sir crocodile

the most visible planet in crocodile's chart is mars, which is detrimented as a part of three-planet libra stellium. (mars hates being in venus' signs and vice versa.) this tells the story of his chart concisely: the odds are often against him, three planets are undignified, but mitigated by the aspects they form to benefics or other points. in the case of mars, it conjoins venus in domicile. the first thing people see with him is smoke from his cigar, fire, hot and dry, utterly marsian.

his sun and moon are in his ninth and second houses. the ninth house is about seeking. it's a pirate house i would want significant in any one piece chart, associated with long-distance travel, religion, and academia, going to great lengths and spending a lot of time in search of truth. he dreamt of being pirate king, once; he witnessed gol d. roger's execution firsthand. but when he sheds that idealism, he doesn't stop seeking something elusive, the weapon pluton, and he respects or at least reaps the expertise that robin brings, because what virgo wouldn't? his sun rules his eighth house, and since i adhere closer to medieval astrology, i don't fuck around: this house means death, and wealth acquired through death. he accomplishes his seeking through violence, stealing the throne of alabasta, inciting war between two forces to "cleanse" the nation for his vision.

his second house aquarius moon finds comfort in materiality, nice clothes and fine cigars, but trade "comfort" for security and we see how he guarded his identity in baroque works, and the secret poison of his hook. it's a paranoia that luffy proves isn't unfounded, because despite having a logia type devil fruit, crocodile knows he isn't invincible, despite his pride. his moon also opposes saturn, so this need to feel protected is a type of stubborn self-sufficiency he must have learned young, not by choice. saturn is about drawing boundaries and creating structure, and considering saturn's detriment in leo, all it can do is erect walls around its one contact, the moon. not out of fear, necessarily, but he doesn't trust easily and knows it, articulating as much to robin and mihawk.

speaking of robin and mihawk, the moon rules his seventh house (cancer), which is the house of partnerships. classically speaking, a spouse, but applied to close friends and business partners nowadays. crocodile's partner should understand his second house needs are not shallow, not greed, not wealth for wealth's sake, but rooted in self-protection.

the moon also trines venus within his libra stellium, creating a grand trine through the air signs (grand trine, grand line) with jupiter in aquarius. i relate to this hard. he prides himself on his intellect, but there's a detachment from feeling and really connecting to other people here. it's not that he doesn't feel—look at how he shouts at whitebeard—but his assessment in alabasta that "love for the country will destroy the country" is both stone-cold and correct. of course he doesn't particularly care for vivi's feelings, but this is so such an airy smugness that deserves a sock in the mouth.

his chart ruler saturn is in his eighth house, the death house, and detrimented in leo. i touched on saturn when discussing the moon since they oppose each other, but consider leo. his pride is his armor against expressing his real wants. he wants to lead a military nation or criminal organization because he's so great and so strong and deserves to, not because of those gooey, lunar, second house reasons of he is afraid of something. it stands to reason he lost his hand either before he got his devil fruit, or losing his hand is how he learned about his vulnerability to water. i forget which marine said this, probably akainu, but logia types think they're untouchable, but not crocodile. how better to protect yourself than building a military around you?

susan tompkins says moon-saturn aspects belie growing up too fast, either having no mother or a distant mother, becoming self-sufficient at an early age. 48 is quite young. we don't hear about him as a rookie pirate under some captain. he's never trusted anyone, and despite baroque works and cross guild, only has himself at the end of the day. paired with a tenth-house libra stellium, saturn in leo in such a public-facing house kind of shows he doesn't let himself have an interior life, and if he does, he doesn't let anyone see. interior matters, personal feelings find their fulfillment in his public renown. this is why he's so truly humiliated by the cross guild situation. he doesn't have anything but his pride.

the stellium: mercury rules his sixth and ninth house; he measures everything by strength like any shounen villain. venus is the only dignified planet in his chart and rules his tenth and fifth houses; it's the charisma to him that let him hold onto his warlord status and trick alabasta. he's actually a creator of beautiful lies and quite an aesthete who hates garishness, hates excess like doflamingo's or buggy's tastes. and lastly, this detrimented mars rules his fourth and eleventh houses. he doesn't really have a home an doesn't really have friends he sees as equals... until mihawk.

jupiter is also detrimented in gemini, his 6th house; jupiter doesn't like mercury's signs and vice versa (essential dignity is easy to remember if you know your sailor moon yuri!). i think this is typified in the friction between him and dreamers like luffy and buggy. in cross guild, buggy calls him (and mihawk) out on a lack of ambition, or scaling ambition down to more pragmatic business ventures. his jupiter once had big dreams of being pirate king, but gemini has stifled it to the more doable uh... coup d'etat? but that's not what jupiter is for! the part of him that i swear, i swear is moved by buggy's speech about going after the one piece is jupiter's trine to venus. jupiter rules two cadent houses for him, the 12th and 3rd; he's really lost touch with this planet. if only a sunrise pisces came into his life...

interestingly, operation utopia's goal of building a military nation to challenge the world government is not all that different from the revolutionary army's. if anything it's much more organized, material, and mercurial—both his virgo sun and gemini jupiter at work. but where does this vision come from, and is it actually any less fantastic than finding the one piece? as for its biggest contact, susan tompkins describes moon-jupiter aspects as the impulse to "play god." i think nationbuilding, dreaming of utopia is an act of playing god, a sense of "i know best" that doesn't see or care how much of an asshole he's being manipulating other people's lives toward his own ends.