The problem as always is the assumption that Carrot is a pivotal player in all these Dawn plotlines.
When in reality it’s Momo and Luffy who are. Same way Inu and Neko were broadly irrelevant compared to the more important Oden and Roger.
I understand you scepticism. And I won't lie, I could have a bias on that part. All of this could indeed be over reaching from my part on plotpoint that could have no importance. I'm not excluding that.
But as I have demonstrated with the time travel plot hole and setup here:
Let me make you a comparison.
Hundreds of chapters before the reveal (that the time leap we are talking about here) Oda created two setups to introduce the 20 years time travel jump of the Kozuki (a major plot point):
1 - Introduced the contradiction that Neko and Inu were fighting for YEARS (confirmed by Carrot saying that she wasn't born at the time while being 15) but Momo somehow knews them when they were friend while he is 8
2 - Created a contradiction between the age of Momo and him seeing Roger (as a joke)
That's all (in my knowledge). Those were literally three little line that were constructed to be seen as meaningless or jokes.
Here.. we are talking about NINE mysteries and contradictions (6 in the narration itself and 3 in the meta narration)
Oda is used to give us
lesser clues than that to setup a big reveal or plot point. The fact is that we have 12 mysteries there.. and we need to keep an eye on them as theorists.
Indeed, Momo and Luffy are related more closely to the dawn, but we need to understand their position. In their case, they are stated as the "BRINGERS" of the Dawn. What I'm mentionning is something that has nothing to to with "bringing up" the Dawn, it would most likely has something to do with the development of the lore and the understanding of what the Dawn is.
More like a "spectator"
The Minks, and by extension Carrot, are just a subplot of the Kozuki story, and based on Wano, it’s a subplot that Oda isn‘t overly interested in exploring.
If the Minks are but a subplot, then there wouldn't be all those plot hole and contradiction regarding the Dawn.
But there are. Not necessarally with the Mink, but also with Zunisha, the duke story and the way Carrot's is handled
The reason why Carrot would be in the middle of that is this:
The mysteries rely on the dawn, the lore of the Mink and Zunisha. The Mink tribe is still over Zunisha, so if Oda is about to talk about Zunisha, he will automatically talk about the Mink as well. And if Oda talk about the Mink now, it means that he will talk about Carrot too. The reason behind that is that Carrot being the current ruler means that she is also the personnification of the mink tribe now.
Its simply consequencial: Dawn > Zou/Mink > Carrot.
Now.. Where this gets interesting is when we look at Carrot more closely: She is the personnification and characterized and the LINK between the night.. and the day:
- Because she is a Rabbit (who are crepuscular)
- Because she is a ruler's bird
- Because she is a musketeers trained by a guardian
- Because she is
the one mink that weres the color of the opposite faction.
- Because she is characterized with both night and day caracteristics (Sunny/Friendly/Naive =/= Cold/Deadly/Intelligent)
And
- Because she became the
solo ruler/queen of Zou
Carrot was written like the personnication of "the Dawn", not "the dawn of the world" just.. "the dawn" as "the moment before the Sun arrives"..
When we theorize, we can't just look at random clues here and there, we must look at repetitive pattern, and Carrot being constructed as a "dawn/link between the night and day" character is
indisputable. There is a clear repetitive pattern, showing a clear choice from Oda. And of course, all of that is very subtle.. so you will most likely gloss over it on the first read.
But this confirms the correlation noted above:
Dawn (as a concept) > Mink/Zou/Wano > Carrot > Dawn (as a metaphore).
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Let's be clear. I'm not saying: "Look, Carrot be be the next strawhat. " - It could happen, but i'm not there yet. I'm just saying:
"There are still mysteries related to the story of the Dawn, Zou, the mink and Carrot, so let's keep our eyes and our mind open, because Oda could be trying to fool us here, and putting Carrot to the post of Queen could be just the beginning of something more interesting for her"