Joyboy was a snake that ate the Human Human Fruit: Model Sun God Nika.
Credit to Randy Troy for being the one who originally came up with this idea, mentioning it in a stream recently. I'm just expanding on it because I think it's an extremely good idea, and also he said he'll be releasing a video on it this week and I want to prove I'm not just copying him when I eventually make my big OP theory for YouTube.
Biblical Symbolism
In the Bible the original two humans, Adam and Eve, were cast out from paradise into the mortal realm because they were persuaded by the Devil, who took the form of a snake, to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, thus committing the Original Sin.
We know One Piece has taken at least some of this story into its own lore, as evidenced by the existence of the Treasure Tree Adam, and the Sun Tree Eve. They're not exact parallels and in One Piece there are more than 2 important trees, such as the literal Tree of Knowledge in Ohara.
The point being, that it's not a 1:1 recreation of the story from the Bible, but rather that there are repeated motifs and ideas: two great trees, Adam and Eve, the Devil persuading someone to eat a Fruit despite the wishes of God(s), and the Devil taking the form of a snake.
The series constantly correlates pirates/free people/people against the Celestial Dragons, with devils. And the CDs with Gods. (They eat Devil Fruits, Zoro is the king of hell, "D's are the enemies of the Gods" etc.) However we also know that pirates like Luffy are good despite being likened to Devils, and "Gods" like the CDs are bad.
So it makes sense that in the OP world, THE Devil - the first main person to defy the Gods of the 20 Kings, who had a large kingdom (the Ancient Kingdom) but wanted to go beyond them for a larger goal and was destroyed for it - was Joyboy. This parallels the story of Lucifer, but also the story of Adam and Eve.
The Devil/Joyboy, in both cases, wanted them to eat the fruit so they could have their own free will, and gain the knowledge that the God(s) were keeping from them. The Original Sin was the first time the lesser people defied the wishes of the God(s). In the Bible this is framed as a bad thing, in One Piece this is framed as a good thing. Joyboy wanted to bring the world together and for people to not be segregated, something the Gods of the 20 Kings wanted against, and so they fought with him and ultimately destroyed him and his Kingdom. Joyboy persuaded people to "eat the forbidden fruit", essentially giving them free will and a desire to know the truth of the world, and not be under the heel of the powers that be.
And all the Bible parallels are made much stronger if Joyboy, was at least symbolised by, if not literally, a snake.
Parallels with Kaido
Another other reason I think they could be a snake is the many ways in which Kaido is shown to be similar to Joyboy, white also being slightly different, whereas Luffy wholly embodies each of these qualities of Joyboy. For example:
Joyboy brings smiles. Luffy does this by being likeable, Kaido does this by forcing SMILE fruits on people.
Joyboy frees slaves. Luffy actually frees slaves while Kaido creates a lot of slaves to bring Joyboy out. (As seen in him specifically wanting to turn the people of Wano into slaves after dropping Onigashima on Kozuki Castle, unlike all the other villains who want to destroy their city with a big weapon, who just want to kill the citizens).
Joyboy comes from death. Luffy died (as evidenced by Momo saying his "voice went out" before Luffy's heartbeat starting up again and him transforming into the full form of Sun God Nika) and became Joyboy, while Kaido just wants to cause a lot of death in a big war so that Joyboy may come from one of the many innocent dead.
It's why Kaido tried to go to Marineford before Shanks held him back, because he likely assumed as Shanks probably did when he went to Windmill Village with the Gum Gum Fruit, that Ace would be Joyboy, being the son of Gol D. Roger and all.
This is all emphasized by Yamato who essentially asks why he's being so evil and Kaido replying that it's beyond her understanding, implying it's for what he sees is a greater good - bringing out Joyboy.
So, it figures that the reason that he's so insistent on settling in Wano, for a reason he also won't explain, was because that's where Joyboy was known to be born, right?
So now that I've explained why basically every unexplained action of Kaido is to create Joyboy, and therefore why Joyboy is probably from Wano, would would be more interesting:
For the story to introduce ANOTHER man from Wano who was extremely powerful, but was also a bundle of laughter and joy, had a cult of personality, people believing in him and willing to carry out his will, who eventually set out to sea on a quest to unite the world and open Wano's borders (i.e. Oden),
OR, for Oda to put a spin on that, playing with our expectations. We already have a frame of reference for a character associated with Wano with that backstory, and so (assuming Joyboy is from Wano) we would already be thinking of Oden's story when Joyboy's inevitable backstory begins. So why not subvert it and add that extra layer?
But let's go back to the Kaido parallels thing for a sec. Kaido in human form is covered in scales, and can transform into an Oriental Dragon - essentially a huge scaled worm-like thing that slithers through the sky - basically a snake. This wouldn't be a parallel that Kaido is aware of, considering he doesn't know Luffy's Fruit is Joyboy's Fruit even when it's awakened in front of him, but rather this is Oda likely drawing another parallel between Kaido and Joyboy so that when we know the full story of Joyboy, we can look back on Kaido and see the similarities. And we can reverse engineer this to find out qualities of Joyboy ahead of time.
I guess another parallel between Kaido and Joyboy that Kaido wouldn't be aware is the fact that Kaido's race is an Oni, which is literally a demon in Japanese folklore, whereas Joyboy (and Luffy) instead embodied the ideals of what it means to be a demon in the One Piece world.
Parallels with Chopper
Another way Joyboy not being a human would act as a subversion is that we've already seen what it looks like when a human awakens their Human Human Fruit: Model Sun God Nika, and so have that in our mind for what an awakening of that fruit looks like. So again, why do the same thing twice, but instead subvert us, and show us what an awakening of that fruit looks like when an animal eats it. Say, a snake?
The first time we're introduced to Zoan fruits is Chopper, who is an animal who ate a Human Human fruit. This means the first connection you make with Zoan Fruits is also the first instance, of an animal eating the Human Human Fruit.
So if Joyboy was an animal that ate the Nika Fruit, it would simultaneously subvert our existing idea of what a Nika Fruit transformation looks like, while also instantly making more sense when it's revealed because our strongest association with Zoans is of an animal becoming a human.
So running with this idea, the Chopper flashback therefore likely parallels Joyboy's story.
Joyboy was a snake, bullied by the other snakes for a physical difference. He met a Hiruluk-style mentor figure, who showed him love for the first time after being hated by the humans, who are especially unaccepting of foreigners due to Wano having closed borders. This is was possibly foreshadowed in the people of Wano instantly torturing the dog and cat minks and Kawamatsu because they have closed borders, and no exposure to outsiders.
Hiruluk died after unsuccessfully fighting against illness for years, only finishing the invention that would achieve his goal at the tail end of his life, but he needed his mentor to carry on his will so that one day his goal would be realized.
Likewise, Joyboy's mentor fought an uphill battle against racism for years, and for a seemingly impossible dream to unite the world as one, to see all the races to live together side by side in One Piece. And for years, he was working on an invention that would one day achieve this goal, which he only finished at the tail end of his life. However by this point he would need someone else to see it through, so he trusted his pupil, his beloved snake man assistant and friend, to use this invention to destroy the barriers that kept people divided, and bring Joy to all.
Joyboy had no real race he belonged to, he simply came into a world in which he was discriminated against, and decided that this world should be free of discrimination, without one particular bias to any one group, which is something fishmen like Hody and Arlong get wrong, and he set out to change the world from there.
And so Joyboy continued his mentor's will, the will of D. It was likely that the name of Joyboy's mentor started with D, and meant something in Japanese, or was literally Dream or Devil or Dawn or something, meaning people who carry the will of D. today carry the ideals of this person, as well as their literal name. And so when Joyboy passes on his will to the rest of his crew aboard the Noa, they are carrying Joyboy's mentor's, but also Joyboy's name.
Joyboy personally knew what it felt like to be discriminated because of one's race. And continuing his mentor's will, over time he built up the Ancient Kingdom - a place where people from all races can live together and laugh as one.
The inversion here is that Dr. Hiruluk is the one who famously said "people die when they are forgotten". And yet, no one today remembers Joyboy's name, Joyboy's mentor's name, or even what the D. they all carry even stands for. They and their ideals should truly be dead, and yet, still today that little D. hangs on in a rare few. No one knows what it means, but it's the fact that their names haven't been completely forgotten, that shows that the spark is still there. This gives new weight to Roger essentially carrying on the flame for the next generation, as well as Luffy upon reaching the final island and discovering the true history, because now he can truly bring this information that the world government has hidden to the world.
And guess what, none of this brilliant poeticism works if not for the Dr. Hiruluk parallel, and that itself doesn't work if Joyboy wasn't an animal-human who helped him, to mirror Chopper. And as we know from Zuneisha recognizing Luffy in his awakened form, Joyboy did eat the Human Human Fruit: Model Nika, which filled out the human part, meaning for any of this to work his original must have been an animal.
How about a snake?
Another way it would subvert Oden is that Oden had a great early life, being the son of royalty, and was a such badass good guy chad that was loved by all, that Joyboy's backstory would either have to top him in terms of that stuff, or Oda could go the other route and make him a weird snake man that was shunned by the village, and only had his mentor figure for connection.
It would subvert our expectations in that we all expect Joyboy to be the progenitor of all the series' values, when really the one who started it all was Joyboy's mentor. And it wouldn't feel like a cop out that the Joyboy we've assumed is the one who started it all, actually didn't, because because we've been shown repeatedly how almost all characters in the series are continuing someone else's will, but especially in the Chopper flashback that this directly parallels.
It would give Chopper a real use. And what I mean by that is all of the people who joined the crew in the first half of the Grand Line have a direct role for finding the true history and/or bringing the dawn. Robin can read the ponegliffs, Franky is the only one who can build Pluton, Brook is a musician, which if you've watched Artur's video you'll know why that's so important. I've always just assumed Chopper would cure the illness that Roger had when Luffy gets it, but maybe his backstory also foreshadows basically the entire history of the world.
And this is a bit of a stretch (more so than anything else I've said) but, remember how Chopper started off his life as a reindeer being bullied for a small physical difference, and how Hiruluk named Chopper after an (admittedly unrelated) feature of his being a reindeer. Now, I've always just kinda felt that Binks is Joyboy. The lyrics to Binks' Sake seemingly have major importance in outlining the themes and likely end of the series, Binks seems like an important figure and there's even theories of Binks' Sake being the One Piece. I'm not here to debate that now, but if Binks was Joyboy, and the Chopper parallel exists, then what could the word "Binks" that Joyboy's Hiruluk equivalent named him after be? A unique feature of snakes is that they don't have eyelids and therefore don't blink. So maybe the feature that Joyboy was bullied by the other snakes for, and that his mentor named him for, was the fact that Joyboy... Blinks?
Stretch.
Other
Of course there's also the fact that Luffy has Gear 4 "Snakeman" a seemingly random powerup that almost feels like it should be another Gear. An homage/foreshadowing to the original Joyboy, perhaps?
There's the fact that when we hear JoyBOY, we kinda assume human male. Or more accurately humanoid male, i.e. giant, fishman, etc. Not animal. Again allowing this to be subverted. Not an important detail on its own, but it all adds up.
The giant hat in Mariejois, which was likely Joyboy's hat, makes sense that it's giant if Joyboy was a Zoan, hybrid creature, who sized up from being a snake, but who would probably just have a weird shape anyway being a Zoan.
Boa Hancock, and Amazon Lily as a whole, have a lot of snake imagery, with Boa literally having a snake wrapped around her. And the one person she finally falls in love with after all these years of being desired by everybody, is Luffy - the reincarnation/representation of Joyboy. I guess it's also worth mentioning that Amazon Lily is the place that Luffy trained at during the timeskip, on instruction of Rayleigh, no less, who knew the True History.
And finally, the Shandians in the Noland Flashback. They are clearly significant in some way as they pray to a Sun God (among 3 other Gods that I'm sure will have some role to play), have closed off their borders, and place importance around souls being trees, which I'm sure has something to do with devil fruits. A lot of this feels like it has ties to the True History, with the point that everything's bastardised due to 800 years of isolation causing them to lose sight of why they have that mythology in the first place. And wouldn't you know, they also happen to worship a giant snake as their God.
...What a curious detail.
So overall, we have the Biblical symbolism of the original Devil taking the form of a snake and Devils in this universe being linked with freedom, it parallels Chopper's flashback beautifully, it fits into what we can already largely assume about the Void Century, Gear 4 Snakeman is a thing, and the Shandians pray to a huge snake.
Credit again to Randy Troy for the idea. I'm curious how much of this will make it into his video, and how much new info he'll bring.
Credit to Randy Troy for being the one who originally came up with this idea, mentioning it in a stream recently. I'm just expanding on it because I think it's an extremely good idea, and also he said he'll be releasing a video on it this week and I want to prove I'm not just copying him when I eventually make my big OP theory for YouTube.
Biblical Symbolism
In the Bible the original two humans, Adam and Eve, were cast out from paradise into the mortal realm because they were persuaded by the Devil, who took the form of a snake, to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, thus committing the Original Sin.
We know One Piece has taken at least some of this story into its own lore, as evidenced by the existence of the Treasure Tree Adam, and the Sun Tree Eve. They're not exact parallels and in One Piece there are more than 2 important trees, such as the literal Tree of Knowledge in Ohara.
The point being, that it's not a 1:1 recreation of the story from the Bible, but rather that there are repeated motifs and ideas: two great trees, Adam and Eve, the Devil persuading someone to eat a Fruit despite the wishes of God(s), and the Devil taking the form of a snake.
The series constantly correlates pirates/free people/people against the Celestial Dragons, with devils. And the CDs with Gods. (They eat Devil Fruits, Zoro is the king of hell, "D's are the enemies of the Gods" etc.) However we also know that pirates like Luffy are good despite being likened to Devils, and "Gods" like the CDs are bad.
So it makes sense that in the OP world, THE Devil - the first main person to defy the Gods of the 20 Kings, who had a large kingdom (the Ancient Kingdom) but wanted to go beyond them for a larger goal and was destroyed for it - was Joyboy. This parallels the story of Lucifer, but also the story of Adam and Eve.
The Devil/Joyboy, in both cases, wanted them to eat the fruit so they could have their own free will, and gain the knowledge that the God(s) were keeping from them. The Original Sin was the first time the lesser people defied the wishes of the God(s). In the Bible this is framed as a bad thing, in One Piece this is framed as a good thing. Joyboy wanted to bring the world together and for people to not be segregated, something the Gods of the 20 Kings wanted against, and so they fought with him and ultimately destroyed him and his Kingdom. Joyboy persuaded people to "eat the forbidden fruit", essentially giving them free will and a desire to know the truth of the world, and not be under the heel of the powers that be.
And all the Bible parallels are made much stronger if Joyboy, was at least symbolised by, if not literally, a snake.
Parallels with Kaido
Another other reason I think they could be a snake is the many ways in which Kaido is shown to be similar to Joyboy, white also being slightly different, whereas Luffy wholly embodies each of these qualities of Joyboy. For example:
Joyboy brings smiles. Luffy does this by being likeable, Kaido does this by forcing SMILE fruits on people.
Joyboy frees slaves. Luffy actually frees slaves while Kaido creates a lot of slaves to bring Joyboy out. (As seen in him specifically wanting to turn the people of Wano into slaves after dropping Onigashima on Kozuki Castle, unlike all the other villains who want to destroy their city with a big weapon, who just want to kill the citizens).
Joyboy comes from death. Luffy died (as evidenced by Momo saying his "voice went out" before Luffy's heartbeat starting up again and him transforming into the full form of Sun God Nika) and became Joyboy, while Kaido just wants to cause a lot of death in a big war so that Joyboy may come from one of the many innocent dead.
It's why Kaido tried to go to Marineford before Shanks held him back, because he likely assumed as Shanks probably did when he went to Windmill Village with the Gum Gum Fruit, that Ace would be Joyboy, being the son of Gol D. Roger and all.
This is all emphasized by Yamato who essentially asks why he's being so evil and Kaido replying that it's beyond her understanding, implying it's for what he sees is a greater good - bringing out Joyboy.
So, it figures that the reason that he's so insistent on settling in Wano, for a reason he also won't explain, was because that's where Joyboy was known to be born, right?
So now that I've explained why basically every unexplained action of Kaido is to create Joyboy, and therefore why Joyboy is probably from Wano, would would be more interesting:
For the story to introduce ANOTHER man from Wano who was extremely powerful, but was also a bundle of laughter and joy, had a cult of personality, people believing in him and willing to carry out his will, who eventually set out to sea on a quest to unite the world and open Wano's borders (i.e. Oden),
OR, for Oda to put a spin on that, playing with our expectations. We already have a frame of reference for a character associated with Wano with that backstory, and so (assuming Joyboy is from Wano) we would already be thinking of Oden's story when Joyboy's inevitable backstory begins. So why not subvert it and add that extra layer?
But let's go back to the Kaido parallels thing for a sec. Kaido in human form is covered in scales, and can transform into an Oriental Dragon - essentially a huge scaled worm-like thing that slithers through the sky - basically a snake. This wouldn't be a parallel that Kaido is aware of, considering he doesn't know Luffy's Fruit is Joyboy's Fruit even when it's awakened in front of him, but rather this is Oda likely drawing another parallel between Kaido and Joyboy so that when we know the full story of Joyboy, we can look back on Kaido and see the similarities. And we can reverse engineer this to find out qualities of Joyboy ahead of time.
I guess another parallel between Kaido and Joyboy that Kaido wouldn't be aware is the fact that Kaido's race is an Oni, which is literally a demon in Japanese folklore, whereas Joyboy (and Luffy) instead embodied the ideals of what it means to be a demon in the One Piece world.
Parallels with Chopper
Another way Joyboy not being a human would act as a subversion is that we've already seen what it looks like when a human awakens their Human Human Fruit: Model Sun God Nika, and so have that in our mind for what an awakening of that fruit looks like. So again, why do the same thing twice, but instead subvert us, and show us what an awakening of that fruit looks like when an animal eats it. Say, a snake?
The first time we're introduced to Zoan fruits is Chopper, who is an animal who ate a Human Human fruit. This means the first connection you make with Zoan Fruits is also the first instance, of an animal eating the Human Human Fruit.
So if Joyboy was an animal that ate the Nika Fruit, it would simultaneously subvert our existing idea of what a Nika Fruit transformation looks like, while also instantly making more sense when it's revealed because our strongest association with Zoans is of an animal becoming a human.
So running with this idea, the Chopper flashback therefore likely parallels Joyboy's story.
Joyboy was a snake, bullied by the other snakes for a physical difference. He met a Hiruluk-style mentor figure, who showed him love for the first time after being hated by the humans, who are especially unaccepting of foreigners due to Wano having closed borders. This is was possibly foreshadowed in the people of Wano instantly torturing the dog and cat minks and Kawamatsu because they have closed borders, and no exposure to outsiders.
Hiruluk died after unsuccessfully fighting against illness for years, only finishing the invention that would achieve his goal at the tail end of his life, but he needed his mentor to carry on his will so that one day his goal would be realized.
Likewise, Joyboy's mentor fought an uphill battle against racism for years, and for a seemingly impossible dream to unite the world as one, to see all the races to live together side by side in One Piece. And for years, he was working on an invention that would one day achieve this goal, which he only finished at the tail end of his life. However by this point he would need someone else to see it through, so he trusted his pupil, his beloved snake man assistant and friend, to use this invention to destroy the barriers that kept people divided, and bring Joy to all.
Joyboy had no real race he belonged to, he simply came into a world in which he was discriminated against, and decided that this world should be free of discrimination, without one particular bias to any one group, which is something fishmen like Hody and Arlong get wrong, and he set out to change the world from there.
And so Joyboy continued his mentor's will, the will of D. It was likely that the name of Joyboy's mentor started with D, and meant something in Japanese, or was literally Dream or Devil or Dawn or something, meaning people who carry the will of D. today carry the ideals of this person, as well as their literal name. And so when Joyboy passes on his will to the rest of his crew aboard the Noa, they are carrying Joyboy's mentor's, but also Joyboy's name.
Joyboy personally knew what it felt like to be discriminated because of one's race. And continuing his mentor's will, over time he built up the Ancient Kingdom - a place where people from all races can live together and laugh as one.
The inversion here is that Dr. Hiruluk is the one who famously said "people die when they are forgotten". And yet, no one today remembers Joyboy's name, Joyboy's mentor's name, or even what the D. they all carry even stands for. They and their ideals should truly be dead, and yet, still today that little D. hangs on in a rare few. No one knows what it means, but it's the fact that their names haven't been completely forgotten, that shows that the spark is still there. This gives new weight to Roger essentially carrying on the flame for the next generation, as well as Luffy upon reaching the final island and discovering the true history, because now he can truly bring this information that the world government has hidden to the world.
And guess what, none of this brilliant poeticism works if not for the Dr. Hiruluk parallel, and that itself doesn't work if Joyboy wasn't an animal-human who helped him, to mirror Chopper. And as we know from Zuneisha recognizing Luffy in his awakened form, Joyboy did eat the Human Human Fruit: Model Nika, which filled out the human part, meaning for any of this to work his original must have been an animal.
How about a snake?
Another way it would subvert Oden is that Oden had a great early life, being the son of royalty, and was a such badass good guy chad that was loved by all, that Joyboy's backstory would either have to top him in terms of that stuff, or Oda could go the other route and make him a weird snake man that was shunned by the village, and only had his mentor figure for connection.
It would subvert our expectations in that we all expect Joyboy to be the progenitor of all the series' values, when really the one who started it all was Joyboy's mentor. And it wouldn't feel like a cop out that the Joyboy we've assumed is the one who started it all, actually didn't, because because we've been shown repeatedly how almost all characters in the series are continuing someone else's will, but especially in the Chopper flashback that this directly parallels.
It would give Chopper a real use. And what I mean by that is all of the people who joined the crew in the first half of the Grand Line have a direct role for finding the true history and/or bringing the dawn. Robin can read the ponegliffs, Franky is the only one who can build Pluton, Brook is a musician, which if you've watched Artur's video you'll know why that's so important. I've always just assumed Chopper would cure the illness that Roger had when Luffy gets it, but maybe his backstory also foreshadows basically the entire history of the world.
And this is a bit of a stretch (more so than anything else I've said) but, remember how Chopper started off his life as a reindeer being bullied for a small physical difference, and how Hiruluk named Chopper after an (admittedly unrelated) feature of his being a reindeer. Now, I've always just kinda felt that Binks is Joyboy. The lyrics to Binks' Sake seemingly have major importance in outlining the themes and likely end of the series, Binks seems like an important figure and there's even theories of Binks' Sake being the One Piece. I'm not here to debate that now, but if Binks was Joyboy, and the Chopper parallel exists, then what could the word "Binks" that Joyboy's Hiruluk equivalent named him after be? A unique feature of snakes is that they don't have eyelids and therefore don't blink. So maybe the feature that Joyboy was bullied by the other snakes for, and that his mentor named him for, was the fact that Joyboy... Blinks?
Stretch.
Other
Of course there's also the fact that Luffy has Gear 4 "Snakeman" a seemingly random powerup that almost feels like it should be another Gear. An homage/foreshadowing to the original Joyboy, perhaps?
There's the fact that when we hear JoyBOY, we kinda assume human male. Or more accurately humanoid male, i.e. giant, fishman, etc. Not animal. Again allowing this to be subverted. Not an important detail on its own, but it all adds up.
The giant hat in Mariejois, which was likely Joyboy's hat, makes sense that it's giant if Joyboy was a Zoan, hybrid creature, who sized up from being a snake, but who would probably just have a weird shape anyway being a Zoan.
Boa Hancock, and Amazon Lily as a whole, have a lot of snake imagery, with Boa literally having a snake wrapped around her. And the one person she finally falls in love with after all these years of being desired by everybody, is Luffy - the reincarnation/representation of Joyboy. I guess it's also worth mentioning that Amazon Lily is the place that Luffy trained at during the timeskip, on instruction of Rayleigh, no less, who knew the True History.
And finally, the Shandians in the Noland Flashback. They are clearly significant in some way as they pray to a Sun God (among 3 other Gods that I'm sure will have some role to play), have closed off their borders, and place importance around souls being trees, which I'm sure has something to do with devil fruits. A lot of this feels like it has ties to the True History, with the point that everything's bastardised due to 800 years of isolation causing them to lose sight of why they have that mythology in the first place. And wouldn't you know, they also happen to worship a giant snake as their God.
...What a curious detail.
So overall, we have the Biblical symbolism of the original Devil taking the form of a snake and Devils in this universe being linked with freedom, it parallels Chopper's flashback beautifully, it fits into what we can already largely assume about the Void Century, Gear 4 Snakeman is a thing, and the Shandians pray to a huge snake.
Credit again to Randy Troy for the idea. I'm curious how much of this will make it into his video, and how much new info he'll bring.