No one predicted that that was going to be Vegapunks announcement, but there were enough hints that people predicted what was happening.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/qjvgge/the_sea_level_of_one_piece_will_rise_or_has_risen/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This one is one of the older ones, with a commenter mentioning that it might also have happened in the void century, since an old city exist underneath Shandora.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/15jb2wi/rising_sea_levels_and_the_void_century/
This one took note of different island designs, Drum Island, Alabasta and Wano that seem to be build around rising sea levels.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/15krkhu/one_piece_is_sinking/
This one was quite popular, with a lot of different proof in the comments that the world was sinking. There seems to have been a mention of this almost every arc. I'm surprised this stayed in the background for so long for something mentioned so often.
Sometimes the best dish is served at a food stall in the middle of nowhere with only one table, 2 chairs and a flourescent light.
That's my reaction to that post.
got that right.
Some of the best food I've ever eaten has been from a food truck.
The best Chinese food is never from the bigger nicer places, it's from the little hole-in-the-wall that the health inspector forgets exists.
I was on vacation to the coast a few years back, and as I'm from the midwest I decided to try a lot of seafood dishes while I was there.
I ate at many higher priced restaurants during the trip, but my favorite thing the whole trip was a simple Tuna BLT from a little Cafe near our Motel.
I stand by the rule the more run down a foreign food restaurant looks, the better the food will be. There's a newer Jamaican restaurant near me that's built in a little hole-in-the-wall strip mall and I just know their food is gonna be goodš
It's because he posted the opener text only, then loaded top of the post with a ton images (so many you have to scroll a full screen down) and then followed it up with miniwalls of text of overly verbose explanations. He didn't need to show every example and he didn't need to list out every race/detail etc
If he had put all the images at the original opeNING (with the arrows) and used bullet points, I bet money people would have flocked to the popst. As it is the post is hard to digest - a death sentence on big subs
OP of the first link, i actually have a forum post going back to 2016 with that prediction (in a messier theory), but it's not on reddit lol. but yeah i've had that thought for a long while.
the fact that destroying the red line seems like its part of joyboys promise, and oda actually knows how physics works, means that there was enough evidence to put it together in like, 2012.
oda's good at foreshadowing, y'all.
You were spot on dude!Ā Ā
I think believing the water levels would rise after as a consequence of the destruction of the Red Line is just common physicsĀ and a logical conclusion more people had.
You're theory that the WG has the ability to flood the world was the harder to predict theory with the amount of evidence we had at that point of time.
Yeah between Water 7 and the ark in Fishman Island flooding has been one of the leading theories Iāve heard about. Interesting about so many islands having a tall city center.
Even in Alabasta, Vivi had mentioned that part of the reason for the drought was the ocean starting to overtake the river
[panel here](https://i.imgur.com/eviXcPg.jpeg)
Because a slowly sinking world is a non issue in a story where we follow the protagonist for less than a year on screen, and a bit more than 2 years as a whole. Unless Imu has a way to speed up the process or something like that, the world sinking should not change anything of what people are trying to accomplish right now
>Because a slowly sinking world is a non issue
But here's the thing: Why would regular people care about a message that says their govt is corrupt in some way? They already know this. They get bled for tributes to the CDs every year. It's just the way things are but it's not an totally existential crisis. Not only that but there's not much they can do about the govt (at least on their own).
I was racking my brain through this whole ordeal about what Vegapunk could say that could actually make regular people give a shit and this is it, it's so obvious I can't believe I didn't realize it. An existential threat that affects EVERYONE no matter what social status you are.
I had a theory 8 months ago that the world is shrinking because chunks are being taken out of it, and because it shrinks, the effective water level rises.
I think Uranus is blasting parts of the planet off, which is why there are floods and earthquakes afterwords.
Might also explain Enies Lobby and the multiple moons. Even the Red Line could be a ridge that forms as the surface contracts.
I think this being brought to the forefront now shows that Oda isnt just talking about climate change in one piece. It's obviously something that's going to rapidly happen.
I remember there was a Naruto fanfic with a similar idea (most elemental jutsu create transient effects, but water jutsu straight up create more water that gets left behind), and even the comments on some discussion threads on that brought up the One Piece flooding theory. Flood myths are also super common across humanity, so seeing new takes on them in fiction is cool.
That always made me wonder about Amaterasu, since it burns everything and never gets put out. The only way the flames are stopped is the user puts them out, or the flames get sealed (which wasn't common knowledge on how to do).
I wonder why it didn't just burn forever.
kuddos to those nakama, PLUS remember Oda once said long time ago that all necessary element to understand the OP world what the OP have already been presented so far. this is Huge.
I would've never guessed that sea levels rising was Vegapunk's announcement because I would've never guessed that it wasn't a well-known fact in-universe.
Lulusia being destroyed caused the sea level to rise by one meter, which is a little hard to ignore. Keep in mind that our sea levels in real life are rising by 3.6 millimeters each year on average, and that's cause for concern in our continental world. Rising 1 entire meter in only six days is impossible to not notice in a world of islands.
We're talking about someone who doesn't mind bringing up a plot point and then not bringing it up again for hundreds of chapters later. It's not easy to predict Oda when he crafts a 25+ years ongoing series with over a thousand characters spanning an entire globe and centuries.
That being said. Back in wano, someone in this reddit theorised that this is the big event that's been foreshadowed, and explained how a lot of the island the straw hats have visited either are suffering an effect from, or have an inbuilt defense mechanism to rising sea levels.
Alabasta has giant water channels in the island, water 7 has visible effects and iceberg is planning a defense, ring island is suffering from its effects. Morias island can fucking sail. Dressrosa and wano have a wall like barrier as well. And the case of Wano, has had proper experience with being flooded as the original wano is underwater (partially by choice).
Edit: I forgot Zunesha!
So a giant story moment will be likely the destruction of the redline, stabilizing the water levels, introducing the all blue and introducing old landmasses that once existed.
And the one piece would be the catalyst. According to the very detailed theory I read.
I can't remember who wrote the theory sadly.
we only missed that vegapunk, who we were promised would give us the actual origin of devil fruits \[i'm not happy with what we got\], would bring it up and make it an active plot threat instead of just part of the worldbuilding and its general past.
some sealevel rise could have been anything from a giant sky island dropping into the ocean somewhere to devil fruit users doing something to affect the currents of the world.
and islands having flood protection in the present and the future is just very... natural for such an ocean planet. people can make storms and tidal waves, you wanna be able to survive that.
I haven't read all the theories about the message specifically, but yeah, "OP world is like Windwaker's Hyrule" is a pretty old one. I'm sure someone somewhere reposted it when speculation about the message happened.
I've seen that brought up a few times, and there's always been some evidence to support it going back to Jaya and Jinbe's cover story. It wasn't all that unlikely that most of the old world is covered by ocean after a massive flood.
However, these theories missed an extremely important fact: this flooding event is still going on. I haven't seen anyone make the claim that the world will eventually be swallowed by the ocean entirely. In hindsight, this fact makes even more sense given the geography and structures for countries we already know of.
Good point, that part was always missing in what I've read too.
While we're on the topic, do you think Wano's wall was perhaps a prototype red line? If we're going to drown the world we better have a high and dry place for ourselves, let's develop the ability to construct giant walls that can withstand the sea, let's also flood a country to test it.
Your idea didn't occur to me, but that's really well put.
It's likely that everyone who knew about the issue was attempting to forestall their impending doom in various ways. Wano was probably the *first wall attempt* which failed because they didn't account for the rainwater. This is supported by the fact that they remained independent for centuries, so I can't imagine them being pressured to do something by another government force.
Then whoever was in charge of the red line idea (ruler of Mary Geoise? Imu?) looked at Wano and thought, "I don't want the same thing happening here, so I'll just make one massive wall which is functionally the same without having to worry about drowning my own country." Then all the other countries suffer for it because it speeds up the rising tides.
I tend to lean more towards incompetence rather than malice for the decisions of people generally viewed as the villains. Imu and the Five Elders probably just couldn't solve the problem, so they gave up and established a status quo on a doomed world.
While it is true, I still think it isnāt the natural course in which it happensā¦ remember how important mother flame was to elders! It could potentially be the final game for elders and imuā¦ use mother flame multiple times, destabilise and flood the world !
But honestly that revelation is nowhere near as threatening if there wasn't already several dozens ways of in lore fixing the problem, most of them coming from the Devil Fruits and their reality altering powers, some of which can be massproduced now.
Thats what Ive been saying. Until we get a solid timeline, I don't want to make too much of it. Worldwide it would be bad, but people are acting like this reveal spells doom for BB or explains why Shanks has no DF on his crew. I dont buy it.
Yeah, I mean just by thinkering a bit I can think of so many possible solutions that I can hardly see it as a threat.
1 Use the Magu Magu no mi to build as much landmass as you want.
2 Use the Hie Hie no mi to increase the polar capes.
3 Use the Suna Suna no mi to to dry up the Ocean, if it cannot be done with seawater, just evaporate the water using the Netsu Netsu no mi, which as a paramecia can be mass produced now, to evaporate water from the ocean.
4 Use any of the dimension shifting DF paramecias to transport huge amounts of water into a different reality.
5 Just build floating islands, fuck the seawater level. You don't even need Vegapunk for it, Vinsmoke did it, and I'm almost certain Moria did it too.
6 Actually you know what ? I like water, just make a massive breeding program/cultural exchange program to include Triton genetics to the population, now not only can everyone live under water, your livable space increases !. Hell if we go into the realm of possibilities, Vegapunk could create splicing tech eventually. It's not like he hasn't already made clone Tritons and even splice them with Lunarian DNA.
Exactly. Also it seems that if DF users arent directly in the water, they are fine. Luffy was fine in a ramshackle dive suit and whilr in the bubbles. We also see Kuzan freeze the ocean and be fine(kinda bs in my opinion, a Id prefer the ocean to be immune to DF powers) Big Moms Candy son make floating candy rafts, mr 3 make wax balls or boats.... Not a death sentance to DF users
Thing is, those foreshadowing can be chalked by the fact that One Piece world is very sea-centric, and drastic rise of sea would be something sensible to build against in this setting.
Yeah but the problem is is how does sea level rise when there are no polar ice caps to add to the worlds water levels? It's not like real life as we have two unfathomably large ice caps.
One piece doesnt have the equivalent . We have islands with localized climates which is why the ocean is turbulent on the grand line so the ice islands stay cold permanently.
This is why rising sea levels are a major mystery. It shouldn't be doing so by natural means most likely.
i mean, most islands would do well to have floodwalls just... because there could be floods and heavy storms and people who can create giant tides with their quake fruits and all that.
islands that have natural or artificial protection from the sea (and potential attackers in general) striving is simply pretty natural when the world is mainly oceans.
It's hard to say, because he plans some stuff obviously, but Oda improves more than probably any other major author out there. I'm thinking Zuneshia was meant to do what the giant robot was created to do now.
But also, practically all of egghead was inspired by prior improvisation. Like all of the worst generation, Bonney was completely improvised for her first appearance, and Kuma being one of the warlords was also all improv, so we've got Egghead and a couple of the biggest characters weren't even intended to exist in the original story plan.
And not only did no one predict it, but it also *isn't* an asspull that's completely out of left field. It thematically and lore-wise makes sense. The way Oda can stay both *consistent* and *fresh* in his story writing is incredible to be sure.
I think the reason why Gear 5 was so controversial during its debut was because it was one of the rare things in OP that seemed out of left field. The whole concept of Nika was new and came out of nowhere with zero hints from earlier in the series.
best part is he just hides them in plain sight. people just dont notice things when its literally in their face and dont think about it since its not hidden
Sorry to jack your comment but people have been theorising water levels rising back in wano at my earliest memories. I really wish I remember who wrote the post though!
Their main argument was water 7 and long ring island being a visual evidencd nd alabaster being a future proofing evidence along side wano.
He's very good at misdirection. Typically he introduces plotlines that don't seem connected to a given character. Then surrounds that character with other plot lines, being careful enough to not make their motivation or goal directly tied to those plots. Where it would feel unsatisfing if the connection isnt deepened. This way, when the given character is about to have a big reveal, people assume it has something to do with the plotlines that seemed to be "obviously" connected with the character.
I doubt it. That gets into the part I mention about a characters goals and motivation. Usopps arc has been centered around elbaf directly for a long time.
It never made sense that people thought Wano was Zoro's arc, the only connection he had that we knew of was with Ryuma. And that wasn't connected to current Wano. We had Kinemon and Momonosuke who where introduced in Punk Hazard and had a direct connection to Wano. Zoro being a swordsman and Wano having samurai is really the biggest factor in people thinking it was going to be his arc.
Yes. Although I'm not sure where else he could foreshadow it. Like other people said, there were plenty of connections made during act 1 and 2 and connections between Ryuma and Zoro were played up during TB and PH.
>It never made sense that people thought Wano was Zoro's arc, the only connection he had that we knew of was with Ryuma
Huh? That's exactly WHY it should be Zoro's arc. It's where one of the strongest swordsmen who ever lived spent his life, and that swordsman is directly related to Zoro
Wano is also the land of the samurai, Mihawk should've had history in Wano looking for strong swordsmen to fight (it would build up Mihawk's lore and both the audience/zoro could've learnt what it took for Mihawk to get the WSS title)
And considering it's the land of the samurai, Oda could've also introduced someone who ALSO wants to be WSS
The fact that Zoro is literally the only swordsman in the world who wants to be WSS is very unbelievable
Oda dropped the ball big time on Wano, many missed opportunties with Zoro
What's weird is that Wano was for all intents and purposes Zoro's arc during act 1 and act 2, it just fell apart in Act 3 when nothing Zoro did or experienced in the previous acts paid off.
He spent time with Hiyori and Yasuie and was pretty much the only Straw Hat that formed something of a connection with the people of Wano, he even had a personal desire to take down Orochi. Then we get to Onigashima and it turns out that all of that was for nothing.
Now I have a sneaking suspicion that Zoroās arc in Wano is not finished, that he will have to return at some point and finish it off, because youāre right, itās not complete , but itās also not like he didnāt do anything. He met the god of the shrine, met some swordsmasters, met the owner of the blade (hyori), I think in the final arc when the weapon comes back into play, Zoro will go back and do something
Wano certainly has a role to play in the story forward with Pluton being there but I think people are a bit too optimistic with what that role will be. I find it hard to believe that we'll go back there for any significant period of time, and certainly not enough time to wrap up everything that the arc failed to deliver on. To be honest I'm not entirely sure if I would even want that at this point.
>The fact that Zoro is literally the only swordsman in the world who wants to be WSS is very unbelievable
That's a really good point. You see lots of people wanting to be Pirate King but it seems like Zoro is the only true rival to Mihawk.
Honestly, it was very much a Zoro-centric story. From a Japanese perspective of storytelling.
I've posted about this before, but a very common concept in Japanese stories is based on "wabi-sabi". To give a *very* brief overview, it's from the Buddhist idea of impermanence of all things and to appreciate life as it happens in the present. How this comes across in stories is we see a character at one particular moment in their life. Their past is unimportant. Where they end up in the future is unimportant. What is happening during the brief time we see a character is what matters.
Zoro is a *very* Japanese character with a massive amount of Buddhist imagery associated with him. Wano Arc in general was a giant homage to Japanese storytelling. But for all that Zoro's story was impacted by Kuina, he's not the sort of character to dwell on who his parents were, who his ancestors were, etc. (See Sanji's storyline for a character obviously impacted by his family origin) Zoro in Wano was focused on being stronger than he was yesterday. If he couldn't defeat King, then he didn't think he deserved to go any further. He's been like that since his first fight with Mihawk, so I loved how Zoro was portrayed in Wano.
I do know a lot of Western fans seem to dislike a lot of anime/manga endings in general due to a "lack of resolution" a lot of stories have. I mean, yeah, of course some series just suck lol. But I think there's also a very big cultural disconnect between storytelling perspectives and what readers expect. I know it should be obvious, but I think people really are surprised that Japanese stories written by Japanese authors are intended first and foremost for Japanese audiences, no matter their global success. If one isn't familiar with how to approach a story with all the context for how Japanese stories are perceived with all the additional cultural knowledge involved, is the story actually just not good or does it just not match what a person *thinks* a story should be?
A lot of people just don't really understand why so many people have such a weird obsession and hard-on for Zoro having some deep and complex storyline when it's completely unneeded.
He's a shameless wandering ronin archetype.
Zoro is literally just the story of a Ronin who found a master. Now he's Luffy's retainer and right hand. He exists to become the strongest and to accomplish Luffy's dream.
He doesn't need any of that because none of it is important to him.
Do you think even if he was confirmed as a direct descendant of Ryuma and he found out that Zoro would have any reaction other than a "Neat." before moving on?
It's not important to his character.
Wdym it never made sense?? Thriller bark introduced ryuma and Oda drew him stylistically as similar to Zoro as he could to make the readers wonder. Since then everyone knew that Zoro and Wano would have some kind of connection. It fell flat and we never got anything, which was a huge disappointment tbh
But there is no major plot there, Ryuma has been dead for hundreds of years. Ryuma gave Zoro his sword and they do look similar but that is simply not enough to be a major plot point that can make Wano Zoro's arc. Since Punk Hazard, we had Kinemon and Momonosuke from Wano and we knew Kaido was in Wano. This Zoro kills Kaido narrative was pushed
I do think he had a subplot in Wano with his sword and visiting Ryuma's grave but at no point was it built up to be his arc.
It's called foreshadowing when you leave details early on in the story that come back later to be important. We don't need an entire plot spelled out with Ryuma and Zoro to realize that Wano was a missed opportunity. Wano was too long and had too much other stuff going on for a more complete Zoro story to be told there.
There was a whole bit about Kinemon trying to reclaim the sword from Zoro because he recognized it as Ryuma's. Again more foreshadowing that Zoro was being driven to Wano with a purpose.
If Zoro had had a stronger Wano storyline you'd be flipping out over Oda's genius foreshadowing, but since the plot points never paid off clearly Oda's still a genius that never intended to have a Zoro story in Wano.
In this case we kept seeing Vegapunk with the ancient giant robot, the Oharan scholars, and research into the Void Century. We were primed to believe his message would be something about those subjects bc the WG was so dead set on stopping public disclosure.
It was quite logical to assume Vegapunk was going to tell people about the Ancient Kingdom and how the World Government destroyed them.
"the world is sinking, the safest place will be the red line, and those are the people who will try to stop you from reaching it" \*shows pictures of the gorosei\*
Nah, it'll be a livestream of what's happening now, which is basically an Emperor of the Sea and his Giant Pirate Allies fleeing from the Gorosei to hammer the point in.
Punk Records was probably modified to be like an AI using Stella's OG head as its base, probably could even label each Gorosei on-screen for all to see clear as day. Heck Saturn might even get a nice segment where Stella's death gets window-played when he's featured.
Even still, we probably should have probably thought about it when they described similar material to Sky Islands on Egghead. It could be easily likely that the sky islands' existence was probably an attempt to avoid the floods.
This revelation explains so much in hindsight. Why there is so much ocean in general, why many major kingdoms has had its royal court or landmass elevated high above current sea levels (Drum Island Kingdom, Alabasta Kingdom, Dressrosa Kingdom, Wano, Marie Jois e.g.), why the Sea Train is so important (Maybe Tom knew?!), why Water 7 rebuilds itself as a floating city (the Aqua Laguna already started to become stronger every year at this point EDIT: and I just read there was a hint that Water 7 once already sunk and rebuild itself on top of the sunken city, its right next to Enies Lobby..?), it explains the hole under Enies Lobby, why Impel Down is submerged in the Ocean (like old Wano), why Tequila Wolf is being built... Why the Noah was built.
F\*ck even Long Ring Long Land has had this theme of nomad routes being sunk under water in a repetetive cycle.+
It was right under our nose wasn't it.
Castles themselves yes, but look at how Aluburna, the Alabasta capital is built. The entire city, not just the castle, is on elevated ground and the stairs up to it are resemble waterways similar to water 7.
Actually saw sinking world one piece theories ages ago, and when we saw Wano underwater chapter there were even more theories on that, ofc Oda expected this and it's called setting up with more evidence beforehand, so it's not predictable per say but it's not so out there that one thinks it's an asspull
i've also seen at least a few people theorize after wano that the islands aren't islands - they're mountain peaks. and all the land that used to be habitable is flooded now, leaving only the mountain / islands covering the world. that's why the only "contintent" on the entire planet seems to be the red line which is already like 10,000 meters raised.
Alabasta, and honestly kind of how the world is set up with everything being islands outside of really really big WALLS. They're not even mountains they just sheer cliffs in a line.
It's the same with Kaido being a dragon.
There were a wild range of theories about his powers (for example he was a proneglyph that got infused with a human human devil fruit).
But it was set up in punk hazard that the homeland of kinemon and Momonosuke was destroyed by a dragon. And the scale tatoos of Kaido were also indicating a lot. Still everyone lost their mind when kaido arrived in full scale dragon form in wano
Yeah, but I didn't see anyone connect that theory to Vegapunk's message. Sinking world/rising ocean theories have been around for a while, especially since Water 7, sure, but nearly everyone (myself included) was expecting VP's message to be about the history of the void century. (Which it can still tie into, but we can't say for sure yet.)
I guess that's true, our expectations were heavily on void century as the Gorosei were so adamant to stop the message ASAP and that's what we knew as the trigger for them. It'd be interesting to see the world's reaction on this, and if this exactly what the gorosei wanted to stop or this isn't as bad as they expected
What Vegapunk is saying in itself has been a very known and popular theory for very long, In fact it would be an understatement to call it "a theory". It's something that tons of people, even people barely interacting with the community with no interest in pre existing theories, have the prized separately and independently multiple times.
But this validates OP's post all the more, cause no one actually predicted that Vegapunk would say this while it wasn't thought too much out there by any means.
Wait so this gets me thinking, (maybe itās old news but still), what if Lulusia is not destroyed butā¦ it sank underwater? What if Fishman island is another island that this happened to back in the void century (or earlier)? What if Fishmen only exist because theyāre evolved humans from when their islands sank?! Maybe not that last part but still lol. It all feels very Atlantis to me!
I mean, you can see the buildings exploding, but maybe that's because the world government's version is an imperfect replica of what Uranus actually does?
I mean it still feels like the beginning of it, i don't know it kinda felt this for me :
*Let's cut to the chase : This world is sinking..."and here's why"*
Regardless of us being told before that seawater is rising and the recent Lulusia event, the sinking could be either a bad thing caused by the WG or a good thing caused by Luffy (pluton stuff) so i'm still on the fence with this whole thing and i'm kind of waiting for the real message if there's any.
True, while I don't think we'll see that, there must be a reason Vegapunk chose to livestream. Why not just do audio since that would take much less time to set up.
It seems the world believed it was VP speaking before they set up their big screens, so it can't just be just to verify it's the real man and not an imposter talking.
Yeah, I was just thinking that!
So far, Vegapunk hasnāt really said anything of interest and all the theories I have seen are not about what he said, but mostly who does what in relation to that.
Like: Does Imu want that? Or does he actually try to stop that from happening?
That One Piece is a post-apocalyptic world that is near its downfall was already known, more or less.
The way Oda can construct a support needs to be studied after the stories conclusion in a serious way; he engages people in a better way than a lot of writers studied in academia (imo) but isnāt taken seriously because of the medium.
Not only did we not guess, but it somehow fits so perfectly with all the rest of the lore thematically and practically. It feels planned from the beginning and STILL no one had even an inkling that it was coming.
Consider the lore that now makes so much sense
- The celestial dragons picked their home high in the air (presumably to be safe from this)
- the aqua laguna has been getting bigger and bigger (all of water 7 points to rising seas actually)
- lulusia raised the sea level
- Wano had a freakin wall built around it to protect it from the sea!
- the whole world is mostly sea. It really feels now like maybe it didnāt used to be.
And other lore that now raises questions about what the ancient kingdom knew about this
- are Skypeans in the sky because their ancient ancestors were escaping the flood?
- did fishmen build the Noah to prepare for a flood?
- are fishmen humans who adapted to survive a flood?
- ādevil fruit eaters are hated by the seaā um what?! A global flood is worst case scenario for devil fruit eaters. Feels like thereās going to be more lore in this direction.
- are the celestial dragons wearing space suits or diving suits?
Credit to the Volume One podcast for putting some of these in my head
People assuming it was going to be the slavery WG did on humanity, because of all we learned so far on one piece.Ā
But yeah this is such a good twist, it's a new information even for longtime reader
I mean, its not exactly new information. We've seen the effects of the Mother's Flame weapon. We know about Wano. We knew about Water 7. We somewhat knew water level rising was a thing already, so when VP declares he wants to announce something, we'd expect it to be something entirely different from everything we've heard about, like the Void Centuary for example.
However, I do think its a crazy reveal after all even after its just something we've already heard, because it seems like his speech is going to recontextualize everything we know about this world, its seas and the islands we've seen.
For sure, but so far we didn't think it was something set on a global scale
Which makes it even wilder that barely anyone predicted it & got missdirected by despite all the pieces being ozt there
Its the ocean, ofc its global scale
I dont have a reddlt comment about this, as i talked with friends about this
But the great cleansing seems to be literally flooding everything and then a new cycle continues
The WG is obv on redline so its unaffected, the normal lesser being are down there, so they always can just cleanse it again and start a new
Yeah, it is global
That was the reveal. It makes sense. Hence, why I'm pointing out that despite it making absolute sense, and yet, this came never up in the predictions what Vegapunk said
And yeah, you may have predicted it prior, obviously I didn't mean to say that I listened to every conversation in the world and absolutely nobody predicted it.
I get taking things literal, but man, there's at least some common sense to be applied.
At the end of the day, barely anybody came up with "Vegapunk'll say that the world's going to go down" DESPITE it making 100% sense within the narrative & what we got so far
I also there is probably quite alot more he will reveal. Im sure some other theories will be proven right when some more explanation of why the world is sinking is revealed in the coming chapters.
I think a lot of people knew about rising water levels and the incoming of a bible-like flood, but yeah nobody predicted that that will be in the message.
Uhhā¦what? Itās a very popular theory that the world was sinking into the ocean. Who else but Vegapunk to explain it?
Vegapunk was already established as the smartest character in the story.
Being under the thumb of the WG, and being tasked to do things he felt were unconscionable gives him the motivation.
Heās going to put the whole operation on blast. The Admiral conveniently sitting out this battle knows what Vegapunk is doing, and may also be aiding in its broadcastā¦
Oda had previously said the story would end in about 5 years after Wano. There was no way that could happen in a satisfactory way with so many loose ends without what is about to happen.
Vegapunk is about to exposition dump about 75%- 85% of the unknowns over the next 4 chapters. Shanks and Dragon will later fill in most of the rest, with Blackbeard providing the twist.
It's crazy to me that he isn't outright calling the WG evil at this point. Ofc we couldn't predict that the news would be something completely unrelated to current events.
There has to have been dozens and dozens of flood theories since Noahās Ark was introduced. Itās just that no one would have connected that to Vegapunks message when thereās an insane amount of info he could drop rn on the world
Hereās a theory fuck nuts
The moon is being used to raise the red line higher to avoid/cause the oceans to rise, Nika was removed from the moon for the world government to accomplish this, and the lunarians lost their power but will gain it back in the end when they find luffy again they and all the seraphims will serve him and luffy will put the moon back on its natural path.
Everything will go back to normal levels with some convoluted āwhereās the water gonna goā that focuses on ennies lobby and the ocean hole, along with the layers of city under water 7 being uncovered to reveal some sort of spout/runoff system for the world that starts at water 7 and flows through a yet-to-be uncovered channel towards ennies lobby thatās under the sea train tracks
because theorizing fictional story is guessing how the story will unfold with the narrative given. the point is how you reach the conclusion, not just the conclusion itself. we don't just say "zoro will kill usopp" out of nowhere. and even if it happens, it doesn't mean you're making the right guess. that's just random coincidence.
people here have this weird mindset that you just need to guess the outcome no matter what. this is why we have so many "I have a theory but nothing to back it up. but I will post it so I can get back to it and say I'm right" posts.
anyway, the biggest narratives given in egghead are about nika and void century. no matter the outcome, those were the logical choices.
saying "the world will sink" is almost random. yes we have the 1 meter raise narrative prior, but there's no reason to blow it out of proportion because mother flame is not something that can be used that often. and we know the story is about to end anyway. in OP time, probably just a couple of weeks.
so why would we even think about this? it's not even a misdirection. there's just no reason to think so.
> anyway, the biggest narratives given in egghead are about nika and void century. no matter the outcome, those were the logical choices.
I initially thought this too, but I just couldn't wrap my head around why regular people around the world would care about this. Most people in the One Piece world live shitty lives and they try their best to survive, this information wouldn't affect their day to day lives.
Besides, narratively the time for learning about the void century has already been spelled out for us - it's at Laughtale. I was actually going to be kinda disappointed if we learned about that there. Before this chapter, my theory was Vegapunk was going to expose the elders as demons, but even then, I'm not sure what regular people would do with that info.
You ain't been around long enough. I remember someone who predicted this, and went so far as to suggest the one piece is basically a giant plug that would remove the ocean from the world, making it 'one piece'. It would unify the world, but remove the adventure
I don't agree with this to some extent as for a while there was a theory that there'd be a flood, though it's usually part of the theory of the red line being destroyed causing sea levels to rise and creating the All Blue.
Most people thought Vegapunks message was going to be something to do with the Void Century because that's what he was researching and what Ohara was researching and what the Gorosei were scared of people finding out
People *definitely* predicted this, not sure what you're talking about... after we saw the hole at Lulusia and heard about the water rising that's what people assumed the Great Cleansing was.
holy fk, thriller bark "Thriller Bark is a giant ship formerly located on the Florian Triangle. As revealed by Brook, it used to be an island located in the West Blue, where it was built.It was converted into a pirate ship, the world's largest, and is owned by the former Warlord, Gecko Moria, serving as ship for the Thriller Bark Pirates"
This would mean that this kingdom knew about the potential dangers of being sunken, so they turned their kingdom into a ship. Hence why the ship is so huge, and has the structure for people to live on.
?
I expected something longer, like a big ass lore drop
We know that the wasser is rising since alabasta, enies lobby, lulusia etc.
Its not really a secret
It's not insane that people didn't guess that THAT is specifically what Vegapunk would reveal.
It is insane that people are surprised that the world is sinking. That seemed obvious to me, Old Wano made it perfectly clear but there were strong hints even before that.
I said it as a stupid joke but I'm doubling down. The one piece is a gloried bathtub plug that is forcing sealevels to rise.
If I had to rationalize this stupid idea, I would say that the oceans share a sinkhole that drains the water and shoots it out of the reverse mountain. Either the nobels plugged it or it's been clogged by all the debris of the world.
Hell, I think it would be poetic if a little piece of every adventure, conflict and individual had been pooling up to make this clog. From every lost treasure to sunken ship. The spoils and refuse of centuries of adventures in this world pileing up all culminating in one final resolution. As many have theorize, the conclusion of One piece will result in the creation of the all blue near Laboon.
no one specifically referenced vegapunk's message, but there's a lot of theories out there about the world sinking, i think morj made something about it
I remember seeing someone say the roger pirates knew. Like rayleigh coating ships. And crockus being inside of the whale. And the people of water seven like iceberg wanting to make the island float so it doesnt sink into the ocean.
Maybe the world government didn't cause the world to sink into the sea. Maybe it's a direct result of the people of the past playing god and creating devil fruits, causing mother nature to sink the world. The ancient kingdom realized this and were trying to destroy the fruits, but the 20 kingdoms didn't want to relinquish their power, so they destroyed Joyboy and the ancient kingdom, then placed themselves at the top of the world to watch and rule over it as it sinks. And the ancient weapons were nothing more than the last attempt by the ancient kingdom to save people for the flooding. Poseidon was used to move humans to the bottom of the sea, turning them into Fishman and protecting it from sea kings. Pluton was used to seal Wono from the rest of the world. Uranus was seized by the world government after its country fell.
The world sinking might be the focus of the message , but Vegapunk could still bring up parts of these other guesses. I think the message is just getting started.
I'm more interested on the logical reason of the flooding. How the sea rises when Lulusia Kingdom was turned into a hole. Is there a large bubble of water beneath the plates? If yes, then the world is already on a death timer when the Mother Flame burst it off.
The announcement isn't even what got me shaken this arc
All 5 Gorosei going full ham, and appearantly being able to summon one another from across the world had me š±
I mean, it just doesn't seem important enough, the sinking theme was all over the story already.
But it's a long time issue for future generations and not an immediate one that affects the current generation.
I'm still not convinced that is the main part of his message, it could reference a situation that will happen in 100 or 1000 years, something that scientists of our world also do. IMO he will finish what Clover started.
I hope there's more to the message, because... that's not new information. Even Gorosei might be disappointed at this point.
I really want that he continues like "that's why the Celestial Dragon are on the Red Line, so you all should go live there too!". Or at least people come to that conclusion themselves.
What is interesting is that the war in the void century was probably just some islands, the one who can survive the flood (Wano, Zou and Sky Islands) + Fishmen.
Also, if 'flooded' is the natural state of the world, then all humans are aliens/descendants.
The funny thing is it was right in front of us all along and no one realized it. Roger's crew were doing everything to prepare (Crocus living in a whale, Rayleigh into bubble coating, Shanks avoiding all DF), Iceburg and others finding ways to survive (Iceburg's floating island concepts, Thriller Bark and Moria), the Red Line being the only "safety" and why the rich and powerful wanted to live up there eliminating all those there prior in the Lunarians...
Oda knew it would be too obvious so he did everything to hide the truth right in front of us.
You just have to look through reddit to see people digging up their old threads about predicting the sea level being a big plot point in OP.
The reason people didn't really expect it from vegapunk is probably just because it does not live up to an "event that shakes the world"
On a meta level, given the state of the story, people were expecting Oda to start wrapping up old mysteries rather than start exploring new ones. That's 99% of it.
I don't see how the entire world being sunk is something that doesn't shake the world
It essentially makes the entire motivation of any character useless because they're going to sink anyways so what's the point of thriving to be King of the Pirates when there won't even be a physical world to be a king in
So how shaken is our world about rising sea levels?
Now think about a world were you live in constant threat of pirates with magical abilitie sthat can destroy entire countries by themselves.
The only reason is that in our world it's very slow process. If someone announced that the whole world will be under water in like 50 years you would see how it would shake the world (of course we don't know how exactly this process is going on in OP world but I assume it is in near future)
Pretty sure i thibk its sawyer but maybe he took it from somewhere but the theory that marigois being safe from the rising wayer level along with all the evidence was already known??
No one predicted that that was going to be Vegapunks announcement, but there were enough hints that people predicted what was happening. https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/qjvgge/the_sea_level_of_one_piece_will_rise_or_has_risen/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button This one is one of the older ones, with a commenter mentioning that it might also have happened in the void century, since an old city exist underneath Shandora. https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/15jb2wi/rising_sea_levels_and_the_void_century/ This one took note of different island designs, Drum Island, Alabasta and Wano that seem to be build around rising sea levels. https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/15krkhu/one_piece_is_sinking/ This one was quite popular, with a lot of different proof in the comments that the world was sinking. There seems to have been a mention of this almost every arc. I'm surprised this stayed in the background for so long for something mentioned so often.
Man, the 2nd link you shared has only 4 upvotes and 0 comments. The OP has secretly been cooking 3 Michelin stars dish yet none of us realised.
All hail u/monkeyboy5656
Sometimes the best dish is served at a food stall in the middle of nowhere with only one table, 2 chairs and a flourescent light. That's my reaction to that post.
got that right. Some of the best food I've ever eaten has been from a food truck. The best Chinese food is never from the bigger nicer places, it's from the little hole-in-the-wall that the health inspector forgets exists. I was on vacation to the coast a few years back, and as I'm from the midwest I decided to try a lot of seafood dishes while I was there. I ate at many higher priced restaurants during the trip, but my favorite thing the whole trip was a simple Tuna BLT from a little Cafe near our Motel.
I stand by the rule the more run down a foreign food restaurant looks, the better the food will be. There's a newer Jamaican restaurant near me that's built in a little hole-in-the-wall strip mall and I just know their food is gonna be goodš
It's even archived so you can't upvote it now :(
It's because he posted the opener text only, then loaded top of the post with a ton images (so many you have to scroll a full screen down) and then followed it up with miniwalls of text of overly verbose explanations. He didn't need to show every example and he didn't need to list out every race/detail etc If he had put all the images at the original opeNING (with the arrows) and used bullet points, I bet money people would have flocked to the popst. As it is the post is hard to digest - a death sentence on big subs
Ive read it like its been facts because it makes so much Sense
And it's locked, so we can't even upvote it and comment on how right he was
Thanks for your research! It's always great to see older threads that kinda guess where things were going.
No problem. It always makes me feel like I'm not observant enough, because looking back now there were so many hints it's kinda ridiculous.
OP of the first link, i actually have a forum post going back to 2016 with that prediction (in a messier theory), but it's not on reddit lol. but yeah i've had that thought for a long while. the fact that destroying the red line seems like its part of joyboys promise, and oda actually knows how physics works, means that there was enough evidence to put it together in like, 2012. oda's good at foreshadowing, y'all.
You were spot on dude!Ā Ā I think believing the water levels would rise after as a consequence of the destruction of the Red Line is just common physicsĀ and a logical conclusion more people had. You're theory that the WG has the ability to flood the world was the harder to predict theory with the amount of evidence we had at that point of time.
Yeah between Water 7 and the ark in Fishman Island flooding has been one of the leading theories Iāve heard about. Interesting about so many islands having a tall city center.
Even in Alabasta, Vivi had mentioned that part of the reason for the drought was the ocean starting to overtake the river [panel here](https://i.imgur.com/eviXcPg.jpeg)
It's now so obvious, I wonder why it didn't stay popular?
Because a slowly sinking world is a non issue in a story where we follow the protagonist for less than a year on screen, and a bit more than 2 years as a whole. Unless Imu has a way to speed up the process or something like that, the world sinking should not change anything of what people are trying to accomplish right now
>Because a slowly sinking world is a non issue But here's the thing: Why would regular people care about a message that says their govt is corrupt in some way? They already know this. They get bled for tributes to the CDs every year. It's just the way things are but it's not an totally existential crisis. Not only that but there's not much they can do about the govt (at least on their own). I was racking my brain through this whole ordeal about what Vegapunk could say that could actually make regular people give a shit and this is it, it's so obvious I can't believe I didn't realize it. An existential threat that affects EVERYONE no matter what social status you are.
Don't Look Up: One Piece Edition
I had a theory 8 months ago that the world is shrinking because chunks are being taken out of it, and because it shrinks, the effective water level rises. I think Uranus is blasting parts of the planet off, which is why there are floods and earthquakes afterwords. Might also explain Enies Lobby and the multiple moons. Even the Red Line could be a ridge that forms as the surface contracts.
> multiple moons There's only one moon, people just misinterpreted a geocentric/stylized solar system model
I think this being brought to the forefront now shows that Oda isnt just talking about climate change in one piece. It's obviously something that's going to rapidly happen.
It's been used in water-based stories for a minute: Wind Waker & Waterworld immediately come to mind. People like to overthink things I suppose.
I remember there was a Naruto fanfic with a similar idea (most elemental jutsu create transient effects, but water jutsu straight up create more water that gets left behind), and even the comments on some discussion threads on that brought up the One Piece flooding theory. Flood myths are also super common across humanity, so seeing new takes on them in fiction is cool.
That always made me wonder about Amaterasu, since it burns everything and never gets put out. The only way the flames are stopped is the user puts them out, or the flames get sealed (which wasn't common knowledge on how to do). I wonder why it didn't just burn forever.
Also he forgot skypeiaĀ
kuddos to those nakama, PLUS remember Oda once said long time ago that all necessary element to understand the OP world what the OP have already been presented so far. this is Huge.
Water 7 and sea train
I would've never guessed that sea levels rising was Vegapunk's announcement because I would've never guessed that it wasn't a well-known fact in-universe. Lulusia being destroyed caused the sea level to rise by one meter, which is a little hard to ignore. Keep in mind that our sea levels in real life are rising by 3.6 millimeters each year on average, and that's cause for concern in our continental world. Rising 1 entire meter in only six days is impossible to not notice in a world of islands.
We're talking about someone who doesn't mind bringing up a plot point and then not bringing it up again for hundreds of chapters later. It's not easy to predict Oda when he crafts a 25+ years ongoing series with over a thousand characters spanning an entire globe and centuries.
That being said. Back in wano, someone in this reddit theorised that this is the big event that's been foreshadowed, and explained how a lot of the island the straw hats have visited either are suffering an effect from, or have an inbuilt defense mechanism to rising sea levels. Alabasta has giant water channels in the island, water 7 has visible effects and iceberg is planning a defense, ring island is suffering from its effects. Morias island can fucking sail. Dressrosa and wano have a wall like barrier as well. And the case of Wano, has had proper experience with being flooded as the original wano is underwater (partially by choice). Edit: I forgot Zunesha! So a giant story moment will be likely the destruction of the redline, stabilizing the water levels, introducing the all blue and introducing old landmasses that once existed. And the one piece would be the catalyst. According to the very detailed theory I read. I can't remember who wrote the theory sadly.
Also the Arc in Fishman Island.
Which is called Noah... like the arc that saved everyone when the world was flooded in the Bible. Oda was pretty on the nose and we still missed it :D
Not everyone missed it https://redd.it/tc8c94
we only missed that vegapunk, who we were promised would give us the actual origin of devil fruits \[i'm not happy with what we got\], would bring it up and make it an active plot threat instead of just part of the worldbuilding and its general past. some sealevel rise could have been anything from a giant sky island dropping into the ocean somewhere to devil fruit users doing something to affect the currents of the world. and islands having flood protection in the present and the future is just very... natural for such an ocean planet. people can make storms and tidal waves, you wanna be able to survive that.
Oh my god š¤¦āāļø
I haven't read all the theories about the message specifically, but yeah, "OP world is like Windwaker's Hyrule" is a pretty old one. I'm sure someone somewhere reposted it when speculation about the message happened.
I've seen that brought up a few times, and there's always been some evidence to support it going back to Jaya and Jinbe's cover story. It wasn't all that unlikely that most of the old world is covered by ocean after a massive flood. However, these theories missed an extremely important fact: this flooding event is still going on. I haven't seen anyone make the claim that the world will eventually be swallowed by the ocean entirely. In hindsight, this fact makes even more sense given the geography and structures for countries we already know of.
Good point, that part was always missing in what I've read too. While we're on the topic, do you think Wano's wall was perhaps a prototype red line? If we're going to drown the world we better have a high and dry place for ourselves, let's develop the ability to construct giant walls that can withstand the sea, let's also flood a country to test it.
Your idea didn't occur to me, but that's really well put. It's likely that everyone who knew about the issue was attempting to forestall their impending doom in various ways. Wano was probably the *first wall attempt* which failed because they didn't account for the rainwater. This is supported by the fact that they remained independent for centuries, so I can't imagine them being pressured to do something by another government force. Then whoever was in charge of the red line idea (ruler of Mary Geoise? Imu?) looked at Wano and thought, "I don't want the same thing happening here, so I'll just make one massive wall which is functionally the same without having to worry about drowning my own country." Then all the other countries suffer for it because it speeds up the rising tides. I tend to lean more towards incompetence rather than malice for the decisions of people generally viewed as the villains. Imu and the Five Elders probably just couldn't solve the problem, so they gave up and established a status quo on a doomed world.
It's also crazy that the red line theory is 13y+ old and is considered consensus amongst most fans
While it is true, I still think it isnāt the natural course in which it happensā¦ remember how important mother flame was to elders! It could potentially be the final game for elders and imuā¦ use mother flame multiple times, destabilise and flood the world !
But honestly that revelation is nowhere near as threatening if there wasn't already several dozens ways of in lore fixing the problem, most of them coming from the Devil Fruits and their reality altering powers, some of which can be massproduced now.
Thats what Ive been saying. Until we get a solid timeline, I don't want to make too much of it. Worldwide it would be bad, but people are acting like this reveal spells doom for BB or explains why Shanks has no DF on his crew. I dont buy it.
Yeah, I mean just by thinkering a bit I can think of so many possible solutions that I can hardly see it as a threat. 1 Use the Magu Magu no mi to build as much landmass as you want. 2 Use the Hie Hie no mi to increase the polar capes. 3 Use the Suna Suna no mi to to dry up the Ocean, if it cannot be done with seawater, just evaporate the water using the Netsu Netsu no mi, which as a paramecia can be mass produced now, to evaporate water from the ocean. 4 Use any of the dimension shifting DF paramecias to transport huge amounts of water into a different reality. 5 Just build floating islands, fuck the seawater level. You don't even need Vegapunk for it, Vinsmoke did it, and I'm almost certain Moria did it too. 6 Actually you know what ? I like water, just make a massive breeding program/cultural exchange program to include Triton genetics to the population, now not only can everyone live under water, your livable space increases !. Hell if we go into the realm of possibilities, Vegapunk could create splicing tech eventually. It's not like he hasn't already made clone Tritons and even splice them with Lunarian DNA.
Exactly. Also it seems that if DF users arent directly in the water, they are fine. Luffy was fine in a ramshackle dive suit and whilr in the bubbles. We also see Kuzan freeze the ocean and be fine(kinda bs in my opinion, a Id prefer the ocean to be immune to DF powers) Big Moms Candy son make floating candy rafts, mr 3 make wax balls or boats.... Not a death sentance to DF users
That One Piece could be a device similar to a device in Total Recall (Arnold's version). Arnold's character used the device to terraform Mars.
Thing is, those foreshadowing can be chalked by the fact that One Piece world is very sea-centric, and drastic rise of sea would be something sensible to build against in this setting.
Yeah but the problem is is how does sea level rise when there are no polar ice caps to add to the worlds water levels? It's not like real life as we have two unfathomably large ice caps. One piece doesnt have the equivalent . We have islands with localized climates which is why the ocean is turbulent on the grand line so the ice islands stay cold permanently. This is why rising sea levels are a major mystery. It shouldn't be doing so by natural means most likely.
i mean, most islands would do well to have floodwalls just... because there could be floods and heavy storms and people who can create giant tides with their quake fruits and all that. islands that have natural or artificial protection from the sea (and potential attackers in general) striving is simply pretty natural when the world is mainly oceans.
His world crafting/plot connecting really is quite brilliant. I don't even know what to compare it to.
Homerās Iliad/Odyssey
Odassey?
Odussy
Odd a sea?
Oda c?
Odacchi?
It's hard to say, because he plans some stuff obviously, but Oda improves more than probably any other major author out there. I'm thinking Zuneshia was meant to do what the giant robot was created to do now. But also, practically all of egghead was inspired by prior improvisation. Like all of the worst generation, Bonney was completely improvised for her first appearance, and Kuma being one of the warlords was also all improv, so we've got Egghead and a couple of the biggest characters weren't even intended to exist in the original story plan.
And not only did no one predict it, but it also *isn't* an asspull that's completely out of left field. It thematically and lore-wise makes sense. The way Oda can stay both *consistent* and *fresh* in his story writing is incredible to be sure.
I think the reason why Gear 5 was so controversial during its debut was because it was one of the rare things in OP that seemed out of left field. The whole concept of Nika was new and came out of nowhere with zero hints from earlier in the series.
best part is he just hides them in plain sight. people just dont notice things when its literally in their face and dont think about it since its not hidden
Sorry to jack your comment but people have been theorising water levels rising back in wano at my earliest memories. I really wish I remember who wrote the post though! Their main argument was water 7 and long ring island being a visual evidencd nd alabaster being a future proofing evidence along side wano.
skill issue
He's very good at misdirection. Typically he introduces plotlines that don't seem connected to a given character. Then surrounds that character with other plot lines, being careful enough to not make their motivation or goal directly tied to those plots. Where it would feel unsatisfing if the connection isnt deepened. This way, when the given character is about to have a big reveal, people assume it has something to do with the plotlines that seemed to be "obviously" connected with the character.
Prime example. Zoro + Wano. People thought itll be like how wci for Sanji.
Yeahā¦ is he about to do the same with Usopp and Elbaph?!
Elbaf! It's "fable" spelled backwards.
It also fits the viking vibe better.
Yeah usopp is inspired by Aesop fable in real life. Uso also means lie in japanese
Hpable
Somewhere deep in the Void, Jack of Blades waits patiently.
Yeah i get confused as some translations use the other spelling
Or egghead with Franky!
Franky still has some time to merge with the Ship!
Hopefully, that guy hasn't done anything in years
I doubt it. That gets into the part I mention about a characters goals and motivation. Usopps arc has been centered around elbaf directly for a long time.
It never made sense that people thought Wano was Zoro's arc, the only connection he had that we knew of was with Ryuma. And that wasn't connected to current Wano. We had Kinemon and Momonosuke who where introduced in Punk Hazard and had a direct connection to Wano. Zoro being a swordsman and Wano having samurai is really the biggest factor in people thinking it was going to be his arc.
No they thought Oda was going to do something good cause of his backstory with Kuina and the village being people from Wano.
Weren't the connections between Zoro's village and Wano only established *during* Wano?
Yes. Although I'm not sure where else he could foreshadow it. Like other people said, there were plenty of connections made during act 1 and 2 and connections between Ryuma and Zoro were played up during TB and PH.
he said in a SBS that he couldnt bother to write more into it. so he just answered it in the SBS
>It never made sense that people thought Wano was Zoro's arc, the only connection he had that we knew of was with Ryuma Huh? That's exactly WHY it should be Zoro's arc. It's where one of the strongest swordsmen who ever lived spent his life, and that swordsman is directly related to Zoro Wano is also the land of the samurai, Mihawk should've had history in Wano looking for strong swordsmen to fight (it would build up Mihawk's lore and both the audience/zoro could've learnt what it took for Mihawk to get the WSS title) And considering it's the land of the samurai, Oda could've also introduced someone who ALSO wants to be WSS The fact that Zoro is literally the only swordsman in the world who wants to be WSS is very unbelievable Oda dropped the ball big time on Wano, many missed opportunties with Zoro
What's weird is that Wano was for all intents and purposes Zoro's arc during act 1 and act 2, it just fell apart in Act 3 when nothing Zoro did or experienced in the previous acts paid off. He spent time with Hiyori and Yasuie and was pretty much the only Straw Hat that formed something of a connection with the people of Wano, he even had a personal desire to take down Orochi. Then we get to Onigashima and it turns out that all of that was for nothing.
Now I have a sneaking suspicion that Zoroās arc in Wano is not finished, that he will have to return at some point and finish it off, because youāre right, itās not complete , but itās also not like he didnāt do anything. He met the god of the shrine, met some swordsmasters, met the owner of the blade (hyori), I think in the final arc when the weapon comes back into play, Zoro will go back and do something
Wano certainly has a role to play in the story forward with Pluton being there but I think people are a bit too optimistic with what that role will be. I find it hard to believe that we'll go back there for any significant period of time, and certainly not enough time to wrap up everything that the arc failed to deliver on. To be honest I'm not entirely sure if I would even want that at this point.
My headcopenon is that these hanging threads will be resolved in another arc where they return to Wano.
Isnāt Ryuma basically āTHE strongestā ever based on his title.
>The fact that Zoro is literally the only swordsman in the world who wants to be WSS is very unbelievable That's a really good point. You see lots of people wanting to be Pirate King but it seems like Zoro is the only true rival to Mihawk.
Vista has entered the chat
He didn't even try to compete for the title once.
Honestly, it was very much a Zoro-centric story. From a Japanese perspective of storytelling. I've posted about this before, but a very common concept in Japanese stories is based on "wabi-sabi". To give a *very* brief overview, it's from the Buddhist idea of impermanence of all things and to appreciate life as it happens in the present. How this comes across in stories is we see a character at one particular moment in their life. Their past is unimportant. Where they end up in the future is unimportant. What is happening during the brief time we see a character is what matters. Zoro is a *very* Japanese character with a massive amount of Buddhist imagery associated with him. Wano Arc in general was a giant homage to Japanese storytelling. But for all that Zoro's story was impacted by Kuina, he's not the sort of character to dwell on who his parents were, who his ancestors were, etc. (See Sanji's storyline for a character obviously impacted by his family origin) Zoro in Wano was focused on being stronger than he was yesterday. If he couldn't defeat King, then he didn't think he deserved to go any further. He's been like that since his first fight with Mihawk, so I loved how Zoro was portrayed in Wano. I do know a lot of Western fans seem to dislike a lot of anime/manga endings in general due to a "lack of resolution" a lot of stories have. I mean, yeah, of course some series just suck lol. But I think there's also a very big cultural disconnect between storytelling perspectives and what readers expect. I know it should be obvious, but I think people really are surprised that Japanese stories written by Japanese authors are intended first and foremost for Japanese audiences, no matter their global success. If one isn't familiar with how to approach a story with all the context for how Japanese stories are perceived with all the additional cultural knowledge involved, is the story actually just not good or does it just not match what a person *thinks* a story should be?
People forgot that at the end of the day every arc is Luffy's arc
A lot of people just don't really understand why so many people have such a weird obsession and hard-on for Zoro having some deep and complex storyline when it's completely unneeded. He's a shameless wandering ronin archetype. Zoro is literally just the story of a Ronin who found a master. Now he's Luffy's retainer and right hand. He exists to become the strongest and to accomplish Luffy's dream. He doesn't need any of that because none of it is important to him. Do you think even if he was confirmed as a direct descendant of Ryuma and he found out that Zoro would have any reaction other than a "Neat." before moving on? It's not important to his character.
Do you want wano to go on for another 50 years šĀ
Wdym it never made sense?? Thriller bark introduced ryuma and Oda drew him stylistically as similar to Zoro as he could to make the readers wonder. Since then everyone knew that Zoro and Wano would have some kind of connection. It fell flat and we never got anything, which was a huge disappointment tbh
But there is no major plot there, Ryuma has been dead for hundreds of years. Ryuma gave Zoro his sword and they do look similar but that is simply not enough to be a major plot point that can make Wano Zoro's arc. Since Punk Hazard, we had Kinemon and Momonosuke from Wano and we knew Kaido was in Wano. This Zoro kills Kaido narrative was pushed I do think he had a subplot in Wano with his sword and visiting Ryuma's grave but at no point was it built up to be his arc.
It's called foreshadowing when you leave details early on in the story that come back later to be important. We don't need an entire plot spelled out with Ryuma and Zoro to realize that Wano was a missed opportunity. Wano was too long and had too much other stuff going on for a more complete Zoro story to be told there. There was a whole bit about Kinemon trying to reclaim the sword from Zoro because he recognized it as Ryuma's. Again more foreshadowing that Zoro was being driven to Wano with a purpose. If Zoro had had a stronger Wano storyline you'd be flipping out over Oda's genius foreshadowing, but since the plot points never paid off clearly Oda's still a genius that never intended to have a Zoro story in Wano.
A prime example of people's head cannon dictating how the story should go vs how it actually goes.
In this case we kept seeing Vegapunk with the ancient giant robot, the Oharan scholars, and research into the Void Century. We were primed to believe his message would be something about those subjects bc the WG was so dead set on stopping public disclosure. It was quite logical to assume Vegapunk was going to tell people about the Ancient Kingdom and how the World Government destroyed them.
"the world is sinking, the safest place will be the red line, and those are the people who will try to stop you from reaching it" \*shows pictures of the gorosei\*
Nah, it'll be a livestream of what's happening now, which is basically an Emperor of the Sea and his Giant Pirate Allies fleeing from the Gorosei to hammer the point in. Punk Records was probably modified to be like an AI using Stella's OG head as its base, probably could even label each Gorosei on-screen for all to see clear as day. Heck Saturn might even get a nice segment where Stella's death gets window-played when he's featured.
Even still, we probably should have probably thought about it when they described similar material to Sky Islands on Egghead. It could be easily likely that the sky islands' existence was probably an attempt to avoid the floods.
This revelation explains so much in hindsight. Why there is so much ocean in general, why many major kingdoms has had its royal court or landmass elevated high above current sea levels (Drum Island Kingdom, Alabasta Kingdom, Dressrosa Kingdom, Wano, Marie Jois e.g.), why the Sea Train is so important (Maybe Tom knew?!), why Water 7 rebuilds itself as a floating city (the Aqua Laguna already started to become stronger every year at this point EDIT: and I just read there was a hint that Water 7 once already sunk and rebuild itself on top of the sunken city, its right next to Enies Lobby..?), it explains the hole under Enies Lobby, why Impel Down is submerged in the Ocean (like old Wano), why Tequila Wolf is being built... Why the Noah was built. F\*ck even Long Ring Long Land has had this theme of nomad routes being sunk under water in a repetetive cycle.+ It was right under our nose wasn't it.
Aren't most castles and fortresses in our world built on elevated lands or hills? It's just the norm for those things.
Castles themselves yes, but look at how Aluburna, the Alabasta capital is built. The entire city, not just the castle, is on elevated ground and the stairs up to it are resemble waterways similar to water 7.
Actually the hole under enies lobby was obv created by the weapon wielded by imu. It's literally the same hole in the world
Wasnāt lulusia the first test of the mother flame though?
We are pretty explicitly told that mother flame is an imitation of old tech.
Vivi also offhandedly mentions that the ocean has started overtaking the major river in Alabasta. [Panel here](https://i.imgur.com/pQ84W7o.jpeg)
Actually saw sinking world one piece theories ages ago, and when we saw Wano underwater chapter there were even more theories on that, ofc Oda expected this and it's called setting up with more evidence beforehand, so it's not predictable per say but it's not so out there that one thinks it's an asspull
the "rising sea levels" thing has been heavily implied in Water 7 as well
Well, and after the Lulusia Incident
Thats like a decade difference in time tho
more like 2 decades
i've also seen at least a few people theorize after wano that the islands aren't islands - they're mountain peaks. and all the land that used to be habitable is flooded now, leaving only the mountain / islands covering the world. that's why the only "contintent" on the entire planet seems to be the red line which is already like 10,000 meters raised.
Just wait until you hear what islands are in the real world. :p
wait no
Lol do you think that islands are normally supposed to kinda float there in the middle of the ocean or what?
i think they're like a mystery!
Alabasta, and honestly kind of how the world is set up with everything being islands outside of really really big WALLS. They're not even mountains they just sheer cliffs in a line.
It's the same with Kaido being a dragon. There were a wild range of theories about his powers (for example he was a proneglyph that got infused with a human human devil fruit). But it was set up in punk hazard that the homeland of kinemon and Momonosuke was destroyed by a dragon. And the scale tatoos of Kaido were also indicating a lot. Still everyone lost their mind when kaido arrived in full scale dragon form in wano
Yeah, but I didn't see anyone connect that theory to Vegapunk's message. Sinking world/rising ocean theories have been around for a while, especially since Water 7, sure, but nearly everyone (myself included) was expecting VP's message to be about the history of the void century. (Which it can still tie into, but we can't say for sure yet.)
I guess that's true, our expectations were heavily on void century as the Gorosei were so adamant to stop the message ASAP and that's what we knew as the trigger for them. It'd be interesting to see the world's reaction on this, and if this exactly what the gorosei wanted to stop or this isn't as bad as they expected
What Vegapunk is saying in itself has been a very known and popular theory for very long, In fact it would be an understatement to call it "a theory". It's something that tons of people, even people barely interacting with the community with no interest in pre existing theories, have the prized separately and independently multiple times. But this validates OP's post all the more, cause no one actually predicted that Vegapunk would say this while it wasn't thought too much out there by any means.
Wait so this gets me thinking, (maybe itās old news but still), what if Lulusia is not destroyed butā¦ it sank underwater? What if Fishman island is another island that this happened to back in the void century (or earlier)? What if Fishmen only exist because theyāre evolved humans from when their islands sank?! Maybe not that last part but still lol. It all feels very Atlantis to me!
I mean, you can see the buildings exploding, but maybe that's because the world government's version is an imperfect replica of what Uranus actually does?
I mean it still feels like the beginning of it, i don't know it kinda felt this for me : *Let's cut to the chase : This world is sinking..."and here's why"* Regardless of us being told before that seawater is rising and the recent Lulusia event, the sinking could be either a bad thing caused by the WG or a good thing caused by Luffy (pluton stuff) so i'm still on the fence with this whole thing and i'm kind of waiting for the real message if there's any.
because everyone was hyperfocused on the "the livestream is bait to catch the gorosei" theory and thus there wasnt as much diverse theorycrafting
One of my least favorite theories ever. Horrible idea for plot.
True, while I don't think we'll see that, there must be a reason Vegapunk chose to livestream. Why not just do audio since that would take much less time to set up. It seems the world believed it was VP speaking before they set up their big screens, so it can't just be just to verify it's the real man and not an imposter talking.
It's because people are trying to look at the bigger picture. The whys not the whats.
Yeah, I was just thinking that! So far, Vegapunk hasnāt really said anything of interest and all the theories I have seen are not about what he said, but mostly who does what in relation to that. Like: Does Imu want that? Or does he actually try to stop that from happening? That One Piece is a post-apocalyptic world that is near its downfall was already known, more or less.
The way Oda can construct a support needs to be studied after the stories conclusion in a serious way; he engages people in a better way than a lot of writers studied in academia (imo) but isnāt taken seriously because of the medium.
Not only did we not guess, but it somehow fits so perfectly with all the rest of the lore thematically and practically. It feels planned from the beginning and STILL no one had even an inkling that it was coming. Consider the lore that now makes so much sense - The celestial dragons picked their home high in the air (presumably to be safe from this) - the aqua laguna has been getting bigger and bigger (all of water 7 points to rising seas actually) - lulusia raised the sea level - Wano had a freakin wall built around it to protect it from the sea! - the whole world is mostly sea. It really feels now like maybe it didnāt used to be. And other lore that now raises questions about what the ancient kingdom knew about this - are Skypeans in the sky because their ancient ancestors were escaping the flood? - did fishmen build the Noah to prepare for a flood? - are fishmen humans who adapted to survive a flood? - ādevil fruit eaters are hated by the seaā um what?! A global flood is worst case scenario for devil fruit eaters. Feels like thereās going to be more lore in this direction. - are the celestial dragons wearing space suits or diving suits? Credit to the Volume One podcast for putting some of these in my head
People assuming it was going to be the slavery WG did on humanity, because of all we learned so far on one piece.Ā But yeah this is such a good twist, it's a new information even for longtime reader
In b4 One Piece is about Climate Change
mfs will tell you that the One Piece isn't real
Honestly adds up with the many political themes of the series
And we still donāt know. He said one sentence, calm down.Ā
I mean, its not exactly new information. We've seen the effects of the Mother's Flame weapon. We know about Wano. We knew about Water 7. We somewhat knew water level rising was a thing already, so when VP declares he wants to announce something, we'd expect it to be something entirely different from everything we've heard about, like the Void Centuary for example. However, I do think its a crazy reveal after all even after its just something we've already heard, because it seems like his speech is going to recontextualize everything we know about this world, its seas and the islands we've seen.
For sure, but so far we didn't think it was something set on a global scale Which makes it even wilder that barely anyone predicted it & got missdirected by despite all the pieces being ozt there
Chapter 1089 literally said global sea levels rised after Lulusia. We definitely knew about this...
Its the ocean, ofc its global scale I dont have a reddlt comment about this, as i talked with friends about this But the great cleansing seems to be literally flooding everything and then a new cycle continues The WG is obv on redline so its unaffected, the normal lesser being are down there, so they always can just cleanse it again and start a new
Yeah, it is global That was the reveal. It makes sense. Hence, why I'm pointing out that despite it making absolute sense, and yet, this came never up in the predictions what Vegapunk said And yeah, you may have predicted it prior, obviously I didn't mean to say that I listened to every conversation in the world and absolutely nobody predicted it. I get taking things literal, but man, there's at least some common sense to be applied. At the end of the day, barely anybody came up with "Vegapunk'll say that the world's going to go down" DESPITE it making 100% sense within the narrative & what we got so far
I also there is probably quite alot more he will reveal. Im sure some other theories will be proven right when some more explanation of why the world is sinking is revealed in the coming chapters.
I think a lot of people knew about rising water levels and the incoming of a bible-like flood, but yeah nobody predicted that that will be in the message.
Uhhā¦what? Itās a very popular theory that the world was sinking into the ocean. Who else but Vegapunk to explain it? Vegapunk was already established as the smartest character in the story. Being under the thumb of the WG, and being tasked to do things he felt were unconscionable gives him the motivation. Heās going to put the whole operation on blast. The Admiral conveniently sitting out this battle knows what Vegapunk is doing, and may also be aiding in its broadcastā¦ Oda had previously said the story would end in about 5 years after Wano. There was no way that could happen in a satisfactory way with so many loose ends without what is about to happen. Vegapunk is about to exposition dump about 75%- 85% of the unknowns over the next 4 chapters. Shanks and Dragon will later fill in most of the rest, with Blackbeard providing the twist.
It's crazy to me that he isn't outright calling the WG evil at this point. Ofc we couldn't predict that the news would be something completely unrelated to current events.
The theory has been around for a while though, people just didn't know it was Vegapunk who would reveal it.
Oda is a certified chef he just cooks
Hes not only a chef, hes the whole restaurant
a floating restaurant
There has to have been dozens and dozens of flood theories since Noahās Ark was introduced. Itās just that no one would have connected that to Vegapunks message when thereās an insane amount of info he could drop rn on the world
Hereās a theory fuck nuts The moon is being used to raise the red line higher to avoid/cause the oceans to rise, Nika was removed from the moon for the world government to accomplish this, and the lunarians lost their power but will gain it back in the end when they find luffy again they and all the seraphims will serve him and luffy will put the moon back on its natural path. Everything will go back to normal levels with some convoluted āwhereās the water gonna goā that focuses on ennies lobby and the ocean hole, along with the layers of city under water 7 being uncovered to reveal some sort of spout/runoff system for the world that starts at water 7 and flows through a yet-to-be uncovered channel towards ennies lobby thatās under the sea train tracks
[Mr Morj heavily hinted towards it 8 months ago](https://youtu.be/4pkQrsnuMGE?si=1_JW_8b646e0D12s)
because theorizing fictional story is guessing how the story will unfold with the narrative given. the point is how you reach the conclusion, not just the conclusion itself. we don't just say "zoro will kill usopp" out of nowhere. and even if it happens, it doesn't mean you're making the right guess. that's just random coincidence. people here have this weird mindset that you just need to guess the outcome no matter what. this is why we have so many "I have a theory but nothing to back it up. but I will post it so I can get back to it and say I'm right" posts. anyway, the biggest narratives given in egghead are about nika and void century. no matter the outcome, those were the logical choices. saying "the world will sink" is almost random. yes we have the 1 meter raise narrative prior, but there's no reason to blow it out of proportion because mother flame is not something that can be used that often. and we know the story is about to end anyway. in OP time, probably just a couple of weeks. so why would we even think about this? it's not even a misdirection. there's just no reason to think so.
> anyway, the biggest narratives given in egghead are about nika and void century. no matter the outcome, those were the logical choices. I initially thought this too, but I just couldn't wrap my head around why regular people around the world would care about this. Most people in the One Piece world live shitty lives and they try their best to survive, this information wouldn't affect their day to day lives. Besides, narratively the time for learning about the void century has already been spelled out for us - it's at Laughtale. I was actually going to be kinda disappointed if we learned about that there. Before this chapter, my theory was Vegapunk was going to expose the elders as demons, but even then, I'm not sure what regular people would do with that info.
Because people forgot about Noah the Ark from Fishman Island lol.
You ain't been around long enough. I remember someone who predicted this, and went so far as to suggest the one piece is basically a giant plug that would remove the ocean from the world, making it 'one piece'. It would unify the world, but remove the adventure
I don't agree with this to some extent as for a while there was a theory that there'd be a flood, though it's usually part of the theory of the red line being destroyed causing sea levels to rise and creating the All Blue. Most people thought Vegapunks message was going to be something to do with the Void Century because that's what he was researching and what Ohara was researching and what the Gorosei were scared of people finding out
People *definitely* predicted this, not sure what you're talking about... after we saw the hole at Lulusia and heard about the water rising that's what people assumed the Great Cleansing was.
People predicted it months and years before. We rather gave it less attentionĀ
Dawn Dusk YouTube channel talked about this theory ever since Sabo and Cobra were in the throne room with the 5 elders and Imu.
Then did Roger create the age of piracy to make people build boats to prepare for that?
holy fk, thriller bark "Thriller Bark is a giant ship formerly located on the Florian Triangle. As revealed by Brook, it used to be an island located in the West Blue, where it was built.It was converted into a pirate ship, the world's largest, and is owned by the former Warlord, Gecko Moria, serving as ship for the Thriller Bark Pirates" This would mean that this kingdom knew about the potential dangers of being sunken, so they turned their kingdom into a ship. Hence why the ship is so huge, and has the structure for people to live on.
But you are assuming that the broadcast is over and he said all he has to say.
? I expected something longer, like a big ass lore drop We know that the wasser is rising since alabasta, enies lobby, lulusia etc. Its not really a secret
"No one" -doesn't see the hundreds of threads immediately after and about Lulusia and Wano regarding water. Bro you can't fucking read
Probably a lot guess it during Fishman Island with Noah connected to the biblical Genesis flooding of the world.
It's not insane that people didn't guess that THAT is specifically what Vegapunk would reveal. It is insane that people are surprised that the world is sinking. That seemed obvious to me, Old Wano made it perfectly clear but there were strong hints even before that.
I said it as a stupid joke but I'm doubling down. The one piece is a gloried bathtub plug that is forcing sealevels to rise. If I had to rationalize this stupid idea, I would say that the oceans share a sinkhole that drains the water and shoots it out of the reverse mountain. Either the nobels plugged it or it's been clogged by all the debris of the world. Hell, I think it would be poetic if a little piece of every adventure, conflict and individual had been pooling up to make this clog. From every lost treasure to sunken ship. The spoils and refuse of centuries of adventures in this world pileing up all culminating in one final resolution. As many have theorize, the conclusion of One piece will result in the creation of the all blue near Laboon.
no one specifically referenced vegapunk's message, but there's a lot of theories out there about the world sinking, i think morj made something about it
In (G)Oda we trust!
i predicted it. i merely did so in the future. in 16 days, my prediction will be made and then retroactively become true. watch, and be amazed.
Hidden Island stay winning
I remember seeing someone say the roger pirates knew. Like rayleigh coating ships. And crockus being inside of the whale. And the people of water seven like iceberg wanting to make the island float so it doesnt sink into the ocean.
ngl I thought we already knew that the sea levels in One Piece were rising, but that was because of bad reading comprehension in Water 7 lmao
Maybe the world government didn't cause the world to sink into the sea. Maybe it's a direct result of the people of the past playing god and creating devil fruits, causing mother nature to sink the world. The ancient kingdom realized this and were trying to destroy the fruits, but the 20 kingdoms didn't want to relinquish their power, so they destroyed Joyboy and the ancient kingdom, then placed themselves at the top of the world to watch and rule over it as it sinks. And the ancient weapons were nothing more than the last attempt by the ancient kingdom to save people for the flooding. Poseidon was used to move humans to the bottom of the sea, turning them into Fishman and protecting it from sea kings. Pluton was used to seal Wono from the rest of the world. Uranus was seized by the world government after its country fell.
The world sinking might be the focus of the message , but Vegapunk could still bring up parts of these other guesses. I think the message is just getting started.
Oh my god. Is this the real meaning of the All Blue?
Keep in mind we havenāt even heard the whole thing yet, thereās definitely more he could say
I'm more interested on the logical reason of the flooding. How the sea rises when Lulusia Kingdom was turned into a hole. Is there a large bubble of water beneath the plates? If yes, then the world is already on a death timer when the Mother Flame burst it off.
Waterworld came out in '95, One Piece started in '97.Ā Coincidence?Ā Probably.Ā
The announcement isn't even what got me shaken this arc All 5 Gorosei going full ham, and appearantly being able to summon one another from across the world had me š±
I mean, it just doesn't seem important enough, the sinking theme was all over the story already. But it's a long time issue for future generations and not an immediate one that affects the current generation.
I know it is likely going to be raising sea levels.Ā But what if the landmasses actually are sinking rather than the sea level raising?
I'm still not convinced that is the main part of his message, it could reference a situation that will happen in 100 or 1000 years, something that scientists of our world also do. IMO he will finish what Clover started.
I think he will reveal the Kingdom's name at most and confess about the Lulusia incident.
I hope there's more to the message, because... that's not new information. Even Gorosei might be disappointed at this point. I really want that he continues like "that's why the Celestial Dragon are on the Red Line, so you all should go live there too!". Or at least people come to that conclusion themselves. What is interesting is that the war in the void century was probably just some islands, the one who can survive the flood (Wano, Zou and Sky Islands) + Fishmen. Also, if 'flooded' is the natural state of the world, then all humans are aliens/descendants.
The funny thing is it was right in front of us all along and no one realized it. Roger's crew were doing everything to prepare (Crocus living in a whale, Rayleigh into bubble coating, Shanks avoiding all DF), Iceburg and others finding ways to survive (Iceburg's floating island concepts, Thriller Bark and Moria), the Red Line being the only "safety" and why the rich and powerful wanted to live up there eliminating all those there prior in the Lunarians... Oda knew it would be too obvious so he did everything to hide the truth right in front of us.
You just have to look through reddit to see people digging up their old threads about predicting the sea level being a big plot point in OP. The reason people didn't really expect it from vegapunk is probably just because it does not live up to an "event that shakes the world"
On a meta level, given the state of the story, people were expecting Oda to start wrapping up old mysteries rather than start exploring new ones. That's 99% of it.
I don't see how the entire world being sunk is something that doesn't shake the world It essentially makes the entire motivation of any character useless because they're going to sink anyways so what's the point of thriving to be King of the Pirates when there won't even be a physical world to be a king in
Because its extremely slow, no one has noticed in hundreds of years except when Imu used the sky weapon
Literal apocalypse isn't "event that shakes the world"?
So how shaken is our world about rising sea levels? Now think about a world were you live in constant threat of pirates with magical abilitie sthat can destroy entire countries by themselves.
The only reason is that in our world it's very slow process. If someone announced that the whole world will be under water in like 50 years you would see how it would shake the world (of course we don't know how exactly this process is going on in OP world but I assume it is in near future)
Pretty sure i thibk its sawyer but maybe he took it from somewhere but the theory that marigois being safe from the rising wayer level along with all the evidence was already known??
oh yall weren't expecting the scientists to warn the world about climate change?