Crocodile

Sir Crocodile is the former president of the mysterious crime syndicate Baroque Works and the main antagonist of the Alabasta Arc and Alabasta Saga as a whole. 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, as well as one of only two who has defeated Luffy more than once. He was originally introduced as a Shichibukai but was later stripped of his title after attempting to take control of the desert kingdom Alabasta. Thanks to Luffy, he managed to escape from Impel Down  and went to Marineford to participate in the war; after that, he and Daz Bones decided to head out to the New World.

Photo Credits by ScarletDesires

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 (dark purple in the anime) 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.
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, 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 tan fur trim.  After the Battle of Marineford, he is seen in attire that greatly resembles the one from Alabasta, 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.

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 Alabasta arc, it was his middle finger that was bare. This has since been corrected in recent arcs.)

His animal theme is the crocodile. His name, the Bananawani he kept as pets, and his large scar (which resembles a "crocodile's smile") are all reflections of this theme.

In the Volume 63 SBS Oda drew the Shichibukai as children. Young Crocodile has almost exactly the same hairstyle as his adult self but is missing his trademark scar and hook. He is wearing simple clothing with a large pistol slung on his belt.

Crocodile is self-assured, confident in himself and in his abilities. His great power is shown when he defeats Luffy twice, almost killing him both times. 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.
His 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 Luffy called him stupid, he bit his cigar clean in half and then threatened to kill Robin for laughing. To be fair, by his own admission, he is not always rational.

Despite his low tolerance for receiving insults, he has a habit of insulting others and frequently used 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 insult others and generally imply that they are far inferior to him, whether he's fighting a rookie or a fellow Shichibukai (namely Donquixote Doflamingo, who had a former bounty almost Beli300,000,000 higher than his own.) Crocodile's capacity for looking down on others is so high that he even told Mihawk to "watch himself".

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 and ultimately led to his defeat. In his first and second fight with Luffy, instead of killing him straight away, Crocodile left Luffy to suffer. This allowed Luffy to come back and finally defeat him. This habit, 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.

Crocodile shows no emotional concern for any of his subordinates. 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 insult or fail him, as shown with Mr. 3 and Nico Robin. He showed no true attachment, affection, or trust toward these people and viewed them only as pawns. Despite all this, Crocodile may not be entirely immune to the idea of respecting someone other than himself: currently, he seems to have a good relationship with Mr. 1, having gone out of his way to rescue his former subordinate from his cell.

Crocodile has been shown to almost completely lack any code of honor. 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 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 was injured by Squard, Crocodile refused to fight him in that weakened state.

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. He valued military power above popularity, renown, and treasure. Crocodile believed that only ignorant fools declare their grandiose dreams. He refers to trust and faith in others as idiotic several times during the Alabasta arc. He claims to have done away with countless people rather than trust them and goes so far as to deride those who fight for others, making their defeats all the more harsh.

After losing to Luffy and being stripped of his Shichibukai 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 Mini-Series. His only apparent motivation to leave Impel Down was the chance to eradicate Whitebeard.

He has shown a complete lack of fear and doubt, although this trait broken down a bit by his third battle with Luffy. He usually appears to be very composed, even when facing fearsome opponents like Whitebeard, Dracule Mihawk, and Akainu. 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 is 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.

Crocodile seems to have mellowed out since his defeat in Alabasta, at least to some degree. He seems more willing to assist others, having offered to help Luffy escape from Impel Down, and he nonchalantly accepted help from others as well. Recent 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 hadn't, the Marines would feel victorious, and that prospect irritated him. Following the war, Crocodile appears adventurous and fearless, preparing to journey to the New World with Mr. 1.

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.


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.
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 en route, inciting the threat of civil war and thereby drawing attention away from his own shady machinations.

The entire Alabasta 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 Shichibukai hidden from everyone except Nico Robin. Simultaneously, he strove to attain a high level of respect and prestige among the citizens of Alabasta as their "savior" by brutally dispatching any would-be invaders or pirates.

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.

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.

As a former Shichibukai, Crocodile is powerful enough to be recognized by the World Government. He was the Shichibukai with the second lowest bounty at the time (Beli81,000,000), with Hancock having the lowest, although he held the title for so long that such a low bounty would now be outdated. Indeed, when Crocodile was stripped of his Shichibukai status and transferred to Impel Down, he was placed in Level 6, where the world's absolute worst criminals are kept.

Crocodile ate the Logia Devil Fruit, Suna Suna no Mi, allowing him to become, generate, and manipulate 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 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 suck 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 macerating any biological substances via dehydration.