- [Liam] Hello, and welcome to the Grand Line Review,
your source for everything One Piece.
And today we are here to talk about
a most intriguing statement made
by a certain fortuneteller in Chapter 990,
which is pretty, you know,
balls-deep into Act Three of Wano.
So if you're an anime-only watcher
concerned about spoilers,
I just want you to know that it's not really my mission
to dive deeply into the core details of Act Three,
but it is going to be unavoidable
in this particular discussion.
So there's your warning.
I have many other videos safe for you to watch,
but for everyone else we are, of course, talking
about a particularly impactful prediction
made by the ever curious Basil Hawkins.
In Chapter 990 with the raid on Onigashima
now in full force,
Hawkins has stated that the chances
of a quote-unquote certain man surviving until tomorrow
are 1%.
Not a great number for the certain man in question.
Not a great number at all.
But this does leave us with the ever burning question
of who this certain man is,
of which there are a great number of options.
But firstly, I would like to point out
that however low this may sound, 1% is quite significant,
especially compared to when Kaido attacked Kid's base,
and Hawkins predicted that he had a 0% chance of escape.
Compared to that, 1% is quite surprisingly hopeful.
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But, now, onto some more serious business.
We are here to figure out who this certain man is.
And I did dive into it quite briefly
during my chapter review,
but due to the speedy nature of those things,
there was one amazing candidate who I completely overlooked,
and that would be Diez Drake.
I think it would make all of the sense in the world
for Drake to be the owner of this 1% survival rate.
And quite frankly, this thought process all has to do
with Drake's very next line,
which was "one percent? Sucks to be him."
And it's quite on the nose.
But I think that would be one of these funny,
little narrative hints that Drake was accidentally
referring to himself,
an idea, which I think is enforced further
at the tail end of the chapter
when Drake gets ambushed by Queen, Who's Who, and Hawkins.
Because I really do quite like the idea that Hawkins,
having concocted this plot with the other two,
is taking one last opportunity
to see how whole situation with Drake
is likely going to play out.
That is very in keeping with how Hawkins operates,
making readings right down to the very moment of conflict,
just to make sure that he goes into a situation
with as much information as possible,
especially because he would have been the instigator
of all of this, actually, as neither Queen nor Who's Who
would have had any idea without his information.
And also the 1% fortune ties in very nicely
with the end of Chapter 990 as well,
because of Drake's whole inner monologue about hope
and there still being hope and hope and stuff,
culminating in his offer to fight alongside Luffy
as an army of one.
And, you know, I really don't think
that there is a strong indicator of real hope
than a mere, 1% chance of survival,
sort of like the idea that hope can only be found
within the deepest pit of despair, all poetic and such,
the idea being that there is really no need for hope,
if the odds seem much more beneficial to you at the time.
So I'm actually kind of annoyed that I missed that
in the chapter review,
although, to be fair, when I write those things,
it is usually like six in the morning here in Australia.
So sometimes the more subtle nuance of chapters
can be a bit lost in translation to me there.
But as much as I do currently love the idea
that we are referring to Drake,
that is far from the only viable option here.
So let's move on to someone
who many would consider to be the obvious choice.
And that is, of course, Mr. Luffy.
So all that makes a lot less sense to me, anyway,
in the context of Chapter 990 alone
for Hawkins measuring Luffy,
it is still entirely in keeping with his character.
You know, we have this unprecedented raid occurring
and the very precariously placed Hawkins.
Well, he might be weighing up his well, you know,
betrayal options,
and should Luffy have a fantastic chance of survival
on this battlefield,
then that might become the right party to align with.
And I do maintain that a 1% survival chance for Luffy
would be pretty fitting with the current events.
As much as things might be going oddly well right now,
Luffy is still in the most dire of situations,
going up directly against two emperors of the sea.
So by all means his survival rate should be low.
And just as with Drake,
Luffy can work with that 1%.
So long as it isn't 0%, we're all good here,
once again, finding hope within the depths
of the opposite of hope.
I don't know why I didn't just say despair again,
but I'm not rerecording it.
Now, something I did not mention in the chapter review
would be a pretty huge conflicting bit of information,
actually, which it comes to us courtesy
of all the way back to Act One of Wano,
when Luffy and Zoro first encountered Hawkins,
he did a reading,
which came to the conclusion
that Luffy's chance of survival, one month from then
was a whopping 19%,
a fair bit higher than 1%, maths would tell us,
which isn't to say that probabilities can't change,
or that they might be significantly less accurate
the further out you're trying to read them.
But it always struck me as a bit odd
that Hawkins chose one month specifically.
I mean, narratively, we obviously know why,
because it lines up perfectly with the raid on Onigashima.
It was just a strange and almost arbitrary move for Hawkins
to make as a character.
But it was great move for the actual story,
which One Piece is.
And in any case, this event is what gives me
the most pause for thought
when attributing this 1% survival chance to Luffy,
just because it is a direct contradiction of another reading
that lines up with the same sort of time destination.
Things could have changed.
We obviously don't really know how Hawkins' powers work.
But for now that's that.
So moving on to another widely speculated character
who I also touched on, we have Kaido,
and I would love for the reading to be referring to Kaido,
but my brain refuses to allow me to go down that path.
It just feels like reading Kaido's chances of survival as 1%
would be a far more impactful moment than we see here.
And my main argument in the review was
that Hawkins would probably seem
just a little bit more shocked.
Upon further reflection, though,
there's nothing to say that this is the first time
he's seen this reading,
and maybe he's been keeping an eye on Kaido
for a while now.
In fact, I'm almost certain he has.
It's just tricky with Hawkins though,
because it's hard to know how resigned he is
to being a part of the Beasts Pirates.
Unlike the other Worst Generation members,
he doesn't act out of his own core drive,
rather he lets the cards tell him
what would be the best course of action,
which is fun and unique,
and one of the many reasons why I love Hawkins,
and if anything, and rather fittingly,
it does make him more predictable than the other members.
But given that he has chosen to give up Drake here
rather than increase the chaos with his own betrayal,
I think we can quite safely say
that the 1% man is not Kaido.
So next up let's move to a potentially
much more tragic figure, being Trafalgar Law.
I think he might also be a good option
because he's very much being the main pain in the ass
for Hawkins all throughout Wano thus far.
So it makes sense for Hawkins to be keeping tabs on him.
In addition, though, Law does slot in quite nicely as well
due to the whole Will of D. thing,
because as much as I played up the 1%
as being a great indicator of hope,
that only works in certain cases,
like the impossible existence that is Luffy
and the appropriate theming that is Drake.
However, it is still 1%, and that is generally very bad.
And that could add another death flag to Mr. Law,
who rather unfortunately already has two of those,
the first of which is
that being the user of the Ope Ope no Mi,
he is seemingly destined to give up his own life
to perform the perennial youth surgery.
But in addition to that, he is also a D.,
a D. outside of the Monkey clan,
which generally does not bode too well for those characters,
as they have a habit of dying rather tragically,
and before their time.
albeit with a nice smile on their faces.
So as much as I don't know if I'm personally sold
on the idea of a Law sacrifice, especially on Wano,
I could see it happening.
He's just such an unfortunate man in that regard.
Sticking with the Worst Generation, though,
I think that Kid could also be submitted
as a potential candidate here.
We haven't really gone too deeply into his character,
but his presence in this conflict is absolutely massive.
And he has a prior relationship with Hawkins.
In fact, at one stage,
the two did have genuine allegiance towards each other,
which was ruined by one Scratchmen Apoo.
So Hawkins could still very much be looking to reignite
that alliance and stay true to their original intentions.
It's just that with a 1% survival chance,
maybe Kid isn't quite the best guy
to be turning to right now.
That's something we would definitely need
a lot more context for, though.
It's very hard to imagine Kid
becoming incredibly relevant in this arc,
just to very potentially die,
especially due to being such a primary component
of the Worst Generation.
And in fact, the only other member
that is being touted as more noteworthy than Luffy
in any way, Blackbeard excepted, of course.
But we still have very little to go by with Kid.
He's still kind of an enigma of this whole arc.
So any more talk in this regard would be pure speculation,
and, that's right,
even purer than this whole video of speculation thus far.
So I'm going to move on to a more fun idea,
which is that Hawkins might be reading himself.
What a twist.
Although I do have to admit this as something I more enjoy
as an idea rather than anything I can support
with actual evidence.
I just really love the thought
of Hawkins being forced into the Beasts Pirates
and perpetually trying to read his way out of it.
And for example, should he now see his own chances
of survival by tomorrow being 1%,
then that could send him into quite the panic,
causing him to take drastic action like he did
in Chapter 990, revealing Drake's betrayal.
And if anything, Hawkins could see a potential Luffy victory
as a death sentence for him,
and now might be in the motions
of trying to do everything possible to make sure
that Kaido and the Beasts Pirates come out on top.
To me, that would be a pretty fascinating use of Hawkins,
a man so governed by fortunetelling,
doing everything in his power,
in an attempt to change his own fortune.
However, this is One Piece
and I don't quite know likely that is.
Although if I was to rank all of these candidates thus far,
I would put Hawkins possibly above that
of both Kaido and Kid,
because at least it makes sense with the character
and his overall motifs.
And to be perfectly honest,
this list of potential characters may as well be endless.
We could attribute it to anyone.
And for example, Yamato, maybe.
This is something I thought about in the chapter review,
but I didn't really bring it up.
However, there could be something quite tragically sound
about Yamato facing a similar end to Oden,
AKA a bit of the old death,
perhaps, you know, helping to deal the final blow
to Kaido or freeing Wano, to open its borders
and fulfilling Oden's final will,
but tragically passing away as a result.
Sounds kind of cool, but I don't know why Hawkins would,
well, care enough to be reading Yamato
as opposed to everyone else on Onigashima.
It's a real stretch, as are most other candidates
that I've seen proposed elsewhere.
I mean I've seen a fair few people raise the possibility
of Momonosuke or other members of the Tobi Roppo,
or even key members of the Beasts Pirates.
And in each and every case,
I just can't quite latch on to the idea.
I mean, yes, it could be a completely random,
left-field character,
like I've even seen Hyogoro proposed,
but I just don't think it would hold the same sort
of dramatic oomph.
And we all know that Oda is all about that oomph.
Plus, I mean, Hawkins taking the time
to read someone like Hyogoro,
as opposed to the plethora of other magnetic individuals
around currently engaged in the storm of fate
just seems like quite a waste of time.
Wherever he happens to be looking,
Hawkins is keeping his eye on the prize.
And the prize is never going to be Hyogoro.
But eventually these readings aren't going
to clear his path forward.
So perhaps the certain man's 1% survival chance
was not quite enough to push Hawkins as needed,
but he is in such a unique position in the series right now.
Hawkins knows a lot more about
what's going on in Wano right now
than anyone else in the story,
or even us readers, YouTubers, theorists, whatever.
He's just sitting there silently looking
into his equivalent of the Matrix
and maneuvering accordingly.
And so Hawkins is someone to always keep your eye on.
He's kind of like a compass telling you
which way things are likely to go.
And right now that compass is pointing very,
very south, with him, still firmly aligned with Kaido.
So with that in mind,
I think we have some tough times ahead on Wano,
although probably not tougher than the certain man
and his 1% chance of survival.
But what do you guys think?
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