 I won't say you're wasting your time. The Sky Island existed, didn't it? It's the same with the One Piece. It definitely exists. Just you wait and see. In a few short hours, we're going to put on a show that will shake the world. Hello and welcome to One Piece 101, the series that breaks down everyone and everything in the One Piece world. Today, we'll be taking a look at one of the most mysterious and sinister figures in the series, Marshall D. Teach. Marshall D. Teach is a rather large man in terms of height, width, and well depth, sporting an ever impressive belly. In terms of physical appearance, he very much falls into the more commonly thought of image of a pirate, often seen wearing some sort of tattered shirt or jacket with very unkempt hair and carrying the pirate accessory starter pack consisting of multiple flintlock pistols and the ever essential bottles of alcohol. You may have also noticed that Teach is one of the very rare characters in the series who carries the ominous middle initial D and this is very intriguing because Teach doesn't generally exhibit the common character traits that other D characters in the series have and Teach stands out as a bit of an inconsistency in regards to the will of D. With that said, Teach is quite inconsistently portrayed in the series as a whole. For example, sometimes he will appear to be exceptionally courageous while on other occasions he can be very quick to exhibit cowardice. Similarly, at certain points in the story, he can look quite fearsome and absolutely unbeatable but during other portions, Teach can look incredibly weak and just plain ridiculous. And this is all part of the enigma that is Blackbeard. However, one thing that is undeniable is that his personal actions have really been the driving force behind the meta-narrative of One Piece as we know it. And I have to mention right now that the primary reason why Teach does what he does is to achieve the goal of becoming the pirate king. Now I don't say that lightly either. There are a whole ton of characters in the series who dream of becoming the pirate king but Teach is a very serious candidate for the title and we're about to examine why. At the age of 16, Teach became a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, captained by Edward Newgate, the biggest rival to the original pirate king, Goldie Roger. Teach did this with one goal in mind and that was to find a very specific devil fruit known as the Yamiyami No Mi and he figured that his chances of coming across the fruit would be greatest as a member of one of the world's most fearsome pirate crews. And as one of the Whitebeard Pirates, Teach grew to become exceptionally strong and at some point even managed to hold his own against the Emperor Red-Haired Shanks. In fact, Teach is the person responsible for giving Shanks his scar, which was presumably caused by a metal claw that Teach used at the time. The fact that he was able to stand up to Shanks shows that Teach was more than likely hiding his true strength from his comrades. After two decades serving as part of Whitebeard's crew, the Yamiyami No Mi was finally found by the commander of the 4th Division, Thatch. And so after 20 years of keeping up a charade, Teach finally showed his true self by murdering Thatch and stealing the Yamiyami No Mi for his own consumption. Teach then fled, gathering a crew of his own and officially began using the name Blackbeard to terrorize the seas. One such incident of terror occurred on Drum Island prior to the arrival of the Straw Hats. The Blackbeard Pirates sacked the kingdom, causing their monarch Wapol to flee and rather ironically liberate the kingdom from his tyranny. But Teach's first official appearance in the series occurred on the island of Jaya when he and Luffy coincidentally met in a bar in Mocktown and instantly took a dislike towards one another, which almost led to a full-on fistfight. After Luffy and Zoro were beaten up by Bellamy in that very same bar, Teach encountered them again and while he was sitting eating a bountiful supply of cherry pies, he then explained to Nami that Luffy and Zoro had actually won that fight and in a rather inconsistent portrayal of such a villain, he then encouraged Luffy to follow his dreams with one of the most iconic speeches in the series where he claimed that people's dreams never die. Later on, Teach learned that Luffy had a bounty of 100 million berries on his head and planned to capture him. However, he was unable to procure the straw hat pirates prior to their departure into the sky on the knock-up stream. The next time Teach would appear in the series would be after the any slobby arc as he and his crew were challenged by Port Gas D. Ace, the commander of Whitebeard's second division who had been hunting Teach to seek revenge for the murder of Thatch. And it would be here that Teach demonstrated the power of the yami yami no mi to the audience for the very first time. This fruit is a logia type that gives its user the ability to become darkness. This fruit is said to be unique even for a logia and Teach himself has said that it is the most evil devil fruit. In addition to becoming an emanating darkness, Teach can use this fruit to create effects similar to that of a black hole by creating a dark void able to crush and absorb anything. Speaking of absorption, Teach is able to take objects and living beings into himself via the use of this black hole style ability as well as spit them out. However, this ability is also quite dangerous to use as the power holder can be damaged by attacks if they fail to absorb them in time. But the yami yami no mi also comes with one other incredibly unique ability in that it is able to nullify other devil fruit powers much like sea stone or armament haki. However, unlike those two other known forms of nullification, Teach's ability is absolute, meaning that it treats an enemy fruit user as if they had never consumed a fruit at all. Using these powers, Teach was able to combat ace another logia user and defeat him on Benaro Island, setting up a chain of events that would change the world as we know it. Following this, Teach handed ace over to the Marines in exchange for becoming one of the seven warlords of the sea. However, Teach's time as a warlord would be very short as he almost immediately used his influence to betray the world government and invade the underwater prison of Impel Down just prior to the commencement of the paramount war, a conflict between the whitebeard pirates and the world government that Teach himself had incited through the capture base. During this time, Teach ran into Luffy once more who was in the process of escaping the prison. After a brief conflict, the two groups decided not to waste their time on each other and the blackbeard pirates continued traveling all the way down to level six of the prison. Teach and his crew then ran into the chief warden of Impel Down Magellan who defeated them almost instantaneously with his poisonous devil fruit abilities. And the blackbeard pirates would have died right then and there, if not for Shilu, an ex warden of Impel Down who provided them with an antidote and would end up joining their crew. Upon reaching level six, Teach invited anybody with the will to be set free once again to join his crew. Although there was one tiny catch and that was that the prisoners had to fight each other to the death and be the sole remaining individual in their respective cells. Teach made good on his promise to release the winners and incorporated four new members into his crew. Although it should be said that it is unknown exactly how many level six prisoners escaped from Impel Down on that day. Teach and his newly souped up crew would then appear at Marineford during the tail end of the paramount war. His goal during this battle was to kill his former captain, Whitebeard. And while it took the assistance of his entire crew to take down a very injured and frail Whitebeard, they were eventually successful. Teach then completely rewrote the facts of one piece as we know it and through an unknown means was able to absorb Whitebeard's devil fruit, the Gura Gura No Mi, becoming the first and only person in the series to possess two devil fruit abilities. And with a sudden burst of confidence, Teach used both of his powers to fight against Vice Admiral Garth and Fleet Admiral Sengoku before the war was ended by the appearance of Redhead Shanks. The Blackbeard pirates then retreated and entered the new world, some stage defeating and capturing a member of the worst generation, Jewelry Bonnie, along the way. Teach had wanted to trade her for a Marine battleship. However, the Blackbeard pirates retreated once again when Admiral Akainu was sent to deal with them personally. One year after the paramount war, the entirety of the Blackbeard pirates fought directly against the remnants of the Whitebeard pirates, led by First Division Commander Marco in an event known as the Payback War. The result of this conflict was the overwhelming defeat and subsequent dissolution of the Whitebeard pirates. Teach was then able to use his knowledge of Whitebeard's former territory to fill the power vacuum left by his death and became officially recognized as one of the four emperors. Post-time skipped the exact nature of Teach's current activities are unknown. However, he has been gathering devil fruits and appears to be in conflict with the Revolutionary Army as he attacked their base on the island of Baltigo and was apparently victorious. Some more fun facts about Marshall D. Teach. In the manga, it was never shown or explained exactly how Teach killed Thatch. However, for some reason, the anime decided to show him stabbing Thatch in the back. Teach is the first individual to have become a member of the Seven Warlords of the Sea without possessing an obvious animal motif. Teach's epithet Blackbeard, as well as his name, come from the real life pirate Edward Teach who was known as Blackbeard. Along with gambling, one of Teach's hobbies is rather curiously researching history and according to Oda, if Teach wasn't a pirate then he would have become an archeologist. And finally, a truly useless fact, Teach's favorite food is a good old cherry pie. And that pretty much does it for Marshall D. Teach. If you enjoyed this video, then feel free to like, favorite, or subscribe. And please do comment with who, what, or where you'd like to see featured in the next One Piece 101.