Crocomom!
The theory that should not be anything else but a bunch of people trolling one piece fans.
I mean, come on: Crocodile used the be a woman that had a kid with dragon, and that kid is
Luffy, the protagonist that got impaled by said crocodile?
Hahaha-yeah no this is totally a thing.
What’s up, I’m Manu, and In case you aren't familiar with it yet, here's the pitch you
will usually hear from people who support this theory.
The idea that Crocodile might be female basically emerged with the release of the chapter back
in 2009, while the idea that he might be luffy's mother seems to be from sometime in 2011,
although the original post, that is reference a lot, does not exist anymore.
Basically the idea is based on a single interaction during the Impel down arc.
A single line of dialogue between Ivankov, one of the leading members of the revolutionary
army, and Sir Crocodile, the former warlord that terrorized Alabasta and who was ultimately
taken down by Luffy.
In this scene here, Ivankov basically blackmails crocodile into helping them, by threatening
to reveal his weakness, a secret debt that crocodile owes to Ivankov for something he
was given, as Oda confirms later on crocodiles Vivre Card.
And since Ivankov's most unique power has been specifically shown to be changing peoples
body's as far as switching genders, the theory is that Crocodile used to be a woman, Luffy's
mom to be precise, that then was turned into a man by Ivankov.
And, boy, did I have a very emotional roller coaster-like person journey with this theory.
Basically ever since this theory was first brought to my attention years ago, it hasn't
gone away ever since, ever!
And so I pracitally went through all 5 stages of grieve here: First denial.
When I first heard about this idea, my reaction was basically: Haha, this isn't real.
Someone definitley is trolling these poor people.
Then, anger.
Once I realized that people were taking this serious and debating if it was possible or
not, I was genuinely pissed people were debating this seriously, when there were so many other
great things to talk about with one piece.
For example a 30 minute ecstatic rambling session about where the one piece is... *clears
throat*.
Stage 3: Bargaining.
This is when I started to try and debate people who believed in this theory and tried to explain
to people why it was a stupid idea and why they were wrong.
So, so wrong...
I guess I don't have to tell you that those attempts mostly failed.
So I entered stage four: Depression.
That was actually quite recently.
I didn't want to talk about Crocomom anymore.
I thought there were so many much more interesting ideas out there that deserved more attention.
And so I tried to push the idea out of my head.
However everything changed a couple of weeks ago, when I started working on my most recent
video on Luffy's mom.
I had found out that mothers, or to be precise their complete and utter absence from one
piece, plays an incredibly central role to the story.
And of course, I also wanted to discuss a couple of ideas for who Luffy's mom could
possibly be.
Do you know that feeling when you turn around and suddenly someone is just standing there?
That was EXACTLY what it felt like when the crocomom theory jumped right at me once I
started to work on this, laughing in my face.
I had enough of this.
No more hiding.
It was time to switch gears and go into the offensive.
I decided to take this stupid theory, dismantle it to its core and prove to the world once
and for all that there was no way, NO WAY, that Crocodile is Luffy's mom.
And after sleepless nights of vigorous work, I finally managed to find the answer to this
mystery that had tormented me for months.
*Sucks in air*, Yeeeah...Crocodile is Luffy's mom.
*Rubs face*
So it looks like I've ended up in stage 5.
Acceptance.
But, allow me to guide you through my thought process here and what I found.
Because as it turns out there is a lot more evidence in the story to support this theory
than I originally anticipated.
I'm not sure if the person who came up with this idea had difficulties expressing how
good it was, or if it was just a super stupid idea, that turned out to have a lot more depth
to it by accident.
To be honest a lot of the follow-up theories for crocomom have been pretty damn bad.
However I have distilled out the best parts of everything I could find and added my own
thoughts to this as well.
I want to start with the idea that Crocodile is a woman and then move on to him being luffy's
mom.
Because those are two very different levels of crazy, that..apparently I'm now part of.
Also: *takes breath* please just ignore my use of pronouns in this video.
I'll try my best, but it's probably gonna be a mess.
We've already talked about the most fundamental thing.
With Ivankov, there is actually a power in One PIece that is able to change genders,
which is how the entire theory started in the first place.
And the fact that this was shown so closely to the encounter with Crocodile definitely
helps the credibility of the two being connected.
Plus Ivankov keeps calling him crocoboy in a what I think is a bit of a mocking way?
Now it could just be, that Ivankov wants to take away from his manliness, but maybe it's
also supposed to put more attention on exactly that aspect of his character.
Now one thing I think is important to consider is Oda's inspiration for the warlords.
Not only do all of the original Shijibukai have an animal theme, but the group as a whole
was inspired by the video game Romancing Saga 2, that was released in Japan back in 1993...which
is older than I am.
Wow.
And each of the warlords shares their characteristics with one of the heroes of the game.
For example, there is Rocbouquet-I think is how you pronounce that - The only female of
the 7, who controls all the men in the Jungle villages with her charm.
Which became Boa Hancock.
Or, Bokuohn - A puppeteer demon who rules over his own little realm with his own slaves
and who's special technique, "Marionette," allows him to manipulate all party members.
Which of course is the inspiration for Buggy.
*Smirk* The character that is important for us here is called Wagnas.
Who has enslaved an entire country and wants to find an ancient weapon to control the world.
Now, what is really interesting about Wagons is that while he is male, everything about
him is female.
Now, the easiest thing to disprove the idea that Crocodile is female would be to look
at his past, clearly showing him to be a guy.
And we actually do have two images of crocodile before the current timeline.
One is this sketch Oda made of all the Warlords as children.
In case you're wondering, Crocodile is here, a kid who might be either a boy or a girl
and resembles Hancock most out of all the others.
The second time is during Roger's execution.
However Crocodile is only shown from behind here.
What can be seen is a fur coat, long purple hair, an earring, and a cigar, both in the
manga and the anime.
And since Oda has already done us the favour and drawn the opposite sex of each of the
seven, we can say, that this panel of crocodile from behind would fit with either the male
OR the female version.
And as you know, Oda sometimes likes to hide and hint at things in color spreads and cover
pages.
And as it happens, this is the official cover of chapter 938.
One thing that I known will stand out to you by now, because it definitely did to me, is
that everything surrounding Crocodile is weirdly connected to gender ideas.
All the codenames of his agents are Mr and Ms. His name isn't just Desert King Crocodile,
no it's Desert King SIR Crocodile.
Like Oda going:
Yeah this man here is very manly by the way.
No really, he's a sir!
And a Mr. 0.
Croco-BOY.
I was considering calling him Sir Testosterone, that's how manly he is.
And then there was the introduction of Mr. 2 Bon Clay.
And the fact that this man is part of Crocodile's agency
is just a pure treasure trove of hints.
This man of mans has someone in his strictly gendered organisation who plays both the male
AND female part of the double agent theme.
He is Mr. 2, a number, and also Ms. Bon-Kure, two festival holidays in Japan.
Not only is Bon Clay the first of the discriminated Okama introduced in the story, that Crocodile
seems to tolerate and integrate just fine into his plans, but he also has the ability
to change faces, from man to woman to man, becoming someone completely different.
Now if this isn't hinting at something...but there's even more to this.
Bon Clay, as one of the Okama, comes from Okama island.
An Island that not only gives us the connection between Ivankov and Crocodile, but more importantly
between Crocodile and Dragon.
Most of the Okama are part of the Revolutionary army, who's leader is none other than Dragon,
Luffy's father.
So.
All this so far has mostly served as my argument that Crocodile used to be a woman.
Which actually has support by large parts of the fandom.
However, and I totally understand why, saying that Crocodile was a woman and that Crocodile
is Luffy's mother are two very VERY different cups of tea.
More like a cup of tea and a cup of coffee.
And STILL!
I believe that both of these things are true.
Here's why.
By the way, in case you enjoy theories like these and want to delve deeper into the endlessly
deep and hopelessly fascinating lore of one piece with me every single week, I'd love
for you to consider subscribing to my channel.
Now there are a couple of really big arguments that seem to bury the Crocomom idea fairly
quickly, which I know well, because I used to use them quite a lot back in the day.
First: If Crocodile was Luffy's mom, why didn't he recognise him.
Well, because he hadn't seen luffy since he was a baby.
Okay, but then why didn't crocodile recognise his last name if he had a kid with Dragon?
Well for the same reason no-one else knew that Luffy was related to Dragon or that Garp
was related to dragon.
Dragon never shared his last name until it was revealed
during the war.
Even Ivankov didn't reckognize Luffy's name.
Now if Luffy were Crocodile's child, wouldn't they have some similarities?
Well, they do.
Both of them have the undying loyalty of their crews, with Das Bones still following him
after impel down, the Zoro to Baroque works luffy.
In a way, crocodile, just like Moria, had his dreams crushed at some point by whitebeard,
basically showing us a version of Luffy that had given up on his dreams.
Which is accentuated by how he constantly lectures luffy during there first two encounters.
Plus in the mafia special, Luffy literally looks like Crocodile.
And there is also this great comic of Luffy turning into crocodile.
Though admittedly that's not canon.
So, at least now we know that Crocodile did not know that Luffy was Dragon's child and
so he has an excuse for impaling and mortally wounding his potential kid.
But that doesn't proof anything yet.
Nooo, because for that we have to look at Marineford and specifically Crocodile's actions
during marineford after it was revealed that Luffy was dragon's son.
Because after his initial attempt to attack Whitebeard, eh actually did a few things that
seemed extremely out of character, because he went of his way and endangered himself
without really needing to.
And keep in mind that we never got to see his reaction to the Luffy-Dragon reveal, just
as we got no reaction to rogers execution.
Here's all the out of character stuff he suddenly started doing.
He stopped Ace's execution with the excuse that he didn't want Sengoku to have the pleasure
of victory, which if you ask me is pig pile of poop.
Some people will tell you it’s because Luffy inspired him like Luffy does many others,
but what exactly is Luffy doing in Marineford that he didn’t in Impel Down or even Alabasta?
Nothing.
That means Crocodile would have an entire change of heart for no apparent reason whatsoever,
and completely off screen.
Then, he and Das bones hold of Mihawk to help Luffy.
Suddenly Crocodile orders his only remaining loyal man to protect the life of the person
that ruined his plans and put him in prison?
He might have to refrain from killing Luffy because of Ivankov, but he surely wouldn't
go out of his way to send his best man off for him.
And When Mihawk questions why he’d protect Luffy, Crocodile’s only response is this:
[not in the best mood]
Again, why should he suddenly be in a bad mood?
Maybe because he just found out he once stabbed his own child in the gut and left him to die?!
But if those weren't enough yet, he does the unthinkable and faces off with Akainu, probably
the strongest person present in the entire war.
So the fact that as Luffy is laying there uncouncious and weak, with Jimbe slumped over
him, Akainu about to deliver the final blow, Crocodile coming out of no where to save him
and safely transporting him to law, is once again is so telling.
This is a man that shouldn't have been on luffy's side for so many reasons, that has
left people behind for being useless or too week, seemingly out of nowhere goes full Zoro-mode
for Luffy, willing to sacrifice himself for luffy.
There were plenty of other characters that could have essentially done the same exact
thing, but Oda choice to have Crocodile.
Who then has this epic shot.
Standing side by side with all of the whitebeard commanders, his sworn enemies, as a protective
mother that would sacrifice anything for her child, because Crocodile now knows that Luffy
is his son.
Mothers in one piece play an incredibly important role and there are also a few other possibilities
for Luffy's mom.
Make sure to check out that video here if you haven't seen it.