Funnily enough I was just suggesting the same thing, your first idea there I mean. The 2nd idea is a really interesting one though potentially.
Oda also casually name dropped the name of a new race randomly without any elaboration, wonder what abilities/weird quirks they will have and thus role too, who will part of the race (Urouge? The Impel Down staff and thus maybe Shiryu? Imu and maybe even the Gorosei and Holy Knights?)
I did wonder if Loki could be part of this new race too.
It's weird how Oars and Oars Jr look so different to all these giants and "modern Oni" like Kaido and Yamato too. But I've seen some people suggest Onis have really "diluted genetically" over the centuries, I've even suspected both Kaido and Yamato are half human if not part human at least, cross breeds not "pure onis" so that could explain it.
Harald has reminded people of Kaido and Lokis helmet horns (and thus probably his real horns underneath too naturally given what we learned recently abouut Harald's horns and such ofc) so I imagine we're finally gonna learn a lot more about ancient giants/onis or w/e this arc as I hoped for MANY years now too. Would explain why Oda barely gave us anything for Kaido before too.
Miss Fortune (my beloved aside from Jinx) to Loki:
Also Loki has met a misfortune with Shanks ofc, an unfortunate fate lol:
Idk where im going with all this but Loki having a dangerous ability with his eyes due to his DF or his genetics/race would make sense for sure. Maybe some insane CoO related ability or voice of all things related or something idk?
I had a theory that Zunesha was mindcontrollede by Imu to walk for 1000 years, Imu was the one who punished and forced them to do that with their powers, Oda really likes to focus on Imu's eyes a lot.
I dont its just a stylistic choice either, some of these characters have some serious issues with mental disorders or their state of mind in general so I wouldnt be surprised if Mihawk had something like that too. Me and a former friend discussed how Mihawk might have been forced to kill his own former crew for example or hes got trauma from losing them, a similar trauma to Moria has and imo Crocodile does too, but they probably lost their crews for different reasons, under different circumstances.
I'm just randomly speculating here though, mostly nonsense ofc.