How Skypiea Holds The Secret Of The Sun God

the legend of one piece begins in chapter 100 with the following quote inherited will a man's dream and the flow of time as long as man continues to seek out the answer to freedom these things shall never be stopped this is maybe the most important page of the series it is essentially oda putting forward the thesis of one piece the ideas that will be demonstrated and proven over the course of this decades-long epic there are a lot of other themes that go into one piece but this page encapsulates the core foundation of the story that everything else is built upon and so even though one piece technically starts in chapter 1 there is a strong argument that the true story only really begins at chapter 100 with east blue serving as a prologue however i think there is one more argument to be made that the real real story of one piece only really begins with sky pia when most people are catching up to one piece skypia can often stick out as an overly long side quest that takes us out of the main narrative and for many it can feel like this detour comes at a particularly frustrating point when it feels like the main world is just becoming a lot more interesting with many of the major players starting to make their appearances only for us to suddenly go off to an unconnected location for 80 chapters but there is an important reason that oda chose this point in the story to take us on this side quest because before we get too far into the one piece world before we discover the true enemy of this series before we understand the full scope of this gigantic conflict we are delving into oda wanted to tell a simpler story one that would seem inconsequential at first but that would set a precedent for many aspects of the larger narrative to come if chapter 100 begins with a page telling us the ideas one piece is built on the skypia saga is an entire storyline dedicated to showing us the ideas one piece is built on before we really start to explore those in the larger narrative especially with the recent mentions of the sun god many readers have started to realize how important skypea was but with this video let me break it down for you in full how this saga spells out for us the meaning of dreams inherited will the flow of time and freedom and how this all plays into the emerging idea of the dawn and the sun god [Music] so first let's talk about dreams skypia is by far the most fantastical location the straw hats have visited in the story so far it's a land that really shouldn't exist yet here it is an island on an ocean of clouds in the sky and of course throughout the arc it is stressed how dreamlike this location really is it's simply a surreal destination the ultimate adventure to a world beyond one's wildest imagination a fantasy among fantasies but aside from being a dream-like location what is really being said throughout the straw hat's entire journey from start to finish a first finding out about the sky islands to being mocked for their beliefs about the sky islands to actually getting to the sky islands and finally ending the ark by ringing the bell well this arc more than any other spells out the importance of being a dreamer and being willing to take a chance to have some faith to give into a not fully rational sense of romance romance here of course being the classical definition of larger than life grand fantasies luffy's desire to go on this ultimate fantasy adventure even if it potentially means his death even if he has no proof that this destination even exists is the ideal philosophy of a dreamer distilled it's built on the notion that it's more important to live without regrets than to hesitate on taking chances and that importance of living without regrets is a philosophy we see reiterated over and over throughout the series as the only way to live a fulfilled life but the idea is not just that following one's dreams and taking chances is a nice way to live the skypie saga argues that there is genuine value to not always thinking rationally to taking a leap of faith because those who are willing to take those leaps of faith are often cut from a different cloth than those who are too grounded in their thinking this is demonstrated early on in jaya where the storyline begins through the interactions between luffy bellamy blackbeard and cricket the town the straw hats arrive in is called mock town where they're of course fittingly about to be mocked for their desire to go to sky island but more importantly it's an island where the concept of dreams is going to be mocked in general now of course we all know the significance of the great scene where luffy and zore refuse to fight bellamy in the bar over something inconsequential like dreams certain things aren't worth fighting over luffy knows he is right and bellamy is wrong luffy's convictions are strong enough that he doesn't need to resort to violence to prove them but let's talk about the full context of how oda framed this scene juxtaposing it with the introduction of blackbeard so first of all bellamy actually does give a fairly rational speech disparaging dreamers it is entirely fair to be skeptical of an island floating in the sky as well as other unproven locations however what bellamy is missing that oda argues is important is the guts it takes to be able to bet on something that is not sure fire even if you can't prove a dream is attainable if you don't even have the guts to try then that is essentially your limit in this world that is a notion that is played up from the beginning of the story but that is what is explicitly spelled out for us here in jaya cricket's philosophy does go against the grain of how most people in the real world think most of us do place a high stock in rational thinking most of us recognize that this quote here is an irrational quote but at the same time one piece aims to remind us that there is a value to believing in something irrationally opening oneself up to the improbable possibilities is the essence of romance and if you never take a chance you can never discover whether something is truly impossible or not and so why exactly did oda choose to introduce blackbeard here of all places well it makes more sense the further we go in the story as we see the heights luffy and blackbeard reach blackbeard is introduced in mocktown so that we get this juxtaposition of the overconfident bellamy a small-time rookie who thinks himself great because he doesn't chase dreams framed between the actual two greatest rookies of this generation who will eventually become candidates for pirate king precisely because they have the conviction to chase after dreams that's the beauty of this scene the very thing bellamy prides himself on his rationality and skepticism is precisely what makes him too small-minded to realize he is an ant caught in the crossroads of actual greatness two future titans have just met will rise to absurd heights in this world because they are willing to chase the impossible while bellamy sits and laughs and believes himself the strongest in the island without realizing how limited he actually is we can even look at luffy's parting words to the bellamy pirates after he crushes their captain where is luffy headed from here to the sky that is of course literal but if you look at the full framing of the ark how luffy is finally becoming a huge name that the great powers of the world are beginning to notice how the blackbeard pirates are confident they will meet up with luffy again as the strong rise up this simple parting line from luffy could be interpreted as a little double meaning to the reader that luffy is going to continue skyrocketing up in the pirate world from here on leaving weak non-believers like bellamy in the dust this little arc of jaya is the most powerful statement on dreams that oda makes in the series that yes you can be completely rational you can pride yourself on your skepticism and logic but not having the guts to take chances on things that are uncertain and cannot be proven will also limit you forever that's why the arc begins with this fictional quote that anything man can imagine is a possibility in reality an idea that is proven by the straw is actually making it to skypia but it's not just their fate that needed to be rewarded it was crickets as well this entire absurd story of the city of gold and how cricket bet his life and his reputation on proving this fantasy to be true even if it seemed ridiculous the message was again that chasing a dream is nothing to laugh at as the guts it takes to chase the dream is impressive in itself that is the essence of romance and it's interesting how even though the strides do find the city of gold they never actually come back with any definitive proof that the mythical land exists they only come back with some gold a waiver that doesn't work and some dials but none of that is proof of a sky island all they do is ring a bell a bell that can be heard even from the blue sea and that moment is all that cricket needs the straw hats aren't coming back to earth and laying out hard evidence or scientific proof of the city of gold's existence the way they proved its existence is more romantic it's enough for those who believe in its existence to be satisfied so at the end of the day the skypia saga was a testament to the importance of dreams and beliefs starting out by showing how there is a fundamental difference between those who have the guts to dream and those who can only mock the dreams of others and ending by showing the faith in dreams rewarded but all of that isn't what you all want to hear in this video is it well we're easing into the good stuff let's talk about inherited will and the flow of time so on the most basic level there are clear similarities between the story of nolan and the story of roger both executed while telling the world about a great treasure that supposedly exists bellamy even likens the search for the mythical city of gold to the pursuit of one piece and it's fairly clear that this entire parallel is a very deliberate framing by oda as we are going to soon see that the full plot of skypia is heavy foreshadowing for the entire narrative of one piece a lot of this foreshadowing only becomes more clear as we get further into the main story of one piece which again is why a lot of the skypia arc is only better appreciated in retrospect as the main narrative of one piece becomes more clear because for instance yes roger sending people to search for the one piece essentially left behind a great will to be fulfilled but we now know that roger was really just a modern day messenger of a much older and greater will pass down from centuries back that is waiting to be fulfilled the will of d the world has been waiting for this treasure to be found so that some long running will from hundreds of years back can be fulfilled and now that we know that this is the real story of one piece we can look again at the story of noland and kalgara with fresh eyes there are plenty of other one-piece arcs where we can observe the idea of inherited will but the noland and kalgara story is the only one that really goes centuries back an ancient promise that was made nolan promising to return and kalgara promising to greet him with the ringing of the bell but of course noland being unable to return and khalgara being unable to tell noland what happened but these obstacles didn't change the fact that a promise was made and so even after noland and kalgara passed away there was a will that was passed down among the shandians for centuries to reclaim their land to relight the fires of shandora and to ring the bell this extends to the mont blanc family as well with us being shown how the will of their ancestors from centuries back has passed down to both wiper and cricket will not give up in their pursuits so the skypia arc is framed around the execution of a man who spawned the search for a great treasure which we later realize is the centerpiece to a centuries-old conflict where a will to reclaim that treasure has been inherited through generations of a clan over hundreds of years does this sound familiar to you especially considering that this all culminates in this clan rebelling against god which brings us to the next point freedom so in the one piece narrative at large we should all be starting to understand that oda is beginning to frame the world as being ruled by self-proclaimed gods the celestial dragons individuals who believe themselves to be above mere mortals who believe they have the blood of gods who live in the so-called realm of the gods and who rule the world with absolute power as gods this is the state of the world where those who unjustly rule from far above are acting as the false gods of this world but we are also being told that a time of reckoning is coming where the d tribe carrying a centuries old inherited will will rise up and dethrone the gods would the d tribe falsely framed as though they are the evil demons of the world simply because they pose a threat to the gods that is all the true conflict of one piece that is slowly becoming clear to us the story has always been built on the idea of freedom and the true final conflict centers around the ultimate battle for freedom rebellion against the gods themselves now i talked a lot about how a lot of the overarching metaphors for the gods demons heaven hell etc were really made clear through the dressrosa arc an analysis i strongly recommend watching after this but actually way way way before dressrosa all of this was spelled out even more blatantly in the skypia arc it was just too early on for any of us to have any idea that the story of skypia was a metaphor for the entire story of one piece in the one-piece world there was an ancient kingdom that was defeated by what would later become the celestial dragons who then made themselves the new gods of the world similarly the ancient kingdom of shandya was defeated by the god of the sky as well and the following generations of god and his army continued to rule over skype and the shandian's land as well just as the will of thee is passed down from joyboy's age over centuries through the d tribe with the belief that one day the clan will overthrow the gods so too is the will of khalgara to relight the fires of chandra passed down over centuries through the shandian tribe waiting for the day the tribe will overthrow god just as the d tribe are painted as demons and threats to the god-like celestial dragons so too are shandians such as viper named as demons who are rebelling against a god and just as we drop into the story of skype at a point when that long-awaited final war for freedom between the shandians and god is taking place so too does the story of one peace take place at the destined time when the battle for the dawn of the world to defeat the celestial dragons is near and so the role luffy plays in skypia is the role he will play in the world of one piece at large the one who will bring an end to the gods as he is god's natural enemy again this idea was planted way too early in the story for us to understand the significance of this quote at the time this was before we even knew how bad the world government was but that's the point the story of skype at the time was a simple side story but looking back at it now it's a preview of literally everything to come this is the first time we were even made to understand what it means to be pirate king what luffy is fighting for on the blue seas the pirate king is the king of the seas it is only decades later that we understand that this is what everyone is fighting for dominion over the sea and you can read even further into that with skypia with the island of verth as a metaphor for the sea down below false gods took control over the birth and now the shandians are rebelling to take it back but the message we get at the end of the day is that the earth should not belong to any one group it is meant to belong to everyone similarly the celestial dragons rule the sea at the moment but there is a great war coming that will soon determine true control over the sea the same way nl wanted to cleanse his birth so too did the celestial dragons want to cleanse the sea but at the end of the day the message we are likely heading towards is that the sea should not belong to any one group it is meant to belong to everyone this is of course an outcome that is only possible if luffy is the victor of the war for the sea by defeating god ano luffy was able to bring about the birth of a new free shared world in the sky and by defeating the gods of the blue sea so too will luffy likely bring about a new free shared world there also i'm trying not to get too much into theory here but if you like the theory that the end of one piece involves the destruction of the red line and the birth of a new world where the entire sea is connected then it is also interesting that the secret to the sky island was that it was all once a connected land just something to think about so in this arc oda spelled out the importance of dreams the power of inherited will that perseveres even through the flow of time and the necessary rebellion against god to attain freedom which brings us to the dawn of the world and the sun god [Music] so a prevailing idea throughout the series is the association of the sun with freedom essentially the light of freedom against the darkness of oppression for instance the world government is explicitly characterized as the darkness of the world that is why pedro who is waiting for the dawn of the world named his crew the knox pirates as they are waiting for the end of the long night of the world government's rule that is why oppressed nations like wano are waiting for their own dawn their own freedom that is why we see the symbols of slavery replaced by symbols of the sun throughout the series oda plays up the idea of the light of freedom the light of the sun ending the darkness of oppression now as it pertains to luffy and his hypothetical role as the sun god some people are confused how luffy could be characterized as a sun god but also be an enemy of the gods and i don't think the ideas are mutually exclusive there's a certain type of god that fears luffy the type characterized by absolute control and totalitarian rule whereas luffy we all accept as the incarnation of freedom which is symbolically tied to the sun the straw ads in general are often regularly characterized as the bringers of light throughout the series there are plenty of little quotes you can find that portray them as such and most blatantly their ship is the literal thousand sunny the sun is literally their symbol and they bring freedom wherever they go so when we read the idea of luffy being the sun god i personally don't believe it's god in the usual sense we know luffy doesn't wish to rule anything i don't interpret it as anything more than being the incarnation of the sun the incarnation of freedom but i don't want to get into too much speculation here that's just my two cents on that discrepancy let's talk about luffy in skypia again this is where we first heard of luffy being god's natural enemy but we also get our first reference to a different type of god a sun god that the shandians believe in the shanians throughout the ark are oppressed by the evil false god eno and they have suffered hundreds of years of oppression from his predecessors and throughout it all their goal is to relight the fires of shandora which is such an interesting notion as re-lighting the fire bears a strong similarity to bringing the dawn of the world relight the fire bring the dawn similar imagery of reemergence of the light into the world that can only be brought about by the fall of the oppressive god so again skypia a preview of things to come the demon tribe rebelling against their god to bring light back into the world they don't believe in eno but they do believe in a sun god the conflict of the ark culminates with this moment where ana literally turns the sky black the rygo notably a very dark shadowy cloud that oda chooses for this moment rather than nl's traditional blue lightning creating this scene where everyone is praying for a god to save them in the face of such darkness and in this moment luffy shatters the rygo and turns the entire sky sunny luffy was the answer to their prayers and in the process he brings back the sun immediately after this luffy relights the fires of shandora ringing the bell as he dethrones god luffy essentially brought the dawn to the people of the sky in the same moment as he defeated god which is of course what the main story of one piece seems set up to be leading to so looking back at all that skypia's placement in the story makes a lot more sense many people say that early one piece was more free-flowing adventure and that's true and skypia was really the last real arc like that because after skypia the larger conflict of the one-piece world became clear the all-consuming power struggle between the world government the yonko the revolutionaries and so on became unavoidable however that's also why skypia took place right before diving into that giant overarching conflict because what seems like our last free-flowing adventure on the surface was actually meant to tell us what the rest of this gigantic epic was going to be about the path that luffy is truly on a simple treasure hunt that leads to his destiny to take down gods to be the one who will fulfill a century's old will the bringer of the sun who will return the light of freedom to the world the history of shandora and luffy's role in the sky islands above spells out everything we will see in the blue sea in the future it's just taken us so long to start to realize what skypie was telling us because the narrative of one piece is so massive that many things are still only just becoming clear but that's precisely why my respect for skypea has grown over the years as one look at this often forgotten arc reminds me why one piece is unquestionably the most methodically planned long-running narrative that i have ever read so if you enjoyed this video then definitely like comment and subscribe and you can support me on patreon for my extended thoughts on this and all future topics and if you want to support by getting your own plush figure of me looking like the sun god himself then click the link below to get yours today in this limited time offer special thanks to patrons a abazi adam junrakai adrian joaquin camp rafto chime one two three koopa koop felix tengwei god complex harrison otto justin holland chris roshan omar gaskin ryan shadow chip someone spike sp super gomesification at the real foxy abdullah al remitti a school d alejandro magalenas alfred laufred amyloid2609 andy tomeli arturo gomez aslan karamudin bartozzawada beanbean behnort 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Channel: Mr Morj

Views: 503,320

Keywords: Luffy, Luffy Sun God, Nika, One Piece sun god, Joyboy, Skypiea, Nika sun god, One Piece, Wano, theory

Id: dzw6aPPqSU8

Length: 23min 1sec (1381 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2021