 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today I'd just like to have a bit of a discussion surrounding Etra Oda's answer to Bug's Bunny, Carrot, and more specifically the idea of her potentially joining the Straw Hats. Now usually I don't like to go into this sort of speculation, at least not focusing an entire video on a topic like this anyway, and it's because the fan base can be a little maddening when it comes to suggesting future candidates to become Straw Hats, because almost literally any character who encounters Luffy, another crew member or just, you know, exists, all of a sudden gets this huge campaign behind them amongst the fan base to become the next Straw Hat. So people are all like Caesar Clowns can a join, or Karabofu Nakamura, or even Stelly for next crewmate bro. And in 99% of cases it's either people just shooting the shit or some very, very miscoated thoughts. And honestly that's probably what I would have said in regards to Carrot during the Zo'ak and for most of the Hawkeye Island arc even. However I think it's come to a point where her candidacy has reached a level of legitimacy that very few characters attain. And I'll give my personal opinion on this possibility in a bit, but for now I just want to clarify why I believe that Carrot could be set up to become the next Straw Hat crew member. And first up let's go over the standard narrative requirements to become a Straw Hat. Firstly you need a dream or desire, something that you are willing to fight desperately for, pursuing the impossible, and that will drive you to successfully conquer the ground line. This could be fairly simple like Zora wanting to become the world's greatest swordsman, or more of an idea like Jinbei wanting to foster relations between fishmen and humans. Doesn't matter as long as that driving force is there. Secondly you will require a tragic flashback of swords. No Straw Hat has been immune to tragedy and in fact those tragedies exist to inform the actions of our crew members in the modern day, usually via the theme of inherited will. And finally you need to have some sort of role aboard the ship. Just with the dreams this role could be simple like a navigator or helmsman or something more left field for a pirate crew like an archaeologist. Once again it doesn't matter so long as it exists. Now I believe that Carrot possesses all three of these qualifiers and we're going to tick them off along the way here. But to begin her journey I always found it a bit weird that Oda chose to include Carrot going into Whole Cake Island at all. Now she's definitely not the first auxiliary character to join the Straw Hats on a journey but characters who do travel with them usually have a very arc or saga specific purpose for doing so. And a perfect example of this would be Carrot's Mink Mentor Pedro. He also travelled with the crew to Whole Cake Island but he had some very clear story beats to accomplish in the form of seeking out the Ponyglyphs and eventually coming to sacrifice himself to allow the retrieval team to escape. And then you have Carrot who for the large majority of Whole Cake Island was just kind of there. Until she revealed her so long form she did not do a whole lot of substance. At least nothing that could not have been accomplished by another character in her place. Like there was nothing that specifically required Carrot in the way that Pedro was specifically required. Narratively someone else could have joined Chopper in the Mirror World to capture Brulee and you know it's someone else even could have held off Typhook's fleet or Oda could have done something like not include the fleet at all at that stage. However Oda really is not the type to include a character for the hell of it like this and so that indicates to me that Carrot's time with us on Whole Cake Island was a way for us to become familiar with her before her real story comes into focus. That's what I thought at the time anyway. In retrospect that is not accurate at all because upon revisiting the Whole Cake Island arc you begin to realize that the entire thing kind of served as Carrot's real-time flashback with Pedro becoming the source of her inherited will. In the same way that Chopper had Hero Look or Frankie had Tom etc the only difference is that it played out in real time instead of us needing to go to the scary Blackboard pages to discover her story so that is a big tick for tragic past. But this event even goes a step further and very potentially provides us with Carrot's dream or driving force and this has to do with Pedro's final words to Carrot being that the Straw Hats must escape no matter what and that one day she will understand the importance of keeping them alive as he believes that they will bring about the dawn of the new world. And that concept is quite vague to us at the audience at this stage but it holds great significance to the Ming tribe and it's even been mentioned by Ino Arashi as well so I think it would be a safe bet to claim that Carrot is also well aware of this concept and there you go. That is her dream right then and there. Carrot's desire on this adventure is to accompany the Straw Hats and bring about the dawn of the new world for the Ming tribe and especially for Pedro. And to dream that big to me seems far too important for Carrot just to become one of the extended allies of the crew. If this is indeed the case then it feels like a profound driving force equal to any of the dreams held by the current Straw Hats. But even with the dream ticked off we do still need to fulfill the third criteria which is does Carrot have a functional roll aboard the ship and that one is probably the simplest to answer as it was shown to us over and over again during the Hawkeague Island arc and Carrot rather naturally just gravitated towards the crow's nest and acted as the lookout for the crew. In my opinion this roll suited her very well and actually we can also add the fact that rabbits are long sighted into this which really enforces the idea of Carrot being an ideal lookout. So Carrot has a dream, a tragic past and a roll aboard the ship. I can't stress enough that this criteria is exceptionally hard for most characters to fill and purposely so I imagine. Despite the world's worth of characters on display in one piece Oda is very careful about crafting a select group of individuals that we are supposed to care about and follow just that little bit more closely than others all through these three factors. And so it becomes very difficult to deny Carrot's candidacy especially when you add some other things in such as her lust for adventure and desire to see the world beyond the elephant she grew up on. There's also the more subtle character moment specifically the fact that she really does fit in and get along with essentially every member of the crew often getting carried away in their tomfoolery. Not only that but having her on the crew would also go on to parallel the journey of the Roger Pirate somewhat who also had Mink sail aboard the Oro Jackson. There's just a lot of potential here and right now we're in a bit of an awkward limbo portion of the story in regards to her character with the Wano arc. Now you'd think that if Carrot was going to join it would almost certainly be at the end of Wano because after that point there will be no real reason to closely associate with the Minks because their alliance was formed to take down Kaido. So it's no as if the draw hats and the Mink tribe will then go on to the next island together and Carrot will just stay as part of the pack. A decision would need to be made for Carrot to more permanently leave the Mink tribe and continue on to wherever the straw hats go from Wano. However for that to happen you'd think that Carrot would also need to play a higher order of significance in Wano than she did in Whole Cake Island in order to earn that invitation. So from here on out do pay attention to any specific story beats involving Carrot because they could be laying the groundwork for a future crew member. Either way Wano should make or break this whole idea. As for my personal feelings regarding Carrot joining the crew if you'd asked me a year or so ago I probably would have been a bit apprehensive but over time Carrot has really grown on me and I'm at the point where I really would not mind if this was the direction that Oda chose to go in. I would be pretty thrilled that the crew would be getting another female member because they think it's about time and just looking into the future Carrot is an exceptionally capable fighter and would no doubt provide some incredible battles. Provided that Oda doesn't go well on Nami and Robin on her and just remove her from any form of harsh combat whatsoever. So I definitely do not hate Carrot but I'm also not in love with Carrot currently. Although the same could be said for almost any crew member prior to them joining. It takes time to bond with new straw hats while watching them really settle into the crew. So my conclusion? Sure why not. Bring on the bunny. But that pretty much does it for this little discussion on whether or not Carrot could end up joining the straw hats. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the Grand Line Review Patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. Also do check out my Teespring store if you're interested in shirts, hoodies and other miscellaneous items but the proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. And if you'd like to join the fun at any time then please do head over to my Discord server where a wide array of shenanigans takes place on a daily basis. And finally please do comment with your own thoughts on Carrot potentially joining the straw hats. This has been the Grand Line Review and I'll see you next time. Plus in a really desperate situation, Sanji could probably use her to make a phenomenal rabbit stew.