

Over 27 years and counting, author Eiichiro Oda’s smash-hit series One Piece has introduced fans to an astonishing variety of characters, and most of them were clear-cut heroes or villains. Being a shonen anime, One Piece has a fairly cut-and-dried depiction of good vs evil, with the heroes being honest, selfless, and compassionate people, while the villains are selfish, cruel, and dishonest. Still, even with this black-and-white morality, One Piece has a few characters with shades of gray in them, including Dracule Mihawk.

Dracule Mihawk has appeared here and there in One Piece‘s story and has served a supporting role, but it’s not 100% clear what that role actually is. One Piece fans can’t call Dracule Mihawk a hero, since he’s a poor fit for the Straw Hat Pirates crew and has no real affection for them. But Mihawk is nowhere near as cruel or destructive as villains like Sir Crocodile, Donquixote Doflamingo, or Kurozumi Orochi, so he’s not a mortal enemy of the Straw Hats. He doesn’t clearly align with the series’ heroes or villains, so One Piece fans might call him a gentle antagonist, someone who clashes with the Straw Hats in a non-committal way.

Dracule Mihawk is a Partial Villain in the Eyes of the Straw Hat Crew

In any genre of fiction, a villain and an antagonist are often one and the same, but according to their definitions, they can also be slightly or even substantially different. A villain is someone who commits evil deeds and harms others, according to mainstream morality, where helping people is good and hurting people is bad. Nearly every shonen anime fan can agree on what a villain looks and acts like, from All For One in My Hero Academia to Frieza in Dragon Ball Z and Muzan Kibutsuji in Demon Slayer; being a villain is about what’s on the inside, with a villain consciously choosing to harm and abuse other people, either directly or indirectly, to accomplish their own goals. Meanwhile, an antagonist is defined by their role in the story, not their morally bankrupt ideals or actions. An antagonist is merely someone who opposes and clashes with the protagonist, and both parties can be good people, merely with conflicting goals.

In fiction, antagonists tend to be clear-cut villains and often are, especially in shonen fiction, but that’s not an absolute requirement. For its part, One Piece makes those two roles overlap almost perfectly in nearly every arc, as characters like Wapol, Sir Crocodile, Enel, Kaido, and even Charlotte Katakuri all show, but the East Blue saga made an exception with Dracule Mihawk. He has said and done some things Luffy wouldn’t like, but he’s evidently not written to be evil. The worst thing he did was defeat and badly injure Roronoa Zoro in their duel, a scene replicated perfectly in the live-action One Piece series, but Zoro had asked for that duel, and Mihawk even spared his life.

Luffy doesn’t seem to view Dracule Mihawk as a true villain, and most One Piece fans probably don’t, either. Mihawk is a partial villain and a proper antagonist, being the world’s #1 swordsman whom Roronoa Zoro must defeat in a fair duel to achieve his personal dream. Mihawk is an obstacle that Zoro dearly wishes to overcome, and Mihawk won’t ever show mercy or make it easy for him. Mihawk very nearly took Zoro’s life in their duel, though, a brutal act that Luffy couldn’t easily accept. Also, Mihawk was Luffy’s enemy on paper, being a member of the Warlords of the Sea, a group that’s usually been hostile to Luffy in various One Piece story arcs.

All this means that Dracule Mihawk, in the eyes of Luffy’s crew and thus most One Piece fans, is a partial villain and a relatively gentle antagonist. He’s a problem to be solved, but not a monster. In fact, Mihawk has shown approval of Zoro’s fighting spirit, such as when Zoro asked Mihawk to train him during the One Piece timeskip, forming a weird sort of shonen rivalry between the two swordsmen. Most of all, Mihawk is doing very little, if anything, to actively get in the Straw Hat crew’s way or stop Luffy from achieving his own goals. Instead, Mihawk tends to his own business and has a “come and get me” attitude about Roronoa Zoro.

Dracule Mihawk Represents Pragmatic Neutrality in One Piece’s World

Due to his actions, One Piece fans might not say that Dracule Mihawk is a purely neutral character in the story, since his various affiliations and actions mark him as a villain, albeit a relatively gentle one. Instead, fans might say that in One Piece‘s context of black-and-white morality, Dracule Mihawk is pragmatically neutral in a brutal, merciless way. Mihawk seems to lack a grand dream or ambition, as opposed to Sir Crocodile, who pursued the Pluton in the Alabasta saga, or Hody Jones, who continued Arlong’s racially motivated war against humanity. Instead, Mihawk kept himself down to earth, eschewing any apparent dreams in favor of simply doing what was necessary to survive and thrive. Mihawk would ally himself with any party or cut down any other party to maintain his own safety and success in the Grand Line.

The first example was Dracule Mihawk’s membership among the Seven Warlords of the Sea, a Navy position that could be accepted for practical reasons on the Warlord’s part. In exchange for having their bounties nullified, a pirate turned Warlord would operate in the Navy’s best interests and answer any summons to places such as Marijoa or Marineford. Some characters abused this position, such as Captain Blackbeard when he used that title to poach some powerful prisoners in Impel Down for his crew, but Dracule Mihawk was different. Mihawk evidently accepted the title of Warlord to put himself in a comfortable, practical position that was a winning compromise between autonomy and doing the Navy’s bidding. Even if it’s not entirely clear when or why Mihawk accepted the title of Warlord, fans can infer that he did so for largely neutral and smart reasons, not part of some villainous scheme.

Later, after the World Government disbanded the Warlords during the Wano saga’s events, Mihawk pragmatically moved on and formed an all-new organization alongside another powerhouse private captain, Sir Crocodile. With Buggy the Clown to serve as the “face” of the group, Mihawk and Crocodile formed Cross Guild, a dangerous entity that put bounties on Navy officers, including Koby. Mihawk and Crocodile were simply doing what was necessary to survive and conduct business in an increasingly chaotic and bloody era, and so far, it’s working. Mihawk will fight for or against anyone according to his needs and little more, a brutal but generally fair stance of neutrality. He’s playing the pirate game without fully committing himself to any particular cause, noble or wicked.

One Piece Needs More Neutral Characters Like Dracule Mihawk

Most characters in One Piece are moderately or even highly predictable because they have clearly taken one side or another, which contributes to One Piece‘s formulaic feel, no matter how many islands the Straw Hat crew explores. Of course, any shonen anime will rely fairly heavily on black-and-white morality with inspirational heroes fighting despicable villains — but even so, One Piece holds itself back with so many characters who are clearly either 100% good or 100% evil, regardless of faction affiliation. Donquixote Doflamingo and Admiral Akainu/Sakazuki, for example, are evil beyond hope, while Boa Hancock has been a staunch ally of Luffy’s, and later, Yamato was the same. Fans always know what to expect from characters like those, and given One Piece‘s massive cast, there are surprisingly few characters who have gray morality instead.

That’s why Dracule Mihawk, the Warlord swordsman turned Cross Guild co-founder, is such a standout. He’s not entirely a villain, just a fair antagonist for Zoro to contend with, though depending on whom the Cross Guild’s victims end up being, Mihawk may feel more evil as One Piece‘s final saga continues. Still, Mihawk is a largely neutral character who is thus unpredictable, an independent character who truly owns his own life without needing supervillain schemes or heroic ideals to dictate his future. He’s neither a hero nor a villain, just a man making his way in a brutal world, and ideally, One Piece will introduce more such characters to create a more nuanced narrative or bring back some familiar faces who have decided to take the Mihawk route and forge their own future one practical step at a time.