I am seeing this common misconception show up again now that Kid vs. Shanks has been animated. I see a lot of people saying “Kid had no option but to attack the Red Hair Pirates as Shanks was not letting him go without handing over his Poneglyph rubbings” or “Shanks never intended to let Kid go without stealing his Poneglyph rubbings”.
But people miss a bit only 2 pages before Shanks gives his ultimatum to hand over the Poneglyphs: Shanks is drinking in a bar bickering with some child when Rockstar comes in yelling “Hey, cap’n!! He actually attacked us!!”.
If they didn’t already know that Kid was there, Rockstar would’ve said something like “Kid’s here!! He’s attacking us!!” instead of “He’s actually attacking us!!”. Moreover, Shanks already knows who ‘he’ is without Rockstar telling him. This tells us that Shanks already knew that Kid was nearby, but didn’t care. He wasn’t going to bother until Kid started causing trouble.
Shanks leaves the bar and gives Kid his ultimatum only after hearing all that from Rockstar.
Shanks fully intended to let Kid go without mugging him if he was just passing by without causing trouble. The common interpretation of this scene is “This guy brought Poneglyph rubbings right to our doorstep, this is too good to let go” but I’ve always interpreted this as “Emperors are not to be taken lightly, I will teach him a lesson for attacking us by taking away something he worked hard to earn”.
*by shreyas16062002
