#op chapter 1162

LMAAAAO HE FUCKING STOLE IT

Shanks and Teach: two child survivors of the God Valley Incident, two sides of the same coin; only to become bitter enemies later in life

Also, dark detail to note: while both Dragon and Eris are desperate to protect both children, in contrast to Dragon telling Shanks “I won’t let you die!!”, Eris tells Teach “I won’t let them kill you”, showing she was 100% serious in her earlier statement to Xebec and was not just saying it to make him let her go and free both arms to fight Garling

Never done one of these before be nice to me.

so right away Kuma and Ivankov breaking my damn heart. Obviously Dragon is becoming the Revolutionary we all know him as in real time but the same thing is happening with Kuma, Iva, and Ginny—Iva especially here. “We just need one survivor and then we’ve won!” Really showing the revolutionary spirit here. So long as one person gets to live when the WG said they should die, it’s a victory to him. Even if he dies, Kuma getting to survive would make it worth it. Of course he, Kuma, and Ginny all live through this, but none of them know that.

And in contrast to the above, fucking Garp. Pissing me off more and more each chapter. Character wise he is SO fascinating to me but knowing damn well that getting confirmation the CDs commit mass genocide for fun DIDN’T sway him from being a Marine or keep him from wanting his grandchildren to be Marines is pmo. THINK FOR YOURSELF YOU BOOTLICKING LOOOOOSSSSEEEERRRRRRRRR.

Ok so first off, we get another confirmation that Xebec’s wife is named Eris, and now we learn that she’s a pirate! The mention of Lulusia has some crazy implications! I initially thought that Imu chose it because he figured out that Sabo was probably there and Sabo had seen him, but now it also seems that he may have been targeting Eris (assuming she lives through God Valley). If she doesn’t, this still implies something significant about Lulusia beyond Sabo’s presence there and it being a large, forested area.

Secondly, we get confirmation that Imu did come to God Valley through the Domni Reversi on Teech’s grandparents/great grandparents here. This holds up the theory that Xebec will eventually get Domni Reversi’d, since he and Roger don’t appear to actually be serious enemies in general, or interested in fighting each other at all. I did tune into @melonteee s stream today and she said that it’s also possible Imu will kill Xebec and then the WG will claim that Garp and Roger teamed up to kill him because of how dangerous he was, which is in line with the shit they pull. I do wonder why they’d put Roger in an even pseudo-heroic role, though? Maybe to emphasize how dangerous he is.

Moving onto Eris, I gotta say I did not expect this to be her personality. The first panel of her holding Teech made her come off to me as a more traditionally “sweet” Dead Mom Character, but she comes off surprisingly hardened here. Not only do we know that she’s a pirate also, but she makes it clear that she’s more than willing to kill herself and her son in order to keep him from being tortured, which is a hard call to have to make. She’s also confident that both she and Xebec will survive—which is unusual of this kind of scenario. The farewell between her and her husband here isn’t tearful, she acknowledges that one or both of them may die but she’s fairly sure that she’ll see him again. I doubt we’ll get any more of their relationship but I wish we would; they’re cute together!

And here, we get a nod that Teech, despite being a toddler at this point, has at least a semi-formed understanding of what is going on. He seems to recognize that his father is in danger and that he is likely to die. Most children that age would’ve been fooled by the bravado there.

First of all, Kaido is making my fucking day with this bullshit. He has had one (1) goal for all of God Valley and it’s been “get a devil fruit” and sure enough he’s done it. I don’t know how old he is here (i’ve heard ages from 16-21) but he’s acting like a kid. The way he knocks it away from Big Mom and puts the ENTIRE FRUIT in his mouth is so fucking funny. He is truly having the time of his life. The fact that Big Mom originally wanted the fish-fish for Katakuri is so sad though. That kid is like 8 years old at this point, and Big Mom already only thinks of him as a future asset for her future crew, which I know is par for the course with her but still. It’s especially jarring when you look at her dynamic with Kaido. Like she clearly has a level of care in her for some people, she just doesn’t seem to extend that to her children.

And meanwhile, while Kaido is playing, you have Eris running with Teech being paralleled with Dragon running with Shanks, both of them assuring the child in their arms that they won’t let them die. It’s probably not intentional but it kind of implies Dragon as a mother? Dragomom agenda?

And once again in God Valley, children stepping up to do what they adults around them should be doing but refuse to do. Kuma is nine at this point. A nine year old is doing more to save innocent people than the military group that landed here. We already knew this from Kuma’s backstory, but seeing it again in the same chapter Garp is running through the same situation going “woah… this is Real. What is…. justice?” is so damning. At least the pirates have the excuse of being preoccupied with the specific people they came to the island for, but a part of me is annoyed with them for not seeming to care about the slaves and innocent people that they can clearly see are suffering? They are fighting the CDs and Holy Knights, and as of the next page, Imu, so they get more of a pass.

And then we get whiplash from that horrifying scene to Kaido’s first ever dragon transformation! It’s so weird seeing him before the light left his eyes. Scenes like this do hammer home how he grew up on the battlefield. Battles like this were his playground as a young child, and we can see here that he continued to think of them that way before the depression started to set in. He is, again, acting like a little kid. “Watch this!” he says like he’s about to jump off the slide, turning into a terrifying dragon instead.

Garp, Roger, and Xebec’s reactions are so interesting to me. Garp is outright denying reality, Roger is excited to learn about a new thing in the world, even though that thing is a terrifying demon, and Xebec, of course, already knows about Imu and what he’s about. It says so much about all of their characters.

Blackbeard’s dad vs. Shanks’ dad at the God Valley Incident

Blackbeard: My dad can beat up your dad

But Eris, don’t you know? The Kingdom of Lulusia…

Also, in Ace’s manga cover story during Skypiea, it turns out the place he went to hunt for Blackbeard was Lulusia…where he ended up finding a Dr. Black Beard and mistook him for Teach. Seems that Ace might have retroactively been on the right trail.