One Piece, Chapter 867: Happy Birthday
So, the first chapter we're going to talk about for this week's mangas is One Piece. And, well, it's a pretty eventful chapter, even if it's mostly just flashbacks. The cover story shows how Cavendish is banished from the kingdom with a 'mere' 74 people following him, so it's interesting to see that it's his handsomeness that actually led him to being a pirate. Kind of cool, but also kind of whatever, I guess?
We continue the flashback, where in her rampage, little Linlin broke Jorl's (that's how the romanization is, apparently, which makes sense for a viking-themed character) sword before swinging him around like he weighs nothing. She's rampaging, but Mother Carmel shows that she apparently has the Soul Soul Fruit at this point in time, bestowing a soul upon the flames, creating a face within the fire and commanding the flames to condense into... a cute little sun with a face that's the splitting image of Big Mom's Prometheus. Called Pandora, apparently, so it's not the same sun. It's not completely stated that Carmel has the Soul Soul fruit, of course, but the implication is definitely obvious.
Linlin, in all this chaos, is fed Semla and she is pacified, but "Mountainbeard" Jarl shows up, ready to execute Linlin. Apparently the combination of the severe wounds and Jorl's old age means that he can no longer be saved. Carmel gives a speech about how Linlin is innocent, and how she's going to take this child and leave this place to found a new Sheep's House.
We get a brief scene showing little Hajrudin roaring and calling out for Big Mom's blood, condemning the giant pirate warriors for going so soft as to not avenge the death of one of their greatest warriors. Linlin, for her part, is more confused than anything, reinforcing that, yeah, she truly has no idea what's going on in her hunger rampages. Of course, in the present day even when she's sane she's completely horrible, but as a kid you can't help but feel sad for her.
With the brief help of some giants for construction help, Carmel set up a new Sheep's House away from Elbaf. But Jorl's death basically paints Linlin as a demonic kid hated by the entire race.
Then we get some narration about the Sheep's House, a World Government Flag and someone telling Carmel that they are surprised that she would ever leave Elbaf. Carmel (who uses Pandora to light up her cigarette) talks about how she'll never let Linlin go, someone who could lay waste to an Elbafian village despite being only five years old, how she's easily an admiral in the Marines at least if she grows up. Carmel is apparently meeting with CP-0 agents (or people dressed similarly) and casually drops the bombshell that she's in the long, long business of child trafficking. Which is amazing in how the conversation leads and just drops that bombshell so casually and naturally.
Carmel also drops the information that the 'miracle' 37 years ago to slip into Elbaf was an act, and apparently the giant marine, John Giant, was one of her children too. She also notes how she sells the promising ones to the World Government every two years, and how she really can't stand the orphans. At least the children aren't being tortured or experimented on (as far as we know) and are only used as soldiers, but still, it's pretty fucked up. No wonder she actually encourages Linlin's bad behaviour! "Mountain Witch" Carmel apparently wants to sell Linlin for such a high price that she can retire.
She still keeps up a facade of being a good mother to the children, singing about Binks' Sake and shit, and a montage until we get a brief skip to Linlin's sixth birthday, where she gets a huge birthday cake made up of Semla, which is called Croquembouche (a.k.a. the food that Big Mom was rampaging about a couple dozen chapters ago during her first appearance). It's a tea party, and Big Mom, who dwarfs everyone, is just chomping down on the mountain of Semlas. The artwork shows a montage of happy children partying and eating sweets and Linlin just nom-nom-nomming in happiness...
But the narration is so much more sinister. It talks about how one day mother vanished, during one of Linlin's happiest days, which is her birthday where she's surrounded by laughter and all that jazz, and she's so happy that her tears obscured her vision. We then cut to after the feast, where Linlin licks her lips and says how she's so happy, she's so grateful, she's so focused on eating that she ate the table... and the next scene shows that in addition to the ruined table and stools, there's... no one there. But there are scraps of clothing strewn around. Little Linlin just wanders around confused, afraid and lonely, confused where Mother went.
Of course, there are so many clues about what happened. The chomped-down table, specific lines of dialogue like 'tears obscured her vision' and 'I was so focused on eating' and 'I ate the table', plus the fact that Big Mom inherited Carmel's devil fruit powers -- and devil fruit powers are only transferred upon death -- it's clear that even if Linlin didn't eat all the other orphans, she at least ate Mother Carmel.
In the present day, Big Mom, seeing the broken picture of Mother Carmel, screams out loudly "where did you go, MOTHER!?" It's a very interesting backstory, and honestly, I kind of want to keep it kind of vague. I'm not sure if Mother Carmel is dead, or how the child slaver backstory will play into this whole thing, but if nothing else... a six-year old Big Mom without a Devil Fruit was strong enough to literally bat around the strongest giant warriors like it's nothing. How strong is an adult, Yonko Big Mom with the Soul Soul Fruit, Haki powers and an army of children going to be? One thing's for sure... they're going to need a lot more bombs.
This actually does bring up a rather interesting idea regarding Devil Fruit Powers and their users - namely in how the manner of death affects the transmission. Normally, when a Devil Fruit user dies, their power reincarnates into a different fruit and than gets eaten by someone else... but what happens when the user themselves is eaten by someone else? So far, it seems that the implication Linlin ate Mother Caramel is how she got the Soul-Soul Fruit's powers - and that was by accident, so it opens up a rather horrifying line of possibilities in how some people might try and get the Devil Fruit powers. Kinda makes it scary to think what would have happened had Wapol succeeded in eating Luffy way back when on drum island.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting aspect is the revelation about what Mother Caramel's real profession was - like the Armored and Colossal Titan's identities in Shingeki no Kyojin, it was just causally bombshell-dropped out of the blue before we were shown how it fit in with what she'd done. But the really interesting part to me is the fact that, by the look of things, Big Mom never learned the truth of what Mother Caramel planned to do to her - which is odd, considering she's a Yonko with such high connections as to have the heads of several major trade and information outlets on the short-list to her wedding party, and Mother Caramel was apparently both famous for (faking) a miracle regarding the giants of Elbaf and notorious in the child-trade syndicates. You'd think that at some point in her life, Big Mom would have at least heard the truth from *someone* about what Caramel was.
Was she just a special kind of lucky to never find out? Did she hear an inkling of it from someone but dismiss it as slander? Did her children or someone else deliberately try to hide it so as to not send her on a rampage? Is she ever going to find out at all? Stuff like this engages me way more than stuff like Fairy Tail did - and this series has long been argued as being sillier than that one (though I'd argue that even if some do think that, being silly isn't the same as being stupid and devoid of forethought).
Well, cannibalism hasn't really been something that's brought up in One Piece at all, so I really never even considered this. Wapol probably won't get Luffy's powers, though -- after all, that'll still count as breaking the 'two fruits in one body' rule.
DeleteConsidering how Big Mom basically haki'd the random guest who asked her who Carmel even IS, I'm pretty sure any slander towards her precious mother figure will be met with, well, fatal consequences. Especially considering Big Mom's 'throw a tantrum' personality.