#chapter 1107

it was assumed that events were happening concurrently, but

Van Augur and Catarina Devon are here (on Egghead), and perhaps Van Augur could have warped himself there, but here he says

he hasn't mastered the warp warp fruit enough to get him and Catarina off the island, so it's unlikely that he could have warped himself all the way from Winner Island. SO, did they pursue Law and Bepo, and the two are nearby, or with the giants, or, or, or? Or is there some other explanation (about Van Augur--I know that Law's whereabouts is still relegated to cover pages)? I'm not a close reader, so I'm happy to have anything pointed out.

But, looks like Catarina will be able to clone

Saturn, and looks as if Saturn knows it. Of course, this guy below (Caribou) would be relevant. Can't wait to see his role!

I'm out of order, of course! I don't think that Law got recaptured, but I still think there might be a giant connection. And speaking of the giants

Usopp's reaction was just

heartfelt, was, ahhh, my heart, and Nami and Chopper were really cute too. And yeah, it's been some time, so the quick recap was necessary. AND, lots of small things I just loved either for humour or poignancy, like:

Brook abandoning everything for the sake of a cup of tea (even though he says he wasn't stopping for a cup of tea)---and Lilith sending forth messages (to raise the barrier, I'm guessing) because Brook is all too calm that the Sunny is heading towards the barrier, and bound to be fried by it. Lilith is not at all equipped for dealing with Straw Hat madness. And no-one can seriously out-machismo

Zoro. He's just too silly and strong. And!!!

the Pacifistas turn on the army, the army needing to suppress a workers' revolt. And that's Kuma in the bottom picture, isn't it? It looks like Kuzan, but PX is written on the cap, I think, in the picture. Again, let me know, please!

Bonney just

being in awe that

she gets to see Nika (and Nika teaches her how to throw a rubber punch, extra future bad news for Saturn, I hope). And

Kuma and Vegapunk (what's the far right image?) take in Nika too. Love Franky's way with words here:

telling Bonney she needs make use of her legs, and Vegapunk decides he's gonna stay (or die), and Borsalino's gonna make sure of it. But!

the power of love is all pervasive! (at least when Sanji's wearing the boots). Although his love was used for protecting Bonney rather than Vegapunk, and probably has more to do with Germa modifications than love, but it is Sanji's motivator, and attacks Kizaru's knowledge of "how things work"!

Kizaru/Borsalino's face in the first panel really shows how much power he's losing. Sentomaru took a path Kizaru could have taken, but didn't. He's following Bellamy's path, so it'll be interesting to see where he ends up. Because he's too smart to be a blind lackey. Being an aware lackey is some powerful conditioning/mental gymnastics.

We get an update on Zoro & Lucci. Which is fun enough, I'm more interested in Shark Daddy headed their way because it doesn't really seem like Marimo is struggling or anything. Specifically this line, this taunt from Lucci though. Someone cool pointed out it's a very interesting line to pair with this notion around Usopp and the Giants. It's somewhat of a subversion of the logic Usopp had around Kin & Kiku. They were begging him to do this with themselves, trying to one-up each other over being the sacrifice. Also see Vegapunk Prime for further entrenchment of the theme. I like how he leans on the plot of Enies Lobby and makes a callback in his taunting. Back to our main story though:

Okay this is funny. Firmly sets Bonney in "princess" territory but that's a moot point. Love reinforcing Luffy doesn't know or care much about this Nika element. Roasting a child though before bashing the powers that be? That's our lovable stretchy goof. Context is everything here though. Not just for Luffy, but for Sanji as well. He may be destroying the field of physics as we know it, but his swirly eyebrows reversed! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Seriously though, it's doubling up on what happened with Luffy & Nika. Those are the two here, Vegapunk's saying he's done for and it's too late like a certain samurai that wasn't just trying to save his totally not surrogate daughter that Sanji's fight with Queen totally didn't lean on themes of or anything. And this was definitely, most assuredly not further reinforced by looping back in a power we noted was very interesting to reveal right after said samurai's spotlight in Act 1.

Tag! So it is Catarina and Augur actually though thanks to his fruit it's not really weird for him to be included and he potentially poofed Lafitte back or maybe he's still here. Either way the Blackbeard Pirates seemed to pull off a big coup here. If Catarina can clone Saturn now, that's scary. They can do a lot with that and it's cool we hint at a lil more of the mystery behind Teach himself.

Quick recap: So back on Fishman Island Caribou mentioned how he wanted to let "that person" know about Princess Shirahoshi being the Ancient Weapon Poseidon. After Wano Caribou once again was thinking about "that person" because now he could also let them know Pluton was in Wano For a long time, people were believing "that person" was Crocodile because we know he was interested in obtaining Pluton/had interest in Ancient Weapons, and some people believed the "X" on Caribou's shirt indicated he was like Mr 10 from Baroque Works or something. My personal argument against that had been that Crocodile should still believe that Pluton is somewhere in Alabasta, and made it explicitly clear he no longer had interest in that country. In other words, he should have given up on Pluton; so it's extremely unlikely he'd have people working for him looking for info on Ancient Weapons anymore, at this point. ADDITIONALLY only a few of the top Baroque Works agents KNEW about Pluton being Crocodile's ultimate goal, so even if Caribou had been a former BW member, he shouldn't know about Crocodile's interest in Ancient Weapons. There's also other shit but it's besides the point and doesn't matter anymore

But now, with this latest chapter, we know "that person" Caribou had always been wanting to go see was Blackbeard.

And just so we're clear; this doesn't prove Crocodad not one bit. But the reason I joked about it making Crocodad like "10% more real" is that... for Crocodad as I believe in it to become real, the story needs to develop in certain directions, and this turn of events is putting us on the right path for Crocodad. There's still plenty of time for the story divert away from that path, but it's the first step in the right direction

And I have vaguely discussed this before so I'll try to keep this vaguely short and simple but

If Crocodad Real (again, the way I've been suggesting it could be real), then to some degree Oda might need to make Crocodile 1) A slightly more sympathetic character, and 2) Not put him into a role where he'd be going up against Luffy and the Strawhats directly

Now needless to say, if Crocodile's goal with Cross Guild had been to obtain Ancient Weapons, create an evil military force and ruin people's lives, this would mean he's still just as much of an asshole as he was back in Alabasta (=not particularly sympathetic), and if he was going to head to Wano to try to take over the country to obtain Pluton... Yeah, he'd be making Luffy and co his direct enemies. Again. Of course, you could still do Crocodad in that scenario too, but it would definitely be in a much more Darth Vader-y kinda way. Except Crocodile would be both Vader AND Palpatine at the same time, and thus stopping him would not end in a heartfelt father-son reunion probably

BUT. Because we now know for sure that Caribou didn't want to gain Crocodile's favor with the info on Ancient Weapons, the chances the story would go down that route are far lower than before. It's not impossible mind you (like Catarina could refuse to take Caribou with them and with nowhere else to go Caribou could try Cross Guild, but what'd be the point in Caribou trying to join the Blackbeard pirates then), but it's more unlikely now

And if that story path has been essentially eliminated, that means the other story paths, including the ones that could lead to Crocodad, have become more viable options.

Of course, we still don't know what Crocodile's true goal is entirely, and we don't know how Buggy's mutiny is going to pan out. Like Buggy could potentially be forcing Cross Guild to join the race for One Piece, and if they legitimately did join the race, then yes, they'd be going up against the Strawhats. And there are people speculating if Buggy's "emotional speech" would "reignite Crocodile's dreams" and "make him legit want to become the Pirate King again". And yeah, if that was like spot-on, then that would make Luffy and Crocodile rivals. And as I mentioned, that wouldn't be great for Crocodad As I See It.

But if Crocodile's trying to mess with the World Government and doesn't want to join the race for One Piece or mess with Luffy... Then he wouldn't be in a rival/enemy role in the story, if anything he could be an ally, even. If his goal was to take down the corrupt WG, then that goal would be sympathetic. And this story path could be ideal for Crocodad. Telling a heartfelt story about a broken, traumatized man and letting him heal by reuniting with his estranged son will be much easier to do if the two characters aren't going up against each other and if we the readers don't completely hate the other character and want to see him get his teeth kicked in from the get-go.

And that's what I meant with the "Crocodad is 10% more real"

It's just a slightly more viable as an option and a path for the story to go down, but also far from confirmed yet