Discussion Generational Gap

[zerocooldx]

This isen't really a "solid topic" of sorts but i'll give it a shot anyways. The older "world powers" such as Whitebeard, Roger, Shanks, Garap, Rayleigh, Mihawk, Sengoku and etc. don't seem to or have ever posessed fruit powers. And i know we haven't seen them in serious battles but i'm going off of what we have seen thus far. And for the most part it seems that the "new generatrion" of at least pirates, like Luffy, Ace, Kid, Law, Hawkins, Drake and etc. posess fruit powers. I mean all of the top Supernovas, except maybe 2-3 posess fruit powers, and i think it's safe to say that one day most of them will be the "world powers". And i suppose that the current Marine Admirals would maybe/sort of fit into at least a part of the older generation category if not somewhere in between. But obviously fruit powers give their users a power advantage to a certain degree regardless of their age or what not and seem to be fairly prominent.

But as far as we know the non fruit users outweigh the fruit users of the older generation, which is the complete opposite of the new generation. I know we haven't seen or heard in great detail a lot about the older pirates, and we haven't seen too many young marine powers either. Maybe Rob Lucci and the CP9 group could be seen as new age pirates but i'll let you guys decide that. I'm just sort of talking about this off of what we know so far, but this topic definately has some dark spots but i think people will see what i'm talking about. And as far as we know the Devil Fruits have been around "forver" so it's not as if the older generation decided not to eat them, they just didn't rely on them that much. So what i'm getting at is that has anyone else noticed that maybe we are seeing a "generational gap" of sorts with the old age and the new age pirates at least "power" and "battle" wise? And also do you guys think that having fruit powers could put someone at a severe disadvantage as opposed to not having to rely on fruit powers? And also how will Haki and all of its various abilities play a role in the series?

 

[bittman]

Without going too much into your argument, I'm pretty sure that most of the older generation you mentioned just then have a Devil Fruit.

It was implied Roger could "hear all things".

Whitebeard's crew goes through many devil fruits, would be strange for him not to take one.

Shanks is unknown.

Garp is unknown, though he has a Fist of Love? =P

Rayleigh is unknown, but probably not with his techniques hinted to be Haki-related. Plus if they parallel him to Zoro, it might be best to not have a fruit.

Mihawk is a high chance of a fruit. When he first cut Don Kreig's boat, they mention that it must be because of a devil fruit. Though we can class them as naive and guess that Mihawk doesn't, Oda's writing back then was far clearer and if he gets a random person to say Mihawk probably has a devil fruit, then he probably has a devil fruit.

Sengoku is unknown.

So off what we've seen so far, I can't really get into this discussion since there are flaws in this early part of the argument.

I can argue that there's more evidence to say that Devil Fruits are passed down through generations as the user dies with more weight...a lot more weight actually, since I believe this is how it will work...

 

[zerocooldx]

Without going too much into your argument, I'm pretty sure that most of the older generation you mentioned just then have a Devil Fruit.

It was implied Roger could "hear all things".

Whitebeard's crew goes through many devil fruits, would be strange for him not to take one.

Shanks is unknown.

Garp is unknown, though he has a Fist of Love? =P

Rayleigh is unknown, but probably not with his techniques hinted to be Haki-related. Plus if they parallel him to Zoro, it might be best to not have a fruit.

Mihawk is a high chance of a fruit. When he first cut Don Kreig's boat, they mention that it must be because of a devil fruit. Though we can class them as naive and guess that Mihawk doesn't, Oda's writing back then was far clearer and if he gets a random person to say Mihawk probably has a devil fruit, then he probably has a devil fruit.

Sengoku is unknown.

So off what we've seen so far, I can't really get into this discussion since there are flaws in this early part of the argument.

I can argue that there's more evidence to say that Devil Fruits are passed down through generations as the user dies with more weight...a lot more weight actually, since I believe this is how it will work...

Haki has nothing to do with fruit powers, and Shanks does not have a fruit power otherwise he would not be able to save Luffy from drowning. Also Law is known as the "Surgeon of Death" which does not mean he is a doctor. And Rayleigh was known as the "Dark King" which would probably make people think that he posessed a power like Black Beard but he doesn't. Pleanty of characters get nicknames for various reasons. Everyone else you mentioned has a higher chance of not posessing a devil's fruit power than they do of posessing one. Which is just based off of what we have seen from the characters thus far. I highy doubt Oda would hide the fact that anyone posesses a fruit power for this long, i mean he hasen't thus far so why start now? He has always clearly stated/defined all of the fruit users pretty much as soon as they have been introduced into the series. I highly doubt he will suddenly give Mihawk, Whitebeard, Garap and etc. fruit powers out of no where.

 

[hirou]

Well, noone said DF were around forever. Maybe it all started from top secret Goverment Research broke wild? Half-joking, but still...

 

[bax]

I'll just give a thought on why the previous generation has lesser DF users compared to today (given that the statement is true).

As we know from the beginning of the story, DF is really rare. The great pirate age didn't took place until Roger was executed, which can be also interpreted as there was lesser exploration of the world compared to the current timeline. Due to the great pirate age, more people took their chances and went out to the sea (and hence discovering new land and places), which personally, largely contributing to the discovery of more of these fruits.

But with that said though, the DF users are still very rare, considering the number of people having it over those who don't. It's just for the development of the story that we see the DF users in every arc (especially prior to the introduction of haki), since it'll be pointless to show Luffy beating the crap out of nobody everytime. Plot device in short.

 

[bittman]

Haki has nothing to do with fruit powers, and Shanks does not have a fruit power otherwise he would not be able to save Luffy from drowning.

I didn't say Haki did have anything to do with it, I only mentioned it with Rayleigh, who I agreed would not have a fruit.

And Shanks, that was 7 years ago, hence the "unknown".

Also Law is known as the "Surgeon of Death" which does not mean he is a doctor. And Rayleigh was known as the "Dark King" which would probably make people think that he posessed a power like Black Beard but he doesn't. Pleanty of characters get nicknames for various reasons.

Yes, character's get nicknames for various reasons. Again, the only nickname I mentioned was Garp's punch-nickname half jokingly. When Zoro uses Onigiri I don't expect rice to rain from the sky, so when Garp uses his Fist of Love I don't expect it means he just used a DF technique.

Everyone else you mentioned has a higher chance of not posessing a devil's fruit power than they do of posessing one. Which is just based off of what we have seen from the characters thus far. I highy doubt Oda would hide the fact that anyone posesses a fruit power for this long, i mean he hasen't thus far so why start now? He has always clearly stated/defined all of the fruit users pretty much as soon as they have been introduced into the series. I highly doubt he will suddenly give Mihawk, Whitebeard, Garap and etc. fruit powers out of no where.

Really? Please turn to the first page any character anywhere gets a placard that introduces them. Many of the character's placards don't say "Captain Eustas Kid, Magnet Magnet Fruit" or something. All the supernova's weren't introduced with their fruits, but were shown in the following few chapters as they got into fights.

The large majority of people you mentioned in your list we have either:
A) Never seen throw so much as a punch (Sengoku, Roger)
B) Have only seen throw one attack in the entire series (Whitebeard, Shanks)
C) Or have fought at probably 10% of their maximum strength (Garp, Mihawk)

Oda doesn't need to introduce their devil fruits in any of these scenario's, just as he took his time to introduce the fruits of other major players where he wants to.
* It took over 300 chapters from Blackbeard's first mention to seeing his fruit.
* It took over 50 chapters from Crocodile's first mention to seeing his fruit.
* It took over 300 chapters from Kuma's first appearance to seeing his fruit.

People like Dragon and Doflamingo have a very high chance of having devil fruits, but if you could please tell me where Oda says what they do or that they specifically do have a devil fruit?

The ultimate point is: Oda does not need to introduce us character's devil fruits within moments of them appearing on screen. If they are highly relevant to the current arc, then we'll find out early on in the arc's beginnings what it is they can do. However, all the characters you mentioned (minus Rayleigh) have never played a large part in any arc and we have never really seen fight, so Oda has many reasons to hide away their actual power.

 

[beastboy]

ASSUMING THAT THEY REALLY DON'T HAVE A DEVIL FRUIT I think is cause they're pirats, and pirats live in the see and swim, and because they are marines, a marine works in the see and can swim, if a battle in the see happened DF users would be the more useless cause they would probaly fall in the see and then they wuld die, and you eared what shanks sayed to luffy "HOW CAN YOU BE A PIRAT IF YOU CAN'T SWIM" I think this is what old school's think.

 

[zerocooldx]

Regardless of the reasoning the old age pirates seemed to not rely anywhere near as much on Devil Fruits as the current generation does. No one is arguing as to why the older pirates didn't rely on Devil Fruit powers, we are just talking about the overall change. The older generation seemed to have had some unbelievably powerful individuals that for as far as we know, most of them did not posess ant type of Devil Fruit powers. And of course Devil Fruit powers make the series much more interesting, but that should easily be a given. Also when i said that when Oda introduces a character he almost always gives clues/hints to their abilites. I was not talking about just catching a small glimpse of a characters face, or when we would just see/hear a little bit about a certain character. -_-"

But rather everytime a character has had an "extended" spotlight on them, meaning we have seen them more than once. Where also they have actually had some type of an interaction with other characters, and when that happens then for the most part we have learned something important about them. Which is basically common sense for what Oda has been doing the entire series. Prior to the Thriller Bark arc all we pretty much saw of Kuma was when he arrived at the Shichibukai meeting. Which i really hope that no one took for an introduction of his character. Both Ace and Smoker displayed their Logia abilities when they were formally intorduced to the series. The first real time we saw Garap we saw what is now know was Haki, similar to when we first saw Shanks. A character does not have to go "all out" in order for us to get an idea as to what their power is or eventually will be.

Mihawk was imediately introduced as the "worlds greatest swordsman". It was also stated that Whitebeard was the "worlds strongest man" right when we saw/heard of him. Rayleigh also imediately used Haki as well as some other power in his introduction. The admirals Aokiji and Kizaru showed off their Devil Fruit powers as soon as we got a good look at them. Handcock and her sisters showed off their Haki and Devil Fruit abilites as soon as they were introduced as well. The same can be said for Magellan and Ivankov. Not to mention all of the Supernovas having their powers shown off right from the get go. Also It's highly implied that Dragon and Flamingo are both Devil Fruit users, Dragon's being the Wind Logia and Flamingo being a puppeteer of sorts. Its just like how Oda showed Garap and Shanks using a strange power, Haki, which at the time we had no idea of what the power was.

But non the less Oda still gave us a taste of what type of power they posessed. I don't think anyone has to be a genius to see what Oda was implying when he showed off Dragon's and Flamingo's powers, at least i hope not. Its the same for anyone else that will be introduced, especially since we know so much more about the abilities/powers that exist in the series. Its become far easier to predict certain characters abilities as the series has moved forward. 95% of the characters that have been formally intoduced we have seen at least a glimpse of their power. I don't think Oda has to "spell out" everything that he writes about, although to his credit he does do that a lot. But for the few times he doesn't do that he gives pretty good clues to certain characters abilites, which just requires common sense to figure out. But more often than not he clearly gives us a good idea of characters powers and abilities.

 

[braindamage351]

Haki seems to go hand-in-hand with being pirate king, so everyone that's close to it already has that ability to rely on. That's why they don't bother with DF ability. Gold Roger, Whitebeard, Shanks, and Rayleigh all obviously have crazy haki, and since they can already hit logias and do pretty much whatever they feel like, there's no point in a fruit.

Haki is not nearly as common as people have been treating it lately (some people act like it's the reiatsu of One Piece). Why would Blackbeard go to so much trouble to get his Yami fruit if he could already kick logias in the face like Rayleigh?

 

[zerocooldx]

Haki seems to go hand-in-hand with being pirate king, so everyone that's close to it already has that ability to rely on. That's why they don't bother with DF ability. Gold Roger, Whitebeard, Shanks, and Rayleigh all obviously have crazy haki, and since they can already hit logias and do pretty much whatever they feel like, there's no point in a fruit.

Haki is not nearly as common as people have been treating it lately (some people act like it's the reiatsu of One Piece). Why would Blackbeard go to so much trouble to get his Yami fruit if he could already kick logias in the face like Rayleigh?

Well as we have seen with Luffy Haki isen't something thats learned/mastered over night. Now granted Teach is a lot older than Luffy and he may not be able to use it, but we really don't know his back story. Also Devil Fruits are a quick/easy power which gives its user a huge advantage against average opponents. But maybe the "Will of D" has something to do with Haki or maybe even becoming Pirate King.

 

[JC123]

The Will of D is privy to ancestors of the ancient people. But assuming Whitebeard to be a D, because he has traits similar to Luffy or Blackbeard, is really a downer...

Rayleigh learned haki through trials and tribulations that increased his spirit. Why not believe that there are other people besides D's that can do the same thing?

Yes, I'll admit that Devil Fruits are a major boost in power, but for all intents and purposes, Roger was a normal human being until we are given info otherwise. So within his time, there were less people that had DFs to use. They had to learn something that was equivalent to DFs without being cheapened and that's where Haki comes in. The greater the spirit and will to live, the stronger someone is. I still have to believe the DFs are really rare. Just because someone found it, imagine ALL of the people over the world of OP that don't have DF powers. East Blue, West Blue, North and South Blue + All Blue and the Grand Line. Yes more are pirates but I would think with a great power like a DF someone would want to be more inclined to fight as a Marine or pirate. Come on... What kind of story would it be if we heard of DFs as normal affairs?

 

[zerocooldx]

The Will of D is privy to ancestors of the ancient people. But assuming Whitebeard to be a D, because he has traits similar to Luffy or Blackbeard, is really a downer...

Rayleigh learned haki through trials and tribulations that increased his spirit. Why not believe that there are other people besides D's that can do the same thing?

Yes, I'll admit that Devil Fruits are a major boost in power, but for all intents and purposes, Roger was a normal human being until we are given info otherwise. So within his time, there were less people that had DFs to use. They had to learn something that was equivalent to DFs without being cheapened and that's where Haki comes in. The greater the spirit and will to live, the stronger someone is. I still have to believe the DFs are really rare. Just because someone found it, imagine ALL of the people over the world of OP that don't have DF powers. East Blue, West Blue, North and South Blue + All Blue and the Grand Line. Yes more are pirates but I would think with a great power like a DF someone would want to be more inclined to fight as a Marine or pirate. Come on... What kind of story would it be if we heard of DFs as normal affairs?

Yeah, Whitebeard's name is Edward Newgate, which kinda sounds like a very western name. But there is no D in there, unless Oda puts one in, but thats highly unlikely. And we don't even know if Shanks will have a D in his name, i mean Oda has done a great job of protecting Shanks thus far. But i think now its pretty clear that the Will of D and Haki users aren't really connected.

 

[Lord Rayleigh]

Yeah, Whitebeard's name is Edward Newgate, which kinda sounds like a very western name. But there is no D in there, unless Oda puts one in, but thats highly unlikely. And we don't even know if Shanks will have a D in his name, i mean Oda has done a great job of protecting Shanks thus far.

Oda has given us Whitebeard's full name : it is impossible for example that he did that with WB's name : Edward D Newgate.
But, there is definitely a d in Whitebeard's name but is it a D or just a d, that is the question. Edward Newgate.
Do you remember that Gol D. Roger was first introduced as Gold Roger ? That revelation can happen with WB : Edwar D Newgate.
But as you said, for the moment, WB must be considered as a non-D. What happens next will change or not that situation.

But i think now its pretty clear that the Will of D and Haki users aren't really connected.

The common Haki is not connected to the Will of D, because the Will of D is not common. But what about the King Haki ? We do not know if the D members are the main holders of the King Haki.
nota bene : if the Will of D is connected to King Haki, that will not mean the non-D people cannot have King Haki.

 

[zerocooldx]

Oda has given us Whitebeard's full name : it is impossible for example that he did that with WB's name : Edward D Newgate.
But, there is definitely a d in Whitebeard's name but is it a D or just a d, that is the question. Edward Newgate.
Do you remember that Gol D. Roger was first introduced as Gold Roger ? That revelation can happen with WB : Edwar D Newgate.
But as you said, for the moment, WB must be considered as a non-D. What happens next will change or not that situation.


The common Haki is not connected to the Will of D, because the Will of D is not common. But what about the King Haki ? We do not know if the D members are the main holders of the King Haki.
nota bene : if the Will of D is connected to King Haki, that will not mean the non-D people cannot have King Haki.

Well i was actually thinking of that when i first saw Roger's and Whitebeard's names. But then i looked at Dragon's name, which was Monkey D. Dragon. At first i thought his would be Monkey D. Ragon, but as we have seen thats probably wrong. So i don't know, Oda could pull a fast one on us and let Whitebeard have a D. in his name. Also we haven't learned much about Haki, and as we have seen there might be different forms of it, like Mantra. So i would purely be making things up if i did try to elaborate on Haki. But i will say this much, if Oda wants something to be a mystery, then he will do a hell of a good job of keeping it a mystery.

 

[Elyon A. Luna]

Oda has given us Whitebeard's full name : it is impossible for example that he did that with WB's name : Edward D Newgate.
But, there is definitely a d in Whitebeard's name but is it a D or just a d, that is the question. Edward Newgate.
Do you remember that Gol D. Roger was first introduced as Gold Roger ? That revelation can happen with WB : Edwar D Newgate.
But as you said, for the moment, WB must be considered as a non-D. What happens next will change or not that situation.


The common Haki is not connected to the Will of D, because the Will of D is not common. But what about the King Haki ? We do not know if the D members are the main holders of the King Haki.
nota bene : if the Will of D is connected to King Haki, that will not mean the non-D people cannot have King Haki.

Hancock is not a D. And she posesses the King Haki. So, there has to be another reason. Like was said in Amazon Lily, that a person with such a Haki bows to another is a rare fact. So, it could be a leader's thing. Something like that.

 

[gao_dargon]

Oda has given us Whitebeard's full name : it is impossible for example that he did that with WB's name : Edward D Newgate.
But, there is definitely a d in Whitebeard's name but is it a D or just a d, that is the question. Edward Newgate.
Do you remember that Gol D. Roger was first introduced as Gold Roger ? That revelation can happen with WB : Edwar D Newgate.

I don't think thats likely to happen, cuz bouth WB and BB names are based on a real pirate named "Edward Teach" AKA the real Black Beard, (WB being Edward and BB being Teach

and as far as the older generations don't using as many fruits, well thats just the old generation guys we know, i mean the ones that got real strong and survive didn't use DF (as far as we know) but we don't know the other guys, in the future the newer pirates can say that Nami, Ussop, Franky, Sanji and Zoro didn't use DF thats quite alot of fellas, and fruit users have been around for quite some time, eg. Brook: when he was alive and with his old crew Gol was just a rookie and he (Brook) had a fruit, its safe to asume he wasn't alone, and another thing in favor of thinking that the DF have being circling for long is the DF book, we know that as far as a fruit has a user that fruit dose not exist (meaning there are not 2 of the same DF at the same time), so in order to make a book, someone had to 1º eat a fruit, then take note on what power it gave him, and then when he died another person can check that fruit on the book, well thats my theory at least, sorry for driving a little away from the generation subject and into the DF one, but i think its necesary to understand the DF in orther to make asumptions about theire use then and now

 

[Lord Rayleigh]

Hancock is not a D. And she posesses the King Haki. So, there has to be another reason. Like was said in Amazon Lily, that a person with such a Haki bows to another is a rare fact. So, it could be a leader's thing. Something like that.

I did not say that the King Haki is only for the D members. I just thought, it may be possible that the D members are more inclined to have it than others for some reasons we do not know.

 

[gao_dargon]

we don't exactly know if haki has types really that might be a miss conseption of the amazons, maby is just how strong the power/resolve (that sounded like reborn) is on a person, maybe anyone strong enough can use "king" haki

 

[Diskuss]

ASSUMING THAT THEY REALLY DON'T HAVE A DEVIL FRUIT I think is cause they're pirats, and pirats live in the see and swim, and because they are marines, a marine works in the see and can swim, if a battle in the see happened DF users would be the more useless cause they would probaly fall in the see and then they wuld die, and you eared what shanks sayed to luffy "HOW CAN YOU BE A PIRAT IF YOU CAN'T SWIM" I think this is what old school's think.

shanks told luffy he could swim because he literally couldn't. This was before he ate the gomu gomu fruit, i rmbr cos he told luffy he was stpid because now he DEFINITELY wouldn't be able to swim

 

[Poneglyph420]

Just the old school guys had such power and we know so little so it seems like they wouldn't use DF. But perhaps they are so strong they rarely have to use it. I'm sure the best of the best have many nasty DF users among them, from both generations.
Look at WB?