Discussion The Book Book Prison System

[Core D. Roy]

Few questions I've seen explored immediately about this, so I wanted to collect everyone's ideas in one thread:

1. Can this be undone by knocking out Mont-d'Or?
2. Is this just a collection of bizarre creatures or are there political prisoners?
3. Is this another place Mam keeps hostages as leverage over her enemies?
4. Will there be a bunch of prisoners that join the SH Grand Fleet?

1. I know our experience with Sugar and others make us assume that the Book Book prison will be undone with a KO, but consider Brulee's ability. It's very similar to Mont'dour's in that it uses physical objects as portals to a pocket dimension. The only clear difference being that the Mirror Mirror world is a central hub with portals to every(?) mirror, and the Book Book world has identical but separate hubs connected to a corresponding book. Brulee looks pretty KO'd to me, and the Mirror Mirror world is still there so it stands to reason the Book Book world will be too.
2. Everything convenient to lock up forever in a near-perfect prison system. Dissident citizens (I expect to find Jinbei in a book) and rival pirate groups who didn't want to play nice (see what's happening to the SHs now). Maybe marine spies who get to close for comfort.
3. Absolutely. I'm not a fan of the idea that Zeff is in Totland, but if he is he's definitely being kept in a book. This also brings me to another idea- What if Big Mam has Laboon? He's bizarre and has a giant SH jolly roger on his head. I don't think Sanji is the only SH that BM has done research on and is holding hostage. There's a reason she's still so confident in her cat/mouse grudge with Luffy, and it's probably because she's holding ALL of their loved ones hostage. What if Brook actually does get the upper hand just to be told Laboon is her new pet? What if she holds Foosha Village hostage? Cocoyasi? Side note on that- if Laboon was stolen, I'll be Crocus will contact Rayleigh. It'd be really cool to see the old crew get together to help the SHs with Big Mam. We still only know a handful of the previous PK's crew.
4. ...Yes. It's interesting to see that BM is just a LOT better at doing via cunning and manipulation what Doffy could barely do with brute force. And she's doing it on a massive scale compared to his little birdcage. But her downfall could mean a proportionate boost to the SH Alliance compared to what happened after Dressrosa. In a way, the entire nation of Totland is a hostage to her whims.

:EDIT: The site went down earlier today immediately when I posted this and I thought it was lost forever. Thank the gods of sequential storytelling I didn't have to remember this whole post from scratch.

 

[Eigengrau]

* Can this be undone by knocking out Mont-d'Or?

Ah, that's the beauty of Devil Fruits, you can't just have it all figured out from the get go... it would be too easy! But considering Luffy/Nami's current predicament and whatnot, I'm fairly certain that Mont d'Or's ability (or rather, weaknesses/drawbacks) will be brought up sooner or later.

Anyway, my guess/answer to that will be yes and no. I think that if Mont d'Or gets knocked out, the "nails" pinning everyone and everything down will be removed. Actually, the "cells" might even open up for all the prisoners.

However, for them to be actually able to escape, I'm thinking that the books must be picked up/opened by someone from the outside, and only when going through all the pages will the prisoners be set free.

* Is this just a collection of bizarre creatures or are there political prisoners?
* Is this another place Mam keeps hostages as leverage over her enemies?

So, we saw that there's at least 2 different rooms:
The Library

Spoiler

And the Prisoner Library

Spoiler

So the fact that there's a clear difference here plus all the work put into organizing all these books must mean something.

In the page above, we can see "prisoner picture book" as well as "jail" on some of the spines, and in this one

Spoiler

We can see additional spines with "crime" (capital crime?) and what seems to be "imprisonment for life". That's interesting, seems like Big Mom has a whole judicial system in place, and she gets to be judge, jury and executioner. It's clever, I guess.

But there's one thing I want to point out: his power is, apparently, the power to manipulate books. The way I see it, all these BIG books were man-made, they weren't created by Mont d'Or himself. He doesn't create books (with his DF), but he can use pre-existing books and use his powers on them (making them levitate, and turn their "worlds" real).

So, to me, it really seems like all these books were made to be this large just so that Mont d'Or's ability could be put to use, in a way that they could hold humans/beasts depending on their size. I really can't imagine all these books "disappearing" if Or was knocked out, nor can I imagine him actually creating these books.

Someone else actually manufactures these books in the traditional way (since they're nothing more but ordinary books), adds the pages with the prisoner info, and some pages are probably left blank so that Or can use his DF on them and create the cells.

So in my mind, if Or gets knocked out, the books will stay as they are, because they're just books, but the "cell" parts will likely vanish, but everyone will still be stuck inside the book, but I'm thinking that if they're strong enough they might be able to get out by themselves. Hell, knowing Luffy he could probably chew his way through the book, but that's unlikely due to the promise he made to Sanji...

* Will there be a bunch of prisoners that join the SH Grand Fleet?

Heh... I don't know, considering that the arc is - allegedly - halfway through, I don't see the same sort of thing happening like in Dressrosa a while back, kinda the same thing as Impel Down as well. I mean, there's an obvious pattern here, but I don't know.

If there were some significant/important characters being held captive, I think we would've seen some by now, which would potentially foreshadow them coming into play somehow. Sure, Big Mom mentioned a certain "centaur from Punk Hazard", but I don't know.

With this arc about to be wrapped in the near future, I can't imagine Big Mom "losing" in any significant way, and honestly I feel like if all those prisoners/animals were to be set free it could be something that would definitely cripple Big Mom.

 

[Core D. Roy]

If there were some significant/important characters being held captive, I think we would've seen some by now, which would potentially foreshadow them coming into play somehow. Sure, Big Mom mentioned a certain "centaur from Punk Hazard", but I don't know.

That's actually what spurred me to mention that idea. There was no reason for Oda to reintroduce creatures we've seen before as prisoners in BM's library if they weren't going to be freed (almost certainly) by the SHs. The inclusion of things like Brownbeard (a friend of Luffy's) and the manticore (a bizarre beast we know of) seems to foreshadow that she has a LOT more aces up her sleeves regarding hostages/prisoners. Even then in Dressrosa, we knew the SHs would get allies like they do every arc, but Oda significantly stepped up the scale of Luffy's ally gaining ability by having his Grand Fleet pretty much form itself out of sheer loyalty and gratitude. To up the scale again, Luffy needs to liberate all of Totland instead of just one isolated island like Dressrosa.

That said, I don't see Mam being defeated any time soon, and I seriously doubt the Wholecake and Wano arcs will end with the split up SHs being in anything but dire straights. They'll probably be fleeing from Wano/Totland respectively, bump into each other, and then we see two of the pursuing BM/Kaidou temporarily forget about their 'small time' prey and focus on each other. My predictions are all for the END of the Yonkou War, which will presumably end with Luffy being much closer to the level of Yonkou than he went into it as. By then, I think he'll be in a position to free the Book Book prisoners.

I thought the Wholecake Arc was "half" of the current arc and the focus would be switched to Wano, after which they would merge and the Yonkou War proper would start? I need to find that interview.

 

[kkck]

Well, as we have learned through the manga having an entire prison system based around a single fruit is rather risky. The reward is big but the risk is more than considerable. doflamingo did it but he also paid dearly for it. I guess the question is whether big mom would do something like this as well. If just knocking out one guy was enough to undo the whole thing then the prison would be something like an explosion of enemies waiting to happen. In the same way doflamingo was a one sugar tripping away from a full scale revolution at any time.

Now, as far as the prisoners... I think it will depend on what is convenient to the plot in regards to the ability that keeps them trapped. If the strawhats needs only a handful of prisoners then undoing the ability as a whole would be a bit of a moot point. On the other hand if every page of every book there has prisoners then releasing everyone might end up being too time consuming. So forcing the ability to shut down would be rather convenient. But that would literally cause an explosion of prisoners as well. And who knows what is in the books.... My guess is that they will at least stumble into jinbe though.

 

[cyborg_unity]

The only way to escape from the Totland, in my opinion, are making mess. The key is this prison system.

 

[Core D. Roy]

Well, as we have learned through the manga having an entire prison system based around a single fruit is rather risky. The reward is big but the risk is more than considerable. doflamingo did it but he also paid dearly for it. I guess the question is whether big mom would do something like this as well. If just knocking out one guy was enough to undo the whole thing then the prison would be something like an explosion of enemies waiting to happen. In the same way doflamingo was a one sugar tripping away from a full scale revolution at any time.

Now, as far as the prisoners... I think it will depend on what is convenient to the plot in regards to the ability that keeps them trapped. If the strawhats needs only a handful of prisoners then undoing the ability as a whole would be a bit of a moot point. On the other hand if every page of every book there has prisoners then releasing everyone might end up being too time consuming. So forcing the ability to shut down would be rather convenient. But that would literally cause an explosion of prisoners as well. And who knows what is in the books.... My guess is that they will at least stumble into jinbe though.

That's why I questioned whether or not the ability would/could be undone just by KO'ing Mont'dour. Characters like Brulee and Moria have shown that just being knocked out doesn't undo some Paramecias. And given how similar his ability is to Brulee's especially, I doubt that BM is putting her precious prisoners in as flimsy of a prison that Doffy/Sugar had.

 

[fastfonz]

1. Maybe it is like the mirror mirror and not like the Hobby Hobby fruit, but we can't know for sure. Every DF is so different. If the books are burned or broken, do people die or are they free? Seems like people do not need to eat if they are in a book (not sure). If they don't, then maybe there is old creatures in there. Can you pin large things like a ship or a poneglyph in a book? That would be a good way to transport things.
2. There has to be some cool people locked up, otherwise it is a waste opportunity to add to the fleet and I imagine the fleet grows after this. Jimbei might be there, or maybe something bigger is lined up for him. What did he lose? Is he even alive (I hope so). I am just worried something awful happened to Jimbei and he wont be the same when the SH find him.
3. Zeff might show up, it would be a good time for it. The first half of 2017 will be Sanji's year. That would be awesome. Laboon, maybe wouldn't be to surprised. They will need a ship to leave the area but other good options for that.
4. Is Totland hostage? How many of these living creatures are only alive because of her? and what do they think of her? I mean, she eats her creations sometimes but many seem to love her. I don't see Totland being hostage, more it being artificially built by Big Mom or filled with imaginary creatures that depend on Big Mom stolen life force. When Brook releases fake souls, what happens to them? Do they go back to their owners? Probably not, but would be nice for Pedro to get his 40 years back.

Guess we will see. I am most interested in what else we find in the books. There were cool beings in Impel Down, cool beings as toys, etc. Although why would she on some cases keep someone in a prison when she can just kill them and re-purpose their life force? She obviously has kept a ton of things based on the number of books and is an avid collector of creatures. She could also have the Kraken or other creatures in there. I wonder what happened between Garp and Big Mom previously. There seems to be a connection there. Hope he shows up at the Tea Party. If Big Mom is old enough to know Garp in his prime then maybe she is getting older / weaker or the soul soul fruit keeps her in top shape.

 

[Tonix]

1. Can this be undone by knocking out Mont-d'Or?

Ell I'm pretty sure Jimbei knocked out the book book user this chapter and it didn't magically free Luufy, Nami, and the rest of the prison, so i'm guessing the answer is 'No"

Is this just a collection of bizarre creatures or are there political prisoners?

Luffy and Nami are technically political prisoners, since the only reason they are still alive is to ensure Sanji will follow through with his wedding to Pudding.

Is this another place Mam keeps hostages as leverage over her enemies?

I would honestly be surprised if Big Mom didn't intend to put one or more of Judge's children into the book prison to ensure that he cooperated with big Mom's plans to steal all of their technology. This would be especially ironic, since Judge previously disregarded the prison as unimpressive when Big Mom showed it to him, and he also has plans to hold one of Big Mom's children has a hostage to ensure her cooperation with his plans.

Will there be a bunch of prisoners that join the SH Grand Fleet?

Well, if Dressrosa was any indication, I think people in the New world, who are trapped by the abilities of OP fruits, are extremely grateful upon their release from said torments. It would be a little surprising if the majority of the rescued prisoners didn't at least side with Luffy during his conflict with Big Mom.

 

[Eigengrau]

Ell I'm pretty sure Jimbei knocked out the book book user this chapter and it didn't magically free Luffy, Nami, and the rest of the prison, so i'm guessing the answer is 'No"

Why do you say that? Mont d'Or was seen leaving along with Bobbin, Perospero and Galette, on their way to face the intruder, leaving only Opera behind. So unless you're suggesting that Jinbei beat 4 Big Bom sons/daughters at the same time - including the eldest son - which is extremely unlikely, Mont d'Or is still very much conscious at this point.

Maybe you're confusing Mont d'Or with Opera? Opera was the guy watching over Luffy and Nami, the one who Jinbei punched, but Mont d'Or is the one with the Book Book DF.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

I think Mont'dor's ability weakness has been hinted. There's a guard in place protecting the book, why? Most likely because tearing it or maybe getting it wet would undo the integrity of the structures within it. I could imagine Oda employing a rock, paper scissors pun as indicative of the book's weakness (being that it's paper, scissors/tearing) might release prisoners. I'm not too sure it's to do with consciousness, or the prison wouldn't need guarding imo. Jinbei's ability to manipulate water might even serve to soak the pages and render the book's power nullified and prisoners released.

 

[Shobu_Yoruichi]

I think Mont'dor's ability weakness has been hinted. There's a guard in place protecting the book, why?

Because Opera was there to take info about Lola's location from Nami. He wasn't exactly there to protect the prisoners.

The problem with the books is the tip holding the being inside the book, that must be taken for the prisoner to exit the book. I'm sure that no matter what happens to Mont D'or, those kept inside will remain on it. Unless that tip is removed thanks to an outsider, which is something that, apparently, anybody can do.