- [Narrator] Big news, everyone!
Birds have now taken over the world.
Behold your new albatross overlord
and as his first command,
he is mandating that you press the subscribe button
for the "Grand Line Review."
In order to receive regular "One Piece" content
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Hello and welcome to the "Grand Line Review," a source
for everything "One Piece" and today we are here
to discuss a rather provocative title,
being the most powerful character in the series.
And this thumbnail has probably already given
away who I'm going to claim this character is,
which is inevitably going to queue a bunch
of comments accusing me of click baiting,
mostly by people who don't watch the video anyway,
and all I have to say to those people
who aren't listening so this is pointless,
but thank you for engagement, I appreciate it.
But I wholeheartedly believe that there is no
individual in this world who holds more power
than Big News Morgans, and this is primarily due
to the basic definition of the word power
which I will say right of the bat should not, I repeat,
should not, be conflated with that of strength.
Because I'm sure there's also a lot of people
who saw this title and went (scoffs) Morgans couldn't beat
Kaido in a 1v1 so he cannot be the most powerful.
The most powerful living character is
Kaido because he can punch harder than anyone else.
Meanwhile, what power actually is,
is either the ability to do something in a particular
way or the capacity to influence the behavior
of others or a course of events, and hmm, all of a sudden
it's starting to look like Big News Morgans is
slotting very, very nicely into the definition of power.
And as I'm going to go on to show,
he probably does so much more so than any other figure
in "One Piece."
Now, in case anybody watching this video is,
for whatever reason, unaware, Big News Morgans is
the President of the World Economic Times, the key
source of delivering news and current events
throughout the globe.
Because despite the fact that visual transponder snails
do indeed exist, and have actually been used
to broadcast globally, such as with the Paramount War,
the "One Piece" world still very much operates
via newspaper, and literal carrier pigeon.
But the words printed in said
newspaper are a huge source of power
that Morgans and Morgans alone wields.
We'll get into that in a bit more detail
though because to round down our introduction
to mister birdman, I should also say that he isn't actually
a bird, he's assumedly a human who has eaten
a Zoan-type devil fruit,
being the Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Albatross,
which was revealed in his Vivre Card entry,
and it would appear
that he just prefers to stay in either full beast
or human beast hybrid form as a personal life choice,
which yeah sure, but as a birdman,
he is a fixed point of high society.
Not quite as high as the world nobles,
however, I would have no qualms in calling Morgans by far,
the most connected individual in the series.
A very prominent example of which can be seen
in his introduction as he was an honored guest
at Big Mom's tea party.
So he has a close relationship with at least one
emperor of the sea, but in addition to that,
he has also connected seemingly every major facet
of underworld trade, and in fact,
Morgans is even known as one
of the emperors of the Underworld.
So this gives him access to a level of power that not
even the World Government would have comfortable
access to, although one of the other emperors
of the underworld is a CP-0 agent so maybe
that's not so true.
Speaking of though, Morgans has quite
a profound relationship with said
World Government which was displayed
through Stussy, the aforementioned CP-0 agent.
They have a give and take dynamic with Morgans being
able to obtain exclusive scoops in exchange
for omitting certain details from events, or in some
cases just plain printing propaganda
for the World Government.
And I take the time, a lot of time,
to point this out because there is a common
misconception I see a fair bit that Morgans works with,
or even for, the World Government as their media branch.
But that is blatantly untrue.
Big News Morgans and the World Economic Times is
rather amazingly, an individual entity of its own
which only makes it that much more terrifying
and powerful because let's think about that for a second,
this bird man has a near monopoly on global news
that no emperor of the sea
or even the World Government can even come close
to competing with, much less conquering.
In fact, I'll let this quote from Morgans pretty
much some up his feelings on the matter.
"Don't mess with Big News Morgans if you know
"what's good for you.
"I may be a money-hungry scrooge but first and foremost
"I am a journalist.
"As a DJ of the printed page,
"I get hearts dancing and I'm the one who decides
"what news is fit to print."
So yeah, he is the most connected figure
in the series essentially able to access anyone
or anything he so desires, and Morgans is also able
to speak to almost literally everybody in the world.
Whatever Morgans decides to print
in his newspaper becomes an undisputed global fact.
Even if it was completely fabricated.
He can create whatever he wants,
he can sway public opinion in any direction,
and if he really so desired it he could influence
and incite major world events.
Now that is what I would call power,
and if you still don't believe me yet then
that's fine because we still have not gotten
to the truly meaty bits here because I think you'll
be gobsmacked at just how integral the very concept
of media has been in shaping this world
that we know and love.
But first of all I do want to point
out that obviously Morgans' power is not unlimited,
he can't just take something from nothing, for example,
he could not just publish a front page article
stating that Tonjit had become the Pirate King because,
well, it's too absurd.
There always needs to be an element of truth
in what he's doing which is shown to us quite
brilliantly in the example of Luffy being published
as the fifth emperor.
Morgans could not just claim this about any old schmuck,
he needed to capitalize on the infamy
that Luffy had built over his pirate career,
much of which would have been reported
on by the World Economic Times actually
but after Luffy had reached that critical mass
of chaotic events under his belt,
Morgans had the license to effectively crown
Luffy as an Emperor of the Sea.
And whether our rubber lad deserves it or not, or actually
whether he even wants it or not which he most
certainly doesn't, that is indeed what happened.
And there was nobody in the world that could stop this.
There were people like Blackbeard who say it's too
early for Luffy to be an Emperor or those like
Kaido and Big Mom who deny Luffy entirely,
or even the World Government who would rather, you know,
not create another gigantic infamous pirate faction,
but all of them are completely powerless to stop Morgans.
And I've talked about the Luffy emperor thing
a lot on this channel, and so to get
away from that I actually have an even better example
to display the very power within Morgans' grasp.
Because what if I told you that he was responsible
for creating the Pirate King?
Very bold claim there I know, but something
that recently twigged for me in regards
to Roger's journey is how exactly he became
the Pirate King, so much so that I am planning
a whole video on that subject matter but early
spoiler alert for part of it,
it wasn't by circumnavigating the globe or landing on tail.
Roger became the Pirate King because that's what was printed
in the news.
Roger didn't come up with that title himself,
nor did his contemporaries,
in fact there's a fairly amusing section that we have
of him in the series reading an article about himself,
and in the newspaper article it said,
"The man who achieved wealth, fame and power,
"the King of the Pirates, Gold Roger."
To which Roger replies,
hey that's Gol D. Roger but I gotta say,
king of the pirates, that has a nice ring to it.
And that, ladies and gentleman, was the birth
of the entire concept of a pirate king.
Now I will say that obviously I cannot confirm
that Morgans himself came up with the name,
although he certainly is old enough to have
been president of the World Economic Times during
this era, but I do have to admit that it could have
been the work of Morgans' predecessor.
That is besides the point though.
The fact is that one decision made
by a media conglomerate turned
Roger into the most infamous figure in I suspect
the history of the world, or at least the world so far,
I'm sure that Luffy is going to shatter that.
But furthermore, through this,
the World Economic Times also indirectly began
the Great Age of Piracy because if Roger had not
been labeled as the Pirate King by the organization
then he would not have had command
over the world's attention during his execution,
and this is just the greatest example of that quote
from Morgans I gave you before in action because it lit
a fire of desire throughout the globe
and unprecedented masses of people set out to start
a life of piracy in the hopes of becoming the next
Pirate King, a title that had been completely made up.
And whether it was Morgans who did this back then or not,
the fact remains that he is currently the caretaker
of that power.
When the time is right,
it is once again going to fall to him to,
as officially as possible,
crown the next Pirate King which I think we can
fairly say will be to be Luffy.
Spoiler alert for the end of "One Piece" I guess.
And by then, yes,
Luffy will have earned it just as Roger had,
but the world is not going to recognize him
until that is widely reported because that is
how media works.
There's a kind of generally misconception
that news is a reactive
entity you know, an event happens and an outlet
reports that fact that happened,
but it's actually the other way around.
The news tells you what to think, and that gives
Morgans insane power because he has a global monopoly
on people's hearts and minds.
They believe what this newspaper says,
en masse and generally unquestionably.
And look, if that's what happened
with the Pirate King, then you'd best believe
that's also how things went down for some
of our other important titles like emperors for example.
Where did those titles come from?
Well, given who these erratic figures are I highly
doubt that they gathered together and came
to a consensus of what to call themselves.
No, its more than likely the exact same thing
that happened with Roger, they all woke up,
read the newspaper one day, and found
out that they were each considered one
of the Four Emperors of the Sea.
And yes there is also
an example for things like names which can be spread
more organically word of mouth style.
For example, a random pirate having drinks
with other pirates, and he casually recognizes
these figures and calls them the Four Emperors,
which everyone in the immediate vicinity
likes the sound of, and then it spreads
through common vernacular.
And maybe that does become
so common that the President
of the World Economic Times decides to publish
that name but that is the most important act.
Stating that title in the world's primary source
of news is what makes it quote unquote official.
It's what makes people pay that much extra attention
to Whitebeard, Kaido, Big Mom and Shanks.
In fact, actually there's no guarantee
that Shanks even was one of the original emperors.
He was apparently crowned four years before Luffy set
out from Goa Kingdom so he could have been quite
the newcomer really, but who do you think gave
Shanks the emperor title?
Would it have been his fellow emperors?
Probably not considering
Whitebeard completely disregarded him during
the Return to Water 7 Arc, and given how volatile
Big Mom and Kaido are I just don't see them rolling
out the red carpet for a person who was a literal
child when they were all making waves in the world
as members of the Rocks Pirates.
And it's the same
with Blackbeard actually, sure he acquired some
territory and defeated the remnants
of the Whitebeard Pirates with his own forces,
but once again we're not going to cut
to Big Mom in Whole Cake Island going yep,
he's an emperor now.
No, she would deny that to her last living breath.
The only person in this world who has the power
to conclusively label someone as an emperor,
or anything else quite frankly, is currently
Big News Morgans.
I am one 100% certain that's what he did
with Blackbeard, and it's entirely possible
that that's what happened with Shanks as well,
and the original emperors,
along with Roger and the Pirate King title.
And while Morgans once again cannot do
this with just anybody,
he is still the Kingmaker of "One Piece."
His words hold unparalleled power to completely
reshape the knowledge and accepted standards
of every living being in this series.
Under the right conditions,
Big News Morgans can make anything possible.
If he so desired it,
he could probably even commence a global
revolution against the World Government by aligning himself
with the revolutionaries and publishing some
of their knowledge.
Luckily for the World Government I suppose,
that's not what Morgans is all about.
But he is still
a terrifying journalist who wants nothing more
than to make people's hearts dance to his beat.
Whether that dance is one of happiness,
sadness or even terror, I'm not so sure that matters.
What is important is that he is
the DJ of this entire planet.
Morgans has complete and sole discretion
over dictating the mood and atmosphere of the world
which is far more powerful than a mere emperor,
the hidden king Im, or even the former
or future Pirate King.
But what do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments
below or even join my discord server, and if you'd like
to see more videos like this then please do go
and check out some of my other content,
or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious
"One Piece" business uploaded straight
into your YouTube feeds.
But for now this has been
the "Grand Line Review," and I'll see you next time.