The one piece manga just confirmed one of THE MOST GAME-CHANGING theories about Luffy’s
father.
Ladies and gentlemen, Monkey D. Dragon was a marine.
That's right.
Which means we simply must ask all sorts of questions such as why did he join?
What rank was he?
Did he already have his devil fruit?
What made him hate the world nobles SO MUCH that he eventually declared war on the Celestial
Dragons?
And how did he become the MOST WANTED MAN in the world?
Man, there’s so much to think about.
But thankfully the chapter gave us some reason why he left, which is that he realized that
there was no true justice there, but COME ON.
There has to be some truly tragic or horrifyingly awful event that sparked his desire to leave.
And honestly, by looking at his entire timeline I think we can actually figure out what that
super important event might be.
Before we get ahead of ourselves though, let’s start at the beginning here on this handy
timeline because to really understand Dragon’s motivations we need to understand exactly
where he has been.
It all starts when Dragon was born 55 years ago, and we assume that Vice-Admiral Garp
is his father, even though that’s actually never been confirmed.
In fact, Garp only ever said that Dragon was Luffy’s father, not that Dragon was his
own son, so there’s definitely room to speculate that Garp is not Dragon’s dad.
But for now, let’s assume that he is Garp’s son.
Well, then it makes a ton of sense that Garp would want Dragon to join the marines, just
like he wanted Luffy to.
Only this time it seems that Dragon listened to Garp instead of immediately rebelling like
Luffy did.
And I’m sure Garp was absolutely thrilled that his son was following in his footsteps,
but I also don’t think Dragon joined just because of Garp.
I mean, he clearly has a strong sense of justice that he has continued to believe in even after
leaving the marines, so there must have been some inner motivation for Dragon to join the
marines.
Now while we don’t actually know when he joined I think it’s reasonable to assume
that it was sometime as a late teenager or early twenties, which just happens to line
up with the God Valley incident.
More specifically Dragon was seventeen during the events on God Valley, so maybe he joined
up soon after that enormous battle.
Now, what exactly happened during his time in the marines?
We don’t really know for sure, but he simply must have risen high enough in the ranks to
realize there is no true justice there.
Because he probably isn’t finding out something life-changing like that as a common marine
or even lower ranking officer, so I would imagine he became pretty high ranked, probably
at least a Vice-Admiral if not even an Admiral since those are the marines who get tasked
with a lot of the marine’s dirty work.
And man, I would just love to see Marine Admiral Dragon doing something truly amazing.
Plus Dragon has this whole green color scheme with his robe and clothing, so he would fit
right into the admiral’s color themes.
But the next actual confirmed sighting of Dragon is this scene right here, which was
sixteen years after the events of God Valley when Dragon was thirty-three years old.
Now, at this point he has already left the marines and formed what he calls the “Freedom
Fighters” which we’ll talk more about in just a minute.
However, when I read this scene it seems like these Freedom Fighters have not been around
for all that long, so I would imagine that Dragon was a marine until at least his late
twenties, so maybe about five years or so before this scene with Vegapunk.
But even more importantly this scene gives us our most concrete clue about why Dragon
may have grown to hate the Celestial Dragons and eventually leave the marines.
Before I speculate on that though, let’s explain why some other common reasons for
Dragon’s hatred of the world nobles are probably not true at this point.
One of the most common theories for Dragon’s hatred was that the world nobles killed Luffy’s
mother.
But after this chapter we can pretty much cross out that idea because if you look up
when Luffy was born, Dragon was already thirty-six years old which is DEFINITELY AFTER he left
the marines.
So that means Luffy was born AFTER Dragon created the revolutionary army, which actually
brings back the idea that Ginny might be Luffy’s mom, but more on that in just a minute.
First, though another common idea for Dragon hating the world nobles is the idea that he
learned about the World’s secret ruler, Imu.
But this was basically already proven to be false in chapter 1086.
That’s because when Sabo explained that Imu is the secret ruler of the world to Dragon
and Ivankov, there was absolutely no hint that Dragon already knew this information.
Which of course it is possible he was hiding that info, but I think that’s pretty unlikely
at this point.
So that’s also not the reason he left the marines.
So that leaves only two or three decent reasons that I can see for Dragon leaving the marines.
The first is that the world nobles didn’t actually kill Luffy’s mom, but instead they
killed DRAGON’S mom.
Which if we are going with the idea that Garp is his actual father then that would mean
they killed Garp’s wife.
Which again, seems pretty unlikely because I feel like an event like that would send
Garp on a rampage to wipe out the world nobles himself.
Of course, if Dragon isn’t Garp’s son, then we have a whole different situation,
but I still think this is unlikely.
But the MOST LIKELY option based on the timeline and the events from chapter 1066 is that at
some point Dragon met the scholars of Ohara AND learned some of the true history of the
world.
Don’t believe me?
Well, during his meeting with Vegapunk, Dragon revealed that he already knew Professor Clover,
who was the leader of the scholars and was desperately searching for information about
the Void Century.
In fact, we were told in that same chapter that Clover was arrested by the marines at
least ten times.
So wouldn’t it just make a lot of sense if Dragon was the one who chased after Clover
while he was a marine.
And if that was the case, I can easily imagine that Dragon would become friends with the
adventurous scholar and even learn some of the dark secrets about the world government
that Clover discovered.
I mean that same marine and pirate dynamic is what happened to Garp and the former pirate
king, Gol D. Roger, where Garp chased after Roger for years and they eventually became
somewhat like friends.
On top of all this, Dragon could have met Nico Olvia, who was also one of the scholars
of Ohara and Robin’s mother.
In fact, in chapter 593 we learned that the Revolutionary Army and Dragon have been searching
for Robin for over ten years and they even call her “the Light of the Revolution”.
Which is just even more evidence that Dragon had an important relationship with Clover
or Olvia in the past, and it fits together nicely that this relationship plus maybe some
other tragic event sparked Dragon’s desire to defeat the Celestial Dragons.
Or one more bonus option is that Dragon met Roger at some point and learned the true history
of the world.
This is possible because Roger did find Laugh Tale about three years before Dragon met with
Vegapunk right here.
So I’m just saying, the timing lines up pretty well.
Plus I’ve always been super curious how Dragon earned the highest bounty in the entire
world.
And while we don’t find out in this chapter, we do know that the ONE THING the world government
absolutely does not allow is the
research into the poneglyphs.
So if Dragon was friends with the people who did research the poneglyphs or he got some
info about them from Roger, then all of that plus the fact that he is making an entire
army to fight the world nobles could be enough for him to earn that super high bounty.
But whichever of these reasons sparked Dragon’s decision to leave the marines, it’s not
as important as what happens next.
Because as we learned from chapter 1066, Dragon had already formed a group known as the Freedom
Fighters, which is essentially Dragon’s group of rebels before he officially formed
the Revolutionary Army.
And in this most recent chapter we finally get to see these Freedom Fighters in action.
That’s because about sixteen years after Kuma and Ginny started living on the island,
the ruler of the Sorbet kingdom basically segregated the entire island into a section
protected by the kingdom and a section that is just lawless land.
On top of this, there was a MASSIVE tax placed on the people to pay for the World Government’s
heavenly tribute.
Now, this whole storyline might finally explain how Kuma got his reputation as the “Tyrant
King” because even though he is basically a priest for these people I can honestly see
the young Kuma rising up to become sort of the boss or king of the lawless land, which
obviously the upper class of this kingdom wouldn’t want at all, and he is put into
jail.
But soon after that Dragon and Ivankov arrived with their band of Freedom Fighters to overthrow
this corrupt ruler, which leads to Kuma and Ginny joining up with the Freedom fighters,
which then officially became the Revolutionary Army.
From here though, there are a few new important points we can add to our timeline.
For example, in this chapter we learned that fourteen years ago Kuma and Ginny were confirmed
to both still be a part of the Revolutionaries.
At this time, Kuma is thirty-three years old and Ginny is thirty-seven.
And this fact by itself is super surprising.
First of all, again, props to Ginny for surviving this long.
I honestly thought she wouldn’t make it off of God Valley, but the second interesting
point this brings up is that we once again have to reanalyze the question of if Ginny
is someone’s mother.
After last chapter it seemed pretty logical that since she and Kuma were living together
then Ginny would eventually be Bonney’s mom, and I’d still say that is the most
likely option since Ginny already wanted to marry Kuma in this chapter.
I mean there is just so much similarity between their names and personalities.
But WAIT until you hear the INSANE theory coming up in just a moment.
Before that though, another option is Ginny being Luffy’s mom, which after last chapter
I thought that wouldn’t be the case, but now that she has been fully with the revolutionaries
for such a long time, I mean anything could have happened between Ginny and Kuma or Ginny
and Dragon.
Which, okay, is just such a weird love triangle to even think about.
So, onto the next option.
Then there is of course the idea that Bonney is Ginny’s clone, but now that we learned
at the end of this chapter that Ginny has been kidnapped, I am starting to think there
might be a mind-blowing new possibility that we hadn’t considered.
Because even though we don’t know exactly when on the timeline that Ginny was kidnapped,
we can reasonably guess that it was sometime around fourteen years before the current story.
And whenever this occurred it gives us the perfect set up for Kuma to become a Warlord
and World Government slave.
Because if Ginny was captured by the World Government then OF COURSE Kuma is going to
try and save her.
Maybe they wanted Ginny for some sort of devil fruit power or some other reason, but for
now that reason isn’t that important.
Honestly, I keep saying I’ve been surprised that Ginny has been alive for this long, but
what if that is because she was never actually dead in the first place.
That’s right, I’m saying that the Bonney that we have known for most of the story is
in fact Ginny who was aged down AND had her memories pushed out by Kuma.
Which sounds CRAZY!
I know, and while she doesn’t look exactly like Bonney in this chapter her appearance
isn’t far off.
Plus if you look deep enough, there is some pretty solid evidence that supports this idea.
First of all, we know the world government wanted Bonney’s for some reason and it appears
they once had her captured.
Which seems really odd seeing as how we’ve always viewed Bonney as a pirate and a pretty
young one at that, but what if they had captured her as Ginny and then they later let her go
in exchange for Kuma becoming the world government’s slave?
On top of that, if you look back to chapter 1074 and the memories that Bonney viewed in
the lab, there are some very odd circumstances surrounding this.
First of all, Vegapunk was desperate for Bonney not to see those memories, which was always
a bit weird to me.
I mean yeah, her father’s memories might have been painful, but wouldn’t it be good
for Bonney to see what her father went through?
Unless of course those actually weren’t Kuma’s memories, but they were instead Ginny’s
memories and Veapunk didn’t want her to realize that Bonney isn’t who she thought
she is.
Also, in this flashback that we thought was Kuma’s, Bonney is looking at Kuma from the
outside, which wouldn’t make sense if they were Kuma’s memories.
If these were Kuma’s memories, shouldn’t the memories show a perspective through his
own eyes?
Instead, we see it as if someone else is looking at Kuma, which would make sense if these were
Ginny’s memories.
Plus, we were also literally shown Bonney turning Vegapunk into a baby right before
she touched the memories, which seems like some sort of foreshadowing that Oda would
do.
However, the evidence that fits this theory all together is this panel from chapter 908.
So in case you don’t remember, this scene had Bonney trying to sneak into Mary Geoise
in order to save Kuma.
But going back to look at it now, I just have to wonder how she knew who this Conney person
was and that they were the Dowager Queen of Kuma’s homeland.
Unless of course she once lived there and had memories of this person, just like Ginny
did.
Plus there is the question of how she even looks enough like this Conney person to fool
the guards, but I don’t have an answer for that unless Ginny was a descendant of that
ruling family or something, which doesn’t seem like the case from this chapter.
But yeah, Ginny might be a mother, but she also might also still be alive as Bonney and
we never knew it.
But with all this talk of Dragon, the marines, and the revolutionaries, I do wonder if Dragon’s
story of being a marine and later leaving will be the model for another marine to flip
sides in the future.
An easy choice for this character would be Koby, but honestly I see him more as following
in Garp’s footsteps than Dragon’s.
I mean, Koby literally dreams of being a marine admiral, and he trained under Garp.
Plus Garp basically gave up his life to save Koby, so yeah, I see Koby as trying to get
rid of the corruption from within the marines rather than from the outside.
Which means the perfect candidate is Vice-Admiral Smoker.
I mean, if you look at his entire character arc which has just led to him uncovering more
and more government corruption then it would make sense that eventually he wouldn’t be
able to take any more and he will choose to leave the marines.
At this point, I just wonder what event might tip him over the edge and make him possibly
become a pirate or join the revolutionaries.
What’s even more exciting though is that the flashback is not even over yet, so in
the next few chapters we might even get to see Dragon fully show off his powers for the
very first time.
And wow, that is one of the mysteries I have been desperate to know about for so long because
he just HAS TO BE one of the top tier powerhouses in the entire story.
And if you want to know what his legendary powers might actually be, plus the mysterious
powers of other strong fighters in the story, you can check out this video right here.
Shanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.