1) Neither were Gaban nor Shanks yet they canonically heavily wounded him multiple times.
What does this have to do with Luffy and Enel? This just puts Gaban/Shanks and Loki in the same boat. Something Luffy and Zoro/Wyper were not on.
2) Yes, and Loki was canonically also useless against this defense until he got the fruit which lets him bypass it.
Without even getting into the details of it, yes the fruit made Loki stronger. This is the version of Loki we are discussing, the one who has this fruit.
Although making Ragnir submit to him in base just further adds to how strong he is given HK Harald's statement [
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3) Loki's soul powers negating immortality isn't confirmed but it's pretty obvious atp. Saying there's not even a hint is pretty wild considering it certainly isn't Loki's haki that let him beat Harald. His zoan eyes are glowing like every other person that's been affected by soul powers.
Alright let's factor this in then (I don't want to out myself but because I'm not actually reading Elbaf this is not something I paid any attention to 💀). Let's assume killing a HK is linked to this "soul" power. It's possible.
Am I saying Loki's fruit is useless against non-immortals? No, obviously not. I'm saying his DF is what allowed him to kill Harald, but that an ability which allows you to kill immortals is useless against mortals. If Gaban and Shanks had this ability, they too could've killed Harald.
And I raise you the same point I did earlier, even ignoring the feat of actually killing Harald, his feat of "beating the Imu" out of Harald temporarily, alone, gives him the best feat, given the combined force of Shanks + Gaban couldn't bring Harald to that state from what we know. Unless you are going to say this was also due to his soul powers?
Btw this is ignoring the sheer portrayal gap between Gaban + Shanks and Loki, It’s already a stretch to assume Gaban even understands the inner mechanics of Ragnir and the legendary fruit. Gaban barely knew anything about Harald, he assumed he could atleast slow him down the same way he did the other HKs, clearly he was wrong.
Why would someone who’s still figuring out how HK Harald’s body even works suddenly have detailed knowledge about something as complex and specific as the interaction between an untouched fruit’s abilities and an immortal body utilizing ACoC? This was all new to him. Yet he believed Loki was their only hope [
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It makes far more sense to assume Gaban simply believed that Loki, after receiving the overall power boost from the fruit, had a better chance of stopping Harald than he and Shanks combined, not that he had some deep technical understanding of the fruit's mechanics and how it interacts with HK Harald.