Thread by @TypicalJAnt

One Piece Theory

Can't You See The Light?

The best way to start this thread is by taking a look at a take from @ThePhantomStra5 regarding the Navy's 'Dark Justice'. This will give us the foundation on which the rest of the theory is based.

Many will know already, that 'Dark Justice' is the motto of Rob Lucci.

This is because Lucci is the perfect embodiment of perfect obedience to the status quo.

This form of justice is often confused with 'Absolute Justice', the motto of Akainu. However, there is an important difference.

Akainu's 'Absolute Justice', means total obedience to the rule of law & crushing any resistance to save the face of 'justice'.

Dark Justice, however, goes a step further than this an advocates the total eradication to any & all threats to the status quo. The Gorosei have no concern for the Navy's honour & have shown that they are willing to take out even marines like Drake, in order to protect secrets.

We have seen quite a few examples already of how the WG seek to totally destroy and threat to the status quo. The Void Century itself is an example & then there is God Valley, Shandora & Ohara.

All of these events or places were all but wiped from history entirely.

In the case of Ohara, they were wiped out because they had 'learned too much', in the case of God Valley, it was erased because it implicated too many secrets & Shandora mysteriously disappeared, causing Noland to be remembered as a liar. The secrets of Shandora stayed hidden.

This connects us perfectly to explaining what the meaning behind 'the light' is. To begin with, we see the Gorosei ask Imu 'which light needs to be extinguished from history?", demonstrating how their 'Dark Justice' works to destroy all threats to the status quo.

Direct references to 'the light' happen quite rarely, but when they do, it tells us a lot about it's true meaning.

One example is from Vivi's speech about how her time with the Straw Hats, 'showed her the light' & the other is 'the Light of Shandora'.

In the case of the Vivi example, 'the light' signifies how the Straw Hats showed her the light in dark times & inspired her sense of freedom & ideals, and most importantly gave her hope.

This ties in to how the Straw Hats all inspire the freedom of ideals & dreams. Each of them having their own and always encouraging those of others.

With this in mind, it could be said that 'The Thousand Sunny', represents the vessel that 'brings 1,000 lights'.

Similarly, in the case of Shandora, the 'Light of Shandora' represents hope in dark times. However, it's in this that the next layer of significance can be found. The main reason why the Great Bell is so important to the Shandorians, is that it represents the memory of ancestors.

This brings us to the most important point, memory.

The reason why the World Government want to 'extinguish lights from history' is because they don't want people to remember certain things.

Professor Clover said as much in the Ohara flashback.

The theme of memory is one that Oda has subtly laid out to have extreme importance. Many will remember Dr Hiriluk's speech, "A man dies when he is forgotten."

This highlights the idea that people don't die unless the memory of them is totally erased.

The theme of memory appears again, not only in Shandora but also in Dressrosa. Where Doflamingo has Sugar essentially deleting people from other people's memories.

Tying into this. Rocks is almost forgotten & even Roger is remembered as 'Gold Roger' & not 'Gol D. Roger.'

Many will know of this already but there is a theory that Dressrosa is essentially a reenactment of the fall of The Ancient Kingdom. This theory comes from the fact that Giolla's art is supposed to represent Dressrosa but seems to have abstract implications to the Ancient Kingdom

This would fit perfectly with the idea that the World Government have for centuries been doing just that, erasing people and even whole civilisations from history. Effectively deleting them from people's memories. This would even tie into the symbolism of the two eyes.

One eye is open and the other is closed, in every example, it is always the left eye. For a more detailed breakdown on the meanings behind this, check out this thread.

With that idea in mind, it tracks that Imu represents the left eye, the 'all seeing eye' & the left eye represents those who's eyes have been shut to the light. This brings us back to the line from Vivi.

"Can't you see that light ahead?"

It tracks then that the idea of 'the light' represents hope, memory, truth & freedom of ideals, all things that the World Government seek to oppress in order to maintain Imu's power.

This then, would explain that 'Wano's dawn' signifies Wano remembering it's 'true history'.

Following this same logic, it can be said that 'the light' generally means learning the truth or remembering the truth. This would tie in directly to 'The True History'.

Putting all this together, I think it might even give us a good idea what the One Piece might be. Perhaps it is the missing piece, that when put in place, will reveal the 'True History'.

It is this that the World Government are trying so hard to make people forget.

This 'Great Cleansing' is not the first that Imu has ordered, as we discussed already, there have been many attempts to erase people and events from history, not least the Void Century itself.

It is likely that this time 'the light' that is to be extinguished is Alabasta.

To conclude. The World Government follow the model of 'Dark Justice', this is similar but different to 'Absolute Justice', because it calls for total erasure, rather than just enforcing obedience.

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The main reason for this is because Imu wants to prevent people from 'seeing the light', or in other words, remembering the truth.

The True History & The One Piece!

Shout out to @ThePhantomStra5 for helping me put this together, it was his take on dark justice that set this idea off. Definitely go and check out some of Phantom's threads