I was rereading the most recent chapter and I realized there’s a couple consistencies with each interaction Shanks has with the World Government, specifically the higher ups.
One of these consistencies being that the members of the World Government that he interacts with never seem to be hostile towards him. Another consistency being that they always state that they will listen to Shanks because of who he is.
This leads me to wonder, does Shanks hold rank that goes beyond just everyday piracy? Is Shanks some sort of diplomat in the One Piece world considering he must know the history of the world, but seems to have no interest in exposing it or the World Government.
Another theory of mine being, his ability to persuade people, is that a trait of his Conqueror’s Haki?
We saw Doflamingo demonstrate that he possesses Conqueror’s Haki, we also saw Law warn Luffy not to get caught up in his “pace”. Could pace be a form of persuasion that those with Conqueror’s Haki utilize in order to get those around them to rally to their side as well as do as they command
Luffy has Conqueror’s Haki, but we don’t know how well developed it is compared to Doflamingo’s, seeing as it isn’t something that can be trained but gets stronger as the individual gets stronger.
In the case of Boa Hancock, she had a whole island of women at her command, which could possibly be attributed to her beauty(which I believe might just be for comedic reasons), her devil fruit or maybe her Conqueror’s Haki?
We’ve seen that in Shanks’ case it can cause physical damage to Whitebeard’s ship, so there’s possibly more to it than just knocking out fodder.
As far as others have been confirmed to have Conqueror’s Haki, we haven’t really seen them put it to any use other than knocking out weak enemies. So maybe it’s possible it helps with persuading others and getting them to conform to your will, unless their own conviction is too strong (ie: Whitebeard refusing to listen to Shanks’ plea to not chase after Blackbeard causing them to fight).
What do you think?
*Theory by AzrayJenkins
