#it WOULD provide a heterosexual reason for him to make That Face in 1079 tho

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

I hope it’s alright to ask about my favourite minor theory

Do you think Makinos child is Shanks? I kinda believe it because of the hair colour being brownish RED in official colouring, the fact that Oda himself said the father is “that person” so probably someone we know, in Ace novel there’s a moment when Benn asks Shanks if he thinks Makino got prettier and he agrees (teasing?), and on one of the cover pages makino is seen with a ring on her finger and on the other Shanks was attending some wedding 👀.

Do you think there’s actually something going on or it’s just wishful thinking?

I kinda like the idea of Luffy giving the hat to that kid at the end to start a new cycle y know. Thoughts?

hmm. not sure what i've done to make people think i have authoritative knowledge of one piece! let me assure you otherwise by revealing i straight up did not know makino had a kid until i got this message. just overlooked those pages, i guess?

buuut i'm always happy to speculate! so let's do that.

a bit of wiki searching tells me the kid is a post-timeskip development, which makes the kid being shanks' a bit... logistically challenging, to me? makino doesn't seem to ever leave windmill village, and i can't see shanks leaving the grand line for long during that post-marineford upheaval time period. he's got whitebeard's old territories to claim/protect on top of his own, yknow? he seems very busy.

so… hard to see how a shanks/makino baby (a/o wedding) happens in that time period. i guess anything's possible? really, they would only need to meet up once to make it happen.

and at the same time… who else is there, lmao

like, i guess oda could be trolling with the "that person" comment and just mean "her husband"? but i think you're right, the phrase is suggestive that the father should be someone we'd know, and adult men in windmill are thin on the ground. it's like, woop slap? garp? a couple shopkeepers? some unnamed background citizens and mountain bandits??? maybe the party of party's bar is a person, and makino's running the place with her husband? why wouldn't we have seen him on screen though, that one seems like a stretch.

so i'd say the theory is… plausible? i'm not wild about it—the Absent Father Because He's Too Busy Being A Pirate trope pisses me off, i don't like the idea of shanks joining their number—but yknow, them's the breaks.

as to your "passing it on to the next generation" idea: that's really sweet! tbh i think i'd like that ending (luffy returning to windmill, meeting a kid at party's bar who is eager to be a pirate, and giving them the hat) regardless of who the kid's father is! one piece does a lot with "heir to your spirit, not your blood" as a concept, so the kid's dad not being relevant or revealed would play into that nicely, however frustrating it might be for theorists.