#op 1130

[benevolentcannibal]

I am far from immune to his aura.

[misqnon]

they seem closer lately. in like, a casual way. this is the second arc in a row sanji’s just manhandling zoro to keep him out of trouble and zoro’s just like ]:|

[joy-girl]

One Piece 1130 // Loki and Monkey D. Luffy

[everynicorobin]

Inflation's a bitch

[migila]

Okay so yeah we got to see Elbaf and the island itself looks wild and all, but I'm kinda way more interested in something else:

VIVI SENT A MESSAGE TO THE CREW! She sent a message and all the ones who'd understand it are not there, damn it! Robin, figure it out, fast!

...Or not? I mean, there's probably no hurry; Vivi's telling them that she's out there and maybe trying to tell where exactly, but it's not like the whatever the bird's name was is gonna kick her out, so she can just sit tight until the crew gets her message, right? Or is she planning something?

[tuna-core]

I like Loki's design largely because he reminds me of Valhallen

do you see my vision

[melonteee]

Sorry for being so late with this one! But what a banger chapter!

[chialattea]

WAIT WAIT WAIT

sorry if I’m stating the obvious but,, if vivi is w Morgans… then she has access to the newspaper. Luffy’s photo is blurry except for the mark, which is clear. That means it’s painted over the picture, most likely by Vivi— a way to tell the strawhats that she’s okay, w morgans, and still their ally?

Also, she knows now that the giants helped them therefore she can imply they’re going to Elbaph THEREFORE I’m like. 75% sure we are GUARANTEED to see Vivi soon. This arc for sure, at most on its final stretch.

[itzrafee]

One Piece Chapter Discussion (Chapter 1130)

Woah! What a chapter! Oda’s going on a two week break with this chapter and I can’t imagine a better place to leave off on. It leaves us so much to talk about. But before we  can get to that let’s talk about this cover page! As Otama and Yamato sleep, a silhouetted figure steals Yasuie’s sword from Yamato, which Yamato was tasked with enshrining at Hakumai in honour of Yasuie. This figure seems to be the same person whose attempt at kidnapping Yamato thwarted and who has been kidnapping others from around the area. As the silhouette signals, There Can Only Be One Truth! Though who it could be, I don’t have a solid lead on… :( If I had to guess though, especially with the stolen sword, I would have to go with Gyukimaru/Onimaru, the fox turned human defender of the bridge and swords in Ringo that was Kawamatsu’s friend. As  Ringo is close to Hakumai, perhaps Onimaru has been moving around? Though kidnapping people does not fit his MO. As mentioned in earlier discussions, if done for a nefarious purpose a better fit would be Kaido’s henchmen. It’s fun to speculate but let’s not waste too much time here, let’s dive into the chapter itself. Below, I’ll go over the events of the chapter and comment on it, and then recall as much relevant mythology and history as I can, before finally dropping some theories of my own. Read it all below the cut!

We’ve finally reached Elbaph! It’s so smart of Oda to show the scale of Elbaph in this way. First he introduces us to a giant world with giant animals. Only to then reveal it’s just a room. And then we find out that room is in a castle on a cliff connected to the mainland by a giant bridge. Only to then find out that world we just traveled through is only a small part of the gigantic island that is Elbaph! What a masterclass in creating a sense of scale!

Though before being hit with that reveal, we first see the fact that the Straw Hats are calling the search for the rest of their crew off. It’s moments like these that really show the faith they have in each other and their strength. Despite being in dangerous waters, the crew has complete faith in each other’s abilities. 

Okay, now let’s get back to Elbaph as the chapter pinpongs us between exploration in the new island and explanation by the giants back on their ship. We see that Rodo and the room the Straw Hats were trapped in was actually just a room in a large castle. Is the castle a prison itself? With the room Rodo kept the Straw Hats in just being one of the rooms that was meant to keep Loki? Why is this island detached from the country itself? Could it be the landing zone for new arrivals? The giants, Gerd and Goldberg(who look awesome by the way), seem to be border guards and are going to Rodo’s residence after learning of new arrivals. It seems Elbaph might have as exclusionary a policy as Wano did. Interesting. They also refer to Rodo as a weirdo so it could be that he’s a secluded weirdo with his own castle. Besides that, the bridge itself is interesting. Is it meant to be the bifrost? If so, that would make the rest of the One Piece world Midgard, as the Bifrost is the bridge connecting Midgard(Earth) to Asgard(The Land of the Gods). Everything also seems to be cold and frozen but we’ll get to that later. Gerd and Goldberg also talk about how they’ll inform Elder Jarul once they find the intruders Rodo has smuggled in. Could it be then that this Elder is mainly pushing this isolationist policy? And that perhaps he may be the villain of this arc?

If you recall from Chapter 866 and 867, Beardfall Jorul and Beardhill Jarul were the previous captains of the Giant Pirates before Dorry and Broggy, as seen in Big Mom’s flashback. Jorul died from his wounds after he attacked a young Big Mom and got low-diffed. It’s also in those same chapters that we learned that Rodo, Goldberg and Loki were all born around the same time, when Big Mom was six or so years old.

It’s also where we see Mother Caramel create a homie called Pandora and potentially name it as the sun god. And as we see from Big Mom, homies tend to stick around after the death of the user so it’s a possibility we see Pandora still. And we’ll get to Jarul’s potential heel turn later as well. 

As we follow the Straw Hats, we see them cross a bridge over a wolf infested forest. I don’t want to dive too deep into Loki or the mythology yet but something worth bringing up here is that in Norse Mythology, Loki is the father of several beings, Hel, essentially a goddess of the underworld, Jormungand, the World Serpent, and Fenrir, a giant wolf that bit off Tyr, the war god’s, hand. Could it be that the reason for the forest to be filled with Giant Wolves, is that they were Loki’s pets that he bred and kept? It could fit in with the image Oda has been building of Loki that runs counter to his reputation amongst the Giants. Luffy is incredibly friendly to him and Loki seems to be kind of a heart on his sleeve guy as the first thing we learned about him was that he fell in love with Lola at first sight. We know not to trust rumours, from how Oda’s conditioned us so far, so will Loki be any different?

Moving on, we see Dorry and Broggy get updated bounties. Now, that makes me wonder if they’re going to join the Straw Hats as members or just grand fleet members. They’re some of the first allies the Straw Hats made so it’s awesome to see them still be relevant. The same news coo that brought the updated bounties also brings the news that the Straw Hats rescue of the Vegapunk’s has been spun into an attack by the giants and Straw Hats on Egghead as well as the murder of Vegapunk by Luffy. Morgans seems to be quite temperamental in what his aims with his news are and my best guess at his intentions are profit and sensationalism. He will do anything and espouse any belief as long as it nets him attention and money.

I wonder if that’s also why Vivi was able to put the X on Luffy’s arm in the picture. Did she sneak it in or did Morgan’s encourage her, thinking of future returns? I find it interesting that the crew is split up in such a unique way, with the crew pre-Vivi being split form the crew post-Vivi. Could it be that Oda will reintroduce the crew in the order they joined, with Vivi somehow making it to Elbaph?

From the giants we also learn a few key things. That both Harudjin and Loki were King Harald's sons. And that Loki, committing all manner of evil acts, killed his father Harold a few years ago to get ahold of a legendary devil fruit. He was sentenced to crucifixion and it took all the giants in Elbaph to tie him down. And now he is known as the shame of Elbaph. Before we dive into it, let’s get an interesting tidbit out of the way. King Harald was also the name of the first king of Norway, who had two sons that succeeded him as king. And in that final massive spread we learn from Loki that he aspires to be the Sun God that will bring about the end of the world as he reminds us that Elbaph is called War-land, and tells us that it’s the most powerful nation in the world, which lived and breathed war. Now that’s a lot of interesting information, so let’s talk about it. 

First of all, let’s get back to the idea of Elder Jarul being evil. He seemed somewhat benevolent the last time we saw him as he spared Lin Lin but in the intervening years he has had to deal with the trauma of losing his best friend. Adding to that, he seems to be in charge of enforcing the borders of Elbaf. Time and time again, we’ve seen how isolation is equivalent to oppression, with many of our crew members being isolated and oppressed in their lives. Being the guy in charge of keeping Elbaph isolated doesn’t give Jarul too many good guy points. And we can also speculate at the pattern we’ve seen Oda build through past major arcs. Of Monarch’s being killed and the culprit being misidentified, as well as princes and princesses suffering as a result. Putting that together as well as Luffy’s sunny reception of Loki and his loverboy status, which shows us that Loki isn’t totally evil, paints a picture that Loki was setup in his fathers murder and now someone, my guess being Jarul(until we get a better candidate), rules Elbaph and keeps it isolated. We also learn that the themes of the sun and light as well as curses surround Loki, with him coveting a legendary devil fruit. I’ve seen speculation that the devil fruit Loki wanted was the Gomu Gomu no Mi, but I’d like to posit that it was actually the Yami Yami no Mi that Thatch ended up with. Not only would this story of murder for Devil Fruit mirror and parallel Teach’s betrayal of Thatch for the Dark Dark fruit, it could also set up Loki as the man who brings home a lot of that knowledge and sets the record straight for the end of the story. Let’s get into why.

Loki says some wild shit, okay? And taken at surface level, it does seem to point at villainy. Well, that is until we recall Loki of Norse Mythology. The god Loki was born to a Jotun(basically a giant) and Laufey(a goddess). For killing Baldur and another one of Odin’s sons, Loki is tied down with a serpent dripping venom on him. A goddess known as Sigyn stops the venom from dripping on him with a bowl but eventually the bowl fills up and she has to empty it. While she empties it, the venom drips on Loki and he squirms in pain, causing earthquakes. The roars Luffy heard could be an allusion to this. Loki then breaks out and along with his children and the Jotun(the giants), go to war against the Gods. This war is only a part of Ragnarok with some of the other events being the death of the gods, natural disasters and flames destroying the earth, and then the world flooding and returning better and brighter than before for another go around. Now, hopefully some of those stood out to you, cause it sure as hell did to me. 

Let’s start with the obvious; the giants going to war against the gods with Loki leading them. Remind you of a certain group of people who call themselves gods? I think Loki and the Giants are going to be the biggest allies against the Celestial Dragons, Gorosei, and Imu. Big Mom had once said that if she’d managed to secure the alliance with the giants, she would’ve been stronger than the yonkou and the world government. And where have we heard about the world flooding and cycles repeating? Oh yeah, just right over in Egghead where we learned that the world was sinking! And we also learned that the Void Century consisted of a war. If we take Loki’s words literally we get a really interesting picture. Loki says that Elbaph is known as a place that lived and breathed war. And that he wants to end the world. If we put the pieces together, it could be that the conflict that started the Void Century, actually started in Elbaph! And because Loki has the knowledge, he not only knows about the world changing powers of the Yami Yami no Mi, but also some of the things that happened during the void century, prompting him to “end the world” but only as the rest of the world knows it, with it’s shadow governments and puppet rulers and corrupt leaders. With Elbaph potentially being the last island, this is the perfect place and the perfect character to explain to us all that we don’t know. It would be interesting if we came to see that under the very heavy metal exterior of the shame of Elbaph and the prince of darkness, that we get a soft hearted historian that falls in love easily and is good with animals. Obviously so much of this is speculation, so we can only wait and see what, if anything, turns out to be correct. 

Now, finally I want to end off with a few observations and tidbits that I just couldn’t fit anywhere else. First of all, I wonder if Loki(One Piece) isn’t a combination of Loki(The God) and Utgard-Loki(The Jotun/Giant King)? Utgard Loki was the king of the giants in Utgard, the capital city of Jotunheim, the land of the giants. Loki(The God), Thor, and their companions came across his castle once and Utgard Loki challenged them to various feats that they lost. Unbeknownst to them they were literally fighting against primordial forces and put up admirable efforts. They were tasked to do such things as wrestling old age, racing thought, and drinking the sea, and competing with wildfire in a eating competition. We could see the Straw Hats take on some of these feats and we could see Loki(One Piece) follow in Utgard Loki’s footsteps and become the king of the giants. 

A few other small things before we get to the geography of Elbaph. First of all, I find it curious that the bizarre play that Rodo acts out mirrors not just Elbaph, but the world itself. Perhaps this is meant to signal that Elbaph is a microcosm of the larger conflict in the world and maybe even the void century,  with a land of gods being defied and a fake sun god as well, going along with a manufactured reality. Are there creatures that are hailed as Gods here or is this more referencing events like when Noland killed Shandia’s god Kashigami? Also could Kashigami and Nola just have been snakes from Elbaph? Also what is Rodo’s deal? Is he traumatized in some way that he has to act out the outside world as he sees it in a safe environment for him to process? Moving on, Loki being chained down also narrows down the identity of the person waiting for the Straw Hats on Elbaph, making it more and more likely that it indeed is Scopper Gaban.

Also, the giant sword stuck through Elbaph could be the equivalent of  Jormungandr, the giant world serpent. Dorry and Broggy once commented they could pierce anything but a snake soaked in blood. It could be that they were referring to the Red Line, but that sword is also a possibility.

Finally, a lot of people have commented that One Piece’s Loki mirrors Marvels Loki in the design of his helmet, and while that may be true, I do think it’s possible that Oda was also inspired by Atom/Astro Boy’s designs for Pluto. Maybe Loki is seen as some god of death? It could certainly be that Oda’s combined Hel’s role into him as well. 

Now onto the Island of Elbaph itself. Wow! What a design! Let’s break it down. If we assume that the great tree in Elbaf, Yggdrasil, doesn’t have to hold all nine realms as in mythology, then it gets easier to pin down what’s happening. And there’s evidence towards that assumption. The Tontatta are seen as the dwarves of this universe so we can assume Tontatta kingdom to essentially be Nidaviller, the realm of the dwarves. That then lets us extrapolate the fact that the rest of the One Piece world is Midgard, the home of humanity. From there I think it gets easy. I believe Elbaph to be composed of three layers: The bottom as well as the surrounding Sleeping Mists being Niflhiem, the realm of ice and cold. The Middle Layer being the land of the giants, Jotunhiem, where all the giants probably live. I bet land got stuck in the tree much like how Skypiea was made. Maybe a giant beanstalk rose up into the sky?. And above what we can see, at the top of the tree is Asgard itself, the land of the gods. If that hypothesis is true, Asgard could have one of three functions. One; it could be where the true villains of the arc reside, if Jarul isn’t really the villain. They could be people who purport to be gods. Two; much like skypiea, Shandora, and the Golden Bell, The One Piece itself could reside at the top. Three; And this is my most unhinged idea, if you’ve been following along the interstellar ride that Oda’s hidden in the background, this could be where humans or skypeians first landed from the moon, with perhaps their spaceships still being there. That was a wild thing to end on but that’s all I have for now, I’ll see you next time when One Piece returns!!!

[infriga]

One Piece 1130 reaction:

okay so some of my theories were immediately proven wrong as expected lol, but what he have learned is interesting.

I'm very curious how authority works in Elbaf, because they revealed something that might otherwise be pretty big when they said they Hajrudin is a prince of Elbaf, but they also said that Dorry and Broggy got to go pick up Luffy instead of him because they had more seniority than him. Loki was also imprisoned by the warriors so his position as Prince didn't grant him any protection from that presumably, though that could be because he, y'know, killed the king. But in the flashbacks with Big Mom on Elbaf we see Hajrudin as a child, and he's not really treated as being particularly special, he's being spoken to as if he was a regular trainee. He formed his own pirate crew who worked for Buggy of all people as mercenaries, and was allowed to join the colluseum on his own without any fuss. Plus he wasn't introduced as a prince of Elbaf at any point even though someone like Elizabello was introduced as the king of Prodence. Also even when celebrating births they celebrated Loki's alongside other children being born in the village. So I wonder if being the king of Elbaf is set up in a way where the royal family still has to earn their authority through their reputation and acts as a warrior over time rather than relying only on their birthright. Maybe the princes have to go out and do impressive things and grow strong as warriors to be acknowledged as ruler. Though Loki seems like he might be stronger than Hajrudin since it took all the warriors of Elbaf to imprison him, yet that didn't earn him their loyalty or respect, maybe because of the acts he's committed being seen as dishonourable like "devoting himself to darkness" and killing his father. Or maybe the royal family in Elbaf are more like figureheads and act as dignitaries or make certain political decisions but otherwise don't hold much authority.

I'm also very curious about Loki. His design wasn't exactly what I expected. He does look like he could be evil, but Oda loves to set up a character to have a bad reputation or look like a bad guy only for them to turn out to be actually pretty great, or misunderstood, or something along those lines. And Luffy coming across Loki so quickly, with Loki being chained up like that, right after we've found out that Nika is also5a mythical figure to giants, and, y'know, is the warrior of liberation, I'm wondering if there's more going on with Loki and he'll turn out to be someone Luffy saves and helps instead. He has started saving princes as well as princesses, if you count Sanji and Momo lol, so maybe he could add Loki to that too. I wonder what the fruit he was said to want was, what purpose it served, and why it was passed down through the royal family. Was it passed down with or without being eaten? Does it tie in to Luffy's fruit somehow? And did Loki manage to eat it yet or did he fail? And we still don't know what Road's deal is or why he was talking like a samurai. Is he connected to Loki somehow? Curioser and curioser.

Possible speculation: could the fruit be related to Norse mythology? Some possibilities are fruits related to Jörmungandr/Níðhöggr, Fenrir, Sol, Sköll, etc, which I think could be potential mythological zoan fruits (since the fruit is said to legendary I'm gonna assume it's a mythological zoan at least for now), how likely some of these are I feel depends on whether Loki will be a good guy or bad guy for the arc.

Or it could go in a completely different direction and the fruit in question could be something entirely different. Oda is known for playing fast and loose with real world mythology after all, sometimes he uses whatever he thinks is cool as an inspiration and then does something completely different from the source material. But it's fun to speculate lol. For example, despite presumably being Loki's brother Hajrudin's name doesn't seem to have anything to do with Norse mythology, and nothing about his design resembles any figures connected to Loki afaik. Though one of his attacks IS named after Odin's spear gungnir, and the "din" part of his name could be based on Odin. But just because Oda references a real world myth, that doesn't mean he's going to have the plot revolve around it. He also isn't opposed to making up new in-game mythological figures, like Nika. For all we know the fruit could be something based within the One Piece world rather than something from real life. So far nothing in Loki's design itself really indicates much to speculate from in either direction tbh.

That said I'd be surprised if the fruit mentioned isn't at least SOME sort of reference to Norse mythology, since he's definitely been referencing it a bunch in the latest chapters and Elbaf is definitely largely inspired by a viking aesthetic, the question is which part of Norse mythology would it reference, and how? Guess we'll find out lol.

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

oda dropping a bounty chapter and then going on a break is going to have the community in shambles, but our goat deserves it

[joy-girl]

Okay so you're telling me that Charlotte Lola rejected this man???

And on Thriller Bark she went after Absalom? Girl 😭😭😭

[everynicorobin]

Worried

[ma4chestier]

wait a damn minute...

VIVI??!?!?!?

[beaulesbian]

ch. 1075 // ch. 1130

[ichigoginchan]

words aren't enough, sanji needs to manhandle zoro to prevent him from getting lost and I think zoro's not annoyed by that cuz I don't see him complaining 😌