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Because it certainly wasn't presented to us in a particularly memorable way, despite the monumental importance that such an event would have held. And that importance was definitely not lost on the very few characters who we did see discussing it, however I think that over time this event has been lost in the annals of history. And some of that does make sense because it did take place directly before Marineford, so the whole white beard business kind of overshadowed all of that, but basically the first we heard of this occurred 29 hours before the scheduled execution of Port Gastiais, and story wise, we were currently in the Impel Down Ark. So there was this brief scene outside of the prison featuring one of my favourite Vice Admiral's being Momonga, waiting to escort Boa Hancock, and one of his officers made a rather urgent report which went a little something like this. Vice Admiral Momonga, red-haired shanks has been involved in some minor clashes in the new world, to which Momonga says, shanks, are you sure? Why now? Against who? Kaido, one of the four emperors. But you know, just let's pause for a second right there because I do love the idea that this random Marine has to go to the trouble of telling Momonga that Kaido is one of the four emperors, you know, as if this Vice Admiral wasn't aware of that fact. It's one of those things where it's clearly intended to inform the audience because Kaido wasn't a hugely known name to us back then, like we'd heard it here and there, and we'd seen a terrible silhouette of him, but weekly readers or new readers would have needed that reminder. But then our fine Marine also states that Kaido is trying to take advantage of the current situation to kill Whitebeard and shanks interfere. At least that's what they think at headquarters. Everyone is on high alert right now, and of course Momonga's resigned reply is simply, how quickly these crises can develop. These are turbulent waters indeed, but who can stop a fight among the four emperors? And the funny thing is, at the time, we didn't even really know the true weight of that statement. The most we'd seen was that iconic shot of shanks and Whitebeard clashing, which split the sky open, but our eyes would not be truly open to the power of the four emperors until we saw Whitebeard in full force at Marineford, as well as exploring Big Mom during Hawkeye Island and Kaido during Wano. However, despite Momonga's despairful approach to the situation, we do know that this skirmish was stopped somehow. As shanks would go on to arrive at Marineford, and in chapter 580, this conflict is referred to once again, very briefly though, with yet another random Marine stating, the scuffle with another of the four emperors Kaido was only yesterday, and he's here already, referring to shanks of course. And once again I'll point out that this random Marine felt the need to remind his fellow Marines that Kaido was one of the four emperors. Once again, that was probably just for the audience, because by that stage, it had been exactly 50 chapters or just over a year of real time, since we had last heard the name Kaido. So you know, that reminder probably was necessary. Although I do prefer the headcanon that every Marine treats every other Marine like a moron. That really is the extent to which we understand this conflict, but there are a lot of inferences that one can take from those scenes. Although they tend to bring up more questions than they answer. And first up I want to bring in question the idea that shanks and Kaido actually engaged in conflict personally. For those familiar with this event amongst the fanbase, there does seem to be an accepted opinion that these two did actually fight, which I think spawns from the language used, which tends to refer to the greater forces of shanks and Kaido as shanks and Kaido. As if their factions were some sort of monolithic entity, which isn't too far from the truth, I suppose. However, from the very first statement made, I think we can safely assume that this was not an example of the two of them engaging in combat. The report made to Mimonga very specifically makes mention of the fact that there were minor clashes that took place in the New World. And I really cannot see a fight between two emperors, even the briefest of one being referred to as minor. And secondly, the Marine also only states that red-haired shanks had been quote involved in all of this business. Which could mean that yes, he acted personally, but it could also mean that he instructed his forces to engage in this skirmish. Now that isn't to say that things didn't eventually escalate into a more personal conflict, following this initial report of minor skirmishes, but that is where we start to get into the truly deeply speculative territory. The thing about this is though, is that Kaido's goal was to allegedly kill Whitebeard. So with that small but crucial piece of information in mind, it is pretty unfathomable to think that he would not set sail himself in order to complete this task. Kaido is somewhat arrogant actually, extremely arrogant, but it's not to the point where he would believe that his subordinates were capable of killing the strongest man in the world, as well as dealing with the full brunt of his forces alone. So for Kaido to have a real proper attempt at this, he would have surely mustered the bulk of the beast pirates and sailed with them in the New World. And similarly, in order to prevent an effort like this, Shanks must have gathered a large degree of his forces to even have a chance of successfully intercepting this fleet to allow Whitebeard to take on the Marines as unhindered as possible. And also, you know, prevent an all-out war between two of the four emperors, because that is most likely what would have happened had Shanks not acted. Kaido would have reached the Whitebeard pirates before their arrival at Marineford, and an entirely different paramount war would have taken place, very potentially still resulting in the death of Whitebeard, with the strongest man in the world taking on the strongest creature in the world. Which would have been pretty cool to see, but alas, no, it was not meant to be. But knowing that Shanks intercepted Kaido and prevented this brings up another question, which is how did he prevent the situation from erupting into another world reshaping war, given that it was still a conflict between two of the four emperors, just not Whitebeard? And it really is quite a puzzling thought, more so in retrospect than it was at the time, actually. Given that we did not know anything about Kaido during the Marineford Arc, I think it was easy to believe that Shanks had simply convinced Kaido to retreat somehow, either by using logic, or by the simple threat of all-out war with the red-haired pirates, which he eventually used to stop the paramount war. But then you get to know Kaido over the years, and you realize that that very much feels like what he would have wanted. Kaido is thrilled at the prospect of plunging the world into war, and he is not the type to be intimidated by anyone or anything. I mean, just the way that we've seen him casually disregard Big Mom, and even confidently embark on his mission to kill Whitebeard, shows us that Kaido essentially views himself as the very top of the food chain in the One Piece world. And it's actually honestly quite difficult to argue with that acitation when it comes to raw power anyway. So his reaction to Shanks appearing probably would have been similar to Whitebeard's reaction to Shanks, when we saw the meat after the Anisobi Arc, with Whitebeard holding this deeply rooted sense of superiority. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really don't see a case where Kaido was either convinced or intimidated by Shanks to the point where he would retreat and allow Shanks to sail onto Marineford. And you would think that would leave one simple option, which is to fight. Because with Kaido's personality in mind, seeing him transform into a dragon and just blatantly attack Shanks is in no way out of the question. But at the same time, that also doesn't make an awful lot of sense with the other puzzle pieces that we have in play. Quite specifically the fact that Shanks did arrive at Marineford with, at the very least, his core crew of red-hair pirates, and all of them including Shanks himself, looked entirely unharmed, fresh, and ready for action. So not only are there no physical indications of a heated battle, but it also doesn't make a ton of sense thinking about the timeline. Because once again the first reports of actions of the red-hair pirates occurred 29 hours before Ace was scheduled to be executed. At which point he was definitely located firmly in the New World and the Paramount lore itself began anywhere from 26 to 29 hours after that in real time. And it would have lasted a couple of hours at most, at which point Shanks arrived to put an end to it. So that really does not give the red-hair pirates an awful lot of time to both confront Kaido and then to arrive at Marineford. Especially with what we know now about top figures in this world battling for days and days on end. So with all of that in mind, I am forced to conclude that Shanks somehow managed to halt Kaido without excessive confrontation, and thus prevented a secondary Paramount lore from ever beginning. And with that conclusion, we also come up with a series of potential scenarios under which this occurred, some of which are more plausible than others. And the first of which I'd like to examine is simply fate. Now this might initially sound like a cop-out, but you know that's just one piece sometimes, because this series is heavily subject to fate, especially surrounding major figures like this. And an example of fate in action would be say Shanks intercepting Kaido's fleet, and then all of a sudden the weather shifts and a deadly storm occurs, because remember we are also in the New World, and it is prone to that sort of dumb foolery. And there is precedent for Oda doing that sort of thing which happened in chapter zero, where Roger confronts a golden lion cheeky and his massive fleet, only to be saved by the hand of fate via a giant storm. And as Deus Ex Machina as it is, I quite like this idea, because it very effectively explains why Kaido would have retreated. I mean, think of a scenario where Shanks stands his ground, giving Kaido effectively two options. Have the majority of his ship sunk by a storm, or retreat to the safety of Wano, and then he just very very begrudgingly retreats, allowing Shanks to move forward. Another explanation though is one I've already dismissed, which involved the Elt word being logic. Very dangerous word to use in anime related videos, but basically the idea is that emperors exist in a very precarious position, and there is often no good reason for one emperor to engage in conflict with another, because it would leave both parties compromised, and more easily engulfed by the remaining emperors, or even the world government. And I really really don't like this idea, but I think there is a slim chance that Kaido made the logical decision not to engage with the red-haired pirates, with his primary objective being perhaps to sand which whitebeard between the beast pirates and the world government, and take advantage of things that way. However when faced with a direct war against another emperor, well that might have been a much less enticing proposition, and so Kaido made the odd decision to bite his time, and to continue preparations for thrusting the world into war. And I guess it is a reasonable argument, it's just being applied to a heavily unreasonable individual. Then of course there is another potential explanation, which is perhaps underwhelming, but possible nonetheless, which is that Kaido made the decision to attack whitebeard whilst in a drunken stupa, as that appears to be how he spends the majority of his life, and then maybe by the time that he had set out to sea and confronted Shanks, he sobered up, and called his fleet back, or actually maybe he even proceeded to become even more intoxicated, and decided to go home on a drunken whim. I highly doubt this option as well though, because from what we've been shown in the series, Kaido is capable of sobering up exceptionally quickly. But as for my final and most outlandish explanation, I have seen the idea floated around every now and then, that Kaido was never actually intending to kill whitebeard, but was actually mustering his forces to either help whitebeard, or take this opportunity to crush the world government. The latter of which I can see far more reasonable than the former. And in this case, Shanks intercepting him does still go on to make sense, because as far as we know, Shanks does seem to have some sort of relationship with the world government, and even if he didn't, he may just not have enjoyed the idea of a world ruled entirely by the four emperors. And I make this statement because the only evidence we have of Kaido's true intentions was the report from the random marine to Momonga, who stated that Kaido was targeting whitebeard, but he also explicitly expresses his uncertainty at this by saying, at least that's what HQ thinks, so this could simply be false information. Although once again, that could be an admittedly outlandish thought, because Oda is generally a very straightforward author, who does not tend to invoke the devices of the unreliable narrator, or unreliable exposition or that often, if at all. Pretty much everything he does is for the benefit of imparting a truthful story to the readers, and you can see this in the examples that I went out of my way to point out, where random marines keep having to remind each other that Kaido is one of the four emperors, which is for the benefit of the reader, not the benefit of the characters. So in the end, it's quite a fascinating historical examination of the series, and another one of those moments where the very fate of the world could have radically shifted and reshaped one piece as we know it. On this occasion though, balance was maintained, be it by fate, logic, intoxication, or some sort of hidden reasoning. Whatever the case, this world very likely owes a great debt of gratitude to one red-haired shanks, who not only put an end to the actual paramount war, but in the background, he prevented a second paramount war from ever beginning. 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, 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 feed. But for now, this has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.