We have different opinions in this regard. And this is totally ok. Lets leave it at that or else we will fight over such a subjective matter, with no outcome.
The last member will not be a throw in – I can underline that as well. But neither Pedro (your choice) nor Lucci (my choice) are throw-ins: On the contrary, they are well established characters, who the readers already know. I think we have the same line of thinking here.
If you are choosing your candidate for the last empty seat on the Sunny simply by how much that character is foreshadowed, then your choice should fall on Lucci. Because that man had rather heavy foreshadowing. In fact Oda is setting him specifically up and gives us his main character traits before we even dive into the Egghead storyline. You could also say – he prepared him for something bigger:
- We see him in Dressrosa in his new position as CP0 member – most important information dropped about him: Lucci is still working for the WG.
- We see him during the Reverie interacting with Vivi – most important information dropped about him: For the first time he is showing us, in what position Lucci is and what his world view is – and this alone is very important and Oda manages to highlight it by Vivi even going against him and telling him he is wrong in letting things progress, how they did back then. This one sentence of Vivi alone is foreshadowing, because Lucci does not see how wrong he is, yet. He still thinks that the world is at peace and that for the peace to remain, one has to make sacrifices. Hence, why he allows Carlos to enslave Shirahoshi. That those sacrifices are not necessary at all needs to be proofed to him.
- We see him during Wano calling his colleague. And here Oda once again shows us one very important detail about Lucci: Robin has to be brought in, for the pirates could use her as a tool to disrupt the peace. Again, we see how much Lucci hates pirates and Oda is reminding us that the agent thinks that pirates are the bad guys (I mean, pirates are generally bad and pillage and kill and do all that terrible stuff. Luffy and his crew are one of the few exceptions.).
And with the beginning of the Egghead arc, we now know these two most important things through this foreshadowing about him:
- He is an advocate for peace and does everything he can so that conflicts do not arise or flare up. This is also the reason, why he beats Leo and Sai – because if he hadn’t done this, their countries would have suffered the consequences of Carlos’ wrath.
- He thinks that the worst thread for the world are pirates as they could use the knowledge of Robin to go against the government, and that on the other side would lead to war and disrupt peace.
We even have two characters, who have foreshadowed Lucci joining the crew:
In Wano we have Yamato, who wanted to join the SHP from the start, only to stay behind at the end. With this she acted like a red herring and let us focus again on the still empty seat on the Sunny – she was one big foreshadowing. And the reason I am sthinking that is because of another very interesting thing: If you compare Yamato with Lucci you will find quite the contrast of character Oda plays with:
- Their DF-themes are contrasting: Cat and dog
- Their color scheme for their DF is also contrasting: Rather light colors for Yamato and rather dark colors for Lucci (Awakened form)
- How Yamato and Lucci think about pirates is vastly opposing: While Yamato wants to become a pirate, Lucci detests them
- Yamato is a fan of Luffy, Lucci wants nothing more than to eradicate “Straw hat”
- Oda depicts Yamato as an ally from the beginning, whereas he determines Lucci’s role as that of an antagonist
- Yamato immediately wants to join, whereas Lucci needs to be in imminent danger to actually start thinking about an alliance
- I could even say their gender is contrary but then this is too vague and/or a coincident
- The only similarity is their strength, which is roughly the same
Have you also thought about Who’s Who? That guy is like a copy of Lucci:
- worked for CP9,
- had eaten a DF of the Neko-kind
- the guy was even comparing himself to Lucci
- and the most important part: He was a defector of the WG
Now however, the ex-CP9-agent works for Kaido as a
pirate. If Who’s Who is not one big foreshadowing, then I don’t know, what could be more obvious. Oda is probably already laughing at us… .
His post on the Sunny was foreshadowed as well:
The role of strategist has been foreshadowed since Wano and the necessity of it was even mentioned during WCI. When Big Mom hunted half the crew, someone said that Luffy has no knowledge about tactics. Later in Wano Kinemon had more luck than brainpower back then and he can be lucky that his plan worked out after all. Jinbe hinted in chapter 979 anyway that they would need someone who is able to calmly observe what is happening.
And look, the last arcs were not anymore on a par to a Don Creek or Morgan. The calibre of them exceeded almost everything we knew before, because there were entire battle grounds with hundreds/thousands of men/women fighting each other. You could also call it “war”. And this will most likely continue. Even here in Egghead we are seeing 100 battle ships heading towards the island, 50 Pacifista deployed, then we have the Seraphim and there is a giant robot rusting in the back-yard with an undefined power potential. Some of the BBP are arriving at the island as well. And we still have York, whose plan still involves her killing everyone else in the Labo.
It would for once be nice if someone did have an overview over everything happening and could direct everyone according to a functioning plan. Because the SH cannot keep barging into every conflict headless – and Luffy is no strategist.
Surely, now is the best time to recruit someone with enough brainpower to calmly observe and give Luffy and his crew the best strategical information for him to base his decisions upon.
I have more foreshadowing if I need to continue. I have not even touched the fitting numerical theory of the SHP’s DF or the fact that Luffy has never even once said Lucci’s name, though he did that with every other main antagonist… .