I've wanted to right about this topic ever since I finished reading the official scans of Chapter 971. The choices they made there prompted me to come up with this idea.
First I'd like to give credit to u/africhic for posting and coming up with a more fleshed out Parallel first in his post below.
Based on all his points, it's obvious that Oda is drawing a clear parallel with Orochi and Blackbeard. With that in mind I’d like to spin this parallel further.
As we’ve observed, Oda loves to use ideas and parallels from previous arcs and put them in a much bigger scale in later arcs. We’ve seen this a lot especially post TS…
To flesh this out further, I’d like to talk about Ace first. We need to take note that this Arc started with the memory of Ace and interestingly, Ace and Orochi’s backstories draw a very big parallel to each other. Ace and Orochi are two sides of the same coin. They were both clean slates that unfortunately suffered for the crimes, or at least apparent crimes of their father/grandfather. Ace however stubborn he was as a child, was at least surrounded by Garp, Dadan, Luffy and Sabo who truly cared for him. Meanwhile, Orochi was surrounded by his own, vengeful family members, the other surviving Koruzumi. Naturally they reacted differently. Orochi is still a douchebag by the way but at least in the aspect of his birth and upbringing, he was a monster created by the people of Wano themselves. This kind of represents the theme of “Lineage” and “The sins of the past”.
Ace and Blackbeard also parallel each other: Ace being the son of Roger and Blackbeard being a person following in Xebec’s will along with Ace representing Fire/The Sun with Blackbeard representing Darkness. Looking at this, we can try to stretch this parallel a little further: What if Blackbeard was the same as Ace and Orochi? A clean slate that that, due to the sins of the past and their particular lineage experienced prosecution? Orochi and Blackbeard both reacted the same way and were monsters created by their upbringing and environment. Interestingly, the Viz translation of Chapter 971 had Orochi saying that the prosecution he experienced was because of people claiming they were performing Justice. This is similar to how the World Government operates by establishing an authoritarian rule in the guise of Justice.
We know that Robin was considered a monster by the world due to simply knowing how to read Poneglyphs. We know that that the D clan are considered by some to be the Natural enemies of the Gods and would always bring a storm. What if Blackbeard grew up in an environment constantly experiencing this kind of oppression just because he was born with the D initial? What if, just like Orochi, he reacted nihilistically, wanting to destroy everything?
Orochi was born from a ruling class of Wano, but experienced prosecution because of his Grandfather’s betrayal . Similarly, the Will of D as many theorize could have been a ruling clan and Blackbeard’s particular lineage come from one of the D clan’s story of betrayal.
That’s it. This sounds a little bit like it’s all over the place but thank you for taking the time to read.
First I'd like to give credit to u/africhic for posting and coming up with a more fleshed out Parallel first in his post below.
Based on all his points, it's obvious that Oda is drawing a clear parallel with Orochi and Blackbeard. With that in mind I’d like to spin this parallel further.
As we’ve observed, Oda loves to use ideas and parallels from previous arcs and put them in a much bigger scale in later arcs. We’ve seen this a lot especially post TS…
- East Blue started with the Strawhats battling evil pirate crews. Got scaled up in Paradise by the Shichibukai and then scaled again in the NW with the Yonko’s
- Water7 introduced us to the evil of the World Government. Got scaled up in Sabaody and then scaled up again in Marineford
- Sabaody introduced racism. Got scaled up in Amazon Lily and Fishman Island
- Skypeia introduced us to the concept of Gods and Luffy/Will of D being the natural enemies of the Gods. Got scaled up in Sabaody. Got scaled up in Dressrosa with Luffy fighting an actual (former) Tenruubito in the form of Dofflamingo
To flesh this out further, I’d like to talk about Ace first. We need to take note that this Arc started with the memory of Ace and interestingly, Ace and Orochi’s backstories draw a very big parallel to each other. Ace and Orochi are two sides of the same coin. They were both clean slates that unfortunately suffered for the crimes, or at least apparent crimes of their father/grandfather. Ace however stubborn he was as a child, was at least surrounded by Garp, Dadan, Luffy and Sabo who truly cared for him. Meanwhile, Orochi was surrounded by his own, vengeful family members, the other surviving Koruzumi. Naturally they reacted differently. Orochi is still a douchebag by the way but at least in the aspect of his birth and upbringing, he was a monster created by the people of Wano themselves. This kind of represents the theme of “Lineage” and “The sins of the past”.
Ace and Blackbeard also parallel each other: Ace being the son of Roger and Blackbeard being a person following in Xebec’s will along with Ace representing Fire/The Sun with Blackbeard representing Darkness. Looking at this, we can try to stretch this parallel a little further: What if Blackbeard was the same as Ace and Orochi? A clean slate that that, due to the sins of the past and their particular lineage experienced prosecution? Orochi and Blackbeard both reacted the same way and were monsters created by their upbringing and environment. Interestingly, the Viz translation of Chapter 971 had Orochi saying that the prosecution he experienced was because of people claiming they were performing Justice. This is similar to how the World Government operates by establishing an authoritarian rule in the guise of Justice.
We know that Robin was considered a monster by the world due to simply knowing how to read Poneglyphs. We know that that the D clan are considered by some to be the Natural enemies of the Gods and would always bring a storm. What if Blackbeard grew up in an environment constantly experiencing this kind of oppression just because he was born with the D initial? What if, just like Orochi, he reacted nihilistically, wanting to destroy everything?
Orochi was born from a ruling class of Wano, but experienced prosecution because of his Grandfather’s betrayal . Similarly, the Will of D as many theorize could have been a ruling clan and Blackbeard’s particular lineage come from one of the D clan’s story of betrayal.
That’s it. This sounds a little bit like it’s all over the place but thank you for taking the time to read.
