Kingofwinter

And then we meet him in sovengarde, and because Skyrim literarily does not have a model for anything but "literal child", and "fully grown man" we are instead presented with a man who at best looks like he's in his late twenties, when he's supposed to be a young man, barely into his majority, probably 16 when he took the throne, and 17 when he died.

Basically, this visual misstep completely changes the players understanding of Torygg, as rather than coming across similiar to robb Stark, he instead seems more similar to Eddard Stark.

An older man, who's nature is forged and established, when in reality Torygg was a young man who had just lost his father, gotten married, and was seriously torn between staying loyal to the Empire, or declaring independence in order to undo the white-gold concordat's destructive effect on the people of skyrim.

It makes Sybille's comments that Torygg might seriously have just gone and declared Independence if Ulfric put him up to it, in a completely different light.

Istold, Torygg's father was high King of skyrim at the end of the great war, and he went along with the treaty and ensured that in regards to the surrender to the Thalmor, to quote Balgruuf, "Was I given a chance to object to the terms of the treaty? No. The Jarls weren't asked. We were told. And we had to like it."

Istold was a pragmatist, who put everything he may or may not have believed in to the side to enaure the empire didnt crumble from skyrim(the only real source of troops left in the empire at the end of the war) up and leaving at thw end of the war.

That is his father's legacy. He kept Skyrim together and underneath the Empire, and grit his teeth while accepting the de-facto Thalmor occupation and police state of Skyrim.

It would be a hard thing to do, for a son to take his father's throne, and then effectively make all that pointless, to make the sacrifice his father made for the empire meaningless.

And yet he considers doing just that.

He considers the idea of just telling the empire to take a hike, and end the Thalmor prescence in skyrim, to accept that the empire was a dead and crumbling institution(which it is) and that skyrim would be free, independent and that he would have to fight a real war of independence in which he would be the leader, the rallying cry that the nords who had suffered near on 3 decades of religious and culturual extermination, brutal taxes that left the entire region beggared to pay for the recovery of cyrodiil, and just the old idealists who wanted a proud and independent skyrim of old, would flock to.

And at the end, when he was denied the chance to choose Skyrim's future, one way or another, he choose to fearlessly face Ulfric in combat, his honor unstained, the reality that Torygg was meant to be a young man, completely reshapes the entire confrontation.

Rather than an honorable, older man, he is instead a teenager with his whole life ahead of him, being challenged out of the blue, to a life and death duel, and yet sticking true to the cultural ideals that his office as Skyrim's Monarch demanded of him, even when it would certainly lead to his death.

It also adds to the venom the people of Solitude has for Ulfric, and in turn to Roggvir who let Ulfric escape.

For most of Skyrim, the question of wheter or not they considers the duel regicide, or a legal challenge that was accepted can be looked upon from afar, and the technicalities of the legal argument can be debated from a position of second hand.

For the people of Solitude, they just lost their king, then their young prince rose up and took the throne, and despite what ulfric assesses, Torygg seems to have done his duty to keep law and order in solitude, with his headsman bitterly noting that criminal scum like the argonian who starts the shipwreck quest would not have set foot in the city if Torygg was still alive.

He was legally recognized as king by the moot, gets married, and then, one year into his reign, the prince that a lot of them had grown up with and at least be well familiar with, if not known personally, was murdered in a dubiously legal duel.

A young man, barely into his adulthood, who had his entire life ahead of him, only started his reign, had just gotten married and was settling into his rule, which by all accounts was relatively prosperous if nothing else.

Murdered, using the sacred power of the voice, by a man who himself had given Torygg his support and blessing to become High King at the moot.

It Also explains why Rocks thought that only by Harald eating the fruit would it reach it's full potential, cause this form is massive. the combination of natural strength and size paired with an enormous animal allowing for a monster with unparalleled size with all that comes with it.

This enormous dragon form of Loki is so huge that he can beat up and lift his father, a giant of the same size as Oars like he's a ragdoll.

But there is a bit more to this.

Firstly, this dragon-form isnt the kind of dragon that momo and Kaido have through their mythical devil fruits, nor another mythical variation, because just from what we see, this is an example of one of the one piece world's historical dragons, a now long since exctint monster.

this monster doesnt have the most impressive showing so far in the manga, serving mostly to be decapitated by strong swordsmen in a single blow, but they have, historically speaking, done something that makes them one of the most terrifying creatures in the OP universe.

They ended the first world by bathing it in a sea of flames.

No wonder Loki thought he was destined to usher in the end of days, with such an apokalyptic devil fruit at his command.

firstly we are shown how Loki learned early on that at the end of the day, Power is what really matters. withouth power, either your own, or others, if you are mistreated, you cant do anything about it.

Juxtaposed with that though, we are shown his father, beginning the work of turning Elbaf into a much more interconnected, wealthy, and above all, peacefull place.

We are shown the result of Harald's campaign of interconnecting the entire realm in name as well as fact, but here we already see all the cracks start.

everyone else is focusing on Harald, what he wants, his dreams, how he is changing everything, and the royal guards makes their feeling clear on the matter of succession, as this is a genuine point of contention that needs to be settled at some point, given Loki is the heir, and his brother Hajrudin is a very real political threat to his future reign... but that's not important here. Not really.

Loki doesnt see his brother. He only sees his dad, proclaiming his intention to make a world where people like Loki has no place in it.

That is ultimately what is at the heart of the matter between Loki and Harald.

Harald is so blinded by his dream of the giants of Elbaf becoming a part of the "Civilized" world, and he is more than willing to use his own, massive strength to force the issue if he needs to... But one thing he fails utterly to do, is to give those who doesnt want to give up their ways any other path foreward, the way kingdoms like arabasta did with it's royal guard, and army.

For the most part, the kingdom went along with it, because they genuinely benefitted from all the increased trade and economic boon that being part of a trade network provides.

But not all, and Loki most of all.

but as Harald gives his speech, Loki smiles, because he does see a way forward, to get what he wants, despite his father's plans and wishes.

and so, on the opposite page from his father giving his speech of the future and pacifism, he starts on of his usual rampages of destruction, but this time it isnt just a violent kid acting out.

He has a goal in mind as he beats and bullies his brother, smashes his own retainers when they piss him off, and attacks the adults with no abandon.

If his father will deny him any honor or place in the world as a warrior, then Loki will get the one honor that all those who take up the sword can attain. An honorable death in combat.

of course, Loki is not an adult, and this is another way of acting out... but it's not for payback, or to get attention this time. Loki genuinely wants this raid to end with his death.

i love that during the rampage, you can actually see the moment when one of the adults, an unnamed giant woman craddling her wounded child has finally had enough, and decides to go at this withouth kid gloves, and Loki bites his lips and smiles, clearly assuming this is it, this is where he dies.

except that doesnt happen. Loki is so bloody strong he manages to walk off the massive blow that sent him flying and threw him down to the lowest level of Elbaf.

it's not that Loki wants to die, not truly. But even young as he is, he understand that the world his father is forcing about has no place for him, because Harald's self hatred means he cannot see any honor or place for giant warriors like Loki.

And that means that as long as he is on this island, he can never be allowed to be what he is. The naturally strongest giant of his era, born for war.

so he seeks a death in battle. the one thing his father cannot deny him. except he does.

as he cries, he laments that he cannot even die, his own royal lineage as a child born of ancient giants making him so strong that even when they come at him with the intent to kill, his countrymen cannot slay him.

Whitebeard making the choice to leave Rocks to his fate rather than try to figure out what the Hell as going on with him, in no exagerated terms, Destroyed EVERYTHING Whitebeard would ever come to care about.

By making the choice to not stand by his captain, and take him on his rather dubious, clearly mind controlled, word, Whitebeard laid the foundation for Teach becoming an orphan, and with it, all that would follow.

The boy would later join Whitebeard, who would help him build strength, knowledge and experience, as well as shielding him against any possible blowback that his own lineage might bring about as Ace's did.

Never once did he realize that the boy he took in was not only planning on stabbing him in the back down the line, but that when he did, he had a very real grudge to do so, 100% as a result of Whiteveard's own choice to leave Rocks to his fate.

Whitebeard's deliberate inaction, formed from the choice made by his wounded pride, led to Teach becoming an orphan withouth parental guidance or protection, and in turn to him concocting his own plan to succeed where his father had failed, and in turn to everything Whitebeard loved falling into utter ruin.

Tatch's death for the Yami Yami no Mi.

Ace going after Teach to avenge Tatch's death, and his sucequent defeat and the war that would follow.

The war at Marineford and the death of countless of his sons.

The failure of the war and Ace's death, and with it not only making all of his son's sacrifice's pointless, but also robbing his sons of his own clear successor for the new age.

And of course his own Death, when just like Garling sneaking in to murder Rocks when he was at Death's door, the Blackbeard Pirates swoop in to finish Whitebeard off and take his life and Devil Fruit, ending his own age, just like God Valley ended Rocks...

And of course, the final, total obliteration of the Whitebeard Pirates, his pride, joy and reason for living, not ultimately destroyed by the Marines or the other Yonko, but by Teach during the Payback war, when he obliterated Edward Newgate's sons once and for all.

All of that, in a long, ironic turnabout way, ultimately came about because Whitebeard left Rocks to die, which lead to Teach to devote his entire life to make his own bid for world domination, and bring about the destruction of all that Whitebeard held dear.

So, just some symbolism behind Oda's original plan for Whitebeard's flag having a Manji rather than the standard bones it was retconned into.

The symbol originally shown on Ace's back was a Manji, an ancient Japanese symbol which has various meanings, which harkens back to what Whitebeard wanted for his family and lands.

Prosperity, Stability, and Peace.

It can also be used in various japanese words to change the meaning of it to "Great" or Awesome" which speaks for itself, when used as the symbol for the Strongest Man in the World.

As for the censored flag, it doesn't have any particular meaning, though the way it has the same shape as the World Government symbol could be seen as a challenge or fuck you by Whitebeard.

However, the Jolly Roger in general has a very distinct meaning when put against the World Government.

The skull and Crossbones has a thousand variants and are used in many contexts all dating back to death in some way... But it originates back to the Templar Knights.

The Templar Knights were a monastic Knightly order who's most famous role in history is the fact they invented Banking as we know it, a process that made the fabulously rich.

And this was in turn to be their doom, as they attracted the ire of an evil King.

Philip the 4th of France, also known as "the Iron King", was a monster, possessed by a great greed, and he caused the destruction of the order as after borriwing large amounts of money from them(He also borrowed money from Merchants and jewish money lenders, which he dealt with in similar circumstances, so he didn't have to pay what they were owed)and he declared them heretics and had them rounded up on trumped up charges of Heresy and demon worship so that he could sieze their wealth for himself.

The final master of the order Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake, and by the time his friends and followers had reached the place to find his remains, all they found amongst the ashes were his skull and two Femur bones that survived the flames.

This became a symbol of defiance against the French King for his evil ways, and would much later be used by Pirates.

Whatever the Jolly roger meant later, the original meaning of the Skull and Crossbones, is as a message of defiance against an evil, unjust, greedy, warmongering King who always stabbed those who lend him aid in the back in his wish for dominance and treasure.

When Luffy and Jinbei discuss their big rescue operation, and Luffy's stance on heroism, most readers focus on Luffy's vehement declaration that he is not a hero, and doesn't want to be regarded as one.

However, there is another one detail after that that, which at first glance is perplexing.

Luffy claims he doesn't want people to cheer him on, and gets nervous just having the concept brought up, leading him to declare he hates being cheered on by anybody.

This is... Weird.

Yes, there were times in pre-timeskip where luffy was at odds with the people cheering him on(The Kuro Pirstes for example), but he never really hated the idea on principle before, and after this arc, this pretty much dissapears for the most part.

So why here, and why now?

The answer is simple.

The reason he looks nervous just thinking anout it, is that he immediatly flashed back to the last time "Everybody chereed him on", when he went above and beyond anyone's hopes at Marineford, where Whitebeard ordered his sons to back him up with all their might.

When against all odds, he pulled it off, and showed Whitebeard's trust in him was wellplaced, when he punched the sonofabitch Garp across the face and sent him flying, freed his brother, and stood up to Sengoku the buddha and emerged relatively unharmed from it.

But he cant remember that part.

All he can remember, is this.

One thing that really amazes me about Oda's reveal that Teach was at God Valley, and it was THE defining moment of his life, is how well it fits together with everything we see of him in general.

it all comes back to what Otohime once said.

The Children are watching.

Adults can make their own choices in life, they can change, they can make the decision to let go of, or embrace hatred.

Children are different. Children dont have the ability to truly make sense of the world, to understand and comprehend the difference between right and wrong. They are taught that lesson by the world and people around them. If the adults around them are able to let go of hatred, children will pick up on that. meanwhile if they see the adults they respect and love pick up a sword, they will pick up on that.

If they are taught to hate the outsider, they will hate the outsider. if they are taught it is their duty to protect the community, they will grow with the understanding that this is their eventual lot in life.

and on the opposite end, if they see everything they love and care about be ripped down and torn to pieces in front of them, that is what they will learn.

That was Teach's great lesson in life. Power is the only thing that matters. He got to see firsthand how worthless the Marine's justice is, when they and the world government they served obliterated and genocided his people before his eyes, his own family paraded on stage and declared as animals to be hunted down for sport.

As far as the World Government is concerned, that was their only worth in life. Their only value, to be more valuable sports targets.

And later that day, wheter he got to see it firsthand or not, his dad, the strongest man in the world, his logical protector who's role and duty it was to defend him and his family from this, be struck down.

Murdered by the world government while he tried to prevent the genocide of his home.

Power is the only thing that matters.

These are the childhood lessons that enforced Teach's worldview, and drove ALL his actions afterwards.

Teach, more than any other pirate in history, maybe with the exception of Xebec, is a pirate who is obsessed with power.

His entire plan is to become not just the ruler of the world, but THE strongest person on the planet.

his entire plan AND it's backup plan is all in service to his attachment to power.

By his own admission, Teach was more than willing to spend the rest of his days(or however long Whitebeard lived) on whitebeard's ship if he never found the Yami Yami no mi.

why? Because Whitebeard was the strongest man in the world, and had the power to protect him.

He doesnt come out and say it like that, but when you see his life history, and know that teach was willing to let his dreams go to stay at whitebeard's ship if necessary, it's obviously clear that for a young Teach, the protection Whitebeard offered, was a goal in and of itself.

Teach wants to feel safe, which isnt exactly hard to understand when you know what happened to him.

And the only way to feel safe... is overwhelming power.

this also explains his actions at marineford.

after killing his adopted father for his devil fruit, Teach's very first action is to begin ripping down Marineford, and he does that with absolute glee.

And why not?

Teach at this point has become a monster in his own right, but there is no question that the Marines are infinitly worse, and they deserve to be ripped down.

as far as Teach is concerned, this is just the Davy Clan finally getting some justice for God Valley, by ripping down their precious symbol of justice.

At first reading, it's easy to see Teach's absolute glee and powertrip as just a result of his plans finally coming together after all these years... But when you know his past, its very easy to see this for what it is.

Teach is powertripping, both because he finally feels in control, safe, strong enough that he can not be beaten, withouth having to rely on anyone else but himself for his own safety, and because he finally has the power to destroy the navy he hates with such passion.

That's one of the things that can be easy to miss, but Teach never hated the Whitebeard Pirates. They simply were a means to an end.

The marines are a different story, because Teach HATES the marines for very obvious reasons.

it's also who he reacts so differently to Sengoku's challenge than he did with his short bout with Whitebeard.

whereas that has teach at his single most pathetic and cowardly moment, the moment immediatly afterwards is one of utter defiance despite being in just as much, if not even more danger.

Not only does he feel he has the power to challenge the world as he wants now, but unlike his adopted dad that though he didnt love, he didn't hate either, When fighting Garp and Sengoku, Teach has hatred to push him through any fears he might have to possibly facing death.

Teach WANTS to kill Sengoku, Garp, and every other marine there, in a way he didnt actually want to kill Whitebeard, and that is a powerfull rush that plays into Teach's powerush.

He can now challenge the world, AND he can FINALLY begin his work to obliterate the people who ripped down his own life and killed his family.

And tying back into what Otohime said, and warned about, here we see Teach repeat the lessons he himself learned at the hands of the world government when he was a child.

The child who was brutalized and who's family was genocided before his eyes, now declares his intention to destroy the entire world's "Peace".

and why not? This is what the World government does all the time. Declare peace to now be over, and it is their right to just destroy as they please, because they are strong.

Teach is the world government's ethics and philosophy of the strong rules and does as they please thrown back in their face, by utterly rejecting any weneers of a higher calling, while using the exact same justifications they use to back up all their countless attrocities.

The Strong rule the world and does as they please.

and yet... Despite all of that, there is still that one, spark of humanity left.

The ONLY person who manages to shake Teach with Words, is Coby, in his famous speech where he asks what they are even doing here, why they are killing pirates rather than saving their countless wounded.

that this is all a giant waste of time and lives.

That they will all die for nothing.

This, and this alone is the only thing that ever gives the adult Blackbeard pause, the only time he ever seems to question himself.

Why?

Because here, at his greatest triumph, Coby manages to bring it all back to God Valley.

A single man, on a field of slaughter screaming about how this is all wrong, how everybody dying are dying for nothing, a sharp reminder that the people around him arent just tools for his grand plan to set himself up as the invincible ruler of the world, but human beings.

Just like him, his family, and all the people of God Valley.

this is one of the most important things about Teach. He was not born a monster.

Unlike Doffy who by all accounts was born a sociopath and his horrible childhood just made him worse and worse, Teach CHOOSES to be the way he is.

He was made by his own choices later in life, and by the actions of the world government and the marines, the living embodiment of all the evils the world government has wrought upon the world, and now stares it in the face like a dark, twisted mirror.

He is the monster the World Government made for itself, their own great villain, who is his father, only minus all the good parts of Davy D. Xebec.

Xebec always tells Harald that deep down, he hasn't changed. That warrior blood still runs deep in his veins, and underneath the facade of a diplomat, is a man who would very much prefer to solve things with his sword, rather than words.

We also gets a juxtaposition between two moments that are morally right and wrong, but stems from the same inborn wish to settle things with a sword.

There is his attack on the very evil world government to stop them taking his friends as slaves, arguably the most heroic thing he ever did.

Then there was his completely unjustifiable attempted murder of his own friend Xebec to try to get a chance to join said evil government.

There is no moral case to be made here. Harald tried to kill his own friend for nothing but raw, personal ambitions.

That is the action of a violent pirate, not a king who wants his people to be viewed as peaceful and honest.

Harald might not be under any moral obligation to join Xebec... But he throws away any moral highground by trying to kill him to join an organization that he knows is evil.

He tries to justify it as just being bound by his royal obligations, but the truth is simple.

He just wants to live to see a time when the giants of Elbaph are no longer seen as savages. He wants to actually live to see that everything he did actually had a point.

Which is why he makes his deal with the devil, even if he fails at it.

But of course, Harald and Xebec had one, final chat, where Rocks tried one, final time to get him on his side, swallowing his pride from their last fight for the sake of his own family... But that isn't the only thing that has changed.

In all their other conversations of when Xebec wanted Harald to join him, Xebec always tried to frame it in the way of the Giant king joining him and returing to the old ways.

This time is different.

This time, xebec appeals to something else.

His sense of morality.

Its such an out of character move, that Harald is actually shocked when Xebec reveals the fact he has a family of his own... Only to be blindsided by the reveal that God Valley is his hometown, where his kid currently is.

Xebec believes firmly that unless something drastic changes, he's gonna die at this mission.

As such, he made the choice to reach out a hand in friendship one last time, lay all the cards on the table, and show Harald that unlike before, this isn't a pirate's raid.

This is a rescue mission.

The difference between being right and being wrong.

If Harald is a good man, he cannot possibly refuse this. He knows what is happening at God's valley.

Just standing aside is pure evil... And Xebec reminds him of that fact, and hammers in the point even harder.

If he truly does care about even little people, that people have a right to live in peace, even if they weren't born big and strong like him, Harald has to come with him to God's Valley and stop what is going on there, and save Xebec's family.

In the end though, Harald has lost sight of what he actually set out to do. Why he originally changed in his youth, from a lowlife scumbag to a good man.

He's forgotten why he does what he does, forgetting why he jumped from his ship to attack the navy one, because doing so had a price attached to it... But it was the right choice to make.

He can only see the endgoal, a world where the giants are part of the "civilized world", not why being good mattered to him in the first place.

Being good is hard, but if he could just see for himself that it was all worth it... Is that not a price wirth closing him eyes and let a genocide happen for?

The answer incidentally, is no.

It is in fact, the height of cowardice. Weakness and craveness masquarading as responsibility and virtue.

And in the end, Harald, who could not see the forest for the trees, has his greatest moment of weakness, and lets the world government commit another genocide withouth lifting a finger to stop it, worse he actively plays at least some part in trying to stop the one force that is interested in seeing it stopped and has the power to make it happen.

And by doing so, believing the power of the world government could not be stopped or challenged, he ultimately lets the one man eho had the potential to end the world order go to his death.

And in the end, the consequences of that choice would come home to roost, as he too would be killed by that same force he refused to aid Rocks in stopping.

so now that we are finally going to get to see blackbeard's mom, i guess it's time to make some observations and theories.

for those who dont know, we were going to be introduced to Blackbeard's mama and a set of twin sisters during Ace's hunt reaching it's conclusion.

now with all of that in mind, it seems doubtfull that oda is going to go with the idea that teach has twin sisters, given everything that is about to go down at god valley... well, unless mrs Davy here was pregnant at the time everything went down wich... would actually fit right in with everything that is happening.

however, even with that in mind, there are a lot of questions.

For one thing, we know that even if both teach's mom and his unborn siblings make it out of god valley, Teach is still ultimately going to end up alone, as during his earliest years when he formed his grand plan, Teach had been rendered an orphan, who, as we'll cover, could not sleep.

There are also the fact that Teach's sisters are... young.

Assuming they too would be children of Xebec, they would be somewhere around the ballpark of late 30's.

Even taking oda's tendency to make his female characters seem younger than they are, these two dont even seem fully adult. they seem like teenagers, and not on the older end of that either.

Then we get into the age old mystery about Teach's unique body.

Both luffy and Zoro immediatly pinged Blackbeard as being multiple people, not one.

he also has the unique ability to consume and survive more than one devil fruit.

and then of course there is the fact he he frankly seems to have multiple personality disorder, given the way he flips from seeming like his father with his talk of dreams, to a coward that fears the smallest chance of danger, wich is completely at odds with the way he at other times shows such unflinching bravery it borders on suicidal overconfidence,the way he paradoxically fully understands ace's motives and that he would never join him, but also honestly asks him to join his crew fully confident he would.

then of course we have whitebeards assertion that despite his lineage, Teach isn't a True D. whatever that means.

Overall, it is clear that something happened to teach, that fundamentally changed him down to his core, something involving his mom and two possible sisters, and all things considered, it most certainly happened at God's Valley.

and then we have the meta aspect of it all.

Originally, oda was going to reveal the answers to this mystery, or at least pull back the curtain substancially, when Ace and Blackbeard fought.

But he made the concious decidion to NOT do that, and instead save it for the endgame, when we got to see the incident that ties the entierty of the past together.

And one, big, important point that has changed between those two, is that one piece has shown that there are far more magic in the one piece world than just devil fruits.

my guess is that whatever happens to baby teach, it's probably going to be something mystical in nature. Maybe he flat out dies, slaugthered by the celestial dragons, the marines, or as a collateral in his battle with garp and roger. and using those dark and forbidden arts he has knowledge of, Rocks ressurects the boy, but as a consequence there is more inside his head than just little Teach. that at least includes his mother, but also probably two other entities teach calls his "sisters".

this in turn would tie into all we learn about Imu and the way he/her can possess people at ease, nor would this be the only case between ace vs blackbeard and now we see of this.

cavendish is very clearly possessed by another entity, though the marines and others tries to pass it/explain it off as some wierd personality disorder when in reality it fits in neatly with how possession works in one piece, though obviously in a different form than imu's.

in fact, if teach is in a similar boat to cavendish, it would explain a lot about how he flips and flops on so many aspect of his personality on a dime.

it might also explain why teach cannot fall asleep. when Cavendish does so, he loses all autonomy and becomes just a puppet.

Teach might be in a similar boat, but because he never falls asleep he never fully loses control over himself the way cavendish does.

instead the "multiple parts" of himself manifests all the time, just in subtler ways. there is always just marshal d teach, but sometimes he's a full blown coward, other times he has the hutzpah to face the likes of ace head on withouth any fear, sometimes he's jovial, and sometimes he's sociopathic, othertimes he's a schemer who sticks to the plan way too much, and other times he flips his plan on a dime to take advantage of new circumstances.

When Hannyabal has his famous speech about Impel Down be a fortress of Hell to ensure the common people of the world feels safe and secure, Luffy doesn't refute this idea, because the man literarily does not care.

No, his condemnation comes from someone else.

Blackbeard is a man who has rejected the labels of "Good" and "Evil" entierly, and tells Hannyabal that searching for it is a waste of time, that you will never find it, no matter where you go in the world.

That it is POWER that determines things in the world, and that Justice and Honor are just nice coats of paint people put on their actions to make themselves Righteous.

Unlike Luffy, this is a man who has thought long and hard about this topic, and in the end, he decided it was bullshit.

But the funny thing is... Blackbeard is entierly right about it as far as the world government is concerned.

It is all bullshit. Anyone who stays within the system and tries to adhere to a higher calling Justice are at best deluded and lied to, and at worst hypocrites like Garp, or even worse, they know it's bullshit and does not care.

And Teach would know that better than most, having lived through a genocidal Human hunt, thst the world government organizes every third year for fun and profit.

Thematically speaking, Blackbeard rips open Impel Down and releasing all sorts of horrible people into the world... But it's hard to claim he's the bad guy for doing so, when the govenrment who locked them away, are factually speaking, far worse than any of the pirates they fight.

Justice can't be found on the seas, because the seas are ruled by someone, and who that someone... And why shoudln't that be him?

After all, Imu has no other claim to rulership of the world beyond the right of conquest, and so has no more right to rulership of the world than Teach and Rocks did.

Blackbeard and Luffy are both Imu's opposites, luffy in the sense of being the Antithesis of what Imu stands for, but Teach is a different animal.

Teach as we know him was made by the World Government.

The defining moment that laid the groundwork for everything that would make him who he is, was created by one of the worst attrocities the WG commits.

He knows just how hollow the world Government's and Marines justice really is, but rather than rage against it like Dragon does, he has instead embraced that logic to it's fullest. Their own logic that supreme power is what defines one's right to rule.

If the world has no real justice and only the right of the strongest to rule, then the world govenrment has no moral standing to justify anything.

They just have the point of a blade against people they don't like.

Funny thing about swords though, they dont care who they cut. Just who is holding the hilt.

Hannyabal's ideals are, however much me believes them, bullshit, because they are tied to the world government who made this prison, and because of that, it's all rotten to the foundation.

Justice needs a strong base to be built on, not just healthy branches that springs from a poisoned tree trunk.

Unless you have that, the entire thing is a hopeless cause.

You will find no justice, no matter where you go. Wheter in West Blue at God Valley, Impel Down, Marineford or any of the other countless places Marines and the other tools the World Government operate.

Him and Roger both decide to bet the future of their child by banking on getting aid from a rival they respect.

Understanding that this is going to be their last big battle, he throws himself into the thick of fray with no abandon, all to save his beloved son, just as Whitebeard did when he met his destiny at Marineford.

His and Harald's relationship is remarkably similar to Luffy's and Zoro's initial meeting, him and Luffy have remarkably similar personalities(With the caveat that Rocks is much more evil than luffy), Rocks strategy of setting himself up as an actual pirate monarch would be followed by the Yonko doing the exact same, and almost all of his crew would try replicate his winning strategy, all to lesser results than him.

He was withouth any doubt the greatest Pirate in One Piece's history with the possible exception of Joy Boy, who's story is not told yet.

He was the strongest, the most charismatic, the most cunning, and the most successfull of the pirate monarchs who all tried to conquer and actually rule the seas with what was no doubt the most powerfull assembly of pirates in history.

However, in all of his many achievements, there is one, singular weakness.

His terrible choice of friends.

When Sengoku gives his propagandized assessment of the Rocks Pirates and their captain, almost everything he labels the captain with are lies or exageration in order to sell him as the most evil thing to ever exist(which he wasnt. That would be the world nobles and their monarch)... But there was one point he was spot on about.

Rocks, for all his abilities, had a remarkable tendency to chose the worst friends and allies.

Ida once mocked Rocks by saying that if Harald was her son, she'd tell him to "Choose better friends", but the irony is thst it was actually the other way around.

Because Harald was a terrible friend to Rocks.

Not only did he try to kill him for his own gains, but when the chips fell down, and Rocks swallowed his pride to bury the hatchet, tell Harald everything and ask him to back him up, his old friend not only refused to help Rocks save his son, but actually did his own part to try to stop it.

And he was not the only terrible friend Rocks bet it all on.

The rocks pirates were not a completely non functional group of pirates withouth any shred of sense of cameraderie and ability to function... But it had so many obvious, gaping holes and rivalries in it's makeup that all crashed in on itself, with betrayal and backstabbing.

It wasn't that the Rocks pirates couldn't function together.

It was that there were so many people in the crew that could not function when all gathered together in one group, that it all eventually would come crashing down.

This could have been mitigated by Rocks if he had been more selective in his recruiting, but he wanted the biggest, strongest and most successfull pirates under his banner, and everything else be damned.

And that was his bane.

Rocks was an amazing pirate... But a horrible captain, who for all his incredible charisma and ambition had no ability to "Choose better friends" who would have his back when the chips came down the way the Whitebeard Pirates, Big Mom Pirates, Roger Pirates, Red Hair Pirates, and Straw-Hat Pirates did, all of whom would follow(And 3 did) their captain to their last breath.

They used various means to make it happen, but in this regard Luffy, Roger, Shanks, Whitebeard, Big Mom and Kaido all turned out to be better captains than Rocks.

When Whitebeard needed someone to stop Kaido before Marineford, Shanks had his back. When he called his sons up to gather for the war they all came.

When Roger needed someone to protect ace, he bet it all on Garp, and Garp despite his countless mistakes, ensured Ace did live to see adulthood as Roger asked.

When luffy needed help to break into Impel down, Hancock had his back. When he needed Law for their alliance to kill Kaido, Law backed him all the way.

When Rocks asked his old friend Harald to save his kid and wife, Harald proved himself to be a cowardly rat.

When he needed to save his son, he understood that he could not trust any of his crew(And the one he could have trusted, whitebeard, he clearly didn't understand) with portecting and watching over his child.

And when he went off to save his son, rather than follow, his crew immediatly began bickering and all go do their own thing.

And in this, we not only see ahades of all the great Pirates that followed him, but also the coming failures as well.

All the same problems that ultimately undid Rocks, are the same ones that is already lining up to undo his own Son's crew in the long run, as well as Buggy's rather depressing alliance.

And that is what makes Rocks so much more than just "History's Greatest Pirate".

In him, we see all the greatness, but also the weaknesses of all the ones that would follow after him.

For better or worse, Rocks did all of it first.

He was the greatest pirate, the worst captain, and the most influential hoister of the black flag that ever set sail.

I did the math, and at best, Dragon is 16 years old here, more likely 15.

Meaning he was younger than luffy was when he became a pirate when he discovered how evil the marines and world government was and left them.

kinda puts how awfull his dad is, when he stuck by the government completely loyal and unquestioning about their slaving and genocide way, long into his old age, into perspective.

also speaking of Garp...

Dragon is clearly a recruit here, so there are two possibilities in regards to Dragon's presence on God Valley.

Either he is under Garp and is only here as a result of his dad coming to the event... or more likely given Garp only seemed to arrive after it had long since begun, Dragon was just yet another Marine here.

meaning Either Garp willingly and knowlingly dragged his 15/16 year old son into a hugeblown massacre and a clash between the greatest powers the pirate world ever saw, or he he knew his son was part of God Valley, and wasn't at all concerned about him being part of a genocide, huge clash of powers, and oh yeah, the fact that his literal child was a soldier on his own side, or he kept so little watch over Dragon that he didn't even know he was there.

This is most brutally apparent in Oda's portrayals of the Straw hats in his SBS bad ending timeline, where every single one of them(with the arguable exception of Chopper) ended up being wrecked by old age in timelines where they gave up their dreams and comrades.

Whereas hypotetical timelines where they keep going as they are now end up aging much more gracefully(except for Zoro, the poor dolt)

Now this all ties into One Piece's themes of living on withouth regret, and chasing one's dreams in spitenof opposition, but amongst the various characters, there is one that stood out to me, because we can learn a lot of new things about her by looking when and how she declined, similarily to the hypotetical bad endings for the straw hats.

Charlotte Linlin, aka the Yonko Big Mom has aged like a rusty ship on the bottom of the ocean... Which is impressive, because physically she is still young due to her devil fruit allowing her to cheat aging entierly.

By all accounts she COULD have remained in the prime of her life forever... But she did not.

And the reasom for that, is that she absoned her dreams, the actual thing she wanted, in favor of becoming Pirate King.

During the age of the Rocks Pirates, Big Mom is by all accounts in the prime of her life.

She is relatively young, already has wast amounts of contacts, and is powerfull as Hell... But she is also something we very rarely see im present day.

Happy.

Linlin is genuinely, honestly happy with little strings attached.

She's out on the prowl, relishing in her life as a pirate, and in general just having the time of her life.

This period of her life is her being in her element, gathering alongside people of all stripes, and we see a much more laidback, friendlier, more selfcontrolled and all in all happier Linlin, withouth that brutal bloodlust just hiding at all times under the surface.

Wheras everyone else just sees Rocks crew as a chance for booty and advancing their own goals, Linlin(councsiously or not) is there because Rocks goals of unifying the world under his own banner helps her original dream of creating a world where everyone can eat at the same table regardless of race as well.

After Rocks died, and Roger rose and in turn died, this changed.

Linlin never fully stopped trying to pursue her dream of a world where everyone could sit down at the same table, but once she set herself up as a yonko, an Empress in her own right, it changed from "I want to unify the people of the world", to "I want to unify the people of the world UNDER ME!"

But the thing is, unlike Rocks who relished in the idea of conquering the world, that was never linlin's dream.

Conquering huge swats of territory, then having to defend it from rivals and upstarts didn't make her happy. Pursuing the title of pirate king didnt make her happy. Just sitting on her throne and destroying herself by constantly being offered stupidly large amounts of food didn't make her happy either.

Not as much as her days with that crew of old did.

The only time we see Big Mom as happy as she was in her days with the Rock pirates was when she ate that cake sanji made, and just for a moment, she began resembling the old woman from her youth, when she was genuinely happy with the way her life was going.

When Whitebeard died, his last thoughts were about his regrets, but also of thriumph, of how much he loved his sons, and how they were his greatest treasure, the thing he sought from the beginning.

When Big mom was plunged into the lava filled abyss, her last thoughts werent on anything like that. Not her dream, not her family, not how she came to be here.

Instead she focuses on when she regards as when all began going wrong in her life. When roger gave his proclamation. Of how she refuses to give up and die, to accept the innevitable, because that would be to addmit it was all a waste of time. That all that time she spent setting herself up as the next pirate king was all a waste of time she wasn't truly invested in.

One of Luffy's first big developments as a Leader, was when Vivi taught him the lesson that as the boss, for the sake of his own ambitions and friends, and even himself, he had to learn to know when he had to let things go.

This is a critical, yet often overlooked part of his character, but it really showcases again and again through the series where Luffy time and again makes friends or allies out of former enemies... All harkening back to this lesson Vivi taught him.

Probably the most ironic example being when this very lesson is the reason why luffy, pragmatically let Crocodile go free despite having burned Vivi's Kingdom to the ground, something he was still pretty peeved about.

It's one aspect where Luffy proved himself superior to his brother Ace, and by extension Roger, neither of which were ever able to let things go.

There is a time for retribution, there is a time to be the bigger man, and there is a time to run.

Those who do not understand this ends uo dead in the grave.

Luffy, fittingly enough, being a rubber man and all, has learned this lesson well, and is flexible when faced with challenges in life.

But as I said, there is a dark side to this approach.

And that dark side is showcased the best in his grandfather, Monkey D. Garp.

Garp, Like Luffy is able to let things go... But in his case letting things go is him being able to live with things like the world nobles slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people and not only not doing anything about it, but laughing and enjoying himself under the sun while it happens.

Its standing aside and letting his fellow marines butcher innocent and completely unrelated pregnant women and children in their hunt for Roger's child... Despite his self proclaimed belief that children are the single most important thing in the world that must be cheriahed and protected at all costs.

This is who Monkey D. Garp is.

He is a man able to let things go, so long as it doesn't happen directly in front of his face.

On the flip side, Garp also lacks Luffy's will to stand bg his principles, showcased best during the Whitebeard War, when, after committing himself to stand by as a Marine, he falters the moment he has to actually fight his grandson.

Garp is not only able to just let things go when it's convinent, but he doesn't have the spine to actually stand by his ideals and choices.

When the consequences of Garp choosing to stand by the Marines comes home to roost, and Ace does die, he snaps, and in that one, brief moment, he commits himself to killing Sakazuki in retaliation, choosing family over the marines...

But it doesn't last. Very quickly, Garp lets it go. By the time the war ends, he, as he always does, resigns himself to this being yet another thing the Marines does that he is able to live with.

The marines does indeed matter more to him than his family ever did.

When Dadan bests the shit out of him, the reason Garp isn't able to either bring himself to fight her, is that he knows she's right.

He is an old geezer who, no matter what ever the marines and the world government does, no matter how much it strains with his own beliefs and ideals, he will ALWAYS let things go in the end.

Family, ideals, right and wrong does not matter to him as much as the Navy does.

There is a part of him that strains against that, who wants to be better.

But deep down he knows. He wont be better.

He will always be Garp, the Hero of the Marines.

Just a concept art drawing of Ganon for a story i had planned.