It's not that deep. You have overanalyzed a manga written for teens only to be proven wrong by the author.
- There is no such thing as "deep stories". There are only good and bad stories.
- The fact that a story is destined to a younger audience does not mean that a story necessarily lacks greatness. In fact the best stories ever created are meant for kids, teenagers and young adults. Careful with the fallacious elitism.
One piece is not only a great story, its a story that pushes the limits of narration and any competent storyteller understand that. So when I tell you that there are elements that we must pay attention to here, I'm not joking.
Any competent storyteller could create something amazing with what Oda setup with Carrot during Zou, whole cake and Wano. So don't give up on Carrot just yet. Its possible that Oda choosed to let that storyline go, but its also very possible that he is reserving it for later.
You were wrong about her being a SH since wano, you were wrong about her being not at zou - not me.
Indeed, simply because I had to make an ending point to my theory. Technically, I didn't have to. But for my theory to be interesting and refutable, I needed a time and place where we could say "you are wrong". So I choosed to end it in wano. But this was only the end of my theory, this was not necessarily the end of Carrot's story. In reality, we can't say that Carrot will not join unless we get two thing:
- The end of the story
- Carrot expressing a DEEP desire not join (I say deep desire, because saying "I don't want to join", could actually be interpreted as her joining depending on the context)