TLDR: Lily possesses the Ocean Fruit, allowing her to control all of the water in the world. It was given to her by the Ancient Kingdom so she could stop droughts, create peace, and be able to control other Devil Fruit user so they didn’t use their powers for evil.
Imu used their own Fruit, the Ope Ope no Mi, to Transer Personalities with Lily, allowing him to take over the strongest Fruit, and rule the world. After, Imu forced Lily to perform the Perpetual Youth Surgery on him, by threatening to destroy Alabasta with the Ocean Fruit.
Lily was a royal who was sympathetic to the D Clan but also worked with the other 19 founding kingdoms in the original Reverie. The Celestial Dragons are all humans, in a world full of beings who aren’t human, while the D Clan was full of non-humans.
The Ocean, or Mother Sea, is the ultimate enemy, both figuratively, and literally. The sea causes starvation, and the seas in One Piece are so hazardous that many die just trying to cross them. The Ocean is what keeps Luffy from One Piece, but is also what gives him his adventure. The Great Cleansing of the Void Century was caused by Imu flooding the world. This is why the giant boat in Fishman Island, the Noah, exists: it was meant to carry all the people of the world and save them from Imu's flood.
Luffy will destroy the Red Line using the Ancient Weapons, then defeat Imu with Law’s help, returning the ocean to its natural state, freeing Lily’s body, and leading all of the seas in One Piece, the East, West, North, and South Blue, and Paradise and the New World, to become one great, united ocean; the All Blue, the One Piece.
Imu used their own Fruit, the Ope Ope no Mi, to Transer Personalities with Lily, allowing him to take over the strongest Fruit, and rule the world. After, Imu forced Lily to perform the Perpetual Youth Surgery on him, by threatening to destroy Alabasta with the Ocean Fruit.
Lily was a royal who was sympathetic to the D Clan but also worked with the other 19 founding kingdoms in the original Reverie. The Celestial Dragons are all humans, in a world full of beings who aren’t human, while the D Clan was full of non-humans.
The Ocean, or Mother Sea, is the ultimate enemy, both figuratively, and literally. The sea causes starvation, and the seas in One Piece are so hazardous that many die just trying to cross them. The Ocean is what keeps Luffy from One Piece, but is also what gives him his adventure. The Great Cleansing of the Void Century was caused by Imu flooding the world. This is why the giant boat in Fishman Island, the Noah, exists: it was meant to carry all the people of the world and save them from Imu's flood.
Luffy will destroy the Red Line using the Ancient Weapons, then defeat Imu with Law’s help, returning the ocean to its natural state, freeing Lily’s body, and leading all of the seas in One Piece, the East, West, North, and South Blue, and Paradise and the New World, to become one great, united ocean; the All Blue, the One Piece.
Giver of life and death, the Ocean
What is the greatest enemy, yet ally, that exists in One Piece? The Ocean.
The ocean causes starvation, insanity, horrible natural disasters like the Aqua Laguna in Water 7. Yet, it’s the reason men like Yasopp set sail to begin with: because he heard the ocean’s call.
Luffy’s greatest obstacle to reach One Piece, any pirate’s greatest obstacle, has always been the ocean. Even the four Blues can be dangerous, but the Grand Line is a monster of crazy weather patterns that don’t make sense. Still, Luffy loves the ocean, despite being unable to swim, and being weak in it. The ocean is what gives Luffy both adventure, and conflict as a protagonist. The Ocean is the enemy Luffy has to fight the most often to reach the One Piece.
So, to me, Luffy’s greatest nemesis IS the ocean. Then, thematically, his final fight will be against a character that represents the ocean. Imu’s name in reverse, Umi, means “Sea” in Japanese.
When asked by a reader in Volume 78/Chapter 777’s SBS why there are so few mother characters alive or present in the story, Oda had this to say: “I see. Well, the answer is simple. The antonym to “adventure” is “mother”.
Just as the ocean is the greatest enemy to Luffy’s adventure, while creating his adventure, Luffy’s mother would be the greatest enemy to his adventure; meaning, that Luffy’s natural enemy is a maternal figure who controls the ocean.
(I do not fully believe this theory, but it interests me)
How does Imu treat the Celestial Dragons? Like spoiled children, the opposite of how Garp treated Luffy. They’re mostly kept inside of Mary Geoise, and when they do leave, it’s with heavily armed escorts. They don't perform physical labor, all of their needs are taken care of for them, while Garp had Luffy catching his own food in the jungle. CDs wear suits to keep them from breathing in normal air and to protect them, and if any of the CDs are hurt, Imu has it arranged so that an Admiral arrives to destroy the enemy with overwhelming force.
Imu is everything Luffy stands against: an ocean that divides people by separating them into individual islands far from each other, and an overbearing mother who coddles her children, and destroys their foes, rather than lets them be free (which also connects back to Big Mom and her children, Yamato and Kaido, and Sanji and Judge, even Whitebeard letting Ace chase after Blackbeard).
The Nature of Devil Fruits (the Ope Ope Fruit and Ocean Fruit)/Connecting Alabasta to the Ancient Kingdom, Reverie, and Void Century
Okay, so, if Imu is a mother figure who controls the ocean, and is Luffy’s final fight, how did we get here? Next, we have to look at how Devil Fruits work, according to the great Dr. Vegapunk, the sexiest man alive, the only man with greater tongue game than Perospero.
“Every Devil Fruit… is a possibility for human evolution that someone desired. But… that unnatural status is loathed by the sea, the mother of nature.”
Vegapunk is literally stating that the sea has emotions, meaning the ocean is either represented by an individual, or has a physical manifestation (like a Klabauterman). Also, if every Devil Fruit was created from desire, we need to look into why people from the time before the Void Century would have wanted to make these Fruits in the first place, to understand the Ancient History. So, I’ve connected Imu to having Ocean Powers already. But, there’s another Fruit connected to Imu; the Ope Ope no Mi.
Doflamingo and the WG both relentlessly sought this Fruit, while Law ended up with it. We know from Doflamingo that, there exists a treasure in Mary Geoise, whose existence could shake the world to its foundations. If he had the Ope Ope no Mi, Doflamingo could have seized the treasure, and gained true world power.
From Cobra and Sabo, we know the very existence of Imu is something that shocks people to their core. Finding out the world DOES have a king would send the entire world into a panic. These kings have been sending all this money... to a fraudulent government, that has always seen them as inferior? The kings of the world would be PISSED for getting played so hard, then being made mockeries of in the public eye. Imu IS the treasure of Mary Geoise that is kept hidden because their existence would destroy the world's balance, and Doflamingo wanted the Ope Ope Fruit to use the Personality Transplant Surgery to put himself in Imu’s body, allowing Doffy to become the king of the world, controlling the government and the sea itself.
This means that whoever created the Ope Ope Fruit in the past, desired immortality, and the ability to switch people’s personalities around. Isn’t that pretty demented? I don’t think a nice person created a Fruit that causes immortality, at the cost of another’s life, and allows you to more or less dissect and toy with people. Law's Fruit is brutal and dangeorus. No sane person made it. Someone who wanted ultiamte power created the Ope Ope no Mi.
I believe Imu is the original owner of the Ope Ope no Mi, and used the power to switch bodies with Nefertari Lily, in order to gain her Ocean Fruit.
I recommend reading this thread, first:
This video is good, too, if you have the time:
Important bits summed up from the Reddit thread:
-“Nefertari is the family that reigns over Alabasta. Nefertari is in fact also a Queen that exists in ancient Egypt, not only in One Piece.”
-“You also have a deity in ancient Egypt that is called Nefertem. It was originally a lotus flower at the creation of the world, who had arisen from the primal waters. Nefertem represented both the first sunlight and the delightful smell of the Egyptian blue lotus flower, having arisen from the primal waters within an Egyptian blue water-lily. The Egyptian water lily (Nefertari Lili) was present in ancient Egypt and it was a sign of immortality. Is Nefertari Lili (Imu) immortal because of the immortality surgery (ope ope no mi)?”
Oda is clearly connecting the Nefertari family to the ocean, through Imu, Lily, and Vivi’s adventures as a pirate. Vivi’s entire arc was about, what? Rain and how important water is to bring and continue life.
If Imu represents the dark aspect of the ocean, Vivi, who fought to bring water to everyone in Alabasta by sailing the ocean, represents the life and beauty in the sea. So, connecting this back, Lily would be a sovereign connected to the ocean.
What else do we know about Lily’s character that could explain how she would have used an Ocean Fruit? Lily’s sword was not planted before the throne, but in Imu’s Flower Room, showing her unwillingness to accept Imu as a hidden king.
We also know that the Alabasta Kingdom and Nefertari clan have been holding a Poneglyph detailing the location of the Ancient Weapon, Pluton, which Cobra was aware of, given his conversations with Nico Robin. So, we know the Nefertari clan was sympathetic to the Ancient Kingdom. Harboring information about Pluton is a serious crime (see Nico Robin), and proof the Nefertari Clan did not trust the WG at all.
If Lily is connected to Vivi, then, we can see what kind of character she was from Vivi’s Reverie; a royal who identified with the rebel cause, but still worked with the World Government to try to bring peace.
Considering this evidence, if Lily had a Devil Fruit, I’d say it would be a water-based Fruit. Her name is a reference to ocean myths in Eyptial religious lore, her country is connected to droughts, and her desire was, like Vivi, to create a peaceful world that’s ruled fairly. If Lily was like Vivi, she would use an Ocean Fruit to bring the world together, forming rivers to help build settlements along them; quelling storms to save lives; buildings dams to save and relocate water; giving rainfall to dehydrated areas.
We know that the Ancient Kingdom was involved with ancient technology, and likely was involved in producing the Devil Fruits, since Vegapunk is researching their technology and is the foremost leading scientists on Devil Fruits. If Lily was an important member of the Ancient Kingdom, who Joy Boy trusted the way Luffy trusts Vivi, they might have given her a Fruit.
What if the Ancient Kingdom/Joy Boy gave Lily the Ocean Fruit, the strongest Devil Fruit, which could negate other Fruits, so that she, the fair, loyal, kind Queen, could keep others from abusing their powerful creation, the Devil Fruits? By building the other Fruits to be weak to water, the Ancient Kingdom was building in a failsafe to keep Devil Fruit users from taking over the world with their powers, as water, and Lily, could be used to stop them.
Suddenly, everything makes sense. Lily was the Mother Sea/Primordial Sea, a Queen who used her Ocean Fruit to bring peace and end starvation and drought. But, this was all stolen from her, by Imu, the user of the Ope Ope no Mi.
Isn’t it strange, that the two ultimate features of Law’s Fruit, are to switch personalities, and make someone immortal? Don’t those kind of clash? Why would someone who desires ultimate power, want to sacrifice themselves for someone else? Why would someone who built the ultimate Fruit to control space around them, want to switch bodies with someone else?
Imu betrayed Lily, by switching bodies with her, then forcing her to perform the Immortality Surgery on Imu in Lily’s body. If Lily hadn’t, Imu would have used his new Ocean powers to erase Alabasta. After having her body and power stolen, all Lily could do to save her kingdom was give in to Imu, perform the Surgery, and die to protect Alabasta.
After, Imu took action against the entire world. In order to rewrite history, Imu used floods and tsunamis to destroy the ancient world, even the kingdoms aligned with him, dividing them with the ocean, and using other means, probably another powerful Fruit, to build the Redline. Nothing erases history and civilizations like mass flooding.
Many myths and religions in real ancient history are based around the massive flood that occurred over 10,000 years ago, which wiped out countless civilizations. Atlantis is often referenced in popular media, as well.
The Void Century was caused by Imu flooding the world for over 100 years, erasing that entire section of history, allowing Imu and the World Government to rewrite history.
With this, we can fill in a lot of blanks regarding mysteries in the series.
The Noah was supposed to be used to save people from the flooding, and Joy Boy’s apology to Poseidon was based on failing to get the Noah to the world in time to save everyone.
The Poneglyphs are built to survive underwater for long periods of time, in order to preserve the history for the future even after Imu’s flooding.
Wano is built the way it is to make it a natural fortress against Imu’s flooding, as any excess rainwater just flies down the waterfalls. We can see from Water 7 that the water levels of the ocean are rising; Water 7 is foreshadowing the eventual flooding of the world.
Because the seas are so violent, countries like Kaido's home country, the Vodka Kingdom, are forced to go to war just to get the resources to pay their Heavenly Tribute. Imu delibiteraly uses the ocean to divide the world, and keep nations weak, so that they can never rise up like the Ancient Kingdom.
The D Clan/Ancient Kingdom was full of non-human groups that wanted to be seen as equal, while the World Government was made up of humanoid supremacists, who thought that beings like the Minks and Fishman should have no rights.
The first Reverie was an attempt by Lily and other kings to form a peace between the D Clan/Ancient Kingdom and World Government, but, like the Reverie that just happened in the story, Imu used it to take advantage of Lily and steal her body/the throne of the world.
Cobra’s shock didn’t just come from seeing Imu sit down on the throne, it came from realizing Imu is Lily, and this is why Cobra had to die; just by seeing Imu’s face, he learned a part of the true history.
Since Law’s sister, Lammy, died because of the World Government’s lies regarding White Lead, it’s possible Law is actually the reincarnation of Lily’s brother (whose sister also died due to the WG’s lies), and acquired Imu’s original Fruit, to end Imu’s misuse of his sister’s body. I believe Law's plotline will be fleshed out a lot more, going forward (I also think Kid is important regarding the past, too, his Fruit has a lot of elements the Alliance might need against Imu). Either way, Law is huge in the endgame, because only his Ope Ope no Mi can undo Imu's immortality.
Law will sacrifice himself to undo Imu’s Immortality Surgery, making it so that Lily’s body can actually die again. Luffy will defeat Imu's flood by grabbing the ocean itself, and bouncing it into the sky to turn the ocean into rain (this part is baseless speculation on my end, lol), while the Ancient Weapons are used to destroy the Red Line (this has been theorized by people way smarter than me and is kind of likely). After, the world's ecosystem will return to normal as the rain settles, making it so that the weather on the Grandline, which was messed up due to Imu manipulating the ocean, is normal again, and all of the seas are reunited, forming the peaceful One Piece/All Blue, where all fish/people can swim/live together.
Luffy will defeat the Ocean by finding One Piece, then again by defeating Imu, the true ruler of the seas.
(Also, Imu might be Luffy’s mom, but that’s a whole ‘nother batch of lasagna for grandma to bake, lololololololol)
I think I'm done tagging people, but, if there's anyone you know would be interested, send them a link for me, I'd appreciate it. Hope next chapter is as hype as the hints make it look, hahahaha!
