I know it sounds crazy, but Monkey D. Garp might not be Luffy’s only legendary grandpa. because
what if I told you that his grandfather on the other side of the family tree was
none other than Rocks D. Xebec? And I promise that if you make it to the end of this video,
you will have you’re mind completley blown away. Big thanks to reddit user Mr. Bushido
for laying the groundwork for this theory on our subreddit about the secret Goa Kingdom
connection between Garp, Rocks, and Roger and their brotherly friendship.
But before we can get to the crazy parts, we have to do some ground work first. Because really,
we don’t know all that much about this most infamous of all pirates trying to conquer the
one piece world who was all but erased from history. However his silhouette alone should
tell us something. Lots of theorists have drawn the obvious Blackbeard comparisons,
Teach’s giant raft literally being named the Saber of Xebec. However,
Rocks’s silhouette looks a whole lot like another character we know: Monkey D. Dragon.
A lot of fans had long assumed that Monkey D. Dragon was Garp’s son, given that he carries
the Monkey family name. However, this might not be the case. Garp never once refers to Dragon
as his “son” - he only ever refers to him as “Luffy’s father.” Dragon could very well
be Garp’s son-in-law and Luffy’s mother could be Garp’s daughter. Luffy even strongly resembles his
grandfather, but those genes seem to have skipped Dragon’s generation entirely if Dragon was in fact
Garp’s biological son. Could it be that after Rocks was erased from history, Dragon instead
took his wife’s name - the daughter of Garp and Luffy’s mother? It wouldn’t be the first time
a character has taken their mother’s name. After all, Luffy’s own brother, Ace, was named Portgas
as a way of separating him from Roger’s lineage for his own protection. Could Dragon and then
Luffy after him have done the same in order to separate themselves from the Rocks family name?
And while Dragon clearly has different goals than Garp, his vision does seem to align
with part of Rocks. Dragon doesn’t appear to want to claim the Empty Throne for himself to
become the king of the world, but like Xebec, he does specifically want to combat the World
Government and the Celestial Dragons. Could he have inherited this will from Rocks? After all,
the D clan are the natural enemies of the Celestial Dragons, just as we see in Luffy.
This isn’t the only thing that Luffy would seem to have inherited from the Rocks side of the family,
though. We know that Rocks gathered into his crew the most fearsome pirates on the
Grand Line. Edward Newgate. Charlotte Linlin. Shiki the Golden Lion. Even a young Kaidou. All
of these pirates, many of whom would become yonkou, the strongest forces on the planet,
all served on Rocks’ ship. Someone who could rally all of these forces
under one flag would have to be supremely charismatic - they would have to have a gift
of making friends and allies out of anyone they’d meet. Sound like anyone you know?
According to Mihawk, Luffy’s propensity for making allies is his greatest strength. And this
strength may have come from his grandfather, Rocks D. Xebec. In the same way that Rocks
gathered the strongest pirates of the era to his side, so Luffy does by amassing his
grand fleet and teaming up with several members of the Worst Generation. Law and
Kid seem very much to be set up as similarly significant members of Luffy’s own pirate era.
The similarities between Rocks D. Xebec, Monkey D. Dragon, and Luffy are multifaceted. Not only
do they share physical resemblances, but they share defining characteristics as well. However,
that’s not where this theory ends. *Laughs* Not even close. The ending is going to blow you away.
So let’s talk about Luffy’s family tree. Because the family history shared between the Monkey
and Rocks clans might go way, way deeper so get ready for some Soap Opera levels of speculation.
It all starts with young Garp. Eiichiro Oda has a really tight grasp on his story’s timeline. Even
when there are potential loopholes, he’s pretty good about closing them. After he decided to make
Ace the son of Gol D. Roger (a move that was most likely not intended from the beginning),
he knew it wouldn’t work because Roger had died before Ace’s birth. Ergo,
Portgas D. Rouge was pregnant for two years to avoid the One Piece equivalent of King Herod.
This is a man who, when he introduced time travel into the series, made sure that it only
worked one way so he wouldn’t mess up his precious timeline. He even uses masterful hints like having
the samurai and Momo alluding to knowing Roger, allowing eagle eyed readers to guess the huge
time travel plot twist. So given that Oda has been very meticulous, let’s look at Garp in the past.
When Oda drew Garp as a child, he looked a whole lot like young Luffy. He’s a
rambunctious adventurer riding a tiger. He’s a wild boy befriending forest animals just like
his grandson. This doesn’t look like a future hero of the marines - this looks like a future
pirate. So how did he go from the spitting image of Luffy to a Marine? And more importantly let’s
poke at his timeline a little bit. He joined the marines at the age of 22. We know that
Koby joined the Marines at the young age of 16. Zephyr from Film Z joined the Marines at age 14.
And while it’s not unheard of for marines to join later on in life, Sakazuki and Boraslino,
for instance, were also in their 20s when they joined, it is clear that joining the
marines wasn’t exactly the starting point for Garp. What might Garp have been doing up until
age 22? This is going to be super imortant for the crazy conclusion of this theroy at the end.
Luffy clearly takes after his grandpa, so it’s doubtful that Garp was just patiently
waiting around the Goa Kingdom into his 20s. If he was anything like Luffy as a kid,
which the illustration would suggest, he probably couldn’t wait to get away
from his home island and see the world. But before we speculate on what exactly
Garp was doing for all those years, let’s talk about that home island a little more.
The Goa Kingdom is a place of extreme inequality. The nobles live in complete
extravagance while the poorest members of the country live among the literal trash of the Gray
Terminal. We don’t know exactly what inspired Garp to become a marine in the first place,
but his foundation here could have instilled a desire to create a better, more just
world - while at the same time reinforcing his conflicted distrust of the World Nobles.
Dragon, who also hails from Goa Kingdom, sees it as a microcosm for the entire One Piece world.
But unlike Garp who wants to improve the system from within, his “son” or probable son-in-law,
Dragon wants to take down the whole of the corrupt World Government and rebuild a better world.
When naming the nationalities of the Straw Hats if they were real-life people,
Oda has said that Luffy would be Brazilian. The Goa Kingdom actually takes its name from
a region of India that was colonized by Portugal, the same European country
that colonized Brazil. But what if I told you that Oda giving Luffy’s nationality might have
actually been one of the biggest pieces of foreshadowing in the entire series.
It’s common knowledge that many One Piece pirates are named after real life pirates. X-Drake is
Sir Francis Drake. Jewelry Bonney is Anne Bonney. Blackbeard is…Blackbeard. But one
parallel I haven’t heard as much is Rocks. Rocks seems like an extremely strange name, but there
actually was a famous pirate named this: Roche Brasiliano. In English, his name is literally
Rock the Brazilian. The Brazilian…as in…from Brazil. And Rocks even shares a few important
qualities with his real-life counterpart. He sailed with some very other famous and notorious
pirates - such as Henry Morgan -Captain Morgan’s namesake for the rum fans in the audience. His
first mate Jelles de Lecat or “Captain Yellows” became a mighty pirate captain in his own right,
just like the yonkou who were spawned from the former Rocks crew. Roche Brasiliano even bought
his ship from Francois L’ollonais - Roronoa Zoro’s namesake. That part’s just a fun fact,
though…we highly doubt that Rocks bought his ship from a yet-to-be-born Zoro.
Roche was famously barbaric and violent, drunken and debaucherous. But the crucial similarity
is in Rock the Brazilian’s fate. No one knows. There is no record of him after 1671 - whether
he died at sea or retreated into a quiet life of anonymity, his fate is unexplained. Just as Rocks
and God Valley have been wiped from history books, Roche Brasiliano’s end is shrouded in mystery.
Could Rocks be from the Goa Kingdom, One Piece’s Brazil equivalent? And if so,
then who’s to say that Rocks D. Xebec and Monkey D. Garp met each other on the high
seas? As a pirate and a marine? It’s hard to envision Garp as anything but the hardheaded,
fist of love wielding marine we know and love, but could Rocks and him have been friends? If
they are from the same kingdom, it would be believable that two super-powerful people with
outsized personalities would at least know each other, if not get along. And if Garp
shared Luffy’s adventurous disposition, could they even have voyaged together out to sea?
What if during Garp’s missing years before joining the Marines at the age of 22 he was
actually a pirate? Not a violent buccaneer, of course, but a peaceful and adventurous pirate like
his grandson. Or if we use the terminology from Romance Dawn, the one shot that Oda released as a
precursor to One Piece, a Peacemain pirate, as opposed to the violent Morganeers. And,
of course, we already know of Garp’s connection to Gol D. Roger. While being fierce rivals - the
hero of the marines and the king of the pirates - they were also close friends. Roger trusted Ace,
his own son, into Garp’s care. Not Rayleigh or Shanks or any other pirate:
Garp. Roger is also from the East Blue, hailing from Loguetown. Could
the two upstarts from the Goa Kingdom, Rocks and Garp, have met Roger as well?
I know it sounds absolutely insane, but try to entertain the idea that before the formation of
the Rocks crew, before Roger found the One Piece, and before Garp joined the Marines,
the three all sailed together on one ship. The three could have adventured and sought treasure
and thrills sailing from island to island. But eventually, something changed. A rift
formed between the three friends. Likely, the conflict was brought on by Rocks. This is pure
speculation since we won’t know until we finally learn the truth behind Rocks and what happened
between the three at God Valley. Xebec likely was no longer satisfied with simple fun-loving
adventuring. He wanted Wealth. Fame. Power. And perhaps he would stop at nothing to achieve
them. He would treat others cruelly. He would enact violence on his rivals and perhaps even
innocent people. And you should really subscribe if you don’t want Xebec coming for you next.
And this great division that formed between these three friends sent Roger
and Garp in separate directions, too. Roger insisted that piracy could still be fine,
but done in the right way. He could still adventure and be free without bringing harm to
others. And gather together with Silvers Rayleigh, Scopper Gaban, and the rest of the Roger pirates,
he circumnavigated the entire globe, eventually finding Laugh Tale. Garp,
however, wanted to protect others from the harm of violent pirates like Rocks and chose to join the
Marines. Despite his inner conflict with working under the Celestial Dragons, he sought to work
within the system to change it for the better - given that Koby and Helmeppo have joined SWORD,
and were also trained under him, Garp’s a good candidate for this organization’s leader.
The three went their separate ways, but would meet again. When Rocks set his eyes on becoming
king of the world, the World Government had to stand in opposition to him. Ever since we
learned about God Valley, it’s been perplexing to think that Roger and Garp would ever team up,
yet alone do so to protect the Celestial Dragons. Garp is clearly no fan of the Celestial Dragons,
but it might just be that they weren’t fighting Rocks to save the World Nobles at all. They were
fighting to prevent a world where Rocks held the power because such
a world would be even worse than one controlled by the World Government.
This theory makes God Valley personal. Garp and Roger weren’t just fighting a
terrible and powerful enemy - they were fighting against their closest
friend and brother. It’s no stretch of the imagination to think that these three would
have exchanged sake cups just like Sabo, Ace, and Luffy eventually would. This would raise
the stakes of an eventual Rocks and God Valley flashback so much higher.
These three legends of the One Piece world - an evil pirate, a marine hero, and the king of
the pirates might even parallel similar trios today. The new Rocks would be Blackbeard, the
future Pirate King would of course be Luffy, and the Marine Hero role could be fulfilled by Smoker,
or more likely based on recent story events, Koby. After all, Luffy and Koby have been friends
and allies all throughout the series - even before Luffy gathered a single member of his pirate crew.
If this theory is true and Luffy is the grandson of both Rocks and Garp,
this would mean he inherited the D initial from both sides of his family tree. The only other
character who is confirmed to have a D from both his paternal and maternal lines is Ace.
Clearly they were both the optimal candidates to become the next pirate king and the next Joyboy.
But this of course leaves us with another and maybe even bigger mystery. If Rocks and Garp
are Luffy’s Grandfathers and Dragon his dad, who in the world is Luffy’s mother? And who are his
grandmothers? As his family tree seems to become more and more significant - and with Oda-sensei
having confirmed twice now that he *has* drawn Luffy’s mother already in the series, shouldn’t it
be possible to figure out who it is? And yeah, it is. So, click this video if you wanna watch that.