THEORY: ONE PIECE IS PANGAEA

… This is not going to be a short theory. But yeah, title says it. I think One Piece is a supercontinent that will be created at the end of the story.

First of all, I’d like to make the distinction between One Piece, in this theory the dream of a continent, and the treasure One Piece found on Raftel. Also, since writing out “the treasure One Piece” is a load of work I’m going to refer to it as TOP from now on.

However, before going into the sweet guessworks, let’s have a salad of what we can expect of the TOP.

Lots of people have guessed that TOP is the rio poneglyph. Others have no expectations at all and think it’s just Roger’s gold. Some think it’s a particularly powerful devil fruit or Uranus the super weapon.

But we all feel that TOP must be something amazing. It must be something that… truly shakes the entire world at its core.

At times, it seems like it doesn’t matter what TOP is. Luffy is going to be satisfied with whatever.

But Oda has confirmed that it’s not going to be a wizard of Oz ending:

Oda: “Hahaha, no no, I won’t be pulling off some kind of Wizard of Oz thing like that. After having gone through an adventure like that, it wouldn’t be fair to not actually give them a reward.”

Which is great, because I speak from the hearts of everybody who has a soul when I say that whatever TOP is, it has to at least be able to make Luffy exclaim “that’s awesome!”. It’s the minimum requirement.

Luffy never listens to backstories, so while we’ll definitely be treated to one, it’s not going to be just a rio poneglyph. It’s also unlikely to be gold or power, because while that’s awesome… Luffy’s more likely to say “eh, is that it?”

So, looking at the story, what kind of things have impressed Luffy?

Lasers and robots.

Not saying TOP is a laser or a robot (though that would be funny). But Luffy admires technological wonders, and I understand him. Technologic can seem like magic if you don’t understand it.

Have you ever thought about the fact that One Piece is a world without magic? It’s magic science (magience?), but still science. Even the devil fruits. We’re just waiting for Vegapunk to give us an explanation for that.

That’s why I believe TOP is a technological wonder.

Specifically, a machine or button to trigger the creation of a supercontinent.

Obviously, what inspired this theory was Sanji’s dream of All Blue, and Laboon’s inability to cross the red line.

Of all of the Straw hats’s dreams, Sanji’s is the most notable. It’s an impossible dream, but again, because of story logic, it must be achieved in a satisfying way, and no, it’s not mermaid island.

Right now it’s an impossible dream, because we have east blue, south blue, etc, but it stands to reason that if all land becomes “one piece” (get it?), then all Blues will be gathered into one blue: All Blue.

When that happens, Laboon will also be able to reunite with his family.

“A simple and elegant solution to two problems, but how will this be accomplised?” you ask, with a curious expression. “Please don’t say Uranus.”

It’s got nothing to do with Uranus (•ˋ _ ˊ•)

I think it’s magnets.

Every island has its own magnetic field. It’s just another part of the weirdness that is One Piece. According to Crocus, it’s just that the islands all contain magnetic minerals (chapter 105). But that’s still the same principle as magnets, and magnets are attracted to each other.

Look at the red-line. It looks like it’s already happened before. Nami describes the red line as “essentially a huge collection of islands all joined together”.

Overall, the map of One Piece looks incredibly artificial. Straight lines like that do not appear naturally. Again, we’ve never questioned it, because it’s obviously a reference to a running track.

But maybe it looks artificial because it actually is. The grand line may be interpreted as a running track, but you know what else it looks like?

A conveyers belt.

Calm belt, conveyers belt… get it?

Obviously, everything is pretty static on the grandline, but… if there was a button to turn on the conveyers belt, it would be on Raftel, wouldn’t it.

So, 800 years ago, a bunch of scientiests led by joy-boy created a project that would alter the world map. They wanted to drag together all the scattered pieces of land and create one supercontinent, One Piece. They made it half-way. A bunch of islands were dragged together to create red-line, but then before the project was completed, they were stopped and all evidence of their work was erased. All that was left were the Poneglyphs…

P-one, p-1, one piece… Only scientists are that uncreative at naming. But I digress.

At some point, Poseidon the mermaid princess decided to divide the world further, making her pet monsters guard the Calm belt. Presumably, she had a good reason for that.

Or she was just feeling prissy.

Anyway, a map change like this would be difficult to hide, but that’s exactly the point. The world government went to ridiculous extremes to cover up the void century. If it was something small, they wouldn’t have to go to such lengths.

Furthermore, if they burned all the maps, that would explain why despite the general layout being known, there’s still no world map available, which we know because it’s Nami’s great dream to make one.

Nami’s dream is another point in favor of this theory.

Making a world map is something she could be working on right now, but since her introduction there’s been nothing. No “we can’t leave yet, I haven’t finished mapping” or “I demand we go here, this place is unmapped”. That’s because, all of that effort would ultimately be pointless. The current world isn’t the world she’ll make a map of.

Anyway, from here we go into spectacular speculation. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

It’s obvious that pressing that one button is going to have a huge impact on the world. So huge that no one can really predict what’s going to happen. Roger decided not to push the button, probably because he was dying and wouldn’t be able to see the decision through. The button that even Roger couldn’t make himself push… it would definitely require a lot of bravery to press that button.

Guess who’s dream it is to be a brave man?

Yes that’s right, I’m talking about Usopp.

Circumstance might easily push Usopp into a position where he’s the only one capable of pushing the button. As the Enies Lobby arc made a point of, his strength is that no matter how weak he is, he has a long reach. So if someone were to, say, stand in their way, Usopp would be the only one in a position to reach the button. Usopp is smart enough to know the consequences, and to be scared that everybody would blame him if it turned out to be a bad decision. Bravery is to do good, even if you’re scared.

After that, there’s no question he would be the bravest warrior of the seas. So that’s his dream checked.

But let’s return to the realm of slightly-less-preposterous speculation. Oh, yes, Roger. What were his final words?

Treasure is obviously not meant literally. We’ve already seen a million times that treasure and dream are interchangable words. So he’s saying, he’ll pass his dream on to whoever finds TOP, and then he ends with some cryptic words that change, I guess, depending on the translation. But he’s probably referring to whatever he did in that final year before handing himself over to the marines (besides fathering Ace, wink wink).

Roger and Luffy are similar in many ways. They’re both Ds, they both want flashy things, and they both have a weird fascination with straw hats. Because of that, lots of people have expressed worry that Luffy was becoming Roger version 2.

But I’d say Roger is more like the Lenin to Luffy’s Stalin, except uh, you know, non-dictatorish. Hm, maybe Blackbeard is Stalin? You know what, that was a weird parallel. I’m gonna stop here before I drag Marx into it too.

Anyway, my point is, Roger got the title of Pirate King or “WG’s enemy nr. 1” because he could have pressed the button. But it would have been a bad decision, because the world wasn’t ready for it. Pressing the button wouldn’t actually have changed anything back then.

Finding TOP and getting the title “WG’s enemy nr. 1” was all fun and laughs. Roger was a man who knew he was dying, so he had nothing to fear. But when he actually got his hands on TOP, he was faced with a decision he was in no way ready to make. Would the world be better off undivided? How was he supposed to know! As Rayleigh said, there were no scholars or intellects on board of Oro Jackson. Sure, they had Oden to translate the ancient words for them, but “It’s not like Roger understood those words.”

How often have you listened to a politician go on and on about why we should do this and that, without actually understanding a single word? And Roger had the additional difficulty that the politicians were speaking from 800 years ago.

So Roger wasn’t qualified to make the decision, and didn’t push the button. I know, in his position I would have been tempted, if only to spite the WG, who obviously didn’t want it. But remember this?

Sometimes, you have to be the bigger man and let it go.

We know that Roger had contact with leaders of states like Gan Fall and Neptune and specialists like Kureha, and he possibly consulted with them. He might also have contacted, or maybe even started, the revolution. Remember that Dragon showed up to Roger’s execution?

In Roger’s the last year of life he was a lot more political. That’s why the world government noticed when he visited his lover “that he wasn’t acting like a pirate king.”

The world government had to know what he was doing, and it was even worse than if he’d simply pushed the button and called it a day. Now they didn’t just have to eliminate Roger, but everybody he might have passed his legacy onto. Even the kid. Especially the kid.

They were chasing after the wrong goose there though. Roger was closer to passing on his legacy to Whitebeard, than he ever was to Ace.

But Whitebeard didn’t want to! He was satisfied with his life, and even if Roger told him what TOP was, I doubt Whitebeard saw the point of it. What use is it to change the landscape a little bit, the world has already learned to live with it.

Roger obviously wasn’t stingy with information about TOP, at all. Even Don Chinjao seems to know the story. Right after Luffy mentions Rayleigh to Chinjao, this happens:

Because Don Chinjao is reminded of Roger whose dilemma is very similar to his own; got the treasure, but couldn’t use it.

Nekomamushi and Inurashi also seem to know the full story, though they weren’t on Raftel themselves. The first time we see Nekomamushi, Ruler of Night on the phantom island Zou, he proudly proclaims that he “waits on the dawn of the world”. Later, Pedro, a feline mink, says that “The world is waiting on them. Those two, of all people, must not be allowed to die”.

It’s still uncertain, but Nekomamushi and Inurashi’s argument might have pertained TOP. Should they, or should they not, go for it? Ultimately, they seemed to have reached the unsatisfying compromise that they would wait and see.

Luffy won’t become Roger v.2, because there’s no reason to hesitate any longer. Unlike how it was when Roger first found TOP, people are now prepared for a world change.

Notice how, both Gan Fall and Neptune at some point changed their politics from non-inclusive to tolerance? Who wants to bet it’s because Roger warned them, that soon they might be forced to share land with a whole lot more people than that.

The mermen are ready to move above ground, the revolutionaries are ready for war, and the minks are prepared for whatever.

Even Drum island seems prepared.

Because what are the consequences of creating a supercontinent?

Illnesses will have easier travel! We saw in Norland’s flashback that an illness that isn’t a problem one place, might be on another island. Wapol’s father, who was descibed as a sensible man, could have encouraged the development of medical science in preparation for the dawn of the world. However, since he’s dead, we might never know. But we definitely know that Roger consulted Kureha, a doctor… though maybe he was just looking for a cure for his illness and it had nothing to do with One Piece. Still! They’re going to need doctors, and Chopper’s dream of finding the cure for any illness will come in handy there.

Giant beasts from little garden for example, will also be a problem…

Honestly, it seems like so much trouble, so why even do it?

Well… there are a lot of advantages of a continent vs. an island. It mostly boils down to trade. As it is right now, ships take a chance every time they cross the sea to trade, who knows when a storm might sink your ship. Like, for example, Sanji and Zeff’s backstory.

With the level of technology that we’ve seen displayed in water 7 and Karakuri, developing new infrastructure to replace ships should be no more complicated than sliced bread.

But I think we should probably look at this from a more political aspect. Why does the WG, or more like the celestial dragons, want to prevent it? Could be because it would ruin their “divide and conquer” tactic. Even if the WG have a lot of enemies, they’re not a threat as long as they can’t band together. And honestly, the world government seem to have a huge number of enemies.

If TOP is activated at the current time, there’s no doubt it would to war between the WG and the revolutionaries. As Whitebeard mentions before dying: “The world government is afraid of the coming war that will engulf the world”.

It might lead to war, but ultimately, One Piece is the greatest a treasures, a dream where all of humanity is connected and living in harmony.

… Well, that’s my theory.
I hope you like it. I spent a lot of time pouring over it.

*Theory by Birdy