Character information

[chicken_kun]

Character Name: Bartolomeo, aka "Bartolomeo the Cannibal", aka Barto/Barty/Lomeo
Canon: One Piece
Canon Point: post chapter 1054, somewhere in Shanks' territory
Age: 24
Bounty: 200 million
Background/History: The OP wiki's idea of "history" is a blow by blow of everything he's done and said during the Dressrosa arc, which does inform his personality but not his actual background. So, allow me to elucidate the important things to take from that section (spoilers abound):

- he was a thug, essentially a gang boss or mafia boss, in the East Blue for most of his life. He had control of the underbelly of a number of towns, though his main base was Loguetown - the Island of the Beginning and the End, being the first or last island in the East Blue for anyone leaving the Grand Line or trying to enter it. The island where Gold Roger was executed. As an underground boss he oversaw the trashing of at least 150 towns and was fairly wealthy.

- he was in the square on Loguetown the day Luffy and the Straw Hat pirates came through, and witnessed first-hand with his own eyes Buggy's attempt to execute Luffy, and the subsequent "miracle." A storm was passing over the island, and lightning struck Buggy's upraised sword, shocking him and destroying the execution tower an instant before that sword would have come down onto Luffy's neck and killed him. Being rubber, Luffy was naturally unharmed. Everyone watching was stunned at the timing, and some proclaimed it a sign or a miracle. Bartolomeo himself seemed to have an epiphany, that Luffy was exactly what he said, the man who would become the new Pirate King, and from that day forward worshipped him and his crew from afar.

- from the start of their journey up through the battle at Marineford, he followed the Straw Hats' exploits in the newspapers and knows everything about them - at least, insofar as the newspaper reported. He collected their wanted posters and turned his wall into a shrine to their exploits, he knew what they did to Crocodile at Alabasta, and he was extremely excited by the way they declared war on the World Government while rescuing Nico Robin at Enies Lobby. He even knew, as the papers reported, that Luffy was the brother of Portgas D. Ace, who was killed at Marineford. After that battle and the death of Ace and Whitebeard, Barty gave up his gang and formed the Barto Club, his own pirate crew, so he could hit the seas and become like Luffy.

- Barty has been sailing for almost two years, while the Straw Hats were "away" in their timeskip training. In that time he earned a bounty of 150 million beli (slightly more than Zoro's bounty at the time) and the nickname "Bartolomeo the Cannibal." The Marines tend to give pirates epithets that may or may not fit them but are indicative of something that happened at the time they were given their first bounty, so while Barty may or may not actually eat people, he clearly did something to make the Marines decide to call him a cannibal on his wanted poster.

- he came into the New World one year prior to the current timeline - but apparently hasn't gone further than Dressrosa in that year. This means he took one year to go through the "Paradise" half of the Grand Line. It isn't known exactly when, but at some point in his career he tortured other pirates by skewering them and holding them alive over a fire - and broadcasting it via den-den mushi for everyone to see (possibly giving rise to his Cannibal nickname, even if he didn't eat people). He is also known to have bombed innocent civilians, though it isn't said where or why. The only crew member of his whose name we know is "Missionary" Gambia, a staff officer with a bounty over 67 mil.

Everything else in the wiki history is what he does while on Dressrosa, and it's stupidly detailed, so here's the highlights:

- there's a tournament being held by Doflamingo, in the coliseum, the prize for which is the Mera Mera no Mi, Ace's Devil Fruit which has been reborn in the world. Gladiators, pirates, and even kings of nearby nations are there to fight for the prize, and so is Barty.
- he beat the ever-loving crap out of a Marine officer undercover in the coliseum in retaliation for said officer hurting one of his own crewmates, Missionary Gambia.
- pretended to throw a bomb into the audience of the coliseum, but it was just a baseball. Proceeded to mock the crowd for being as gross and cruel as he is for stampeding over each other to get away from a mere ball.
- lazed around the ring, not fighting at all, until near the end of the match. Dropped trou in front of the audience to pee into the moat surrounding the fighting ring. When attacked from behind by Hack, put up a barrier, and finally turned to join the fight, injuring Bellamy and defeating Elizabello to win the match.
- discovered that Luffy was fighting in the tournament in disguise and proceeded to go full fanboy. Spent the rest of the tournament following him around like a puppy, until someone stepped in to take Luffy's place to allow him to go help Law.
- interfered in Dellinger's attempt to assassinate Bellamy, protecting Bellamy out of brotherhood
- spent most of the final round protecting Rebecca from Diamante instead of fighting, and then fell in with Sabo, Koala, Rebecca, Robin, and the Tontatta after the coliseum was destroyed.
- went with Robin and Rebecca to help Luffy free Law and ended up on the lower plain, fighting alongside Robin and Cavendish against several executives in the melee
- took down the executive Gladius by sacrificing himself, enclosing himself and Gladius inside a barrier during an explosion. Followed it up with a Bari Bari no Pistol, a punch enhanced with his ability in homage to Luffy's move.
- used a large barrier to attempt to slow the constriction of Doflamingo's Birdcage, with all of the coliseum fighters and a number of civilians pushing against it along with him. It worked...sort of.
- conspired with the other coliseum fighters while recovering in the palace to make sure the Straw Hats escaped safely, among other things. Barty personally went to Kyros' house to warn them when the Marines began to move and led them to the harbor, where his ship/crew docked along with the ships belonging to Orlumbus' fleet and the Happo Navy.
- once aboard the Yonta Maria, Barty proposed to Luffy that they drink a sakazuki style oath, for Luffy to become boss and all the ones who fought with him in Dressrosa, and their crews/fleets, to become his "children" and subservient to him. Luffy refused. When told to do whatever they wanted with their lives, the 7 captains decided they wanted to swear that oath anyway, and formed the Straw Hat Grand Fleet regardless of Luffy's wishes on the matter. Barty himself spoke the oath and managed to not cry until after it was done.
- The Barto Club transported the Straw Hats to Zou to meet up with the rest of the crew and their ship, waiting for them there. Along the way we discover that they have no navigator, that their ship is the Going Luffy-Senpai and has a Luffy figurehead, and most of the crew is also Straw Hat fanboys. Also, they're a bunch of idiots and call "Granny" back in Loguetown for advice when they're lost or afraid. Somehow they've managed to reach the New World alive and intact by this method. Barty's bounty has now been raised to 200 mil.

Since then, the Barto Club has been on the move in the New World. They landed on an island where Barty immediately beat the crap out of whatever crime boss they had there to assert his dominance and then tried converting the populace into Luffy fans. When told that the island was under the protection of Red-Haired Shanks, instead of flee, Bartolomeo set fire to Shanks' flag as a declaration of war and declared open defiance against all four Emperors. He has also been talking to the press, so word of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet has gotten out.

Personality:
Okay, so everyone likes to claimthat their character is an exercise in contradictions, but really, Bartolomeo has two completely disparate sides to his personality. To the public, the Marines, and most other pirates, Bartolomeo is awful. He's an asshole. He's cruel and nasty and disgusting. He is, as Gyatz announced during his intro to the tournament, "voted number one on the list of 'Pirates We'd Most Like To Disappear.'" But once we discover his belief in and worship of Luffy, we see his other side - that he can be humble, he believes in the brotherhood of pirates and is capable of being helpful, brave, and honorable. He's still not nice, necessarily, but he is a lot more noble, reliable, and friendly than his first appearance would let on. The trouble is, we can't really know whether one of those sides is an act, so we just have to conclude that Barty is the way he is and could possibly be in the middle of a shift in personality based on meeting his idol, Luffy.

When we first see him, he tells the coliseum audience to go to hell, and then proceeds to fool them into thinking he's tossed a bomb at them. When they turn into complete animals in a desperate attempt to get away from the ball he tossed, mowing over women and the elderly in order to get away, he sneers at them, pointing out that they're just as bad as him. He has no good opinion of these mobs of people, he knows how cruel and terrible all people can be in the right circumstances and calls them trash. When Dagama points out that he isn't well-liked, Barty shrugs it off. He doesn't care what the common people think of him, and he doesn't want them to like him. He probably never took great pains to correct the Marines when they called him Cannibal, and really, he roasted people alive even if he didn't eat them. He can genuinely be cruel and sadistic, and a little bit crazy. He used to do typical mob things like demand people cut off fingers for loyalty and whatnot. He has a short fuse and has snapped and pulled a knife to cut out the tongue of a stranger who badmouthed Luffy in his presence. He can also be cold and calculating, beating the shit out of Maynard in a planned, careful move in retaliation for the Marine beating up Missionary Gambia. While Barty didn't show any real strong emotion when he found Gambia beaten, he was still fairly pissed, and gave the Marine a cold, fangy smile before the scene cut away, and the next thing we see is him casually sauntering into the ring with his hands in his pockets while Maynard lies in a bloody heap behind him. Barty has no manners, or maybe selective manners, and in public, he tends toward the gross. He picks his nose, he swears and insults people. His absolute worst was pissing in the moat in the middle of the fight. In that one quick moment we get a glimpse at how he sees the world, the people, and himself/his place in it: he expresses contempt for the tournament and everyone there to watch the bloodsport, it was meant to embarrass everyone (he didn't just quietly pee over here in the corner, he dropped his pants to his ankles and whipped it out in front of everybody, and when the announcer started screaming about it, just stood there with a dumb grin), and it was a dig at the strength of the fighters in the ring with him. He was comfortable enough to turn his back on all 100+ of them and appear unguarded and vulnerable to attack, then pretended to panic before boom, barrier, and a "just kidding" when they saw he was actually powerful. He's a jerk to Cavendish for no reason, mouths off to Dellinger knowing full well that he's a Doflamingo executive, and even sneers at Sabo when he first appears, not knowing who he is or what he wants with Luffy. He's insulting and crass and has a casual disregard for the lives of others who aren't important to him. He shows absolutely no mercy to his foes, and no regret for injuring anyone who might have fought him earlier.

On the other hand...as weird and goofy as his man-crush on Luffy is, it has the positive effect of bringing out Bartolomeo's best qualities. He has an almost religious belief in Luffy, a faith in his mere existence as well as his drive to become Pirate King that rivals Zoro's. He knows without any doubt that Luffy will become King of the Pirates, and is as willing as anyone in the Straw Hat crew to do anything to help him along that road. He even confesses to Bellamy that it's his dream to join the Straw Hats. Despite once benig a mob boss and currently captain of his own crew, he turns immediately subservient to Luffy and behaves more like a henchman than a leader around him. His belief may have been sparked by witnessing the miracle lighting-strike at Loguetown, but it was cemented by following the crew's exploits, meaning that his own philosophies of piracy and crew have been shaped by Luffy's. So, like Luffy, he believes in the sanctity of crew and protecting his crewmates, thumbing his nose at law enforcement, and standing up to other pirates in his way. He likely still does awful, cruel things as a holdover from his past, but the code of pirates aligns well with his old mafia mentality. His relationship with Gambia isn't seen in depth, but most of his crewmates are also Luffy fanboys, most of them were in his gang so they've been with him a while. They protect each other, and of course, protect Grandma back home.

Around any of the Straw Hats, Bartolomeo is a massive fanboy. He squees and sparkles, he cries with joy, he can't even look directly at Luffy without becoming too intimidated to speak. He wept at the chance to get Zoro's autograph and burst into hearts and flowers around Robin. He dances and twirls and skips along, being around the Straw Hats is the best ever omg and once he realizes he's useful and helping them? He has actual fangasms. He stammers and flails and turns into a complete dork. He has their wanted posters (and the autographs of the crew he's met) tacked up on the wall in his cabin. His ship, the Going Luffy-Senpai, is a visual homage to the Straw Hats and their first ship. He even respect and humble deference to Sabo once he's clued in to the fact that he's Luffy's brother - if Luffy is senpai, Sabo is great senpai. When his barrier was stretched to its limit, Bartolomeo threw himself into the path of an attack to protect Luffy with his body instead. He protected Robin and Usopp, but also Rebecca, because she was important to Luffy. Yet, the Straw Hats and their important friends aren't the only ones. When Dellinger attacked Bellamy, Bartolomeo seemed to catch on to what was really going on behind the scenes - he knew Bellamy was trying to get into Doffy's crew, so when one of the executives shows up to assassinate him, he felt for Bellamy and declared himself Bellamy's brother of the ring - when two men fight each other in the ring, he says, they become bonded like brothers. He protected him with a barrier and taunted Dellinger until he gave up and left, and then carried Bellamy to safety. He's also hot and cold toward Cavendish - an asshole to a point, but also protects him with his barrier, and recognizes that there's something odd about him - something he can't just dismiss. He claims to give no shits about him, but his behavior doesn't always agree. Also, we find out later that his crew has someone they call "Grandma" back home on Loguetown and call her to get advice all the time. She's a little old lady who ran a candy shop on the island where Barty and his gang hung out all the time and befriended, they all love and respect her and listen to her (even if her advice is usually not that helpful to their situation).

It isn't just the people themselves Bartolomeo works to protect, it's what they stand for. The biggest example is his reason to fight in the tournament in the first place: he intended to win the Mera-Mera Fruit for the sole purpose of giving it to Luffy. He knew it was Ace's fruit, he knew Luffy would want it, and barring Luffy himself being there (nobody assumed he would be), he determined that he would go and get it and present it to Luffy. Barty wasn't interested in fame, fortune, or anything else at all, and he already has a Devil Fruit so it would have been useless to him. Given how he acts and what he's done to earn his reputation, it's strange for him to be so utterly selfless. But that's the power of his belief in Luffy - in the abstract idea of Luffy, since it isn't until that day in the coliseum that he even meets his idol. For all his self-serving actions during the B Block fight, when it comes to the final, he doesn't do a thing for himself, but instead uses his barrier to keep Diamante from killing Rebecca, and does everything Sabo tells him to do. While he knows the Straw Hats can take care of themselves, he wants to help, and he does. His barrier protects Usopp and Robin, and he does everything in his power to stop their foes from hindering their progress. His most sacrificial acts in the fight versus Gladius show that he does actually have the capability to put others first and be their support, asking for no thanks or fame in return. Gladius intended to blow up the wall behind Robin, but also inflated himself, threatening to pierce them all with poison needles if Bartolomeo didn't stop him. Barty's only chance to save them all was to enclose Gladius inside a barrier, with himself, so he could attack him and contain the poison needles and explosive damage to only himself. For Robin's sake, and even Cavendish's, Barty sacrificed himself without hesitation. He let himself get torn to shreds to save the others, and still got up and kept fighting like a Straw Hat would, bloodied and exhausted but able to pull out one last move.

There is a sense that Bartolomeo is still finding his way, that he shot to stardom pretty quick but he needs to do a little more growing before he's worthy of joining that crew. He's 24, but has only been a pirate a little more than 2 years. He's strong enough to make it in the New World, as a Super Rookie, but getting caught up in the life-or-death stakes on Dressrosa, Bartolomeo evolved right before the readers' eyes. He went from the man the announcer and the crowd said he was, worthy of boos and contempt, to someone his idol could accept as a peer. In fact, we see as much in his inner thoughts while he punches out Gladius - he has another epiphany mid-battle, that all his rookie strength doesn't matter and he's still not worthy of being a Straw Hat, so he has to work to become "stronger" as a person. He makes that vow to himself with tears running down his face while he carries out his final attack. Later, when he proposes and then leads the oath to become Luffy's subordinate fleet, you get the sense that this was probably Bartolomeo's idea in the first place, a way of still being connected to the Straw Hats while free to continue to get stronger his own way. He vowed to risk his life for them of his own free will. He has the potential to still be an asshole to anyone he doesn't like or doesn't care about, and will probably be a crass jerk for a while. Yet there's hope for him, he's not all bad and certain people will get a much different read on him. After all, Robin was amused enough by his antics to start calling him Chicken-kun, Luffy nicknamed him Lomeo, and he has Luffy's Vivre card so he will show up again someday in the tale to show them how much he's grown. That's an Oda guarantee.

Abilities/Powers: Bartolomeo is a user of the Bari-Bari Fruit, a Devil Fruit which gives him the ability to create invisible-ish barriers around himself or others. These barriers are extremely durable and solid (not glass or anything that can easily shatter). In fact, not even the most powerful of Doflamingo's executives can break one of his barriers, not even Gladius' explosions or Admiral Fujitora's haki-clad attacks. The barrier even holds against Doflamingo's unbreakable strings. Most of the time he simply creates a wall for people to run into, and it is implied that the wall acts as a mirror of force - however powerful the attack directed at the barrier, it will deflect at equal power, rebounding on the attacker. Bartolomeo has a natural limit to the actual square footage of surface area of barrier that can be created/maintained at a time - he revealed this limit when he created a set of stairs for Robin to use to climb from the third to the second level of the king's plain, massively increasing the surface area of the barrier. It's impossible for him to make a second barrier at the same time. He can also change the shape and size of the barrier, within that limit - he can create a super-long, thin barrier for example - and can manipulate these shapes at will. Lastly, he is able to use the barrier as a weapon, pushing it away from himself to act like a huge battering ram or wrapping it around his fists to enhance his punches. He does not have to be in physical contact with it, a characteristic seldom seen in Paramecia fruits that haven't been Awakened.

Of course, the downside of any Devil Fruit is that he cannot swim. Any still body of water, from a bathtub up to the ocean itself, will sap his strength and render him incapable of moving. He's also vulnerable to the Armament haki that other people from his world might wield, though his barriers can't be cut by it unless the opposing user's haki is much, much stronger than his. Bartolomeo himself is never shown demonstrating use of haki, so it's possible he hasn't awakened it yet; his barriers work the same as Armament haki so that would be useless, and he definitely doesn't have Conqueror's haki, but there's a chance he may have a mild use of Observation haki (the ability to vaguely sense where another person is, in proximity).

Whatever other skills he has can be inferred from his background. He was able to become a mob boss and maintain control of gangs in cities across different islands, so he is charismatic and also probably good with organization and money. He is a good fighter, he doesn't just rely on his Devil Fruit. He carries a tanto stuck in his belt, so he is willing and capable of using a dagger or knife. He also has a pretty good memory, considering he's memorized every last exploit of the Straw Hats, plus he's not stupid; he was able to recognize that Usopp is really Sogeking, something Luffy and Chopper can't even do. He's quick to draw the right conclusions and strategize mid-battle.

Items/Weapons: his tanto, a short-sword or dagger stuck in his waistband.
Miscellaneous Info: Bartolomeo was born in Loguetown, East Blue. His favorite food is cheap sweets, and he hates vegetables. The epithet "Cannibal" (Hitokui) is a pun, like a lot of what Oda names: the phrase in Japanese is slang for mocking people, which is basically what Bartolomeo does.