Dragon is a man shrouded in mystery. It's time to change that.
Let's be real for a second: What is it with mysterious characters in One Piece that
barely have any screen time? Shanks, the Gorosei,
Blackbeard. There is just nothing more fascinating for me than talking about these people who are
incredibly influential and powerful in the world at large, but that we know close to nothing about.
And Monkey D. Dragon is definitely right in there, with more gossip and rumours
around him than in a middle school yard. I want to know what this man is all about.
Hi my name is Manu, I generally assume that if you have a face tattoo you have lost control over
your life, but today I'm willing to look past that and analyse Dragon's role in the story.
And of course, this wouldn't be fun if we didn't speculate a little.
So I have two really solid theories about his past and one that is just so bat-s**t crazy,
that it would be a crime not to share it with you.
--- I'm really trying to ignore the face tattoo right now. It's-so distracting.
How drunk were you? Is this a post Malone thing?
'So why did you decide to get a tattoo?'
'Oh you know, I decided to take down the draconic,
all-powerful ruling force that dominates the entire planet, but then I though: if I
really want people to take me seriously, I should probably change my look to inspire more respect.'
'-'
Anyways. Let's figure out Dragon's role in the story so far. This man holds two pretty impressive
titles in the story: He is both, the father of our protagonist, as well the most wanted man alive.
That is some Roger-level infamy. Let that sink in for a second. Luffy's father
is a bigger threat to the world government than Kaido, Big Mom, Blackbeard. I mean,
yeah we talk about that all the time, but seeing Luffy fighting two Yonko's right now,
that really hits home different. Now while I think it's fair to assume that Dragon is powerful,
I think we all agree, that a big chunk of this title is for political reasons. Which
in my eyes makes him even more interesting. What does Dragon have, that even the Yonko's don't?
I wanna get into that in a second. But let's first talk about the Monkey family as a whole.
Now, are there a lot of weird and influential families in One Piece---yes, yes there are. But
Luffy's family in particular stands out among the them. Luffy himself if the rising star of
the pirate world, the next pirate king and most likely the man prophesied to change the world.
By the way, did you know that in the Italian dub Luffy is called: Rubber? Bro, they just
completely removed "Monkey D." and changed luffy into "rubber" so for half the anime he was simply
"strawhat rubber" until they realised they f***d up, when they name became important.
His grandfather Garp is the great hero of the marines, who went head to head with the strongest
pirates in the world, while his father dragon is the founder and leader of the revolutionary army,
tasked with taking down the world nobles. The pattern of 3, that Oda really really really loves,
is very prominent here. Each of the three represents the top level of the 3 major
factions in the world, marines, pirates and revolutionaries. All 3 of them share a strong
sense of justice, freedom and camaraderie and are brave and tough to a ridiculous level.
All three of them care about the people around them, and put their
'work' family over their real family. I'm not sure if work really fits here.
'So what do you do for a living?' 'I'm a pirate.'
'Oh, how's the pay?' 'Depends, How much you got on you right now?'
And interestingly enough, all three have a mark on the left side of their face. Luffy and Garp have
a scar, while Dragon has ... agh dammit, just when I sort of forgot about the tattoo haha.
The monkey family most likely is inspired by the legend of the three wise monkeys. You know them,
because they turned them into f****g emojis. One covers his eyes and sees no evil,
one covers his ears and hears no evil and one covers his mouth to speak no evil. The
story is about cultivating a mindset that will create a world of harmony, peace and goodwill.
Do you see the connection?
What defines all three, Luffy, Garp and Dragon, is that they are genuinely
good people, who fight for a world in which everyone can live a happy live,
regardless of who they are. Garp represents the best side of the Marines.
Luffy has all sorts of races and quirky characters in his crew, but so does Dragon. In fact, looking
at the people associated with Dragon really hammers home the fact that he is Luffy's parent.
There is Ivankov, the leader of the Okama,
a group that is prosecuted in this conservative world. Sabo, a former noble, who has seen the
cruelty of the royals. You have Hack, a fishman, representing the revolutionary version of Jinbe,
of the fishmen fighting for a better and equal life among the other races.
With Koala you have a former slave, that was an important link between fishmen and humans.
Morley, like chopper would probably be considered a freak of nature.
Bello Betty is as strong and independent a woman as you'll ever see. And you also have Kuma,
or as he's called in German 'Bartolomäus Bär', who connects the revolutionaries to
Vegapunk and the government itself. My point here is, Dragon has Luffy's crew,
but on a global scale. He shares his sons ideals, only that he chose a much more
active path. So no wonder that he would approve of the route that Luffy chose.
Now I'm not a parent myself, but I dare say that's some
questionable parenting right there. I think it's never a good sign,
that when someone mentions your father your first reaction is basically: I have a father?
Well, I can somewhat relate to that. Before recording this video I checked the notes and:
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Now even more interesting than his crew I think, Dragon has popped up in the most peculiar places.
He was present at Roger's execution, who inspired everyone there in some way or form.
And he came back, for Luffy's execution as well, to see him off for the beginning of
his adventure. He was at Shimotsuki village at Zoro's dojo, to restock supplies and he took in
Robin for the time skip, who got sent to him by Kuma, part of the revolutionaries himself.
So I think it's not so much speculation as it is fact, that Dragon has an
active interest in the true history. I don't think Dragon sought out Robin simply because,
the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I think we all agree they had things of
importance to discuss. And Robin probably knows quite a bit of Dragon's plan,
as Luffy most likely is supposed to play a role in it. But on top of that, Dragon wouldn't be the
most dangerous man in the world, if he didn't have specific knowledge and the power to back it up.
What makes him such a big threat to the government, is that he's subscribed to my
Channel for next generation anime content, that the gorosei fear above all else.
Now that's already a pretty big advantage, but there must be a bit more to it. And just so you
know, from here we are entering speculation territory. Two popular ideas are that Dragon
used to be a marine or cypher pole agent and that he ate a devil fruit that allows him to
control the weather, as it always seems to change in his favour when we see him.
Just like Zoro however, I want to leave the known path here and introduce some more
unknown ideas. The first of these is that dragon might not have a super broken devil fruit,
but that the revolutionary army is actually in the possession of Uranus,
one of the ancient weapons. We do know, that Roger found an ancient
weapon and that he managed to escape Shiki without even fighting by a sudden change of the weather.
We know the first ancient weapon is a ship on the sea. The second is Shirahoshi under the sea, so
it would make sense that the third weapon is above the sea and it's not too far a stretch
to speculate that it's able to control the weather or wind. Know, if Dragon was wielding
one of the 3 weapons that the government fears so much, that would explain why he is the most
wanted man in the world, especially since he is aiming it straight at the world nobles.
And another thi-.
Okay you know what: I can't look past that. Let's talk about that tattoo for a moment.
Why does Dragon have it? He didn't have it at Roger's execution. So why does a
man so driven by purpose that he left his child to be raised by his grandfather,
who in turn left it to be raised by bandits, why does such a man get such a tattoo.
It must have some deeper meaning. The first possibility I think is a connection to Shandora,
where Tatoo's a quite popular and that follow the same abstract style. I really like this
connection, because Robin tells us that the Shandorans used to fight against the world
government and were allied with the ancient kingdom, or, if you watched the greatest one
piece theory of all time on my channel, it might actually have been part of the ancient kingdom.
There is a connection to the ancient weapons and to the sun god Nika, even Roger was there, so it's
not super out there that Dragon knows something about the Shandoran history and that symbol
in particular, that he found so important and meaningful, he decided to tattoo it on his face.
The other option is actually even more interesting. This theory comes
from a YouTube friend of mine called Fiji, shoutout to him, who found that dragon's
tattoo resembles the one on the kimono of the one and only legendary samurai Ryuma.
In this version of symbol, there is a Kanji in the middle of the square,
which means what exactly? Dragon. Which is a peculiar coincidence, don't you think? But
if this were the only connection to Wano, that would be a bit weak I think. Only that
we saw Dragon arriving at Shimotsuki village, named after the damiyo family, Ryuma was part
of. As Oda hinted at in an interview, Dragon has some sort of relationship with the Dojo master
Koushiro, who is a Shimotsuki himself, which is confirmed in SBS 96. What Fiji
suggests based on this, is that Dragon might potentially have traveled to Wano,
that similar to SHandora is another place, connected to the ancient kingdoms and the
poneglyphs, and thus might have been of interest to him to search for knowledge or
potential allies. This might have happened 18 years ago, when Shimotsuki Ushimaru, who
based on his appearance we now speculate to be Zoro's father, was killed by Kaido.
So the reason Dragon knew about Shimotsuki village might be because he traveled there
before 18 years ago, befriended Ushimaru before the daimyo planned their rebellion
and got captured and then took Zoro from Wano to his relative in the east blue.
Ushimaru could have told dragon about his ancestor Ryuma and their ties to the void century. So there
might be some deeper meaning behind this symbol, that Dragon then tooted on his face
after leaving Wano. Now this idea rests on a lot of assumptions, but I think it's solid
enough to make sense and I think it would really nicely fit in the gaps for Zoro,
that I discussed in his video. Plus it would add to the already close bond between him and Luffy.
However while this theory is very creative,
it makes a lot of sense. And if you know me, the crazier a theory the
better I can sleep at night. So I want to end this video on something truly crazy.
Now a really interesting idea is that Dragon is actually not Garp son, but Rocks'. However
Liam over at the grand line review has already made a video about that, the sneaky bastard.
So of course I have to top that by proposing that Dragon is not Garps son, but
tarps daughter. Hah. Told you this was gonna get wild.
Okay so if you're a real one pice fan you'll have come across the
idea that Crocodile actually used to be a woman, that is Luffy's mother,
that then was transferred into a man by Ivankov. His 'dark' secret.
I don't know why really, but people love the s**t. Now this theory is similar,
but takes it a step further. Let's go down this hormonal rabbit hole.
The base idea is that all the devil fruit users in the revolutionary army have a power
that helps them operate in secrecy, avoid detection and rally allies to their side.
Not counting Sabo in this for obvious reasons. Morley can create hidden underground spaces,
like under Marijoe or in impel down, that can serve as bases and to move troops.
Betty can enhance people's powers and strengthen their will to fight. Karasu is
basically an entire private communication and evacuation system. And then there is Ivankov,
who also can boost up people's bodies, but most importantly change identities.
Many members of the revolutionaries are wanted as criminals, pirates or slaves
by the government. Ivankokv's abilities can give them a
clean sheet, by changing their bodies. Which is where dragon comes into play.
Dragon is a comlplete mystery to pretty much everyone. He is a man with no past,
except his connection to garp and luffy. But this is also strange. No-one was aware that Dragon was
Garp's child, the hero of the marines. Garp is as public a figure in One Piece as it gets,
and yet no-one knows he had a son? It would make sense for Garp to not boast about it,
after he became a revolutionary, but complete ignorance is pretty astonishing.
So what this theory suggest is that Garp had a daughter, that 'died' but actually turned into the
dragon we know today. In fact, Garp never refers to Dragon as his son. The theory then goes on
to speculate that Luffy's real father is actually Roger and that Dragon was sent into the future by
Toki, which is where I definitely jump the ship. But in general I find the idea that Dragon is
actually Luffy's mother, very very entertaining to say the least. More than the Crocodile one.
To get the full picture on the monkey family however, I strongly recommend that you watch
my video on Garp here next. There is a lot to talk about with him as well.