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MISSING RACE AND HELL ARC
Well, there's still quite a bit left to figure out in One Piece, and what happens in Wano is going to heavily influence the next few developments, but theories and predictions always have a certain amount of risk and gambling to them, so I'll go on ahead and make a theory about what I believe is going to happen next. There are obvious gaps left to fill, and I'm not sure about the execution, but I think we have enough elements foreshadowed to make a structured theory on this. First we'll go about the missing race, and then how that connects to my belief that Hell is an actual place in One Piece, and how we're going to see it after or intertwined with Elbaf.
THE MISSING RACE
There's been a lot of focus around race diversity in the second half of the series, and I wasn't sure where to start, so I'll go with the Straw Hat crew. Taking Luffy out of the equation, let's take a closer look at every other Straw Hat, his followers, what they represent, and some of the most important Kingdoms in the story. Keep in mind that you have to look at some of this stuff with abstract thinking, and consider them metaphors for factions of the past with ties to the grand mystery.
- Zoro is a swordsman from Wano, a country heavily implied to have strong connections to the Void Century plot and poneglyphs
- Sanji is a genetically modified human, using the Lineage Factor, hinted to have Lunarian blood. Lunarians seem pretty important.
- Franky is a cyborg from Water 7, the city that “built” Pluton. They are both (Sanji+Franky) connected to Vegapunk in the second half of the series, by the Lineage Factor and Science.
- Nami is connected to the sky islands and weather, not only because of her powers, but she trained in Weatheria, under a Birkan instructor.
- Usopp will probably have his catharsis in Elbaf.
- Robin is the human devil child from Ohara, the kingdom of knowledge and her motif is the flower, a very common theme.
- Chopper is a doctor with a suggestive backstory. We can easily associate him with the Mink in this crew, by both being an animal and having a berserk form.
- Jinbei is a Fishman
- Vivi is an honorary member, from Alabasta.
- Sanji is a genetically modified human, using the Lineage Factor, hinted to have Lunarian blood. Lunarians seem pretty important.
- Franky is a cyborg from Water 7, the city that “built” Pluton. They are both (Sanji+Franky) connected to Vegapunk in the second half of the series, by the Lineage Factor and Science.
- Nami is connected to the sky islands and weather, not only because of her powers, but she trained in Weatheria, under a Birkan instructor.
- Usopp will probably have his catharsis in Elbaf.
- Robin is the human devil child from Ohara, the kingdom of knowledge and her motif is the flower, a very common theme.
- Chopper is a doctor with a suggestive backstory. We can easily associate him with the Mink in this crew, by both being an animal and having a berserk form.
- Jinbei is a Fishman
- Vivi is an honorary member, from Alabasta.
Finding out other equivalents or shared motifs to certain characters, putting them together, and then doing some reverse engineering is what I’ll be doing.
Brook is the decayed, the cursed one, mostly associated with souls, and his attacks are themed around the chilling winds of the undead. We met him back in Thriller Bark, where he was cursed to never leave the mists and see the sun. We've had the mists mentioned quite a lot in the series, and there's a race who several people want to recreate: Ancient Giants, who I believe could be equated to Titans.
Two things come to mind: the shadowy figure back in Thriller Bark, who hid in the mists and that we never got to see, but was portrayed as huge, and Zunisha.
Zunisha, in particular, is very interesting (I’ll call it a she). She was Joyboy's nakama, commited a crime, and got cursed for it, bringing the mist wherever she goes, and being denied the sun in its full capacity. Please don't get stuck on technicalities: some sunlight reaches Zou, but never to its maximum potential. I know this might sound convoluted, but syncretizing different motifs into one, and having polar opposites is a big thing in One Piece. Remember how the minks were close retainers to the Kozuki? They symbolize undying loyalty, and go berserk under the moon, just like werewolves. A polar opposite would be a race of betrayers, who can't see the sun, and that's the equivalent of Vampires. Titans or Vampires? Which one am I going for? The answer is both. They'll probably have shared motifs and depictions, merged into one single race, or perhaps not, but I do believe we'll be seeing something close to this soon enough.
Do we have any metaphorical depiction of this?
Where am I going with this?
HELL/TARTARUS
Now let's focus on Hell. I think an equivalent depiction could be Tartarus, but first thing's first: Why do I think it’ll exist?
- Heaven existed in the One Piece world: it was Skypiae. That's an arc themed around heaven, with the pearly gates, clouds, angels and a "god" (and many more references) . All of these were previous inhabitants of the moon, so pretty much aliens. I think this should be enough to keep an open mind about the possibility of a hell equivalent existing in the One Piece world.
- You could argue Impel Down is that equivalent, and I'd agree that it's a metaphor for it, and we can draw a lot from it when looking at that future arc, but it's still just a prison. Impel Down was heavily influenced by Dante's Inferno, an epic where we get to see the 9 layers of hell. Impel down goes down to 6 levels, and the equivalent in Inferno is layer 6, for the heretic. We have 3 layers left, represented by Violence, Fraud and Treachery. In the deepest level lies Satan, with his three faces and covered in ice, condemned for the highest sin: treachery against god.
- Water 7 is an arc around Pluton, the god of hell, a weapon whose whereabouts we still don't know about. I think it's a reasonable statement that, in case hell exists, something related to it might be there, just like Poseidon was at the bottom of the sea. It's also centered around betrayal. The question is: do we have any geographical place that we can associate with it, or is this all just confabulation?
- Enies Lobby is where that arc reaches its climax, and it's literally a waterfall that goes downwards, just like there was one to reach Heaven/Skypiea. You can even google "Hell's mouth" and find geographical locations on Earth that resemble it. Not only that, the arc is themed around purgatory. Passing judgment, tower of law, a judge named "Cerberus", Gates of Justice (pearly gates?) and a main antagonist named Luci(fer). There are honestly a lot more references. One final look at Dante's Divine Comedy: Skypiea was Paradiso, Enies Lobby was Purgatory and Impel Down was Inferno.
- Wano being a preceding arc, is quite littered with references to Hell (and heaven as well), with Zoro inheriting Enma and declaring he'll be the King of Hell, Orochi saying he'll take Hiyori to hell, the Enma shrine, and the list goes on and on.
ASSOCIATING THESE TWO TOGETHER
So, if we're to tie these two together, we have the cursed betrayers, who’re Ancient Giants/Titans, and they might have shared iconographic portrayals with vampires, and they’ve gone missing. Where could they be?
If you look across several mythologies and religions, Titans are usually dwellers of the underground/underworld. The most popular story around this, for a western audience, is probably Tartarus. I don't want this to get too convoluted, because there's a lot to polish here, but my point is that there's a plot already being constructed, and some characters share motifs that we can use to interpret the general cadence of where we're going, although there's still a lot left to figure out. The overall plot around Tartarus is that it’s both a primordial deity and a place. It got less and less depicted as a deity as time went on, and became mostly known as the prison for the Titans. Again, I’m just pointing out sources of inspiration and elements already in play within the story, but I’m not sure how it’s gonna play out.
Some quick stuff about Tartarus that might be interesting when taking into account what’s happening in the story: most Titans were sentenced to Tartarus, but a couple of them were spared, like Prometheus and Epimetheus, who acted as god's representatives for mankind. Apollo, the god of the sun, was said to have spent some time there because of a feud with Zeus, but was later freed from it.
Gaia (Goddess of the Earth, also called the Mother who gave life) bore Typhon, together with Tartarus, enraged after Zeus cast her children (Titans) into Tartarus. Typhon was a monstrous snake, so powerful that even the gods feared him. It fought a tremendous battle with Zeus and was eventually trapped in Tartarus as well. Kaido is a big antagonistic snake who’s one of the strongest beings in the entire story. I know this might sound confusing, but let’s look at it with some abstract thinking: Big Mom (mother) had the power to grant life to inanimate beings and ended up being a motherly figure to him. His fatherly figure seems to be Xebec. There’s a gigantic horned skull in Wano called Onigashima. That’s where the concept of history repeating itself comes to mind, but the scale seems so much smaller in present day One Piece. Still, we’ve escalated to the point we have actual gods in the story, so who knows where we might end up…
Edit: The Big Mom reference is to be taken with a grain of salt. She was the gluttonous being that ended up eating Mother Caramel. She was inherently "good", but a natural born disaster, who became "corrupted" after eating Caramel, and I believe there's symbolic meaning to that in itself. It's just an illustration to keep in mind.
VIVI AND PLUTON
A few more details to keep in mind, that might be a possible answer to some questions, but highlight the fact that the post Onigashima segment is what's going to help me interpret the direction we're going.
I mentioned how mythology has a lot of equivalents across several cultures, but a big question mark is on how Vivi plays out into this. Keep in mind that Pluton is the equivalent of Hades, the god of the underworld, but also Enma and Yama, depending on the culture. I still believe Oda probably used Hindu mythology as the backbone for a lot of the story, syncretized a lot of other stuff into his own plot, and deviates to certain cultures depending on the arc he's writing. Elbaf is going to be mostly nordic, but I have an easier time explaining using a different mythology, so bare with me.
A few very important mentions on Yama, the Hindu god of the Underworld, but always keep in mind that you're supposed to read Yama/Pluton as the same:
He's the son of Surya, Hindu god of the sun, and he has a twin sister, called Yami. If Yama is the personification of death, Yami was the twin opposite, representing life. She was the goddess of the Ganges river, and bathing in her water removed sin. It’s where the sinners seeked penance.
Vivi is clearly associated with Pluton, so here’s my read on where we’re going: I don't think Vivi being introduced to the plot again, and having something happening to her during the Levely was a coincidence when thinking about the timeline we’re going through, assuming we're going to the Underworld at some point. We need Vivi back on board, and I'm not saying she's literally the twin sister of the god of the underworld, but we've had several mentions on how this current generation is the one where all the needed pieces come together, by having quite literal manifestations of gods/goddesses. Could she be the one to remove the curse on these beings, considering they're banished from the Sun, and Vivi comes from Alabasta, the Kingdom most associated with it? We also know that the Nefertari bloodline chose to remain with humans, but they were offered a position among the Celestial Dragons. Perhaps part of them betrayed the heroes, and the other side did not approve of this, and we'll have that conflict sorted out eventually. My prediction is that, in case Momo doesn't lift the curse on Zunisha, Vivi will be the one to do it, and it’ll be rejuvenated, just like foreshadowed by Brook.
I mentioned both Hell and Tartarus, but they’re not exactly the same in greco-roman mythology, so I could see several different routes on the execution. I’m inclined to think they’ll be the same, and that’ll be called Hell within the world of One Piece, but Oda will draw inspiration from both of these places into one single arc, and we’ll have a couple of important characters there.
CONCLUSION
Banished Titans, cursed to not receive sunlight, with some vampiric motifs to them will be the last remaining race, and we'll be visiting Hell/Tartarus soon enough. Vivi being closely related to their arc of forgiveness.
There’s so much more I wanted to elaborate on, like who we might see in Hell, and how the cat motif is really important to this segment, but I think it’d get overbearing, so I think this is a bold enough prediction. Depending on how Wano goes, I’ll see if there’s some validity to this or not, and perhaps do an updated thread, or part 2.
I hope you enjoyed it!
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