Well with the viz is out now, i think there is a misconception surrounding the events that happened in Amazon Lily between Teach, Hancock and Rayleigh
This is what Rayleigh said
after the encounter
And what we get from this is
- Rayleigh focusing on the
"particulars of the situation / circumstances" which allowed Hancock to be saved
- Rayleigh admitting he
couldn't have possibly won / no possibility to win in a head-to-head fight
at his age
The key points here are
1- Circumstances
2- Possibility to win at Rayleigh's age
Let's start with the first point
1- Circumstances
So now the question is to know which circumstances Rayleigh was referring to here ? Well, the circumstance was brought up in the chapter itself if we analyze the entire convo between Teach, Hancock and Rayleigh
Hancock pointed out to Blackbeard some facts he omitted, few of them being the fact that even if he managed to steal her fruit, he wouldn't manage to turn his crew back to normal, and thus indirectly telling to Teach, that she is the only one who can, something Blackbeard didn't expected
From there, he turned to Coby and asked him if he abandoned his goal to kill her and take her devil fruit, would Hancock play it nice and turn his crew back to normal ?
This scene meant that, Blackbeard was already ok at this point to give up on Hancock's fruit if she agreed to save his crewmates
But then, when Hancock said she will if they left, he noticed she was lying and that she just wanted from them to drop their guard and turn them into stone
And forcing Teach to want to kill her instead. This until Rayleigh came as an insurance, acting as the
mediator, allowing Teach's crew to turn back to normal
All-in-all then, the circumstance Rayleigh was pointing out here was the fact he arrived at a moment when Teach's crew was already turned into stone, which made Teach accept the offer of Rayleigh playing as the mediator, allowing Teach's crew to turn back to normal
Now onto the second point
2- Possibility to win
Here Rayleigh talked about him having
no possibility to win at his age. A statement which can be seperated into two.
The first point being about the
possibility to win, with the possibility statement simply referring to the amount of chance he could possibly have at that point, which was
none.
And the second point referring to
his age, showing that it was a factor in his perception of an hypothetical battle with Teach.
Basically meaning that,
at his age, there was
no possibility for him to win, but that
in his prime,
the possibility exist
It was basically a way for Oda to show that
current Blackbeard is stronger than old Rayleigh, while leaving a
current Blackbeard vs Prime Rayleigh as an ambiguous outcome
