第138回：Shanks’ Tears

A very busy chapter with a decent number of moving threads and with some nice Easter eggs like Oda’s canonization of this scene from STAMPEDE:

That egg which still hasn’t hatched after disbanding which leads me to wonder if it’s even an egg at all:

Roger taking a sack with him just like he had when he first met Rayleigh:

And some great theory kindle such as the significance of the Roger Pirates disbanding on the night of a full moon. Was that for dramatic purposes or…something else:

And do you think we’ll ever see Zoro cry like this:

AND WE HAVEN’T EVEN TOUCHED UPON THE WANO PART!

But how about those Shanks tears, huh? What do you think they mean? Depending on their significance, this could wildly alter what we think we know about Shanks’ connection to the One Piece. Looking purely at the facts, Shanks only cries after getting his answer from Roger. This is a wildly different reaction from what Roger had. This suggests that the laughter from Roger’s crew may indeed have been based in irony. Why? Perhaps Shanks, being youngish, was expecting an actual treasure or perhaps something that could save his captain, but instead, it was something that was *currently* useless. So perhaps the tears express frustration over a broken dream, or the loss of hope for a panacea for his ailing captain.

Or…do they run even deeper than that? If Shanks knows the history of the world, was he hoping that the One Piece could help settle something on a personal level? While he accepted not seeing the One Piece for himself -at the time- he seemed at peace with the notion of not witnessing it *so long as Roger could obtain it*. And one certainly doesn’t get that broken up over simply not *seeing* something. It would appear that there was a specific and deep purpose for which Shanks wanted Roger to possess the One Piece, and that would appear to have fallen apart.

Or……is all of the above completely off and are those tears of joy. We can’t tell because we can’t see his eye, clever Oda-sensei! Did Shanks obtain confirmation of something that *gave him hope* for the future?

I guess we’ll find out in due time!

And now we learn where Oden got his title of ‘Lord Idiot’ which was originally mentioned way back in Chapter 701.

I imagine soon we’ll be learning where Momonosuke got his fear of flying and (hopefully) has or will overcome it in his time with the Strawhats. But we’re not done with the callbacks yet, here’s a more recent one:

Yes, while it would appear that Yasuie’s cheerful demeanor was a result of the dud SMILE, his actions and attitude seem to have been inspired by Oden’s forced acts of humiliation. By dancing and joking with the general populace, he’s giving them a joy that they’ve lost over the past 20 years. While the people of the capital might have looked down on Oden’s behavior at the time, the demoralized citizens of society today would probably welcome his foolish antics. If someone like him should appear again, I dare suggest they might be considered endearing by general public.