Video version: https://youtu.be/rh5LM6-WrhY

Cover

On the cover, we see Roger feeding a T-Rex like a puppy. Gabin did previously mention them having visited Little Garden, so Roger already has a history with dinosaurs and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had interacted with one like this in the past. What’s interesting is that the Roger in this cover is a Roger at a point in life between the events of God Valley but before the Oden flashback. He still looks a lot like Ace, but he’s finally grown out his mustache. He is now using his now pirate hat, having passed on the straw hat to his son Shanks, but again he doesn’t look quite as old as when he met Oden. So it’s interesting to see a Roger from a period of time we didn’t get to see much of him, from the ages of 39 to 52. We did get a very brief glimpse of him at age 47 during the Oden flashback when he first heard of Oden in the news, but that’s all we saw from that period of his life.

Falling Kids

Sommers realizes that the Nika MMA crashing into the ship caused both the ship and the clouds to vanish, but instead of taking responsibility he just blames the MMA for it instead, unwilling to admit he screwed up. Because Gunko’s arrow is set on course to continue though, Sommers decides not to inform Imu directly but instead allowing the kids to just fall off, for he is just that kind of twisted romantic. The parents attempt to destroy Gunko’s arrow but are unable to do anything to it, with Ronja’s father attempting to strike it while what seems like her grandmother (given her similar hairstyle) attempts to bite it. So Sommers hopes that the parents can be foolish enough (in his vision, at least) to die themselves too to protect the children. You may recall that this setup feels familiar, as in God Valley we saw Sommers doing the exact same thing where he attempted to get a “rabbit” kid to fall onto his thorns from atop a tree, only to be save by his father, causing the both of them to get punctured. In retrospect, this setup was pretty much a direct foreshadow to this very scene, as a parent saves his child from falling from atop a tall tree even at the cost of his life.

Each of the children reminisces about the struggles with their parents, feeling guilty for their misbehaviors of the past. Collon mentions having attained a toy by beating another kid in a duel, though interestingly the toy happens to look like Emet. This toy was likely created by the giants on the basis of the Harley mural, as Emet did appear depicted there. Ripley had previously commented an interest in Franky’s cyborg body when they were visiting the ancient facility, so I wonder if she was the one who picked this toy for Collon after having an interest in this kind of futuristic stuff herself. Ylva, the great-great-granddaughter of Jarul, refused to eat her veggies since she dislikes carrots. Skaldi, who previously played with Luffy on the swings, was blamed by his mom for taking his father’s sword without permission. Olav, Oimo’s grandkid, made fun of Oimo for being a pirate, especially after being taught to be more peaceful in the new order of Elbaph. Karin was scolded by her mother for lying, which might explain her long Usopp-esque nose. Mag got mad at his mother for coming all the way to school to bring him his forgotten homework, only to realize he left them behind on purpose. In the background behind his mother you can see the sound effect of laughter, probably from other kids making fun of him.

Ronja is congratulated by her dad for being willing to sacrifice herself earlier in order to save the library and school, and despite her optimism (which proved to be true, in the end), she ends up succumbing to tears as her dad embraces her. Bent instead had been the one kid who said that his mom was the scariest thing, which is the reason why we saw mom MMAs terrorizing the land, but in this case his actual mom proves that she is only scary so that she can protect him. Bjorn was embarassed by his brother Road due to him being an otaku, but Road too is willing to sacrifice everything in order to protect him. And perhaps most emotional of all, Johanna mentioned some chapters back how she couldn’t quite relate to the other kids due to the fact that she does not have any parents. But even in that case, Ange, who ran all the way from the Warrior’s Srping to here just for her, is still willing to be a parental figure in her life when she has none.

Nidhoggr

As the children seem to plummet to their doom, however, they land atop the back of Loki. Their fall is spared by landing atop a bouncy surface, which turns out to be Luffy himself stretched out to give them a soft landing (he likely cannot turn Loki himself into rubber since he’s a living being). He refers to this technique as “Gomu Gomu no Hara Senbei”. The senbei is a type of Japanese rice cracker, which you may be familiar with as it’s largely beloved by Garp and Sengoku, while “hara” just means belly, meaning that Luffy stretched his belly out to let them land, making his body look like it’s in the shape of a round cracker. This move is fundamentally just a flattened version of his Gomu Gomu no Fuusen (or Gum Gum Balloon). Luffy mentions that the people atop him feel prickly, which would suggest that Sommers’s thorns are still working (which makes sense, as they still should unless they have a maximum range), but Gunko’s arrow stopped at the ship drop off point, meaning that while they are still susceptible to the thorns until Sommers is defeated, at least they can move on their own again. Loki pretends like a tsundere that he didn’t intend to save them, saying he’s a destroyer rather than a savior, which ties into the dychotomy of the Sun God being a figure of either salvation or destruction in the history of Elbaph. Oddly enough though, Luffy himself appears to have his traditional Nika look of no shirt and wearing his usual pants, but this is odd because at the start of the arc we saw how Luffy entered Gear 5th with his Elbaph outfit, even gaining horns and whatnot, but it seems he just reverted to his original form for… uuh, marketing reasons or something. Although in one of the first panels Luffy is depicted shirtless whereas atop Loki he is depicted with his outfit on so I wonder if Oda’s just being inconsistent here.

As Loki rises to the skies, suddenly both snow and thunder begin to fall around the island. We’ve established previously that Loki, with Ragnir, is able to wield two abilities: thunder and frost. We saw the thunder when he struck both the Adam Tree and Harald, and we saw the frost when he used it recently against the Draugr, although this further recontextualizes the snow that surrounded Aurust Castle on the day of Harald’s death as being caused by Loki too. The question however, again, is how much of this is Loki’s powers and how much of it is Ragnir’s powers, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

But without further ado, let us confirm it: yes, indeed, Loki is a dragon! And by the looks of it, he appears to be the Nidhoggr, the mythical dragon of norse mythology. Particularly, as we saw through the MMAs, Oda wrote the name of the Nidhoggr with the kanji for “lightning dragon”/”thunder dragon” (雷竜) and we saaw the MMA firing lightning through its mouth. This is unique to One Piece, as the Nidhoggr of norse myth doesn’t have such a power as far as I’m aware, but Oda established this fact through the MMA to prepare us for Loki’s powers, which can wield devastating lightning.

This dragon is more akin to a dragon from western mythology, fitting given the norse inspiration, in comparison to the eastern long dragon upon which Kaidou was based on. Although we may call both “dragons”, these are technically different creatures from different mythologies. Loki appears to have large wings, which explains the silhouette we saw in Aurust, but also seemingly has four legs, explaining his quadrupedal pose also seen in the castle. His face has a slightly more canine shape, which explains the mutt-like appearance of his hybrid shilouette, and both of his horns (including the bandage) are still present, although it seems like part of his helmet has fused to his head. Interestingly, just like seen in the castle, his eyes are glowing with aura, with an effect that is visually similar to that of Domi Reversi, but I wonder if there’s any lore connections or it’s just Oda’s way of making an opponent look intimidating.

Most noticeable about the Nidhoggr however is its immense size. We saw that in hybrid form Loki ended up becoming just a bit larger than he was, which was already quite massive even by giant standards as his ancient giant blood made him taller than most normal giants. However, in fully transformed beast mode he is nothing short of colossal. Luffy may appear to look quite gigantic atop him, alongside a cheering Ragnir, but remember: Luffy can make himself massive through Gear 5th while Ragnir is already massive to begin with, being close in size to Loki in his regular form. And if you take into consideration how massive giant Luffy looked next to Kaidou, that should give you an idea of how big this dragon is.

But not only does Loki clearly tower over the MMA nidhoggr seen on the bottom right, just compare him to the draugr sent flying to the left. Remember that same type of Draugr just a couple chapters back towering over the giant mountains of the Underworld, and which a tiny Loki froze? While I know Oda isn’t the most consistent with large sizes, it does seem like this Nidhoggr is truly colossal, and thus befitting of being the contender of the title of “strongest being in this world”. Although knowing Oda, I would be willing to argue that he’s making a play on words, and that the real strongest being in this world may actually refer to our mothers and fathers, who are willing to put themselves through anything in order to protect us.

There’s this beautiful game of size that Oda has played since the start of the arc. We begin with being set in a country of blocks that seems to be the entirety of the nation, and yet turns out to be nothing more than single room, in a single castle, atop a hill, part of a much much bigger island. When we get that contrast, we get to see how much bigger Loki is compared to Luffy or other giants, and yet even now that concept of Loki has become even larger, becoming a colossal creature to sizes we haven’t seen Zoan users transform into before.

Upon seeing the snow, Jarul recalls what sounds like a prophecy, believing that on a day with a storm of snow and thunder, a colossal beast will cover the skies and along the drums of liberation, the Sun God will appear. This prophecy plays out quite literally, as the colossal nidhoggr brings with him the Warrior of Liberation. In a sense, this is fitting with the myth of ragnarök, where it is said that the nidhoggr would be unleashed upon the start of the apocalypse. In that myth it is said to carry the dead in its wings, which could in a way be considered him carrying the children and parents on his back who were about to die, though in this case saving them from death. What’s interesting about this prophecy though is that we’ve gotten vague ideas about a return from a warrior of liberation in the past, but this prediction sounds almost too precise of a combination to be a coincidence. Did the people who once made this, likely tied with the Harley, simply believe the users of the two fruits would fight side by side? Or did they see in some way into the future, the same way Shyarly knew of Poseidon’s birth? Once again we keep asking ourselves about if destiny is preordained or we forge it ourselves.

Regardless, let’s go back to the Harley, because this recontextualizes a lot of things. Primarily, I think that at this point, we can strongly assent to the idea that the dragon featured on the Harley’s center is most likely meant to be the nidhoggr, just as we speculated a bit back when talking about Loki’s fruit. Although this is interesting as I previously mentioned that the ancient giant depicted on the mural could also represent Loki, but perhaps it is just meant to represent ancient giants (or those with their blood) as a whole. People have even suggested the squirrel next to it not being a mink but rather a representation of Ragnir, although that’s up for debate. While I still think the central tree could represent the Sun Tree Eve (potentially being also the source of devil fruits), it could either alternatively be the Adam Tree or represent both of the two trees. But regardless, the dragon descending above the tree is a fitting imagery. You could even argue that the thunder coming out of the ship next to it could be caused by it, I still think that’s meant to signify Uranus striking its bolts down, particularly as from the bolt arises a large wave with the Noa representing the sinking of the world (although we’ve recently questioned if the king featured atop it is not Imu but instead meant to be Davy Jones).

Going back to the history of dragons in One Piece, it makes me wonder if perhaps the previous user of this fruit could be the one that Ryuma had slain above the skies of Wano’s capital instead of being the user of Kaidou’s fruit, and what its importance may have been back during the Void Century, particularly to result in being confined within Aurust Castle to ensure that the fruit wouldn’t be used unless it was by someone worthy. This also makes me wonder on how this ties with the adoration Celestial Dragons have for dragons, not only naming themselves after it, but even asking Vegapunk to create artificial dragons and artificial fruits all through copying and studying Kaidou’s lineage factor, not to mention Kaidou’s fruit was a Celestial Dragon possession to begin with.

The fascinating thing is that here the nidhoggr is firing a breath of flames (which makes me wonder if Loki can somehow blast fire too or if this just a very stylized lightning), but most importantly is doing so while fighting the Hellflame Serpent, what we believe to fundamentally be the Red Line. I wonder if this is alluding th the fact that the nidhoggr’s massive destructive power is something that may prove instrumental in destroying the Red Line. After all, we’ve been told many times that the ancient weapons have the power to “destroy the world”, yet here this fruit is one of the very few things that has been compared to that level of power. Could as such this fruit be one of the tools alongside things like the Pluton ship that can destroy the Red Line, and thus it is why Xebec was so interested in attaining this fruit and giving it to someone strong like Harald? Will this dragon help bring forth the destruction of the world, just like the Sun God was foretold to do, but in doing so help give birth to a new world after the cataclysm of ragnarök?

Dawn Thor Rifle

Anyway, Loki leaves the kids by the West Village, acting like he doesn’t really care where he leaves them even if it’s somewhere dangerous. But as Luffy points out, he finds the village to be safe because that’s where Zoro is, and he knows how much Zoro is not just reliable, but also how he too worries about protecting kids, like we saw with Tama for example. Funnily enough, while we see giant Luffy, continuing to wear his vest, his hat instead seems to have remained at a more regular size, being visible as nothing more than a very tiny hat atop his back.

Sommers returns to finish off the parents by using what he calls a “tarensou ibarancha” (多連装イバランチャー). “Tarensou” means multi-launching, or multi-barrelled, essentially referring to a cannon that can fire several shots, whereas “ibarancha” is meant to be a pun between ibara, or thorn, and launcher (pronounced as “rancha” in Japanese), like a cannon. The pun works in Japanese since r and l share the same phonetics. If you look at it, aside from the snake-like heads, you can also see that the thorns surrounding Sommers form sort of like a throne, for him to comfortably sit while he fires at others.

But not only does Zoro help as expected but so does Luffy, launching an attack he calls “Dawn Thor Rifle” (白い雷回転弾). Of course this is a combination of his line of Gear 5th “Dawn” attacks, with the kanji reading as “white”, whereas “Rifle” is his typical screw attack, with the kanji reading as “rotating bullet” (回転弾), just like his other Rifle attacks. On the other hand though here we have the addition of “Thor”, with the kanji reading “lightning” (雷) given the lightning bolt he included in the attack. The cool thing about this is that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Thor attack from Luffy, as his final move from the film Strong World was “Gomu Gomu no Gigant Thor Axe”, which was a version of Gomu Gomu no Axe that was not only in Gear Third but also lightning charged from a storm. And while the movie isn’t canon, it was still written by Oda, so it’s cool to see him bring this attack back here, especially in a setting like Elbaph where the mention of “Thor” is incredibly thematically appropriate. This isn’t the first time it’s appeared in canon either, as Luffy did use a Gomu Gomu no Thor Elephant Gun against Chinjao in the Corrida match. You can even appreciate the spinning nature of the attack in the way that Oda draws it where you can see the whole fist is drawn with multiple circles to simulate that spinning effect.

This is enough to dispel the thorns, which as we saw earlier are vulnerable to fire as well, and Ripley gets to finally properly witness Luffy in his Nika form. Which if you recall, this was setup as early as she was first introduced, where she asked Luffy as to why he wasn’t appearing in his white form (from his bounty poster) since he appeared in his Elbaph clothes. Interestingly, Sommers considers Nika just a “childish superstition”, so I wonder if that sentiment is more widely shared by someone like Imu or if it’s what Celestial Dragons like him may feel, particularly as we heard from the likes of Rosinante about how in the Holyland they tell kids that misbehave that the “D. will eat them up” and other myths like those. And, let us not forget, about what Gunko said way early in the arc where her biggest fear is Nika.

Etymology of Dragons

We get further proper context about the fruit from Jarul, who explains that indeed it is as assumed the Ryuu Ryuu no Mi (Dragon Dragon Fruit) Mythical Model: Nidhoggr. This transforms the user in the largest known dragon who is able to spew lightning, as indicated like we mentioned before by the kanji used for Nidhoggr before and in the chapter title here which reads as “lightning dragon” (雷竜), a trait Oda uniquely made up for the world of One Piece.

Like we assumed, as Jarul explains, not only is this dragon already colossal, but a giant, or even someone ancient giant blooded, only makes it even bigger, which is why Xebec said that the fruit would’ve been wasted if not used on someone like Harald, because he needed it on someone of his size. Aside from the Nidhoggr being described as bigger, this also explains why someone like Kaidou was smaller when transformed, since while he is very tall compared to regular humans, it is nowhere close to a giant (which are on average over twice his height), or someone like Loki for that matter.

The interesting thing, and this is a topic you may remember we’ve tackled before, is the line of zoan fruits that is the “Ryu Ryu no Mi”, or the “Dragon Dragon Fruits”. The issue is that this line has been used to refer to users of dinosaur fruits, such as Page One’s Spinosaurus or Drake’s Allosaurus, which are both Ryuu Ryuu no Mi. The reason for this is that in Japanese dinosaurs are known as “Kyoryuu” (恐竜), or literally meaning “scary dragons”. The historical explanation for this is that in ancient times, when dinosaur fossils were first unearthed, the cultures in the East thought that these were dragons, as it was the only way they could explain it. As such the etymology remained but Oda carried it onto One Piece since that’s what dinosaurs are called in Japanese anyway. In the case of Kaidou’s fruit he tried to distinguish it with making it an Uo Uo no Mi (Fish Fish Fruit) due to the myth of the carp becoming a dragon in Japanese culture, but then we saw Killingham’s Kirin fruit also being a Ryuu Ryuu no Mi (and while the kirin is often associated with being more like a giraffe or deer, it has a dragon-like connotation in mythology too). Here with Loki’s fruit we see the same, so I guess in the world of One Piece the concept of the dragon and the dinosaur linguistically being the same extends to this too.

It’s worth noting as well that Oda usually distinguishes dragons in One Piece by using two different kanji for “ryuu”. The first, which looks like this (龍) is historically used to refer to eastern dragons. The Kaidou-like long dragons that are more serpentine and have no wings. On the other hand, the other kanji (竜) is used for western dragons, more lizard-like and with wings. In the case of dragons like those of Punk Hazard Oda used the kanji for western dragon (竜), but for Kaidou’s fruit for example he often used the other kanji (龍) to describe it. In this case, the Nidhoggr uses the kanji for western dragon, and even later Jarul refers to it with the english phonetic reading of “doragon” (ドラゴン). Interestingly, although it’s hard to say whether this was a mistake or not, during Thriller Bark when Hogback spoke of Ryuma once slaying a dragon, he referred to it with the kanji for a western dragon. When Gyukimaru explained this myth again to Zoro in Chapter 937, once again the kanji for western dragon was used. And as you may have likely realized, Ryuma’s own name includes “ryu” in it, which stands for dragon, but it’s written phonetically with katakana rather than kanji.

Legend of the War God

Interestingly though, Jarul describes a myth from Elbaph folklore where it is said a “certain War God” existed. The term here is “ikusagami” (戦さ神) which literally just means “war god”. It is important to remind that Elbaph as several gods, as beyond the Sun God, it was mentioned during Little Garden that, seemingly, “Elbaph” itself is also a god in their religion beyond the name of the island, as Dorry and Brogy talked to Elbaph as if it was a name when referring to their god, although Oda hasn’t elaborated much on it since, perhaps shifting more focus towards the adoration of Nika once that concept was more developed.

As legend says, to quote Jarul, “Wielding a weapon named “Ragnir” (kanji reading “iron thunder”) and transforming into a giant dragon, it is said he opposed the Sun God”. Though it is described as a legend, it would seem that part of this myth may have been derived from reality, speaking of some giant of times of old that wielded Ragnir and was likely the original former user of the Nidhoggr fruit, upon which after his death the fruit was sealed in Aurust Castle for years to come. Given the existence of fruits at this time, we can assume this likely was during the Void Century’s appearance of the second Nika. But what is most bizarre here is that this God of War fought not alongside, but against the Sun God, as the words “tairitsu” (対立) are even highlighted in the Japanese text, meaning that this figure was on the opposite side of Nika and the forces of the D. clan. This may be perhaps even why Imu recognizes the Nidhoggr later on, as Imu and the previous user of the Nidhoggr may have fought side by side in times of old, though it is quite bizarre to hear of someone who wasn’t a human who fought against the Sun God as most of the races stood in union with the D. clan.

That said, Jarul continues “His trusted confidant was the Ice Squirrel Ratatoskr. Meaning that, to this day, his servant ratatoskr was transferred to his weapon, where it yet awaits its master’s return, or so the legend goes.” So for starters this confirms that indeed Ragnir’s power is that of the ratatoskr, which in this case Oda made the “ice squirrel”, which much like the nidhoggr being a lightning dragon is a concept largely unique to One Piece.

Given how the War God and Ratatoskr once fought against the Sun God Nika and given the Ratatoskr’s powers to encase in ice as we saw against the Draugr, it makes me wonder if the myth of how the hammer-wielding squadron of the Galleila were frozen in ice may have had to do with this fruit. Perhaps some long time ago, it was the Ratatoskr who froze these giants over, and the hammer connection is interesting too. Did the Galleila specifically fight against the God of War, or were they fighting side by side and something happened to freeze them over? But interestingly, on top of wanting Harald to eat the fruit, Xebec wanted to unfreeze the Galleila and hope that they would still be alive, and willing to follow Harald, which is why it was all part of his plan. So I do wonder if the Galleila did in fact fight side by side with the original fruit or if it would simply be due to Harald being king of Elbaph.

But more interestingly it is mentioned that in old times the Ratatoskr was separate entity from the hammer, but later “transferred” onto the Ragnir. This would explain why the Ragnir holds the kanji for “lightning iron” instead of anything ice related, because the powers came after it was named, likely being named after the War God’s nidhoggr powers originally instead. The term used here is “noriutsuri” (乗り移り), which means “transferred”, but more specifically is also used to refer to the transfer of souls in Japanese, essentially also meaning “possession”. What this means fundamentally is that whatever the original Ratatoskr was, when it died its fruit was “eaten” by the weapon, allowing its power to continue there, though it appears that some will lingered too, as the hammer still awaited for a new master to appear, but it’s hard to say if that’s really the hammer’s own will, tying into how Zoan fruits retain a will of their own, or part of it is the myth that was built around it. It would seem that the original Ratatoskr was probably an actual person, as it was described as being the “fukushin” (腹心) of the War God, which means the confidant, or retainer, while later also outright called “servant” (従者). So fundamentally the War God was the original user of the Nidhoggr fruit who wielded a pretty strong hammer, while his sidekick had the Ratatoskr fruit. But both died, with the Nidhoggr fruit being kept hidden in Aurust Castle while the Ratatoskr fruit was instead “eaten” by the hammer. Which have now been properly reunited with the hammer acknowledging Loki and letting him eat the fruit.

The chapter concludes with Loki unleashing a devastating lightning attack, which he calls “Thorheim”. The term “heim” is used to refer to the realms of Norse mythology, although there is no such realm as Thorheim, rather the play on words here is the kanji, which reads as “lightning realm” (in the same way Luffy’s “Thor” attack had “lightning” as kanji), meaning that much like Nibelheim was the attack of a world of ice, here Thorheim is meant to be a realm where everything is just pure thunder, hinting at the sheer immensity of the attack. And as Imu recognizes the Niddhoggr being in Elbaph, it is clear that the great ruler has some deep history with this dragon.