I have a theory on how SAD, SMILEs, Devil Fruits, the Ancient Civilization and Clan of D are all connected, and also why Devil Fruit users can’t swim.
This came to me after I read the latest chapter and I finally got around to writing it. It was a garbled mess in my mind, but I tried to make it as readable as possible.
In the latest chapter we found out that the people of Ebisu town are unable to show any emotion but laughter.
It got me thinking that if actual sadness (SAD) can be used to create SMILEs it might explain the origin of Devil Fruits and the common traits shown by the clan of D. Let me try to explain.
If pure sadness can be used to create a bootleg Devil Fruit, then maybe real Devil Fruits are also created from the negative emotions of people. They are the negative emotions of people condensed into a fruit and given a property as a means to contain them. It would also explain why they are named after the devil. They are the bad, the evil and the wicked in humanity. Literally the devil in the human spirit.
In my mind they are the antithesis to Haki. If Haki is your spirit and your spirit is expressed through your dreams, ambitions, vigor, will power and aspirations, then what is contained in Devil Fruits are all the strong negative emotions that stop you from expressing your true spirit (Haki): self-doubt, fear, lack of ambition, stagnation, hesitation, lack of courage and so on.
We know that there existed an Ancient Civilization that was way more technologically advanced than the rest. Could it be that they found a way to remove all those negative emotions from their population, in a healthy way (not like SAD) and store them within fruits. That way the person can be truly free to follow their true heart’s desire. And the Clan of D. are the descendants of the people who used to live in that Kingdom (or who I think might still be living there).
Well that would explain why people with D. in their name are always smiling, never live with regrets and always follow their dreams. And it might also explain why there are other races (Jaguar D. Saul) who also have a D. in their name, as the Great Kingdom would have all races living together.
This bring me to my next point. If those negative emotions are separated from the person, they become, in a sense, ‘evil spirits’. So, you could think of a Devil Fruit as an ‘evil spirit’ held down by a physical property/animal/element, bound to an object.
From here on I refer to those ‘negative emotions’ as ‘evil spirits’. They are not necessarily evil. They are negative, but I don’t want people to confuse them with Perona’s spirits. Yep that’s it. Definitely not because I’m too lazy to re-write this.
That would also explain why Devil Fruit Users can’t swim.
In a lot of places around the world salt and salt water are used to ward off evil spirits and remove negative energy. Could it be that it’s the salt in the water that causes the evil spirit inside to go weak and since the Devil Fruit User is the carrier of the evil spirit, they also gets weak by proximity? I think so. If that’s the case then people who ate the Devil Fruits just become the object the ‘evil spirit’ is bound to.
It would also explain why other objects (such as swords) can have Devil Fruits.
The object that’s holding the spirit is just not a fruit, or a human, but rather a sword or w/e.
It also explains why you can’t have 2 Devil Fruits at the same time.
The spirits will amplify each others’ strengths, while the elements holding them down won’t, so they would escape destroying your body in the process. Or perhaps the strain on the body becomes too high, because it’s just too much energy to be contained by a single object.
When the container object (or human) is destroyed the spirit just travels to the first, most stable container it can find, a fruit (the same way Brook travelled back to his body). Perhaps the reason fruits are chosen as the default carrier object is because they are the most stable when it comes to containing the ‘evil spirit’.
Now, we know that most natural Devil Fruits are found on the Grand Line and according to legends are allegedly created by the “Sea Devil”. Could it be that the people of the Great Kingdom on Raftel have a tradition as to where they would discard their negative emotions into the sea so they can never found again. It would make sense, the sea is vast and they would be lost forever. Unless of course by pure coincidence they get washed up on a random shore along the Grand Line. It could be the reason we don’t see them so much outside of the Grand Line, as the Calm Belt would stop them drifting that way.
Bonus theory: Blackbeard doesn’t have 2 devil fruits.
He has one and he is using it’s gravity to keep the spirit of the other fruits inside him. So technically it’s his fruit that has a fruit, but not really, it’s just kept there by force. The reason he threw that cover over Whitebeard was so he can actually use his fruit properly and turn into his element (darkness).
He is a logia and his logia is not special, it’s just that light is constantly hitting him and stopping him from being able to transform into darkness (light is the opposite to darkness the same way water is opposite to dryness/sand and rubber is an insulator vs electricity). The way he gives out fruits to his subordinates is that he transforms into darkness, covers the person dying, catches the Devil Fruit spirit leaving the body, then releases it when he is in friendly territory. Spirit travels to a fruit, comrade eats the fruit. Doing that he ensures no one else can pull a fast one and steal a good Devil Fruit away from him no matter what they do.
*Theory by Radontal
