Hmmmmmmm I only remember him asking who it was and then agreeing since it wasn't Shanks, but if you say so.
Well. He has to beat everyone to the title of pirate king, which includes Shanks. Doesn't mean he has to fucking attack his hero physically.
He says, "as long as Shanks isn't first". Quite literally implies actually, physically "beating" Shanks here:
Shanks bring the final villain would allow for Zoro vs Mihawk, I agree, but I think other than that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I don't think Shanks is morally grey at all. His every action has been to try and stop Blackbeard, and to set Luffy on the path of fulfilling Roger's wish. Remember, Shanks actually knows what it is that both Roger and Luffy said that's the same thing, and then gave his arm up because of it. That is not the action of a villain.
I also don't see Oda as the type of guy to go bittersweet for the grand finale. Luffy having to beat up his inspiration, who put him on the path to piracy? That's not One Piece. It would be like Zeff for some reason telling Sanji he'd have to beat him up to find All Blue, it's just not right.
Read the above, this is from Luffy's mouth, not mine. These people are pirates, I don't get why people think Shanks is just going to up and concede to Luffy and say
"congratulations, here's a free pass to One Piece! Just give me back the hat!". And you are misinterpreting my meaning of "antagonist". I am not calling Shanks a villain, but an antagonist. The biggest thing people seem to do in this manga (like the characters themselves) is misinterpret Luffy's ambitions/goals entirely. And while Luffy has said something similar to Shanks that he know Roger said, we have no idea what Shanks is actually attempting to achieve through Luffy. We have know idea if Shanks even understands what Roger/Luffy even want. We have know idea if Luffy's desire is the same as Roger's. An antagonist hinders the goals of the protagonist, but this does not make the antagonist a "villain".
So we have to assume that Shanks and Luffy even want the same thing. That's what I'm talking about.
These stem from assumption placed on the few things we think we know about Shanks. This is also an assuming Oda is apparently "not that guy" to end his series on a bittersweet note, even though its been implied for years that Luffy is wasting his life away getting strong so quickly. I'm not insinuating at all that Shanks is evil, but you all need to realize that Oda is STILL pitching Shanks as a mysterious person:
- We have no idea behind the meaning of this scene or what he asked Roger here:
- He is painted with a very "competitive" or evil looking face EVERY time Luffy is mentioned
- Or why Shanks is respected by Sengoku or allowed to quietly met with the Gorosei, whom as we all know, quite openly discuss genocide and are affiliated with an 800 year old government who did something extremely horrifying of the span of 800 years.
Yes, we can assume that Sengoku probably respects Shanks for being the likely "peaceful" Yonko at the time, though this was oddly after killing two other "good" natured pirates (Ace; Whitebeard) like Shanks. The second however is still a VERY interesting question. Many of us are even assuming he's discussing Blackbeard to the Gorosei, but at this point there is no indication of that being the case now. Oda left it as a mystery BECAUSE we think Shanks would talk about Blackbeard due to saying the same thing to Whitebeard and Ace. If it was that obvious, he would have just dropped the information right there. Shanks is likely talking about someone else, to which we have no idea, but this is interesting.
All I'm saying is, we need to stop saying Shanks=all good and Blackbeard= all bad when Shanks and his crew have openly shown to murder and dismember other people like its nobody's business. We REALLY need to know more about the character first before we assume who Shanks can and cant be, and Oda has been leaving small breadcrumbs here and there for us to start questioning if he's actually a fully, good natured human being.
Anyway, my theory is that he's on the morally grey side of things and believes Luffy will agree with "whatever" his actual goal is, but I'm thinking there is something there that just isn't "flowers and peaches" about Shanks and he will misinterpret what Luffy actually wants. And like I said before, I don't think this makes him bad, but I don't think he will 100% tried and true, STILL be Luffy's perfect idol by the EoS. Regardless, Luffy still wants to kick his ass. He has said it twice now in the New World.
I still think Blackbeard is going to be a part of the climax, but I don't think he will be THE end to the series. He isn't what makes this series come full circle, Shanks is, and Shanks is the only other character save for Luffy and Garp that were conceived before this story even began. Funny enough, a lot of people throw the death flags at Shanks but honestly I think it will be Garp in the end, especially if you believe the possibility that Marshall D. Teach may be Rocks D. Xebec's son, or that Shanks is actually more related to the Celestial Dragon's than originally believed (aka, the God Valley incident), but that's a whole other discussion/theory and I won't write more paragraphs than necessary lol.
