Vivi is counted as an honorary member of the Straw Hats on her Vivre Card. Although she did technically leave the crew, Luffy and the rest still consider her a Nakama.
In this post, I’ll be discussing my theory on why I believe Vivi will return to the Straw Hats as an official member and her role in the story after Wano.
CHAPTER 1: THE NEWS
The Straw Hats are currently in Wano and have no way of communicating with the outside world. The news about the Reverie hasn’t reached their ears yet and the only people who probably know are Marco, Nekomamushi, Izo, Kaido, Big Mom’s crew, and X-Drake. The likely hood of any of these breaking the news to the Straw Hats during the war on Onigashima is 0 right now. But after Wano concludes, I believe Marco, Izo, and Nekomamushi will probably deliver the news to the Straw Hats.
Now, what could the news possibly be? Let’s analyze further. Chapter 956 starts with a one-week time-skip after the Reverie; with Garp having a chat with King Neptune. He talks about how the Reverie is always about competition between countries over resources than a meeting to discuss the betterment of the world. Though the nations of the world duke it out in the meeting, there is never blood-shed. This time, there was blood-shed. Garp states that after the Reverie ended, an incident happened regarding the Alabasta Kingdom. Judging from Garp’s tone with Neptune, we know it’s very serious.
The next page cuts to Big News Morgan saying that 3 big events happened at the Reverie:
- There was a death.
- The results of the meeting: The Abolition of the Warlord System
- The death was an assassination.
The World Government was trying to censor 1 or more of these topics, as a member of CP0 snuck in and tried to make a deal with Morgans to remove the news. When Morgans refused, they retort to silencing him. This tells us that the World Government is trying to hide something big, something they can’t afford to get leaked out to the public.
After this, Morgans defeats the spy and decides to relocate his base. But as he was doing it, he receives a call from Wapol.
We then cut back to the news spreading to the entire world. News about the Reverie and most importantly, something to do with Sabo. The news completely shocks the Revolutionary Army. This is the first time we see Dragon panicking this much over something.
Now there are 2 ways to interpret the news that Morgans delivered about Sabo:
- Sabo was found/discovered in Mary Geoise and was captured
- Sabo was found/discovered in Mary Geoise but is on the run and is missing in action
But I would like to point out a 3rd possibility. What if Sabo was slandered on the news in some way? I am sure that all the Revolutionaries could be just shocked about him either being captured or is MIA but I don’t believe it would be as drastic as to have Dragon panicking as well. What if the news reports Sabo doing something unthinkable or evil to the world? When you pay attention more to the panels, you could see how the Revolutionaries don’t look concerned with his safety but his actions instead. This also explains why Dragon is panicking as much as he has because Sabo’s actions could have ruined the reputation of the Revolutionary Army has with the citizens.
When staging a rebellion against someone in power, public perception is a double-edged sword. if the public is for you, your plans succeed but if the public is against you, you could be seen as a terrorist that plots to destroy rather than fix. But what could be the thing that Sabo was reported doing?
CHAPTER 2: FAILED ASSASSINATION, SUCCESSFUL SLANDER
We know that Alabasta holds a Poneglyph; one that explains the location of one of the 3 Ancient Weapons: Pluton. At the start of Reverie, we find out that one of King Kobra’s goals for going is to ask the Gorosei about the Poneglyphs and the Void Century.
Chapter 908 proves this when we see the Gorosei walking to meet Im-sama. They mention that the Nefertari Family holds the blood of the Celestial Dragons and is one of the 20 original kingdoms that founded the World Government, but suspiciously, they then say that they are the only one out of the 20 royal families to have refused the invitation to leave behind their kingdom and continue their lives as Celestial Dragons; to the Gorosei, the Nefertari Family are TRAITORS.
It seems the distrust of the Nefertari family has been a staple for 800 years.
On the same page, we are followed by this ominous panel:
Great Cleansing is synonymous with the word genocide…
This tells us that the World Government has already had plans to erase someone or a group of people from history altogether. So who could the World Government be after? This question answers itself in the same chapter; where we pan over to Im-sama ripping up the photos of Luffy, Shirohoshi, and Blackbeard, with the only photo being intact was of Vivi. He throws away the ripped up photos and takes Vivi’s photo with him where he sits on the empty throne confronted by the Gorosei.
It seems that out of the 4 individuals, Vivi is the first in line to be eliminated, which takes me to my next point: I believe that the assassination attempt that happened after the Reverie was the World Government ordering CP0 to kill Vivi.
The assassination failed but resulted in the death of King Kobra. Before the CP0 agents retried to kill her, Vivi was saved by Sabo and escaped. Wapol was threatened by the WG as he could have been the only witness to change the story and claim he saw Sabo assassinate King Kobra with the help of Vivi, who had connections to pirates.
CHAPTER 3: THE FALL OF ALABASTA
In chapter 216 titled “Vivi’s Adventure“, we see that a navy ship caught Vivi saying goodbye to the Straw Hats.
Luffy knows he didn’t select the wrong person for the crew…
Although the marines let her continue being a princess, I believe that information had already been stored. Basically, they didn’t think Vivi would be a threat so instead, they just kept the information to themselves for whenever it became useful in the future, and what better time to use it then when you need to kill her during the Reverie? It would make for the perfect excuse for the World Government.
Although the assassination failed, they will still release this information, and Vivi will probably be stripped of her royalty status and be proclaimed as a pirate. She will likely have a bounty as well.
From then on, I believe the Revolutionaries will find out the truth about what happened with Sabo and recruit Vivi to join them, and for a while, she will train and learn from them just like Robin. Still, that will only be a temporary stay, as she will likely rejoin the Straw Hats after Wano…
At the same time, the World Government will likely take over Alabasta completely or call in a Buster Call and erase it from history just like they did with Ohara. This is supported by the fact that in chapter 956, we see Blackbeard asking to retrieve an object from the Marines…
If the Marines found the Poneglyph hidden in the ruins of Alalabasta and decided to retrieve it for themselves, wouldn’t it make sense for Blackbeard to go after it since we know he is collecting them as well just like the other Yonko?
CHAPTER 4: THE RETURN OF VIVI
We already know that Luffy said yes to Vivi when she asked if he would take her as a friend again when they meet in the future in chapter 216. A “friend” in English only means someone close to you; someone you care about. It’s very loose and can’t be used to mean a member of the crew. But this is thrown out because the meaning of “friend” gets changed when translated back to the original Japanese. “仲間” or “Nakama” is the Japanese word for “Friend” but in One Piece, it has another context. “Nakama” is also used as a synonym for Crew-Mate.
Vivi still wants to go on adventures…
Although Luffy and the gang were silent, They didn’t ignore Vivi’s question.
This could be seen as them saying yes to Vivi. although they didn’t straight up say it, it’s pretty much implied. Vivi stayed in Alabasta to take care of her kingdom. If she didn’t have that duty, she would 100% have sailed with them. That’s why I believe that when the time comes for her to sail again, it will definitely be with the Straw Hats.
