Crocodile

**Crocodile** appeared in the 2001 TV series called *One Piece*. "Desert King" Sir Crocodile is the former president of the mysterious crime syndicate Baroque Works, formerly operating under the codename **"Mr. 0"**, with Nico Robin, formerly known as "Miss All Sunday", operating as his Vice-President and partner. He is the primary antagonist of the Arabasta Arc and the overall Arabasta Saga, and a supporting character in the Impel Down Arc and the Marineford Arc.

He is one of the longest running and most noteworthy primary adversaries of the series, as he was the first enemy to hand Luffy a complete and utter defeat. He was originally introduced as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, but he was later stripped of his title after attempting to take control of the Arabasta Kingdom.

Crocodile was freed by Luffy from Impel Down in exchange for aiding in the rescue of his brother, and went to Marineford to participate in the Summit War on the side of Luffy and the Whitebeard Pirates. After the war, he and his subordinate Daz Bonez decided to head out to the New World, where Crocodile would establish the Cross Guild alongside his former Warlord colleague Dracule Mihawk, with another former Warlord and current member of the Four Emperors, Buggy, acting as the organization's figurehead.

Crocodile is a tall man with a wide chest, broad shoulders, muscular arms and legs, and a thick neck. He has pale skin and nape-length black hair, which is kept neatly slicked back, though strands tend to fall in front of his face during battles. Crocodile has various battle wounds, most notably a long-stitched scar at the bridge of his nose that stretches across his face and a large hook made from a tough gold alloy in place of his left hand. His eyes are deep-set and heavy-lidded, and his thin eyebrows are characteristically drawn upward in the middle. This gives his usual facial expression a feeling of condescension and distrust. Crocodile speaks with a deep, relaxed voice, and he is usually seen smoking a thick cigar produced by his company. In the anime, his skin is somewhat of a grayish color.

His theme of dress is meant to convey the image of an Italian mafia boss. In his original appearance, Crocodile wore a bright orange, black-striped button up vest over a long-sleeve peach shirt (white in the manga and *One Piece: Pirate Warriors* series), along with a blue scarf, dark brown suit pants, and polished black shoes with gold buckles. He also wore a long, thick, dark pelted fur coat (fully dark green in the manga and *One Piece: Pirate Warriors*, dark gray with a regular gray fur trim in the anime, and dark green with a light green trim in Movie 8) over his shoulders.

After he was incarcerated at Impel Down, he wore a striped prisoner uniform, like most other prisoners, but was somehow permitted to keep his gold hook. After joining Luffy and Jinbe on their mission to save Ace, he obtained a full change of clothes from the supplies of Newkama Land and thereafter wore a black shirt, a green scarf, dark grey slacks, and a black overcoat with brown tan (light color in the anime) fur trim. After the Summit War of Marineford, he is seen in attire that greatly resembles the one from the Arabasta Kingdom, consisting of a vest over a plain shirt, a scarf around his neck, suit pants, elegant shoes, and a fur coat draped around his shoulders.

After the timeskip, his apparel continues to resemble his outfit during the Arabasta Arc, but with a vest that features diagonal crossing stripes rather than squares.

In all his appearances, he wears a single gold hoop earring in his right ear, and he usually has several golden rings with different colored gemstones on every finger except the ring finger, for reasons unknown (in the anime version of the Arabasta Arc, it was his middle finger that was bare. This has since been corrected in recent arcs).

In SBS Volume 63, Oda drew the Seven Warlords as children. Crocodile is shown having a similar hairstyle as his adult self, but is missing his trademark scar and hook. He is shown wearing simple clothing with a large pistol slung on his belt.

Crocodile is a seasoned, cunning and business-savvy pirate who is self-assured and confident in himself and his own abilities, as evidenced by his former title as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea that he had held on for years. He enjoys toying with weaker opponents, often grinning and laughing smugly during battle. However, due to his overconfidence, he seriously underestimated Luffy's willpower, and this eventually led to his defeat.

Crocodile is first introduced as an intimidating and sophisticated mastermind, although to the people of the Arabasta Kingdom, he was viewed as a savior figure who protected the country from pirate attacks, as part of his duty as a Warlord of the Sea. In spite of his status as a national hero, Crocodile could not care less for the local population and their adoration for him, looking down on them as fools and only acting against threats in order to keep up appearances. In his plot to take over Arabasta, Crocodile callously and inhumanly orchestrated the destruction of several communities, with the intent of inciting strife that would eventually lead into a bloody civil war. Crocodile's actions were enough to disgust even former bounty hunter Roronoa Zoro, who described the Warlord as the worst of scoundrels.

Crocodile's willingness to kill shows his pitiless nature, and he does not think twice about sentencing another person to death. He is also very quick to get angry if someone insults or ridicules him in any way; Crocodile told Nico Robin that he had killed everyone who had ever insulted him. This irritability is first seen when Sanji sasses him over the Den Den Mushi. It is more clearly shown during his first fight with Luffy: when the Straw Hat captain called him stupid, he bit his cigar clean in half and then threatened to kill Robin for laughing. By his own admission, Crocodile is not always rational.

Despite his low tolerance for receiving insults, Crocodile has the habit of taunting others, frequently using the word "worthless" to refer to the desperate struggles of his enemies, although he seems to have changed this habit slightly since fighting Luffy. Crocodile is known to belittle his foes, generally implying that they are far inferior to him, whether he is fighting a rookie or a fellow Warlord (namely Donquixote Doflamingo, who had a former bounty almost 300,000,000 higher than his own). Crocodile's capacity for looking down on others is so high that he even told Dracule Mihawk, the World's Strongest Swordsman, to "watch himself".

In battle, Crocodile shows a complete lack of fear and doubt, although this trait was broken down a bit during his third battle with Luffy. He usually appears to be very composed and fearless, even when facing fearsome opponents like Whitebeard, Dracule Mihawk, or Akainu. If Crocodile is extremely angry or annoyed with his victim, he will rarely kill them outright, instead leaving them to suffer as they slowly die. This proved to be a bad habit, which ultimately led to his defeat. In his first and second fights with Luffy, instead of killing him straight away, Crocodile left Luffy to suffer. Because of this carelessness, Luffy was able to come back in two different occasions and finally defeat him. This, along with sheer luck, are the only reasons Luffy lived through any of his fights with Crocodile. This also allowed Mr. 3 to survive Crocodile's attempt to feed him to the Bananawani, which proved to be instrumental to the survival of the Straw Hats.

Crocodile has displayed an extremely cynical and patronizing attitude, showing complete disregard to the romantic pirate lifestyle and stating that all the values that the status of Pirate King had once symbolized were now worthless to him. Crocodile valued military power above popularity, renown, and treasure, believing that only ignorant fools declare their grandiose dreams. He referred to having trust and faith in others as an idiotic thing to do several times during the Arabasta Arc, claiming to have done away with countless people and going as far as to deride those who fight for someone else, making their defeats all the harsher.

Crocodile has been shown to almost completely lack any code of honor. Extremely pragmatic to the point of treachery, Crocodile once offered a sadistic choice to Vivi, only to later reveal that it would not matter in the end, making any effort from her part meaningless. One of the few vestiges of honor he ever displayed was in his third battle with Luffy, during which he stated that Luffy deserved an honorable death from his venomous hook. Due to the situation at the time of battle, this could be seen as more an ironic act of cruelty than honor, but he did seem to regard the use of his rarely seen poison hook as a tribute to Luffy's tenacity. As another example of his distorted sense of honor, after Whitebeard had been injured by Squard, Crocodile refused to fight him in that weakened state. In fact, he became furious at Whitebeard's loss of strength out of pride, having been defeated by the Emperor in the past.

Crocodile shows no emotional concern for most of his subordinates, and they don't have any to him. He is fully willing to sacrifice them to achieve his ambitions; a prime example is Operation Utopia, wherein every Baroque Works member in Alubarna, including most of the Officer Agents, would have been killed by the resulting cannon blast. He also has no qualms about killing them if they fail or betray him, having little tolerance for anything that may threaten the outcome of his plans. He showed no true attachment, affection, or trust toward these people and viewed them only as pawns. Despite all this, Crocodile is very loyal to Daz Bones: He seems to have a very good relationship with Mr. 1, having gone out of his way to rescue his former subordinate from his cell. Daz in return is very loyal to his boss, even getting angry if someone disrespects him

After being defeated by Luffy and being stripped of his Warlord title, Crocodile apparently lost interest in the outside world. He refused to escape with the rest of his subordinates during the breakout detailed in the eighth Cover Story. Upon his capture, he disregarded the notion of escaping simply because he did not feel like it, perhaps assuming that escape would come easily to him if he changed his mind. Similarly, he smiled at the news that he would be sent to Impel Down and seemed apathetic during his imprisonment. Crocodile was the only Impel Down inmate who appeared to be enjoying himself; he was initially seen smiling and mocking his fellow prisoners. He claimed that he was only in Impel Down because he chose to stay, an assertion well in line with his overly condescending demeanor. His only apparent motivation to leave Impel Down was the chance to enact revenge against Whitebeard. Following the war, Crocodile seemed eager to journey to the New World with Mr. 1, having reignited his ambitious side once more.

Crocodile seems to have mellowed out since his defeat in Arabasta, at least to some degree. He seems more willing to assist others, having offered to aid Luffy escape from Impel Down, and he nonchalantly accepted help from others as well. Certain revelations imply that he may not be as heartless as he lets on. During the war, he went beyond his personal agenda several times to save his allies' lives. He saved Ace's life and protected Mr. 1 and Luffy from Mihawk. He even prevented Akainu from cornering Luffy and Jinbe as they desperately tried to escape the scene of the battle. Nevertheless, he claimed that he only saved them because if he had not, the Marines would feel victorious, and that prospect irritated him.

Crocodile has a distinct laugh that starts with "Ku" (i.e., Kuhahahaha!). In the anime, he tends to laugh at a much slower pace than one might expect, his "hahaha"s lapsing into "ah-ah-ah"s on occasion.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Overview:** As a former Warlord of the Sea, Crocodile is powerful enough to be recognized by the World Government. He was the Warlord with the second lowest bounty at the time 81,000,000, with Hancock having the lowest, although he held the title for so long that such a low bounty would now be outdated. Currently, he now has the fifth highest after the former Warlords, Blackbeard, Mihawk, Buggy, and Law, with a bounty of 1,965,000,000, Indeed, when Crocodile was stripped of his Warlord status and transferred to Impel Down, he was placed in Level 6, where the world's absolute worst criminals are kept. He defeated Luffy no less than twice before his eventual defeat. In fact, if not for his good luck and the help he received from several people, Luffy would have been killed in all three battles: he was impaled (and then rescued by Nico Robin), dehydrated (and then revived by his own Water Water Pistol), and poisoned (and then received the antidote from Robin). Moreover, if Luffy's blood had not served as a way to nullify Crocodile's Logia-Type defense, and if Robin had not supplied Luffy with the antidote to his hook's poison, the third battle would have effectively favored Crocodile as well. Later on, during the Summit War of Marineford, Crocodile was uninjured after confronting fellow Warlords Donquixote Doflamingo and Dracule Mihawk in quick succession, despite the fact that both opponents possess and have complete mastery of their Haki. Against the latter, he did not seem to be concerned at all about facing the strongest swordsman in the world, even going so far as to threaten him. Crocodile was even able to battle Admiral Akainu and survive completely unharmed afterward. After time-skip, Crocodile became more powerful than before. He easily defeated Vice Admiral Stainless and his fleet. His bounty of 1,965,000,000 has made him a extremely dangerous threat to the World Government's operations. This is furthered by the fact that he and Mihawk merely becoming subordinates to Buggy was enough to get him named as one of the Four Emperors by the World Government.
* **Intelligence:** Crocodile is extremely intelligent and cunning, which is apparent from his ability to lead Baroque Works while keeping the World Government completely in the dark about what he was doing and making himself out to be a hero in the eyes of the people. He is also skilled at crafting near-flawless plans and noticing things that most other people would not. His intelligence and leadership are acknowledged by the Marines and recognized as two of his most dangerous traits, alongside his Logia abilities. He is known to deduce a correct conclusion based on very little information; for example, after seeing the white wrappings on the Straw Hats' arms, he almost instantly figured out that it was a safeguard against Mr. 2's infiltration. He managed to sabotage the king's reputation among the citizens by secretly importing rain-producing dust into the capital during a period of major regional drought, then having it "accidentally" discovered on route, inciting the threat of civil war and thereby drawing attention away from his own shady machinations. The entire Arabasta Saga is a testament to Crocodile's strategy and manipulative skills: he managed to successfully maintain control over all operations within "Baroque Works" over a period of years while keeping his true identity as a Warlord hidden from everyone except Nico Robin. Simultaneously, he strove to attain a high level of respect and prestige among the citizens of Arabasta as their "savior" by brutally dispatching any would-be invaders or pirates. An expert liar and manipulator, he was able to trick Vivi in wasting time looking for a key that was fake all along and managed to make Luffy drop his guard by targeting Yuba with a sandstorm, after learning of Luffy's friendship with Toto. During the events of Operation Utopia, Crocodile demonstrated great foresight in his attempt to blow up Alubarna, having installed a backup mechanism to fire a bomb on the capital in case the main method failed and placing two of his agents to protect it in the possibility it was found. His skills not only apply to his own organization but to others as well, as he was responsible for fellow warlord Buggy gaining the capital and resources needed to establish his own successful underword organization, Buggy's Delivery. Later, with the help and influence of fellow Warlord Dracule Mihawk, and with Buggy offering to pay off his debt by offering up his organization, it was re-integrated into a much larger, more powerful, more dangerous Emperor-led organization, capable of issuing bounties on Marines, Cross Guild. In addition to that, Crocodile operates said organization alongside co-founder Mihawk, with Buggy, who was mistakenly given credit for Cross Guild's creation and made an Emperor as a result, now acting as the organization's figurehead, allowing the two to operate as they please while the world focuses mostly on him, with Buggy as their supposed leader, and the two ex-warlords acting as his chief officers and having their own respective reputations added into Cross Guild's rising infamy, with none the wiser of the organization's actual leadership. In addition, aside from being heavily experienced thanks to his many years as a pirate, he seems to have a better understanding of Devil Fruits than most people, as evidenced by his mastery of his Logia-type powers. He also revealed that the Jailer Beasts were actually "Awakened" Zoan fruit users at a time when no one around him had even realized that they were even Devil Fruit users.
* **Physical Abilities:** In addition to his powers being of the Logia-type, allowing him to turn into sand to avoid injuries, Crocodile has an enormous amount of physical stamina, durability, pain tolerance, resilience and endurance, coupled with remarkable speed and reflexes. He was able to take a heavy flurry of blows from Luffy in his third battle as he countered with his own attacks, and He took a direct hit from Jozu, who had dressed in his diamond armor, and was able to get up quickly, reporting only superficial injuries. He is also one of the few people known to tolerate getting "baptized" in boiling water in Impel Down without flinching, which is considered an impressive feat. He could effortlessly withstand the extreme temperatures of Levels 3 (where the heat is sufficient to roast a bird alive), 4 (which is several times hotter than Level 3) and 5 (a room operating at sub-zero temperatures) of Impel Down. Crocodile also possesses great physical strength, first demonstrated when he carried off the dead bodies of an entire pirate crew (namely Puppu's) after dehydrating them with his Devil Fruit powers. He was able to block a Doflamingo kick, without too many complications (his shock created a wave strong enough to push away the nearby marines). He even managed to intercept and parry Mihawk's two-handed slash with just his hook.
* **Suna Suna no Mi:** Crocodile ate the Suna Suna no Mi, a Logia-type Devil Fruit that allows him to create, control, and transform his body into sand. He has mastered his ability to the point of perfection and can turn into sand reflexively if attacked; this became especially obvious after Doflamingo cut his head off while he was distracted. While in a desert/sandy area, his powers make him nearly invincible. Crocodile has the ability to create huge sandstorms, make multiple bladed weapons out of sand, and create quicksand (given the presence of a nearby underground waterway). He can also create powerful sandstorms that grow in power until even Crocodile himself cannot stop them. He can absorb all the moisture out of any object, living or non-living, by touching it with his right hand. This ability allows him to utterly destroy his surroundings, killing and mummifying any biological substances via dehydration. This application does not work on metallic substances, though. However, if moisture comes into contact with his body, it immediately reverts to solid form and cannot transform.

### Arsenal

* **Hook:** In addition to being one of the few characters shown to have some degree of mastery over their Devil Fruit, Crocodile is also formidable in hand-to-hand combat using a hook. He fought using only his hook for most of his third match with Luffy, only resorting to his Devil Fruit powers when he finally accepted that things weren't going in his favor. His hook is made mostly out of an extremely tough and resilient gold alloy, which makes it resistant to corrosion. Its durability was shown to be especially impressive when it took no visible damage from Mihawk's Yoru as Crocodile defended Luffy from an attack. The gold part of the hook is hollow and can be removed to expose a poisonous hook hidden inside. This porous secondary hook releases a powerful scorpion venom, which is strong enough to melt through rock and kill anyone with the effect of a single slash. In the unlikely event that the hook becomes damaged, there is a knife hidden underneath that can be ejected and used in its place. In a pinch, the very wide base of the hook can also serve as an improvised mace-like weapon, as shown when Crocodile used its blunt force to smash Luffy into a wall. During his incarceration in both a regular prison and Impel Down, Crocodile was permitted to keep his formidable hook.
* **Timer Bomb:** For the pinnacle of Operation Utopia, Crocodile prepared a specialized bomb. It was designed to detonate across a maximum radius of five kilometers, large enough to completely obliterate the capital city of Alubarna. It was prepared about 30 minutes prior to the intended firing time, at which point it would be released from a bulky cannon, but in case that method backfired, Crocodile had a special timer installed onto the bomb itself. The timer was set for less than a minute after the planned time.