Apologise for taking ages to get around to this. Irl has been getting in the way & motivations were low. I've finally got time & motivation, so let's get into it.
This idea first occurred to me when looking back at Skypiea and investigating it for details on the Wano theory.
I've since been discussing the relevance of Skypiea with many different people & I have ended up forming the view that Skypiea is perhaps the most important arc of all, secretly telling us almost all the key information needed to solve the main puzzle of the story, True History.
The arc of Skypiea itself is of course preceded by the mini & of Jaya, so we will start there.
We don't learn much from Jaya itself but we know now of it's potentially huge historical significance.
Shandora itself was once part of Jaya & perhaps Wano was also.
Without getting too much into that theory, Skypiea provides a lot of evidence to suggest that Wano is indeed the missing left eye of Jaya, the first of which is the knock-up stream.
In the beginnings of both Skypiea & Wano, They climb an upward stream
It is whilst climbing this stream, before even entering Skypiea, that we get the first clue to Skypiea's true relevance to the True History.
Skypiea is known as 'God's Land.' We now know that this was also the name of the Lunarian homeland, as Marco recently explained.
This connection between Skypiea and Mariejois is only deepened when we learn that the land of Shandora had been stolen from the Shandorians, just as the Red Line was taken from the Lunarians.
One day, a huge piece of land (vearth) came up from the blue sea and provided a peaceful sky civilisation with land to grow natural resources. We know from Enel's cover story (472) that it was for natural resources that the winged people came down from the moon in the first place
It was this miracle of land rising to the sky that let these sky civilisations prosper, in both cases, these miraculous pieces of land became known as 'Holy Land.'
Jaya & Mariejois are both known as by this name. The Holy Land.
Mariejois' Room of Flowers is evidence of this.
We later learn in (248) that this situation led to a war between the Skypieans and the Shandorians. The Skypieans, desperate for more land, stole this new land & it's native Shandorians were kicked out. led to a 400yr war to reclaim it
Potentially, this may explain the Void War.
The Lunarian's Holy Land was stolen from them, quite possibly by other winged people & this may have caused the initial conflict that started the events of te Void Century.
The sky people came from the moon approximately 1,200 years ago & the Void Century ended, 800 years ago.
Skypiea tells us that in this 400 year war was changed when one day, a man claiming to be God appeared & usurped the 'God' of the Skypieans. I title that was to them, just supposed to mean leader. This of course, was Enel.
It is possible that this is also what Imu did.
Interestingly, when you imagine Enel's words as though it were Imu saying them, they will make perfect sense. Most of all this line. "Once we are there, I will create a new 'God's Land'."
Enel presents us with a great way to understand what may have led to Imu's rise to power.
Following Enel's rise to power, the former 'God', Gan Fall, tried to make peace with the Shandorians but the usurper continued to provoke war, intent on sending all those unworthy down below the sky.
It seems that this would of been almost exactly what Imu did as well.
That leads us to an another interesting potential clue. Found in Enel's priests. While there are only 4 priests in Enel's crew, we get mention of 5 trials.
Iron, String, Swamp, Balls, & Love.
Perhaps Mariejois will also have 'trials' when we get to it.
5 Gorosei, 5 trials.
The fact that there are 5 Gorosei is itself another potentially interesting detail, because Enel created a survival game during Skypiea, in which he predicted that only 5 people would be left standing.
Are the Gorosei the survivors of Imu's survival game?
This idea that the Gorosei are just survivors who won a survival game & bent the knee to God, connects us to the next potential clue. The parallels between the Shandorian traditions & the Gorosei's traditions.
The sacrificial alter has the same design as the alter of Imus throne
The Shandorians believed that they were cursed by God & that they must make human sacrifices to appease God & end any suffering, such as the plague that befell them.
The Gorosei also make sacrifices to 'God' in order to appease him.
Do they also believe that they are cursed.
As a side note, this would connect to @RandyTroy's recent theory that CP0 might be slaves, forced into their position. It may be that not only is that true, but the same is true all the way up to the top. The Gorosei themselves are enslaved, they believe they are cursed by God.
Not only would CP0 like the chance to pursue their own justice, so too would the Gorosei most likely, but they cannot, because like the Shandorians of 400 years ago. They believe that, 'to turn one's back on God's word is to provoke divine judgement!'
This 'divine judgement' seems surely to be the 'Great Cleansing' & that connects us back to the events of the arc.
We learned in (272) that Shandora was destroyed for protecting the poneglyphs, 800 years ago. It books were all burned, it's entire history lost.
This was most likely the ending of the Void War that had been triggered possibly hundreds of years before.
With hindsight, it becomes apparent that the Void Century itself is not most important. What caused it matter more
The poneglyphs already existed during the Void Century!
The fact that the Shandorians fought and died to protect the poneglyphs tells us that Shandora was connected to Wano in the distant past. Many are familiar with this theory already, so I won't repeat it all but for those interested in those details, you can read it here -
Despite being one of the earliest antagonists to be introduced in the story, Mihawk remains one of the most illusive characters when it comes to details being revealed about him.
Oda seems to intentionally avoid giving explicit information on Mihawk
So if there is very limited explicit information to go on, what can we learn from the implicit clues?
The following analysis will discuss all the things that may give us clues to the motives & mysteries of Mihawk.
This idea came to me whilst I was discussing the foreshadowing that can be found in Skypiea.
Looking back at Noland's flashback, the subject of the Shandorian's sacrifices to god stands out as something that seems like it may have deeper significance.
For 400 years after the destruction of Shandora at the end of the Void Century, the people of Shandora had believed that any misfortune that befell them was a curse from God.
The only way to prevent divine judgement was to make ritual human sacrifices at the alter of god.
We begin the chapter with the continuation of the cover story following Germa's escape from Whole Cake Island.
We see that Niji & Yonji were defeated by Big Mom.
The cover page title has an interesting implication
"A creature that science cannot overcome."
This title reminds us that Big Mom's story has had the constant underlying involvement in the separate plot line of the World Government's experiments.
The title seems to suggest to me that Big Mom will be overcome by science.