Imu is both Luffy and Teach main enemy. I assume Akainu is Luffy archenemy, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, Shanks and Whitebeard crew consider Blackbeard their archenemy.
BB could be seen as Luffy top 1 rival and opposite.
People seriously underrate how much focus Shanks has given to Blackbeard.
He knows where the real threat is.
Imu is a puppet. A narrative device meant to be killed off to make room for the real players of One Piece.
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You got almost everything backwards OP.
1. Blackbeard is also freedom like Luffy. It is Imu that represents the opposite: oppression. It is Imu that made piracy itself illegal and the existence of Luffy (whether as Nika or a D family members) a crime.
2. Caribou is the one that brought knowledge of the Ancient weapons to BB. He didn’t seek out shit.
Blackbeard cannot be the one preventing the dawn of the world when people have been praying for liberation long before he was even born. There have been centuries of people awaiting the dawn because of the tyrant that has oppressed them for over 800 years.
BB on the other hand is just one of several rebels, but only one of those rebels is Joyboy. Only 1 person has been recognized as such from remnants of the past like Zunesha & Emery, and it’s certainly not the one that was keeping slaves on his island.
1. Sure, both chase freedom — but they live it in opposite ways.
Luffy shares it: joy, friendship, a world where everyone can be free.
Blackbeard hoards it: chaos, greed, power all for himself.
2. I'd honestly be shocked if Teach didn’t already know about Imu or the world’s darkest secrets.
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Luffy rejects the idea of a pre-written fate.
So having his final opponent be a guy who’s sat motionless in a room for 800 years waiting to be overthrown would be the perfect way to ruin the whole story.
It’s way more powerful if the final clash is between the two pirates with the biggest ambitions alive — Teach and Luffy — battling to shape the future of the world.
If, as Vegapunk said, “
the fate of the world lies in the hands of whoever finds the One Piece,” then claiming that moment is just a stepping stone is ridiculous.
That is the climax. After that, the story ends.