 So there's a saying that a hero is only as good as his villain. And in the case of One Piece, some of the best and most memorable arcs include a good bad guy. As a long-running series, Luffy and his crew have faced a number of villains, some that make you scratch your head, although undeniably providing good comedic entertainment, while others are just plain polarizing. The story goes like this, we enter a new arc, we meet the villain, this villain has evil plans, our hero tries to stop said villain and his or her evil plan, resulting in some sort of combat, and then more recently, just before the culmination of the big fight, we get hit with a backstory. Now a backstory isn't super necessary to make a villain stand out, but it certainly provides much appreciated depth to what are usually already interesting characters. And we've come to expect this backstory because it serves as the final piece of the puzzle for us to fully understand the villain in action. One Piece plays with this trope so well that with each new arc, one of the most eagerly anticipated events is the reveal of the bad guy's backstory. To the point that when we don't get this, it can leave us feeling upset and disappointed. There's a feeling of insufficiency, a shortfall, a deficit. Take Kaido for example, perhaps the greatest example of a villain who has become very polarizing, exactly for this reason of a lack of a fully fleshed out backstory. Kaido was one of, if not the most highly anticipated villains, and was the major antagonist of the most highly built up arc in the series to date. And it is true that we did receive glimpses of his backstory through very short snippets of flashbacks, but I know I'm not alone when I say that I still wish we get a greater extension of his story somewhere down the line. Something that could be easily achieved by delving into his history during the inevitable rocks flashback. Now whether we will actually get that extension of Kaido's story is uncertain, but there is one villain who feels like an absolute home run when it comes to receiving such a lengthy backstory, and that is Marshall D. Teach, aka Blackbeard. Expected by many to be Luffy's final opponent, Blackbeard's been linked to some of the most important events and characters in the series. This man is indirectly or directly responsible for huge events that have changed the entire course of One Piece, such as the deaths of Ace and Whitebeard, and it's perhaps even the driving force for the majority of Shanks' actions. Not to mention his highly suggested connections to Rocks Deezerbeck. If One Piece is a puzzle to be completed, then the story of Blackbeard is a crucial piece. And I have to say that even without a complete backstory, Blackbeard's already a very interesting villain. He's a very calculating individual, which is a great quality that makes for a good villain, but his allure as a character goes even deeper than that. Maybe it's due to his inconsistent nature, because he does intriguingly have some very contradicting qualities. The ultimate opportunist, it's hard to believe that his perfectly executed plans are only in part conjured and in part him just getting really lucky. He's shown courage in some occasions, such as in his confidence to execute his plan, despite being within close proximity to some of the most dangerous Pirates of the Seas. And then on other occasions, we see him coward during confrontations, only to quickly switch back to high levels of confidence and cockiness again. Achieving his goals involves him running over people, making enemies, and losing friends in the process. But he himself doesn't seem to actively express any resentment, and there's also how he's achieved all that he has under that initial perfect disguise as a pirate with low ambitions. Keeping him out of everyone's radar. He was everywhere, but nowhere. And now, most interestingly, finally seeing Shanks makes me realize we are really getting closer to finding out Blackbeard's true nature, or rather, what sort of history has led him to being the way that he is now. Similar to as Shanks has just done, Blackbeard is about to make another very impactful appearance, and very very soon. A feeling that only gets stronger with each time Shanks makes the effort of keeping tabs on Blackbeard's movements, promising a very tantalizing relationship between the two. After all, Shanks and Blackbeard's story has always been intertwined, and it goes beyond the battle we know that they had in the past, that left Shanks with the three scars across his face, and perhaps the reason for Blackbeard's missing teeth. In many other aspects, these two share a rich history, and even have some interesting similarities. I mean, there's their shared love for drinking and partying for one, but also, both men were once apprentices to perhaps two of the most legendary pirates who ever lived. Shanks with Roger, the late pirate king, and Blackbeard with the world's strongest man, Whitebeard, who was arguably Roger's greatest rival. Even both their introductions have similarities, with each of them having an argument with the series' protagonist, Luffy, in a bar. Shanks about Luffy becoming a pirate, and Blackbeard about their polar opposite taste buds. And if the idea of Shanks being the son of Zabeck turns out to be true, then that's another connection to draw them closer. It could be one of those strange twists of fate where Blackbeard is carrying the wheel of Shanks' biological father. I mean, of course, there are also differences. Perhaps the most obvious one can be seen in how they battle. Shanks heavily relies on the use of haki, and the red-haired pirates are established to be non-devil fruit-holding haki experts, while Blackbeard uses the power of multiple devil fruits, and the Blackbeard pirates are somewhat devil fruit collectors. And this even goes back to their early days as apprentices with their respective crews, because Whitebeard was the holder of the fruit set to be able to destroy the world, and the Whitebeard pirates were known to be devil fruit users, even having a custom of whoever finding the devil fruit, getting to keep it for himself. The Roger pirates, on the other hand, had no known devil fruit users outside of Buggie, and even then they were skeptical about his fruit as we saw in the flashback. So just that idea alone of how these two have been built up in parallel to each other makes a lot of people extremely excited for this face-off. And now that one piece has stepped on the gas pedal, with each new chapter feeling like it's leading to bigger and bigger events, the story of Shanks and Blackbeard is poised to be one of the greatest highlights of the series. Which got me thinking, what will this face-off lead to? Because as of right now, Shanks' portrayal is that of an unbeatable force, but Blackbeard is expected to be Luffy's final opponent, so him losing to Shanks in their inevitable confrontation doesn't seem to serve a great purpose in the story. Which has me wondering, will Shanks be written out of the story somehow to make room for Luffy to do the hero's job of saving the world from Blackbeard's darkness? And now in order for me to talk about this next part, I have to preface there are going to be some spoilers for my hero academia, Injujutsu Kaisen, so if you aren't far into this series, then you should skip to the time shown on the screen. One of the most popular and effective tropes in anime right now is to have an insurmountable strong character that is on the good guy side. Whenever hope is lost and our heroes are faced with what seems to be an impossibly strong enemy, the strong good guy appears to deal with it. And the most popular examples of this are One Punch Man, Saitama, My Hero Academia is all mine, Injujutsu Kaisen, Satoru Gojo. But to make for an interesting story by increasing the tension, these strong characters are somehow written out of the plot. Examples being All Might Loosing His Power and Gojo being sealed in the prison realm. Now these developments are obviously written to increase the stakes and to make for interesting hard fought battles because without doing so, these almighty characters can just simply show up and always win the battle for the good guy, not allowing for the development of the protagonist. And one piece may be faced with a similar situation with Shanks, now that he's been shown to be overwhelmingly powerful and being one of the good guys. And in my opinion, speaking from a surface level, there are two very obvious ways a story like this can go. One is to reveal Shanks as a bad guy, which has been a highly speculated idea for a while now and it wouldn't be very difficult for Oda to execute if this was the route he decided to go. I mean the entire story could be premised on the idea that ever since Luffy ate the Nika Devil Fruit, Shanks gave Luffy the goal of returning his straw hat once Luffy becomes a great pirate, knowing that this goes hand in hand with Luffy mastering the Devil Fruit and finding Shanks for the sole purpose of Shanks using Luffy for whatever evil deeds he's planning to accomplish. I mean that's just the short example of an idea, but you get the point. And this evil Shanks theory is an idea I've somewhat entertained in the past, but I've never really brought into it and especially now as we see more of him in action. So let's discuss the other method of writing Shanks out of the story, and that is to have him lose and possibly even die at the hands of Blackbeard. And doing this at this point in the series would achieve a couple of things. It would give greater reasons and motivation for Luffy to be the one to defeat Blackbeard and it would also increase the level of tension in the story by way of a tragedy. This way, even if we know that Luffy will eventually defeat Blackbeard, seeing Blackbeard defeat someone as powerful as Shanks would give him an impressive achievement to add to his resume before he inevitably faces off against Luffy, thereby raising the stakes in tension and therefore our investment and attention. I mean after all, we've followed Luffy's story for over two decades now and we've witnessed him collecting win after win, arc after arc, and I think the quickest way to fast track increasing the level of Blackbeard's threat to the point that it feels like Luffy is truly in danger is by having him kill Luffy's hero. And at this point, I do also want to mention that I think Shanks dying, as opposed to just losing, is an important distinction to make. Because Shanks merely losing to Blackbeard opens the window for an argument that Shanks could simply recover and battle Blackbeard another time, and it also wouldn't achieve the same level of drama and motivation for Luffy. And the alternative would be for Blackbeard to fight Luffy after having just defeated Shanks, but not definitively so. And saying that already makes me feel like it tarnishes Luffy's character. I mean imagine getting cheated out of seeing a proper battle between Luffy and Blackbeard, because Luffy just simply defeats a tired, injured Blackbeard. After all, I don't see Shanks going down without a fight. I think whatever the result of the battle between Shanks and Blackbeard will end up with both men near death. Because apart from Shanks being one of Oda's favorite characters, he wasn't built up to the extent that he had just to lose without putting up much of a fight. Shanks will also obviously get the chance to showcase the full extent of his abilities, and this is something I'm confident to say we won't get robbed of. So for Luffy to just swoop in and land the final blow to an already weakened Blackbeard, during a state when he's just fought and not achieved a definitive win against Shanks, it just doesn't sound right. Because when the going gets tough and Luffy starts struggling against whatever powers Blackbeard has at that stage, there would always be that chance that maybe Shanks will have recovered to come in and help. Whereas the way that I imagine it, it has to be a fight between just Luffy and Blackbeard. A fight between two men, two sides of the same coin, fighting it out, not on just the matter of pride or strength, but also to prove their ideals. Now I hope this video isn't getting too depressing for you. And I guess Shanks doesn't necessarily have to die, so you know what, if you've made it this far into the video, why don't you comment on some other ways that Shanks can be written out of the story so that Luffy will be the one to defeat Blackbeard. For example, another idea is to have Blackbeard hold Shanks's life by a thread and in another twist of fate, Luffy will then have to save his hero. And this would give Luffy a chance to return the favor to Shanks in saving his life, which is one of the most iconic moments in the series. But it also completely reverses Shanks as a character. And you could argue that that could be a good thing, but I'd personally say that a warrior's end seems more fitting for Shanks. Blackbeard defeating Shanks using underhanded tactics is almost to be expected. And that way, Shanks's reputation doesn't get completely tarnished by his loss, or maybe you could even have another situation where Shanks saves Luffy again and this time around loses more than just his arm. I don't know, I'm just rambling at this point. But I have also arrived at that same idea again about Shanks dying, so I may as well commit to it at this point. So imagine this, a situation where Shanks is defeated and killed by Blackbeard, resulting in the ultimate battle between Luffy and Blackbeard. Luffy is now determined to fight and defeat Blackbeard, and not just to avenge his mentor, but because it also allows him to prove himself. We know that Luffy's been trying to fulfill his promise or oath to become a great pirate, one even greater than Shanks, but now with Shanks gone, the only way he can prove this is by defeating Blackbeard. Luffy facing Blackbeard, the man who beat Shanks, will be the ultimate test, and Luffy defeating Blackbeard will demonstrate that he's surpassed Shanks, achieving what he set out to do from the very beginning. And now I know I've gone on a little bit of a tangent here, but this is a topic I've been thinking about more and more lately. And it does relate to my point at the very beginning. A hero is only as good as its villain, and Luffy is our protagonist, our indomitable main character, who's going to surpass the glory and light that's shown on all the legendary figures before him. So then, if Blackbeard is our main antagonist, it just follows that he's going to have to be more depraved and darker than any other villain we've witnessed before him. And it seems like one of the darkest characters that Oda has set up in One Piece is Roxy Zabe. So it's fitting that he's already hinted at some sort of connection between these two figures. Maybe it'll even parallel the relationship between Luffy and Shanks. So how do we make Blackbeard even darker, even more evil than the man who was so bad that a pirate and marine teamed up to defeat by having him kill the hero of our hero? It's not the mere fact that this will enrage Luffy. Because Oda has portrayed Shanks in such a cool light for such a long time for a reason. There's a reason why Shanks has been lurking in the shadows only to steal the spotlight each time he makes an appearance. Because the moment that Blackbeard extinguishes Shanks' light for good, there's gonna be no question as to how we view Blackbeard. And there's gonna be no greater satisfaction than when we see Luffy trump Blackbeard and restore the light. So anyways, these are just some things that have been running through my head. Developments that were built up decades prior finally seem to be starting to take place. And it seems that these seeds that were planted long ago are ripening into very delicious fruits. So as usual, thank you for listening to another one of my rambling thoughts. This is Joygirl and I'll see you again soon.