We need to talk about Blackbeard. When I was listening to my colleagues on the One Piece Podcast go through their villain rankings I was surprised that Blackbeard wasn’t ranked as the No.1 villain. It’s kind of amazing when you consider how meteoric Luffy’s rise to power has been, less than three years in the One Piece timeline, from relative nobody to one of the most notorious pirates of his age. I think fans tend to forget that Marshall D. Teech (a.k.a Blackbeard) has achieved similar levels of infamy within a similar time frame. He is Luffy’s foil, the primary antagonist of the One Piece story, and he has the potential become the most notorious villain in One Piece history.

When we first meet Whitebeard during Jaya, Oda goes out of his way to tell us that this is the Strongest Man in the World. Everything about Whitebeards introduction screams that this is not a man to be trifled with: his scars, size, and just sheer presence. Our first impressions of Blackbeard come to us from the stories we hear about him

prior to his official introduction. We know that he scared Wapol badly enough to cause him to abandon Drum Island and that Ace is hunting him because he killed a fellow shipmate. Okay. It shouldn’t be too hard to identify this ruthless pirate, right? When we are first introduced to the man we would later come to know as Blackbeard, the first thing he does is get into a fight with Luffy about whether the cherry pie tastes good/bad and whether a drink tastes good/bad.

He also looks kind of scruffy. He’s missing some teeth, and he doesn’t really scream powerful scourge of the seas. Without knowing who he is you would guess that this guy is going to be someone important, but not necessarily the titular character we’ve heard so much about. Going back and reading it now, I can see how deliberately Oda set up the initial confrontation between Luffy and Blackbeard.

According to Wikipedia “a foil usually either differs dramatically or is extremely similar but with a key difference setting them apart”. The entire interaction between Luffy and Blackbeard during Jaya is Oda’s way of cementing the idea that Blackbeard is Luffy’s foil. They both have voracious appetites, carefree attitude, and a competitive and reckless nature. It is also where we get one of the most iconic speeches in One Piece:

This seems almost like an odd sentiment coming from Blackbeard, considering everything we know about him. He seems eccentric but not necessarily dangerous or villainous. We don’t even know what his goals, motivations, or strengths are. As we find out when Laffite interrupts the meeting of the Seven Warlords, Blackbeard is a relatively unknown pirate even though he had been sailing under Whitebeard. How dangerous could he be? Extremely as we conveniently find out in an expositional meeting between two of the most powerful pirates in the world: Whitebeard and Shanks.

Oda hinted at a potential meeting between Whitebeard and Shanks back in Jaya but nothing really comes of it until post Enies Lobby. Given how scared the World Government is of the consequence of this meeting you would think that they must be discussing something of vital importance. It turns out Shanks went to see Whitebeard to ask him a favour: don’t let Ace chase after Blackbeard. It’s during this meeting we find out how Shanks got his iconic three scars. It’s not an injury that he got from an adventure or a duel with Hawkeye . While not as debilitating as losing an arm, it is the one that bugs him the most. He got it from Blackbeard. Shanks continues, telling Whitebeard that Teech has been hiding in Whitebeard’s shadow waiting for a chance to make his debut, implying that Teech has the potential to overthrow Whitebeard. Shanks heavily implies that if Whitebeard doesn’t stop Ace from going after Teech, he is going to die and the consequences for the future will be dire. However, Whitebeard refuses to back down, and clashes with Shanks with enough force that the heavens split.

In just one chapter Oda has told us readers just how dangerous the man known as Blackbeard is. Back in Alabasta, Luffy told us that back when they were kids and he had his Devil Fruit, he was never able to beat Ace (who didn’t have his own logia powers). Ace in turn is only the second division commander of Whitebeard, a man Oda straight up tells us is the strongest man in the world. Shanks, Luffy’s idol and one of the four emperors, a man who used to regularly duel with Mihawk, the strongest swordsman in the world, was given an injury by Blackbeard and he begs Whitebeard not to let Ace go after him. Furthermore, Blackbeard has been able to stay on Whitebeard’s ship for decades, all while masking his true strength and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike out on his own. So not only is Blackbeard powerful, but he is also clever and opportunistic. A fact that is further reinforced when you consider what happened between him and Ace.

Teech killed his fellow crewmate and fourth division commander Thatch, because he coveted the Devil Fruit Thatch had found and that Blackbeard had spent decades searching for. The Darkness fruit, considered the most powerful of all Devil Fruits, allows the user to become the literal embodiment of a black hole. Unlike regular Logia’s, this fruit doesn’t allow the user to become intangible and actually causes them more damage because it sucks in *everything*. So why would Blackbeard want this power? Because, as he demonstrates on Ace, this fruit takes away the powers of any Devil Fruit user as long as Blackbeard is making contact with them. Even sea prism stone only weakens as Devil Fruit user and here is Blackbeard, wielding a fruit that completely nullifies their abilities. Blackbeard claims its fate and that he was destined to eat this fruit and his battle with Ace shows why. Shanks knew this would happen and that is why he went to meet with Whitebeard to try and convince him to call Ace back. This duel was not only Oda’s way of showing readers Blackbeard’s strength but also his durability. We’ve established how powerful of a character Ace is and yet despite all that Blackbeard can tank several of his attacks and annihilate him. So if Blackbeard is so powerful why would he need to join the Warlords? Well what good is a pirate without a crew?

Impel Down is a great arc to highlight a number of Blackbeard’s character traits. He’s unpredictable, opportunistic, brutal, and carless. Blackbeard used his status as Warlord and the government’s preoccupation with Ace’s execution to sneak into the world’s most secure prison. Then he almost dies when Magellan poisons him. For a guy who is clever enough to be come up with such elaborate plans and the patience to execute them it’s almost comical how close Blackbeard came to death. Thanks to Shiliew, he manages to get an antidote and we find out his real reason for breaking into Impel Down. He holds a death match between pirates, who committed crimes so atrocious they’ve been erased from history, to see who is worthy of joining his crew. This is one of the key differences between Luffy and Blackbeard. Luffy chooses crewmates that he likes and who are good people. Blackbeard only values strength and power. Both attributes that he needs to achieve the next phase of his plan.

Marineford was supposed to be a show of strength by the marines to restore the citizen’s faith in them. In a brilliant reversal Blackbeard manages to use that moment as a stage to announce the beginning of his age. Blackbeard and his crew are firm believers in fate and it’s not hard to understand why. First, he manages to successfully claim a Devil fruit that he had been searching for his entire life and escape without retribution. His failure to capture Luffy instead led him to be able to give the World Government an even more infamous pirate thus earning him a place within the Warlords, who recently lost a member because of Luffy. He is then able to use his position to successfully infiltrate a heavily fortified prison to recruit powerful pirates into his crew. Upon reaching Marineford he is then able to successfully land the deathblow on the strongest pirate of the current age and steal his Devil fruit. He then becomes the only person in history to have ever successfully eaten two Devil Fruits.

It’s also a brilliant storytelling mechanic from Oda showcasing how much of a foil Luffy and Blackbeard are. If the events of Impel Down and Marineford were a triumph for Blackbeard, they were a moment of failure for Luffy. He broke into Impel Down to save Ace and instead ended up being poisoned, losing ten years of his life, and had a friend sacrifice himself to get him to safety. Then at Marineford, after losing more years of his life, the moment after he frees his brother, he is instantly killed in front of Luffy sending him into a catatonic state. This led Luffy having to take a two year break to focus on getting stronger while Blackbeard headed into the New World and entrenched his position as the number one contender for Pirate King. However, to be able to take the title Blackbeard still has to content with his rivals. Luffy has already started to make a move, so how will Blackbeard respond. Given everything we know about his personality, I think I have some ideas.

During various arcs in the New World we’ve been given bits of information on how Blackbeard has been expanding his reach. The first thing we learn, post Fishman Island, from Jimbei is that Blackbeard’s crew has been going around hunting powerful Devil Fruit users and stealing their abilities. Teech has also been using his knowledge of Whitebeard’s territories to take them under his influence and in doing so the World Government now considers him one of the Emperors. In Dressrosa, we find out that Jesus Burgess has now become Blackbeard’s first division commander and he is after Ace’s Flame-Flame fruit. It is here that we also find out that Blackbeard is potentially going to allow Aokiji to join his crew, possibly as a divison commander. Lastly, during Zou, we find out that a year ago the Whitebeard and Blackbeard pirates clashed in a grudge war resulting in the Whitebeard pirates being annihilated. We also find out that during this time Burgess stowed away on the Revolutionaries ship and he knows where Baltigo is and he requests backup. This happens at a time when the revolutionaries also happened to get their hands on a cargo of weapons that Doflamingo had stashed in the underground port in Dressrosa. Coincidence? Or Fate? As we learn through the news this led to a clash between the Blackbeard pirates and the revolutionaries, with the latter being forced to abandon their hideout and the Blackbeard pirates escaping before CPO could apprehend them.

Clearly Blackbeard is building his influence and military might and waiting for a chance to present itself before he makes a move. However, none of that makes any difference if he doesn’t know the location of Raftel. It seems to be common knowledge that Kaido and Big Mom both hold one of the Road Ponegliff’s and if Blackbeard wants to obtain them a clash seems inevitable. Let’s talk about Big Mom first. We know from the Strawhats attempts to sneak into Whole Cake Island that Big Mom’s surveillance makes that almost impossible. Blackbeard could try to commit a full frontal assault and overwhelm her with force, but that doesn’t really suit his style. He may be reckless and carless but he’s not stupid. He backed down from confrontations with both Shanks and Akainu as he felt he wasn’t ready yet. My original theory was that Blackbeard would be allied with Capone (the perfect Trojan Horse or “Castle” in this case) to infiltrate the wedding and kill Big Mom. It would have fit in perfectly with the whole Red Wedding theme of Whole Cake Island but alas it was not to be. But this doesn’t change the fact that Blackbeard still needs the information on Big Mom’s road Ponegliff if he wants to find Raftel. There is still a possibility that maybe a commander will be attending the wedding as one of Big Mom’s invited guests and they’ll use the wedding chaos as an opportunity to kill Big Mom. But at this point that also seems highly unlikely. So how will Blackbeard go about getting access to that information? Maybe he will just force Luffy to give it to him by kidnapping someone (no not Robin).

Before we talk about that let’s talk about Caribou. During Fishman Island Caribou overhears Robin talking to King Neptune about the true form of the Ancient Weapon Poseidon: Princess Shirahoshi. He thinks this information would get him into the good graces of “that” person. Now in his cover story he ended up marooned on an Island belonging to one of the four emperors, Kaido, where he was subsequently captured by X-Drake. For the longest time, I held to the theory that Kaido was who Caribou was referring to, and that he would tell him about Shirahoshi being Poseidon to get in his good graces. What better way for a man looking to start another war then to get his hands on an Ancient Weapon. It would also be the perfect battleground for Luffy and Kaido’s battle and the subsequent destruction of Fishman Island. But if Caribou was looking for Kaido then why wouldn’t he have recognized X-Drake? It also seemed too coincidental to me that Oda would have Caribou land on the island of the person he was looking for.

On the podcast, Greg posited two theories that changed my ideas: Kaido has a Dragon mythical Zoan and Blackbeard will show up at the end of Wano to kill Kaido and take his Devil Fruit. Now the second is not a radically new idea because fans have been forever speculating that Blackbeard would be able to eat three Devil fruits. But why would Blackbeard show up on Wano? It’s easy for me to joke and say it’s “fate” but there is another perfect explanation. “That” person Caribou was talking about

wasn’t Kaido, it was Blackbeard. Sometime during Wano, Caribou will get a message out to Blackbeard telling him that he knows the location of an Ancient Weapon and to come to Wano. Blackbeard would show up and seeing Kaido being weakened from his fight with Luffy he will able to kill him and steal his Devil fruit.

At this point Blackbeard will posses the strongest Devil Fruits of each class and he will be absolutely unstoppable. Despite possessing all this power Blackbeard can’t claim to be Pirate King unless he finds Raftel and One Piece. Now in the Vol.82 SBS Oda revealed that Blackbeard’s hobby is studying history (I talk about his dreams and his past in my other editorial). Now Oda could reveal that this means Blackbeard is also capable of reading the ancient language much like Robin. But without the rubbings or the Ponegliff’s themselves, this is useless. I know fans are opposed to the idea of Blackbeard trying to kidnap Robin because that would be too similar to Water 7. Blackbeard is going to kidnap Momonosuke because he will know about the Kozuki clan’s ties to the Ancient Kingdom and their ability to read the Ponegliff’s. In exchange for his life, Luffy will give him the translated Ponegliff rubbings and this will put them on equal footing in the race to find the last Ponegliff. That’s not all. After Caribou tells him that Shirahoshi is Poseidon, Blackbeard will use his newfound Zoan powers to make another surprise appearance at the Reverie. This attack will be the impetus for another major shift in the story.

The other significant news we have learned about the world during Fishman Island and Dressrosa is that since Akainu took over as Fleet Admiral after a duel with Aokiji. Furthermore, he instated a world military draft to expand the military might of the World Government. Now we know that given Akainu’s ruthless nature and adherence to absolute justice there is a reason he is building such a large military force. Another long-held theory of mine was that Akainu was going to overthrow the World Government at the Reverie in a military coup and start a war in the New World to eliminate all the pirates. But what if Akainu didn’t have to overthrow the government to instate martial law? Blackbeard will attack Mariejoa with his newfound powers and kidnap Shirahoshi and this will be the incentive for the twenty kings at the Reverie to give Akainu all the powers he needs to take out all pirates once and for all. The news that Luffy has defeated Kaido, Big Mom is weakened, and that Blackbeard now has three Devil Fruits and an Ancient Weapon will be the impetus for the start of the final world war that fans have been speculating about for years. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Well I’ve got one final crazy theory to throw into the pot. I don’t think the National Treasure in Mariejoa is the last road ponegliff. I think it’s been in the hands of a character who has had a tendency of unwittingly being thrown into greatness. I am of course talking about our glorious savior: Captain Buggy.

At some point before the end of the series Shanks and Blackbeard are going to have a rematch and Shanks is going to die. It’s inevitable. I always thought the fight would come about with Shanks trying to stop Blackbeard from getting to Raftel because he wanted to protect Rogers legacy. But then I thought about what Shanks said all the way back in Chapter 1:

If Captain John’s treasure turns out to be the last Road Ponegliff, then Blackbeard and his crew will hunt down Buggy and they will kill him. Despite how much Buggy may hate Shanks for what he did to him when they were Cabin boy’s, Shanks still considers him his friend. Shanks and Blackbeard’s final showdown will happen because Shanks will come to Buggy’s rescue and die defending him from Blackbeard. By the time Luffy gets there Shanks will be on the verge of death and Buggy will be crying. Imagine that scene where Buggy finally accepts that Shanks was his true friend all along and Shanks tells Luffy that he has finally become a great pirate before passing away with a smile on his face. I can’t imagine a more touching end for one of the greatest pirates in the series or a better way to make Buggy relevant again.

One of the most refreshing aspects of Luffy’s character is how straightforward he is. He always says what’s on his mind and all of his solutions to a problem involve punching his way through them. Blackbeard on the other hand is an enigma. He’s ruthless and killed a shipmate without a second thought, but he cared enough for his crew to warn them to stay away from Ace. He is patient enough to wait years to put his plans into motion, yet careless enough to let his guard down and almost get killed. For a guy that has so much ambition he seems content to not act upon it unless it was “fate”. Blackbeard’s greatest asset has always been his unpredictability. He’s ruthless, strong, ambitious, motivated, crazy and fate seems to conspire to help him achieve his means. Luffy will eventually become Pirate King but Blackbeard won’t let him take the title without one hell of a fight.