One Piece’s Most Dangerous Theories

One of the most important events in all of the One Piece happened while no one was looking. This happened whilst Luffy was playing samurai on Wano and whilst the kings of the world were having an almost literal circle jerk at the revery. At the same time, the revolutionary army were enacting an event known as the eight nation revolution. And this event is a bit buried in the minds of readers and watchers of One Piece, but it is one that has begun to completely reshape the world as we know it with the ascension of Flame Emperor Sabo. And it may not seem like it, but this event was just as impactful as unseating an emperor of the sea. And we get fed a surprising amount of detail about this event. But researching for this video, I've come to realize just how criminally untalked about it is. One of the key things to understand about the success of the 8 nation revolution is that MonkeyD Dragon, for all of the crap and all of the jokes I give him about never doing anything, is very, very successfully playing the long game. And this colossal victory was calculated from events set into motion two years prior. And specifically, it was an operation that was planned as a result of the Paramount War. It's very easy to overlook this event because in the minds of readers and watchers of One Piece, this was a huge battle, but the only deaths were Ace Whitebeard and maybe Little Law Jr. We're still not quite sure what happened to him. But what we are not shown were the tremendous casualties that were incurred by the Marines. There were 100,000 fodder marines present at the Paramount War. And that is the bulk of the Navy. The rest of the world was left with a skeleton crew, whilst most of the Marines fought against Whitebeard with everything they had. And they won. The Marines in general, they won. But a substantial portion of those 100,000 Marines would not return from this battle. And also a substantial portion of those who did returned with permanent physical injuries that would prevent them from ever serving again. This was an immediate crisis that the world government needed to solve. Because with Whitebeard gone, a fierce power vacuum had emerged, threatening global stability. And if any other emperor of the sea happened to choose this time to declare war on the world government, then they were finished. And so the solution to this was to enact what is known as the World Military Draft. A solution to this more immediate problem, but one that would give Dragon and the Revolutionary Army their greatest opportunity to date. The World Military Draft essentially conscripted soldiers from all world government affiliated nations in order to plug the gaping hole the Paramount War left within the Marines. It was a process of conscription that kingdoms could not oppose with many kingdoms losing almost all capabilities of self-defense as a result. So, let's say that you're the king of a well government nation. Congrats. You've got 500 loyal King's Guard to protect your rule, but the World Government has just lost tens of thousands of Marines. and now your 500 men have been conscripted to help make up for it. So in that case, I certainly hope that you've been quite the benevolent king because if not, then you have absolutely nothing to stop a revolution or even an invasion against you. And this is the calculation that Dragon made following the Paramount War. He assembled the captains of each sector of the Revolutionary Army, pre-time skip, and informed his trusted associates of this plan. However, there was one problem, which is that the plan could not be enacted immediately. Here's the issue. Let's say that you're that king again. Congratulations. Your 500 king's guard have been taken. That's that's a bit sad. But you're still a world government nation. So if someone attacks you from the outside or your citizens revolt from the inside, then the world government will send you some complimentary marines to quell that threat. So instead, what dragon was waiting for was a point in time when the marines would be incapacitated and powerless to act. And as it just so happens, the world government were kind enough to schedule that time in for dragon with the Revery, a meeting between world government nations that takes place every four years on the dot and a time where the defense of the holy nation of Marijuan, which is where the Revery takes place, is paramount because having all of these kings in one place at one time, that would be a pretty perfect place to strike if you were some sort of global revolutionist. And given that at the time of the Paramount War, the last revery had been held 2 years ago, Dragon knew that 2 years from now, the bulk of the Marines would be gathered to protect the Holy Land for the next revery, leaving many of their nations vulnerable. And having that 2 years of planning time would also turn out to be quite integral. Revolutions don't just happen with the snap of finger, or do they? I guess we could test it. There we go. One either did or did not happen. But generally they require ideological seeds and a process of ideological germination. And so during the 2-year time skip, the revolutionary army focused their efforts on world government nations that they saw as being particularly vulnerable. We're talking nations with notoriously corrupt royalty as well as those who were especially harshly impacted by the heavenly tribute taxation system, which is the main source of strain on almost every wall government nation. It's never been stated exactly how much this tribute is. And I believe it's calculated differently and even a bit arbitrarily from country to country. And sometimes it's a financial strain that leads to some rather inhumane decision-making. For example, King Bakori of the Sorbet Kingdom took the rather brutal step of splitting his country into two parts and only having the rich part of it recognized to reduce the heavenly tribute, leaving the poor half of the nation to become an unprotected lawless zone. In that case, the heavenly tribute was calculated by population size. So the solution to that was seen to significantly purge the population. Not a very nice thing to do, said the revolutionary army, which identified these nations on the very edge and proceeded to dispatch their agents to plant the seeds and ultimately left the fate of these kingdoms in the hands of their people. Something we should be clear about with the 8 nation revolution is that the revolutionary army was not directly involved in any one of these events. They mainly invested their time into swaying the hearts and minds of the citizens within these nations with the promise that the revolutionary army itself would attack the holy land of Maraja and the world nobles. It's sort of like the principle behind Bellow Betty's devil fruit. You can give people a rousing speech and inspire them. But ultimately it is up to them to use that inspiration. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drown its tyrannical horse monarchs in order to quench its thirst for horsey liberation unless you provide some really solid inspiration to do so. And the vast majority of the revolutionary army's existence has been dedicated to slowly solving this horse problem. And in this case, after 2 years of solid planning, planting, and growing, the revery h it was upon us. And when we as readers and watchers first learned what happened at the Revery, I remember quite a bit of confusion and just a little bit of complaining from the online One Piece fan base because to a lot of people it just didn't make sense that Dragon did not launch a fullscale invasion of Marisho and instead just sent Sabo, Moy, Lindberg, and Kasu. But I would say that those people share the perspective of the world government and don't quite see the bigger picture. The world government, you see, they were anticipating an attack on Marois again because he gathered all your kings and stuff there. Good place to hit if you can. But Dragon knew that, which is why his focus was primarily everywhere else. However, the Revery was still an important target. And Sabo describes the objectives of he and his hit squad of elite agents as follows. I managed to complete all of my objectives. Broadly speaking, I had three. Firstly, to destroy the symbol of the celestial dragons in a declaration of war. Second, to free as many slaves as I possibly could and take Kuma back. And third, to venture into the land of gods and destroy their food stockpile. So, for the sake of this video, we're more concerned with goals one and three. The first one, destroying the symbol of the celestial dragons. That refers to a statue of their trademark hoof symbol. This is the one that they brand all of their slaves with and it represents their dominance over the world as if all of existence is being held down by their foot. Now, destroying the statue, it doesn't gain any immediate tangible value. However, what it is right, it is a signal to commence the 8 nation revolution because destroying it is very much like when Luffy ordered so king to shoot through the wall government flag at any slobby. It is a declaration of war. And once nations around the world see that the revolutionary army is striking Marijua and declaring war, the idea is that that will be their signal to get them to do it as well. And something that's important to consider with this goal is also logistics. I think the eight nation revolution, it might feel like a bit of a small scale event. Not just because Oda has really underplayed its significance so far, but also because it's composed of nations that the Straw Hats haven't visited, so we can't quite picture them or their scale. But consider that this was a multinational effort. Getting eight separate countries to all declare independence and revolt at the same time is a logistical nightmare. In fact, it's one of the suspected reasons why the One Piece world was flooded during the void century for the purpose of making this kind of communication and collaboration incredibly difficult. And so with the flood, each individual island would become more manageable. And look, the Revolutionary Army, they're a pretty large organization, but they aren't equipped to supply communications to all of these different nations at once and coordinate everything. However, that is where the world government itself comes in because they have built one insanely efficient communication system through the company owned by big news Morgans and his news coups. This is the world economic journal and it has mostly been used for the sake of propaganda. As if the world government wants to push a narrative to the global population, then they have the mechanism to get their message in first. Which is why Dragon decided to take advantage of that. Why bother with your own? There's an efficient one to use here. He knew that a declaration of war against the world government by doing something as outrageous as destroying the Hoof statue would be news that is far far too big to ignore. The moment it happened, the news coups would be sent out as soon as they possibly could, and each participating country in the 8 nation revolution would receive the signal to commence at approximately the same time. It's quite a clever move, using the superior infrastructure of your enemies to carry your message. As I often say, the world government is its own worst enemy, and it creates most of its own problems. And Dragon here is taking full advantage of that. But let's move on to goal number three because this one isn't immediately apparent, but it is very important to the success of the eight nation revolution, which was destroying the food stockpiles at Marijua. At the moment, Dragon's plan is to put all of the world nobles into a state of famine, which is a very poetic punishment for them. But Dragon, he's not just destroying existing foods, he's also cutting off future food and resources. By simultaneously removing eight nations, Dragon has cut the world government off from eight food industries as well as eight sources of heavenly tribute, which makes their already problematic task of restocking Marijua that much more difficult as they have less raw produce coming in as well as less financial resources to buy more food from elsewhere. And although this wasn't a stated goal, there was also one more factor that was key for this revolution to succeed, and that was to chastise the marine admirals. At any given time, these three men are referred to as the greatest military power. And it's because that is very true. If the Marines were to lose their admirals, then they would be able to be toppled by any given emperor of the sea. And the brilliance of launching this hit squad of Maraja is that it tied down two counter two marine admirals at the same time. Ryukyu and Fujitora were both present during the referee, which is despite Fujitora being warned by Sakuzuki not to be there. And so these two were tapped to defend the holy land and the world nobles from Sabo Molly Carasu and Lindberg. And in any other circumstances, two admirals would brutally dismantle this attack in a matter of seconds. However, due to the battleground, neither of them could use anywhere near their full power. Fujitora has a gravity related devil fruit, which if he were to use would cause collateral damage affecting the world nobles in their infrastructure. And Ryuki's forest loia isn't that much better because its main advantage is the reckless disregard for the existing environment around it which in this case is what he has been charged with protecting. And also you got to bear in mind that world nobles they are not regular civilians. If even a single world noble mate one if a single world noble were to be injured then you'd better believe that even a marine admiral would be held very responsible for letting it happen. Whether that be imprisonment or even execution. It could be given that it would be a crime against a god. Whatever it is, it's not good. So, Ryugu and Fujitora needed to be so extraordinarily careful during the conflict. And following the conflict, they would have remained tied up as well as there is no way the world nobles would have risked deploying their admirals elsewhere if they still feared that they could be under attack. So, this maneuver took two admirals out of the picture. Very important because even one of them could stop the revolution of an entire nation. There is still Kizaru floating around somewhere, but he can't be everywhere at once. So undefeable as he may be, even a man who can move at light speed would not be fast enough to prevent the sheer amount of damage that was about to be done here. So to recap, the Marines don't have the forces required to prevent a revolution. The individual kingdoms do not have armies sizable enough to control the public because they've mostly been conscripted into the Marines. The royalty of the kingdoms themselves aren't even there on their islands because they're at the revery. And public dissatisfaction with its current government in all of these nations is what I like to call the pitchfork point. And so our table is set and it is time for a lovely or revolutionary dinner. Following the declaration of war at Mariju, a total of 12 nations decided to revolt. And at the time of this recording, we only know three of them. The first was the kingdom of Lucia led by King Seeki. The second was the Tajin Kingdom ruled by Queen Modoron. And the third is the Eegis Kingdom overseen by King T IV. The Tajin Kingdom is essentially the One Piece world's equivalent of Morocco and Eegis is the United Kingdom. And this is unconfirmed, but I think it's very possible that following this trend, other nations that may have revolted include the Baliwood Kingdom ruled over by Hamburger, the Shishino Kingdom controlled by King Tacos, the Rashwan Kingdom led by King Beer V 6, the Nagutsu Kingdom managed by Furi, and so on. Essentially, there's a whole list of these miscellaneous kingdoms that Odor invented just for the Revery. About 16 all in all, and they're all based on real world places. So, I think it's a safe bet to say that Oda made these kingdoms to give the revolutionary army tangible targets. However, of the 12 kingdoms that revolted, only eight of them were successful, hence why it's not called the 12nation revolution, which would have been much nicer. And we don't know what caused the failure of the other four nations. It could be that the Marines did have just enough forces to stop a select amount or the administrators of those kingdoms had a superior defense strategy or even poor planning by the civilian revolutionaries. Either way, eight nations that was considered to be quite a huge success as nothing of this scale had been pulled off since the void century at the very least. And you might be thinking, man, on the internet, that's wonderful. But what is the revolutionary army itself doing during this time, if not helping the nations directly or assisting Sabos's team at Marge? Well, look, they weren't just sitting around doing nothing. The army itself was deployed to an assortment of strategic positions around the world with the goal of attacking all inbound cargo ships to Marge in order to sever their current supply line. an act that they would normally not be able to achieve. But with the revery occurring, two admirals a fist fighting and 12 nations in open rebellion, those cargo ships were an afterthought and they were left completely unprotected. And this was such a success that even after the rey concluded, Fleet Admiral Sakuzuki admitted that they couldn't do anything about the successful revolutions or the cargo issues because they did not have the soldiers available to deploy. But ironically as ever, that is the fault of the world government. as the kings during the revy came to the agreement to cease the warlord system. And so the vast majority of marine sources had to be immediately invested in an attempt to capture the remaining seven warlords. A feat which has been thus far fairly unsuccessful. But of the eight nations that did succeed in their revolutions, at least one of them would have quite a tragic ending. As a result of its rebellion, the Lucia Kingdom was targeted by Emu as a test case for his use of the ancient weapon Uranus. And so the entire island was wiped out of existence, which is quite a bit of victory for the revolutionary army, convincing this island to rebel for its best interest. And then having that effort be the reason why almost the entire civilization was killed. But it will be very interesting to see how the world government tries to explain these events in the history books because it is called the eight nation revolution. However, if Lucia never existed, then we only have a seven nation revolution. And look, good news is we've still got seven countries under new leadership. But the bad news is that the world government still has 170 plus allied nations under its banner. So this battle was a victory, but the war it is only just begun. But slightly more good news, it does look like those seven nations are uniting under a slightly different banner. As the director of naval bureau of investigation, Kuruma mentions, Sabo is currently believed by the public to be the one responsible for the attempted murder of St. Charles, the murder of King Cobra, and the kidnapping of Princess Vivy. So there is now a massive conspiracy theory out there connecting everything to Sabo which has led to Sabo being declared as the flame emperor and he is currently the metaphorical and when he turns into fire a quite literal flame of the revolution now said to have even more influence than dragon himself. So the revolutionary army is slowly building a consolidated force. It's probably not the one that they predicted it would be, but this is the direction that the winds have blown. And the hope from here is that more and more nations see that liberation is possible and that this snowball eventually becomes too big for even the world government to stop. By the way, if this video isn't wasting enough of your day, then mate, I can fix that because I've built an entire second channel called the Calm Belt. Home to massive compilations of Grand Line Review videos, 2 hours of insane theories, bizarre One Piece facts, complete storylines, and more. So, if you want something substantially longer to throw on while you work, travel, sleep, or desperately otherwise try to avoid your responsibilities, then check out the calm belt link in the description where there is already over 100 hours of One Piece waiting for you. And please do subscribe because pressing that tiny button genuinely is a massive help to us so that we can continue building the biggest One Piece library on the platform. So, definitely check it out. Link in the description. But for now, it's back to you, me. The revolutionary army will fail because whether they realize it or not, they're on the exact same path that the world government paved during the void century as 20 kingdoms gallantly rose up to overthrow the tyranny of the ancient kingdom and the revolutionary cycle is destined to repeat itself unless the efforts of one rubber boy can change everything, which they very well may. But the first thing that makes me rather nervous about the current state of the revolutionary army is something that I've brought up briefly in other videos but never properly expanded on. And that is the cult status of Sabo as the flame emperor which at this stage represents the driving force of the revolution. As following the eight nation revolution, Sabo is described as being woripped as something akin to a deity. And it's not hard to see why. Because the revolutionists see in the same way that many other nations see Luffy, as a liberator. It's because of Sabo's actions that they were able to escape tyranny and free themselves with the main difference being that the nations liberated by Luffy have personal experience with him. They know his personality. They know his nature and that nature ends up imprinting on the countries he saves and puts them onto a better path. However, was not present in any of the nations that revolted. They do not know his nature. And in fact, almost everything they think they know about is a lie. The world government blames Sabo for killing King Cobra, abducting Princess Vivi, and trying to kill St. Charles. And that violent nature is what's being imprinted onto the nations that now worship Sabo, believing this to be his nature, his choices, his actions, and emulating that is their path forward to further liberation. It's actually a very odd case where the people are using world government propaganda in order to free themselves from world government propaganda. And it's not a situation that Sabo is entirely against. As he famously says, "Anything that gets the flames of revolution burning," which is a quote that we'll return to shortly. But with a series of countries who believe that killing, kidnapping, and other assorted tactics are the way forward, are we not now just in the process of creating a new world government? Because that is exactly how the current world government formed. They were a group of nations who, justifiably or not, felt oppressed by the ancient kingdom. So they joined forces in a global revolt during the void century and overthrew said nation with the leaders then going on to be worshiped as the gods that evolved into the celestial dragons which again we have seen the inception of here with Sabo being worshiped like a god the first of his kind but probably not the last. If the revolution continues in this vein and Sabo is just going to be the first of many of a new generation of world nobles which is the exact problem that we're trying so hard to eradicate. And here's a bit of a hypothetical. Sabo's followers currently believe that kill murdering royalty is the path forward. So what would happen if any of these nations were to encounter say Princess Vivy? Would they follow the example they believe that Sabo set and try to kill Vivy for the greater good? She is a Nefitari after all, one of the 20 founding families who shaped the world into what it is today. This is another reason why I think the revolutionary army could fail because I don't accept that we're going to create a world where this is the mentality that persists. All it does is result in another different but kind of the same world government being created. Although a counterargument to this would be that Sabo, the face of the revolution, would never let that happen and that he's an X-factor here. But I'm not so convinced about that. As has already shown signs of moral compromise when he stated, "Anything that gets the flames of revolution burning, anything," and that right there is another key difference between Luffy and Samber because Luffy has been in very similar situations before and probably will be again. Luffy has impacted so many kingdoms and been called so many different things, but Luffy always rejects a false narrative that people try to force on him at all times, even if it's not in his best interest. Luffy aggressively and bluntly maintains his freedom and individuality, but Sabo does not. And he currently appears to be content with becoming anything that people need and or want him to be. And anything made that word anything is a lot of things. And not all of those things are good. Probably most of them are bad. And what if a time were to come where that anything involves Sabo crossing that moral line? Not just having other people's crimes retroactively assigned to him by the world government, but committing your own crimes. After having seen Emu and the literal demons that rule this world, is any act really off the table for Sabo in order to defeat them, including crossing that moral line and becoming something of a demon himself? And if the answer to that question is no, then can Sabo really be trusted with his newfound power and influence? When there's real stakes, sweet, juicy stakes on the line, people can make surprising decisions to say the least. And I know that this channel is about fictional pirates, but just bear with me for a second here. It's all going to come together because there is an extremely relevant episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 called In the Pale Moonlight that deals with a very similar scenario. In this episode, Captain Cisco somewhat intentionally becomes an accessory to murder in the assassination of a Romulan diplomat. An assassination that is then blamed on Cisco's enemy, the Dominion, which causes the Romulons to declare war on the Dominion, greatly assisting Cisco and the Federation and arguably saving the very existence of the Federation because their war against the Dominion was not going well. Not well at all. And at the end of the episode, Cisco reckons with the idea that he's just taken part in the killing of an innocent man for the greater good. And he then rather iconically says, "I can live with it." before erasing all evidence of his involvement. Bit of a tangent there, but this episode does such a great job of portraying desperation in wartime, as well as the surprising elasticity of morality of even the best of us under very real pressure, which is exactly where Sabo and the Revolutionary Army as a whole currently sit. They are fighting at an overwhelming disadvantage. They cannot win a straightforward head-on fight which leaves them in a very desperate position and needing to become quite, how shall we say, creative with tactics. And I would argue that some of their creative current tactics are already dangerously close to crossing that moral boundary. I'll get back to Sabo in a bit because his decision is going to be the key factor here, but right now we need to talk about Daddy Dragon. His plan to bring down the world nobles is nothing short of brilliant. But brilliant does not always mean good. Rather than face the world government head-on, Dragon has crafted a siege on the Holy Land of Mariju by destroying their food reserves and focusing the efforts of the direct army onto destroying and commandeering food supplies bound to the Holy Land. Dragon isn't choosing to engage with the actual military might of the World Government because currently that is a fight he cannot win. And luckily for Dragon, there's enough chaos happening right now with the four emperors. We have Monkey D Luffy doing things like the Egghehead instant as well as the world government's desperate efforts to try and capture the former wards of the sea that are tying up the bulk of marine forces. So there's no one to really stop Dragon carrying out his guerilla tactics of focusing purely on food supply. And if this does continue, then no matter how powerful the world government is, the world nobles will eventually run out of food and they will starve. But my question here is, would that be an acceptable solution to our world noble problem? And I know that a lot of you are probably screaming at the screen, "Yes, internet man. Yes, it is. They're bad people and they deserve it." However, I would reply that everything else we've seen in One Piece would suggest that no, it is not an acceptable solution. Oda has a very profound philosophy on food and hunger within One Piece, which can be seen all throughout the series. And we can go all the way back to East Blue with Sanji feeding Gene and Ze feeding Don Creek, even though it meant healing his enemy and potentially forfeiting Barantier itself, which was Ze and Sanji's entire world at the time. And I've been through this many times on the channel before, but Oda often links food directly to the morality of a character. You can tell everything you need to know about where a character stands by watching the meat. Luffy, for example, he is a voracious glutton, but he is always grateful for the food he receives. And he will bring down entire monarchies as thanks for being fed a single meal. And this goes to even the most basic of foods. Tama on Wano fed Luffy a small bowl of rice. But that became Luffy's primary driving force to defeat Kaido. All throughout the rest of the ark, Luffy's thoughts were of Tama starving, and he wanted to create a world where his friends could eat as much as they want. And I genuinely think that if you were to ask Luffy himself whether or not the world noble should starve, I think that he'd say no. And if he did meet a somewhat friendly world noble, and those do exist, then he may even fight for them to be able to eat. Because yes, Luffy knows firsthand how beyond horrible they can be. But Luffy is a very simple man, and his take on food is universal. No, he's not going to share any of his food. He's no hero, after all. But he's also never going to be actively in favor of mass starvation, no matter who it's being carried out against. And that's why I think the dragon's plan could fail because this is Oda's story. And while dragon's plan is one solution to the problem, it's not necessarily the correct solution. Do we really want our good guys starving a whole society to death? Is our solution to genocide to genocide the genociders? Well, I think in this fictional pirate comic, the answer is probably not. Etra Oda is just not that vindictive or nihilistic of an author and it feels very inconsistent with the morality of Luffy who is our guiding compass in the series. I'm not saying that Luffy's going to step in and say, "No, father, stop this madness. What you're doing is wrong." Definitely not. And I do feel like Luffy himself is going to have very limited, if any, involvement with the revolutionary side of the endgame plot just because Luff is going to be balls deep in Cherry Pie fighting Blackbeard on the pirate front. But Luffy is the man who's going to bring about the dawn of the world. We are following the path that he is carving out for us into whatever the next world looks like. And whatever that is, all I know is it's not going to look like what Dragon's doing right now. Dragon is still playing by the rules of this current world, this horrible, horrible world. So I think this current plan is going to fail and we are going to land on a more humane solution regardless of whether or not the world nobles deserve it. And in lie of Luffy, the role to change the direction of this revolution is almost entirely in Sabo's hands, at least at the moment. And I don't know, I don't think that Sabo is ever going to cross that moral line. Personally, as much as he's edging it at the moment, he is Luffy's brother and someone who Oda probably wants to keep as clean as possible. However, the people worshiping him, that is a very different story and a very relevant story because they are the revolution. They are the flame that has been lit. And while Sabo may not have killed Cobra, kidnapped Vivy, or attempted to kill St. Charles, these flames were created on the belief that Sabo was willing to commit these actions, which regardless of their truth, will be what the newfound revolutionaries all over the world will seek to emulate, which at the moment is very much in line with Dragon's way of thinking, at least as far as we know. Dragon could be significantly softerhearted and a more moral man than we're currently aware of. But just judging by his strategy so far, he comes off as a more hardened man willing to do anything that needs to be done, which could even push him into conflict with Sabo if they start disagreeing on exactly what the final solution to the world government is. Although something that needs to be said is that it's not the goal of the revolutionary army to destroy the world government. The world government tends to get conflated with the world nobles, which is understandable because the world nobles run the world government. But Koala has stated that the enemy of the revolutionary army is not the world government. It is the world nobles who control said government. So this isn't some colossal scale plan to completely destroy the system. It is a targeted approach to removing those who currently control the system, which is a very important nuance that those who worship the flame emperor may not necessarily be on board with. The world government as an entity does provide the single greatest source of stability in the world, at least currently. Without it, the whole planet would be governed by emperors and warlords and other assorted beings. And whilst the world government is widely seen as a symbol of tyranny, it does do quite an objective amount of good, which can be seen in the kings and queens that are members of the world government. We tend to think of it as an organization exclusively made up of corruption. But that only describes some of them. You do have benevolent rulers such as King Cobra, King Riku, and even King Neptune, who wants Fishman Island to become a fully recognized World Government nation as a bridge between fishermen and humans. There are over 170 allied nations within the World Government, and not every king or queen that rules them is a corrupt brick. There's an awful lot of them who have found the system quite beneficial for stability and prosperity of their people. And getting rid of the world government could destroy everything for them. Although the most clear area to see this nuance is within the Marines, we've been introduced to an awful lot of Marines and the vast majority of them are pretty decent people looking to protect the public and enact what they believe is justice. Many of them are even encouraged to find their own personal definition of justice. Whilst the Revolutionary Army have always been portrayed as something of an ominous force in opposition to the World Government, even by those who don't just buy the World Government propaganda, one thing that always sticks out to me is the first time the Straw Hats learned about the Revolutionary Army, which was in chapter 432. And the way that Oda decided to depict their mission was in this panel of two waring factions, an existing royal army and a revolutionary force of some vague kingdom featuring a skull in the foreground with a sword jammed straight through it. At the time, this was Robin telling Luffy about the Revolutionary Army. So, I suppose this is implied to be her mental image, which would have definitely changed after spending two whole years with them. But I find it very interesting that the way that Oda chooses to depict the Revolutionary Army has this consistent focus on violence and chaos. Not that they're necessarily the only ones propagating that, but the impression I get is more so that the world the revolutionary army operates in is one of such desperation that this outcome is preferable to living under the current conditions for many people of these many kingdoms. But one other thing that also gives me pause for thought is the unknown endgame of dragons plans. You know, it's a lovely idea to say let's get rid of those world nobles. But once we do do that, then who steps in to take charge of the system? And perhaps more importantly, how do you prevent this newly installed regime from rapidly developing into an institution every bit as corrupt as the world nobles? Well, let's take the most straightforward outcome of a successful global revolution, which would be that the leader of said revolution, Dragon, takes command. This is probably a very bad idea. Even if it's for the betterment of the world, Dragon is still widely believed to be one of the worst criminals to have ever lived. and a large amount of the planet would not be able to accept the world government being placed under his control or the control of his forces. But I believe that Dragon has accounted for this and likely has no intention of ever taking command of anything himself. As I've said in several of these revolutionary videos, the Revolutionary Army themselves, they're a very hands-off group. They rarely take direct and decisive action. And I personally believe that's because they do not want to be seen as leaders because that could result in the people of the world becoming passive, believing that the revolutionary army is over there and they exist to solve their problems for them. And so the future of this revolution is pretty much entirely up to the residents of the islands. And the reason why I think is pretty perfectly articulated by Emporio Ivankov when during Empire Down he said to Bon Clay, "I won't waste my time saving fools who can't save themselves. Even with nations that were about to suffer economic collapse or be torn apart by wars, all I did was focus on their will to live. Miracles only happen to those who never give up, never underestimate the power of miracles." And this quote sticks out to me a lot because it's more or less the same philosophy that Luffy has. Luffy won't ever help anyone just because it's the right thing to do. He will only help people who are willing to fight for themselves. And my go-to example of this is always Momoske. If he had not declared his desire to beat Kaido and his willingness to fight, then it's probable that Luffy does not help this child and doesn't get involved in Wano at all. Luffy has his own dreams and will to pursue and he's not wasting time with people who have no willpower of their own because that's not freedom. That's Luffy becoming a glorified global police force. And that's one thing I do find very encouraging about the Revolutionary Army that they are taking the Luffy approach on a more industrial and targeted scale. However, the problem with that is that the Revolutionary Army are not Luffy. Our future pirate king has the ability to bring out the best in people to inspire them to develop an unbreakable will. And the Revolutionary Army, they do a pretty decent job of this, but it's not quite the same. They're lacking that Luffy X factor. Mellow Betty can inspire people to fight with arousing speech, a fictional fruit in an open shirt. And Sabo can perform outrageous acts that spark flames across the planet. But the will they're conjuring is very different. It's a lot more fragile than what Luffy creates. And it's being channeled in directions that anyone inspired by Luffy would never dare pursue. And the Revolutionary Army itself is unlikely to step in and correct this path for all of the reasons I've just stated. They exist to spark and support, not necessarily to lead. And so, the key here is more than likely a combination between Dragon's methods and Luffy's inspiration. What Dragon is very effectively doing is giving the world the tools they need to act. And what Luffy is doing is giving the world not only the will to act, but also bestowing them with a particular brand of purity and joy that only a son god could deliver. and ideally ensuring that the next world won't make the same mistake as the previous three. Dragon does nothing. The world's worst criminal, the man admired by Bartholomew, son of the marine hero and father of the future pirate king. Here's all of those things. But when I say that we've never seen Dragon lift a finger, I mean that almost literally. Despite all of this in over 1,000 chapters of Assorted Pirate Story, Dragon hasn't really done anything and it's become a bit of a fan-based meme. But we're here today to test whether or not that's actually true because I definitely don't think Dragon gets enough credit for the stuff that he has done. And a lot of that comes down to how Etcher Oda has chosen to portray Dragon in the manga. So, I've gone through the entire series, logged all of Dragon's appearances and historical notations. And what we're going to do, right, is we're going to mathematically calculate exactly how much nothing Dragon has done. And with that, let's begin our Dragon Quest. 25 years ago, Dragon started the Freedom Fighters. And in a slightly cringy name aside, this is a good start because starting something is indeed something. 24 years ago, Dragon witnessed Goldie Rogers's execution and he did what would go on to become a classic Dragon maneuver, which was to stand there and do nothing. But to be fair, so did everyone else who was there, but also for the sake of this video, he did nothing. 24 years ago, Dragon also visited Ohara. He even brought some flowers, which is lovely. And he said, "I will create a military force that can actually fight back. Just watch Vega Punk. I'll change the world. So he said what he would do but didn't actually do anything here either. In that very same year, Dragon took another lovely trip to the Sorbet Kingdom and broke Bartholomew and Jinny, no last name provided, out of prison. This might seem like Dragon did something, but don't you be fooled. The only thing we actually saw him do was stand there with his arms folded with a bemused scowl on his face. Outside of the prison, all we saw was an explosion. So this probably wasn't Dragon's powers at work. And so with all of the available evidence, he didn't really do anything. Now, for the next 10 years, we know very, very little about what Dragon did. However, if I had to wager, I'd say that even if every moment of every day was recorded, it still probably wouldn't be worth reporting. Two things of note. At some stage during this decade, Dragon had a midlife crisis and got himself that sick tat over half his face. And he also had a son called Luffy. But for admittedly probably good reasons, Dragon decided not to parent said son. So that's Dragon doing a something followed by doing a nothing. 14 years ago, Jinny was captaining the eastern forces and conducting a revolutionary army mission in East Blue during which time an ominous silhouette popped up behind her. And the next thing we know, Jinn's being captured. This is of course reported to Dragon at headquarters of Baltigo. And Dragon after taking in this information decides to formulate a plan to do nothing. Literally the very next panel we see in the series takes place 2 years later. And it's not like Jinny just vanished. In fact, the revolutionary army was able to acquire some oddly detailed information regarding her whereabouts, which is that they discovered that a world noble had his eye on her and that she was taken on a world government ship to become his wife. Now, conventional wisdom says the dragon wouldn't be able to do anything because this was long before the revolutionary army had built itself up into the force it is today. So, just strolling on into Mariju with a handful of individuals determined to free a single slave would surely be correct. I mean, that's exactly what they eventually did during the revery, but we'll get there. And I would have accepted this if not for the existence of Fisher Tiger. He climbed up the whole red line bare-handed and launched a one-man attack on Marijua. In Jinbe's words, he insisted on setting himself apart from humans. He rose up and broke a great taboo by attacking sacred mariju. But if I did want to make another excuse for dragon, then what I'd say is that Fisher Tiger attacked Maraja 15 years ago. So, one year before Genie was captured, which works both for and against Dragon. The way it works for him is that perhaps after this event, the world nobles reassessed the security of the Holy Land and made it theoretically impossible to perform such an attack again. But the way it works against Dragon is because its existing proof that a raid on the Holy Land can work. And not only that, it can succeed with a hell of a lot less tactical knowhow and firepower than the Revolutionary Army possessed 14 years ago. Remember, Fisher Tiger was one man, not a particularly strong man. And he was one man without a plan. No plan. He just went in there and started messing up. And Fisher Tiger didn't even have any super special powers either. He wasn't a fruit user. He was he wasn't able to teleport like a certain Kuma. So, in my opinion, Dragon well and truly did nothing. Skipping forward 12 years ago, Dragon witnessed the burning of the Gray Terminal. He's even on the cover of the chapter where it happens, which I think just displays the Dragon we know best, just sitting, chilling, watering his snail phones. However, this is one situation where he deserves a lot of credit. While I guess it's still technically unconfirmed, Dragon is almost certainly the one who blew a path through the flames of the Great Terminal and saved who knows how many lives. But in addition to that, he also went out of his way to save Sabo. And by out of his way, I mean he left his ship on his own, seemingly just to save Sabo. Ivankov even gets annoyed at Dragon saying that he's late. Bad Dragon, but he's late because he did something. In this case, two somethings. So 12 years ago was a pretty great time for dragon-based activity. Four or so years later, Bartholomew announced that he needed to leave the revolutionary army in order to find a cure for jewelry bonnie's disease, the sapphire scales. And what's very important about this is that Kuma did find out the name of the disease before he had to resign. He also found out that there was no known cure. That's why he had to do the leaving and the searching. And he tells Dragon, his boss, he tells Dragon all about this. And Dragon does nothing. And you might ask, well, what was Dragon meant to do? He's not a doctor, I think. We don't know, I guess. But he's not a scientist. He can't be expected to cure an incurable disease. But at the same time, Dragon did personally know Dr. Vega Punk. And at this stage, he'd known Vega Punk for over 16 years. And there is no one more qualified in this world to help Bonnie. Now, Dragon would eventually reveal this information tokuma. But how long would that take? Well, almost exactly 4 years from the time that Kuma told Dragon about the disease. And Dragon does give some justification for this. He says that ordinarily Vega Punk is kept under very heavy security because he's a very very important world government dude guy. And Dragon refers Kuma to Vega Punk after Caesar Clown destroyed the Punk Hazard lab. So Vega Punk became somehow much easier to approach in the lab transition. You see, I would have thought that security would have been higher during the transition because there's more points of potential compromise. Regardless, I don't think that Dragon should have withheld this information. Even if Faker Punk was seemingly impossible to reach, he should still tellkuma about this possibility. And hey, maybe with that in mind, Kuma can scout out Punk Hazard and use the next four years to plan some sort of stealthy infiltration instead of aimlessly searching the world for a cure. To be clear, everything turned out for the best. Because of this journey, Kuma discovered all of these locations to send the Straw Hats to during the time skip. However, things turned out well in spite of Dragon's actions, not because he was doing the right thing or because he was doing anything. But dragon does tellkuma eventually and that does lead to Bonnie getting cured. So I'm a bit torn on this. He did both nothing and something again. So I guess we'll just give him both. Moving forward, the last time we see Dragon in the Kuma flashback and the last time we see him in the past at the time of this recording is when he's reacting to Kuma's erratic behavior. And you know what he's telling his forces to do? That's right, nothing. He says that Kuma has his reasons and to not go after him. So now Dragon's philosophy of nothingness is spreading down to the others, which takes us to 2 years ago in Log Town, which is when Dragon is first introduced to us in chapter 100. And he enters the series with a big bang. And again, this is unconfirmed, but it was almost certainly him who caused all of the strange weather phenomena that saved Luffy from being executed by a clown. And Dragon did go so far as to engage in the closest thing we've seen to a fight to date, which was to restrain Smoker from the Well, I'm not actually sure what he was planning on doing. He had his jittery out, but what what is he going to do? Just sort of smack Luffy with it a couple of times? Doesn't matter. We'll never know because dragon, he stopped it. Dragon got into a minor physical altercation for the sake of his son. And that is a definite did something. Dragon also says some very ominous words, which are, "The world is waiting for our answer." And going forward, that quote could not be more appropriate because at this point in time, we as readers have spent over 1,000 chapters waiting for your answer, Dragon. We have no idea what your plan is, when you're going to do it, or even if you're going to do it. This is a very exciting juncture for this video, though, because we finally enter the timeline of Luffy's story, and surprisingly, Dragon is sitting at roughly an equal amount of did somethings versus did nothings. But I'm afraid it's going to go very downhill from here. The Return to Water 7 arc is a landmark moment for Dragon because this is the arc where we discover that Gasp, he is Luffy's father. And you'd think that such a grand reveal might come with some enthusiasm from the father, but nah. We actively see him leaving the revolutionary army control room where all of the stuff is happening so that he can go outside and poetically muse to himself. Live as you wish, Luffy. There are times in history where it takes a will such as yours together with chance and coincidence to make people question the world. The day will come when we shall meet. And it's it's lovely. There's some nice words happening there. But he's not doing anything. He's essentially taking a smoker. One of the Revolutionary Army officers even asks where Dragon is going. He's just like, "I'm going to go get some air. You guys have got this. I believe in you." And this is why people think that Dragon does nothing. Because in so many of his non- flashback appearances, he's actively avoiding doing any work. So, this is a definite moment he did nothing. And he also continues the trend of telling his subordinates to do nothing. One dude is feeling pretty good because of a Revolutionary Army victory in North Blue. And Dragon just snaps back with, "Don't rejoice over victories. This is war." So, as soon as he spots his officers doing anything, he's like, "Excuse me, what's this? Are you doing something?" Well, stop it. Moving to the Paramount War, this is still the biggest event that's ever happened in One Piece to date. It involved a rather large amount of the planet and almost all of the characters we'd come to know and love getting together for a big old punch fight. And Dragon was, well, he was obviously not here or doing anything else at the time. The Paramount War was published in 2010, so I imagine that Dragon was busy catching up on all of the television of that era. You know, you got your boardwalk empires, your walking deads, your victoriouses, all of the classics. And when we catch up with him after the war is over, what we see is him having a bit of a chat with Vanov on what we've established are his well-lated snail phones. You get where we're going here, though. For this appearance, Dragon is doing nothing again. However, in this appearance, there is some promise of a thing because Dragon goes on to mention that a council of executives from around the world will be convened soon. The death of Whitebeard has destabilized the Old World Order. The government's minations are all in disarray, and he's not wrong about that. And you know, this really would seem like the right time to strike to initiate some sort of revolution via the use of some sort of army. Whilst your enemy is in the weakest position perhaps in the entire history of their organization. But then I guess Dragon realized that there were four whole seasons of victorious because he did nothing for two whole years. He procrastinated gathering this council of executives. And he waited just long enough for the world government to initiate a global draft and replenish its military forces, completely restock its admirals and renew its fortifications. One of the biggest questions I've always had about the revolutionary army is why they didn't attack Mariju whilst this was happening. I guess that'll all be revealed in the grand plan. Maybe attacking Mariju isn't even part of the grand plan, but it just seems like such a such a good moment of vulnerability. You know, you've got 100,000 marines, all marine admirals, Garp and Sang Goku, all of them busy down there struggling to bring down Whitebeard. So, apart from the Holy Knights, there are no defenses for Marijuar at all. There could not possibly be a better time to attack than now. But he didn't. In fact, Dragon chose the exact opposite timing to attack. He sent people in during the Revery when Marisho was the most heavily fought fight it ever gets. But look, we genuinely don't see Dragon again until the Zo. And what we see is him sitting and reading some documents and such. It looks very important, but really he's doing even less than usual because at least he usually stands. This sitting dragon is a whole new degree of does nothing. To Dragon's credit, he does finally call the Assembly of Revolutionary Leaders. You know, that thing he said he was going to do 2 years ago. But this is Dragon's first post time skip appearance. This we haven't heard anything from him in 5 years of real world publishing time. And when the time does finally come to give Dragon a dramatic re-entrance into the story, it's about the most mundane thing anyone could have ever imagined. He's sitting at his desk doing paperwork. Luckily enough though, from here on out, Dragon does pop up comparatively more frequently. Like, we're talking at least once an arc from here on out. In fact, we technically see him twice during Zo, but this this doesn't help his case because he's reacting to Luffy's bounty with Sabo and Koala. So, as usual, he's doing nothing. But during Hullcake Island, we are gearing up for the revery in the background and that that comes with the promise of things. But what we hear of the revolutionary army is that the Blackbeard pirates have attacked Baltiger. And it seems highly likely that Dragon either wasn't there or didn't fight because they lost their headquarters and ran away. Funnily enough though, this is a cool moment because it's the first time that Luffy sees a picture of Dragon and he's shocked that he shares genetic material with him. But the next time we see Dragon is chapter 94 where he's talking about plans to do something, but he himself is not actually doing anything. He's sitting at a table on Mama Island having what I'm sure is a lovely time because there's a distinct lack of any physical activity as per usual. It's getting to the point where Dragon's starting to remind me of those people who put content creator in their Twitter bios and always talk about what they're going to make and how awesome the content's going to be. But then they never actually make anything because they've spent all of their time and energy talking about what they're going to make instead of actually doing the making. Look, actions speak louder than words. And when it comes to Dragon, he speaks like a mute. Now, during Wano, we also get to see Dragon one time. It's in chapter 956 reacting to the news about Sabo. And look, of course, he's not doing anything. And at the end of Wano, I feel like the world itself has had enough of Dragon because the groups that support the Revolutionary Army have all started worshiping Sabo and calling him the Flame Emperor because he's the one actually out there getting stuff done. And that takes us to Egghehead Island, the ark with by far the most dragon appearances in One Piece at the time of this recording. He rocks up in 1,58 to stare at Kkuma for a bit, but otherwise does nothing. He joins a group call with Sabo in chapter 160, but again does nothing. Shortly after, we also hear him conversing with Shakra on Eggghhead Island. Although, I want it noted that Shaka called Dragon because he wanted to warn him about his imminent demise. So, again, Dragon isn't actively doing anything. And you know, when Shaka tells him about the feeling that he's probably going to die, Dragon responds by telling Shaka to stop joking, by telling him to do nothing about that feeling he's having. Classic Dragon. In chapter 1 167, Dragon does nothing, whilst Kuma breaks free and pops away to the red line. Then in chapter 1 168, Dragon still remains far too shook to be doing any of the things. In 1082, Dragon sits passively. As Sabo prepares to tell him everything that happened during the revery, however, he does bring out a lovely bottle of wine to share with his comrades. And in 10,083, there's a big moment of character development as Dragon pours the wine with a top sound effect. And it's insane that that's worth noting as an activity, but it's genuinely exciting if all you do in One Piece is watch Dragon. And in 1086, after Sabo's story is finished, you can see that Dragon has also finished his glass of wine. That's a three-part narrative right there. Beginning, middle, and end. And Dragon's final appearance at the time of this recording is in chapter 1, 103, where Dragon is theory crafting with Ivankov as to where Kuma may have gone. So Dragon there being about as useful as a One Piece YouTuber on the internet. So, our final total is across 29 appearances and recorded events in the One Piece manga, Dragon has done almost quite literally nothing in 23 of them, which is a do nothing rate of 79.3% across his One Piece career. So, it's not that he hasn't done anything in world. He's been very influential, making a lot of decisions that a lot of other people carry out. But it's just that whenever we as readers see him, approximately 80% of the time he's being completely inactive. It's at the point where I think Etra Oda has been a bit too generous with Dragon's appearances in the series and maybe shouldn't be including him as much until he's actually ready to kick Dragon into gear. Because I remember the days when seeing Dragon used to be an event, like something that would only happen once every couple of years. And even if he was doing nothing, the rarity of just seeing him was something in and of itself. But these days, it's not rare anymore. We see Dragon too often and he does too little on screen, which is what results in the overall impression that Dragon does nothing. But if you want to do more than Dragon, then please do subscribe to this channel for consistent injections of One Piece culture administered directly into your YouTube feed. By the way, if this video isn't wasting enough of your day, then mate, I can fix that because I've built an entire second channel called The Calm Belt. Home to massive compilations of Grand Line Review videos, 2 hours of insane theories, bizarre One Piece facts, complete story lines, and more. So, if you want something substantially longer to throw on while you work, travel, sleep, or desperately otherwise try to avoid your responsibilities, then check out the calm belt link in the description where there is already over 100 hours of One Piece waiting for you. And please do subscribe because pressing that tiny button genuinely is a massive help to us so that we can continue building the biggest One Piece library on the platform. So, definitely check it out. Link in the description. But for now it's back to year