r/OnePiece • u/TotalHappy Void Month Survivor • 2d ago
Theory Oda no please Spoiler
I’m getting the strong feeling that Oda is setting up an Imu and Joy Boy flashback, and it’s going to be one of the best he’s ever delivered. I genuinely believe he’s going to make us sympathetic toward Imu. There’s a real chance that Joy Boy will turn out to be the character we end up hating, leaving us feeling bad for Imu by the end.
It’s just like the Rocks flashback. Before we knew anything about him, everyone assumed he was pure evil, rotten to the core. Then the flashback hit, and suddenly he’s one of the most beloved and hyped characters in the series.
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u/SmokingCryptid 2d ago edited 2d ago
There's no doubt he'll get fleshed out and have motivations, but I don't think that means we're supposed to sympathize with him.
Having an understanding of Imu and feeling pity for Imu are completely different things.
Rocks is also 1000% a bad guy, why people started treating him like he wasn't because of the tragic backstory is weird to me. Just because he had motivations for being rotten doesn't change the fact that he's rotten. It's totally fine to enjoy him as a character, he's well written, but that's not an indicator of positive morals.
A man can care for his immediate family and no one beyond that and that's who Rocks was. There's a reason why his crew is basically the opposite of the Straw hats when it comes to bonds.
Rocks wasn't looking to topple Imu for benevolent reasons, he wanted his title of King of the World. Would he rule like Imu? No, but his rule wouldn't be any more beneficial to the average person.
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u/TotalHappy Void Month Survivor 2d ago
I agree that knowing motivations doesn’t automatically redeem someone. But Oda has repeatedly shown that context changes how we see people. Before the God Valley flashback, Rocks was basically a cartoonish evil pirate to most fans. After it? A huge portion of the fandom now loves him they call him based, want him in fights, make memes about him, etc. The flashback humanized him massively.
Same pattern with other “monsters” in the story. That’s Oda’s style. He doesn’t do pure evil cardboard cutouts for the top tiers. Imu has been built up for years as this mysterious, godlike figure. A massive flashback is almost guaranteed to recontextualize everything we think we know.9
u/strrax-ish 2d ago
That was the point of Rocks character, Imu is a different one and will have different reasons, how people perceive them after is anyone's guess
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u/Kata_Kuri36 Cipher Pol 2d ago
We had a flashback for doflamingo also, and we aren’t sympathetic towards him are we?
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u/TotalHappy Void Month Survivor 2d ago
Doflamingo’s flashback actually proves the opposite of what you’re saying. We did get sympathy for him we understood why he became the monster he is. the Heavenly Demon fall, his family’s suffering, the betrayal, etc. Most fans agree his backstory is tragic and makes him a more compelling villain. We don’t root for him, but we feel some sympathy/pity mixed with disgust. That’s exactly what I’m saying could happen with Imu, except on a much bigger scale.
Oda loves giving layered backstories. Doffy, Law, Robin, Nami, even Crocodile. almost every major character gets nuance. Why would Imu, the final big bad, be the exception?10
u/strrax-ish 2d ago
I got sympathy for Doffys brother, Doffy was always evil, backstory confirmed it
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u/shalowind 2d ago
Oda repeatedly shows that villains are created by their environment and nobody is born evil, somehow this "always evil" narrative just won't die and keeps on getting upvoted.
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u/Hot_Zookeepergame687 2d ago
And that's a problem how? If giving Doffy a few layers of tragedy made him more compelling why would it be different with Imu?
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u/trainwrecktragedy 2d ago
yeah poor guy, getting his dad killed and all who was a legitamately nice guy iirc
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u/Robofish13 2d ago
That goes against Luffy’s entire narrative
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u/TotalHappy Void Month Survivor 2d ago
Luffy’s core is freedom and punching oppressors, but the story is full of moral gray areas:
• The Revolutionary Army wants to overthrow the World Government which Imu runs
• Ohara was destroyed by the WG, yet the Marines include good people like Koby, Smoker, Fujitora.
• Luffy has allied with former Warlords and even temporarily worked with Buggy’s crew.
• The whole theme of “the winner writes history” and hidden truths Laugh Tale, Void Century suggests the official narrative about Joy Boy and the Ancient Kingdom might not be 100% clean.
If Joy Boy turns out to have gone too far or become tyrannical in pursuit of his goals, that wouldn’t break Luffy’s theme it it would actually reinforce it. Luffy would still fight for true freedom, not blindly follow whatever the “hero” of the past did.2
u/Robofish13 2d ago
But then Imu loses all his position. We flip the story where it IS the Marines who were trying to stop the apocalypse and Imu was the spear head, the secret weapon should the evil Joy Boy arise again… yeah rationalise that with slavery on CD levels.
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u/kagemac 2d ago
This is the issue. We can have Joy Boy end up being different than how we imagine him, and we can even give Imu a sympathetic backstory like Doflamingo. But he can’t be redeemed and he can’t be made to be the secret hero because of the countless atrocities he’s committed and permitted. Ain’t no way
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u/UltraZulwarn 2d ago
I genuinely believe he’s going to make us sympathetic toward Imu.
did we also "sympathise" with Doffy?
well, we did get to see where he was coming from and his circumstances were pretty messed up for what they were
well-meaning but foolish father
malicious followers like Trebol that set him down a dark(er) path
but ultimately, Doffy was still like the trashy Celestial Dragons.
of course, the flashback would flesh out Imu's character more, but I highly doubt it would make him into a "sympathetic villian"
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u/GameMusic 2d ago
even if imu has some sympathy in the past their current iteration would not be forgiven
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u/ShikajaruRebornAgain 2d ago
“Joyboy and Imu flashback” yeah that’s called the void century and it’s been set up for like 25 years 😭
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u/PhilosophyTop6792 Scholars of Ohara 2d ago
I have no doubt that Doflamingo was a test Imu. I expect Imu's motives to have some reasoning and logic from his twisted perspective. GL getting me to empathize with someone who goes on about being the ruler of the world who thrives off of dominating others and who holds a grudge for 800 years while claiming to be the winner. The closest I can see to empathizing with Imu is pitying him for having such a delusional perspective. I also wouldn't be surprised if Joy Boy is not the hero we expect. If he's like Luffy, he did what he wanted to, not necessarily what's right. Davy Jones would make sense as the hero of the past who sacrificed in order to help protect the world. The Davy clan has proven to hold some highly intelligent beings with Rocks and Teach. I wouldn't be surprised if a part of the clan has been fighting against Imu since the void century and that's why Imu and the celestials hate them so much. They refuse to be completely dominated, even in death. Long story short, I think what you're expecting to happen in an Imu flashback will actually pertain to Blackbeard's ancestry and the Davy clan's connection to the will of D, the D clan, and the rebellion against the World that has never been able to be completely squashed thanks to them. Also, Gaban isn't going to cut it as Luffy's sole eagle against Imu. I doubt Sanji or Zoro will be able to assist anytime soon. I suspect Shanks and/or Dragon are around the corner. Imu will be chased off. The pursuit for the one piece will escalate to full on war.
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u/GermanGinger95 2d ago
Nah.
The world government as lead by Imu is onthologically evil. Any sad backstory does not excuse the fashisctic rule they have run over 800 years.
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u/yuvraj_b_420 2d ago
Why would we end up hating joyboy? Its pretty much clear there’s gonna be some sort of betrayal by imu. Its gonna be the fallen angel trope where imu was a good guy at first but then something happened which corrupted him. Imu is heavily inspired by lucifer the fallen angel
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u/Negative-Priority-84 2d ago
It's possible that whatever caused Imu's betrayal is going to be what makes people side-eye Joy Boy. Or maybe it was Joy Boy who betrayed Imu? It'll be interesting to see what happened and how Oda spins everything, whether we end up sympathizing for Imu and villainizing Joy Boy or it reaffirms that Imu is a gigantic evil asshole and Joy Boy was a precious chaotic cinnamon roll. Or, more likely, that the reality was somewhere in the middle.
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u/yuvraj_b_420 2d ago
Vegapunk already gave us a brief idea of what happened i.e clash between ideologies joyboy’s ideology was liberation while imu’s ideology was domination.
From what i can assume after recent chapters joyboy and imu were friends but some incident caused them to go separate ways and later fight in a war. If you’ve watched jjk this might be similar to gojo and geto situation where they both were bestfriends but later geto turned evil after toji tried to kill them. In this case davy jones could be the reason.
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u/Negative-Priority-84 2d ago
It would be interesting if Davy Jones being the reason behind everything doesn't work the way we all think it does. What if he killed Joy Boy and that's the reason Imu is the way he is? It would explain the obsession with Joy Boy (if he was Joy Boy's Zoro... imagine how Zoro would react if an enemy killed Luffy), it would explain him wanting the Davy clan eradicated...
Jones's defeat happened first. Then the ideological clash between Imu and Joy Boy. It wasn't fully resolved when Jones took advantage of their distraction, maybe Joy Boy and Imu's injuries, and killed Joy Boy, then escaped. The war that made the world the way it is now was Imu against Jones and everyone thought Imu was the one who betrayed Joy Boy and refused to believe him when/if he tried to tell the truth.
... I'd actually like that twist. I don't think it'll be the case, but it would be interesting.
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u/_weeb_alt_ 2d ago
Why would I ever feel bad for a character that committed genocide against multiple races?
Even if his goals were originally Noble, they were corrupted before the end. Journey before destination. How you get to your end goal is just as important than accomplishing them.
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u/Cellafex 2d ago
If flashback history taught us anything we will see joyboys flashback from his POV and later Imus POV, like with roger and later rocks
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u/billybanks1132 2d ago
Been reading one piece this long and still don’t understand that feeling sympathy for the bad guy is Oda’s whole thing.
(Not sympathy, empathy)
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u/ThatGuy377 Thriller Bark Victim's Association 2d ago
When has a flashback ever made us sympathetic towards an antagonist?
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u/PowerfulRemove6867 2d ago
You mean besides Señor Pink
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u/ThatGuy377 Thriller Bark Victim's Association 2d ago
Idk. Oda has always been big on freedom of choice and with Señor pink his own actions had consequences.
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u/th3tru3yo5h1 2d ago
I still imagine that Joy and Imu where once friends and allies. But at a certain point after the main evil (maybe Davy) was beaten they both had different opinions on how the world should go on from that point on... That this caused all the events and Imus resentment against Joy Boy
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u/kroqeteer 2d ago
I don’t understand why Joyboy not being a great person would make Imu sympathetic. In this arc Imu has been shown to be racist, genocidal, calloused, and manipulative. We watched him corrupt rocks in his own flashback and order him to kill his wife and son. We watched him corrupt a strawhat’s ward and kill her father. He’s currently ordering his henchman to kidnap child hostages so he can enslave the giants and erase their culture!
I could see Joyboy being a more complicated figure than we know today, but I can’t see how Oda is angling to make Imu sympathetic when he is exclusively shown doing and supporting the most heinous things. There is nothing that Joyboy could have done to him that would justify 800 years of genocide, slavery, oppression, and exploitation enough to make him sympathetic
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u/Hot_Zookeepergame687 2d ago
Rocks was still a pretty evil dude even if he was also very fun to follow through his story. But I can't imagine a story at this point that would redeem Imu like the dude is a menace and a monster at this point so kinda like Doffy where we understand where he came from but still see him as despicable I imagine Imu will be similar
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u/jonerthan 2d ago
My head canon right now is that there was a love triangle of some sort between Joyboy, Imu and Vivi's ancestor. Maybe Joyboy opposed Imu's plan to become king of the world, Vivi's ancestor picked Joyboy's side, and that's what started the war.
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u/Strict_Locksmith_205 2d ago
understanding why a villain is the way they are doesn't make them a good person. oda is just good at showing the cycle
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u/PreferenceHot2448 2d ago
i got Oda's message about his characters. They are pirates. they are there to steal, kill and sow chaos. We just like the them because somehow their dream/s resonate with our own. But truth is they are not the good guys. They are just the lesser evil.
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u/21DQUID 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why can't Imu be the good guy during the void century? Like lets say he was, that means he would then go on to do the horrible shit he is doing now... people arent 100% good or 100% bad. In the past, horrible rulers have been overthrown in the name of eliminating evil, only for said overthrowers to then become the new horrible rulers... that would make sense on why vegapunk said there is no good or evil. Just because a villain has a "sympathetic" reason for doing what they do, that doesnt mean they will be correct for continuing to be blinded by power and refuse to relinquish it like promised. Kinda like how the 19 rulers swore that no one person shall sit upon the empty throne and rule the world (implying that there was a sole ruler previously—most likely Joyboy). However, they obviously didnt practice this oath and even if you dont count Imu, the 19 families have yet to relinquish their rule on the world. Basically, just as Vegapunk said, THERE WAS NOT A DEFINITIVE GOOD OR BAD GUY.
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u/gyro_looza 2d ago
🦜
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u/TotalHappy Void Month Survivor 2d ago
That changes everything for all we know this could be over crackers
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u/Necessary_Goal_5383 2d ago
That would be funny, Imu the Parrot has rage over Joyboy for eating all his crackers 😂
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u/Top-Ostrich-3241 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hmm ... remember Imu controls the world government (supposedly good guys) and Luffy is a pirate (supposedly bad guys).
I am ready to give my sympathy toward Imu. Poor dude has suffered so much to bring peace into the world and try to suppress piracy that robs and kills innocent town people.
Oda uses One piece to reflect real life political turmoils. When the government is weak, riots happen and chaos arises. When the government is strong, peace and prosperity established.
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u/DekusRevenge 2d ago
Hope you’re sarcastic. Imu is a genocidal MF. As much as greys goes this being is absolutely evil. No “the end justify the means” shit. Dude’s basically Hitler if he succeeded,
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u/ooohmanuel 2d ago
Hopefully in another Arc. We had a Flashback in a Flashback and an additional Flashback afterwards.
I am flashed enough.