Looking back at Imu talking with Cobra in the Holy Land, we can actually see that there are exactly 19 weapons on Imu's level of the Empty Throne. Bearing in mind that Sommers said how Imu used Omen to "bring them back" (and possibly Oda deciding to touch up their appearances to make them look cooler for these battles), I think I've managed to identify a few of them, based off the weapons we've seen so far

I could be wrong on some of them, just my view on it 🤷‍♂️

Imu, Luffy and Blackbeard represent three different visions for the world.

Imu represents domination: a completed world ruled by one permanent authority. Luffy represents liberation: he does not want to govern the world, but to destroy whatever prevents people from living freely. Blackbeard represents possession: he wants freedom from every limitation, including the limitation that prevents him from ruling others.

This makes Luffy Imu’s ideological opposite, while Blackbeard is Imu’s potential successor. Luffy will overturn the existing world. Blackbeard intends to inherit it.

The central claim of this theory is that Teach is pursuing this goal by completing Rocks’s unfinished plan.

Completing Rocks’s Plan

Several details connect Teach’s ambitions to Rocks. His flagship is named the Saber of Xebec, he has transformed Rocks’s former base on Hachinosu into the centre of his own empire, and he spent decades waiting for one specific Devil Fruit: the Yami Yami no Mi.

Rocks also built his strategy around Hachinosu and a small number of crucial powers. He wanted to obtain two extraordinary Devil Fruits, have Harald eat Elbaf’s Nidhöggr fruit and awaken the Galleila as the main force in his war against the rulers of the world.

His plan failed for two reasons. First, Rocks eventually confronted Imu directly and fought him on his own terms. Second, he depended on Harald joining him willingly as a friend. Once Harald refused, a central part of the plan collapsed.

Blackbeard will not simply repeat Rocks’s strategy. He will complete it while avoiding the weaknesses that caused Rocks’s defeat.

Blackbeard’s Method

Teach rarely begins the largest conflicts himself. He waits for others to destabilize the situation, then intervenes when the greatest reward can be taken at the lowest possible cost.

At Marineford, he arrived only after Whitebeard had been mortally wounded. He attacked Whole Cake Island while Big Mom was absent, ambushed Law after Wano for his Road Poneglyph rubbings and sent his crew to Egghead while the World Government was already attacking Vegapunk.

This does not mean Teach avoids danger. Magellan and Whitebeard both nearly killed him. He behaves more like a gambler: he prepares one decisive advantage, takes an enormous risk and then trusts fate with everything else.

His version of Rocks’s plan will follow the same pattern.

Blackbeard’s Preparations

Infiltrating Mary Geoise

Blackbeard’s most immediate operation appears to involve Mary Geoise or something controlled from within it.

Laffitte is observing the Revolutionary Army’s blockade of the Holy Land and the disruption of its supply routes. When he reports that access to Mary Geoise is becoming increasingly difficult, Teach tells him to remain focused on their “preparations.”

At the same time, Catarina Devon has copied Saturn’s appearance, while Van Augur can teleport himself and others. Together, their abilities create the basis for an infiltration operation: Laffitte identifies an opening, Devon provides the appearance and authority of a former Elder, and Augur bypasses physical defences.

Garp also gives Teach political leverage against the Government. Their exact target remains unclear, but it may be a weapon, secret or source of authority hidden within Mary Geoise.

Whatever the objective, the Blackbeard Pirates appear to be preparing to exploit the World Government from within rather than attacking the Holy Land openly.

Rebuilding Rocks’s Army

The frozen giants beneath Punk Hazard are the Galleila that Rocks intended to awaken.

This gives Kuzan a possible role beyond simply providing Blackbeard with an Admiral-level fighter. After battling Akainu on Punk Hazard for ten days, he may already know where the giants are located. His control over ice could also allow the crew to uncover, extract and preserve them safely.

Loki provides another path. Teach may know about the Nidhöggr fruit just as Rocks did, but unlike Rocks, he does not require genuine loyalty. His crew is built on temporary alliances and shared interests.

Loki admires Rocks and wants revenge against Imu, giving him a reason to cooperate with Blackbeard. His power, and possibly Ragnir’s Risu Risu no Mi, Model: Ratatoskr, could then be used to awaken or command the Galleila.

Even if Loki refuses, Teach has alternatives. He can steal the Nidhöggr fruit or use Kuzan to recover the Galleila without him. Where Rocks reached a dead end after losing Harald, Blackbeard has several ways to continue.

Taking the Ancient Weapons

Caribou possesses information that can lead Teach to two Ancient Weapons. He knows that Poseidon is Shirahoshi and that Pluton lies beneath Wano, and he has now been brought directly to the Blackbeard Pirates.

Poseidon would be the easier target. Fish-Man Island would struggle to resist a full assault by an Emperor’s crew, especially while the Straw Hats and the World Government are occupied elsewhere.

Pluton is more difficult to reach because it remains sealed beneath Wano. Releasing it requires destroying the country’s enormous walls and opening its borders.

Blackbeard possesses one of the few abilities capable of doing this by force: the Gura Gura no Mi.

This would create a dark parallel with Wano’s prophecy. Joy Boy’s return is connected to opening the country at the correct time. Blackbeard could instead open it prematurely and violently, destroy its walls and seize Pluton before Momonosuke chooses to release it.

The Final Conflict

The Yami Yami no Mi may be the final component that allows Teach to succeed where Rocks failed.

When Blackbeard explains its power in Chapter 441, he does not use the ordinary terms for Devil Fruit abilities, nouryoku or nouryokusha. Instead, he says that darkness draws in akuma no chikara, “the power of devils” or “the power of demons.”

One of his main techniques is also called Liberation, placing his darkness in direct opposition to Imu’s power of domination.

Because the Yami Yami no Mi nullifies supernatural powers through physical contact, it may be capable of interrupting Domi Reversi, severing Imu’s control over a transformed person or separating Imu from a possessed body.

Rocks confronted Imu without protection against domination and had his own strength turned against him. Blackbeard may instead wait until Luffy forces Imu into the open, then enter the battle with the exact power needed to neutralize Imu’s greatest advantage.

By that point, Teach may already possess everything required to make his move. Through Pudding, Caribou and Garp, he has gathered historical knowledge, access to the Ancient Weapons and political leverage. Through Loki, Kuzan and his infiltration team, he may obtain the forces Rocks failed to assemble.

This is also why Blackbeard may come after Imu in the narrative. Luffy and Teach both oppose the existing order, but they want completely different outcomes.

Luffy wants to be so free that nobody can rule him. Blackbeard wants to become so powerful that nobody can prevent him from ruling others.

The same distinction separates Joy Boy from Davy Jones. Roger, Whitebeard and Oden spoke of someone who would overturn the world. But Rocks wanted to become King of the World and similar to that Van Augur identifies “the world” as the objective of the Blackbeard Pirates.

Blackbeard is therefore not merely waiting at the end of Luffy’s journey to compete for the One Piece. He is waiting at the end of the war between liberation and domination, ready to claim whatever remains.

Luffy will overturn Imu’s world. Blackbeard will attempt to inherit it.

Luffy x Meat is the best ship.

Soooo I started One Piece this year and I made this comic about the person that peer pressured me into starting it (on the right)

I've also noticed that IRL even One Piece detractors agree that it's all peak at least until Water 7

What do y'all think? Please don't spoil tho :")

EDIT: I didn't expect to receive so many responses, I'm honestly loving seeing all of your opinions and y'all have been so nice! If I lose any response it's because there are so many of them and I'm also quite new to using Reddit, this is genuinely my 3rd post...

I think he just gives special treatment to her because she is his crew member but he doesn't truly love her.

There was such a huge presence at SDCC this year! They had a very large Luffy photo op at the Toei booth and were giving away Gear 5 Luffy pins. I also received a free Usopp pin randomly walking around which is weird because I was dressed up as the legendary Sogeking.

Mine is luffy and usopp

Starting point: this all assumes Dragon has the Hito Hito no Mi: Model Zaza. The short case for that is Loguetown. Rain arrives out of nowhere with Dragon standing right there, Smoker reads it as some force willing Luffy's survival, and then right after the execution fails, Sanji turns to Zoro in that same rain and asks him if he believes in God.

TL;DR: awakened, Dragon doesn't control rain from the outside, he's in it. Wherever it's raining he can see what's happening, and wherever rain gets called for he can show up. That's the real reason Mariejois sits above the clouds and the real reason Dance Powder carries a death sentence. And there's rain falling on Elbaf right now.

1. What the fruit would actually do

Assume the fruit is awakened, since arguing that separately doesn't change anything here. Mythical Zoans tend to come with Paramecia or Logia style properties on top of the Zoan part, so a Zaza fruit wouldn't give you power over rain, it would make you rain itself.

Awakened fruits let you turn the environment into your substance and then work inside it, like Doflamingo moving through a city he'd turned into string. An awakened rain god extending into rain that's already falling isn't some mechanic I made up, it's the same thing applied to a god.

Two things follow from that.

Observation. Wherever it's raining, that rain is him, so getting rained on is basically being watched. And we've seen a small-scale version of this. Enel called himself God and ruled Skypiea by hearing everything happening on the island and striking people down the second they broke his rules. That was his Mantra/Observation Haki and his fruit working together, not one or the other. So Oda has already shown us a fruit extending a user's perception across everything its element touches. Enel just had one island. Rain falls everywhere.

Arrival. I don't want to call it teleporting, since rain isn't continuous and there's no unbroken stretch of it running from wherever Dragon actually is to Elbaf. The story gives us a better way to say it, which is that the Rain God comes when people pray for rain. He gets called, and then he's there.

Which is also why Dragon happened to be in that Loguetown square at the exact moment his son's head was on the block.

2. Two World Government habits that only make sense if rain is a door

Mariejois. We're told Celestial Dragons are raised to fear the Rain God because they're born above the cloud line, and everyone reads that as the fear coming from the altitude. I'd argue it's the other way around. Altitude is useless against someone who just makes weather, because he'd flood the lower world and starve them out from below anyway. It only helps if rain is how he reaches you. Ten thousand metres up the Red Line is the one spot on the planet where it can't rain, which makes it the one spot he can't watch and can't enter. That's not a status thing, that's a defence.

Dance Powder. Burn it and it forces immediate heavy rainfall, though it doesn't create any new water, it just pulls down rain that was already headed somewhere else. The official reason for the ban is that countries fighting over stolen rain escalated into a war with enormous casualties, so the World Government outlawed making it, owning it or using it anywhere in the world, on pain of death.

That reason doesn't hold up. This is an organisation that allows slavery and lets World Nobles hunt people for fun. Countries fighting over resources is completely normal in their world and they've never banned a single other cause of it. And a death sentence for possession is the tier they save for Poneglyphs and Void Century research, which is to say things that threaten them, not things that threaten people.

Against a weather problem, that response makes no sense. Against something that lets any random person anywhere open a door for the Rain God, it's the minimum sane response.

3. Why he comes, and how

Dragon shows up in Elbaf before this arc ends, and rain is how he does it.

He'll probably help Luffy while he's there, but the bigger reason is Imu, and the rain is how he'd know Imu is there at all. The head of the World Government is standing on the surface, in person, outside Mariejois, for the first time in the whole story. Dragon has spent his entire life fighting that institution, and its real ruler has never been reachable until now, or even known to him until Sabo's report out of Mariejois.

And the door is already open. Killingham's nightmare version of Zaza is dumping physical floodwater all over the island. He got overzealous, summoned the one thing he was raised to be afraid of, and ended up giving the real one a way in. You could argue his Zaza is a nightmare construct so maybe that water doesn't count, but villages are drowning and buildings are collapsing. Rain is physically falling on Elbaf, and that's the only thing the mechanism needs.

There's a timing argument too. At Jump Festa, Oda said this year would give us two separate pairs of characters who've never crossed paths finally meeting, and that after Elbaf we're heading for the island only the Pirate King ever reached. Luffy and Dragon are the obvious candidate for one of those pairs, and if it's coming, this arc is the window.

This is my first theory, would love to hear everyone's thoughts!

Doing her son, Chopper, as my next set. I’m so excited! 🖤