Well then you haven’t been paying attention. His ideal of a pirate comes from a red haired guy with high values not from those who pillage, kill and steal for fun. And he rarely goes out of his way to help some rando. Every time he has helped someone, it’s because he considered them a friend or they helped luffy first out of their kindness. He’s just paying back their kindness. If it involves saving a burning Kingdom for a friend who happens to be its princess, then so be it.
Nothing heroic about it. Even villains help their friends. I won’t say it’s peak fiction. But it’s pretty close to it.