Awakenings – Devil Fruits and How They Work

Awakenings have been a hot topic for some time now and it’s definitely fun to think of a completely different layer of fruit powers. We all know that from now on, the big bads are all gonna have some kind of awakening at their disposal. But there are some things in specific that I see people get wrong about this new layer of power, and I’ll try to explain why I believe it is wrong.

So first off, I believe it’s important to understand what the awakening does. I don’t think it’s by coincidence that the words “Devil” and “Awakening” both are used to describe this power. The fact that devil fruits are actually called devil fruits is something I don’t see a lot of people talk about, because why exactly is it called a devil fruit? Well, most logical answer would either be because you are given the power of or by the devil, or you literally get a miniature devil inside a fruit that is transferred into your body to alter it and work it’s magic from there. Just think about all the things we know about devil fruits.

• We know that when a user dies, the fruit transfers itself in a manner which looks ominously like a soul. This picture either depicts the human soul leaving the body, or something else entirely who may be the soul of the devil itself that was stored inside of you.
• We know that when you eat two devil fruits, you explode (or die, we don’t exactly know what happens). Why does this happen? Is this because of some “overload of power” or is it literally two devils inside a body fighting for dominance and killing the user in the process?
• We know that you only need to take one bite of a devil fruit to obtain the powers, after that, the fruit becomes an empty vessel for the powers inside it. Indicating that something must have entered the body and left an empty vessel.
• We know that Blackbeard managed to obtain two powers, but we didn’t see this happen. It’s pretty much confirmed at this point that his darkness fruit managed to somehow absorb Whitebeard’s powers as he was dying. How did he do this if the fruit would instantly appear inside another fruit? Well, it doesn’t instantly appear in another fruit. The only way Blackbeard could gain the power of Whitebeard’s fruit is by snatching it out of the air as it was leaving his body, which means that the devil fruit itself has a travel time and exists as an entity. Or he just had the fruit it would travel to with him, which I don’t see as being very likely, but still a possibility.

I do think there is a solid amount of evidence out there that devil fruits themselves are spirit-like entities that enters your body on consumption. So if you look at devil fruits as an entity, the Awakened state of this entity could mean that before this Awakening, the entity stays dormant, unable to communicate with it’s host. And when the user dies, the Awakened entity would go dormant inside another fruit again, starting the process anew and explaining why the new user of the same power doesn’t get an Awakened power from the get-go.

Maybe this is the restriction of Blackbeard’s powers even, that he can only catch Awakened powers to not make it super OP and the reason why nobody was able to know that the darkness fruit even had this ability. But that’s just speculation, honestly.

What is important is that people also note just how fruits work. Awakenings must follow some sort of pattern, as devil fruits mostly do. We got the three main categories, Paramecia, Zoan and Logia.

So far, we’ve only seen Zoan and Paramecia fruits awakened.

Zoans have clear defining features. They are animals and can transform between their own forms, hybrid forms and full animal forms. Awakenings are likely going to unlock a 4th form that resembles a monstrous appearance of the animal and passively grants the user extreme physical strengths, stronger than before. Zoans are all about physical strength, with the exception of Mythic Zoans who seem to be Zoan-Paramcia hybrids.

Logias also have set features. They can control and turn themselves into an element with varying powers depending on the element. Their supply of that element is endless. Keywords here is the fact that they can create endless amounts, become and control a specific element, since this is what puts them apart from some Paramecia powers like Trebol, Katakuri and Luffy. We have no idea what their Awakening does, but it will be the same all across the board. If Zoans all have the same Awakenings and are similar to the Logia type where there are defining traits of the category, then all Logias will also have the same Awakening. Obviously, mentioning the Punk Hazard theory of Logia Awakening allowing the manipulation of the environment seems to be a good theory. Being able to only manipulate the weather is going to become a stretch, since some Logias have nothing with the weather to do.

Now this is where it gets interesting. Paramecias are by nature completely random. They do all sorts of stuff and it is by definition a fruit class that doesn’t have defining features. However, whenever I see theories about Luffy’s Awakening, I consistently see the “Bouncy Castle” theory, where because Doffy turned things into string, Luffy must be able to turn things into rubber because it’s the same category of fruits. This is just wrong though. This isn’t how Awakenings for Paramcias are going to work.

The two Paramcia users that we’ve 100% seen use Awakenings in this fruit category are Doflamingo and Katakuri.

The mochi fruit is a Paramecia type, but what have we seen it do? Create an endless supply of mochi, turn the user into mochi and control the mochi from outside his body. This is Logia material. There is no way that this fruit would not be a Logia fruit if this wasn’t the Awakened state we are seeing.

But once again, we see a Paramecia type turn more Logia, just like Doffy. Thing is, this obviously doesn’t work for all powers. How is that jacket guy supposed to Awaken his fruit, assuming all fruits can be awakened? Well, going back to the entity theory, the reason Paramecias are Paramecias is because they are all different. So by nature, the devil inside the fruits are different too. Logia and Zoan devils behave the same, but Paramecia devils are a bit more unique since they work differently.

So if the devils are different, then it’s obvious that the Awakenings are going to be as well. An example I like bringing up is Bon Clay. How the hell would that work? Well it doesn’t. Instead, his Awakening would be something crazy, like being able to turn his devil into a copy of the devil of the person he is copying, allowing him to use their devil’s power for a short time. That would be a sweet and unique power to have.

The thing I want to say here though, is that Paramecias are wild cards. Luffy might have something else entirely to look forward to instead of the ability to turn things into rubber.

tl;dr Devil Fruits are inhabited by spirits of tiny devils that enter the body in a dormant state, and can then be awakened to be able to do something crazy. Logias and Zoans have set Awakening powers, while Paramecias are wildcards and have different powers.

*Theory by Elune_