Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm-2TcDYto0

Cover

On the cover, O-Chou guides Yamato towards a certain grave, one which she states belongs to a “hero born in West Blue and raised in Ringo”. This is a very interesting statement because if we’re talking of visiting graves in Ringo, what would come to mind at first would be Ryuma’s grave, but the statement of being born in West Blue doesn’t quite fully add up. After all, Ryuma’s vivre card stated that he originates from the Wano Country, but then again that’s as far as we know, so this is information that could absolutely be updated as we find out more about Ryuma’s origins. Much like Zoro, it’s totally possible that Ryuma may have been born abroad in the West Blue and was later raised in the Wano Country, though the fact he was stated to be “raised” seems to indicate whoever this is moved to Wano very early in their life. We do know through Monsters that Ryuma did travel quite a lot in his adulthood but of his youth there’s quite little we know.

Otherwise, it’s hard to think what other characters could’ve come from the West Blue to have been raised in Ringo and died there of all places, since any of the major characters we know from the West Blue either are still alive or died elsewhere. If anything, there’s not many characters that we know who are from Ringo, so unless this is referring to Shimotsuki Ushimaru, the former Daimyo, I really can’t think of much other than either Ryuma or potentially a new character. Or perhaps someone who is related to someone we know but in a very loose way. The only connection I can think of West Blue would be Jigoro “of the wind”, the zombie that took in Zoro’s shadow, as Moria could’ve also stolen him from Wano, since he has a very Wano-like name and was said in his vivre card to originate from West Blue. In his life, he was said to have slain 7000 pirates to protect his family, but frankly I struggle to see how he could be a hero of Wano.

All the while, Yamato is eating an apple, or “ringo” in Japanese, the local dish of the Aomori region of which part of Ringo is inspired by, so it would appear apples have remained a local custom here as well even through the millenia. On Yamato’s side we see Page One carrying a backpack while Ulti rushes instead ahead to make a giant snowball, perhaps for a snowman. Kiku instead simply continues looking at Yamato while smiling joyfully.

Famine

We continue at 63 years before the present, as we seamlessly transition through Big Mom’s flashback. To situate ourselves better, the climax of Big Mom’s flashback takes place throughout December of 1461, 63 years ago, as they are going through the winter solstice. Linlin had been abandoned by her parents just ten months prior, in February of that year, and left in Mother Carmel’s care until December when she razed the village to the ground and killed the legendary warrior Jorul. Carmel would take Linlin away to another island in the New World with the help of the giants, but on her birthday just two months later, on February 15th of the next year 1462, Linlin ends up devouring her whole family, leaving no trace of them behind. But on that island she met Streusen and together they turned that very land in what would be Whole Cake Island, the seat of a massive empire.

So the thing is that we heard during Big Mom’s flashback that prince Loki had been recently been born in the castle, as well as Road and Goldberg who were born in the village too. As we were told in the flashback too Loki was born 63 years ago, so it was somewhere earlier in this year that he was born until Big Mom razed the village later in December.

As we were told, shortly following as well came a series of natural disasters. As we’re told, wildfires (火災), devastating winds (暴風), and cold waves (寒波), to the point that they begin causing widespread famine across Elbaph. These are incredibly reminiscent of the myth of Ragnarök, where the great end of the world is preceeded by a bunch of calamities, most iconic of them being Fimbulvetr. Fimbulvetr, which translates into the “giant winter”, refers to a winter lasting three years of immense cold that would preceed the arrival of Ragnarök, bringing with it devastating cold and famine as a result of suffering crops, just as we see here in Loki’s past.

Estridda continues to blame Loki for these calamities, and refuses to acknowledge him as her child so much that she doesn’t even call Loki by his name, rather referring to him as “that kid” or “him”. We can see as Loki tries to approach Estridda in her (clearly very luxurious) room however, that he is so massive that even as a baby he’s almost as big as the royal guards.

As we were told, Estridda would pass away one year after Loki being born, and so since we see Estridda’s funeral later in the chapter, it means that this entire famine only takes place across the span of one year, still placing us at 1462. As we see, famines ravage the villages of Elbaph, with a mother trying to console a hungry daughter. The mother bears a striking resemblance to Gerd, so I wonder if the two could be related, but I doubt that the kid actually is Gerd herself since as we saw in Big Mom’s flashback she already looked a bit older by now. We see a village being attacked by people of the Huntsmen Village, the north-western village which we saw at present some chapters ago, causing the people of Elbaph to start fighting each other. Such madness drives one of the giants to try and kill Hajrudin, with Oda even teasing us about Ida’s potential death, but thankfully Harald returns from his trip and saves the two. Having returned from his diplomacy overseas, he brings harmony to the country again by requesting assistance from all the human kingdoms that he has befriended through diplomacy across the years.

These ships are so packed with food that the bags almost cover entire ships, as they need enough food to feed all the giants, with one of the ships even carrying extra bags on the back of it. Speaking of which, this ship looks a lot like a geobukseon, or a turtle ship, iconic not just to our Korea but also in One Piece the Kano Country, which is inspired by Korea (known in Japanese as the “Kan Country”), so it’s possible that this ship may have come from Kano, all the way in the West Blue impressively enough. Others aren’t quite as recognizable, but interestingly among the men waving to Harald we see one with an outfit with a turban. The design of the clothes is reminiscent of a country that we saw fell to war during Doflamingo’s arms trade in the future, perhaps a harrowing evolution of this country that once helped Harald, but the design is generic enough that you could also compare it to that of Dadan’s bandits among others. Furthermore, Harald’s quote of “we live in a small world” is quite befitting given what realization he came to after Ida told him that he was simply born big, realizing how tiny perhaps he and his world really are in the great scope of things.

Loneliness

By this time, Estridda has already died, and so Harald, in spite of all, still laments her passing, but gets to meet Loki for the first time, whose eyes have been bandaged due to Estridda’s complaints. They tell Harald that Loki was born with a disease in his eyes, which from their perspective they aren’t quite lying but they didn’t quite tell Harald the full truth. Though Harald does find it odd that Loki has bruises on his body, perhaps from beatings from his mother or even by the guards, and chalks up his lack of emotion and laughter to having lost his mother, even if it was quite the opposite.

Harald however would become too busy to raise Loki, focusing on rebuilding the country and continuing diplomatic relations, as we see a panel of him establishing the tree highway system, establishing the first Branch Route 1 (樹道１号線). As we are told later, a total of eight Branch Roads are constructed, helping better interconnect Elbaph, with the Route 8 being the one that leads to the West Village, and the image giving us a general idea of the structure of the roads on the western side.

So instead Loki is being taken care of by Estridda’s older brother, who acts as the regent, but continues to abuse Loki just as Estridda did. We see a growing Loki, who we see with formal clothes as well, befitting of a prince, continuing to grow up as his smile hardly appears. It was mentioned that shortly after birth, Loki would end up killing Asla, the lucky horse that Estridda gifted Harald. But we see here that this was a very generous statement, as Loki was seemingly at least seven or so by the time he killed it, or at least was accused of, as the horse here is just said to be dead, so we don’t know if it was coincidence or if perhaps Loki did kill the horse just because it reminded him of his mother. After all, shortly after, even his uncle the regent was found dead in the Underworld, and Loki for the first time gives… a subtle smirk, hinting that he may have been behind his death, either pushing him down into the Underworld or perhaps unleashing the beasts of the Underworld he befriended to kill his uncle after all the abuse.

By the way, as we briefly alluded to, the horse Asla is likely named after the Norse queen Aslaug rather than the Hindi deity Ashura, and this is particularly relevant as Aslaug was known to be the mother of Norse King Sigurd “Snake-Eye”, who was said to have been born with a birth mark in his eye that made it appear as if the world serpent Jörmungandr itself, or the Ouroboros depending on the myth, was found within his eye. This perhaps could have some correlation with Loki having snake-like eyes and the potential connections between him and the world serpent.

In the meantime, we see that Ida instead went to the Underworld to open the tavern found at the shores of the island she calls “Ida’s Bar” (イーダの酒場), where beasts are said to usually not come to. She states that she wants to do it to more easily welcome people to the island, in hopes of helping Harald’s dream, but I wonder if nearly being killed in her village made her want to keep some distance too, perhaps. Fittingly she bears an apron with what seems to be the writing “grog”, and is pouring some beverage from a barrel through some sort of lodged axe or lever. She instead sends Hajrudin to live with “Elbow”-san (or “erubo-” エルボー in Japanese) from the West Village to train to become a warrior. Given how so many giants bear names related to wrestling, this could perhaps tie to the iconic elbow drop, known by the same name in Japanese. However, the concerning thing is that currently Ida is not in charge of the tavern, but instead is now run by another woman named Mato, as we saw in the present Collon and Shanks hanging out in this tavern. So I wonder what the relationship is between the two and, most importantly, where exactly is Ida at present?

Galleila

As we move to 56 years ago, at a point where Loki would be about seven, we get a conversation between Harald and Jarul by his home, which appears to be atop an island cloud, not that far from the tree as well, with a waterwheel moved by sea clouds. Shockingly, Jarul brings up an incident that took place at the Levely, which would’ve been during the 1468 Levely 56 years ago, as the Levely takes place every 4 years. Harald had entered the Levely by acting as the guard of a king he was friends with, but feels he may have ended up getting caught if it wasn’t for the chaos caused by that assassination incident, which we’ll hear more about later. But it shows this wasn’t the first time Harald went to the Holy Land.

An even more fascinating subject however is brought up by Jarul though, as he mentions a group of shipwrights known as the Galleila. Now suddenly this should definitely sound familiar to you because of course, the shipwrights of Galley-La are the famous shipwrights of Water Seven, referring to the Galley-La company which was established by Iceburg 7 years ago. But of course that’s way later than 56 years ago, so clearly they aren’t one and the same, and even more striking is the fact that they aren’t written the same way in Japanese either.

Galley-La, the Water Seven company, is written in Japanese as ガレーラ (gareera), with an elongated e sound, which gives it the hyphen that separates it as two words as a result. Whereas this Galleila is written in Japanese as ガレイラ (gareira), with an i sound instead of the e because there is no hyphen, as per phonetic katakana rules at least. Now admittedly we don’t know how this “gareira” is romanized but given how it’s basically the same sound as Galley-La but without the hyphen, and given how they are shipwrights, surely there has to be some connection. I wonder where in his life Iceburg may have met them or heard of their existence that may have given the name to the Galley-La company, or if they share some etimological root in general, as after all the galley is a part of a ship.

Furthermore, while Galleila is the phonetic writing, the kanji reading is instead written out as the Ootsuchi Sendan (大槌戦団), or the “Hammer Squadron”, as Harald also describes them as a group of mighty giant shipwrights all wielding hammers. Harald wonders if their existence was a myth, perhaps predating even his youth, but Yarul reassures these are a very real group of about 100 giants that traveled the world visiting many locations. However, one day they sent a final letter stating “we’ve all been caught”, which shocked Jarul as their group included not just many mighty giants, but even some actual ancient giants.

Coincidentally, Jarul also mentions about rumors he’s heard of a group of giants that was frozen somewhere out there in the world and this might be the hint we need to figure out the identity of the Galleila, as this is very reminiscent of the “frozen ones”. You might remember that on the island of Punk Hazard, on the first floor of Building B, Nami and Chopper, alongside the kids, ran into a room of the “frozen ones”, which included a lot of giants being encased in deep ice. As far as we know, these are prisoners of the Government that were experimented on in Punk Hazard and frozen in ice for preservation. However, if you compare them to the silhouettes of the Galleila, it becomes quite evident they are one and the same. The large ancient giant in the background looks a lot like the big face on the top left with an open mouth. The central man with large sideburns matches the man with sideburns on the right, and there’s a couple others you could potentially match as well.

We can give a reasonable explanation for this as well: the Galleila could’ve eventually been captured by the Government and thus taken to Punk Hazard to be experimented on due to their strong lineage, as we know for a very long time the Government had been interested in attaining giant strength for their army and thus spent a lot of time investigating giantification. This was before Vegapunk took place in Punk Hazard, but likely the frozen ones would remain frozen for a very long time until his research eventually came along. Regardless, it is from these experiments on ancient giants that the first artificial ancient giants were created on Punk Hazard. These ancient giants would then fall into Caesar Clown’s hands after the fall of Punk Hazard who would sell them to Kaidou, to become his elite unit: the Numbers, thus tying all of these plotlines together. The real question, however, is who exactly defeated the Galleila, to capture them all, particularly given their tremendous strength as Jarul mentions, so this must’ve been an incredibly powerful person working for the Government, or eventually handing somehow these giants to the Government. After all, Harald also wonders if this was work of the Government, though Jarul makes mention of how any details of the past were sunk in the waves of history, of course an allusion to the sinking of the world.

Loki’s Misery

48 years ago, while Loki is now 15 years old, but still a kid in giant years, he unleashes the beasts of the Underworld on the West Village while his father is away on an expedition. This isn’t the first time he’s done it, as we were told he did this exact same thing at 10 years of age, so it became a common reoccurence. With him we see he has a bunch of creatures from the Underworld, including a Del Kong, a Dasoku, a Mammoth Dense, and a Fat Lion, as well as later a wolf similar to the one Gunko would later kill and an Ettosaurus, which he refers to all as “men”, basically treating them like a pirate crew. We see a familiar scene where Loki beats up on Hajrudin again, but we see the future New Giant Warrior Pirates (only missing Road, who perhaps was still bullied at the time) and other villagers rushing to his aid, including Gerd asking for first aid, which I wonder if it may have inspired her desire in wishing to become a doctor when she was healing Hajrudin. Loki insults Hajrudin’s mother by calling him the “son of a dirty mother”, which refers to the offense he mentioned in the present being hurt by.

The reality is, Loki is desperate for some form of attention, for some sort of love in his life, so he tries to make himself feel better and more important as he wishes that would bring him more attention from others. And yet as a result, others simply begin to despise him more and stand for the underdog who is fighting against him to protect the village, even if it goes against his entire beliefs that he should be superior to Hajrudin, and thus more loved. We even see a mother glance at Loki with hatred after injuring her child, which seems might even be the same mother we saw with her child starving earlier in the chapter, and later fed by the humans Harald brought, which reminds Loki of the hatred that his mother harbored for him. Suddenly, all those rumors about him, all that hatred he held for Elbaph, and his violent behavior become ever so obvious, because Loki had forever been searching for a place to belong in. So lonely and deprived of love does Loki feel in his existence and so overwhelmed in his misery does he feel, that he takes the worst choice and leaps off from the Sunworld, to end his life, believing that perhaps his mother had been right all along and that this was his fate.

And yet, so strong is he born that even while doing this, he does not lose his life, and wallowing in his misery he exclaims “I can’t even die right”. In Japanese this expression, which gives title to the chapter, is read as “死ねもしねェ” (shine mo shinee), which combines “shine”, to die, with “shinee”, a modified version of “shinai”, which means not being able to, in order to create a poignant alliteration. As Loki feels so worthless that even taking his own life isn’t something he can do right.

Xebec

However, Loki’s misery is the arrival of a mysterious man, someone who cuts an entire giant mountain of the Underworld clean, despite seemingly not carrying a blade, though it’s hard to say. And this man is, of course, the historical legend of Rocks D. Xebec, one of the most important pirates to have ever lived.

Before we focus on him, Xebec is accompanied by three of his men, what seem to be the core members of his crew. The first is Shiki, who would come to be known as the “Golden Lion”, clad in a Wanoesque kimono adorned with momiji maple leaves, an attire similar to the one we see him in later (which does make me wonder about his origins). On his hip he carries two blades, which by the crossguards we can tell are Oto and Kogarashi, the two swords he would later affix to his feet. Next to him is Edward Newgate, who here is 26 years old, fairly young but older than when he started being a pirate, already sporting his mustache, wearing a large coat to ward off the cold of the Underworld. The dichotomy from the two is pretty clear, as the first thing Shiki focuses on is Loki’s eyes, whereas Newgate worries more about his size and the fact Loki is crying. This is after all 48 years ago, a time so ancient to us Brook had only just recently gotten stuck in the Florian Triangle. This is a whole decade before the God Valley Incident, a time when Kaidou was still 11 and in the Vodka Kingdom, and a time when Big Mom was 20 years old, having already established quite the pirating career but not quite on the same level she would later achieve, having only had her third set of children with Katakuri this year.

As such, Whitebeard and Shiki were part of Xebec’s original core crew, which makes sense, as they were also the ones who became the largest figures during the period of time after Xebec’s era known as the “Era of Roger”, which was dominated by the figures of Roger, Whitebeard, and Shiki. However, after Roger’s death and Shiki’s retreat following his imprisonement, the Great Pirate Era, which some called the “Era of Whitebeard”, was dominated by Whitebeard as well as Kaidou, Big Mom, and later Shanks. So it makes sense that the earlier guard of the Rocks Pirates were the ones that defined the Era of Roger while the latter members would instead define the Great Pirate Era later on due to the difference in age.

However, they’re not the only ones here, as there’s also a third member, which appears to be a woman with short hair. There’s the chance this could be a brand new character, but we can also go through female members of the Rocks Pirates to see if she matches. She could potentially be Buckingham Stussy, which is probably the likeliest guess here. Her hair looks a lot shorter so it’s hard to say if this is really her, particularly with how different she looks from the God Valley Incident, but she already was 28 by this time, so it could definitely be her, especially with those painted lips and thick eyelashes. Which would be quite interesting if she went that far back as to be part of the original guard of the Rocks Pirates alongisde Shiki and Whitebeard. Alternatively, there’s also Gloriosa, but her appearance doesn’t match as much, or potentially Shakuyaku, who was also teased to be a member of the Rocks, but again Shakky has darker hair so unless she’s died here I definitely see Stussy being the far closer resemblance.

But of course the most striking appearance of all is finally seeing the debut of the legendary Rocks D. Xebec, a whole 7 years after his name was first mentioned in Chapter 907 during the Levely in 2018. As we’d seen in silhouettes, he’s not as tall as Whitebeard, and similarly his hair is spiked, though it splits into different colors, one dark and one brighter. He has some sort of tattoo or mark over his left eye, but most strikingly, he of course looks a lot like Marshall D. Teach, making it quite clear that he is the father of Blackbeard. This was already largely assumed by fans as Xebec had a lot of connections with Blackbeard, primarily the fact that his son eventually took over his territory of Pirate Island Hachinosu and Teach’s current ship is known as the “Saber of Xebec”, with Oda even having largely alluded directly in interviews in the past the two are connected in some way or another. But all of this lends more value to Saturn’s claim that Blackbeard is special due to his lineage in his talk with Devon and Augur, as he likely knew he is Xebec’s son.

However, clearly, Blackbeard must’ve taken his mother’s family name (or a new family name entirely), calling himself Marshall D. Teach rather than Rocks D. Teach, offering a particularly interesting parallel with Portgas D. Ace, who also took his mother’s name, so I wonder if Teach’s mother also was a D. or if he kept it from his father instead. This parallel is even clearer in the fact that Teach and Ace were Xebec and Roger’s children, so their duel in Banaro Island was almost like a repeat of the God Valley incident with their children… perhaps not so much of a thematic coincidence given how Banaro is an island with a massive valley with a Wild West town in it, so the parallel with God Valley couldn’t be clearer. But unlike the God Valley Incident, in the Banaro Incident, it was Xebec’s son that emerged victorious.

In one of the One Piece magazines, we did see a scrapped draft by Oda of Blackbeard’s mother and his two sisters, who were supposed to appear earlier, but at present we don’t know if they will remain a scrapped idea or if they will ever properly reappear in the story, which could totally be possible. All we know for now is that Blackbeard grew up somewhere called “Shade Port”, suffering a painful and difficult childhood as we see in his drawing as a kid from the SBS, until he was able to get on Whitebeard’s ship as we see during Oden’s flashback (though I wonder if either of them knew Whitebeard was on Xebec’s crew). However, Blackbeard would be born 8 years later, or 40 years ago in 1484, so now in 1476 Xebec still hasn’t sired any children. In fact, according to his title, he’s the “future captain of the Rocks Pirates”, so it seems like the Rocks Pirates as an entity haven’t quite fully formed, so I wonder what Xebec would call this band of pirates he travels with.

While we’re at it about names, as a reminder, Rocks D. Xebec is pronounced as “jebek”, with a j sound, as in Japanese it’s phonetically written as “jibekku” (ジベック), likely taking the French pronunciation of the word xebec rather than the English one. So keep in mind it’s not pronounced “ksebek” or “shebek”, but with a softer “j” like in French, though the prounciation “shebek” isn’t too far from it. The word xebec in particular refers to a type of ship, fitting given how Teach’s ship would later be called the Saber of Xebec. The way he talks in general too is not just very rough but also incredibly commanding, claiming “Alright! Answer me yes to two questions, you little shit!! Why yes? Because that’s the answer I wanna hear!!”, almost forcing the truth to bend to him.

However, even though Xebec still hasn’t quite achieved the height of his prime that would define the Era of Rocks, a period of time that is said to have ended 38 years ago with the God Valley Incident but we don’t know exactly when it began, he’s clearly accomplished quite a lot already. 8 years earlier, during the same Levely Harald and Jarul mentioned, he seemingly waltzed into the Levely and killed a Marine Admiral all on his own, then going on the run from the Government and attaining a high bounty, though we don’t quite yet know the amount. Admirals usually serve as the guards for the Levely, so the fact that Xebec murdered one goes to show how powerful he truly was even before the height of his prime, being a man that very much rivaled the strength of even the likes of Roger and Garp, becoming the boss of Pirate Island and establishing the legendary Rocks Pirates, to attain his ultimate goal of becoming “King of the World”. A title we now know is not metaphorical, but a very real desire to usurp Imu’s current position. However, his goals would be foiled at the God Valley Incident, when he supposedly would die after losing to Roger and Garp, completely altering the course of history.

And now he’s come to Elbaph, where he comes with the demand of wishing to meet with King Harald. As we know, Loki would desire to join Xebec, but would ultimately be beaten up by him and rejected. Yet it’s only with the context of this flashback that we now understand why he wanted to, as Loki had nowhere to belong in Elbaph and wanted to run away, but not even Xebec was willing to take him in. And as Loki himself said, he truly feels like he was born in the wrong era… questioning if he was even right to be born to begin with.