Portgas D Ace

basics

He is the adoptive older brother of Monkey D. Luffy and Sabo, and the son of the Pirate King Gol D. Roger and his lover Portgas D. Rouge. He was adopted by Monkey D. Garp as wished by Roger to him before his birth. Ace is the 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates and one-time captain of the Spade Pirates.

Appearance

Ace is a tall muscular young man with curly black hair. Although they were not blood related, Ace looks remarkably like his foster brother, Luffy. However, Ace is more serious looking than Luffy's lighthearted design, and is also taller and more muscular. He also sports rather childish freckles (inherited from his mother) and tends to make a skeptical facial expression by raising his left eyebrow. Interestingly, his facial features are almost akin to his biological father Gol D. Roger in his youth without his mustache. Ace's tattoos are among his most remarkable trademark features. He has a tattoo on his back of the Whitebeard symbol—purple bones formed in a cross behind a purple skull with a white mustache—that he described as his pride and joy. Ace has another tattoo on his upper left bicep that spells "ASCE" vertically. The "S" crossed out is a tribute to Sabo as that's his jolly roger. Ace wore an open-front shirt until he received Whitebeard's tattoo - afterwards, he stopped wearing anything over his upper body except when on winter or desert islands due to the weather requirements. He wears black boots, black knee-length shorts with an eyelet-studded orange belt, and a blue pouch belted around his left leg. He also wears a short second belt with a large red "A" on the silver buckle over his right hip, but left it unfastened and threaded the free end along the back of his shorts. A dagger in a green sheath hangs at his left hip. On Ace's left arm, he wears a Log Pose and a red and white striped bracelet around his wrist, an orange elbow guard, and his "ASCE" tattoo. He wears a red beaded necklace and an orange hat with two blue smileys, one frowning and one smiling, and a string of red beads sitting above the rim. Two long orange side straps hang down sides of his hat and meet at a large medallion of a bull's skull with orange tassels.

History

After his father's execution and his mother's death during the childbirth, Ace was taken under Monkey D. Garp's wing as his grandson. He was raised with the mount bandits to become a pirate instead of a marine like Garp. He was trained with his adoptive brothers Monkey D. Luffy and Sabo. At age 17, Ace began his pirating actions as captain of the Spade Pirates. He became infamous and even refusing to become a Shichibukai. He fought Jinbe for five days and nearly killed other until Whitebeard arrive to fight Ace and defeated by the Strongest man in the world. Later, he became the 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.

personality

Ace is an intelligent, polite, and caring man. While several people who knew Gol D. Roger noted Luffy is quite similar to the late Pirate King, Whitebeard himself claimed that Ace's personality is not at all like his father's. It seems that among the very few things the brothers share is their recklessness as pirates (and their near-bottomless stomachs). In addition, Ace likes to party as much as his adoptive little brother does. When he boarded Buggy's ship, he was drawn by the smell of food and decided to enjoy himself while he was there. Ace can be a bit vulgar though, as he once used a woman's skirt to wipe his face while he was dining at Spice Bean in Alabasta. Ace was also shown to be quite impulsive, much like his younger brother, as he too would make hasty decisions and, in some cases, neglect listening to reason. There are two running gags about Ace. The first is his rather extreme narcolepsy. He tends to randomly fall asleep while eating and conversing, leaving strangers around him, wondering if he died. This is first seen in Alabasta when they thought he died in the middle of eating. The second is that he does a "dine and dash" routine wherever he goes. This goes back to his younger days with Sabo and Luffy, when they would often dine and dash in the city of Goa. His "politeness" is due to Makino's teaching after Ace asked her how to introduce himself to Shanks (being his brother's savior). Before that, Ace was rather cold and rude to anyone he was not familiar with. As the son of Roger, he lives in his shadow and is to date the first D. depicted to truly question his own right to exist, while displaying the fewest commonly seen D. related traits. Ace seems to have lifelong problems dealing with his parentage, even after denouncing Gol D. Roger and accepting Whitebeard as his only father.

personality

This is in direct contrast to Luffy, who accepted his father's identity immediately upon learning it and did not seem to care when he was told how dangerous of a man he was. However, Luffy did not grow up with knowledge or identity (or even existence) of his father. Ace believed that it was natural if he were to really die as nobody in the world wanted the son of the devil (Roger) to live. Ace commented upon his own death that he had never sought fame or fortune - all he had wanted was the answer to his lifelong question of whether or not he should have been born, as this was the only thing preventing him from dying with no regrets as he and Luffy had vowed to do so and the fact he had a younger brother to look out for. Ace's only regret was that he would not live to see Luffy achieve his dream, which he believed Luffy undoubtedly will accomplish as he is his little brother. Ace has a tendency to never back down from a fight, saying that he would never run once facing an enemy. Because of this, some people believe that Ace has a death wish, but in truth he wants to prevent people he cares for from getting hurt. Dadan stated that he inherited this tendency from his father, Gol D. Roger, despite loathing him. While Ace emerged victorious over enemies he refused to run from, such as Porchemy and Bluejam, his stubbornness hurt him on a number of occasions, particularly when he refused to back down against Blackbeard or Admiral Akainu. Ace is also easily provoked by and was a violent child towards anyone who insulted or harmed people close to him. In one of Garp's conversations with Curly Dadan, this is revealed to be a trait of Roger as well. During his childhood, Ace had a tendency to severely injure anyone who insulted Roger, though he himself disliked his biological father. After hearing about Sabo's presumed death at the hands of a World Noble, Ace quickly became bent on killing the Noble and Dadan had to pin Ace down and tie him to a tree to stop him.

personality

Ace's temper gets the better of him, especially in cases when Whitebeard, proclaimed by Ace to be his only father, is insulted. Believing that this was the case when Blackbeard broke the iron rule of the Whitebeard Pirates and fled after murdering a crew mate, Ace pursued his traitorous subordinate despite his crew mates' efforts and even Whitebeard's orders to stop him. Benn Beckman of the Red Hair Pirates described Ace's personality to be naiver than his appearance would suggest. He compared Ace's characteristics to be more aligned with the Revolutionary Army's, considering his personal vendetta against the world denying his existence. Ace is described to be more of a fighter than a Pirate, making Beckman think Ace is unfit to be captain of a fleet. Although Ace follows the creed of loyalty towards those close to him, such as taking the excessive effort to rescue Luffy from Bluejam or hunting down Teach to avenge Thatch, he was not above using underhanded methods to win a fight at times. Noted examples included trying to stab Whitebeard in his sleep or chopping him down with an axe from behind. Alongside his loyalty is Ace does not judge people by their appearance and race, but by their character, as he took in both Ganryu (a Longarm) and Wallace (a Fish-Man) into his crew while society had shunned both of them.