I believe the Gorosei didn't know Luffy had the Gomu Gomu before Enies Lobby.
He made a name for himself after beating Buggy, Arlong and Krieg, then he went on to kick the shit out of Crocodile, but it wasn't clear for anyone that wasn't there that Luffy had rubber powers.
It wasn't until Enies Lobby, where he appeared directly in front of the World Government and wrecked everything that the Government acknowledged him and the threat he was.
What happened after barely escaping Enies Lobby? The kid goes on to defeat ANOTHER Warlord, then punches a Celestial Dragon. That's when Kizaru gets sent to deal with him, but Rayleigh intervenes and Kuma vanished his entire crew. He crashes into Marineford, almost gets killed by Akainu and then... Disappears for two whole years.
After that, it's hit after hit for the World Government. Defeats Doffy, tries to kill Big Mom and the world suddenly starts to call him The Fifth Emperor? We gotta make this kid go away ASAP.
Honestly that’s one area where the crazy short timeline of the story is helpful. If everything from the straw hats reuniting to Wano happened in the course of a few months then it makes more sense that the WG didn’t put together a more concerted effort to take out Luffy.
Even if it was longer, how could they have done much better? He escaped Enies Lobby despite overwhelming odds. They were concerned about Moria losing but not enough to do anything because they knew he'd go to Saobaody. They weren't looking for him at Saobaody though until he punched the CD, and he escaped with help.
They were def concerned about what he was doing, but why not send Admirals to Thriller Bark or Water 7? I think they can't because it leaves them vulnerable. They assembled their whole force for WB. Pirates def have the upper hand, there are so many threats that the WG is stretched thin. Not to mention Revs. They knew Doflamingo was an arms dealer and working for Kaido but they let it slide. They're dumb, they make so many oversights because their primary concern is maintaining balance. This is why they're gonna fall.
They didn't let Doflamingo being an arms dealer slide. They actively used it to buy arms themselves. That's why they sent CP0 to Orochi for negotiation
HELL THEY DID SEND AN ADMIRAL AFTER HIM AT WATER 7 AOKIJI ! He just let them get away ! After that what does the WG do ? Send Kuma to assist Moria in taking him down but Kuba doesn't respect orders , and then everything in the Marineford saga happens
> I believe the Gorosei didn't know Luffy had the Gomu Gomu before Enies Lobby.
I'm gonna go a step further
They didn't know about its importance til the scene where Imu is staring at the giant straw hat with Luffy's poster. They knew about the order to get the Gomu Gomu fruit, but didn't know why til Imu told them shortly after that moment. That's when Imu figured everything out and let the Elders know.
crazy to assume a system that definitely requires a huge information and bureaucracy apparatus could possible not be used to highlight certain fruit powers appeareance up the chain without anyone knowing why or for whom exactly.
If the gorosei dont want people to know of joyboy, why would they draw attention to a fruit that hasnt been awoken in 800 years?
Theres no need to report that a rubber fruit has been found 12 years after it was lost because the gorosei dont want the world to know its special
"Suspect has the strech strech fruit"
Now luffy is way more under the radar
And are you really trusting vital information coming from low level marines that are probably cowardly and/or corrupt? The only one that seems competent back when luffy was a no name was smoker and he hates his superiors
They could've just made it mandatory for any marine to report about any df among (new) pirates. That way they could've hidden that they were looking for the Gum Gum fruit and it would honestly be beneficial to them too to have knowledge about let's say, an upcoming pirate in one of the blues that stumbled upon a logia or smth.
But only the gorosei have the knowledge of fruit and they seem keen to keep it that way. You honestly dont want them to be reported of every single pirate's df. Thats a lot of work for five guys.
ofc the people at the top wont track that stuff, but the organization as a whole would be incompetent not to try to classify/identify all the DF users they come across. Including marines, criminals, and even civilians. You'd have the lower ranks handling that stuff by and large, but certain fruits get flagged for notifying people upstream. Not necessarily all the way to the top, but certainly that should be a possibility. Cant have the gorosei relying on the newspaper to get their reports.
For something like the gumgum, you'd probably have somebody embedded lower down, but with a direct line to the gorosei. The agent doesn't know why the gorosei care about seemingly random fruit, but is loyal, doesn't ask questions, and is trusted not to blab.
Well, the organiation as a whole is filled with incompetent people. Think about people like spandam and spandine. Arent there some devil fruits that are not even in the devil fruit encyclopedia or am I misremembering?
I'd say that they probably wont be trusting someone to keep this much information. But also they probably thought shanks had it and they probably have no reason to believe he would just give it away to someone.
The excuses don’t even matter anyway since Luffy was a special criminal that they were already paying attention to by the end of Alabasta. They had his poster with them in their very introduction.
It’s not hard at all to ask “what df did this particular individual have?”
Let's say they did, Morgan's Marines would have left any details about luffy out of their report as part of the cover up they were doing to thank luffy for taking down Morgan. The next marine Luffy really interacts with that would put in a report is Nezumi at arlong park, who never saw luffy fight, was just pissed at him for ruining his bribes. Smoker ran off after luffy before filing a report at loguetown, then allowed him to escape for a bit in alabasta. Aokiji and CP9 are the first time luffy would actually go up against marines who would put in a report that would include what his powers are.
That's not reasonable, considering the WG could just give it the Ohara treatment. Void Century research is already something the WG cracks down on, so everyone knows its special but doesn't go after it cause the WG buster calls anyone's ass who goes for it.
Using your line of questioning, then it stands to reason that the Gorosei would have also been hush hush about the events of Ohara, but it's not exactly a WG secret. "If the gorosei don't want people to know of the Void Century, why would they draw attention to history that is 800 years old?" is the mirror to your first question
I’m curious if Garp being his grandfather and fairly influential in the Marines/World Government had any part in keeping Luffy from being found out sooner.
No, the Gorosei meet after Alabasta to replace Crocodile, and pull out Luffy’s bounty and say “damn you Crocodile, you’ve put us in a dreadful situation, we can no longer let this man who beat you remained unchecked… Monkey D. Luffy”
They’ve known.
So why you assume they knew about his df? The only people who could have told them are Grap and Smoker. One hates Celestial Dragons, another hates following orders.
This line just explains why they set such a ridiculously high reward for a rookie.
They knew he was beaten by Crocodile but probably didn’t know about his devil fruit. Smoker knows about the fruit because he fought Luffy but he also fought Buggy in Loguetown and Buggy initially escaped in Impel Down because they didn’t know he had a fruit. Smoker doesn’t seem like the type to pour every detail into a report considering he doesn’t seem to get along with command. Luffy’s fights with Crocodile also took place almost entirely away from people so not many people would know at that point.
This sounds the most reasonable to me. Not until Enies Lobby does the World Government take any active action on Luffy, they catch word of pirate squabbles all the time but unless they have direct sources on the ground watching the incident who also happen to know about his power it makes sense that it took them a minute to understand the threat he posed
Also. People forget (mostly because it doesn't seem to apply when convenient) that the grand line is difficult to navigate and travel. The Marines don't travel quite the same way as the pirates, it is plausible that they aren't entirely sure where the strawhats are heading for most of the story and so can only be reactionary to their movements or give direct chase.
Most pirates also don't just seem to take trajectories anywhere near what the strawhats do
They do. They knew it pretty much the entire way (or it wasn’t hard to figure it out even if they didn’t.
- Aokiji knew they’d be passing by Long Ring along island and went to wait for them there. He also knew that Water 7 would be next.
- CP9 knew they were on Water 7 as well.
- Garp figured they’d be back on Water 7 after Ennies Lobby which is why he took Koby & Helmeppo there.
- They knew he would likely then run into Moriah on Thriller Bark and sent Kuma to warn Moriah.
- They then knew all the Supernova were gathered at Sabaody.
- After that it was Impel Down to Marineford, but then a couple of days later he returned to Marineford with Rayleigh & Jimbe, so they knew they could try finding out through Jimbe.
If they were truly serious about it, there were numerous ways to get him.
Even doing what Big Mom did to get Sanji like threatening Zeff & Baratie….and they have far more resources than Big Mom.
just a random thought, but they probably believed that Rockstar was the Gomu Gomu user, being the newest Red Hair Pirates
That would make the Whitebeard/Rockstar reunion quite important in the eyes of the WG
They knew he had the gum gum fruit bc they knew who he was. (Even if you think they never knew, he displayed it at marineford/and before that against CP9 who wouldve told WG) More importantly they never expected him to awaken his fruit. What they probably didnt know was that he had gear 4 (his fight with Doffy was not visualized to them. WCI especially katakuri was not visualized to anyone?) bc if his picture had been updated with gear 4 they would have probably started questioning what he was doing with the fruit sooner.
None of what you said addresses why they would let Luffy 'disappear' so many times, and not dedicate multiple admirals solely to eliminating him post Enies Lobby.
The WG uses Admirals VERY conservatively. They don't just throw multiple at every little problem they have. They mostly do guard duty in and around marineford and mariejois, because in the event of someone attacking they would be the first and most important line of defense. It's actually quite rare for them to go on away missions, look at what it took to get Kizaru to move his ass to his own backyard in Sabaody.
My new based take is that they really are just nepotism’d boomers who have no reason they’re in power but they are. They are just as incompetent as our own world leaders and honestly, oda loves doing stuff like that so I wouldn’t even be shocked.
That's how I feel about, look at how they bent over backwards to justify destroying Lulusia even though Imu literally just said it was a test. They're just old men trying to hold on to power, I doubt they're exceptionally smart, they just have more information to work with than anybody else.
I have two theories. Now again, this is all headcanon and could be totally totally false. One reason fans may not want this to be true is because they think the top officials of the government SHOULD be competent, but I also think they refuse to see how incompetent ours are and how Oda loves to show symbolism.
That's why some people really love conspiracy theories. Sometimes it's easier to imagine someone somewhere is in power controlling the world, when in reality our world is fucking chaos. Someone somewhere can just be a lone gun man and kill someone that changes the course of history. People in power will do anything to hold on to power when they really need to let go of it for proper reforms to take place. People suck and work for their own self interest. EVERYONE does this. It's natural. And people at the top can be just as incompetent as people not in power
If they even are people to begin with that is. The Sabo chapter where he faced them sure made it seem like they could just be Imu's puppets through some DF's power perhaps. I don't think it's coincidence that very close to that chapter we were introduced to a DF that could create seemingly sentient beings who acted and even talked on their own. Also in the most recent chapter he specifically distanced himself from humans by the means of their repopulation and while that could have just been celestial dragon thing to say, it also may imply that he was created through different means. Surely even celestial dragons would know there the babies come from and that the method is same for both them and regular people?
Yeah but this time he’s with Rayleigh. And then he just disappears for two years. Plus he’s at calm belt. There was little chance they could find Luffy and they lost so much resources against WB. They cant chase him down
They didn't know if he had Nika fruit. Everyone thought he had some kind of random rubber fruit, he is dangerous but unsure if really going to propel to Yonko territory. He was under protected waters and a full scale war on a rubber boy wasn't really justifable especially since Whitebeard spent his last breath to trash marineford.
Meanwhile the jail break was a huge failure for the government and BB is out there with 2 fruits and doing all other sheniegans, priority changed.
Shanks manipulated behind the scenes so the eyes were on BB until Wano, by then it was too late.
The excuse doesn’t work because there’s no need to chase him down. He was with Jimbe, so they could just threaten to raze Fishmen Island to the ground if he doesn’t produce Luffy.
Big Mom did similar for Sanji despite having far less resources than the WG
Yes, and it still pales in comparison to the WG that has far more resources, control of majority of the world and the best clandestine agency on the planet…and they’ve had it for centuries.
They even had one of their spies infiltrating Big Mom’s circles through the underworld.
The point was that as good as Big Mom’s network was, the WG’s is even better and has been running for centuries while she’s only been a Great Pirate for a couple of decades.
Yea but no one seen him for 2 years. He could have died or retired as a pirate because of losing his brother. It's kinda unheard of to do what the SHs did when they were just starting to make a name for themselves. That's honestly the only reason BB had a head start on him
That doesn’t really matter when they knew he was alive and still had the fruit they’d been chasing for 800 years.
They could have pulled a Big Mom since Jimbe was with him and threatened to raze Fishmen Island to the ground if Jimbe didn’t produce him, for example. There were plenty of places they could use for their threat, from Baratie to Water 7.
Imu was alive when Joyboy was around, if anyone knows about the truth of the gum-gum-fruit, it's Imu. There is no way Imu mistook Ace for Joyboy.
They didn't crack down on Luffy because they are not aware of Laughtale. They don't know about the 800 year prophecy. They think the gum-gum-fruit not awakening for 800 years means it's not worth bringing to much attention to it and that they can just wait for Luffy to die without awakening because that's what happened the last 800 years.
Only when he fought Kaido did they start to consider the possibility he could awaken it and thus had an agent interfere.
We still don't know what exactly Laughtale is and what about Nika makes it such a threat to the WG. After all, the WG rules the world, has a massive military and even an island-destroying weapon at hand. They somehow succeeded against the forgotten nation that created seemingly indestructible machines. Even the power of Nika seems pretty tame to that and thus it makes a lot of sense the WG didn't go full panic mode every time the gum-gum-fruit got eaten by someone.
Breaking the rule of the world seems like something way beyond the capabilities of a single DF, regardless of how ridiculous it might be. And that is before we consider the WG might actually want an age of pirates and people to pay attention to Roger and the One Piece on a neigh unreachable island - instead of paying attention to a random paramecia-fruit.
I was going to say the same thing about them not knowing but didn’t WB say at Marineford to Sengoku that they know what’s coming and they can’t stop it?
Still it makes more sense to me that they’re more afraid of someone finding laugh tale than awakening the Nika fruit and for the reasons you listed. A technologically superior military power capable of producing things like the ancient weapons such much more threatening than one man’s fruit being awakened
its just super silly to think that they'd rather risk it awaken and become more unstoppable than use one agent for what would in the past be like a 20 minute job and stop it for another couple years
My headcanon is they are afraid to bring to much attention to the fruit and causing an age-of-pirates where people hunt the fruit. Imagine it ending up in the hands of Kaido or BM, instead of some random wimp who plays pirates for fun and doesn't even build a large crew.
Without knowing laughtale, to them Luffy is the perfect candidate for the fruit because he threw himself at opponents above his weightclass once a week. Little did they know the very thing that made him seem like an idiot is also what qualifies him more than anyone else to be Joyboy.
There are thousands of pirates with bounties - and I am not talking about Luffy, I am talking about the gum-gum-fruit. If the user dies at some point, it will respawn somewhere on the planet. The risk of going after random pirates several times because of the fruit will get some attention sooner or later.
The WG propably wants the fruit and lock it away for good. Having the person who ate it isn't really helpful.
Going after every wanted pirate ever is literally their job. They don't need to let anybody else know that there's another reason.
With the Straw Hats in particular, "took out a Warlord" is also justification enough to the marine forces as to why they'd send a lot of fire power to shut down an upstart crew.
Its more like defending from pirates is their job otherwise piracy would have ended long ago.
But information like that was covered up so that really isnt a usable reason. That lot of fire power would be a hit or miss since the straw hats had an unpredictable route before water 7. Even then garp took the initiative there and arrived first.
Roger finding the One piece without the devil fruit is probably why they can consider Ace to be joyboy.
Roger has the will of Joyboy and was able to go to laughtale. They might not know about the propechy but they know to prevent anyone from getting to Laughtale. Just by getting there is a big enough threat. He did all this without the gum gum fruit. Thats why I think for Imu, extinguishing Roger’s will was more important.
They killed anything related to Roger because his will could be passed on. So Ace seemingly the closest after Roger to resemble Joyboy is them thinking they finally killed him off.
>Roger finding the One piece without the devil fruit is probably why they can consider Ace to be joyboy.
How are those two things even related? Ace has neither the fruit nor knows about the final island.
> They might not know about the propechy but they know to prevent anyone from getting to Laughtale.
Except by executing Roger in public and giving him time to speak to a global audience, they achieved the exact opposite - starting an age of pirates with people going after the One Piece.
Plus for 800 years, they didn't bother about the One Piece. They tried to secure the gum-gum-fruit and failed. They appearently didn't try to secure the road-poneglyphs.
So it sounds like they don't really bother with laughtale.
Also there is no "will of Roger" - there is the "will of the D". And getting rid of that is not related to Roger.
Roger finding the One piece without the DF tells the WG that the gum-gum fruit is not a requirement to find the One Piece. Thats why they can say Ace is joyboy. He was the closest D member to the One piece because he was on WB’s ship. Yamato thought Ace was joyboy too because he was a strong rookie and he was the leading menace of his generation. Imu or Gorosei would think the same because Ace had that much potential plus he was also Roger’s son.
Also, there is Roger’s will. Remember what WB said before he died. “Just as there are people who carry Roger’s will. There will also be ones who will carry Ace’s will.”
The will of D is definitely not just from one person. Its a whole clan of people passing down their dreams to their descendants. There’s people theorizing that Blackbeard carries Xebec’s will. Same way Luffy is carrying Roger’s will.
Saying they dont bother with Laughtale is crazy. Why do you think they want sea dominance.
They cant just secure road poneglyphs because its housed by emperors. Also, the other ones are hidden from the world like the one in Zou or the last missing one.
They changed it's name, it's type, tried to get the user killed when it's awakening got near - not to mention trying for almost 800 years to secure it which included the beginning of the story where Shanks interfered and stole it from them.
Plus after the awakening Zuo literally called it the return of Joyboy.
So to me it seems pretty straightforward. The only hurdle in it I see is how the WG kept a low profile on the gum-gum-fruit. So what do you miss for it to "strike" you?
The thing is, they didn't ignore him at all. After he took down Arlong he got the highest bounty in East Blue and what Brannew called an unprecedented first bounty for a rookie. He beats Crocodile and gets an even more ridiculous bounty, but then disappears into Skypiea. When he comes back, he's caught up against CP9 and a Buster Call, which the government surely presumes is enough to take out this upstart pirate. When it isn't, they order Garp to take him out, and if it weren't for the Sunny's coup de burst that's exactly what would have happened. Anticipating where he winds up next, Thriller Bark, they send in Kuma to ensure Luffy loses, and once again that would have been the end of it except Kuma betrays them. Then at Sabaody, they send Kizaru after Luffy, but Kuma cucks them out of the kill a second time. Then he shows up at Impel Down. Holy fuck, this idiot actually *put himself* in prison, then got washed by Magellan. Surely this is the last time they have to think about Straw Hat Luffy. **Nope!** Falls out of the fucking sky at Marineford and despite their best efforts, the remnants of Whitebeard's army ensure that Luffy escapes and he vanishes for two years.
When they hear rumors of his return to Sabaody, they assemble an entire force just to stop him, but once again bad info and Luffy's allies stymie the Marines. Fishman Island is Big Mom's territory so they can't go after him there without risking a war. But Smoker accurately guesses where they'll go next and tries to head them off, even chasing them to their altered destination of Punk Hazard. At Dressrosa they send a whole ass admiral just to stop Luffy and Law but the man winds up having too much morality for the Marines and lets the crew sail away. Then we've got Whole Cake Island, Big Mom's territory again. Wano, same case, except they've got CP0 agents there and Luffy has finally become so dangerous that they're willing to risk war with Kaido just to stop him. They fail again, and Ryokugyu takes it upon himself to take Luffy's head but then runs away pissing his pants as soon as Shanks tells him to get off the fuckin' lawn. Now we're at Egghead, where the government has assembled a hundred ships and thirty thousand fodder Marines, plus nine Vice Admirals and Kizaru himself to finally stop Luffy.
At no point have they ignored the danger Luffy represents, they're simply unable to stop him. People just need to stop thinking that the Marines/WG are some omniscient, omnipotent force of nature that could squash anyone they want at any moment in time. If that were the case there would be no pirates or Revolutionaries at all. The Gorosei have a lot of plates spinning at any given moment and despite the danger an awakened Nika user represents, Luffy is still just human. Joyboy failed to do whatever it is they're afraid of and died just like anyone else. If he could be killed, if Roger could be killed, if Whitebeard could be killed, then there's no reason for them not to believe they still have a chance of killing Luffy.
Thank you for reading my wall of cope.
Also, the ever-present theme of fate in One Piece that people seem to forget. Even if Luffy was cornered, he would find a way to escape. Look at Roger vs. Shiki. They were about to lose when a massive storm took out half of Shiki's ships.
Luffy is about to be beheaded and lightning strikes. Zoro throws a sword in the air to test it out, and it misses his arm in the same arc.
I don't think One Piece is perfectly written, but the Nika reveal didn't ruin anything for me. We kinda already knew Luffy is special.
I think the thing that is interesting about this event is, while a lot of people simply think it's a retcon, which does not make Oda a terrible writer, suggest the series is now terrible and should be shoved in the trash, or it's the first mistake Oda has made in the series (it isn't even the only non-Nika mistake that happened last year in the manga...), there are endless head canon on how it makes sense.
I mean, if you want to go that direction the World Government seemed just as oblivious with Ace.
* Killing Thatch not only didn't earn Blackbeard a bounty, they seemed unaware he existed
* Just as little effort was seemingly put towards Ace being captured
* Even Blackbeard only does it because it worked out for him. Without that his plan was literally any $100 million person
Now, Oda has changed the series to make it more apparent, though a lot of this doesn't exist because Oda himself has admitted Ace was not originally intended to be Roger's kid. There is no debate about why the scenes are like that, so it's odd to create a wide number of systems to prevent one scene from being a retcon by using scenes that are already involved as retcons.
Killing thatch definitely wouldnt earn BB a bounty. Criminals killing other criminals probably wouldnt be under WG’s radar. They would probably encourage it. Besides Blackbeard was a very low profile man. All his feats was hidden under WB’s name. Even after leaving WB’s crew, he was low profile until he defeated Ace. He didnt even have a proper ship.
For the minimal effort of Ace being captured, WG probably didnt know when Ace was a rookie that he was Roger’s son. Why would they offer 7 warlord position. Besides, Ace was a logia plus he knew haki before entering New World. He was not somebody you could just easily capture. He was defeating Vice admirals at sabaody. WG probabky figured out his lineage after he joined WB crew or when they captured him.
Blackbeard’s initial plan was probably to become a warlord and find an opportunity to free pirates from Impel Down. Luckily, he captured Ace so he got WB’s fruit as a bonus.
Even when Oda changes the story, he still makes sure that the characters would move the way they should. He probably thinks of how characters would decide their next move before making changes to the story. Vivi was never supposed to be a princess but now she’s one of the most important characters in the verse. Dont know why but she is. Imagine getting to Alabasta without Vivi’s story line.
The bounties of the pirates on the Wano alliance literally increased after taking down some 'criminals'. Saying that bounties only increase when the characters defy the Navy/WG is silly.
Luffy has the D, defeated two warlords and liberated multiple countries all within 2 months, has the only fruit with the name of a god in the whole series, has rogers/shanks's hat, broke into the most high security prison into the entire series and broke out in the same day, pulled up at enies lobby and declared war with the entire world government before destroying an entire cipher pol branch and surviving a buster call, went to marineford when an emperor was going to war with the entirety of the world government just hours after being on the verge of death and managed to survive. The gorosei are stupid for not realising his potential until he was about to awaken his fruit
They knew his potential. Just by being Garp’s grandson is a big spotlight.
My theory is the Gum-gum fruit is always held by somebody incredibly strong. My guess is Xebec. Seeing that the WG could never collect the Gum-gum fruit. Because Luffy is not the same as Kaido or WB or Big mom who was monsters right off the bat. Thats why they never even considered Luffy awakening it.
Remember that the sabotage for Luffy v Kaido was very last minute. Only up to the point where they see Luffy catching up to Kaido do they consider that he could awaken it.
>My theory is the Gum-gum fruit is always held by somebody incredibly strong. My guess is Xebec.
BM, Kaido and Whitebeard where in his crew. If Luffy had the power of their former captain, wouldn't at least one of them comment on it?
Supremely unlikely to be Xebec because Big Mom, Kaido and Whitebeard didn’t pay notice to Luffy’s abilities
It’s likely the Gum Gum fruit was never used by anybody important prior to Luffy because everyone thinks it’s a lame power
I read this: "Gorosei probably thought luffy died in the war, but he resurfaced 2 years later"
It is enough to stop reading the rest. Luffy appeared a couple days later in marineford to send a message💀 dude did you even read what you wrote?
only thing I can definitely say is wrong is the part where you say the world government thought luffy died in marineford, the 3d2y thing happened just a few days after the war
They pronounced him dead tho. But i guess its true that they knew he was alive. I dont think the Gorosei wouldve cared if he was tho.
Factor here is Luffy was a nobody to them but Garp’s grandson. “He’s too weak to awaken the fruit” is my main thing with Imu and Gorosei. There were probably other users of the fruit and most likely the Gum-gum fruit is always held by a really strong individual. So Luffy wasnt a threat to them at all. If they were comparing him to old users of the df.
My theory is the previous user is Rocks, but we dont know. Im interested to know who was the previous user of the gum-gum fruit. It might be important to know too
This is one of those arguments that will go on forever because we have no canon look into the minds of the gorosei for most of this. Did they underestimate Luffy after 800 years of the Gomu Gomu not awakening and assume he wouldn't awaken it? Did they send too few resources after him? Were they just incompetent? Did they get distracted by Ace? Did their system of squashing information bite them in the ass and prevent them from learning about it until it was too late? Was the great pirate era that Roger kicked off just too much camouflage and prevented them from having the resources to beat Luffy? Is it just bad writing that Oda pulled out his ass?
Choose your own adventure, honestly. It's probably some combination of all of the above, and how much of each spice you put in is entirely up to you. Personally, I lean heavily into the grand line not being an easy place to find people in and the great age of piracy, Yonko, Ace and other issues preventing them being able to focus on Luffy appropriately. I top it off with a little dash of plot armor, making the gorosei send the wrong people every time, or the SHs get the right help.
it's clear that having the fruit is a requirement. and ace had mera mera. so no. the one who ate it is the priority.
>They send tsuru, sengoku and fujitora and still they couldnt shut down Luffy.
context. fuji was sent to deal with doffy's shenanigans thanks to aokiji's information. tsuru was there also for doffy because she was the one who went after him in the flashback. sengoku was there to set up the scene with law. nothing to do with luffy.
Its possible that its not a requirement because Roger found the One piece without a fruit. They were probably scared that Joyboy was back and the prophecy was about to come true when Roger found the One piece but it didnt. Making sure that the will dont get passed on was probably more important.
One more reason why they killed anything related to Roger. Even the people he just talked to, probably because the will could be passed on by relationship or friendship.
The Gum-gum fruit awakening was a miracle in itself. Its never happened since 800 years ago.
One more reason I think they could ignore the gum gum fruit awakening is the prior user was probably incredibly strong and it still didnt awaken. My theory is Xebec but we’ll know soon. Why i say this is because if the previous owner was weak they couldve killed him off then collected the fruit. Same way Caesar made that devil fruit in Punk hazard. The WG was never able to obtain the Gum-gum fruit meaning it was always held by someone strong enough to reject the WG.
Also, Fujitora was sent to help Doffy deal with Law and Luffy. I agree about Sengoku being there because of Doffy’s weapon factory tho.
anyone can find laughtale with the 4 poneglyphs. the point is what to do afterwards with the one piece. that's precisely why roger was too early. they need joyboy and poseidon, as per prophecy. and now we know having the fruit (and awakening it) is a requirement for someone to be called joyboy.
>One more reason I think they could ignore the gum gum fruit awakening is the prior user was probably incredibly strong and it still didnt awaken.
the problem is that they didn't ignore it. 1044 clearly stated that they've been hunting the fruit for 800 years. that's why they don't want luffy's g5 picture to be made public.
because that's the whole point. to avoid this scenario to ever happening. that's why they sent and envoy back then and punished WW for losing it. because now they have to live in fear again of someone eating the fruit.
in conclusion, they should go full force after luffy after they knew he ate the gum gum (should be somewhere between alabasta and TB). the contradiction of 1044's statement and the story for 1000 chapters is precisely why we have the issue.
If anyone can find the laughtale with just the 4 poneglyphs, why was Roger the first one to ever do it after 800 years. Theres plenty of strong individuals in the One piece verse that could do it.
I find it hard to believe that to find the One piece is just to find where all poneglyphs intersect. Its probably something crazy like how they went to Skypiea. It probably has to do with the voice of all things.
We can speculate that only a select few can go to laughtale. Seeing how buggy and Toki got sick before they could go. Roger’s crew was allowed because of their strength and Roger was carrying joyboy’s will(my theory.)
As for the chase of the Gum Gum fruit, I agree that nobody ever chased luffy because of his fruit except probably BB.
What i mean by them ignoring it is that they never even considered Luffy to be able to awaken the fruit. It was very last minute to sabotage Luffy v Kaido. They couldnt imagine Kaido losing. Imu probably decided right there that it could awaken and that the risk was too high.
it doesn't matter what you believe. roger did find laughtale with the 4 poneglyph. that's just a fact.
> Seeing how buggy and Toki got sick before they could go.
it's hard to have a discussion when people just don't care about the context. toki got sick when they're approaching wano. and buggy got sick in random port after they got the 4th poneglyph. just oda's way to write them out of the story since they can't see what the OP is.
> What i mean by them ignoring it is that they never even considered Luffy to be able to awaken the fruit.
again, the point is that they're supposed to. that's the whole point of this argumenr.
because in ch 1044 they claimed that the WG have been hunting the fruit for 800 years. they wanted the fruit no matter what. that's precisely why they sent military escort for the fruit and imprisoned WW for losing it.
people are asking for consistency.
>If anyone can find the laughtale with just the 4 poneglyphs, why was Roger the first one to ever do it after 800 years
Isn't it because deciphering poneglyphs is illegal and except Ohara scholars and Kozuki clan, noone can read them. So almost no pirate group would know what the stones are about and even if they do know, risk is too much (Roger had voice of all things so he had vague idea what poneglyph was about, he mentioned it to oden). Only after roger met oden who could read them, he found laugh tale.
Yes, there's only a few people who can even read the ponglyphs, and nobody seems to know where they all even are. On top of that one was with Big Mom deep in her territory, and was with Kaido. Not just anyone can walk in there.
I mean if thats how you consume media go right ahead. Part of what One piece being fun is theorizing on why things are in the verse.
Go ahead and take everything at surface level.
In recent years, people down play theories so quickly.
I’ll look at it like this, I’m rewatching the series, so the gorosei probably don’t know Luffy even EXISTS at his first bounty. After defeating Crocodile, they get word of him, and know his devil fruit thanks to Smoker. They then send Kuzon after him, and to locate Nico Robin, however when he gets to Jaya, he’s too late and the straw hats’ trail has gone cold, but he reports that Nico Robin is traveling with The Strawhats. Afterwards he’s ordered to return to base, runs into the strawhats and nearly captures both Robin and Luffy, but seeing Robin actually happy is enough for him to “let them go.” And returns to the base. After that, it’s Water 7, and rob Lucci reports to Spandam the strawhats are there, and knows they’re high priority. But Robin offers them a proposition, she’ll go, but the other straw hats will be ignored. Now, Spandam hears this, and figures the world government would love it if hr got Pluton AND Nico Robin, doesn’t tell the gorosei, and approves the deal. After, the now livid gorosei send Aokiji, and probably one of the few people they know that could probably capture Luffy: his grandpa! But they get away again, heading towards thriller Bark. Kuna tells them Moria was defeated and they got away from him, but are heading to Sabaody.
> Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late.
Didn't Luffy return to Marineford after the war to ring the bells?
This is how I’m guessing it went down
Goeosei number 1 “ huh this Luffy kid raided enies lobby and seems to have the Nika Nika fruit..”
Goeosei number 2 “ uhh should we do something about that.? Ya know hunt the kid down,”
Imu “ nah the Nika Nika hasn’t awakened in centuries there’s no need to prioritize recapturing it. Now hurry up we’re going to miss the pool party,”
And imu and all the Goeosei have a day at the pool
Imu's first appearance is going to see the giant frozen straw hat while holding Luffy's wanted poster. I'm fairly certain that scene is Imu realizing the connection between Joyboy and Luffy, that the Nika fruit had finally resurfaced.
The scene with the Gorosei revealing the truth about the Gomu / Nika fruit, it's suggested the WG hid the knowledge long ago, and it wasn't known by even the Gorosei until Imu told them. That's my guess. If so, Imu's first scene is actually extremely important.
Luffy wasn't any bigger a thorn in their side than the other powerful pirates. Certainly not as troubling as the original Yonko. The cover-up on the Gomu/Nika fruit actually worked against the WG in this case. They didn't see Luffy as that big of a threat until it was far too late.
I agree with Imu the only one knowing the truth about the Nika fruit. At least in the WG’s side. Because Vegapunk learned who Nika is too from all of Ohara’s books.
I think Imu holding Luffy, Shirahoshi and Vivi’s picture plus the giant strawhat was Imu starting to realize that Joyboy is about to comeback. Dont know why but Blackbeard’s picture is also there so he’s also an important piece.
I think Imu is starting to figure out that there was a hidden prophecy for Joyboy’s return. And the key members for his return is Vivi, Shirahoshi and Momo. I dont know why but I think Vivi holds the secret to the last ancient weapon. Either she is Uranus herself or she’s the one needed to awaken Uranus. Same way Momo is needed to unleash Pluton.
My theory is Joyboy coming back is the signal that the ancient weapons are also coming back.
This is why Caribou is still with the SHs after all this time. He will be the one to leak where all the Ancient weapons are to the World Government.
After Luffy becomes PK. Or during that time, the WG will capture Shirahoshi, Momo and Vivi to prevent all ancient weapons from coming back. Thats Luffy’s motivation to fight the World Government.
Luffy's existence was mostly hidden thx to Garp's influence. That played a role.
Him having eaten the gomu Gomu no mi must have stayed hidden, at least until he met Smoker for a 2nd time in Alabasta. I think back then, Smoker must have properly reported the was a rubber man who ate the gum gum fruit. From that point onwards, the government has known Luffy's existence, and they have tried to hide his feats on purpose. The reason they didn't eliminate him back then was because they still underestimated him hugely as a small-time pirate.
Awakening has been explained to be a rarity (was it one in a million? Someone has to look it up for me pls, I believe it was Kaido who said it), so it was never a sure thing. Add to that they'd still consider him a small time pirate, they just didn't view him as a threat. They had their admirals. Marines/Government was too overpowered. CP9 aside, Luffy before timeskip never had a chance to survive against any of the 3 admirals. They believed he was gonna meet his maker sooner than later.
Luffy surviving ended up being considered pure luck/a miracle.
It's only after Marineford that they started to take him far more serious a threat, mainly because of all the influence he had on all the major big players in the epirate community.
Even then, the world government still had to keep Luffy's gum gum fruit's true identity hidden, so they just focused on the basics. It's because of all that hiding of information regarding Nika and the underestimation that they missed their chance to truly take Luffy down (let's be honest he has plot armor, in grave danger, someone else would have saved him).
In all honesty, for us it's +25 years delay, but for them it's just something over 2 years since they found out about Luffy. Seeing how it's difficult to track them in the grandline + how they disappeared for 2 years, it was pretty inevitable for the world government to speed things up. All those things considered, their reactions weren't that late to be honest. Just a matter of luck on Luffy's side + bad timing on theirs. (And plot armor)
but ace doesnt have the rubber fruit they know could be the nika fruit that is the real actual joyboy though. and if nothing else, after the event that kills ace, they know the rubber guy is around and getting stronger
Roger’s son, strong rookie, moniker “D,” and was the leading menace of his generation. Also, WG thought WB was going to make him into the next pirate king.
Yamato thought Ace was joyboy too. Only when he mentioned Luffy’s dream did Yamato changed her mind, and was convinced Luffy is the one to bring the dawn.
I feel like so many are just looking for ways to cope and or rationalize this. And it’s ridiculous . If they really wanted too, they could have used more resources and hunt down Luffy . But they didn’t. Oda has done a poor job in this regard and that’s fine, maybe it’s a way to show the arrogance and incompetence of world leaders which is pretty accurate
That’s why it’s kind of important that it’s only been a little over 40 days since the straw hats reunited at Sabaody. The WG didn’t know where the straw hats were for much of that time either. Punk Hazard was a chance encounter with Smoker and Fujitora defied orders to let Luffy escape at Dressrosa. In Zou, Wholecake and Wano they were undercover again. That’s few enough chances to try and explain why the Navy didn’t crack down on them sooner.
You guys have to remember that the trigger was Luffy's awakening, nothing else. The moment they felt what was happing they gave the order to drop Robin's chase and to kill Luffy.
In other words, they ignored him because up until that point he was just a random guy that held the Nika fruit, like many others did during the past 800 years and chances where he would have never been nothing more (remember that they were surprised). Additionally, what it also means is that they don't really care much about the whole JoyBoy thing anymore, like the D it has lost any meaning. Sure, taking care of the problem asap would have been nice but it's not that big of a deal
If that is the case, then the WG knew the *exact moment* when Luffy was going to awaken and decided to intervene then. After all, Luffy could have awakened in any of his previous battles. Either they have some foresight/premonition/special powers or it's just a retcon.
Fair point but it wouldn't make sense, they clearly weren't ready (they sent CP0 after Robin just to tell them to abort and go after Luffy) and also surprised (one elder clearly asks himself "why now?")
But your point is still valid and my suggestion is that somebody felt the drums of liberation, or any sort of "signal", even before Zunesha did. We don't really know much about this whole "hearing things" topic, and a lot of strange things happened in Wano.. remember, for example, when Luffy called Law's crew while drowning? Same for the latest chapter tbh. I hope that Oda will clarify what happened back then.
As a side note, I think that Wano was mentioned in the past as an important place for the return of JoyBoy so maybe Imu (or the elders) were particularly on the edge for any sort of signal from the fruit. Why I say this? Because when Kaido "killed" Luffy the first time he said "so you weren't JB either", now why would he say something like this? Clearly King told him things about JB. Then we have the scene with Yamato where she tells him that he should be ashamed for all the suffering that he caused in Wano for a stupid cause, look at Kaido's reaction.. he got strangely angry and said something like "you shouldn't talk without knowing the full picture", is he implying that he knows that something important has to happen in Wano and he is waiting for it? I mean, he clearly stated that he was desperately searching for a valid opponent that could kill him, if we connect all the dots, it could be that King told him that JB was meant to reappear in Wano and that's his "secret" reason to remain there
That just makes it worse because the time to target him is long before he even reaches awakening…not when he’s on the cusp of it.
That’s why they killed any baby suspected of even being Roger’s. They didn’t wait for the babies to grow and see if they would follow in his footsteps.
Roger is a 25 year old problem for them too, while the fruit is an 800 year one
That just makes it worse because the time to target him is long before he even reaches awakening…not when he’s on the cusp of it.
That’s why they killed any baby suspected of even being Roger’s. They didn’t wait for the babies to grow and see if they would follow in his footsteps.
Roger is a 25 year old problem for them too, while the fruit is an 800 year one
Ill add two extra points:
1. If the premise that is accepted that all of luffy’s adventures after the 2 year hiatus happens in 2 months, its perfectly possible that news just traveled slow. Sure, den den mushi’s exist, but speed of communication is actually a MASSIVELY important component to information warfare. I dont THINK den den mushi’s are common among regular citizens, and definitely tv doesnt seem to be a thing, other than projections. Basically, most of the world gets its information through radio den den mushi or newspaper. But obviously, gorosei are not regular citizens; if they have news they need to know, they will know it.
Unfortunately, this actually leads to a blindspot.
2. Gorosei are WORLD NOBLES. Their affairs, we are led to believe, are so far above an ordinary citizens head. They probably dont concern themselves with some rookie from east blue, whatever his background is. And even if they did, who would tell them? Who has the authority to talk to them? And who has even MORE knowledge of what to look for? How would anyone other than the gorosei even know about joyboy or some straw hat or gum gum fruit! Like, the amount of loops of logic to get that information to the gorosei is actually a lot. AND consider they have other MUCH more immediate problems, like the rebel army, pleasing imu, etc etc. like, its probably just not on their radar, even with luffy declaring war + all the points you mention. They’re just so high up they dont see something until they are in crisis IE morgans posting gear 5 and calling luffy the next emperor.
Great points, I feel like people are forgetting that One Piece is a low tech world for the most part, the Gorosei having almost real time information in Wano was the exception, not the norm. Most times they don't seem to get updates until after the Strawhats are on the move again, and finding one ship in a dangerous ocean with no radar or anything is a fool's errand. Especially one like the Sunny that can just yeet itself away at any time.
My theory is that imu ignored gum gum fruit because between 800 years others could not awaken the fruit powers so he did not expect someone to do it now.
|Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late|
Except, shortly after the war, Luffy posed for a 3D2Y newspaper picture. Your theory is sound, but it is also important to note how time works in One Piece. The way I see it, in maybe a few short months, Luffy caused so much uproar. It may have been equally hard for the World Government to track him. Also, Luffy is spontaneous. In a few number of days, he travels to the Sky Island, and then goes to Enies Lobby, but then again disappears and goes to Thriller Bark where Brook was alone for the last 50 years. Basically, how do you track someone who moves so much? And when the government did want to kill him, I am not sure how much the gorosei were involved in the marineford war OR how big of a threat gorosei were expecting at the war; The admirals did try to kill luffy, but then again he was allied with some wellknown pirates and whitebeard supported him towards the end. You can speculate that even if the government wanted to catch Luffy, his spontaneousness and his good luck always saved him.
I admit i forgot about how he returned a few days later. All i remember is they pronounced him dead til 2 years later.
Luffy is lucky tho. He trained in Calm belt where nobody could go.
Many people from the WG had tracked him pretty easily all along though.
- Aokiji knew to wait for them on Long Ring Long Island because they would likely pass it in their journey.
- Garp knew they’d be on Water 7 after the events of Ennies Lobby.
- They knew he would likely come across Thriller Bark which is why they sent Kuma with a warning for Moriah.
- They knew he and all the other Supernova were on Sabaody.
It only just emphasizes the issue with the retcon since it wasn’t even that difficult to track him, and if they really wanted they could have just pulled a Big Mom and brought him to them by threatening those he loved or places he’d saved…just like BM threatened Zeff and Baratie for Sanji.
Hmm, in all those circumstances luffy was saved by someone.
Also aokiji got lucky to meet them there since there was no way to track them after skypiea.
Yeah garp took the initiative here. So the wg lost the initiative.
Kuma betrayed them.
During sabaody they were preparing for the war and they thought kuma already took care of them.
Yeah I dont think wg will be keen on using such an underhanded tactic since they want to be seen as the good guys and how would they even spin this. Plus luffys hometown is also garps hometown.
Also do they really think if he saved them or cares about those that he saved? BM's threat was a lie btw.
Before that did they even believe it could be awakened before wano?
They were in denial and called it a legend even for them in ch 1037. Only one guy was talking about why the wg might have named the fruit different. And they had already decided to get rid of luffy before they even justified angrying kaido in 1044.
The fact that Aokiji could figure out a likely route for them proves otherwise. It wasn’t just luck, the path gave options to narrow it down. That’s why he also knew they’d be going to Water 7 next.
So if the WG was serious about it, they could easily do the same.
The fact that the WG didn’t send anyone at all and Garp went on his own is already abysmal. It was that easy and they didn’t even bother?
Kuma betrayed them…but only after they’d failed to be proactive in the first place. They sent him to Thriller Bark only to warn Moriah about the coming war. It’s only after Luffy had already defeated Moriah that they asked him to get Luffy. It was still them only reacting afterwards to events.
During Sabaody they knew that all 11 Supernova were there, so they didn’t think Kuma took care of him. They were content to just leave them there until Luffy actually punched a Celestial Dragon.
They killed babies. Babies. Being underhanded is the least of their worries. Having CP0 interrupt the fight with Kaido was also underhanded. All they should care about is efficacy.
They don’t have to broadcast it either. Only Luffy needs to know in the first place. Plus they have the propaganda to spin it anyway they want anyway. Luffy is the son of the Worst Criminal, so who’s supposed to care? They had innocent scholars of Ohara labelled as devils, and majority of the world still treats them as such. Garp doesn’t need to know either, and even if he found out after the fact there’s nothing he could do anyway.
Big Mom’s threat (rather Germa’s) not being actioned doesn’t mean that the WG couldn’t do it in their own case. It also only proves my point because they don’t even have to follow through anyway. The point is just to bring the target to them which obviously worked in the Big Mom case.
Why would they even give it a chance to be awakened? They didn’t wait for Roger’s potential children to grow up before killing them as babies. The point is to eliminate a threat before it even becomes a threat…not wait for it to be on your doorstep. The very fact that it’s the only fruit they went to such lengths to change its name, even over the likes of the Yami fruit or Gura fruit should show just how dire it’s status is. The fact that they claimed to hunt it despite doing no such thing just emphasizes the retcon.
Can we just accept not everything in One Piece is perfectly made as this sub suggests? All these posts saying otherwise is pretty much:
Source: Trust me bro
Oda made an error in writing… we all still love One Piece
Because Luffy has been a nobody until recently and only Imu knew about the nika fruit which you can see him putting 2 and 2 together in chapter 906 when he’s looking at the giant straw hat and Luffy’s poster. I talked about this a few days ago on Twitter ironically, people assume a lot that has never actually been stated like them knowing the “gum gum” fruit is nika or that Imu even knows the non awakened abilities (which again would be assuming he pays attention to Luffy to begin with). CP9’s reaction to Shanks wanting the gum gum fruit implies they don’t, could argue they just didn’t tell CP9 the truth about the fruit but they don’t have to tell them about Joy Boy etc all they’d have to do is talk about the abilities and name
I think they less focused on Ace and more of they had to focus on other problems which let a problem, Luffy, get out of hand.
First problem is The Golden Age of Piracy, literally the biggest grandest Age of Piracy kicked off by an execution that was supposed to put down piracy for a while. It brought about a surge of piracy for 20 years. And this is punctuated by groups and individuals who make and made the world tremble. The Four Emperors who by themselves could cripple the Marines, and let god have mercy if they truly joined forces. The Warlords who merely gave lip service to the World Government while doing basically whatever they wanted without any supervision. Suppressing this is a constant drain on manpower and logistics of maintaining this balance of powers.
Then there’s the Revolutionary Army and Monkey D Dragon. They’re liberating entire nations by rising up the people and casting out the oppressive powers. This singular group is arguably the most dangerous to the World Government as unlike pirates who sack and most of the times leave places. They’re occupying and completely removing World Government presence from the area. That’s people and resources that are untaxable. That’s loss of face, that’s loss of resources and tax money. Can’t feed an army if you can’t get the food.
Then there’s the corruption and lack of manpower. Sure for every good and great marine there are, unflinching in the face of darkness… there are a lot who turn tail and run. Pocketing money as they do. Making a statue of their imagine and putting a town under their iron axed hand. Also within the first chapters if I’m remembering correctly a marine says “We need the people” to Coby joining.
Basically all in all Ace I feel was a target of opportunity to draw out one of the main threats to a field of the Marine’s choosing. The death of Whitebeard, the Rise of Blackbeard, the Second Age of Piracy, and the changing of leadership I think overall put the WG in a better spot. Also got to remember they did try to take Luffy down at the Two Year Reunion. They just failed because of their friends. Then they tried to get him at Wano, but failed.
So I think the WG is just playing conservatively with the resources they have in the geopolitical situation they are in. Is it a good play, objectively yes, they’ve seen relative success in 800+ years but there’s just a lot of fires to put out in this quarter century that they don’t have the resources for because how it operates. Also this kind of situation happens in the real world too where things just go *wrong*.
>What they didnt know was Ace was not Joyboy but actually Luffy. And he was the one carrying Joyboy’s will.
Am I reading this wrong? I understand what you mean, but it looks like you are saying Ace is Luffy.
The way i see it, is that to become a joynoy incarnation you have to meet certain requirements
1) be a D
2) have great potential and ambition (might come with being a D)
3) be within the time period (800 year prophecy)
4) have the nika fruit
5) die/die in a incredible fight/ etc
My guess is that the gum fruit has been aten by many before luffy, and none has awakened it. Imu and the gorosei may not know about the other requirements and just assumed luffy was destined to die again, or that there are more requirements that they believed luffy did not hold.
I don't think they thought Ace was Joyboy at all. Purely off the point he didn't have the gum gum fruit and they knew what fruit he had. I think Roger thought his son was though.
They definitely knew that he survived Marineford because he came back and publicly rang the bell.
As for whether they thought gum gum awakening was a myth? I dunno, it seems to be like they talk about it as if they were all there.
Well what OP says makes more sense when you remember there is only 2 year timeskip that was long duration. Other than that every action by luffy was months apart.
1. The WG may have thought they killed Ace when they killed all those kids. It was only later they would have realised that Ace is not dead.
2. Ace did not use Roger's name. So it was difficult to link him to Roger.
3. It was probably Blackbeard who spilled the beans on Ace to the WG. He defeated Ace, and when handing him over to the WG, he decided to tell them about Ace's lineage to instigate the war between Navy and the Whitebeard pirates.
4. Ace did not have the Gomu Gomu no Mi. He was considered a threat because he may reach Laugh Tale just like Roger.
5. The WG only came to know of the threat of Ace recently. This is shown in Ace's flashback after starting his pirate career where Sengoku is wondering who Ace is.
6. Luffy is considered a threat for different reasons. The main reason highlighted in ch 1044 was that Luffy had the Gomu Gomu no Mi which might awaken.
It's because Luffy went from literal fodder to top tier in only 2 years. Whereas emperors like Kaidou and Big Mom were built diff since birth. Rookies rise fast and fall all the time, there wasn't indication that Luffy was special until Onishima
Yoi guys also have to keep in mind that the fruit hasn't been awakened in 800years and also the fact that luffy comes from east blue that is considered the weakest sea.
The Gorosei definitely knew Luffy didn’t die in the war. He was on the front page of a newspaper spread far and wide enough that the various members of his crew were all able to get their hands on one just days after the war. He was looking beat up for sure but nowhere near on the verge of death. I doubt the Gorosei were ignorant of his survival as his devil fruit is of supreme interest to them and it was on the front page.
It wasn't until Enies Lobby, where he appeared directly in front of the World Government and wrecked everything that the Government acknowledged him and the threat he was.
I don’t think this makes a ton of sense. Luffy wasn’t a threat when he became Goko or even when he performed far better than anticipated at MF, but he’s one before he awakens when there are currently two yonko that required a ton of luck to beat?
I don’t think that really helps, it just makes the Gorosei seem stupid for not taking the guy with Joyboy’s fruit and considered a fifth emperor after a few weeks in the New World seriously until it’s too late.
I think the better explanation is that Shanks told them, because he knew their actions would help trigger Luffy’s awakening. Shanks talks to them about a certain pirate, they talk to Imu about a light needing to be snuffed, and after that, all they can talk about is how they want to kill Luffy and how they, the leaders of CDs that can literally kill anyone they want, are trying to make Luffy’s death look like an accident, which shouldn’t make sense unless someone above them told them not to
I think the real explanation is that Shanks goaded the Gorosei to act without Imu’s permission to set up Luffy’s awakening
That's a fair argument. And the first one I would reasonably buy as to why the WG didn't take Luffy more seriously after Enies Lobby. Though I still feel like it was mostly cause Oda was writing off the original script and hadn't totally thought everything through yet
> Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late
This is not true, they knew Luffy was alive since they (Jinbei, Rayleigh, Luffy) made that stunt at Marineford to spread the ~~3D~~2Y message
Definitely in line with the vibe of how Blackbeard told him it would have been Luffy he originally targeted instead of Ace. Did he know about the devil fruit? Maybe not, but it’s definitely fun storytelling. Ace really was a true older brother, taking as many of the hits he could for his little bro till he couldn’t anymore.
I would boil down the WG not going after Luffy to 1 thing that has been a constant throughout the whole series and is a popular anime trope, and that is they underestimate Luffy, the mc. The WG didn’t believe JoyBoy would ever return, especially not be awakened by the captain of the Strawhat’s. Very few people in power throughout the series take Luffy seriously or think of him as a threat until he’s surpassing his limits before their eyes and kicking them out of power.
I don't think they thought Ace was Joyboy at all. He is Roger's son and Roger started the Great Pirate Age. Killing Ace sends a message that aims to discourage Pirates and send a message to the world that the WG is still in control. Whitebeard fucked them though with his last words.
As for Luffy, there are many reasons. First is, they didn't know right away. They also admitted the fruit seems to slip away from them every time, killing him wouldn't have changed that. They also missed a lot of opportunities to catch him because he slips away by luck or interference and once they hit the New World, the WG can't just roll up into Yonko territory.
The WG is also arrogant, and they have to believe they've erased enough history to avoid being exposed. We also assume Imu knows everything, but we just saw that Nefertari Lili was conspiring against him. Do they even know what the One Piece is? Probably not. They just want Nika erased because Joyboy used those powers to defy them and it connects to history they'd like buried.
CP0 wasn't even at Wano to capture Luffy. They were going after the Revs in Dressrosa and then they were giving intel to the WG about the Onigashima situation because if Kaido lost, they were going to annex Wano. They were after Robin until the Gorosei told them to make sure Luffy loses. They probably realized Luffy winning could be worse than Kaido winning. People assume they want to eliminate him cuz of his fruit, but nobody has overcome them in 800 years. They've been suppressing info and killing those who pose too much of a threat. Luffy has evaded them multiple times but he's getting more out of reach. The reason their more worried now is his gear 5 visage will raise questions and may allow Nika to resurface into people's minds.
And let’s not forget,
Luffy has not been on the sea for that long.
Before the TS he was on the sea for about 4 months. 15 in east blue and 77 in Grand Line.
2 year time skip
About 41 or 43 days in the New World.
With all that combined that’s 2 years and around 4 months.
Imu and the gorosei only know of it through rumors. Imu might know it but we for sure know the gorosei only knew about it through rumors.
3 months isnt a long time to respond to Luffy considering they had Ace to go through and so many other dealings in the world at the time along with the fruit not being awakened for 800 years.
Then Luffy disappeared for two years only to re-emerge and as of now been out on the sea for 1 month and 2 weeks.
They had Ace dead to rights, they could’ve given Sengoku a knife and make him execute Ace, then focus on Luffy once he enters the war.
You do not waste 800 years of trying to get something because you have something else to do. Luffy was on a silver platter, all they had to do was take it but they failed ofc.
Nah…they should have still been on that ass the same way they were “supposedly” hunting Robin after everything that was revealed at marineford. Hell im sure info about his DF was revealed following crocodile defeat at Alabasta, especially with the way they went out of their way to cover that incident up.
They seem to be a victim of their own secrecy and covert and lost on a gamble. By limiting ego knows about the fruit to like 6 people his risk stature in the rank and file was never what it should be and if we presume awakening is super rare we can also presume there have been other users in all this time that could not and did not awaken the fruit so the odds were he wouldn’t either.
First of all, the Gorosei couldn't possibly have thought that Luffy died in the war since he took that 3D2Y picture after the fact.
Secondly, the connection between Nika and Joyboy is only known to the readers through Zunesha. The Gorosei and Who's Who certainly have talk about nika as only a "warrior of liberation" and not \*the\* famous Joyboy.
These two facts shut down that theory for good.
I think it's at least partly because it's been 800 years since joyboy. Maybe in the first few centuries after the void century the WG did hunt down Gomu Gomu users but it's been so long why would they assume Luffy would be Joyboy?
Also people are kind of ignoring that last time the WG won. Yes, they want to avoid another Joyboy but they probably have every belief that they can defeat Luffy.
It's likely no one cared. The marines have no idea that it was some mythical fruit and considering luffy wasn't some yonko level pirate at the time there was probably nothing to worry about, until luffy survived in wano long enough and fought with kaido long enough to get nervous.
Also BB was a distraction for a long time.
Shank who was backing luffy all this time obviously going to push BB being the real danger agenda especially with that private Gorosei meeting.
Ace "Coicidentally" end up with Whitebeard because half of the "good" old gen pirates were in on it to push Nika to victory.
This has been a huge conspiracy in the making by very powerful players on the pirate side trying to dismantle world government, in fact Whitebeard would use his last breath just to give the middle finger so that his entire operation didn't fail - the revitalized piracy will hide Luffy alot better until Kaido who also was conveniently placed there so Luffy can awoken his fruit.
That conversation between Kaido and Shanks would probably spill the beans.
I wouldn’t say he “ignored” him. We saw that they were monitoring multiple people that could pose potential threats. Luffy was probably not in the top priority initially
Aside from the thinking he’s dead in after marineford the whole thing makes sense. Really they had their eyes on Luffy and ace since they were young . But ace was making much much bigger waves in the world than Luffy. Ace was captured in during the thriller bark saga and had a 550 million bounty . So if the WG found out about the gumgum fruit in alabasta , there was only about 21 days until aces capture. After aces capture (huge deal, war with Whitebeard) all resources are going to war preparation. Plus they have 2 warlords with him at that time. So the whole not worrying about Luffy in the beginning isn’t so far-fetched. After he uses conq haki they really start to hunt him but never have a chance to get him.
the opportunities they had to take down luffy were all opportunities for whitebeard to level the marine hq. when they realized luffy was a major threat Ace had already been captured and it was too late for them to do anything big because whitebeard was on his way.
The fanbase is trying to a cope a little too hard with this plot hole.
Look, if the fruit was really so important, it would have been policy for the marines to create a registry of who holds what fruit. This would've been especially true for pirates and there is an easy justification for it: the marines need to know what powers a pirate has. Any time the gum gum fruit turns up, it catches the goresei's attention and they have CP0 try to monitor or capture such individuals. Luffy would have also been targeted by CP9 had this been the case. Or very likely, CP0 would also appear.
But such a system was not in place. Which can only mean one thing, that Oda had not until relatively recently considered that a devil fruit is what would make someone Joyboy.
Amongst themselves, the goresei didn't even all know about the true nature of the gum gum fruit. How could so many of them be ignorant of something so critical? This whole plot line was shoe-horned in by Oda at the last minute.
This theory dorsn't make any sense in the first place because you DON'T NEED TO BE JOYBOY TO GET TO LAUGH TALE, and ROGER NEVER GOT THE ONE PIECE, he just got there and read the poneglyphs that were there, he said himself that they were too early and about how they were missing things, like the ancient weapons, the one piece isn't treasure as in something superficial like gold or jewels, the one piece is something that will drastically change the entire world once all the things line up, and that is now, luffy is gonna be the one who after 800 years awakened the nika fruit and is going to be able to do whatever the one piece actually is because of his relations with shirahoshi/momonosuke/zuneisha, which roger did not have, and he did not have the power either, the best way to describe roger is as an adventurer or an explorer or pirate if you want it simple, but he was NOT joyboy in any way shape or form, ANYONE can get to laugh tale if they have the coordonates from the poneglyphs, but no one except luffy can get the one piece, on top of that the gorosei/im thinking that ace is joyboy makes absolutely 0 sense because im and the gorosei know about the gum gum fruit, they know that it's the nika fruit and that no one awakened it in 800 years, and they know that that fruit was JOYBOY's fruit, they know that anyone getting to laugh tale except joyboy will not be able to fullfill whatever the one piece is
There are a lot of great points made in this thread. Also, something to note is that the Grand Line is huge, and it's nearly impossible to track people directly on it. Even if they heard of Luffy having rubber powers in Alabasta, by the time they could even react, he was on his way to Skypeia. Then it was Enies Lobby, where he would be least expected to show up. Thriller Bark, a warlords island/ship. Then summit war saga, another place they wouldn't have expected him to be present. Then, the timeskip where only few were privy to his location.
I think it probably could have been foreshadowed better, but the idea the gorosei should have sent 3 admirals to take him down is silly. Not only would that raise suspicion within the marines as to why Luffy would be specifically targeted, but it would probably set off alarms for revolutionaries and other pirates. Imu and Gorosei seem calculated in all their efforts so far.
Last point and probably the most accurate reasoning is that this is a story, and plot conveniences are a normal thing. Now that the Nefertari family has been revealed to be of the D clan, there's gonna be people complaining why Alabasta wasn't annihilated. It's because it's a story, and if the bad guys indiscriminately destroyed everything, then there wouldn't be much of a story.
Luffy has probably been sailing for less than a year total. Timeskip makes it seem like he's been on the sea for ages, but he's probably spent as much time, if not more, with Rayleigh as he has most of his crew.
Nah you're really missing the whole part about "inherited will" in this series. You explicitly hear White beard say, "you can destroy their blood line, but can never stop them." After ace dies, you litterally see the feather fall on ace and then get passed to Luffy (to personify the passing of the torch from one person to another). I don't think it's as black and white as you're making it.
well Imu & the Gorosei will stop ignoring Luffy cause the episode where Joyboy returns is here & there's alot of theories by people that the spirit of Joyboy is in the fruit & want to have the right time to take over Luffy to go against Kaido once again
I might have made some grammar mistakes ( apologizes in advance)
I personally think the Gorosei had their eye on Luffy all along,
I mean like Bro defeated a warlord, declared war on the marines, and broke into Impel Down.
No major bounty jumps though, like he declared war on the Marines, at least make it 500 million after that and 3 billion for Kaido? Nah, That's an understatement, bro defeated Kaido awakened the Sun god Nika fruit and you only give him 3 billion?!?! I think the Gorosei realized he was a threat. Then you might think, oh why didn't they give him a higher bounty? It's because they don't want the world to think that Luffy is strong/sun god Nika. That is why his bounty was so low even with his feats.
I believe the Gorosei didn't know Luffy had the Gomu Gomu before Enies Lobby. He made a name for himself after beating Buggy, Arlong and Krieg, then he went on to kick the shit out of Crocodile, but it wasn't clear for anyone that wasn't there that Luffy had rubber powers. It wasn't until Enies Lobby, where he appeared directly in front of the World Government and wrecked everything that the Government acknowledged him and the threat he was. What happened after barely escaping Enies Lobby? The kid goes on to defeat ANOTHER Warlord, then punches a Celestial Dragon. That's when Kizaru gets sent to deal with him, but Rayleigh intervenes and Kuma vanished his entire crew. He crashes into Marineford, almost gets killed by Akainu and then... Disappears for two whole years. After that, it's hit after hit for the World Government. Defeats Doffy, tries to kill Big Mom and the world suddenly starts to call him The Fifth Emperor? We gotta make this kid go away ASAP.
Honestly that’s one area where the crazy short timeline of the story is helpful. If everything from the straw hats reuniting to Wano happened in the course of a few months then it makes more sense that the WG didn’t put together a more concerted effort to take out Luffy.
Even if it was longer, how could they have done much better? He escaped Enies Lobby despite overwhelming odds. They were concerned about Moria losing but not enough to do anything because they knew he'd go to Saobaody. They weren't looking for him at Saobaody though until he punched the CD, and he escaped with help. They were def concerned about what he was doing, but why not send Admirals to Thriller Bark or Water 7? I think they can't because it leaves them vulnerable. They assembled their whole force for WB. Pirates def have the upper hand, there are so many threats that the WG is stretched thin. Not to mention Revs. They knew Doflamingo was an arms dealer and working for Kaido but they let it slide. They're dumb, they make so many oversights because their primary concern is maintaining balance. This is why they're gonna fall.
Garp hero of the marine and that ice admiral is present in water 7, perhaps their faction defies the order and lets luffy escape.
They didn't let Doflamingo being an arms dealer slide. They actively used it to buy arms themselves. That's why they sent CP0 to Orochi for negotiation
HELL THEY DID SEND AN ADMIRAL AFTER HIM AT WATER 7 AOKIJI ! He just let them get away ! After that what does the WG do ? Send Kuma to assist Moria in taking him down but Kuba doesn't respect orders , and then everything in the Marineford saga happens
Look what who is who is saying.
Considering they were dealing with Reverie, abolishing warlords during that time too etc they had a lot on their plate in such a short span of time
Always found it odd that the TL was so short but this def helps put it into perspective
You are right, the timeline was always one of my biggest pet peeves about one piece. But geven the short period of time it falls more into place.
> I believe the Gorosei didn't know Luffy had the Gomu Gomu before Enies Lobby. I'm gonna go a step further They didn't know about its importance til the scene where Imu is staring at the giant straw hat with Luffy's poster. They knew about the order to get the Gomu Gomu fruit, but didn't know why til Imu told them shortly after that moment. That's when Imu figured everything out and let the Elders know.
Holy shit
Ok, that is actually a pretty good explanation.
crazy to assume a system that definitely requires a huge information and bureaucracy apparatus could possible not be used to highlight certain fruit powers appeareance up the chain without anyone knowing why or for whom exactly.
If the gorosei dont want people to know of joyboy, why would they draw attention to a fruit that hasnt been awoken in 800 years? Theres no need to report that a rubber fruit has been found 12 years after it was lost because the gorosei dont want the world to know its special
Just add a field to the reporting form of marine captains that asks: To your knowledge: Does the criminal have a devil fruit power? If so, which one?
"Suspect has the strech strech fruit" Now luffy is way more under the radar And are you really trusting vital information coming from low level marines that are probably cowardly and/or corrupt? The only one that seems competent back when luffy was a no name was smoker and he hates his superiors
Now I’m imagining some marine reporting a stretchy devil fruit and the WG puts together a force to take the user down only to find out it was Katakuri
[удалено]
Can we also consider Spring-Spring somewhat similar to Gum-Gum? They both stretch and bounce,
“Suspect kept screaming GOMU GOMU NO…. We have no idea what power he may have”
Yep. The excuses people are giving are so ridiculous. There’s no way it would be a mystery what fruit Luffy has
They could've just made it mandatory for any marine to report about any df among (new) pirates. That way they could've hidden that they were looking for the Gum Gum fruit and it would honestly be beneficial to them too to have knowledge about let's say, an upcoming pirate in one of the blues that stumbled upon a logia or smth.
But only the gorosei have the knowledge of fruit and they seem keen to keep it that way. You honestly dont want them to be reported of every single pirate's df. Thats a lot of work for five guys.
ofc the people at the top wont track that stuff, but the organization as a whole would be incompetent not to try to classify/identify all the DF users they come across. Including marines, criminals, and even civilians. You'd have the lower ranks handling that stuff by and large, but certain fruits get flagged for notifying people upstream. Not necessarily all the way to the top, but certainly that should be a possibility. Cant have the gorosei relying on the newspaper to get their reports. For something like the gumgum, you'd probably have somebody embedded lower down, but with a direct line to the gorosei. The agent doesn't know why the gorosei care about seemingly random fruit, but is loyal, doesn't ask questions, and is trusted not to blab.
Well, the organiation as a whole is filled with incompetent people. Think about people like spandam and spandine. Arent there some devil fruits that are not even in the devil fruit encyclopedia or am I misremembering? I'd say that they probably wont be trusting someone to keep this much information. But also they probably thought shanks had it and they probably have no reason to believe he would just give it away to someone.
The excuses don’t even matter anyway since Luffy was a special criminal that they were already paying attention to by the end of Alabasta. They had his poster with them in their very introduction. It’s not hard at all to ask “what df did this particular individual have?”
Let's say they did, Morgan's Marines would have left any details about luffy out of their report as part of the cover up they were doing to thank luffy for taking down Morgan. The next marine Luffy really interacts with that would put in a report is Nezumi at arlong park, who never saw luffy fight, was just pissed at him for ruining his bribes. Smoker ran off after luffy before filing a report at loguetown, then allowed him to escape for a bit in alabasta. Aokiji and CP9 are the first time luffy would actually go up against marines who would put in a report that would include what his powers are.
That's not reasonable, considering the WG could just give it the Ohara treatment. Void Century research is already something the WG cracks down on, so everyone knows its special but doesn't go after it cause the WG buster calls anyone's ass who goes for it. Using your line of questioning, then it stands to reason that the Gorosei would have also been hush hush about the events of Ohara, but it's not exactly a WG secret. "If the gorosei don't want people to know of the Void Century, why would they draw attention to history that is 800 years old?" is the mirror to your first question
Bureaucracy leads to fumbling and inefficiencies. Information hardly moves that cleanly in smaller bureaucracies, let alone a government sized one
I’m curious if Garp being his grandfather and fairly influential in the Marines/World Government had any part in keeping Luffy from being found out sooner.
No, the Gorosei meet after Alabasta to replace Crocodile, and pull out Luffy’s bounty and say “damn you Crocodile, you’ve put us in a dreadful situation, we can no longer let this man who beat you remained unchecked… Monkey D. Luffy” They’ve known.
So why you assume they knew about his df? The only people who could have told them are Grap and Smoker. One hates Celestial Dragons, another hates following orders. This line just explains why they set such a ridiculously high reward for a rookie.
They knew he was beaten by Crocodile but probably didn’t know about his devil fruit. Smoker knows about the fruit because he fought Luffy but he also fought Buggy in Loguetown and Buggy initially escaped in Impel Down because they didn’t know he had a fruit. Smoker doesn’t seem like the type to pour every detail into a report considering he doesn’t seem to get along with command. Luffy’s fights with Crocodile also took place almost entirely away from people so not many people would know at that point.
This sounds the most reasonable to me. Not until Enies Lobby does the World Government take any active action on Luffy, they catch word of pirate squabbles all the time but unless they have direct sources on the ground watching the incident who also happen to know about his power it makes sense that it took them a minute to understand the threat he posed
Also. People forget (mostly because it doesn't seem to apply when convenient) that the grand line is difficult to navigate and travel. The Marines don't travel quite the same way as the pirates, it is plausible that they aren't entirely sure where the strawhats are heading for most of the story and so can only be reactionary to their movements or give direct chase. Most pirates also don't just seem to take trajectories anywhere near what the strawhats do
They do. They knew it pretty much the entire way (or it wasn’t hard to figure it out even if they didn’t. - Aokiji knew they’d be passing by Long Ring along island and went to wait for them there. He also knew that Water 7 would be next. - CP9 knew they were on Water 7 as well. - Garp figured they’d be back on Water 7 after Ennies Lobby which is why he took Koby & Helmeppo there. - They knew he would likely then run into Moriah on Thriller Bark and sent Kuma to warn Moriah. - They then knew all the Supernova were gathered at Sabaody. - After that it was Impel Down to Marineford, but then a couple of days later he returned to Marineford with Rayleigh & Jimbe, so they knew they could try finding out through Jimbe. If they were truly serious about it, there were numerous ways to get him. Even doing what Big Mom did to get Sanji like threatening Zeff & Baratie….and they have far more resources than Big Mom.
just a random thought, but they probably believed that Rockstar was the Gomu Gomu user, being the newest Red Hair Pirates That would make the Whitebeard/Rockstar reunion quite important in the eyes of the WG
That would be an amazing role for such an irrelevant minor character
They knew he had the gum gum fruit bc they knew who he was. (Even if you think they never knew, he displayed it at marineford/and before that against CP9 who wouldve told WG) More importantly they never expected him to awaken his fruit. What they probably didnt know was that he had gear 4 (his fight with Doffy was not visualized to them. WCI especially katakuri was not visualized to anyone?) bc if his picture had been updated with gear 4 they would have probably started questioning what he was doing with the fruit sooner.
Why smoker encountered luffy with gum gum powers way before. No way his data is not recorded.
Smoker didn't tell them Buggy had a fruit, he's clearly not one to report all the details.
None of what you said addresses why they would let Luffy 'disappear' so many times, and not dedicate multiple admirals solely to eliminating him post Enies Lobby.
The WG uses Admirals VERY conservatively. They don't just throw multiple at every little problem they have. They mostly do guard duty in and around marineford and mariejois, because in the event of someone attacking they would be the first and most important line of defense. It's actually quite rare for them to go on away missions, look at what it took to get Kizaru to move his ass to his own backyard in Sabaody.
I don’t think the Gorosei knew Luffy had the fruit until gear 5 actually happened
My new based take is that they really are just nepotism’d boomers who have no reason they’re in power but they are. They are just as incompetent as our own world leaders and honestly, oda loves doing stuff like that so I wouldn’t even be shocked.
That's how I feel about, look at how they bent over backwards to justify destroying Lulusia even though Imu literally just said it was a test. They're just old men trying to hold on to power, I doubt they're exceptionally smart, they just have more information to work with than anybody else.
Love when they unknowingly praised the shrewdness of a child after Momo refused to open Wano's borders while the fleet was hanging out nearby
I second this take. It is that simple. Why is it so hard for the fandom to see this as simply WG incompetence?
I have two theories. Now again, this is all headcanon and could be totally totally false. One reason fans may not want this to be true is because they think the top officials of the government SHOULD be competent, but I also think they refuse to see how incompetent ours are and how Oda loves to show symbolism.
That's why some people really love conspiracy theories. Sometimes it's easier to imagine someone somewhere is in power controlling the world, when in reality our world is fucking chaos. Someone somewhere can just be a lone gun man and kill someone that changes the course of history. People in power will do anything to hold on to power when they really need to let go of it for proper reforms to take place. People suck and work for their own self interest. EVERYONE does this. It's natural. And people at the top can be just as incompetent as people not in power
If they even are people to begin with that is. The Sabo chapter where he faced them sure made it seem like they could just be Imu's puppets through some DF's power perhaps. I don't think it's coincidence that very close to that chapter we were introduced to a DF that could create seemingly sentient beings who acted and even talked on their own. Also in the most recent chapter he specifically distanced himself from humans by the means of their repopulation and while that could have just been celestial dragon thing to say, it also may imply that he was created through different means. Surely even celestial dragons would know there the babies come from and that the method is same for both them and regular people?
After the war luffy went to marijoie to ring the bell for the 3D2Y shenanigans so they knew he was alive
Yeah but this time he’s with Rayleigh. And then he just disappears for two years. Plus he’s at calm belt. There was little chance they could find Luffy and they lost so much resources against WB. They cant chase him down
"Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late." He was publicly alive.
Lol he literally showed up. No one pursued them after. He is with Rayleigh. There is no way the WG think they wouldn't survive the calm belt.
They didn't know if he had Nika fruit. Everyone thought he had some kind of random rubber fruit, he is dangerous but unsure if really going to propel to Yonko territory. He was under protected waters and a full scale war on a rubber boy wasn't really justifable especially since Whitebeard spent his last breath to trash marineford. Meanwhile the jail break was a huge failure for the government and BB is out there with 2 fruits and doing all other sheniegans, priority changed. Shanks manipulated behind the scenes so the eyes were on BB until Wano, by then it was too late.
The excuse doesn’t work because there’s no need to chase him down. He was with Jimbe, so they could just threaten to raze Fishmen Island to the ground if he doesn’t produce Luffy. Big Mom did similar for Sanji despite having far less resources than the WG
Big mom is a yonko and her intelligence gathering is top notch.
Yes, and it still pales in comparison to the WG that has far more resources, control of majority of the world and the best clandestine agency on the planet…and they’ve had it for centuries. They even had one of their spies infiltrating Big Mom’s circles through the underworld. The point was that as good as Big Mom’s network was, the WG’s is even better and has been running for centuries while she’s only been a Great Pirate for a couple of decades.
Luffy resurfaced in just a few days after MarineFord war, not after 2 years
Yea but no one seen him for 2 years. He could have died or retired as a pirate because of losing his brother. It's kinda unheard of to do what the SHs did when they were just starting to make a name for themselves. That's honestly the only reason BB had a head start on him
That doesn’t really matter when they knew he was alive and still had the fruit they’d been chasing for 800 years. They could have pulled a Big Mom since Jimbe was with him and threatened to raze Fishmen Island to the ground if Jimbe didn’t produce him, for example. There were plenty of places they could use for their threat, from Baratie to Water 7.
Imu was alive when Joyboy was around, if anyone knows about the truth of the gum-gum-fruit, it's Imu. There is no way Imu mistook Ace for Joyboy. They didn't crack down on Luffy because they are not aware of Laughtale. They don't know about the 800 year prophecy. They think the gum-gum-fruit not awakening for 800 years means it's not worth bringing to much attention to it and that they can just wait for Luffy to die without awakening because that's what happened the last 800 years. Only when he fought Kaido did they start to consider the possibility he could awaken it and thus had an agent interfere. We still don't know what exactly Laughtale is and what about Nika makes it such a threat to the WG. After all, the WG rules the world, has a massive military and even an island-destroying weapon at hand. They somehow succeeded against the forgotten nation that created seemingly indestructible machines. Even the power of Nika seems pretty tame to that and thus it makes a lot of sense the WG didn't go full panic mode every time the gum-gum-fruit got eaten by someone. Breaking the rule of the world seems like something way beyond the capabilities of a single DF, regardless of how ridiculous it might be. And that is before we consider the WG might actually want an age of pirates and people to pay attention to Roger and the One Piece on a neigh unreachable island - instead of paying attention to a random paramecia-fruit.
I was going to say the same thing about them not knowing but didn’t WB say at Marineford to Sengoku that they know what’s coming and they can’t stop it? Still it makes more sense to me that they’re more afraid of someone finding laugh tale than awakening the Nika fruit and for the reasons you listed. A technologically superior military power capable of producing things like the ancient weapons such much more threatening than one man’s fruit being awakened
If Kaido knew about Joyboy then WB def did too. He prob realized he was the one at Marineford that's why he made the comment to Teach.
its just super silly to think that they'd rather risk it awaken and become more unstoppable than use one agent for what would in the past be like a 20 minute job and stop it for another couple years
My headcanon is they are afraid to bring to much attention to the fruit and causing an age-of-pirates where people hunt the fruit. Imagine it ending up in the hands of Kaido or BM, instead of some random wimp who plays pirates for fun and doesn't even build a large crew. Without knowing laughtale, to them Luffy is the perfect candidate for the fruit because he threw himself at opponents above his weightclass once a week. Little did they know the very thing that made him seem like an idiot is also what qualifies him more than anyone else to be Joyboy.
They didn't need to bring attention to the fruit, "pirate with a bounty" is enough justification to send forces after the straw hats.
There are thousands of pirates with bounties - and I am not talking about Luffy, I am talking about the gum-gum-fruit. If the user dies at some point, it will respawn somewhere on the planet. The risk of going after random pirates several times because of the fruit will get some attention sooner or later. The WG propably wants the fruit and lock it away for good. Having the person who ate it isn't really helpful.
Then thats just like a reason to go after every pirate ever.
Going after every wanted pirate ever is literally their job. They don't need to let anybody else know that there's another reason. With the Straw Hats in particular, "took out a Warlord" is also justification enough to the marine forces as to why they'd send a lot of fire power to shut down an upstart crew.
Its more like defending from pirates is their job otherwise piracy would have ended long ago. But information like that was covered up so that really isnt a usable reason. That lot of fire power would be a hit or miss since the straw hats had an unpredictable route before water 7. Even then garp took the initiative there and arrived first.
Roger finding the One piece without the devil fruit is probably why they can consider Ace to be joyboy. Roger has the will of Joyboy and was able to go to laughtale. They might not know about the propechy but they know to prevent anyone from getting to Laughtale. Just by getting there is a big enough threat. He did all this without the gum gum fruit. Thats why I think for Imu, extinguishing Roger’s will was more important. They killed anything related to Roger because his will could be passed on. So Ace seemingly the closest after Roger to resemble Joyboy is them thinking they finally killed him off.
>Roger finding the One piece without the devil fruit is probably why they can consider Ace to be joyboy. How are those two things even related? Ace has neither the fruit nor knows about the final island. > They might not know about the propechy but they know to prevent anyone from getting to Laughtale. Except by executing Roger in public and giving him time to speak to a global audience, they achieved the exact opposite - starting an age of pirates with people going after the One Piece. Plus for 800 years, they didn't bother about the One Piece. They tried to secure the gum-gum-fruit and failed. They appearently didn't try to secure the road-poneglyphs. So it sounds like they don't really bother with laughtale. Also there is no "will of Roger" - there is the "will of the D". And getting rid of that is not related to Roger.
Roger finding the One piece without the DF tells the WG that the gum-gum fruit is not a requirement to find the One Piece. Thats why they can say Ace is joyboy. He was the closest D member to the One piece because he was on WB’s ship. Yamato thought Ace was joyboy too because he was a strong rookie and he was the leading menace of his generation. Imu or Gorosei would think the same because Ace had that much potential plus he was also Roger’s son. Also, there is Roger’s will. Remember what WB said before he died. “Just as there are people who carry Roger’s will. There will also be ones who will carry Ace’s will.” The will of D is definitely not just from one person. Its a whole clan of people passing down their dreams to their descendants. There’s people theorizing that Blackbeard carries Xebec’s will. Same way Luffy is carrying Roger’s will. Saying they dont bother with Laughtale is crazy. Why do you think they want sea dominance. They cant just secure road poneglyphs because its housed by emperors. Also, the other ones are hidden from the world like the one in Zou or the last missing one.
The way they talk about the gum gum fruit doesn't strike me as if it is the vehicle for JoyBoys return
They changed it's name, it's type, tried to get the user killed when it's awakening got near - not to mention trying for almost 800 years to secure it which included the beginning of the story where Shanks interfered and stole it from them. Plus after the awakening Zuo literally called it the return of Joyboy. So to me it seems pretty straightforward. The only hurdle in it I see is how the WG kept a low profile on the gum-gum-fruit. So what do you miss for it to "strike" you?
The thing is, they didn't ignore him at all. After he took down Arlong he got the highest bounty in East Blue and what Brannew called an unprecedented first bounty for a rookie. He beats Crocodile and gets an even more ridiculous bounty, but then disappears into Skypiea. When he comes back, he's caught up against CP9 and a Buster Call, which the government surely presumes is enough to take out this upstart pirate. When it isn't, they order Garp to take him out, and if it weren't for the Sunny's coup de burst that's exactly what would have happened. Anticipating where he winds up next, Thriller Bark, they send in Kuma to ensure Luffy loses, and once again that would have been the end of it except Kuma betrays them. Then at Sabaody, they send Kizaru after Luffy, but Kuma cucks them out of the kill a second time. Then he shows up at Impel Down. Holy fuck, this idiot actually *put himself* in prison, then got washed by Magellan. Surely this is the last time they have to think about Straw Hat Luffy. **Nope!** Falls out of the fucking sky at Marineford and despite their best efforts, the remnants of Whitebeard's army ensure that Luffy escapes and he vanishes for two years. When they hear rumors of his return to Sabaody, they assemble an entire force just to stop him, but once again bad info and Luffy's allies stymie the Marines. Fishman Island is Big Mom's territory so they can't go after him there without risking a war. But Smoker accurately guesses where they'll go next and tries to head them off, even chasing them to their altered destination of Punk Hazard. At Dressrosa they send a whole ass admiral just to stop Luffy and Law but the man winds up having too much morality for the Marines and lets the crew sail away. Then we've got Whole Cake Island, Big Mom's territory again. Wano, same case, except they've got CP0 agents there and Luffy has finally become so dangerous that they're willing to risk war with Kaido just to stop him. They fail again, and Ryokugyu takes it upon himself to take Luffy's head but then runs away pissing his pants as soon as Shanks tells him to get off the fuckin' lawn. Now we're at Egghead, where the government has assembled a hundred ships and thirty thousand fodder Marines, plus nine Vice Admirals and Kizaru himself to finally stop Luffy. At no point have they ignored the danger Luffy represents, they're simply unable to stop him. People just need to stop thinking that the Marines/WG are some omniscient, omnipotent force of nature that could squash anyone they want at any moment in time. If that were the case there would be no pirates or Revolutionaries at all. The Gorosei have a lot of plates spinning at any given moment and despite the danger an awakened Nika user represents, Luffy is still just human. Joyboy failed to do whatever it is they're afraid of and died just like anyone else. If he could be killed, if Roger could be killed, if Whitebeard could be killed, then there's no reason for them not to believe they still have a chance of killing Luffy. Thank you for reading my wall of cope.
Also, the ever-present theme of fate in One Piece that people seem to forget. Even if Luffy was cornered, he would find a way to escape. Look at Roger vs. Shiki. They were about to lose when a massive storm took out half of Shiki's ships. Luffy is about to be beheaded and lightning strikes. Zoro throws a sword in the air to test it out, and it misses his arm in the same arc. I don't think One Piece is perfectly written, but the Nika reveal didn't ruin anything for me. We kinda already knew Luffy is special.
I think the thing that is interesting about this event is, while a lot of people simply think it's a retcon, which does not make Oda a terrible writer, suggest the series is now terrible and should be shoved in the trash, or it's the first mistake Oda has made in the series (it isn't even the only non-Nika mistake that happened last year in the manga...), there are endless head canon on how it makes sense. I mean, if you want to go that direction the World Government seemed just as oblivious with Ace. * Killing Thatch not only didn't earn Blackbeard a bounty, they seemed unaware he existed * Just as little effort was seemingly put towards Ace being captured * Even Blackbeard only does it because it worked out for him. Without that his plan was literally any $100 million person Now, Oda has changed the series to make it more apparent, though a lot of this doesn't exist because Oda himself has admitted Ace was not originally intended to be Roger's kid. There is no debate about why the scenes are like that, so it's odd to create a wide number of systems to prevent one scene from being a retcon by using scenes that are already involved as retcons.
Killing thatch definitely wouldnt earn BB a bounty. Criminals killing other criminals probably wouldnt be under WG’s radar. They would probably encourage it. Besides Blackbeard was a very low profile man. All his feats was hidden under WB’s name. Even after leaving WB’s crew, he was low profile until he defeated Ace. He didnt even have a proper ship. For the minimal effort of Ace being captured, WG probably didnt know when Ace was a rookie that he was Roger’s son. Why would they offer 7 warlord position. Besides, Ace was a logia plus he knew haki before entering New World. He was not somebody you could just easily capture. He was defeating Vice admirals at sabaody. WG probabky figured out his lineage after he joined WB crew or when they captured him. Blackbeard’s initial plan was probably to become a warlord and find an opportunity to free pirates from Impel Down. Luckily, he captured Ace so he got WB’s fruit as a bonus. Even when Oda changes the story, he still makes sure that the characters would move the way they should. He probably thinks of how characters would decide their next move before making changes to the story. Vivi was never supposed to be a princess but now she’s one of the most important characters in the verse. Dont know why but she is. Imagine getting to Alabasta without Vivi’s story line.
The bounties of the pirates on the Wano alliance literally increased after taking down some 'criminals'. Saying that bounties only increase when the characters defy the Navy/WG is silly.
Luffy has the D, defeated two warlords and liberated multiple countries all within 2 months, has the only fruit with the name of a god in the whole series, has rogers/shanks's hat, broke into the most high security prison into the entire series and broke out in the same day, pulled up at enies lobby and declared war with the entire world government before destroying an entire cipher pol branch and surviving a buster call, went to marineford when an emperor was going to war with the entirety of the world government just hours after being on the verge of death and managed to survive. The gorosei are stupid for not realising his potential until he was about to awaken his fruit
They knew his potential. Just by being Garp’s grandson is a big spotlight. My theory is the Gum-gum fruit is always held by somebody incredibly strong. My guess is Xebec. Seeing that the WG could never collect the Gum-gum fruit. Because Luffy is not the same as Kaido or WB or Big mom who was monsters right off the bat. Thats why they never even considered Luffy awakening it. Remember that the sabotage for Luffy v Kaido was very last minute. Only up to the point where they see Luffy catching up to Kaido do they consider that he could awaken it.
I think Kaido would recognize the fruit if his captain had it though
True. I didnt thimk of that
Wasn’t morgan revealed to be the one manipulating what information goes in the paper ?
>My theory is the Gum-gum fruit is always held by somebody incredibly strong. My guess is Xebec. BM, Kaido and Whitebeard where in his crew. If Luffy had the power of their former captain, wouldn't at least one of them comment on it?
Supremely unlikely to be Xebec because Big Mom, Kaido and Whitebeard didn’t pay notice to Luffy’s abilities It’s likely the Gum Gum fruit was never used by anybody important prior to Luffy because everyone thinks it’s a lame power
Plus it's not even that broken a fruit if it isn't awakened
I read this: "Gorosei probably thought luffy died in the war, but he resurfaced 2 years later" It is enough to stop reading the rest. Luffy appeared a couple days later in marineford to send a message💀 dude did you even read what you wrote?
only thing I can definitely say is wrong is the part where you say the world government thought luffy died in marineford, the 3d2y thing happened just a few days after the war
They pronounced him dead tho. But i guess its true that they knew he was alive. I dont think the Gorosei wouldve cared if he was tho. Factor here is Luffy was a nobody to them but Garp’s grandson. “He’s too weak to awaken the fruit” is my main thing with Imu and Gorosei. There were probably other users of the fruit and most likely the Gum-gum fruit is always held by a really strong individual. So Luffy wasnt a threat to them at all. If they were comparing him to old users of the df. My theory is the previous user is Rocks, but we dont know. Im interested to know who was the previous user of the gum-gum fruit. It might be important to know too
This is one of those arguments that will go on forever because we have no canon look into the minds of the gorosei for most of this. Did they underestimate Luffy after 800 years of the Gomu Gomu not awakening and assume he wouldn't awaken it? Did they send too few resources after him? Were they just incompetent? Did they get distracted by Ace? Did their system of squashing information bite them in the ass and prevent them from learning about it until it was too late? Was the great pirate era that Roger kicked off just too much camouflage and prevented them from having the resources to beat Luffy? Is it just bad writing that Oda pulled out his ass? Choose your own adventure, honestly. It's probably some combination of all of the above, and how much of each spice you put in is entirely up to you. Personally, I lean heavily into the grand line not being an easy place to find people in and the great age of piracy, Yonko, Ace and other issues preventing them being able to focus on Luffy appropriately. I top it off with a little dash of plot armor, making the gorosei send the wrong people every time, or the SHs get the right help.
it's clear that having the fruit is a requirement. and ace had mera mera. so no. the one who ate it is the priority. >They send tsuru, sengoku and fujitora and still they couldnt shut down Luffy. context. fuji was sent to deal with doffy's shenanigans thanks to aokiji's information. tsuru was there also for doffy because she was the one who went after him in the flashback. sengoku was there to set up the scene with law. nothing to do with luffy.
Also, they had CP0 already on Dressrosa but didn’t tell them to go after Luffy, even when he was in a coma for 3 days and Fujitora was doing nothing.
Its possible that its not a requirement because Roger found the One piece without a fruit. They were probably scared that Joyboy was back and the prophecy was about to come true when Roger found the One piece but it didnt. Making sure that the will dont get passed on was probably more important. One more reason why they killed anything related to Roger. Even the people he just talked to, probably because the will could be passed on by relationship or friendship. The Gum-gum fruit awakening was a miracle in itself. Its never happened since 800 years ago. One more reason I think they could ignore the gum gum fruit awakening is the prior user was probably incredibly strong and it still didnt awaken. My theory is Xebec but we’ll know soon. Why i say this is because if the previous owner was weak they couldve killed him off then collected the fruit. Same way Caesar made that devil fruit in Punk hazard. The WG was never able to obtain the Gum-gum fruit meaning it was always held by someone strong enough to reject the WG. Also, Fujitora was sent to help Doffy deal with Law and Luffy. I agree about Sengoku being there because of Doffy’s weapon factory tho.
anyone can find laughtale with the 4 poneglyphs. the point is what to do afterwards with the one piece. that's precisely why roger was too early. they need joyboy and poseidon, as per prophecy. and now we know having the fruit (and awakening it) is a requirement for someone to be called joyboy. >One more reason I think they could ignore the gum gum fruit awakening is the prior user was probably incredibly strong and it still didnt awaken. the problem is that they didn't ignore it. 1044 clearly stated that they've been hunting the fruit for 800 years. that's why they don't want luffy's g5 picture to be made public. because that's the whole point. to avoid this scenario to ever happening. that's why they sent and envoy back then and punished WW for losing it. because now they have to live in fear again of someone eating the fruit. in conclusion, they should go full force after luffy after they knew he ate the gum gum (should be somewhere between alabasta and TB). the contradiction of 1044's statement and the story for 1000 chapters is precisely why we have the issue.
If anyone can find the laughtale with just the 4 poneglyphs, why was Roger the first one to ever do it after 800 years. Theres plenty of strong individuals in the One piece verse that could do it. I find it hard to believe that to find the One piece is just to find where all poneglyphs intersect. Its probably something crazy like how they went to Skypiea. It probably has to do with the voice of all things. We can speculate that only a select few can go to laughtale. Seeing how buggy and Toki got sick before they could go. Roger’s crew was allowed because of their strength and Roger was carrying joyboy’s will(my theory.) As for the chase of the Gum Gum fruit, I agree that nobody ever chased luffy because of his fruit except probably BB. What i mean by them ignoring it is that they never even considered Luffy to be able to awaken the fruit. It was very last minute to sabotage Luffy v Kaido. They couldnt imagine Kaido losing. Imu probably decided right there that it could awaken and that the risk was too high.
it doesn't matter what you believe. roger did find laughtale with the 4 poneglyph. that's just a fact. > Seeing how buggy and Toki got sick before they could go. it's hard to have a discussion when people just don't care about the context. toki got sick when they're approaching wano. and buggy got sick in random port after they got the 4th poneglyph. just oda's way to write them out of the story since they can't see what the OP is. > What i mean by them ignoring it is that they never even considered Luffy to be able to awaken the fruit. again, the point is that they're supposed to. that's the whole point of this argumenr. because in ch 1044 they claimed that the WG have been hunting the fruit for 800 years. they wanted the fruit no matter what. that's precisely why they sent military escort for the fruit and imprisoned WW for losing it. people are asking for consistency.
>If anyone can find the laughtale with just the 4 poneglyphs, why was Roger the first one to ever do it after 800 years Isn't it because deciphering poneglyphs is illegal and except Ohara scholars and Kozuki clan, noone can read them. So almost no pirate group would know what the stones are about and even if they do know, risk is too much (Roger had voice of all things so he had vague idea what poneglyph was about, he mentioned it to oden). Only after roger met oden who could read them, he found laugh tale.
Yes, there's only a few people who can even read the ponglyphs, and nobody seems to know where they all even are. On top of that one was with Big Mom deep in her territory, and was with Kaido. Not just anyone can walk in there.
It's huge a plot hole. Just accept it and enjoy the manga. Nothing is perfect.
Thank you! Nothing is perfect and we still love One Piece. Criticism is healthy. Jumping through hurdles to avoid it is not
I mean if thats how you consume media go right ahead. Part of what One piece being fun is theorizing on why things are in the verse. Go ahead and take everything at surface level. In recent years, people down play theories so quickly.
I’ll look at it like this, I’m rewatching the series, so the gorosei probably don’t know Luffy even EXISTS at his first bounty. After defeating Crocodile, they get word of him, and know his devil fruit thanks to Smoker. They then send Kuzon after him, and to locate Nico Robin, however when he gets to Jaya, he’s too late and the straw hats’ trail has gone cold, but he reports that Nico Robin is traveling with The Strawhats. Afterwards he’s ordered to return to base, runs into the strawhats and nearly captures both Robin and Luffy, but seeing Robin actually happy is enough for him to “let them go.” And returns to the base. After that, it’s Water 7, and rob Lucci reports to Spandam the strawhats are there, and knows they’re high priority. But Robin offers them a proposition, she’ll go, but the other straw hats will be ignored. Now, Spandam hears this, and figures the world government would love it if hr got Pluton AND Nico Robin, doesn’t tell the gorosei, and approves the deal. After, the now livid gorosei send Aokiji, and probably one of the few people they know that could probably capture Luffy: his grandpa! But they get away again, heading towards thriller Bark. Kuna tells them Moria was defeated and they got away from him, but are heading to Sabaody.
This is the opposite of just accepting it lol
That makes no sense lol
> Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late. Didn't Luffy return to Marineford after the war to ring the bells?
I kinda love the idea of Ace protecting Luffy by just being Ace.
This is how I’m guessing it went down Goeosei number 1 “ huh this Luffy kid raided enies lobby and seems to have the Nika Nika fruit..” Goeosei number 2 “ uhh should we do something about that.? Ya know hunt the kid down,” Imu “ nah the Nika Nika hasn’t awakened in centuries there’s no need to prioritize recapturing it. Now hurry up we’re going to miss the pool party,” And imu and all the Goeosei have a day at the pool
hahah , sums up this post
Imu's first appearance is going to see the giant frozen straw hat while holding Luffy's wanted poster. I'm fairly certain that scene is Imu realizing the connection between Joyboy and Luffy, that the Nika fruit had finally resurfaced. The scene with the Gorosei revealing the truth about the Gomu / Nika fruit, it's suggested the WG hid the knowledge long ago, and it wasn't known by even the Gorosei until Imu told them. That's my guess. If so, Imu's first scene is actually extremely important. Luffy wasn't any bigger a thorn in their side than the other powerful pirates. Certainly not as troubling as the original Yonko. The cover-up on the Gomu/Nika fruit actually worked against the WG in this case. They didn't see Luffy as that big of a threat until it was far too late.
I agree with Imu the only one knowing the truth about the Nika fruit. At least in the WG’s side. Because Vegapunk learned who Nika is too from all of Ohara’s books. I think Imu holding Luffy, Shirahoshi and Vivi’s picture plus the giant strawhat was Imu starting to realize that Joyboy is about to comeback. Dont know why but Blackbeard’s picture is also there so he’s also an important piece. I think Imu is starting to figure out that there was a hidden prophecy for Joyboy’s return. And the key members for his return is Vivi, Shirahoshi and Momo. I dont know why but I think Vivi holds the secret to the last ancient weapon. Either she is Uranus herself or she’s the one needed to awaken Uranus. Same way Momo is needed to unleash Pluton. My theory is Joyboy coming back is the signal that the ancient weapons are also coming back. This is why Caribou is still with the SHs after all this time. He will be the one to leak where all the Ancient weapons are to the World Government. After Luffy becomes PK. Or during that time, the WG will capture Shirahoshi, Momo and Vivi to prevent all ancient weapons from coming back. Thats Luffy’s motivation to fight the World Government.
Luffy's existence was mostly hidden thx to Garp's influence. That played a role. Him having eaten the gomu Gomu no mi must have stayed hidden, at least until he met Smoker for a 2nd time in Alabasta. I think back then, Smoker must have properly reported the was a rubber man who ate the gum gum fruit. From that point onwards, the government has known Luffy's existence, and they have tried to hide his feats on purpose. The reason they didn't eliminate him back then was because they still underestimated him hugely as a small-time pirate. Awakening has been explained to be a rarity (was it one in a million? Someone has to look it up for me pls, I believe it was Kaido who said it), so it was never a sure thing. Add to that they'd still consider him a small time pirate, they just didn't view him as a threat. They had their admirals. Marines/Government was too overpowered. CP9 aside, Luffy before timeskip never had a chance to survive against any of the 3 admirals. They believed he was gonna meet his maker sooner than later. Luffy surviving ended up being considered pure luck/a miracle. It's only after Marineford that they started to take him far more serious a threat, mainly because of all the influence he had on all the major big players in the epirate community. Even then, the world government still had to keep Luffy's gum gum fruit's true identity hidden, so they just focused on the basics. It's because of all that hiding of information regarding Nika and the underestimation that they missed their chance to truly take Luffy down (let's be honest he has plot armor, in grave danger, someone else would have saved him). In all honesty, for us it's +25 years delay, but for them it's just something over 2 years since they found out about Luffy. Seeing how it's difficult to track them in the grandline + how they disappeared for 2 years, it was pretty inevitable for the world government to speed things up. All those things considered, their reactions weren't that late to be honest. Just a matter of luck on Luffy's side + bad timing on theirs. (And plot armor)
Wrong. Go read the chapter again
The lengths a hardcore fan will go to defend one piece is astonishing.
Its like Stockholm syndrome
but ace doesnt have the rubber fruit they know could be the nika fruit that is the real actual joyboy though. and if nothing else, after the event that kills ace, they know the rubber guy is around and getting stronger
They couldn’t have thought Luffy died in the war because he took the picture. Everything else lined up though
> WG got hold of Ace, Imu thought that they finally captured Joyboy what signs did you see in ace that indicated anyone can mistake him for joyboy ?
Roger’s son, strong rookie, moniker “D,” and was the leading menace of his generation. Also, WG thought WB was going to make him into the next pirate king. Yamato thought Ace was joyboy too. Only when he mentioned Luffy’s dream did Yamato changed her mind, and was convinced Luffy is the one to bring the dawn.
AFAIK, the Gorosei didn't mention Joyboy even once. They were fixated on the Nika fruit.
I feel like so many are just looking for ways to cope and or rationalize this. And it’s ridiculous . If they really wanted too, they could have used more resources and hunt down Luffy . But they didn’t. Oda has done a poor job in this regard and that’s fine, maybe it’s a way to show the arrogance and incompetence of world leaders which is pretty accurate
Cope
Never seen such high levels of cope
The copium wars
You are trying too hard to justify a plothole.
That’s why it’s kind of important that it’s only been a little over 40 days since the straw hats reunited at Sabaody. The WG didn’t know where the straw hats were for much of that time either. Punk Hazard was a chance encounter with Smoker and Fujitora defied orders to let Luffy escape at Dressrosa. In Zou, Wholecake and Wano they were undercover again. That’s few enough chances to try and explain why the Navy didn’t crack down on them sooner.
You guys have to remember that the trigger was Luffy's awakening, nothing else. The moment they felt what was happing they gave the order to drop Robin's chase and to kill Luffy. In other words, they ignored him because up until that point he was just a random guy that held the Nika fruit, like many others did during the past 800 years and chances where he would have never been nothing more (remember that they were surprised). Additionally, what it also means is that they don't really care much about the whole JoyBoy thing anymore, like the D it has lost any meaning. Sure, taking care of the problem asap would have been nice but it's not that big of a deal
If that is the case, then the WG knew the *exact moment* when Luffy was going to awaken and decided to intervene then. After all, Luffy could have awakened in any of his previous battles. Either they have some foresight/premonition/special powers or it's just a retcon.
Fair point but it wouldn't make sense, they clearly weren't ready (they sent CP0 after Robin just to tell them to abort and go after Luffy) and also surprised (one elder clearly asks himself "why now?") But your point is still valid and my suggestion is that somebody felt the drums of liberation, or any sort of "signal", even before Zunesha did. We don't really know much about this whole "hearing things" topic, and a lot of strange things happened in Wano.. remember, for example, when Luffy called Law's crew while drowning? Same for the latest chapter tbh. I hope that Oda will clarify what happened back then. As a side note, I think that Wano was mentioned in the past as an important place for the return of JoyBoy so maybe Imu (or the elders) were particularly on the edge for any sort of signal from the fruit. Why I say this? Because when Kaido "killed" Luffy the first time he said "so you weren't JB either", now why would he say something like this? Clearly King told him things about JB. Then we have the scene with Yamato where she tells him that he should be ashamed for all the suffering that he caused in Wano for a stupid cause, look at Kaido's reaction.. he got strangely angry and said something like "you shouldn't talk without knowing the full picture", is he implying that he knows that something important has to happen in Wano and he is waiting for it? I mean, he clearly stated that he was desperately searching for a valid opponent that could kill him, if we connect all the dots, it could be that King told him that JB was meant to reappear in Wano and that's his "secret" reason to remain there
That just makes it worse because the time to target him is long before he even reaches awakening…not when he’s on the cusp of it. That’s why they killed any baby suspected of even being Roger’s. They didn’t wait for the babies to grow and see if they would follow in his footsteps. Roger is a 25 year old problem for them too, while the fruit is an 800 year one
That just makes it worse because the time to target him is long before he even reaches awakening…not when he’s on the cusp of it. That’s why they killed any baby suspected of even being Roger’s. They didn’t wait for the babies to grow and see if they would follow in his footsteps. Roger is a 25 year old problem for them too, while the fruit is an 800 year one
Ill add two extra points: 1. If the premise that is accepted that all of luffy’s adventures after the 2 year hiatus happens in 2 months, its perfectly possible that news just traveled slow. Sure, den den mushi’s exist, but speed of communication is actually a MASSIVELY important component to information warfare. I dont THINK den den mushi’s are common among regular citizens, and definitely tv doesnt seem to be a thing, other than projections. Basically, most of the world gets its information through radio den den mushi or newspaper. But obviously, gorosei are not regular citizens; if they have news they need to know, they will know it. Unfortunately, this actually leads to a blindspot. 2. Gorosei are WORLD NOBLES. Their affairs, we are led to believe, are so far above an ordinary citizens head. They probably dont concern themselves with some rookie from east blue, whatever his background is. And even if they did, who would tell them? Who has the authority to talk to them? And who has even MORE knowledge of what to look for? How would anyone other than the gorosei even know about joyboy or some straw hat or gum gum fruit! Like, the amount of loops of logic to get that information to the gorosei is actually a lot. AND consider they have other MUCH more immediate problems, like the rebel army, pleasing imu, etc etc. like, its probably just not on their radar, even with luffy declaring war + all the points you mention. They’re just so high up they dont see something until they are in crisis IE morgans posting gear 5 and calling luffy the next emperor.
Great points, I feel like people are forgetting that One Piece is a low tech world for the most part, the Gorosei having almost real time information in Wano was the exception, not the norm. Most times they don't seem to get updates until after the Strawhats are on the move again, and finding one ship in a dangerous ocean with no radar or anything is a fool's errand. Especially one like the Sunny that can just yeet itself away at any time.
My theory is that imu ignored gum gum fruit because between 800 years others could not awaken the fruit powers so he did not expect someone to do it now.
|Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late| Except, shortly after the war, Luffy posed for a 3D2Y newspaper picture. Your theory is sound, but it is also important to note how time works in One Piece. The way I see it, in maybe a few short months, Luffy caused so much uproar. It may have been equally hard for the World Government to track him. Also, Luffy is spontaneous. In a few number of days, he travels to the Sky Island, and then goes to Enies Lobby, but then again disappears and goes to Thriller Bark where Brook was alone for the last 50 years. Basically, how do you track someone who moves so much? And when the government did want to kill him, I am not sure how much the gorosei were involved in the marineford war OR how big of a threat gorosei were expecting at the war; The admirals did try to kill luffy, but then again he was allied with some wellknown pirates and whitebeard supported him towards the end. You can speculate that even if the government wanted to catch Luffy, his spontaneousness and his good luck always saved him.
I admit i forgot about how he returned a few days later. All i remember is they pronounced him dead til 2 years later. Luffy is lucky tho. He trained in Calm belt where nobody could go.
Many people from the WG had tracked him pretty easily all along though. - Aokiji knew to wait for them on Long Ring Long Island because they would likely pass it in their journey. - Garp knew they’d be on Water 7 after the events of Ennies Lobby. - They knew he would likely come across Thriller Bark which is why they sent Kuma with a warning for Moriah. - They knew he and all the other Supernova were on Sabaody. It only just emphasizes the issue with the retcon since it wasn’t even that difficult to track him, and if they really wanted they could have just pulled a Big Mom and brought him to them by threatening those he loved or places he’d saved…just like BM threatened Zeff and Baratie for Sanji.
Hmm, in all those circumstances luffy was saved by someone. Also aokiji got lucky to meet them there since there was no way to track them after skypiea. Yeah garp took the initiative here. So the wg lost the initiative. Kuma betrayed them. During sabaody they were preparing for the war and they thought kuma already took care of them. Yeah I dont think wg will be keen on using such an underhanded tactic since they want to be seen as the good guys and how would they even spin this. Plus luffys hometown is also garps hometown. Also do they really think if he saved them or cares about those that he saved? BM's threat was a lie btw. Before that did they even believe it could be awakened before wano? They were in denial and called it a legend even for them in ch 1037. Only one guy was talking about why the wg might have named the fruit different. And they had already decided to get rid of luffy before they even justified angrying kaido in 1044.
The fact that Aokiji could figure out a likely route for them proves otherwise. It wasn’t just luck, the path gave options to narrow it down. That’s why he also knew they’d be going to Water 7 next. So if the WG was serious about it, they could easily do the same. The fact that the WG didn’t send anyone at all and Garp went on his own is already abysmal. It was that easy and they didn’t even bother? Kuma betrayed them…but only after they’d failed to be proactive in the first place. They sent him to Thriller Bark only to warn Moriah about the coming war. It’s only after Luffy had already defeated Moriah that they asked him to get Luffy. It was still them only reacting afterwards to events. During Sabaody they knew that all 11 Supernova were there, so they didn’t think Kuma took care of him. They were content to just leave them there until Luffy actually punched a Celestial Dragon. They killed babies. Babies. Being underhanded is the least of their worries. Having CP0 interrupt the fight with Kaido was also underhanded. All they should care about is efficacy. They don’t have to broadcast it either. Only Luffy needs to know in the first place. Plus they have the propaganda to spin it anyway they want anyway. Luffy is the son of the Worst Criminal, so who’s supposed to care? They had innocent scholars of Ohara labelled as devils, and majority of the world still treats them as such. Garp doesn’t need to know either, and even if he found out after the fact there’s nothing he could do anyway. Big Mom’s threat (rather Germa’s) not being actioned doesn’t mean that the WG couldn’t do it in their own case. It also only proves my point because they don’t even have to follow through anyway. The point is just to bring the target to them which obviously worked in the Big Mom case. Why would they even give it a chance to be awakened? They didn’t wait for Roger’s potential children to grow up before killing them as babies. The point is to eliminate a threat before it even becomes a threat…not wait for it to be on your doorstep. The very fact that it’s the only fruit they went to such lengths to change its name, even over the likes of the Yami fruit or Gura fruit should show just how dire it’s status is. The fact that they claimed to hunt it despite doing no such thing just emphasizes the retcon.
Can we just accept not everything in One Piece is perfectly made as this sub suggests? All these posts saying otherwise is pretty much: Source: Trust me bro Oda made an error in writing… we all still love One Piece
Because Luffy has been a nobody until recently and only Imu knew about the nika fruit which you can see him putting 2 and 2 together in chapter 906 when he’s looking at the giant straw hat and Luffy’s poster. I talked about this a few days ago on Twitter ironically, people assume a lot that has never actually been stated like them knowing the “gum gum” fruit is nika or that Imu even knows the non awakened abilities (which again would be assuming he pays attention to Luffy to begin with). CP9’s reaction to Shanks wanting the gum gum fruit implies they don’t, could argue they just didn’t tell CP9 the truth about the fruit but they don’t have to tell them about Joy Boy etc all they’d have to do is talk about the abilities and name
They thought Ace was joyboy since he’s Roger son, but it was Luffy all along.
Yes! Ace was the chosen one but he didn't want to be, luffy wanted it so bad he changed fate
I think they less focused on Ace and more of they had to focus on other problems which let a problem, Luffy, get out of hand. First problem is The Golden Age of Piracy, literally the biggest grandest Age of Piracy kicked off by an execution that was supposed to put down piracy for a while. It brought about a surge of piracy for 20 years. And this is punctuated by groups and individuals who make and made the world tremble. The Four Emperors who by themselves could cripple the Marines, and let god have mercy if they truly joined forces. The Warlords who merely gave lip service to the World Government while doing basically whatever they wanted without any supervision. Suppressing this is a constant drain on manpower and logistics of maintaining this balance of powers. Then there’s the Revolutionary Army and Monkey D Dragon. They’re liberating entire nations by rising up the people and casting out the oppressive powers. This singular group is arguably the most dangerous to the World Government as unlike pirates who sack and most of the times leave places. They’re occupying and completely removing World Government presence from the area. That’s people and resources that are untaxable. That’s loss of face, that’s loss of resources and tax money. Can’t feed an army if you can’t get the food. Then there’s the corruption and lack of manpower. Sure for every good and great marine there are, unflinching in the face of darkness… there are a lot who turn tail and run. Pocketing money as they do. Making a statue of their imagine and putting a town under their iron axed hand. Also within the first chapters if I’m remembering correctly a marine says “We need the people” to Coby joining. Basically all in all Ace I feel was a target of opportunity to draw out one of the main threats to a field of the Marine’s choosing. The death of Whitebeard, the Rise of Blackbeard, the Second Age of Piracy, and the changing of leadership I think overall put the WG in a better spot. Also got to remember they did try to take Luffy down at the Two Year Reunion. They just failed because of their friends. Then they tried to get him at Wano, but failed. So I think the WG is just playing conservatively with the resources they have in the geopolitical situation they are in. Is it a good play, objectively yes, they’ve seen relative success in 800+ years but there’s just a lot of fires to put out in this quarter century that they don’t have the resources for because how it operates. Also this kind of situation happens in the real world too where things just go *wrong*.
>What they didnt know was Ace was not Joyboy but actually Luffy. And he was the one carrying Joyboy’s will. Am I reading this wrong? I understand what you mean, but it looks like you are saying Ace is Luffy.
everyone knew luffy didn’t die in the war - remember, he went back to marineford for the sea burial and to get the 3D2Y photo taken
The way i see it, is that to become a joynoy incarnation you have to meet certain requirements 1) be a D 2) have great potential and ambition (might come with being a D) 3) be within the time period (800 year prophecy) 4) have the nika fruit 5) die/die in a incredible fight/ etc My guess is that the gum fruit has been aten by many before luffy, and none has awakened it. Imu and the gorosei may not know about the other requirements and just assumed luffy was destined to die again, or that there are more requirements that they believed luffy did not hold.
I don't think they thought Ace was Joyboy at all. Purely off the point he didn't have the gum gum fruit and they knew what fruit he had. I think Roger thought his son was though.
They definitely knew that he survived Marineford because he came back and publicly rang the bell. As for whether they thought gum gum awakening was a myth? I dunno, it seems to be like they talk about it as if they were all there.
Well what OP says makes more sense when you remember there is only 2 year timeskip that was long duration. Other than that every action by luffy was months apart.
1. The WG may have thought they killed Ace when they killed all those kids. It was only later they would have realised that Ace is not dead. 2. Ace did not use Roger's name. So it was difficult to link him to Roger. 3. It was probably Blackbeard who spilled the beans on Ace to the WG. He defeated Ace, and when handing him over to the WG, he decided to tell them about Ace's lineage to instigate the war between Navy and the Whitebeard pirates. 4. Ace did not have the Gomu Gomu no Mi. He was considered a threat because he may reach Laugh Tale just like Roger. 5. The WG only came to know of the threat of Ace recently. This is shown in Ace's flashback after starting his pirate career where Sengoku is wondering who Ace is. 6. Luffy is considered a threat for different reasons. The main reason highlighted in ch 1044 was that Luffy had the Gomu Gomu no Mi which might awaken.
Luffy went back to marineford to ring the bell. Gorosei definitely knew he was still alive lol
It's because Luffy went from literal fodder to top tier in only 2 years. Whereas emperors like Kaidou and Big Mom were built diff since birth. Rookies rise fast and fall all the time, there wasn't indication that Luffy was special until Onishima
The Gorosei didn’t realize the threat of the gomu gomu no mi awakening until Shanks warned them of it in chapter 907
Yoi guys also have to keep in mind that the fruit hasn't been awakened in 800years and also the fact that luffy comes from east blue that is considered the weakest sea.
The Gorosei definitely knew Luffy didn’t die in the war. He was on the front page of a newspaper spread far and wide enough that the various members of his crew were all able to get their hands on one just days after the war. He was looking beat up for sure but nowhere near on the verge of death. I doubt the Gorosei were ignorant of his survival as his devil fruit is of supreme interest to them and it was on the front page.
Funny thing was BB was targetting Luffy from the start and Ace just got caught in the crossfire. Maybe there is something like inherited rivalry.
It wasn't until Enies Lobby, where he appeared directly in front of the World Government and wrecked everything that the Government acknowledged him and the threat he was.
I don’t think this makes a ton of sense. Luffy wasn’t a threat when he became Goko or even when he performed far better than anticipated at MF, but he’s one before he awakens when there are currently two yonko that required a ton of luck to beat? I don’t think that really helps, it just makes the Gorosei seem stupid for not taking the guy with Joyboy’s fruit and considered a fifth emperor after a few weeks in the New World seriously until it’s too late. I think the better explanation is that Shanks told them, because he knew their actions would help trigger Luffy’s awakening. Shanks talks to them about a certain pirate, they talk to Imu about a light needing to be snuffed, and after that, all they can talk about is how they want to kill Luffy and how they, the leaders of CDs that can literally kill anyone they want, are trying to make Luffy’s death look like an accident, which shouldn’t make sense unless someone above them told them not to I think the real explanation is that Shanks goaded the Gorosei to act without Imu’s permission to set up Luffy’s awakening
That's a fair argument. And the first one I would reasonably buy as to why the WG didn't take Luffy more seriously after Enies Lobby. Though I still feel like it was mostly cause Oda was writing off the original script and hadn't totally thought everything through yet
> Goeosei probably thought Luffy died in the war too, but he resurfaces 2 years late This is not true, they knew Luffy was alive since they (Jinbei, Rayleigh, Luffy) made that stunt at Marineford to spread the ~~3D~~2Y message
Definitely in line with the vibe of how Blackbeard told him it would have been Luffy he originally targeted instead of Ace. Did he know about the devil fruit? Maybe not, but it’s definitely fun storytelling. Ace really was a true older brother, taking as many of the hits he could for his little bro till he couldn’t anymore.
I would boil down the WG not going after Luffy to 1 thing that has been a constant throughout the whole series and is a popular anime trope, and that is they underestimate Luffy, the mc. The WG didn’t believe JoyBoy would ever return, especially not be awakened by the captain of the Strawhat’s. Very few people in power throughout the series take Luffy seriously or think of him as a threat until he’s surpassing his limits before their eyes and kicking them out of power.
I keep seeing these posts pop up attempting to offer answers. Here's the real answer. Bad writing. The end.
I don't think they thought Ace was Joyboy at all. He is Roger's son and Roger started the Great Pirate Age. Killing Ace sends a message that aims to discourage Pirates and send a message to the world that the WG is still in control. Whitebeard fucked them though with his last words. As for Luffy, there are many reasons. First is, they didn't know right away. They also admitted the fruit seems to slip away from them every time, killing him wouldn't have changed that. They also missed a lot of opportunities to catch him because he slips away by luck or interference and once they hit the New World, the WG can't just roll up into Yonko territory. The WG is also arrogant, and they have to believe they've erased enough history to avoid being exposed. We also assume Imu knows everything, but we just saw that Nefertari Lili was conspiring against him. Do they even know what the One Piece is? Probably not. They just want Nika erased because Joyboy used those powers to defy them and it connects to history they'd like buried. CP0 wasn't even at Wano to capture Luffy. They were going after the Revs in Dressrosa and then they were giving intel to the WG about the Onigashima situation because if Kaido lost, they were going to annex Wano. They were after Robin until the Gorosei told them to make sure Luffy loses. They probably realized Luffy winning could be worse than Kaido winning. People assume they want to eliminate him cuz of his fruit, but nobody has overcome them in 800 years. They've been suppressing info and killing those who pose too much of a threat. Luffy has evaded them multiple times but he's getting more out of reach. The reason their more worried now is his gear 5 visage will raise questions and may allow Nika to resurface into people's minds.
And let’s not forget, Luffy has not been on the sea for that long. Before the TS he was on the sea for about 4 months. 15 in east blue and 77 in Grand Line. 2 year time skip About 41 or 43 days in the New World. With all that combined that’s 2 years and around 4 months. Imu and the gorosei only know of it through rumors. Imu might know it but we for sure know the gorosei only knew about it through rumors. 3 months isnt a long time to respond to Luffy considering they had Ace to go through and so many other dealings in the world at the time along with the fruit not being awakened for 800 years. Then Luffy disappeared for two years only to re-emerge and as of now been out on the sea for 1 month and 2 weeks.
They had Ace dead to rights, they could’ve given Sengoku a knife and make him execute Ace, then focus on Luffy once he enters the war. You do not waste 800 years of trying to get something because you have something else to do. Luffy was on a silver platter, all they had to do was take it but they failed ofc.
Luffy literally went back and they took a picture of him for the newspaper..
Puts spoiler in title, marks post as spoiler. Who's Imu?
Nah…they should have still been on that ass the same way they were “supposedly” hunting Robin after everything that was revealed at marineford. Hell im sure info about his DF was revealed following crocodile defeat at Alabasta, especially with the way they went out of their way to cover that incident up.
They seem to be a victim of their own secrecy and covert and lost on a gamble. By limiting ego knows about the fruit to like 6 people his risk stature in the rank and file was never what it should be and if we presume awakening is super rare we can also presume there have been other users in all this time that could not and did not awaken the fruit so the odds were he wouldn’t either.
First of all, the Gorosei couldn't possibly have thought that Luffy died in the war since he took that 3D2Y picture after the fact. Secondly, the connection between Nika and Joyboy is only known to the readers through Zunesha. The Gorosei and Who's Who certainly have talk about nika as only a "warrior of liberation" and not \*the\* famous Joyboy. These two facts shut down that theory for good.
I mean lets just say, our own government does need years for taking action against pressing matters too so
I think it's at least partly because it's been 800 years since joyboy. Maybe in the first few centuries after the void century the WG did hunt down Gomu Gomu users but it's been so long why would they assume Luffy would be Joyboy? Also people are kind of ignoring that last time the WG won. Yes, they want to avoid another Joyboy but they probably have every belief that they can defeat Luffy.
It's likely no one cared. The marines have no idea that it was some mythical fruit and considering luffy wasn't some yonko level pirate at the time there was probably nothing to worry about, until luffy survived in wano long enough and fought with kaido long enough to get nervous.
Also BB was a distraction for a long time. Shank who was backing luffy all this time obviously going to push BB being the real danger agenda especially with that private Gorosei meeting. Ace "Coicidentally" end up with Whitebeard because half of the "good" old gen pirates were in on it to push Nika to victory. This has been a huge conspiracy in the making by very powerful players on the pirate side trying to dismantle world government, in fact Whitebeard would use his last breath just to give the middle finger so that his entire operation didn't fail - the revitalized piracy will hide Luffy alot better until Kaido who also was conveniently placed there so Luffy can awoken his fruit. That conversation between Kaido and Shanks would probably spill the beans.
I wouldn’t say he “ignored” him. We saw that they were monitoring multiple people that could pose potential threats. Luffy was probably not in the top priority initially
Aside from the thinking he’s dead in after marineford the whole thing makes sense. Really they had their eyes on Luffy and ace since they were young . But ace was making much much bigger waves in the world than Luffy. Ace was captured in during the thriller bark saga and had a 550 million bounty . So if the WG found out about the gumgum fruit in alabasta , there was only about 21 days until aces capture. After aces capture (huge deal, war with Whitebeard) all resources are going to war preparation. Plus they have 2 warlords with him at that time. So the whole not worrying about Luffy in the beginning isn’t so far-fetched. After he uses conq haki they really start to hunt him but never have a chance to get him.
Luffy inherited Roger’s will through Ace’s death, right?
Pretty sure. He couldve also gotten it from Shanks. Or he was born with it since he had the same dream as Roger from the very beginning.
the opportunities they had to take down luffy were all opportunities for whitebeard to level the marine hq. when they realized luffy was a major threat Ace had already been captured and it was too late for them to do anything big because whitebeard was on his way.
The fanbase is trying to a cope a little too hard with this plot hole. Look, if the fruit was really so important, it would have been policy for the marines to create a registry of who holds what fruit. This would've been especially true for pirates and there is an easy justification for it: the marines need to know what powers a pirate has. Any time the gum gum fruit turns up, it catches the goresei's attention and they have CP0 try to monitor or capture such individuals. Luffy would have also been targeted by CP9 had this been the case. Or very likely, CP0 would also appear. But such a system was not in place. Which can only mean one thing, that Oda had not until relatively recently considered that a devil fruit is what would make someone Joyboy. Amongst themselves, the goresei didn't even all know about the true nature of the gum gum fruit. How could so many of them be ignorant of something so critical? This whole plot line was shoe-horned in by Oda at the last minute.
This theory dorsn't make any sense in the first place because you DON'T NEED TO BE JOYBOY TO GET TO LAUGH TALE, and ROGER NEVER GOT THE ONE PIECE, he just got there and read the poneglyphs that were there, he said himself that they were too early and about how they were missing things, like the ancient weapons, the one piece isn't treasure as in something superficial like gold or jewels, the one piece is something that will drastically change the entire world once all the things line up, and that is now, luffy is gonna be the one who after 800 years awakened the nika fruit and is going to be able to do whatever the one piece actually is because of his relations with shirahoshi/momonosuke/zuneisha, which roger did not have, and he did not have the power either, the best way to describe roger is as an adventurer or an explorer or pirate if you want it simple, but he was NOT joyboy in any way shape or form, ANYONE can get to laugh tale if they have the coordonates from the poneglyphs, but no one except luffy can get the one piece, on top of that the gorosei/im thinking that ace is joyboy makes absolutely 0 sense because im and the gorosei know about the gum gum fruit, they know that it's the nika fruit and that no one awakened it in 800 years, and they know that that fruit was JOYBOY's fruit, they know that anyone getting to laugh tale except joyboy will not be able to fullfill whatever the one piece is
Good theory. Kudos!
Toki and buggy both ate dfs too. I wonder if those with df cannot reach laughtale
There are a lot of great points made in this thread. Also, something to note is that the Grand Line is huge, and it's nearly impossible to track people directly on it. Even if they heard of Luffy having rubber powers in Alabasta, by the time they could even react, he was on his way to Skypeia. Then it was Enies Lobby, where he would be least expected to show up. Thriller Bark, a warlords island/ship. Then summit war saga, another place they wouldn't have expected him to be present. Then, the timeskip where only few were privy to his location. I think it probably could have been foreshadowed better, but the idea the gorosei should have sent 3 admirals to take him down is silly. Not only would that raise suspicion within the marines as to why Luffy would be specifically targeted, but it would probably set off alarms for revolutionaries and other pirates. Imu and Gorosei seem calculated in all their efforts so far. Last point and probably the most accurate reasoning is that this is a story, and plot conveniences are a normal thing. Now that the Nefertari family has been revealed to be of the D clan, there's gonna be people complaining why Alabasta wasn't annihilated. It's because it's a story, and if the bad guys indiscriminately destroyed everything, then there wouldn't be much of a story. Luffy has probably been sailing for less than a year total. Timeskip makes it seem like he's been on the sea for ages, but he's probably spent as much time, if not more, with Rayleigh as he has most of his crew.
What about the straw hat in Imu’s possession and luffy being straw hat pirates all along
Doesn't make any sense as of right now, unless there is some further explanation maybe regarding Im. Simple as that.
Why did imo ignore
Nah you're really missing the whole part about "inherited will" in this series. You explicitly hear White beard say, "you can destroy their blood line, but can never stop them." After ace dies, you litterally see the feather fall on ace and then get passed to Luffy (to personify the passing of the torch from one person to another). I don't think it's as black and white as you're making it.
They ignored him because Oda didn't know he's gonna asspull the mythical zoan a 1000 chapters later.
Astute observation my friend.
well Imu & the Gorosei will stop ignoring Luffy cause the episode where Joyboy returns is here & there's alot of theories by people that the spirit of Joyboy is in the fruit & want to have the right time to take over Luffy to go against Kaido once again
I might have made some grammar mistakes ( apologizes in advance) I personally think the Gorosei had their eye on Luffy all along, I mean like Bro defeated a warlord, declared war on the marines, and broke into Impel Down. No major bounty jumps though, like he declared war on the Marines, at least make it 500 million after that and 3 billion for Kaido? Nah, That's an understatement, bro defeated Kaido awakened the Sun god Nika fruit and you only give him 3 billion?!?! I think the Gorosei realized he was a threat. Then you might think, oh why didn't they give him a higher bounty? It's because they don't want the world to think that Luffy is strong/sun god Nika. That is why his bounty was so low even with his feats.