Blackbeard might have a Mythical Zoan fruit and by the series’ end his powers might be
so broken that he can control the seas
themselves.
Big spoiler warning if you haven’t caught up with the manga yet, but the last few chapters of One
Piece were a complete game changer and that’s putting it lightly. Go ahead and click off the
video and spend some quality time on VIZ if you’re not there yet. We’ll see you back here soon!
Today we’re making the bittersweet decision that it might be time to retire some of our favorite
Blackbeard devil fruit theories from throughout the years. Goodbye to Cerberus. Goodbye to the
three brothers. Goodbye, even, to the Kraken. Because given the big reveal of Luffy’s zoan
devil fruit a much more interesting option has now opened up: That Teach has potentially
also has eaten a mythical zoan: the Hito Hito no Mi - Model “Moon God” … Blank…
Really the jury’s still out on what Oda is going to call this one. There’s no
telling what Oda will decide to name the Moon God of the One Piece world,
but since Sun God Nika is an original creation and not directly borrowed from any mythology,
it’s unlikely we’ll see a Tsukuyomi or Artemis fruit anytime soon. Instead, Blackbeard’s fruit
will probably also be based on a God unique to One Piece, merging different cultural ideas.
What’s up, I’m Manu and today we’re talking about
Marshall D. Teach and the secret identity of the Yami Yami no Mi.
I mean, for years and years we’ve theorized about what Blackbeard’s zoan will be. There are so many
threes associated with Teach - his three pistols, the three skulls on his flag, the three claws on
the weapon that he used to scar Shanks. Naturally, he’d have three devil fruits, too - a logia,
the Yami Yami no Mi - a paramecia, the Gura Gura no Mi - and a to-be-determined zoan fruit.
We thought for sure that this was hinting toward a Cerberus with its three heads or
a Kraken with its three hearts. And while those are still possibilities,
we have to welcome a new theory to the club.
So why do we suddenly think that he actually has a Moon God fruit? Well,
because Luffy has the Sun God fruit, of course!
Luffy and Blackbeard have always been opposites. Throughout the story, they have always paralleled
and mirrored one another. If Luffy is the sun, as you will see, it only makes sense that Blackbeard
is the moon, the two most common reoccurring symbols in the story! If you need a little
further convincing, though, here are just a few ways that these two characters counter each other:
First, their powers rival each other perfectly. Luffy is made of rubber which can insulate
against the earthquakes that Blackbeard can produce. Even though the quake-quake fruit
is considered the strongest paramecia with enough power to destroy the world,
Luffy has a built in immunity against it just like he did with Eneru’s lightning fruit.
And now, if Luffy’s a Sun God which could explain his strange ability
to produce flames, this runs counter to Blackbeard’s darkness-darkness fruit.
Those flames are literally light against the darkness.
It’s not just their powers that are opposites, though. Their parallels run
much deeper than that and are ingrained in their character traits. Luffy is the
Warrior of Liberation - he brings freedom to the people he meets on
every island. However, Blackbeard leaves a path of devastation behind him wherever he goes.
We first learned about Blackbeard on Drum Island - he and his crew scared off Wapol
and his legion of doctors, but also left the villagers in fear and turmoil. However,
after the Straw Hats visit Drum Island, they liberate the people from Wapol’s oppressive rule.
They also acquired one bonus cotton-candy loving reindeer mascot!
We also see Luffy and Blackbeard as opposites in the ways they attract their crew mates.
Luffy and Blackbeard both brought freedom to their crew in a sense. Zoro was literally released
from a stockade, Nami from Arlong’s clutches, and Robin from the likes of Crocodile and later
CP9. However, even the Straw Hats that weren’t freed from literal imprisonment were freed from a
figurative prison. Usopp, Sanji, and many others were lifted from their ordinary
lives and obligations. Luffy enabled them to travel the world in pursuit of their dreams.
Luffy gathers his strength from his crewmates and depends on them, but
also allows them to chase their own goals and find their own sense of
fulfillment. On the other hand, Blackbeard frees many of his crewmates from Impel Down,
but it’s so they can serve his interests - not so they can live out their own dreams…
...which for most of the Level 5 prisoners, you know, is probably
just murder actually…so maybe Pizarro does feel a deep sense of fulfillment after all.
Even the ways Luffy and Blackbeard received their fruits are opposites.
The Hito Hito no Mi: Model Nika almost seemed to seek out Luffy specifically. The Gorosei describe
it evading the World Government for 800 years, as if the fruit has a will of its own. It seems
like Luffy was chosen by the fruit to carry on the will of Joyboy and the Sun God Nika.
Contrast this with Blackbeard who was on the hunt for the Yami Yami no Mi and murdered his
crewmate Thatch in order to obtain its power. He also killed Whitebeard in order to take
his fruit as well. He wasn’t chosen by his fruit - he sought out his fruit at any cost.
Luffy just innocently taking a bit out of Shanks’ treasure just doesn’t give the same vibe as cold
blooded killing. I’d go as far as to say they give off the opposite vibe, actually.
In so many ways, Luffy and Blackbeard are diametrically opposed. They are
direct opposites. Therefore, if Luffy is the sun, it makes sense that Blackbeard would be the moon.
Obviously, the moon is important to One Piece as a whole, too. If the Sun God
Nika fruit was foreshadowed even from the first chapter being titled Romance Dawn and
from other clues like the Straw Hat’s ship being called the Thousand Sunny,
then you’d think there would to be a Moon God fruit, too with how prominent the moon is overall.
Here are just a few of the ways that the moon features heavily in the series:
Eneru’s entire goal was to sail the Arc Maxim up to the endless land mass that was “Fairy Vearth.”
And, in Eneru’s cover story we found that not only are there space pirates kicking it on the moon,
but there are many archaeological clues that the winged races from the sky islands actually
originally came from the moon. In the library of Ohara, we see a planetary model that shows the
One Piece world having multiple moons. The minks transform into their powerful Sulong forms in the
light of the full moon. And, the surnames of the Wano clans also contain the Kanji for “moon” for
instance, Kozuki means “Light Moon”, Shimotsuki means “Frost Moon”, and the list just goes on.
The moon isn’t just important for One Piece as a whole,
either. The moon also seems to hold special significance for Marshall D.
Teach himself. When Eiichiro Oda drew Blackbeard as a child, we see him sitting and crying while
a crescent moon hangs in the sky above him. We also know that Blackbeard never sleeps.
I mean, he really needs to try taking melatonin. His insomnia might be even worse than mine.
Maybe he, too, is just a coffee lover. Or maybe a Moon God is naturally active and alert at night?
We’ve established that due to the parallels between Blackbeard and Luffy, he probably posesses
a Moon God devil fruit. However, what exactly does that mean? What abilities does a Moon God have?
In the same way you wouldn’t expect a Sun God to be made of rubber, what can Blackbeard do with
this fruit? Sure, he already has the wildly strong mastery of earthquakes and darkness,
but in the same way Luffy’s new power is broken - ruled by his imagination and the boundlessness of
cartoon logic, what borderline unstoppable powers should we expect from Blackbeard moving forward?
Many people assume that Blackbeard will acquire a mythical zoan later on, but I think it’s more
likely that, like Luffy, he’s had his mythical zoan all along. In the same way that what Luffy
thought was the Gomu Gomu no Mi was actually the Hito Hito no Mi: Model Sun God Nika, Blackbeard’s
darkness darkness fruit might actually the Moon God fruit. This would play into the opposites once
again - Luffy thought he was a paramecia, but was a zoan. Well, Blackbeard says he’s a logia, but
is actually a zoan as well. But while Luffy was totally ignorant of his own fruit and still his,
Blackbeard is fully aware but makes other people ignorant of the true nature of his abilities.
The Yami Yami no Mi actually being the Hito Hito no Mi: Model Moon God Blank
…wow, we really need Oda to give us the name so we know what to call
it…Anyway, the Yami Yami no Mi actually being the…Moon God fruit… makes a lot of sense.
When Blackbeard fights Ace, Ace actually comments that Blackbeard’s fruit doesn’t
“feel” like a logia.
Ace would be something of an expert, too, wielding the Mera Mera no Mi. It makes sense,
too, because Blackbeard doesn’t turn into or generate darkness - he’s different from
every other logia fruit user we’ve met in that way.
Instead, the darkness fruit demonstrates strange powers. He sucks things in with a
power closer to gravity than darkness. He can negate someone else’s devil fruit powers when
he makes contact with them. Again, not something that logically makes sense with darkness. He also
amplifies the physical damage that he himself takes - none of these really make sense for a
darkness-darkness fruit, but could be explained by mysterious properties of a Moon God fruit.
It’s similar to how some of Luffy’s powers didn’t make sense for a rubber fruit - generating flames
with Red Hawk, changing directions with the jet culverin, even things as basic as Gear
2nd and Gear 3rd don’t really make sense without a heaping helping of anime logic.
But in addition to what Blackbeard can already do,
just like Luffy’s awakening unlocked a whole host of new abilities,
we’ll probably get some wild new powers once the truth of Blackbeard’s fruit is revealed.
One of those powers? Hitting the subscribe button.
But what else could a Moon God possibly do? Well,
we know that Oda takes tons of inspiration from mythologies
around the world. Maybe some of the lunar deities from across the globe can give us some hints.
The main Egyptian Moon God is Khonsu, but I’ll leave it to Oscar Isaac to explain that one.
However, the Egyptian God Thoth is also connected to the moon as well as being a
God of wisdom and knowledge. And while Blackbeard certainly possesses a lot of secret knowledge,
this doesn’t scream “power-up”. The Greek moon goddesses, such as Artemis, are often associated
with the hunt. Again, Blackbeard doesn’t seem connected to hunting or wild animals, but we
do see his crew hunting down powerful devil fruits like Jesus Burgess did in Dressrosa. Another Greek
Moon God, Selene, has power over illusions - While not Blackbeard himself, his crew mates
Shiryu and Catarina Devon use illusory powers in the form of invisibility and shapeshifting.
Across many, many cultures lunar deities are also connected to childbirth, but I hope for
all of our sakes that Blackbeard’s power is not connected to that because
Teach is that last person I want to see in the maternity ward.
Of course, with One Piece being a manga, we can’t forget about Japanese mythology.
In Shinto, the Moon God Tuskuyomi is set in conflict against the Sun God Amaterasu.
There’s not much to say about any inspiration for powers, but it’s worth noting that the
conflict between these two gods originated from a fight over food. That reminds me quite a bit
of a certain argument between Luffy and Blackbeard over some Jayan cherry pies.
Of course, I am leaving out one of the obvious powers associated with the moon,
though. One that’s especially significant given that One Piece is a
seafaring adventure. The moon’s gravity controls the tides.
Could the same “gravity” of the darkness-darkness fruit control the sea itself?
I know, I know: It sounds crazy, since water is a devil fruit user’s weakness,
but it’s not unheard of for a devil fruit user to manipulate water
indirectly. While they can’t go for a swim, we do see Aokiji freeze
massive tidal waves at Marineford and Charlotte Oven boils the sea around Whole Cake Island.
If Blackbeard could influence tides, then he could easily sink opposing ships and
have an advantage in combat over other devil fruit users. He could also make it extremely
difficult to travel to certain islands - in opposition to Luffy’s liberation,
he’d be literally restricting people’s freedom of travel.
Could a previous user of the Moon God fruit - or even the original Moon God itself - be
responsible for phenomena like the calm belt and the unpredictable weather of the Grand Line? We
know that devil fruit awakenings can leave a lasting impact on the world’s landscape, just
like how Aokiji and Akainu changed Punk Hazard’s environment. It would make total sense if a devil
fruit was responsible for the Grand Line itself, and why not one as powerful as a Moon God fruit?
Since Luffy’s fruit is boundless and only limited by his own imagination,
he needs a foe that has a similar level of over-poweredness - breaking the taboo
between devil fruits and water would be one way for Blackbeard to achieve
a borderline broken ability and make for a stellar final fight between the two.
Another possibility, aside from control over the oceans, could have to do with Blackbeard’s ability
to consume multiple fruits. This strange power, exclusive to Blackbeard, has yet to be explained.
We know that in Jaya, Luffy and Zoro referred to Blackbeard as “them” as if he had multiple
identities. Does the Moon God act as its own entity, separate from Teach? Does it have to do
with the gravity of pulling things in? Maybe it’s yet another opposite of Luffy’s abilities: While
the Sun God gives freedom and empowers others, the Moon God is able to take in more power for itself.
Now this video mostly talked about Blackbeards powers, but if you really want to understand who
Teach really is and why he is so important to the story, you really shouldn’t ignore this next video
here where I explain his entire character and the three brothers theory as a cherry on top.