So, I've put together this theory on everything on Dragon's life prior to the Revolutionary Army, answering for three different parts of Dragon's life: Dragon before he was a Marine & his origin story, Dragon's time in the Marines (why/when he joined), and Dragon after the Marines (why/when he left).
link to the thread for Part 1, with the pre Marines/Dragon joining the Marine stuff, here
And I'll end the thread off with a much needed discussion for theories like these, answering how we'll even get this information in the story to begin with, alongside my closing thoughts.
Feel free to take what I say here as evidence for your own theories, even if you disagree with my conclusions. I'd like to think what I'm saying can be of use to other people's thoughts on the story, even if my outright predictions don't pan out.
When did Dragon leave the Marines and become a Freedom Fighter?
Why did Dragon leave the Marines and become a Freedom Fighter?
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How/Why will we actually get this information in the story?? & Closing thoughts
Those are my predictions on the early/pre-Revolutionary life of Monkey D. Dragon, what made the man, Marine, and Freedom Fighter.
I have also have more thoughts and theories on the Monkey D. family, their ancestry, and also just Dragon's character outside of Marine-centric topics (DF, World's Worst Criminal status, 'Luffy's mom', etc.), but I think it's better to save those ideas for another time, this thread is already wayyy too long. Ty for reading if you did but I can not blame you if you didn't lol
link to the thread for Part 1, with the pre Marines/Dragon joining the Marine stuff, here
And I'll end the thread off with a much needed discussion for theories like these, answering how we'll even get this information in the story to begin with, alongside my closing thoughts.
Feel free to take what I say here as evidence for your own theories, even if you disagree with my conclusions. I'd like to think what I'm saying can be of use to other people's thoughts on the story, even if my outright predictions don't pan out.
When did Dragon leave the Marines and become a Freedom Fighter?
Reposting my predicted timeline here for the sake of convenience
Bold is for crucial details, Italics + Underscore is for unconfirmed speculation by me, and everything else is just normal canon material
There's 3 characters that we'll use to help understand when Dragon quit:
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Let's start with some crucial events that help narrow down when Dragon had to have left the Marines by:
Left (Ch 1096) is 25 years ago, Right (Ch 1066) is 22 years ago but Vegapunk joining the WG/leaving MADS is 26 years ago
While most people are already aware that Dragon got his bounty with the Freedom Fighters 25 years ago, there's still 2 important details that reveal even more about when Dragon's time with the Marines ended and when his Freedom Fighters began
1) Dragon had actually quit by at least 26 years ago, because that's when MADS was disbanded*, and we know that Dragon was trying to recruit Vegapunk before he joined up with the World Government. It's also clear that Dragon wasn't just recruiting for a hypothetical organization that he was planning while still in the Marines, since Vegapunk states that he rejected Dragon's offer because the Freedom Fighters had no resources/funds (in TCB's words, it "was always too poor")- this makes it very clear that he's talking about something that tangibly existed at the time he rejected it. Based on the way they talk to each other at O'Hara, it also seems like Dragon hadn't talked to Vegapunk since VP started working with the WG, since he's just now talking about how he felt when he heard the news. This realistically means that Dragon tried to recruit him to an already-existing group of Freedom Fighters 26 years ago.
[* = this is according to Vegapunk/Queen's vivre cards directly stating this, and also Vegapunk's on screen meeting with Clover at Punk Hazard. Reminder that this is also the same incident that led to Vegapunk joining the WG, there's no gap in those events]
2) In the moment where Kuma notes Dragon got a bounty, he states that this is "another" article about the Freedom Fighters, and that they "finally" issued wanted posters for them, implying that they've been active for a while by that point. They're also causing disturbances in several countries, which implies they've gained influence across multiple territories, something that wouldn't just happen overnight.
It's fair to mention that their lack of bounty posters might also mean they were a fairly young organization at that point, but the additional context clues point to something more nuanced than that. The later Revolutionary Army would also go through something similar where their growth seemed tepid at first but eventually grew to what it was now. So, the truth is that they could've been active but smaller in scope until then, or that it just took them a couple years to become this notable. After all, even just going back to what we know about the Rev Army, they had to start by assisting existing movements and 'acting like mercenaries'. As a result, the growth of the organization would be dependent on the success of existing social/political movements, not just their own individual strength as a unit of soldiers, making their growth nonlinear and harder to predict early on- this likely applies to the Freedom Fighters as well, since they'd face similar constraints as the young Rev Army. So, in the end, this also supports the idea that the Freedom Fighters began even before 25 years ago.
Overall, it's clear that based on what we know now, the Freedom Fighters had to have begun their resistance at least 26 years ago, which means that Dragon left the Marines before then as well- I'm also personally willing to bet that this extends further back too. I doubt Dragon was immediately able to recruit people like Iva and form the Freedom Fighters as a real organization, right after leaving the Marines with no time in between. There needs to be a realistic gap for Dragon to come to his conclusion about what has to be done, and for them develop into a real organization, likely 1-2 years after Dragon leaves the Marines. This leads me to think Dragon left the Marines at least 27/28 years ago.
With that established, we can continue to narrow things down.
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Naturally, the idea (from the section on when Dragon joined) that Akainu & Dragon were both Marines who joined at the same time and clearly share a history together, that at the very least left Akainu with a grudge, clearly has implications beyond just giving us a better idea of when Dragon's story as a Marine began. Mainly because it can also give us a surprisingly great answer for just when, and why, Dragon's story as a Marine ended.
Because when we look at Akainu's timeline, specifically the way his character design develops in relation to the person he is, when put alongside Garp's change in character design- it's clear that something had to have happened to these two characters.
Let me explain (and bear with me, but we'll eventually end back up at Dragon in a satisfying way in the end)
We have to start by acknowledging something that stands out when we start to look at Sakazuki 27 years ago from Chapter 0 (aka the Strong World Oneshot), even comparing it to the design of him as a fresh recruit just a couple years prior. To be honest it’s something as simple as.. him wearing a hoodie
This design works to constantly obscure Sakazuki’s hat, something that’s always helped to plaster the Marines brand and values on the man’s head, even before the hat actually had the Marines logo on it. (the hat below reads Justice, as in the same 'Justice'/正義 that the Marines wear on their coats)
While his hat usually serves as a sign for how much he’s willing to outwardly represent the Marines and their image of upholding "justice" against 'the evils of piracy'-
in reality, this actually does clash with his Absolute Justice, which enables extrajudicial murder of civilians and other Marines for the sake of maintaining the Marines' reputation through less-than-honorable means. These are the type of actions that clearly wouldn't enable him act as the public face of the organization. This description also clearly fits two situations in the story where Sakazuki’s hat is either obscured or removed outright in order to resolve this contradiction.
By acting on behalf of the Marines as an organization, while going against what their public image and propaganda would have you believe
Now hopefully I've clarified why this is an intentional facet of his design, and not a coincidence.
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Now, considering that Sakazuki had this hoodie design that obscures his hat even years prior to O'Hara,
Chapter 0/'STRONG WORLD' Oneshot, 27 years ago in-universe, during the Battle at Edd War
it's important that we think about what actually caused it. The decision to make his O'Hara design predate the incident it's always been attached to is definitely an intentional one meant to tell us something about Akainu's character.
Given the meaning associated with his hat, as an emblem of his forward-facing persona seeking to represent the Marines, it would make a lot of sense if whatever changed Sakazuki’s design in this way was an event that caused him to further develop and reinforce his ideal of 'Absolute Justice', and also reinforced his resolve to do whatever it takes to enforce that. This is also going to be relevant to the 'Why Dragon Quit' section later on, because of how an event like this would have also impacted Dragon himself, so keep that in mind.
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Whatever caused Sakazuki to change in this way would’ve had to have taken place sometime before he and Kuzan end up getting promoted to Vice Admiral, and that could even explain why Garp’s hair starts greying for the first time when it does, since both would happen between 30 to 27 years ago. I don't think it's very hard to believe that Garp's hair greying could be related to his son, and his son's status within the Marines in specific, so that one requires much less explanation
This hypothetical event 27 years ago that impacted Sakazuki and even Garp would also fit in with the idea that Dragon quit sometime around 27/28 years ago, based on everything we discussed at the beginning of this section. This would also would explain Dragon's distaste for war by the time he talks to Vegapunk at O'Hara.
Dragon's connection to O'Hara also brings us back to the fact that 28 years ago was when 33 O'Hara scholars set sail on their trip which eventually lead to the island's Buster Call, and 28 years ago is also when the Roger pirates depart on their final journey, which would eventually culminate in Roger becoming Pirate King and his public execution down the line- I don't think it's any coincidence that both of those major shifts in the One Piece world are also what led to Dragon forming the Revolutionary Army, according to the following narration
so we should expect both O'Hara and the Roger Pirates to play a pivotal role within Dragon's last days of being a Marine, with the two events that eventually led to O'Hara's Buster Call & the Great Pirate Era also fitting perfectly into the existing timeframe of when he likely quit (27/28 years ago).
If Garp had something else keeping him busy around this time, like either big changes in his family life, or having to chase after a brand new organization called the 'Freedom Fighters', it would also help explain the strange decision to not depict Garp chasing Roger during the Oden flashback. Otherwise it's hard to justify how Roger & Whitebeard fight for three whole days and nights and somehow Garp still didn't show up- this is a complete departure from how incredibly quick he is to chase after him in every other example
vs.
Note that Garp was willing to chase after Roger when Rocks was there too, so I don't think the excuse here is that Whitebeard being with Roger dissuaded Garp from going. It's genuinely hard to justify his absence here unless it's family related or something else extremely important to Garp personally- this is 3 whole days and they already knew where Roger was.
However at this point I think we've justified this timeline enough, it should be clear that:
1. Dragon most likely quit 28 years ago. I'm willing to bet this in specific, but I get why someone else wouldn't.
2. Guaranteed, Dragon quit sometime prior to 26 years ago, but not too long before then, realistically had to be between 26-30 years ago, even if my specific prediction of 28 years ago is wrong. Anything else is frankly unrealistic unless there's a major gap between him quitting the Marines, and him starting the Freedom Fighters.
Bold is for crucial details, Italics + Underscore is for unconfirmed speculation by me, and everything else is just normal canon material
- 38 Years Ago - Garp becomes "Hero of the Marines" at God Valley
- 33 Years Ago - The eventual Yonko, specifically the ones from Rocks' old crew, are starting to recruit new members (info via the Oden Flashback)
- 32 Years Ago - One of two points where Dragon (Age 23) could've joined the Marines +(speculative)
- 32 Years Ago - Sakazuki (Age 23, North Blue) joins the Marines, Borsalino (Age 26, North Blue) too, Vivre Card info
- 30 Years Ago - Kuzan (South Blue) joins the Marines, Vivre Card Info
- 28 Years Ago - Dragon quit the Marines here (speculative)
- 28 Years Ago - 33 O'Hara's scholars go on a journey that would eventually result in Olvia's capture and O'Hara's Buster Call
- 28 years ago - Roger pirates go on their final journey after finding out Roger is sick
- 27 Years Ago - Battle at Edd War (Strong World Oneshot written by Oda), Akainu, Saul, and Aokiji are seemingly Vice Admirals by this point. Notable redesigns for Akainu/Aokiji/Garp as well
- 26 Years Ago - MADS disbands, Vegapunk joins the WG, and Clover speaks to Vegapunk at Punk Hazard
- 25 Years Ago - Dragon is receives his first bounty while in the Freedom Fighters.
- 24 Years Ago - Dragon is in attendance for Roger's execution
- 22 Years Ago - Dragon visits O'Hara ruins with Vegapunk, and founds the Revolutionary Army later the same year, also the latest point we see him without his tattoo so far
There's 3 characters that we'll use to help understand when Dragon quit:
- Vegapunk
- Sakazuki
- Garp
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Let's start with some crucial events that help narrow down when Dragon had to have left the Marines by:
Left (Ch 1096) is 25 years ago, Right (Ch 1066) is 22 years ago but Vegapunk joining the WG/leaving MADS is 26 years ago
While most people are already aware that Dragon got his bounty with the Freedom Fighters 25 years ago, there's still 2 important details that reveal even more about when Dragon's time with the Marines ended and when his Freedom Fighters began
1) Dragon had actually quit by at least 26 years ago, because that's when MADS was disbanded*, and we know that Dragon was trying to recruit Vegapunk before he joined up with the World Government. It's also clear that Dragon wasn't just recruiting for a hypothetical organization that he was planning while still in the Marines, since Vegapunk states that he rejected Dragon's offer because the Freedom Fighters had no resources/funds (in TCB's words, it "was always too poor")- this makes it very clear that he's talking about something that tangibly existed at the time he rejected it. Based on the way they talk to each other at O'Hara, it also seems like Dragon hadn't talked to Vegapunk since VP started working with the WG, since he's just now talking about how he felt when he heard the news. This realistically means that Dragon tried to recruit him to an already-existing group of Freedom Fighters 26 years ago.
[* = this is according to Vegapunk/Queen's vivre cards directly stating this, and also Vegapunk's on screen meeting with Clover at Punk Hazard. Reminder that this is also the same incident that led to Vegapunk joining the WG, there's no gap in those events]
2) In the moment where Kuma notes Dragon got a bounty, he states that this is "another" article about the Freedom Fighters, and that they "finally" issued wanted posters for them, implying that they've been active for a while by that point. They're also causing disturbances in several countries, which implies they've gained influence across multiple territories, something that wouldn't just happen overnight.
It's fair to mention that their lack of bounty posters might also mean they were a fairly young organization at that point, but the additional context clues point to something more nuanced than that. The later Revolutionary Army would also go through something similar where their growth seemed tepid at first but eventually grew to what it was now. So, the truth is that they could've been active but smaller in scope until then, or that it just took them a couple years to become this notable. After all, even just going back to what we know about the Rev Army, they had to start by assisting existing movements and 'acting like mercenaries'. As a result, the growth of the organization would be dependent on the success of existing social/political movements, not just their own individual strength as a unit of soldiers, making their growth nonlinear and harder to predict early on- this likely applies to the Freedom Fighters as well, since they'd face similar constraints as the young Rev Army. So, in the end, this also supports the idea that the Freedom Fighters began even before 25 years ago.
Overall, it's clear that based on what we know now, the Freedom Fighters had to have begun their resistance at least 26 years ago, which means that Dragon left the Marines before then as well- I'm also personally willing to bet that this extends further back too. I doubt Dragon was immediately able to recruit people like Iva and form the Freedom Fighters as a real organization, right after leaving the Marines with no time in between. There needs to be a realistic gap for Dragon to come to his conclusion about what has to be done, and for them develop into a real organization, likely 1-2 years after Dragon leaves the Marines. This leads me to think Dragon left the Marines at least 27/28 years ago.
With that established, we can continue to narrow things down.
-
Naturally, the idea (from the section on when Dragon joined) that Akainu & Dragon were both Marines who joined at the same time and clearly share a history together, that at the very least left Akainu with a grudge, clearly has implications beyond just giving us a better idea of when Dragon's story as a Marine began. Mainly because it can also give us a surprisingly great answer for just when, and why, Dragon's story as a Marine ended.
Because when we look at Akainu's timeline, specifically the way his character design develops in relation to the person he is, when put alongside Garp's change in character design- it's clear that something had to have happened to these two characters.
Let me explain (and bear with me, but we'll eventually end back up at Dragon in a satisfying way in the end)
We have to start by acknowledging something that stands out when we start to look at Sakazuki 27 years ago from Chapter 0 (aka the Strong World Oneshot), even comparing it to the design of him as a fresh recruit just a couple years prior. To be honest it’s something as simple as.. him wearing a hoodie
This design works to constantly obscure Sakazuki’s hat, something that’s always helped to plaster the Marines brand and values on the man’s head, even before the hat actually had the Marines logo on it. (the hat below reads Justice, as in the same 'Justice'/正義 that the Marines wear on their coats)
While his hat usually serves as a sign for how much he’s willing to outwardly represent the Marines and their image of upholding "justice" against 'the evils of piracy'-
in reality, this actually does clash with his Absolute Justice, which enables extrajudicial murder of civilians and other Marines for the sake of maintaining the Marines' reputation through less-than-honorable means. These are the type of actions that clearly wouldn't enable him act as the public face of the organization. This description also clearly fits two situations in the story where Sakazuki’s hat is either obscured or removed outright in order to resolve this contradiction.
By acting on behalf of the Marines as an organization, while going against what their public image and propaganda would have you believe
Now hopefully I've clarified why this is an intentional facet of his design, and not a coincidence.
-
Now, considering that Sakazuki had this hoodie design that obscures his hat even years prior to O'Hara,
Chapter 0/'STRONG WORLD' Oneshot, 27 years ago in-universe, during the Battle at Edd War
it's important that we think about what actually caused it. The decision to make his O'Hara design predate the incident it's always been attached to is definitely an intentional one meant to tell us something about Akainu's character.
Given the meaning associated with his hat, as an emblem of his forward-facing persona seeking to represent the Marines, it would make a lot of sense if whatever changed Sakazuki’s design in this way was an event that caused him to further develop and reinforce his ideal of 'Absolute Justice', and also reinforced his resolve to do whatever it takes to enforce that. This is also going to be relevant to the 'Why Dragon Quit' section later on, because of how an event like this would have also impacted Dragon himself, so keep that in mind.
-
Whatever caused Sakazuki to change in this way would’ve had to have taken place sometime before he and Kuzan end up getting promoted to Vice Admiral, and that could even explain why Garp’s hair starts greying for the first time when it does, since both would happen between 30 to 27 years ago. I don't think it's very hard to believe that Garp's hair greying could be related to his son, and his son's status within the Marines in specific, so that one requires much less explanation
This hypothetical event 27 years ago that impacted Sakazuki and even Garp would also fit in with the idea that Dragon quit sometime around 27/28 years ago, based on everything we discussed at the beginning of this section. This would also would explain Dragon's distaste for war by the time he talks to Vegapunk at O'Hara.
Dragon's connection to O'Hara also brings us back to the fact that 28 years ago was when 33 O'Hara scholars set sail on their trip which eventually lead to the island's Buster Call, and 28 years ago is also when the Roger pirates depart on their final journey, which would eventually culminate in Roger becoming Pirate King and his public execution down the line- I don't think it's any coincidence that both of those major shifts in the One Piece world are also what led to Dragon forming the Revolutionary Army, according to the following narration
so we should expect both O'Hara and the Roger Pirates to play a pivotal role within Dragon's last days of being a Marine, with the two events that eventually led to O'Hara's Buster Call & the Great Pirate Era also fitting perfectly into the existing timeframe of when he likely quit (27/28 years ago).
If Garp had something else keeping him busy around this time, like either big changes in his family life, or having to chase after a brand new organization called the 'Freedom Fighters', it would also help explain the strange decision to not depict Garp chasing Roger during the Oden flashback. Otherwise it's hard to justify how Roger & Whitebeard fight for three whole days and nights and somehow Garp still didn't show up- this is a complete departure from how incredibly quick he is to chase after him in every other example
vs.
Note that Garp was willing to chase after Roger when Rocks was there too, so I don't think the excuse here is that Whitebeard being with Roger dissuaded Garp from going. It's genuinely hard to justify his absence here unless it's family related or something else extremely important to Garp personally- this is 3 whole days and they already knew where Roger was.
However at this point I think we've justified this timeline enough, it should be clear that:
1. Dragon most likely quit 28 years ago. I'm willing to bet this in specific, but I get why someone else wouldn't.
2. Guaranteed, Dragon quit sometime prior to 26 years ago, but not too long before then, realistically had to be between 26-30 years ago, even if my specific prediction of 28 years ago is wrong. Anything else is frankly unrealistic unless there's a major gap between him quitting the Marines, and him starting the Freedom Fighters.
Why did Dragon leave the Marines and become a Freedom Fighter?
This isn't an easy question to answer from the little that we know right now, so it's easier if we actually split it up into 2
1. How did Dragon become disillusioned with the Marines?
2. What was the decisive event that led to Dragon leaving? In other words, what was the straw that broke the camel's back?
We can be confident that the story will show us both of these things, since Dragon is someone that clearly values pragmatism and seems to sympathize with even certain cases of monarchy like Cobra's Alabasta, he clearly had to have been pulled away from the idea that the Marines as an organization could just change from the inside, and he had to become aware at how widespread the issues were. Otherwise, given his personality and his familial connection to the organization, it's hard to see him giving up on it outright, especially because of one isolated incident.
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1. How did Dragon become disillusioned with the Marines?
It's plainly evident that some of Dragon's real life inspiration comes from the Cuban Revolution, as his ship is named after the historical Granma and his favorite food is Bocaditos- putting aside the discourse about Oda's politics that always follows after bringing this up, I think it just makes sense for us to consider the actual source of inspiration in order to predict how it might influence the story.
While it's not a direct reference to him, Che Guevara is easily the most popular figure from the Cuban Revolution and likely played a part in Oda's choice to reference it so explicitly in Dragon's character. A major part of Che Guevara's story was his popular memoir Motorcycle Diaries (and the movie adaptation), which is about Che journeying all across Latin America with his close friend Alberto- a journey that actually showed them the abject poverty and difficult conditions that a lot of people are forced to deal with. Prior to this, he didn't understand just how bad and how universal people's suffering was across the continent, since he came from a pretty well-off family in Argentina. So with that context, I have to look at Oda's decision to make Dragon a Marine in a different light, not just to set up for Dragon's backstory with Garp, but also to give Dragon the only in-universe role that would allow him to tour across the world without making him a pirate, since One Piece's world is very fragmented and hard to navigate otherwise.
With all of that said, it seems clear where Oda is going with this- while Dragon's upbringing in Goa may or may not have exposed him to the harsh realities of his local kingdom, his time in the Marines showed him what the world was like at large, and seeing the reality of OP's world, with extraterritoriality and complete impunity for CD brutality, slavery of the 'non human' races, rampant corruption within the Marines, looting of non-affiliated countries, plus witnessing the impact that the tribute + export system has on countries by impoverishing them, all slowly created doubt in his mind that manifested in his eventual defection from the Marines.
It's also possible, given that Dragon's connection with Clover and Clover's history as an adventurer were both established within the same chapter (1066), that Dragon actually first met Clover while he was still a Marine during one the 10 times Clover was captured- maybe he even captured Clover himself, and the two had a conversation that further created doubt in Dragon's mind. This would have allowed Dragon to start questioning the world more, and would even give us a unique glimpse into what Clover's stunts as an adventurer look like
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2. What was the decisive event that led to Dragon leaving? Which straw broke the camel's back?
The actual event that made Dragon leave the Marines would likely have to stem from the death of fellow Marines, and/or the death of civilians on the Marines' watch, and it had to have happened in a way that was covered up or defended to the highest level- with Admirals and Fleet Admirals allowing for it.
That last part is essential, because there needs to be no higher authority to appeal to- no way of blaming this on an individual case or low-level corruption that can be rooted out at the branch level, or resolved through a change in leadership. We see that with Saul and Aokiji plainly- they had nobody higher to appeal to, and they realized they were better off leaving the Marines rather than capitulating to what was being asked of them. This also fits with Dragon's criticism of the Marines as being no place for justice as well, since it would expose the Marines as an organization incompatible with their own purported values, rather than just failing to live up to his own personal view of justice. This is likely to be the cause regardless of Dragon's history with Sakazuki, yet fits within their dynamic perfectly.
As we discussed before in the 'When Dragon left the Marines' section above, it's clear that there was something that led to Sakazuki reinforcing his 'Absolute Justice' around the time he became a Vice Admiral, and naturally, it’s also easy to see an event that'd reinforce "Absolute Justice" being what would drive Dragon to leave the Marines as well. The two of them are just that naturally opposed, and it would line up with when we're assuming Dragon left the Marines based on our timeline. It again, also just fits perfectly with what we would assume led to Dragon giving up on the Marines- the type of 'Absolute Justice' that demands civilians and other Marines be given up for the sake of the Marines' reputation and continued existence as an organization, outright self-preserving terror.
Lets look at characters that Dragon's story is almost guaranteed to tie into. This will help us see what Oda might write with a story involving Dragon's time in the Marines. Even if my personal theory from last thread on Dragon's connection with SWORD doesn't end up being right, these still fit well with him:
The event that caused Dragon to leave, likely the same event that caused the aforementioned change in Sakazuki's life, had to be 27-30 years ago. This would be the case regardless even if these two had no relation, since Sakazuki/Aokiji's promotion to Vice Admiral is within that period of time just by itself, and Dragon likely quit during that timeframe regardless of this connection.
This means it's likely that Sakazuki was around Captain rank, given that this would be years after he joins (32 years ago) but before his Vice Admiral appearance (27 years ago)- and it's likely that if Oda is going to depict Sakazuki in this inbetween period that he'll just be a Captain, since to be honest, Captain is just the most relevant title around its rank. Same reason Smoker spends virtually zero on screen time between Captain and Vice Admiral rank even though he was Commodore for a bit. Plus, Captain is also where Koby is right now, and I don't think Oda would pass up on the chance to depict the difference between Sakazuki's approach to the same role at the same rank, it would help better tell both of their stories. Speaking of, this proposed parallel also ties into how the story is set up to allow Oda to write about 3 generations of Garp successors- all of them opposing Sakazuki, and earning his grudge in the process. Dragon acting as the opposition to Sakazuki within the Marines during his time, the same way we see Koby act in current day, and the same way Kuzan acted in the period between Dragon and Koby.
It's also just fitting to have a story for Dragon that plays off of Koby's experiences, since he's essentially his opposite. Dragon, Garp's first successor, is Garp's 'worst failure' with how badly he abandoned the Marines' cause, failing to inherit Garp's will to take care of the future of the Marines. He went the complete opposite way and became a Revolutionary, despite his direct relationship to Garp and how long they'd have to have known each other as father and son. Koby on the other hand, Garp's latest successor, has spent the least amount of time with Garp out of anybody, and also has no blood relation to Garp- and yet is the only one to inherit his will completely. This is a classic One Piece storyline about how inherited will goes beyond blood relationships, and I expect Oda to play off of this, even if it doesn't go exactly how I think it will.
Now, Koby's stories often revolve around his relationship he has with the civilian public and his fellow Marines, and his willingness to sacrifice himself for those two groups of people- and we've already discussed Sakazuki's willingness to kill, well, those two exact demographics of people lol. I believe Dragon's beef with Sakazuki, and the event that will lead to Sakazuki's further radicalization and Dragon's defection from the Marines will be a conflict (of some kind) between Dragon's unit and Sakazuki's, one that leads to them making completely different decisions at the end of it despite being responsible for the same group of people.
Maybe it's even a situation where Dragon is undercover, and he sees the first hand perspective of Marines' brutality against civilians and/or other Marines, with it being carried out by Sakazuki himself. Whether the undercover part ties into my Dragon in SWORD idea or not, this still fits with Dragon's character and the clandestine actor that he later becomes in present day.
It's also possible that, despite my belief that they would just be a part of different units realistically, that Dragon and Sakazuki were actually a part of the same unit, and that they handled the same situation in two different ways, one where Sakazuki responded to the issue with force and wiped out civilians or even his fellow unit members, and one where Dragon saw the depravity of something like that first hand, and how the Marines would go on to reward him for it. The idea that two characters so diametrically opposed to each other in their ideals, yet similar in attitude and strength of will, would experience the same incident and end up leaving it going in two completely different directions should make perfect sense as well, and would be very satisfying storytelling imo.
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It's also possible that this event could tie into O'Hara's scholars and their expeditions (prior to the Buster Call one)- we still don't know what happened to Robin's father even though it seems like he was important enough for other scholars in O'Hara to mention to Olvia, and it seems like he died by the time they were talking to each other. This could lead to a scenario involving the Marines being involved in his death, and/or Dragon knowing him personally (which would be used to explain his connection to Clover) but I'm not sure Oda's going to go this route. It's interesting that the shared birth year for Sakazuki and Dragon seems to originate from Olvia as well, since Olvia's birthday would make her 33 when she died at O'Hara, and this is a reference to the 33 scholars who went on this trip- it's possible that the connections go deeper than this one incident for Sakazuki/Dragon, and that it's related to the death of Robin's father. But, this is definitely conspiracy level stuff, so I get that at this point I'm officially reaching
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Regardless, I think there's a very solid chance that Dragon left the Marines in an incident that reinforced Sakazuki's 'Absolute Justice' because of the Marines rewarding the latter for his behavior, behavior that killed civilians and/or other Marines- and this behavior was then covered up/vouched for by the Marines upper brass as well. My personal theory is that this was during Dragon's time working undercover, with him witnessing Marines' corruption or failure from the other side, because I just think the angle of someone discovering something about their own organization while undercover working for it would be perfectly fitting with the clandestine figure that Monkey D. Dragon is supposed to be, and also another funny addition to the 'strange amount of otherwise insignificant parallels between X Drake and Dragon' list (since this vaguely already happened for Drake with him turning on CP0 in Wano).
1. How did Dragon become disillusioned with the Marines?
2. What was the decisive event that led to Dragon leaving? In other words, what was the straw that broke the camel's back?
We can be confident that the story will show us both of these things, since Dragon is someone that clearly values pragmatism and seems to sympathize with even certain cases of monarchy like Cobra's Alabasta, he clearly had to have been pulled away from the idea that the Marines as an organization could just change from the inside, and he had to become aware at how widespread the issues were. Otherwise, given his personality and his familial connection to the organization, it's hard to see him giving up on it outright, especially because of one isolated incident.
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1. How did Dragon become disillusioned with the Marines?
It's plainly evident that some of Dragon's real life inspiration comes from the Cuban Revolution, as his ship is named after the historical Granma and his favorite food is Bocaditos- putting aside the discourse about Oda's politics that always follows after bringing this up, I think it just makes sense for us to consider the actual source of inspiration in order to predict how it might influence the story.
While it's not a direct reference to him, Che Guevara is easily the most popular figure from the Cuban Revolution and likely played a part in Oda's choice to reference it so explicitly in Dragon's character. A major part of Che Guevara's story was his popular memoir Motorcycle Diaries (and the movie adaptation), which is about Che journeying all across Latin America with his close friend Alberto- a journey that actually showed them the abject poverty and difficult conditions that a lot of people are forced to deal with. Prior to this, he didn't understand just how bad and how universal people's suffering was across the continent, since he came from a pretty well-off family in Argentina. So with that context, I have to look at Oda's decision to make Dragon a Marine in a different light, not just to set up for Dragon's backstory with Garp, but also to give Dragon the only in-universe role that would allow him to tour across the world without making him a pirate, since One Piece's world is very fragmented and hard to navigate otherwise.
With all of that said, it seems clear where Oda is going with this- while Dragon's upbringing in Goa may or may not have exposed him to the harsh realities of his local kingdom, his time in the Marines showed him what the world was like at large, and seeing the reality of OP's world, with extraterritoriality and complete impunity for CD brutality, slavery of the 'non human' races, rampant corruption within the Marines, looting of non-affiliated countries, plus witnessing the impact that the tribute + export system has on countries by impoverishing them, all slowly created doubt in his mind that manifested in his eventual defection from the Marines.
It's also possible, given that Dragon's connection with Clover and Clover's history as an adventurer were both established within the same chapter (1066), that Dragon actually first met Clover while he was still a Marine during one the 10 times Clover was captured- maybe he even captured Clover himself, and the two had a conversation that further created doubt in Dragon's mind. This would have allowed Dragon to start questioning the world more, and would even give us a unique glimpse into what Clover's stunts as an adventurer look like
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2. What was the decisive event that led to Dragon leaving? Which straw broke the camel's back?
The actual event that made Dragon leave the Marines would likely have to stem from the death of fellow Marines, and/or the death of civilians on the Marines' watch, and it had to have happened in a way that was covered up or defended to the highest level- with Admirals and Fleet Admirals allowing for it.
That last part is essential, because there needs to be no higher authority to appeal to- no way of blaming this on an individual case or low-level corruption that can be rooted out at the branch level, or resolved through a change in leadership. We see that with Saul and Aokiji plainly- they had nobody higher to appeal to, and they realized they were better off leaving the Marines rather than capitulating to what was being asked of them. This also fits with Dragon's criticism of the Marines as being no place for justice as well, since it would expose the Marines as an organization incompatible with their own purported values, rather than just failing to live up to his own personal view of justice. This is likely to be the cause regardless of Dragon's history with Sakazuki, yet fits within their dynamic perfectly.
As we discussed before in the 'When Dragon left the Marines' section above, it's clear that there was something that led to Sakazuki reinforcing his 'Absolute Justice' around the time he became a Vice Admiral, and naturally, it’s also easy to see an event that'd reinforce "Absolute Justice" being what would drive Dragon to leave the Marines as well. The two of them are just that naturally opposed, and it would line up with when we're assuming Dragon left the Marines based on our timeline. It again, also just fits perfectly with what we would assume led to Dragon giving up on the Marines- the type of 'Absolute Justice' that demands civilians and other Marines be given up for the sake of the Marines' reputation and continued existence as an organization, outright self-preserving terror.
Lets look at characters that Dragon's story is almost guaranteed to tie into. This will help us see what Oda might write with a story involving Dragon's time in the Marines. Even if my personal theory from last thread on Dragon's connection with SWORD doesn't end up being right, these still fit well with him:
- Garp - Dragon's father, so this one is obvious. Also, he isn't in SWORD but embodies its values, leads them into the Hachinosu raid, and is clearly influential on the current generation of SWORD
- Aokiji - Former Garp protege. No confirmed affiliation with SWORD, but he is the one who breaks down how SWORD works to us, and he was closely tied to SWORD's largest, most recent storyline (the Hachinosu raid),
- Koby - SWORD member and Garp protege
- Sakazuki - Holds a grudge against Dragon- plus he's highly implied to be Hibari's father, and also has another connection to the unit
The event that caused Dragon to leave, likely the same event that caused the aforementioned change in Sakazuki's life, had to be 27-30 years ago. This would be the case regardless even if these two had no relation, since Sakazuki/Aokiji's promotion to Vice Admiral is within that period of time just by itself, and Dragon likely quit during that timeframe regardless of this connection.
This means it's likely that Sakazuki was around Captain rank, given that this would be years after he joins (32 years ago) but before his Vice Admiral appearance (27 years ago)- and it's likely that if Oda is going to depict Sakazuki in this inbetween period that he'll just be a Captain, since to be honest, Captain is just the most relevant title around its rank. Same reason Smoker spends virtually zero on screen time between Captain and Vice Admiral rank even though he was Commodore for a bit. Plus, Captain is also where Koby is right now, and I don't think Oda would pass up on the chance to depict the difference between Sakazuki's approach to the same role at the same rank, it would help better tell both of their stories. Speaking of, this proposed parallel also ties into how the story is set up to allow Oda to write about 3 generations of Garp successors- all of them opposing Sakazuki, and earning his grudge in the process. Dragon acting as the opposition to Sakazuki within the Marines during his time, the same way we see Koby act in current day, and the same way Kuzan acted in the period between Dragon and Koby.
It's also just fitting to have a story for Dragon that plays off of Koby's experiences, since he's essentially his opposite. Dragon, Garp's first successor, is Garp's 'worst failure' with how badly he abandoned the Marines' cause, failing to inherit Garp's will to take care of the future of the Marines. He went the complete opposite way and became a Revolutionary, despite his direct relationship to Garp and how long they'd have to have known each other as father and son. Koby on the other hand, Garp's latest successor, has spent the least amount of time with Garp out of anybody, and also has no blood relation to Garp- and yet is the only one to inherit his will completely. This is a classic One Piece storyline about how inherited will goes beyond blood relationships, and I expect Oda to play off of this, even if it doesn't go exactly how I think it will.
Now, Koby's stories often revolve around his relationship he has with the civilian public and his fellow Marines, and his willingness to sacrifice himself for those two groups of people- and we've already discussed Sakazuki's willingness to kill, well, those two exact demographics of people lol. I believe Dragon's beef with Sakazuki, and the event that will lead to Sakazuki's further radicalization and Dragon's defection from the Marines will be a conflict (of some kind) between Dragon's unit and Sakazuki's, one that leads to them making completely different decisions at the end of it despite being responsible for the same group of people.
Maybe it's even a situation where Dragon is undercover, and he sees the first hand perspective of Marines' brutality against civilians and/or other Marines, with it being carried out by Sakazuki himself. Whether the undercover part ties into my Dragon in SWORD idea or not, this still fits with Dragon's character and the clandestine actor that he later becomes in present day.
It's also possible that, despite my belief that they would just be a part of different units realistically, that Dragon and Sakazuki were actually a part of the same unit, and that they handled the same situation in two different ways, one where Sakazuki responded to the issue with force and wiped out civilians or even his fellow unit members, and one where Dragon saw the depravity of something like that first hand, and how the Marines would go on to reward him for it. The idea that two characters so diametrically opposed to each other in their ideals, yet similar in attitude and strength of will, would experience the same incident and end up leaving it going in two completely different directions should make perfect sense as well, and would be very satisfying storytelling imo.
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It's also possible that this event could tie into O'Hara's scholars and their expeditions (prior to the Buster Call one)- we still don't know what happened to Robin's father even though it seems like he was important enough for other scholars in O'Hara to mention to Olvia, and it seems like he died by the time they were talking to each other. This could lead to a scenario involving the Marines being involved in his death, and/or Dragon knowing him personally (which would be used to explain his connection to Clover) but I'm not sure Oda's going to go this route. It's interesting that the shared birth year for Sakazuki and Dragon seems to originate from Olvia as well, since Olvia's birthday would make her 33 when she died at O'Hara, and this is a reference to the 33 scholars who went on this trip- it's possible that the connections go deeper than this one incident for Sakazuki/Dragon, and that it's related to the death of Robin's father. But, this is definitely conspiracy level stuff, so I get that at this point I'm officially reaching
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Regardless, I think there's a very solid chance that Dragon left the Marines in an incident that reinforced Sakazuki's 'Absolute Justice' because of the Marines rewarding the latter for his behavior, behavior that killed civilians and/or other Marines- and this behavior was then covered up/vouched for by the Marines upper brass as well. My personal theory is that this was during Dragon's time working undercover, with him witnessing Marines' corruption or failure from the other side, because I just think the angle of someone discovering something about their own organization while undercover working for it would be perfectly fitting with the clandestine figure that Monkey D. Dragon is supposed to be, and also another funny addition to the 'strange amount of otherwise insignificant parallels between X Drake and Dragon' list (since this vaguely already happened for Drake with him turning on CP0 in Wano).
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How/Why will we actually get this information in the story?? & Closing thoughts
I know a lot of us never considered that we'd ever really receive this much detail from Dragon's backstory, but the level of detail we got from Kuma's flashback should help clear any doubts people have there. Prior to Egghead, nobody on Earth would have ever predicted that we would leave an arc having learned the name of Kuma's dad, or that we would even end up seeing Kuma's entire life story to begin with.
But it's worth addressing how difficult it's gonna be for the story to naturally give us this level of detail about Dragon's character, since realistically it's impossible to see him just talking about his entire life story to someone- we already joke about how he doesn't even speak enough to begin with, and he's pretty secretive about personal information. Plus, unlike with Kuma, we don't have a magic story mechanic that can just give us his memories. However, the same can't be said for Dragon's dad right now.
Given that Garp is locked up by Blackbeard while he conveniently just has Pudding right there, it's important to consider the common idea that Pudding will use her memory fruit on Garp. Not only would this be a very useful tool for the story to give us a super efficient flashback that can shine some light on God Valley, with Oda also highlighting whatever he feels like as a bonus- this includes anything from Garp vs Roger (convenient that we didn't get it in the Oden flashback), Garp/Roger's origin stories as Pirates/Marines, the Garp/Tsuru/Sengoku era of the marines, Dragon's time in the marines, etc.- but it would also make sense in-universe as well. Pudding has her reasons for wanting to see more about her mom, especially during her younger days when she was more actively chasing her dream, and Blackbeard has been noted as someone who reads his history, and he's also obviously obsessed with Rocks on some level, and would do anything to be able to see more about the crew, their captain, and what mistakes they committed (so he could try to avoid them). Conveniently, the story seems to be teasing that Luffy might learn more about the Roger pirates soon, so at this point it's only fair that we see Blackbeard actually learning something about his historic parallel in Rocks. This, inevitably, will at least give us the first half of Dragon's life, with a lot of his history prior to the Revolutionary Army. If that doesn't happen, I'm assuming Oda has some way of giving us a full-length Dragon flashback, since otherwise, he's chosen to still obscure a lot of details from Dragon's early life for seemingly no reason (even in SBS/interviews/extra material like movies, etc.).
But it's worth addressing how difficult it's gonna be for the story to naturally give us this level of detail about Dragon's character, since realistically it's impossible to see him just talking about his entire life story to someone- we already joke about how he doesn't even speak enough to begin with, and he's pretty secretive about personal information. Plus, unlike with Kuma, we don't have a magic story mechanic that can just give us his memories. However, the same can't be said for Dragon's dad right now.
Given that Garp is locked up by Blackbeard while he conveniently just has Pudding right there, it's important to consider the common idea that Pudding will use her memory fruit on Garp. Not only would this be a very useful tool for the story to give us a super efficient flashback that can shine some light on God Valley, with Oda also highlighting whatever he feels like as a bonus- this includes anything from Garp vs Roger (convenient that we didn't get it in the Oden flashback), Garp/Roger's origin stories as Pirates/Marines, the Garp/Tsuru/Sengoku era of the marines, Dragon's time in the marines, etc.- but it would also make sense in-universe as well. Pudding has her reasons for wanting to see more about her mom, especially during her younger days when she was more actively chasing her dream, and Blackbeard has been noted as someone who reads his history, and he's also obviously obsessed with Rocks on some level, and would do anything to be able to see more about the crew, their captain, and what mistakes they committed (so he could try to avoid them). Conveniently, the story seems to be teasing that Luffy might learn more about the Roger pirates soon, so at this point it's only fair that we see Blackbeard actually learning something about his historic parallel in Rocks. This, inevitably, will at least give us the first half of Dragon's life, with a lot of his history prior to the Revolutionary Army. If that doesn't happen, I'm assuming Oda has some way of giving us a full-length Dragon flashback, since otherwise, he's chosen to still obscure a lot of details from Dragon's early life for seemingly no reason (even in SBS/interviews/extra material like movies, etc.).
Those are my predictions on the early/pre-Revolutionary life of Monkey D. Dragon, what made the man, Marine, and Freedom Fighter.
I have also have more thoughts and theories on the Monkey D. family, their ancestry, and also just Dragon's character outside of Marine-centric topics (DF, World's Worst Criminal status, 'Luffy's mom', etc.), but I think it's better to save those ideas for another time, this thread is already wayyy too long. Ty for reading if you did but I can not blame you if you didn't lol