#professor clover

[torao-d-water-ya]

The civilians you're sworn to protect.

The civilians you're sworn to bloody protect???

Like these civilians?

These ones?

These ones?

These ones?

These ones?

These

Fucking

Civilians????

.

[dragonbonez]

Those flowers will catch fire any second now, but props to him for making memorable.

[chromatic-lamina]

I know that fandom often clowns on this statement

from Law (about needing to take down monsters to learn about history), taking it as proof that he's somehow not fighting for freedom or that

freedom of expression is not something important that has been sanctified ratified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (Article 19)

But that it is instead some nerdish pastime that no other character in One Piece or the real world is invested in (WG or otherwise) for obvious reasons of power, politics and freedom/repression.

But there are governments and organisations that regularly suppress this kind of expression (in One Piece and the real world--no surprise):

There are governments and organisations that fear the pursuit of knowledge:

Partial SBS: Volume 86: Pedro led the Nox expedition party who were chased by the government for searching for poneglyphs, thus they became the Nox Pirates. That's a story from about 15 years ago.

And there are governments and organisations that penalise people by taking their lives

for seeking out knowledge. 👆👇

From Clover,

to Nico Olvia,

to Rayleigh,

to

(Egghead Arc spoilers under the cut)

to Pedro,

to the giants (👇 read right to left),

to Vegapunk

the power and desire to learn about history is emphasised and

honoured,

(from chapter 396 👆)

(from chapter 1066 👆)

and also acknowledged as a very dangerous undertaking.

And even Cora talks to Law about

the meaning behind the Will of D. not being lost, BUT "living on in the dark shadows of history around the world" (it's not easily seen either).

Like, knowing history and access to history/knowledge is one of the main themes of the manga. And Big Mom is a monster. And the World Government is a repressive monolith. And this guy (guy?) 👇:

nuking places and people for not toeing the line, or for knowing too much; riddled with antipathy towards holders of the Will of D. and, with Artur's (Library of Ohara) claim (among others) that the ancient immense kingdom was formed by descendants of the D. clan (which is canon)—

—then wouldn't you too be curious and more than a little pissed off that your curiosity could be the catalyst for persecution and genocide?

That searching for identity, roots...your reason for being, is not allowed? (Sound familiar?)

Like, those scholarly waters are nothing if not shark-infested.

Ultimately the pen (Robin's ability to read the poneglyphs, the scholars' meticulous research) probably will be mightier than the sword, and although bureaucracy can entrap, knowing how to read between the lines, or even to read them, can loosen the ties that bind, and help ensure they are not unfairly cast.

Keep fighting to study history, Law. I too want to know about the Will of D.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! Can you shed some light on Clover’s real name? The scans and the official are radically different.

yeah! i don't know exactly why the scans made the choice they did here, but i have a guess. it's written as クラウ/kurau in japanese. my initial best guess was 'klau', and then my friend suggested that in the gol d. tradition it could be spelled 'clou' instead so you get the word 'cloud' when combined with the d. initial, and that turned out to be what they did in the official as well.

the scans did it as 'claíomh,' which is 'sword' in irish. a particularly famous object of irish and scottish folklore is claíomh solais, the sword of light. i think this is a bit of a leap but i do see how they got there; クラウ/kurau is indeed how you would render that irish word into japanese, and clovers are very associated symbolically with ireland.

so it does make sense! however, it seems like this might've been a situation where the simpler and more obvious answer was the correct one, or at least was what the official chose to go with.

[migila]

Okay, that's shocking, but what it really made me wonder is how many of the characters that we think we know is actually secretly a carrier of the Will of D? I mean, even among the Straw Hat crew, there are still several whose full names and backgrounds we don't know... like, we know Franky was abandoned by his pirate father in Water 7, but what came before that? What was Zoro's life like before the dojo? Who are Nami's real parents? Does Usopp have a last name? Not to mention we know nothing about Brook before he became a pirate!

I'm probably being a little paranoid here, but I feel like ya can never really know with this series.

[drowning-moonlight]

Of all the characters to parallel Luffy, I wasn't expecting Professor Clover to be one of them. Watching a big brother with the D initial be killed right in front of them is quite the specific thing to have in common.

This is also very interesting and I never would have guessed that Clover was a secret D, though in hindsight maybe it's not so hard to believe.

I love the continuing theme of how wrong the government is for killing people because of their names and family. One of the more interesting aspects of the series in my opinion. Hope we get to see more of Clover and learn more about the Void Century and the name of the kingdom!

[lobotheduck]

"So laugh! When you're hurting, laugh."

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Uneggpected Development

Honestly it was hard to know where to start so let's start with Silly Boy and his silly face interacting with Robonosuke. Yes of course I'm going to keep calling him that but don't worry, we'll get to the actual heavy Wano callbacks later. This is a weird chapter...because it feels like we're hurtling swiftly towards an ending to Egghead now. Our giant robot friendo is a big part of that.

As we're blasting off the big robo seems to be gearing up for a huge attack. Maybe a self-destruction. A concept echoed nowhere else in this chapter and certainly not anywhere recently. But you do have this moment that reminds me of Zunisha. Luffy hearing what is likely the Voice of All Things emanating from Robonosuke. Dude is finally ready to rock and roll, looks like it'll time out well with the final notes of the broadcast. You'll see this theme pop up again here, I really want to see the next note before I think too heavily about that but we'll have a lot more to talk about that through the lens of...

Atlas pulls a move we've seen out of other Vegapunks before and seems set to become yet another casualty of this arc. I don't care too much about that for this review, not because I don't like it but because of what Atlas does first. Slamming Lilith into the deck and turning off some kind of tracking device York was using. Which...type of thing that would have been nice to come up at some point earlier but I'll give at least a chapter or two to see if there's like, a reason they didn't do that earlier.

It's obviously Lilith I care about. We could move very quickly out of here into the next arc. Like, you could literally do it in one chapter. Robonosuke go boom cutting off Vegpaunk from giving too much of a reveal, Coup de Burst off into the sunset, cue the newspapers. Lilith is hanging around for whatever reason as a tie to the next. Lilith even can relatively quickly become an off-ramp for what I've seen winding out of Wano through Vivi, Bonney, & Stussy this arc. She was a first impression of the arc too, even had some little quirks with that building off of Kiku last arc who did the same with Pudding who did the same with Rebecca. Speaking of though, pay attention to the title.

Two problems. One that leaves a lot untied. Like, much more than Wano. I suppose you could fill in a bunch of stuff after the exit about Lilith, but the reason that idea ever worked at all for Kiku was because of her personality. Stussy's someone who can believably pull that too, we even just saw her do something like that with her talking to Kaku. Lilith is like, the opposite of mysterious. There was nothing like a mini arc introducing you as cryptic and guarded or juggling loyalties all Egghead. York was the one who played really well into that aspect of things. Lilith is even after Atlas right here giving you the self-sacrifice and how about that light/dark framing with the different expressions up there!

Two, as it stands now there's still no real "point" to the story. This is all literally happening while Vegapunk Prime dumps everything he knows about the big lore, of course he isn't going to get too close because that's Robin's story. So I doubt Lilith has some extra info to add. And of course...a lot of things have flared up for a couple of chapters and faded as quickly as they did. I don't think we're too far from the end, but I still have that feeling this is a little misleading. There was one last aspect of this chapter that makes me wonder about just a little more getting us there:

It's the combination of Clover's denial of his name to survive as well as this late-game Punk Hazard flashback. It all feels so, so Kaido all of a sudden. Maybe it helps or hurts that I'm watching through dub Wano's end with sweetie but this scene feels like such a blend of Kaido, King, & Momonosuke right now. Which is a really weird discordant note. And one that casts that shadow over Vegapunk again.

That's actually the big thing to me. The broadcast has crackled but now its coming to an end. Watch the next few chapters closely. Egghead could end in the next chapter or two, but I wouldn't be shocked if it had another volume in it to get a little weird.

[greeneyedsigma]

The first time she sees her mother in six years is the last time.

[bottlepiecemuses]

Man, Clover Gets A Heavier Backstory For A Character Originally Thought Of Just A Bit Flashback Character

That part about lying about not being related to his brother and being a D. really is something. I know the story currently doesn't have time for a full flashback but those two things really establish how much retrospective is put on someone like Clover. He now has a full name as well (which is Irish in origin).

[opbackgrounds]

Professor Clover could have begged for his life and the lives of the other archeologists, but chose to spend his last moments thumbing his nose at the Elder Stars instead. Absolute respect.

[creepfactors]

when i first doodled clover my playlist shuffled to 'bringing sexy back' i think it was a sign

[chromatic-lamina]

The responsible kids trying to reign in

the righteous fury

of their saviours.

Maybe because they're so used to the cruelty of prejudice they don't fathom a positive outcome for the actions (in Law's case and in the cases above. Robin definitely suffered from discrimination, but Saul is attacking the ships above in order to protect Robin, but he wasn't shot at for protecting her).

And the responsible kids (Law and Robin) show an empathy for others even when those others have put Robin and Law's lives in danger; a quality that might still be part of their personality at that stage of their childhood, considering that Law has not yet warmed to Cora 100%.

Or, as above, it could be they knew, although neither Cora nor Saul would listen, that there was no point in someone sticking up for them, or trying to fight prejudice.

Yet,

protect and fight their guardians did.

Or maybe Robin and Law thought that they were not worth the investment or the trouble it would bring upon the heads of those they loved.

And

perhaps they were

Right

(that bottom speech bubble belongs to the Tree of Knowledge, but Oda knows what he'e doing)

BUT

there is still

hope.

[whateverthought]

Crazy theory, it's probably not gonna happen...

(Spoilers for One Piece Chapter 1120)

But Robin's dad is Clover's brother.

Okay, so we know Olvia left to study the Ponyglphs to 'honor her husband's wishes' and he wasn't in the flashback so he must have died before Robin was born, maybe before Olvia even knew she was pregnant. So, 30-31 years ago.

And Clover recounts his brother's death in a flashback 26 years ago, which means Robin was 4, assuming his brother didn't die that year, it's very possible for the times to line up. Now, Clover escaped because he lied, not telling them he was a D. It would make sense he would pass along that information to Olvia and her subsequent child. And even though Robin did become an archaeologist at 8, Clover very clearly didn't want Robin to know about the Ponyglyphs because he feared the Government coming for her. Would that not include having to hide their name as well?

It also fulfills my childhood theory that Robin was a D.

[lobotheduck]

Ohara, the Island of Archaeology.