The abilities of the Blackbeard Pirates seem to follow a pattern
There is something I’ve noticed about the way Oda has introduced Blackbeard Pirates’ abilities so far. This applies to all of them, with the exception of Blackbeard himself and Aokiji.
At this point, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is intentional by Oda, although I’m not sure about what he is trying to convey with this (I can think of many readings, but they are purely speculation).
Let me go through the pattern of fruits and abilities one by one:
Jesus Burgess, captain of the first division, ate the “Riki Riki no Mi” or “Strong-Strong Fruit”, which allows him to make himself stronger. This is a very similar ability to Urouge’s unnamed devil fruit, with the advantage that Burgess doesn’t need to receive damage to increase his strength. We’ve also seen Ivankov inject andrenaline into people, increasing their physical strength too.
Shiryu, captain of the second division, ate the “Suke Suke no Mi” or “Clear-Clear Fruit”, which grants him the ability to make himself invisible. He took this ability from Absalom, and we’ve also seen Sanji become invisible, not through a Devil Fruit, but by using his Germa suit.
Van Augur, captain of the third division, ate the “Wapu Wapu no Mi” or “Warp-Warp Fruit”, which allows him to teleport himself or others (we just saw him in the anime teleporting Blackbeard). This ability is similar to Law’s, but more straight forward, since he doesn’t need to create a room, nor exchange the teleported object with another object.
Avalo Pizarro, captain of the fourth division, is still a spoiler. He ate the “Shima Shima no Mi” or “Isle-Isle Fruit”. He can control an island, becoming the island itself, manipulating the terrain at will. This ability is very similar to Pica’s ability, which allowed him to merge with rocks and manipulate the terrain.
Laffitte, captain of the fifth division, has eaten an unnamed Devil Fruit that, so far, we know it grants him wings. We’ve seen many One Piece characters that can develop wings, such as Marco, Pell, or if you want to be more lenient, Nico Robin. Monet was also given wings (and bird legs) by Law’s ability. And in the same crew, there is Stronger. There are also many winged characters unrelated to Devil Fruits, such as Sky people and Lunarians, as well as Seraphims (who got them through King’s lunarian Lineage Factor).
Catalina Devon, captain of the sixth ship, ate the “Inu-Inu no Mi, Model: Kyubi no Kitsune”, or “Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Nine Tailed Fox”. This allows her to transform into a nine-tailed fox. However, what’s more interesting, is that the first time we see her abilities, what we see is one of the things she can do as a mythical nine-tailed fox: she can transform into other people and impersonate them. This is similar to Bon Clay’s “Mane Mane no Mi” or “Clone Clone Fruit”. However, Bon Clay needed to touch a person with his hands, and also had to use his hands to transform. So far, we don’t know whether Catalina Devon’s ability to transform has any requirement, or whether she just can transform into anyone at will.
Sanjuan Wolf, captain of the seventh ship, ate the “Deka Deka no Mi” or “Huge-Huge Fruit”, which allows its user to gigantify themself. We’ve already seen other characters increase their size thanks to their abilities, such as Luffy (partially with Gear 3 and completely with Gear 5), Sengoku (also a mythological zoan human-human fruit, by the way), Chopper in Monster Point (which both Chopper and Caesar call “gigantification” in chapter 1014), Big Mom after eating her own life force, Urouge when he receives damage, as well as the experiments to gigantify people done by Caesar Clown on children. Also Ivankov has increased the size of his face using growth hormones (I wouldn’t be surprised if he could increase people’s entire body size, but that’s speculation). That said, none of them reaches the size of Sanjuan Wolf using his ability, since he was already a huge giant to start with.
Vasco Shot, captain of the eighth shop, is still a spoiler. He ate the “Gabu Gabu no Mi” or “Glug-Glug Fruit”, which gives him alcohol-related abilities. We still don’t know a lot about this fruit, but the one technique we’ve seen Vasco Shot use consists in igniting alcohol as he spits it, effectively using it as a fire breather. We’ve already seen many fire-related techniques from Ace and Sabo, as well as Franky also using fire breathing techniques.
Doc Q, captain of the ninth ship, ate the “Shiku Shiku Fruit” or “Sick Sick Fruit”, which allows him to create and spread diseases. The interesting thing is that, when we are introduced to this fruit, of all the diseases Oda could have come up with, he chose to make up a “feminization disease”. So the one thing we see Doc Q do with his ability is, once again, something we’ve already seen someone else do before, in this case Emporio Ivankov changing people’s sex with his Devil Fruit ability.
Finally, there is Stronger, Doc Q’s horse. Stronger ate the “Uma Uma no Mi, Model: Pegasus” or “Horse-Horse Fruit, Model Pegasus”, which allows him to become a Pegasus, a winged horse. We’ve already seen a pseudo-Pegasus before in Skypiea with Pierre, Gan Fall’s bird, who ate the “Uma Uma no Mi”.
So, at this point, does everyone see the same pattern as I do?
A recent anime episode, which showed Doc Q’s ability, as well as Van Augur teleporting in a fight against Law, of all people, is what made me realize that this is not an accident.
Oda is portraying every single one of their abilities as something we’ve seen before. Even when they could do something new (like Catalina Devon or Doc Q), Oda still chooses to introduce their abilities by doing something we’ve seen someone else do before.
The first time I saw Avalo Pizarro’s ability in the manga I was very weirded out by it. Why would Oda repeat such a unique and recognizable idea as Pica’s ability? Now I understand that it is intentional.
So the next question is, what is Oda trying to convey?
I’m curious about what is everyone else’s interpretation of this. What do you all think is Oda’s intention?
*by A_Happy_Human
