Now that, was an episode. As soon as they got the treasure from Caribou I began to wonder just how it would impact the plot going forward. These things normally substantially impact the direction One Piece is going. I was not expecting it to have shown its influence already though, assuming that Big Mam does in fact take the money. That said she seemed to have suggested she would take vengeance on Luffy rather than compromise, so perhaps the treasure will still come into play in another way. Let us not forget the Tamate box either, as in my mind that is the most important and influential part of the treasure they collected, akin to the treasure map that they got with Moria’s treasure. The arm bracelet that actually led to the treasure island Buggy wanted to find. Speaking of that, I wonder how Buggy’s doing as a possible warlord and with a map leading to the place of his dreams.. You never know with him but by the next time we see him I’m sure all will make sense.
So let's take a step back, from the title of the episode I was so excited to finally learn about one of the emperors that we know so little about. My friend suggests that with the rarity of famous female pirates, and Lola’s mother being a famous female pirate that Big Mam is her mother. That has been suggested already in the thread and I too agree with that theory, having a good relationship with her daughter means that it could influence Big Mam going forward. More than that, we met Pekoms and Tamago, two loan sharks collecting their collection money with the threat of destroying the island if they don't get it. Tamago looks like a teapot Eggman, and Pekoms is quite charming being scary in almost every way from being a lion, being a money collector for one of the strongest people on the sea, for being so aggressive, yet even everyone around him can tell that he is adorable with the sunglasses off. The fact he doesn't realize that is quite the charming quality. All of this goes to say, Big Mam is definitely far worse than first anticipated, I had thought firstly that instead of protecting islands as a family she was doing it as a business, that itself isn't that bad. Then, I saw how scary her men were collecting the candy and heard about her destroying islands, that is definitely worse. Then we found out that this deal is more of an ultimatum, "give me a ridiculous amount of candy or all of you die". Her design with her teeth and her oozing acidic drool, her scary eyes, her gluttony, the fact that her men are afraid of her, the fact that she eats her people, she seems awful!! The minions of hers on Whole Cake Island are quite the eccentric bunch too.
Luffy’s response to all of this had to be one of my favourite Luffy moments of all time, the amount of shock and excitement I felt was in the same vein as when he ordered the shooting of the world government flag. This stuff never gets old. This particular instance was amazing to me personally for many reasons. It started with the gag I adore of Luffy answering the phone with no hesitation which isn't his and people do not want to answer, we also saw this in Marineford on the navy ship they stole. That kind of behaviour reminds me so much of kid Goku and I love it. But after laughing incredibly hard, what Luffy was doing immediately became realized to me, it was like a deal from a yakuza movie. Someone had to take responsibility for this, so quickly to protect this island and his friends from a second destruction he put all of the blame on himself. As that's not enough, Mam sees through that, Luffy then tries to compensate with money, all of the treasure they had just gotten. In a brief impulsive moment he's covered nearly all of the bases for dealing with these kinds of people, and Big Mam almost doesn't agree! She shows that she’s seen through Luffy, that she doesn't care for any of the treasure in the world even when they are starving on funds, she seems like a gluttonous and questionable leader. However, she's interested in Luffy, as Garp’s grandson and for his confidence in challenging one of the most powerful people on the sea. So, she agrees and put all of the blame on him and his crew.
This was already a spontaneous and absolutely amazing set up for the future with somebody that we've known about for a long time yet have never gotten a tangible understanding of. But that wasn't even it, the end of this all was the best part of it for me, it deepened my understanding of what the king of pirates means to Luffy. It should have been obvious in retrospect, I've always understood being the king of pirates as being a man that has succeeded Shanks. What is Shanks to Luffy? An admirable and strong man who protects the people he loves. Someone who is free and meant the world to Luffy. He made a pledge with Ace to be free and live without regret, to be strong enough and free enough to protect the people they care about and not let something like Sabo's fate happen again. The king of pirates can literally protect the thousands of friends they have by making their islands his territory. Obviously Luffy would want to be free and strong enough, as the king of pirates would be, to be a Whitebeard figure. “I’ll kick your ass all the way across the new world and make Fishman Island my territory!”. MY MAN LUFFY!!
I would like to briefly mention the humour of Nami sending her boys out to get treasure only for them to come back possibly with no treasure and one of the four strongest people on the sea looking to kill them. Just thinking about that made me laugh. Also, Captain Kid was said to have taken down two of Big Mam’s ships, it looks like he's quite the threat on the sea too, going after emperors. Now we know that Drake has picked a fight with Kaido and Kid has picked a fight with Big Mam. I wonder if the Straw Hats will work with them when the time comes to have conflict with these emperors, assuming Kaido and Mam do end up as enemies. |