Sora was one of the hyper kids Marco started off not wanting to deal with very much because god damn it, he trusts Ace and all, but cheerful kids? NO THANKS. TL;DR Marco has issues. So many. But Sora grew on him out of dedication to looking after his friends and the others so his death really shocked Marco and shook him hard! As a Whitebeard he avenges his fallen RULE NUMBER ONE of the sea, but he didn't know how to fight the ghosts either! But he was all in when Ikki and the others decided no more, it's ghostbusting time. And Sora came back pretty more serious, and Marco instantly had more respect for him, because well, Ace and Thatch have also died and are dealing with that whole thing, so it was a learning curve that he could watch Sora on tbh.
Peripherally he uses Sora as a canary in a coal mine too. Sora's got a good beat on when things are about to get REAL, both with the ghosts, and then again with the possession, so even though one of the times was mild (TLPD) Sora has the sort of Luffy-syndrome of being well in tune with the environment he's in, and Marco learned a long time ago to pay close attention to that, especially since they are good at giving clues to the people around them as well.
That said, Marco is almost half bent more on his friendship with Roxas, so he knows a great deal about Roxas' worries about being sort of replaced by Sora etc. Which is another reason Marco takes care to show Sora his human-first mate-that bro of Thatch & Namur's side rather than the phoenix sparkles. Marco knows a lot about sibling rivalries; after all he's got over 1600 brothers. Still, this doesn't mean Marco dismisses Sora as any less important or special, he always keeps an eye on them all ;)
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Peripherally he uses Sora as a canary in a coal mine too. Sora's got a good beat on when things are about to get REAL, both with the ghosts, and then again with the possession, so even though one of the times was mild (TLPD) Sora has the sort of Luffy-syndrome of being well in tune with the environment he's in, and Marco learned a long time ago to pay close attention to that, especially since they are good at giving clues to the people around them as well.
That said, Marco is almost half bent more on his friendship with Roxas, so he knows a great deal about Roxas' worries about being sort of replaced by Sora etc. Which is another reason Marco takes care to show Sora his human-first mate-that bro of Thatch & Namur's side rather than the phoenix sparkles. Marco knows a lot about sibling rivalries; after all he's got over 1600 brothers. Still, this doesn't mean Marco dismisses Sora as any less important or special, he always keeps an eye on them all ;)