#im sry this is 5000 miles long

[cheswirls]

WOW there was rly no other mention of figarland in film red and op wikis article hasn’t updated w 1086 so i had to go back and brush over to see where it was

after skimming the back half okay i have. new perspective ONE is that garland isn’t stated to be a world noble which i assumed the first time. he’s head of the knights and given a position of power in the holy land, obviously, if he can judge world nobles so freely (like.. enough to sentence one to death) and he does look like he’s in a position of power and knows it, like he gives off that air. but it’s not a stuck-up born-with-it air like other celestials

and then i realized that hes the former king of god valley, like in a very recent less-than-100-yrs-ago type. and uta was speculated to be a figarland after her relations w shanks were revealed.

at first i thought it would make sense, then, how shanks has gotten away with so much. (back when i thought garland was a celestial) that it explains why he was able to stop the war, and why sengoku said ‘because it’s you, i’ll allow it’ bc he didn’t rly have a choice in allowing it. that him seeing the elder planets was kinda like how mingo leveraged and weaponized his knowledge of the holy land. because it’s you, they said. and it would make sense, because shanks could have been born a celestial dragon but if he was found at god valley as a baby, or was placed on the oro jackson or w/e a la uta and the red-haireds, then he would grow up a pirate despite his heritage, but obviously if he would out then no one could deny him such. they sit at the top of the world for a reason

and then i backed off bc i realized it didn’t outright say garland was a world noble anywhere. so now my connection of shanks is coming from the god valley collection, and more in particular, the final words he says. on surface level he’s referring to mjosgard, but this is oda and nothing is ever only surface level. so if we are juxtaposing with shanks, then garland’s words surely are meant to be a foreshadowing. either into his character or shanks’. it really got me thinking on who shanks talked with the elder planets abt. luffy, or teach? but then, also, maybe roger? maybe rocks?? like, was he talking about a future problem, or something from the past coming to light instead????

anyone that protects scum is worse than scum themselves. my first thought immediately went to luffy. if we’re meant to tie garland in w shanks, and taking his words as some sort of future foreshadowing, and going off the assumption that shanks is going to be different bc god valley wasn’t around when he was growing up, then it’s gotta be him doing just that. like it’s gotta be more than snide words to mjosgard. maybe it’s abt shanks’ whole character, since 1076 (which i went back n glanced at to see if figarland was mentioned - nope) revealed that the crews under shanks’ fleet are kinda wishy-washy, and they joke abt protection money. shanks having so many common ppl -pirates no less- under him that can’t fend for themselves would be a good indicator in regards to what garland said. like i can see him saying that abt shanks. but, again, i can also see him saying that abt luffy. (i can also see it inadvertently coming back around to affect sanji, if the two ever interact, as yet another form of sanji rejecting his royal blood. but i digress-)

something abt god valley is going to be startlingly impt very quickly. its almost definitely been hit w an island-wiping beam like lulusia was, to have vanished like that in that manner of speaking (how sengoku warded others from investigating on their own and jus listening to him) and how the elder planets referred to lulusia in the original chapter it was blown to bits (a very different perspective this time around!!!! intriguing and eye-opening, rly wanna know where the nerona family lived before moving to the holy land. it couldn’t have been mother flame that did in god valley tho, or at least not whatever version they used on lulusia, since they talked abt it like they were testing a prototype. maybe they did have an ancient weapon at one point, and this is vp’s man-made counter to it like the blueprints franky had were the countermeasure to pluton?? vp took research on the void century from ohara over 20 yrs ago, and god valley vanished over 40, so if he (and therefore a rogue stella) found out a way to counter an ancient weapon, it would have to be after both. meaning the method of eliminating god valley and lulusia is similar but not the exact same, like an imitation

i wonder if god valley wraps all the way around, actually, bc roger and garp teamed up to protect celestial dragons. figarland is a judge onto the celestials in present day. the elder planets are partial to shanks, and garp views all celestials as scumbags (a la his convo w stelly) and dragon’s goal was to declare war specifically on the celestials. ik luffy’s mother has got to be impt, but i am starting to buy into his mother or grandmother being a world noble less and less, the more these egghead chapters reveal. garp and dragon just aren’t framed as having any partiality among celestial dragons. you would think if dragon met someone, that even if something terrible happened and they were judged by god’s knights, that dragon would take to heart that not all world nobles are bad (like we’ve been seeing w/ various donquixotes since the timeskip) and reconsider what he wants. but he doesn’t, so it doesn’t make sense for that to have happened. garp is the same way, and has been portrayed as such by his refusal to take an admiral slot since he made his debut in the manga. 

but god valley fits into the puzzle somewhere, and shanks is the missing piece to something. like somehow, someone got a baby shanks aboard the oro jackson. was it garp, after the fighting w rocks was over and his guard duty was essentially done?? was it someone else at the time, either a celestial (mother???) or a former resident of god valley? i guess we technically don’t know when garland retired to the holy land, so god valley could have not been a kingdom for many many years prior to the roger+garp vs rocks crew showdown. but both of them being there and teaming up makes me think it has to do with shanks, or shanks was a result and/or consequence of such. and the garp connection makes me think there’s a dragon connection, too. there’s 16 yrs between shanks and dragon. if dragon happened to be a former marine, would he have been there? did he have something to do with shanks being looked after by roger’s crew?

and then i am. tepidly circling around the idea that shanks could be tied to luffy’s mother, somehow. if oda is setting up shanks and garland to be opposites or foils or something, and if garland’s final words are a reference to shanks and luffy in the future, then? ??????????? idk. i think comparing shanks and luffy wouldn’t be far off either, especially if there’s a hidden middle man tying them closer together. like they don’t have to be related, that’s not necessarily what i’m getting at. but it would be very interesting if luffy’s mother had something to do with nobility tied so closely to the world nobles.