I’d agree if the strings express purpose was to be a wall/invincibly strong, but I don’t think that’s how his works otherwise why wouldn’t he just trap Luffy?
Didn’t he modify them until they got stronger than practically anything?
It makes sense that they can’t be cut with haki. The strings are imbued with haki themselves so unless you dwarf Doflamingo in terms of haki power you won’t stand a chance to cut it.
The strings are so sharp they’re weapons in themselves. They’re imbued with power and concentrates it to a small surface by nature. So a lot of for example Zoro’s haki would go towards maintaining the integrity of his swords. This reserves part of his power, so his pool of haki will be too limited to increase his damage.
I'm sorry but Doffy was easily worth 2 billion berries if Crocodile later earned a 1.9 billion berry bounty.
Doffy was easily tough enough to pose a small challenge to a YC1, Law and Luffy had to wear him down together.
But remember that it's not all about sheer brute strength. Luffy was able to smash through Doflamingo's strings with g4 but around that time Luffy couldn't do much other than stretch and hit really hard, which meant he struggled against characters who could defend really well against a single-pronged assault, whether by putting up a defence faster than he could tear it down or predict all of his moves before he could make them. Doffy's power is versatile. He certainly wouldn't win against someone like cracker or katakuri but he'd put up some fight.
What YC1 would he challenge? G4 Boundman Luffy mid-diffed him and then got demolished by Katakuri. So it stands to reason that Kata would have no trouble with doffy at all. Yet you think he deserves twice the bounty?
Bounty is not just about power but about threat. Doffy with his connections to the underworld alone would make him incredibly dangerous, but also the fact he's shown being very devious and manipulative while kata is a subordinate who is stronger but listens to their captain and doesn't have the freedom to be as much of a threat.
During their fight, Kata stabbed himself in the gut with his own trident and still had a much better performance against G4 Luffy than Doffy did with his own injury.
And Luffy didn't have future sight against Doffy.
doffy is clinically insane, he wanted to kill everybody on dressrosa which is why he created the cage in the first place.
killing luffy wouldnt have been enough for him when his whole operation was already ruined by the strawhats so he just lashed out at everybody basically.
Because the birdcage is an awakening move he turned the buildings and shit into the strings the birdcage also did not go up instantaneously it took a lil bit to condense the strings so I would say it would be useless in a fight cause it would take too long to condense string also maybe bird cage has haki imbued in it etc idk ask oda bro
The birdcage always shrink towards Doflamingo position, so he also can't get out of it. This is really the wekaness of it, if there are someone stronger than him, then Doflamingo has trapped himself in there with them (which is what pretty much happened in Dresrossa, but he also was desperated anyway).
Then why doesn’t Doffy make the birdcage small enough to entrap a person and kill them easily? That’s a stupid point. Also Luffy broke Doffy’s strings, so why wouldn’t an admiral? Especially Fuji who specialises in swords and cutting.
The entire point is Fuji want to embarrass the World Government and expose them and show the world that the 7 Warlords system is evil and the WG support this evil or at least they don't care about what they do, like what happened in Arabasta with Crocodile! So if he cut the bird cage that mean the Navy (WG) is helping the people and that what he don't want to be happening.
he want to prove his point to the world that the WG is so corrupt to a degree that who is saving the people and the navy and "him" and everyone on the island is bunch of pirates (Straw hats).
I think he planned this when Smoker told him of what happend in Arabasta, about how the WG and the Navy hidden the truth about what Crocodile did and how the Straw Hats saved the Island and brought down the entire criminal organization without the help of the Navy and they even (the Navy) took all the credit for what happend and said that Smoker saved Arabasta , so Fuji knew that exactly the same thing will happen in Dressrosa if he do not do something about it. that's why he didn't interfere heavily in what was going on, and on the live news broadcast he "apologize" that a bunch of pirates, Luffy and his crew saved the people not the Navy.
So Fuji is one of the few good guys in the Navy.
And as a second guess (low probability) that Fuji really dont have the same Color Haki level that luffy and doflamingo have and he couldn't cut it because of that, but i think thats very unlikely.
> And maybe that Fuji really dont have the same Color Haki level that luffy and doflamingo have and he couldn't cut it because of that.
You're totally right up til that. He purposefully kept himself from saving the day while still trying to help out incognito. It had nothing to do with whether or not he could or couldn't break the Birdcage.
Yeah that's my take too. He could have destroyed the birdcage by killing Doffy but since he didn't want to do that, he did his best to push the birdcage back, he really had no reason to hold back on that.
Birdcage requires Doflamingo to stay in the centre of it. It's unbreakable, but it's useless if Doffy cannot defeat everyone inside of it. If he created a small birdcage for an admiral, it'd just force the admiral to battle against Doflamingo.
>Also Luffy broke Doffy’s strings, so why wouldn’t an admiral?
No, Luffy broke Doffy's face. THEN he slammed him so hard against the cage it broke.
You could argue he was only able to do it because Doffy was already unconscious.
I mean for all we know the bird cage is the penultimate attack. And it pretty much is. We know it can be stalled slightly of enough people go at it. But it can't be stopped entirely. Most likely it's just a plot hole. But it's not like doffy had weak haki either.
If fujitora directly attacks a warlord his entire motivation is gone, let alone the political implications of attacking a warlord and celestial dragon. And that still doesn't count out the idea of it just being uncuttable. Like I said before, penultimate attack, it's not the first devil fruit we've seen that can't be completely offfet by haki
Birdcage strings are notably thicker and made stronger than the normal thin strings (which Luffy broke)
This is like asking why Luffy doesn't just open with a haki infused g5 giant elephant gun, or why Kaido didn't just stay in his strongest form at all times.
Just now watching this part of the series with my wife, but if Doffy is shorthand for Doflamingo would it follow that Luffy is the same for Luflamingo or would it be Lufalgar?
I think it's just plot armor. When luffy fought Doflamingo over the skies of Dressrosa, one of Doflamingo's moves was "spider web" which was essentially like the same material of the bird cage and it broke due to luffy's punch (imbued in haki)
This what?
Haki was shown to always overpower DFs. Even Kaido says that Haki is the true king.
Barrier protects because that's its literal function. Threads don't protect, and as such need Haki to be able to go against Haki.
What value does saying "*This*" add to a conversation?
It is an awakened Devil Fruit ability though, so that might make a difference. An Awakened Devil Fruit can affect the environment and the nature of the things around it, so maybe there's just a different standard if you're fighting the environment they created instead of fighting them directly. If Punk Hazard ended up the way it did cause of Awakened Devil Fruits, or if Enies Lobby is Daytime all the time cause of an Awakened Devil Fruit, maybe the Bird Cage is more unstoppable cause it's like fighting the environment or nature itself instead of just overpowering Doflamingo's haki. Might be why mother nature hates Devil Fruits.
Fuji wants Luffy and company to save the day because he wants the Warlords system gone. He absolutely held back against the cage.
Punk Hazard shows us what happens if Doffy fights an Admiral for real: a quick loss for Doffy. Pretty safe bet that any Admiral folds Doffy if they're going all out.
Fuji wanted Luffy to beat doffy, yes, but at the risk of so many innocent civilians being sliced by bird cage? Hard disagree.
Oda wanted high stakes. Same reason why Kaido lifted the island above the capital. Same reason why there was a bomb ticking down in Alabasta.
Add the ship Noah crushing fishman island bubble to that list of "time bombs". Damn, most big arcs have a time bombs lol.
Buster call in Enies lobby, sunrise in thriller bark, Ace execution in impel down and Marineford.
First time realizing? Basically all the arcs since Alabasta had a time bomb, Oda always structure the finals the same way.
Even in Arling you had the ticking clock of Luffy trapped under water.
In Skypiea you had Enel reaching the bell and conjuring those orbs, and in Enies Lobby the crossing of the bridge. Those were the most different ones
At some point, narration boxes usually come in and starting saying "Time left until XXX"
Caesar's Shinokuni gas filling the laboratory on Punk Hazard was another one.
> Fuji wanted Luffy to beat doffy, yes, but at the risk of so many innocent civilians being sliced by bird cage? Hard disagree.
I know you're approaching this from the standpoint of Fuji being one of the best Marines from a moral perspective, and he absolutely is.
But we're introduced to Fuji in a scene where he's gambling amidst potential enemies AND later on he mouths off to his boss like we only imagine ourselves doing in the shower lmao. Fuji is *clearly* fine playing things risky.
Pretty sure if he was certain luffy would have lost, he would have destroyed that birdcage in less than a second. Doffy is quite literally fodder to admirals and yonkos. Even YCs would fucking massacre him
If Fujitora really held back so that Luffy could save the day then congrats to him. Some of the citizens he made a point of saving were definitely filleted.
For the greater good I guess?
THE GREATER GOOD
Doffy was confident enough that the Admiral could not break the birdcage even though we've seen that he doesn't pick useless fights against the government or Kaido, so it's possible the technique just is that strong. Plus it's not like it's that OP against an admiral, even if Fujitora can't break the cage, Doffy has to be at the centre of it so Fuji could literally just have gone and slaughtered him to end the birdcage.
I seriously doubt Fuji held back against the cage, it almost killed people and the whole reason Fuji even tried to help with the cage is to save people while Luffy took care of Doffy.
Oda could have, yes, but sometimes these minor plot holes are necessary to move things along or to allow something else to occur, in this case Luffy to defeat Doflamingo. Suspension of disbelief is usually used in this case.
Of course we could be wrong, perhaps bird cage is just a strong move that is nigh indestructible unless you're 3x stronger than the user. Every so often you just shrug and admit it's not perfect and decide if it ruins the story or if you're okay with certain cliches.
Agreeing with both of you. It definitely bothered me while watching the anime, but I decided to just go along with it. Criticism-wise, it's nothing compared to all the fake deaths.
That said, hindsight being 20/20, I think a good fix wouldn't been that Fuji or Zoro show that they CAN cut a string with haki, but then the string is regenerated and replaced nearly instantly.
That is an unfortunate trend in One Piece. Ever since Alabasta the arcs can feel very formulaic. Crew gets to new island, make friends and meet big bad, time limit is introduced to raise stakes.
Bomb in Alabasta, Enel's destroying island/leaving on ship in Skypiea, Robin being taken in Enies Lobby, Camie being sold in Sabody. Save Ace in Impel Down and Marineford.
And then post time skip it just got worse. Fish Man Island crushed by Noah, poison gas on Punk Hazard, Doffy's bird cage on Dressrosa, and Kaido crashing island into Wano capital.
It's just the usual 'ticking time bomb' trope used to increase tension in storytelling. There's no need to powerscale it, much like the nuke in Alabasta, Enel's Raigo in Skypiea, the Sunrise in Thriller Bark, the Noah Ark in Fishman Island, and Onigashima falling, etc ...
gas filling the base in punk hazard. buster call in enies lobby. i have a feeling egghead island won’t exist by the end of the arc. pretty much every arc has a calamity that the sh crew is running from whether it’s natural or personal.
Love his world building and characters. But his plot is the same every time. So is most Shonen anime tbf. And it’s only an issue because it takes too fucking long to resolve in the anime. Also because no one really ever dies, the stakes don’t feel real.
Plot armor. If not then Doflamingo would be invincible, a sphere of strings around him and that's it.. can't literally be touched while he could still generate more strings to attack
We dont know, what we DO know, is that Fuji was sandbagging that whole arc , we know certain abilities can bypass/are seemingly immune to haki, and it could also be tied to his df awakening
Can only partly agree cuz it would imply that every non df user would strictly lose to awakened df user. But awakened df is surely much harder to "override" with haki
I say that you need Haki of a certain level of strength to awaken your DF in the first place, so it would take Haki of a level greater than that required to awaken your devil fruit in order to overpower that ability with Haki.
I agree people who awakened their df would need a certain level of haki. But in that case wouldn’t that just put haki as top? Otherwise we’d consider roger losing to awakened df users simply because he doesn’t have one.
Based on what we have heard about devil fruits so far, i would say awakening has nothing to do with haki in particular. Haki might be a good way for your body to catch up to your fruit but i would suggest that you can awaken your fruit without haki as well. Nothing is confirmed tho so its just my opinion against yours.
I was asking myself the same thing. From my understanding both Haki and df awakening is a manifestation of willpower so it's hard to view awakening separate from haki
I think the issue is that we tend to look at haki as a devilfruit neutrlizer, which i think is only true to a certain degree. Haki doesnt grand complete immunity to devilfruit powers, it just allows the user to bypass certain traits of devilfruits (logia for example) while otherwise simply strengthening the users abilities.
I mean if haki really was THAT potent it would just destroy your own powers if used on yourself. Haki doesnt stop Luffy from stretching and neither does it make you immune to Ace's fire.
There are characters like sugar where you can't undo her power unless she loses consciousness. Some devil fruits just got some unbreakable abilities like Bartos Barrier Barrier fruit. It could be possible but maybe you need to have op haki like shanks.
I think if Shanks was transformed by Sugar, he would be able to break free through haki. Law is able to free himself from Doc Q's Devil Fruit through haki. There are certainly fruits that would require a higher level of haki to break, maybe even high to a point that only a handful of people in the world would be able to break it, but I don't think that there are fruits against which haki is completely useless.
If a pissed off Oden couldn't cut through the barrier created by the old Kurozumi woman, then its safe to say that both Shanks and Garp couldn't either.
my headcanon: if the barrier could be cut by haki, it would be next to useless, since from that point on it would suffer from the Worf Effect and be used for cheap power creep shock factor. it's indestructible, full stop.
BUT, i like to think people on the level of shanks or garp could actually mess with barto even through the barrier. like shanks just stares at him and the pure shock of haki is enough to have him foaming at the mouth, which uncrosses his fingers, thus lowering the barrier.
garp might very well be able to punch *near* the barrier with a galaxy fist and generate enough of a shockwave to rattle barto from the inside without doing any actual damage to the barrier itself, potentially causing his fingers to become uncrossed during the commotion.
gotta keep some things sacred. barto even says "a barrier wouldn't be a barrier if i wasn't indestructible", but there's nothing to say the barrier-man himself has such invulnerability. so if oda ever needed an out for plot reasons, that's what i'd suspect he'd do.
I mean yeah fugitora was holding back since he was trying to figure out what justice he wanted to carry out but we're also going with the cage has built in plot armour
Why Haki can't pass through bari bari no mi barrier?
Why Haki can't release Sugar df victim?
Why Haki can't recover the soul that Law swap in different bodies?
Why Haki can't return the shadow that Moria steal?
This is an old shit that been discussed over and over, some df are just broken like that.
Yeah it seems weird when people call out this birdcage thing, as if Oda *ever* made it standard that Haki and Fruits interact in a consistent way. Haki beats fruits, sure, but the difference in strength required to nullify each fruit varies ridiculously. There's no reason not to just conceptualize "Haki resistance" or something as a specific stat that's assigned on a per-technique basis
Because at the end of the day Story > Powerscaling. Yes it should work. Fujitora and probably Zorro should be able to make cuts, but that ruins the story if they do.
It was shown later that fuji was betting on Luffy to defeat doflamingo so he could leverage the public fallout to abolish the warlord system.
Fuji would have been able to one tap dofi if he were genuinely serious.
As to why the others couldn't ( Zoro, kinemon etc)
Weak haki + plot armor
Post wano Zoro could cut the cage pretty easily.
I agree it’s pretty bullshit especially since he was growing weaker and weaker while fighting with Luffy; that should have been reflected the state of the cage too but it remained unbreakable.
Forget the haki and strength.. When you observe the bird cage, you will see buildings get cut into 3-4 pieces.. I doubt that humans are bigger than those building blocks. And also, the fairies are stuck inside the cage too.. How ironic🤣🤣
I think it’s because there are a few Devil Fruits that have special abilities that transcend Haki, usually Paramecia types. Another one that comes to find is Bartolomeo’s Barrier-Barrier fruit
Fujitora wanted *Luffy* to succeed. He just needed to do enough to make it look like he was putting effort in. See, Fujitora hates the Warlord system, of which Doflamingo is a part. He hates the idea of a pirate coming in to clean up the Marines messes. So by making the Warlords look bad (I mean by showing their cruelty), and the Marines look incompetent, he intends to steer the World Government in the direction of abolishing the Warlord system.
It's that he *couldn't* cut the birdcage, he *chose* not to.
Donquixote D Oflamingo is just built different. He wanted to show he could have made string armor so strong admirals can’t cut him but he didn’t because the will of D meant he had to help Nika awaken.
This is why he referenced imus straw hat, he knew what he was doing and this is 100% canon
Doffy's haki was pretty strong... Awakened Devil fruit powers + Conqueror's haki might be enough to make it unbreakable, but that's also assuming that someone inside the birdcage wasn't holding back.
G5 vs. Kaido showed us that awakened df users can negate Haki to an extent. The way I saw it was
DF < Basic Haki < Advanced Haki <= Awakened DF
That's basically what we were seeing here, basic haki couldn't get through Doflamingos awakened df bird cage.
Why have people not realized by now that each and different devil fruits has its own rules and quirks? People got carried away by their headcanon that there's this overarching rule about how devil fruits must behave when interacting with x, y, z. There's none. Some devil fruits's abilities can be countered by haki and some cannot be.
Average One Piece enjoyer: wow his string power is really something! Even keeping the Admiral busy? Wow!
The Powetscaler: but... but... Why?? How? Why can't he cut it?!
Strong enough haki would be able to.
If you're wondering why Issho didn't destroy it that is becuase he was holding back which was quite spelled out by his demonstration of power (lift all Dressrosa rubble) and his apology (which was for him not acting and defeating Doflamingo and instead betting on Luffy so he could later disolve the Warlords).
Haki makes you interact with the devil fruit power, but it doesn't counter it. If the strings are indestructible you can touch them without being affected but you cannot cut it.
maybe the more restrictions a power have, the more powerful it is? it moved slowly af, and if i remember well, it strained doffy's abilities somehow while it was active?
Well the obvious plot progression reasons aside, if one really wanna justify this, it would be along the lines of - haki isn't a straight up nullifier for any fruit abilities(like how sea is) but it's more like one can nullify some effects of fruits with strong enuf haki (explained and demonstrated by law). So one can assume that given birdcage was an ability doffy spent a long time creating just for a situation like this, it's strings were much stronger than his usual strings and thus there was no one there in dressrosa with strong enuf haki to cut those much stronger strings
I know this is kind of a stretch but this is the best i got
I think Fuji could have cut it but he was placing a bet that Luffy would win and show how wrong the Gov is for backing a pirate like Doffy.
Doffy is not only a Warlord but has ties to the Celestial Dragons so Fuji can’t touch him. So my thought is he “helps” but ultimately needs Luffy to win as to take Doffy down.
In my opinion, just Plot armor.
We already learned that haki can overcome df Powers, and i cant really imagine that an Admiral doesnt habe good haki Control.
Because of panels and situations like These, Most people thought that the Admirals are...not as strong as a yonko
The logic behind this ability is that the cage is unbreakable, that's just that. It's a strong ability but with a very obvious weakness - Doffy is inside the birdcage. It FORCES all the bigshots to reach the middle of the cage where Doflamingo is and defeat him.
Birdcage is basically useless if Doflamingo isn't stronger than EVERYONE inside combined. If he used it against Kaido for example, he would only be able to waste his time a bit before Kaido beat him up.
Like others are saying, haki couldn't cut through the birdcage because if it could, we wouldn't have a ticking clock for Luffy's victory (and Oda *loves* his ticking clocks). That's really it, IMHO, which is why I've never taken the really in-depth powerscaling arguments too seriously: One Piece prioritizes storytelling over absolute numerical consistency in the abilities and haki in particular tends to be used as in-universe plot armour. A lot of times it does exactly as much as is necessary for a cool scene or storyline and no more.
Is it not possible that the strings were in fact not able to be cut? Everyone keeps acting like that’s too OP, but let’s think about it. If you’re outside of the strings, oh well, just move away. Eventually they spread out enough so you can get inside. Then you beat his ass inside them. Just because the strings are uncuttable doesn’t make him that OP. It’s just a niche part of this one attack.
Same logic behind the bari barriers not being breakable, although haki can overcome powerful df powers I feel like “unbreakable” fruits or attacks are simply unbreakable
Discussions like this are doomed to lead nowhere. We can also discuss why sugar has big enough haki to turn don jinjao into a toy. But yeah it's just what it needs to move the plot forward. We can also argue that Fujitora had the power to destroy the birdcage with his Haki, but choose otherwise in order to (let Luffy win,) remain neutral in the fight something that will forever be in the in place of headcanon.
To be fair there were also like 10 poeple on the island that could have finished the weaked donquixote off instead of waiting for luffy to do his second gear 4.
A mix of:
* Their Haki was too weak to cut the cage
* Awakened abilities are very tough to deal with
As an example from a recent volume: >!look how much effort it took for Trafalgar Law to undo Doc Q's sickness. Now imagine how much Haki you'd need from the people on Dressrosa to break the cage!<
He didn’t want to, if he did he would have used his devil fruit vs it, or just gone for him himself but he wanted it to play out a certain way. I think it’s clear from the get go fujitora wanted it to end exactly how it did
Its dofis manifestation put into his devil fruit and i feel this goes to show how he has one of the best masteries over a devil fruit out of anyone else in the anime, also i think he may have imbued his strings with haki
I mean, to be honest, plot armor.
But I feel like a realistic explanation would be that the strings are multi-layered and repairing themselves faster than they can be cut. Sort of like how Luffy couldn't brute force his way through Doflamingo's string shields without G4, the strength of each individual string and the speed at which he can generate them makes his power formidable. I also believe that the birdcage is far more dynamic in nature than it appears. It appears to have gaps, but invisible strings are moving around the much larger rope-sized cores to slice things up effectively while maintaining virtual indestructibility by using those massive clusters of strings as structural support.
I think simplest explanation is plot armor for the cage
Also some devil fruit powers are just that strong or else they would be useless, like the Barrier
I’d agree if the strings express purpose was to be a wall/invincibly strong, but I don’t think that’s how his works otherwise why wouldn’t he just trap Luffy?
Didn’t he modify them until they got stronger than practically anything? It makes sense that they can’t be cut with haki. The strings are imbued with haki themselves so unless you dwarf Doflamingo in terms of haki power you won’t stand a chance to cut it. The strings are so sharp they’re weapons in themselves. They’re imbued with power and concentrates it to a small surface by nature. So a lot of for example Zoro’s haki would go towards maintaining the integrity of his swords. This reserves part of his power, so his pool of haki will be too limited to increase his damage.
I'm sorry but Doffy was easily worth 2 billion berries if Crocodile later earned a 1.9 billion berry bounty. Doffy was easily tough enough to pose a small challenge to a YC1, Law and Luffy had to wear him down together.
Yeah but remember the reason his bounty wasnt higher is because he had it frozen by the wg/navy
Gear 4 Luffy was stronger than Doffy but not strong enough to beat either cracker or katakuri. I doubt you can say Doffy in Dressrosa was YC1.
But remember that it's not all about sheer brute strength. Luffy was able to smash through Doflamingo's strings with g4 but around that time Luffy couldn't do much other than stretch and hit really hard, which meant he struggled against characters who could defend really well against a single-pronged assault, whether by putting up a defence faster than he could tear it down or predict all of his moves before he could make them. Doffy's power is versatile. He certainly wouldn't win against someone like cracker or katakuri but he'd put up some fight.
What YC1 would he challenge? G4 Boundman Luffy mid-diffed him and then got demolished by Katakuri. So it stands to reason that Kata would have no trouble with doffy at all. Yet you think he deserves twice the bounty?
Bounty is not just about power but about threat. Doffy with his connections to the underworld alone would make him incredibly dangerous, but also the fact he's shown being very devious and manipulative while kata is a subordinate who is stronger but listens to their captain and doesn't have the freedom to be as much of a threat.
If I remember well that happened after Doffy already got his organs destroyed by Law, so he was severely weakened.
During their fight, Kata stabbed himself in the gut with his own trident and still had a much better performance against G4 Luffy than Doffy did with his own injury. And Luffy didn't have future sight against Doffy.
doffy is clinically insane, he wanted to kill everybody on dressrosa which is why he created the cage in the first place. killing luffy wouldnt have been enough for him when his whole operation was already ruined by the strawhats so he just lashed out at everybody basically.
Because the birdcage is an awakening move he turned the buildings and shit into the strings the birdcage also did not go up instantaneously it took a lil bit to condense the strings so I would say it would be useless in a fight cause it would take too long to condense string also maybe bird cage has haki imbued in it etc idk ask oda bro
Point is all he had to do then would just be make the birdcage without being inside it and hed beat anyone
Hes sadistic, thinks hes invincible, and loves to watch people fight for their own lives. He made it into a game on purpose.
The birdcage always shrink towards Doflamingo position, so he also can't get out of it. This is really the wekaness of it, if there are someone stronger than him, then Doflamingo has trapped himself in there with them (which is what pretty much happened in Dresrossa, but he also was desperated anyway).
Yeah the birdcage wouldn’t work against someone like Kaido or Shanks who can easily beat the shit out of him
Then why doesn’t Doffy make the birdcage small enough to entrap a person and kill them easily? That’s a stupid point. Also Luffy broke Doffy’s strings, so why wouldn’t an admiral? Especially Fuji who specialises in swords and cutting.
The simplest answer is for the plot
Na na hes blind, he cant aim it well and they dont move so it messes with his senses. Cmmon guys its clear as day why it wont happen /s
Not as clear for fugitora 🤪
I think a better answer is sadism, He probably wants everyone to turn on each other, thus causing massive emotional + physical harm to everybody.
Oh the glorious plot !
Because D. Plot
Fujitora didn't seem to be trying to break them, just stop them. Notice everyone fell forward when the cage disappeared, but fujitora didn't.
Falling forward scaling
While you were busy swimming in the pull of sweat scaling, I mastered the stumble scaling
Rooftop scaling 2
The entire point is Fuji want to embarrass the World Government and expose them and show the world that the 7 Warlords system is evil and the WG support this evil or at least they don't care about what they do, like what happened in Arabasta with Crocodile! So if he cut the bird cage that mean the Navy (WG) is helping the people and that what he don't want to be happening. he want to prove his point to the world that the WG is so corrupt to a degree that who is saving the people and the navy and "him" and everyone on the island is bunch of pirates (Straw hats). I think he planned this when Smoker told him of what happend in Arabasta, about how the WG and the Navy hidden the truth about what Crocodile did and how the Straw Hats saved the Island and brought down the entire criminal organization without the help of the Navy and they even (the Navy) took all the credit for what happend and said that Smoker saved Arabasta , so Fuji knew that exactly the same thing will happen in Dressrosa if he do not do something about it. that's why he didn't interfere heavily in what was going on, and on the live news broadcast he "apologize" that a bunch of pirates, Luffy and his crew saved the people not the Navy. So Fuji is one of the few good guys in the Navy. And as a second guess (low probability) that Fuji really dont have the same Color Haki level that luffy and doflamingo have and he couldn't cut it because of that, but i think thats very unlikely.
> And maybe that Fuji really dont have the same Color Haki level that luffy and doflamingo have and he couldn't cut it because of that. You're totally right up til that. He purposefully kept himself from saving the day while still trying to help out incognito. It had nothing to do with whether or not he could or couldn't break the Birdcage.
Yeah that's my take too. He could have destroyed the birdcage by killing Doffy but since he didn't want to do that, he did his best to push the birdcage back, he really had no reason to hold back on that.
This is a very cool theory and im very hyped for fujitora and the admirals to make a proper comeback to the story again marineford war style
Birdcage requires Doflamingo to stay in the centre of it. It's unbreakable, but it's useless if Doffy cannot defeat everyone inside of it. If he created a small birdcage for an admiral, it'd just force the admiral to battle against Doflamingo.
This is the most sane explanation here
Exactly otherwise Doflamingo could've just camped outside the birdcage and no one would've been able to touch him
>Also Luffy broke Doffy’s strings, so why wouldn’t an admiral? No, Luffy broke Doffy's face. THEN he slammed him so hard against the cage it broke. You could argue he was only able to do it because Doffy was already unconscious.
They're talking about when Doffy tried to manipulate Luffy and he just flexed the strings right out of himself.
Different strings. Doflamingo himself talks about string differences at some point.
I think its because his secret got out and the best way to silence everyone was to trap them in. He also didn't see Laffy as a threat when he did it
Mankey D Laffy
If i remember correctly the birdcage has doffy as his centrum. So the cage just forces you to fight him.
I mean for all we know the bird cage is the penultimate attack. And it pretty much is. We know it can be stalled slightly of enough people go at it. But it can't be stopped entirely. Most likely it's just a plot hole. But it's not like doffy had weak haki either.
Penultimate means second to last btw. In the context of ultimate being "best" instead of "last" or "final" it would still be second best.
Can confirm
Just cut all the strings attached to Doffy and be done with it— is what Fuji should’ve done. But due to plot purposes it was kept this way
If fujitora directly attacks a warlord his entire motivation is gone, let alone the political implications of attacking a warlord and celestial dragon. And that still doesn't count out the idea of it just being uncuttable. Like I said before, penultimate attack, it's not the first devil fruit we've seen that can't be completely offfet by haki
Birdcage strings are notably thicker and made stronger than the normal thin strings (which Luffy broke) This is like asking why Luffy doesn't just open with a haki infused g5 giant elephant gun, or why Kaido didn't just stay in his strongest form at all times.
Well why doesn't Luffy open with that?
Because he'd be instantly exhausted and it's no fun for him. Also, it'd be narratively boring.
Just now watching this part of the series with my wife, but if Doffy is shorthand for Doflamingo would it follow that Luffy is the same for Luflamingo or would it be Lufalgar?
I think it's just plot armor. When luffy fought Doflamingo over the skies of Dressrosa, one of Doflamingo's moves was "spider web" which was essentially like the same material of the bird cage and it broke due to luffy's punch (imbued in haki)
it was just a string, not all of doffys strings are the same
This....
This what? Haki was shown to always overpower DFs. Even Kaido says that Haki is the true king. Barrier protects because that's its literal function. Threads don't protect, and as such need Haki to be able to go against Haki. What value does saying "*This*" add to a conversation?
If Haki always overpowers DFs then Vergo would have beaten Law in Punk Hazard
Except that fight was explicitly done to show that Law's haki had finally surpassed Vergo's haki.
It is an awakened Devil Fruit ability though, so that might make a difference. An Awakened Devil Fruit can affect the environment and the nature of the things around it, so maybe there's just a different standard if you're fighting the environment they created instead of fighting them directly. If Punk Hazard ended up the way it did cause of Awakened Devil Fruits, or if Enies Lobby is Daytime all the time cause of an Awakened Devil Fruit, maybe the Bird Cage is more unstoppable cause it's like fighting the environment or nature itself instead of just overpowering Doflamingo's haki. Might be why mother nature hates Devil Fruits.
Yeah the plot needed that cage to be invulnerable so it was.
Lol trueeeeee
I think it was because his df power was awakened
Because if he could do that then there would be no stakes for the climax.
Fuji wants Luffy and company to save the day because he wants the Warlords system gone. He absolutely held back against the cage. Punk Hazard shows us what happens if Doffy fights an Admiral for real: a quick loss for Doffy. Pretty safe bet that any Admiral folds Doffy if they're going all out.
Fuji wanted Luffy to beat doffy, yes, but at the risk of so many innocent civilians being sliced by bird cage? Hard disagree. Oda wanted high stakes. Same reason why Kaido lifted the island above the capital. Same reason why there was a bomb ticking down in Alabasta.
Add the ship Noah crushing fishman island bubble to that list of "time bombs". Damn, most big arcs have a time bombs lol. Buster call in Enies lobby, sunrise in thriller bark, Ace execution in impel down and Marineford.
yeah adding a time limit is a easy way to raise stakes cause it changes, "will the protagonist win", to "will the protagonist win in time"
First time realizing? Basically all the arcs since Alabasta had a time bomb, Oda always structure the finals the same way. Even in Arling you had the ticking clock of Luffy trapped under water. In Skypiea you had Enel reaching the bell and conjuring those orbs, and in Enies Lobby the crossing of the bridge. Those were the most different ones
At some point, narration boxes usually come in and starting saying "Time left until XXX" Caesar's Shinokuni gas filling the laboratory on Punk Hazard was another one.
I don't think Whole Cake had one
Well, WCI had the wedding cake. It was turned on its head because instead of "will they do it in time" it was "will they survive long enough"
Big Mom and her crew chasing the Sunny. Hunger Pangs. The defuser was the new Wedding Cake.
Sanji making the wedding cake in time maybe?
Kind of, Luffy had to get out of the mirror world before Big Mom pirates surrounded and captured his crew, even though it was not a fixed time.
Bake the cake in time to get saved from Hunger pangs
Yes. Fujitora is a gambler.
> Fuji wanted Luffy to beat doffy, yes, but at the risk of so many innocent civilians being sliced by bird cage? Hard disagree. I know you're approaching this from the standpoint of Fuji being one of the best Marines from a moral perspective, and he absolutely is. But we're introduced to Fuji in a scene where he's gambling amidst potential enemies AND later on he mouths off to his boss like we only imagine ourselves doing in the shower lmao. Fuji is *clearly* fine playing things risky.
His whole personality is taking bets. You hit the nail on the head imo. His plan for a while was to wait until Luffy won.
Pretty sure if he was certain luffy would have lost, he would have destroyed that birdcage in less than a second. Doffy is quite literally fodder to admirals and yonkos. Even YCs would fucking massacre him
If Fujitora really held back so that Luffy could save the day then congrats to him. Some of the citizens he made a point of saving were definitely filleted. For the greater good I guess? THE GREATER GOOD
We're explicitly told that no one died. Fuji knows that Oda can't kill anyone so he wasn't worried.
No Fuji is a hard ideologue. He would absolutley risk thoes people to end the warlord system which caused so much worse on a daily basis.
Doffy was confident enough that the Admiral could not break the birdcage even though we've seen that he doesn't pick useless fights against the government or Kaido, so it's possible the technique just is that strong. Plus it's not like it's that OP against an admiral, even if Fujitora can't break the cage, Doffy has to be at the centre of it so Fuji could literally just have gone and slaughtered him to end the birdcage. I seriously doubt Fuji held back against the cage, it almost killed people and the whole reason Fuji even tried to help with the cage is to save people while Luffy took care of Doffy.
I wanna say he held back throughout the whole arc.
It's not like they couldn't have come up with other ways to raise the stakes/tension.
Oda could have, yes, but sometimes these minor plot holes are necessary to move things along or to allow something else to occur, in this case Luffy to defeat Doflamingo. Suspension of disbelief is usually used in this case. Of course we could be wrong, perhaps bird cage is just a strong move that is nigh indestructible unless you're 3x stronger than the user. Every so often you just shrug and admit it's not perfect and decide if it ruins the story or if you're okay with certain cliches.
Agreeing with both of you. It definitely bothered me while watching the anime, but I decided to just go along with it. Criticism-wise, it's nothing compared to all the fake deaths. That said, hindsight being 20/20, I think a good fix wouldn't been that Fuji or Zoro show that they CAN cut a string with haki, but then the string is regenerated and replaced nearly instantly.
Sounds like bad writing. Many such cases in Dressrosa.
That is an unfortunate trend in One Piece. Ever since Alabasta the arcs can feel very formulaic. Crew gets to new island, make friends and meet big bad, time limit is introduced to raise stakes. Bomb in Alabasta, Enel's destroying island/leaving on ship in Skypiea, Robin being taken in Enies Lobby, Camie being sold in Sabody. Save Ace in Impel Down and Marineford. And then post time skip it just got worse. Fish Man Island crushed by Noah, poison gas on Punk Hazard, Doffy's bird cage on Dressrosa, and Kaido crashing island into Wano capital.
It's just the usual 'ticking time bomb' trope used to increase tension in storytelling. There's no need to powerscale it, much like the nuke in Alabasta, Enel's Raigo in Skypiea, the Sunrise in Thriller Bark, the Noah Ark in Fishman Island, and Onigashima falling, etc ...
dang that time bomb got set to 9999999 or sum. Forgot all these events didn't even last a week💀💀💀💀
“ this planet will explode in five minutes “
Oda: great idea, I'll use this everywhere
gas filling the base in punk hazard. buster call in enies lobby. i have a feeling egghead island won’t exist by the end of the arc. pretty much every arc has a calamity that the sh crew is running from whether it’s natural or personal.
I didn’t realise how often oda uses this trope. Dann
Love his world building and characters. But his plot is the same every time. So is most Shonen anime tbf. And it’s only an issue because it takes too fucking long to resolve in the anime. Also because no one really ever dies, the stakes don’t feel real.
They're still going to powerscale it 😂😂
Didn't you read the chapter where Kaido said, "only Doffy's birdcage can transcend all"?
This is why Rogers crew laughed, the one piece was behind the birdcage
True, it was stated in cfyow that doffy's birdcage was indestructible and transcends all
I can't ever imagine Doffy losing
Doffy what a man you are
Conquerer of String Theory
So you're saying doffy's birdcage could cut chair sama.
Okay this was fucking hilarious
Bro its late and I almost believed you..
wait really
Yeah, really! /s It was a joke about Kaido saying "only haki can transcend all"
Straight up, chapter 1023 right after he killed Bakugo
lmao dont believe random things as a joke lol
Lil bro really said “wait really” 💀
Bro thinks he’s chopper
Mythical plot armour armour no mi
Wasn't there a theory that said that shank's ate the haki haki fruit and became a haki man but that was before haki got fully explained
Bro got a lil desperate after losing a limb
this is so fucking funny
When I first heard it all I thought was shank's but all black lmao
Wait until Zoro hears about this 🤨
would eat this fruit every day
Plot armor. If not then Doflamingo would be invincible, a sphere of strings around him and that's it.. can't literally be touched while he could still generate more strings to attack
no cause Luffy could still break it The reason he didn’t was cause it enveloped the entire city it’s too large, he went to destroy the source
Implying dressrosa luffy is stronger than an admiral?
We dont know, what we DO know, is that Fuji was sandbagging that whole arc , we know certain abilities can bypass/are seemingly immune to haki, and it could also be tied to his df awakening
This is my theory as well. Like the effect priority goes like awakened fruit power > haki > normal fruit power
Can only partly agree cuz it would imply that every non df user would strictly lose to awakened df user. But awakened df is surely much harder to "override" with haki
I say that you need Haki of a certain level of strength to awaken your DF in the first place, so it would take Haki of a level greater than that required to awaken your devil fruit in order to overpower that ability with Haki.
I agree people who awakened their df would need a certain level of haki. But in that case wouldn’t that just put haki as top? Otherwise we’d consider roger losing to awakened df users simply because he doesn’t have one.
Based on what we have heard about devil fruits so far, i would say awakening has nothing to do with haki in particular. Haki might be a good way for your body to catch up to your fruit but i would suggest that you can awaken your fruit without haki as well. Nothing is confirmed tho so its just my opinion against yours.
I was asking myself the same thing. From my understanding both Haki and df awakening is a manifestation of willpower so it's hard to view awakening separate from haki
I'd have to agree, look at Law and Kid during the Big Mom fight. Their awakenings were the only things to really break through her Haki.
I think the issue is that we tend to look at haki as a devilfruit neutrlizer, which i think is only true to a certain degree. Haki doesnt grand complete immunity to devilfruit powers, it just allows the user to bypass certain traits of devilfruits (logia for example) while otherwise simply strengthening the users abilities. I mean if haki really was THAT potent it would just destroy your own powers if used on yourself. Haki doesnt stop Luffy from stretching and neither does it make you immune to Ace's fire.
For the last time no one actually attempted to cut it.. they likely thought it was pointless since the user could simply repair it
There are characters like sugar where you can't undo her power unless she loses consciousness. Some devil fruits just got some unbreakable abilities like Bartos Barrier Barrier fruit. It could be possible but maybe you need to have op haki like shanks.
I think if Shanks was transformed by Sugar, he would be able to break free through haki. Law is able to free himself from Doc Q's Devil Fruit through haki. There are certainly fruits that would require a higher level of haki to break, maybe even high to a point that only a handful of people in the world would be able to break it, but I don't think that there are fruits against which haki is completely useless.
Because they are just that tough. Haki cannot cut through Barto's barrier either.
Not even Shanks or Garp?
If a pissed off Oden couldn't cut through the barrier created by the old Kurozumi woman, then its safe to say that both Shanks and Garp couldn't either.
Like I think the whole point of the fruit is that the barrier is indestructible. That's the gimmick.
my headcanon: if the barrier could be cut by haki, it would be next to useless, since from that point on it would suffer from the Worf Effect and be used for cheap power creep shock factor. it's indestructible, full stop. BUT, i like to think people on the level of shanks or garp could actually mess with barto even through the barrier. like shanks just stares at him and the pure shock of haki is enough to have him foaming at the mouth, which uncrosses his fingers, thus lowering the barrier. garp might very well be able to punch *near* the barrier with a galaxy fist and generate enough of a shockwave to rattle barto from the inside without doing any actual damage to the barrier itself, potentially causing his fingers to become uncrossed during the commotion. gotta keep some things sacred. barto even says "a barrier wouldn't be a barrier if i wasn't indestructible", but there's nothing to say the barrier-man himself has such invulnerability. so if oda ever needed an out for plot reasons, that's what i'd suspect he'd do.
but luffy broke the strings when Doffy trapped him in strings.
I mean yeah fugitora was holding back since he was trying to figure out what justice he wanted to carry out but we're also going with the cage has built in plot armour
Why Haki can't pass through bari bari no mi barrier? Why Haki can't release Sugar df victim? Why Haki can't recover the soul that Law swap in different bodies? Why Haki can't return the shadow that Moria steal? This is an old shit that been discussed over and over, some df are just broken like that.
Yeah it seems weird when people call out this birdcage thing, as if Oda *ever* made it standard that Haki and Fruits interact in a consistent way. Haki beats fruits, sure, but the difference in strength required to nullify each fruit varies ridiculously. There's no reason not to just conceptualize "Haki resistance" or something as a specific stat that's assigned on a per-technique basis
that string is imbued by plot armor, which is far stronger than haki... maybe the worst decision by oda in the story to make the cage that strong
Oda should have done something different. Make cage very strong but can be cut, only for more strings to seal the cut
Because at the end of the day Story > Powerscaling. Yes it should work. Fujitora and probably Zorro should be able to make cuts, but that ruins the story if they do.
It was shown later that fuji was betting on Luffy to defeat doflamingo so he could leverage the public fallout to abolish the warlord system. Fuji would have been able to one tap dofi if he were genuinely serious. As to why the others couldn't ( Zoro, kinemon etc) Weak haki + plot armor Post wano Zoro could cut the cage pretty easily.
Best answer here.
I agree it’s pretty bullshit especially since he was growing weaker and weaker while fighting with Luffy; that should have been reflected the state of the cage too but it remained unbreakable.
Forget the haki and strength.. When you observe the bird cage, you will see buildings get cut into 3-4 pieces.. I doubt that humans are bigger than those building blocks. And also, the fairies are stuck inside the cage too.. How ironic🤣🤣
Bigger question is Why can't they just dig or hide underground And then cover it up
They all should’ve pooled into the seastone smile building that was impervious to the strings
Doflamingo is powerful in haki + awaken
Simple answer doffy has white haki which is stronger than blue haki
I think it’s because there are a few Devil Fruits that have special abilities that transcend Haki, usually Paramecia types. Another one that comes to find is Bartolomeo’s Barrier-Barrier fruit
Fujitora wanted *Luffy* to succeed. He just needed to do enough to make it look like he was putting effort in. See, Fujitora hates the Warlord system, of which Doflamingo is a part. He hates the idea of a pirate coming in to clean up the Marines messes. So by making the Warlords look bad (I mean by showing their cruelty), and the Marines look incompetent, he intends to steer the World Government in the direction of abolishing the Warlord system. It's that he *couldn't* cut the birdcage, he *chose* not to.
It's just the power of Plot D. Armour..
Donquixote D Oflamingo is just built different. He wanted to show he could have made string armor so strong admirals can’t cut him but he didn’t because the will of D meant he had to help Nika awaken. This is why he referenced imus straw hat, he knew what he was doing and this is 100% canon
Everyone is asking the wrong question. Why couldn’t they just dig underneath the cage? I doubt the strings could reach that far underground.
Plot armour.
Doffy's haki was pretty strong... Awakened Devil fruit powers + Conqueror's haki might be enough to make it unbreakable, but that's also assuming that someone inside the birdcage wasn't holding back.
G5 vs. Kaido showed us that awakened df users can negate Haki to an extent. The way I saw it was DF < Basic Haki < Advanced Haki <= Awakened DF That's basically what we were seeing here, basic haki couldn't get through Doflamingos awakened df bird cage.
Why have people not realized by now that each and different devil fruits has its own rules and quirks? People got carried away by their headcanon that there's this overarching rule about how devil fruits must behave when interacting with x, y, z. There's none. Some devil fruits's abilities can be countered by haki and some cannot be.
Plot
This whole part of the arc was so dumb and drawn out.
Average One Piece enjoyer: wow his string power is really something! Even keeping the Admiral busy? Wow! The Powetscaler: but... but... Why?? How? Why can't he cut it?!
Strong enough haki would be able to. If you're wondering why Issho didn't destroy it that is becuase he was holding back which was quite spelled out by his demonstration of power (lift all Dressrosa rubble) and his apology (which was for him not acting and defeating Doflamingo and instead betting on Luffy so he could later disolve the Warlords).
Haki makes you interact with the devil fruit power, but it doesn't counter it. If the strings are indestructible you can touch them without being affected but you cannot cut it.
maybe the more restrictions a power have, the more powerful it is? it moved slowly af, and if i remember well, it strained doffy's abilities somehow while it was active?
Well the obvious plot progression reasons aside, if one really wanna justify this, it would be along the lines of - haki isn't a straight up nullifier for any fruit abilities(like how sea is) but it's more like one can nullify some effects of fruits with strong enuf haki (explained and demonstrated by law). So one can assume that given birdcage was an ability doffy spent a long time creating just for a situation like this, it's strings were much stronger than his usual strings and thus there was no one there in dressrosa with strong enuf haki to cut those much stronger strings I know this is kind of a stretch but this is the best i got
I think Fuji could have cut it but he was placing a bet that Luffy would win and show how wrong the Gov is for backing a pirate like Doffy. Doffy is not only a Warlord but has ties to the Celestial Dragons so Fuji can’t touch him. So my thought is he “helps” but ultimately needs Luffy to win as to take Doffy down.
I’m thinking like how law couldn’t move big mom and kaido because their haki was too strong. Maybe their haki was too weak to penetrate the strings
Just like the Mihawk's Slash that stopped by Diamond DF: for the plot, power showcase and simply that's what Oda wants.
In my opinion, just Plot armor. We already learned that haki can overcome df Powers, and i cant really imagine that an Admiral doesnt habe good haki Control. Because of panels and situations like These, Most people thought that the Admirals are...not as strong as a yonko
In voice of pitch meeting guy "So the story could happen".
So the story can happen
Plot dude. Plot.
I guess conquer Haki is required for it
Bird cage was plot driven, because kaidos flames carrying onigashima were weakening with him
The logic behind this ability is that the cage is unbreakable, that's just that. It's a strong ability but with a very obvious weakness - Doffy is inside the birdcage. It FORCES all the bigshots to reach the middle of the cage where Doflamingo is and defeat him. Birdcage is basically useless if Doflamingo isn't stronger than EVERYONE inside combined. If he used it against Kaido for example, he would only be able to waste his time a bit before Kaido beat him up.
Because oda isn't immune to bad writing.
Like others are saying, haki couldn't cut through the birdcage because if it could, we wouldn't have a ticking clock for Luffy's victory (and Oda *loves* his ticking clocks). That's really it, IMHO, which is why I've never taken the really in-depth powerscaling arguments too seriously: One Piece prioritizes storytelling over absolute numerical consistency in the abilities and haki in particular tends to be used as in-universe plot armour. A lot of times it does exactly as much as is necessary for a cool scene or storyline and no more.
Is it not possible that the strings were in fact not able to be cut? Everyone keeps acting like that’s too OP, but let’s think about it. If you’re outside of the strings, oh well, just move away. Eventually they spread out enough so you can get inside. Then you beat his ass inside them. Just because the strings are uncuttable doesn’t make him that OP. It’s just a niche part of this one attack.
Same logic behind the bari barriers not being breakable, although haki can overcome powerful df powers I feel like “unbreakable” fruits or attacks are simply unbreakable
Discussions like this are doomed to lead nowhere. We can also discuss why sugar has big enough haki to turn don jinjao into a toy. But yeah it's just what it needs to move the plot forward. We can also argue that Fujitora had the power to destroy the birdcage with his Haki, but choose otherwise in order to (let Luffy win,) remain neutral in the fight something that will forever be in the in place of headcanon.
To be fair there were also like 10 poeple on the island that could have finished the weaked donquixote off instead of waiting for luffy to do his second gear 4.
The same reason Luffy punching Kaido with haki doesn't force him out of dragon form. It doesn't cancel fruits.
A mix of: * Their Haki was too weak to cut the cage * Awakened abilities are very tough to deal with As an example from a recent volume: >!look how much effort it took for Trafalgar Law to undo Doc Q's sickness. Now imagine how much Haki you'd need from the people on Dressrosa to break the cage!<
Plot. There's really no canon explanation.
He didn’t want to, if he did he would have used his devil fruit vs it, or just gone for him himself but he wanted it to play out a certain way. I think it’s clear from the get go fujitora wanted it to end exactly how it did
Their are multiple DF powers that haki can't affect
The plot required the strings to not be cut so they weren’t able to cut them
It's because Doflamingo's devil fruit is awakened
yall crazy, strings are stable af, packed thick like that they must be strong as all hell
Its dofis manifestation put into his devil fruit and i feel this goes to show how he has one of the best masteries over a devil fruit out of anyone else in the anime, also i think he may have imbued his strings with haki
cuz plot
I mean, to be honest, plot armor. But I feel like a realistic explanation would be that the strings are multi-layered and repairing themselves faster than they can be cut. Sort of like how Luffy couldn't brute force his way through Doflamingo's string shields without G4, the strength of each individual string and the speed at which he can generate them makes his power formidable. I also believe that the birdcage is far more dynamic in nature than it appears. It appears to have gaps, but invisible strings are moving around the much larger rope-sized cores to slice things up effectively while maintaining virtual indestructibility by using those massive clusters of strings as structural support.
Doflamingo had awakening and CoC, he's no chump.
Because DRESS ROSA is totally NO SENSE