If we believe Oda then, only one of the following is possible:
- Blackbeard is the final villain and Marines/EG/Imu gets done in by Revolutionaries.
- Imu is the final villain and Blackbeard's arc will be significantly small.
Either way, Oda has to cut off one of them for the ~5 years timeline to work.
Since Imu was a late addition, I guess Imu will be axed.
Very unlikely. Blackbeard and the World governments role can't be walked over like that, this doesn't work story wise.
Blackbeard is Luffy's final obstacle to the OP, and the World government is basically the Main Main antagonist of the entire series.
The events of the ancient history is basically the main plot of this series, closely tied together with the treasure, proven by Roger reading about Joy boys life in Laugh tale.
If anything, Blackbeard and the WG can't be superseded and have fixed spots for the endgame.
Big mom, Elbaf and Shanks's plot lines are at risk here.
- Oda already brought Big mom to this arc to have her go down, while I'm confident that the original script wasn't planning that.
- Elbaf arc has very low chances now to be more than a transition arc like Zou.
Shanks's role is an absolute mystery at this point, but i don't see him getting wasted for the pacing.
I know that people don't like it, but i can already see how things will turn out.
Big mom will be defeated here in Wano, the news will be spread that Luffy took them down and this will give them a free pass into Elbaf, just like Zou. The last remaining poneglyph will likely be their as well.