Oda has just revealed the SUN GOD! No, not Luffy, a completely new mysterious giant character that has trapped the straw hats inside a giant role playing diorama, quite literally playing god. And I am DYING TO KNOW who this new false god is!
I mean everything about them is crazy! With so much mystery from them being set up as the first real important character of the arc to their disturbing skull mask design, and then the general craziness of what in the world is actually going on with these kidnapped people! Like are we even in Elbaf?
Or instead still inside an illusion? And is this new sun god really a giant or has Oda actually fooled us with a completely broken new devil fruit power that has shrunk the straw hats? Turns out this chapter has a bunch of evidence for that, so let's start with this false sun god.
Because clearly they are the first real important new character we are meeting in Elbaf and that fact by itself gives us some major clues to their role in the story. And that’s because in almost every major arc Oda will jumpstart the narrative by introducing us to a local character who the straw hats eventually befriend and then that sympathetic character will introduce us to the main conflict in the arc. Just take Tama from Wano, who Luffy met right at the start and demonstrated EXACTLY how horrible Wano had become under the rule of Orochi and Kaido.
So if that is what is going on here, then this false sun god might actually be an ally even though they seem to have kidnapped the straw hats. And just to run with this idea for a minute here, there are a few ways I could see this person become a sympathetic character. To start, there is enough evidence that this character might actually be a child instead of a ferocious giant.
Because let’s take a step back and look at everything we have seen so far in this INSANE first part of the arc. Obviously, Luffy’s group was kidnapped and trapped in this mirror box with a bunch of other people and animals. We also know someone dressed them up in viking costumes.
And then we see the false sun god person who is clearly playing a role as the god of this fake kingdom. So all that put together just screams to me that this is probably a child who is playing with their toys in their own little fantasy land. I mean can’t you remember when you were a young kid and you created your own little fantasy adventures with your toys?
That’s the vibe I’m getting here. Of course they don’t HAVE to be a child, but I feel like it does fit quite nicely perhaps that they are the son or daughter of Giant Prince, Loki. Now just because they are a child doesn’t forgive that they are playing with captured people and all, but I could see a backstory like this is the neglected child of Loki or something who has to play all on their own and just doesn’t know any better themselves.
That could very easily lead to Luffy showing them they are wrong and then setting everyone free which could then lead into the main conflicts of the arc. Now the big question in this case is how would Luffy get this person on their side. Surprisingly though we already have that answer as well.
You see, clearly this person enjoys being the sun god, but I might even take it one step further and say that they probably worship the sun god. Remember that the sun god is a part of the giant people’s religion, so I could very easily see this false sun god pretending to be the god they worship. Which means that when they find out Luffy is the true sun god, they might turn from wanting to capture the straw hats to suddenly becoming very friendly.
At least that’s one way I can see it all playing out. I mean Luffy did show off his Gear 5 form when fighting the giant snake and raven in this chapter so there’s already a chance that the false sun god has seen who Luffy truly is. *Skit bit with Spiderman meme* What’s funny is all this reminds me of that spider man meme where we could have the false sun god pointing at Luffy like “Hey, You’re the sun god” and Luffy’s like “No, you're supposed to be the sun god?
! ” Anyways, to bring this back to Norse mythology, the actual Norse god Loki does have a daughter named Hel who is supposed to rule over the underworld, so there is a lore connection there as well. Which if this person really is an Elbaf prince or princess then it kinda answers another question of if we are actually on Elbaf or not.
Which in this case would be yes, we are in the island of the giants. But this fact isn’t actually isn’t as confirmed as we first thought, and I’ll break down the other CRAZY POSSIBILITIES of where else we might be in just a few minutes. Now, if this false sun god isn't going to be our early sympathetic character then the most likely scenario is that they are straight up just a villain.
Maybe they are like a jailer or something who watches over people who are kidnapped. That could lead to our first real mini conflict here with defeating this person and freeing the other trapped people. Or this could actually be Loki themselves who just has a twisted hobby of collecting and playing with people.
We can’t rule that out either because we don't forget that we still don't have an explanation for some of the weird magic that has been going on with the cat transforming into a lion from the last chapter which just perfectly fits with a trickster god theme for Loki. With all that being said though there is ONE HUGE possibility we haven’t discussed yet, and hold on tight because I think this one is a real banger here. Because there are a few things that have been really bugging me about this whole situation Luffy and the others are in.
Starting things off with the very weird disappearance of Luffy, the Sunny, and the others back in chapter one thousand one hundred twenty six. I mean, it clearly confused the giants and the remaining straw hats, and we never really learned how the kidnapped crewmates could have sped ahead to Elbaf way before the giant’s ship. Of course, it could have been a devil fruit power that somehow transported them, but we’ve already seen a teleportation devil fruit, so it can’t just be that simple.
But if it’s not that then of course we have to bring up the very real possibility that Luffy and the crew AREN’T on Elbaf. They could be on another ship that snuck in and then ran away or maybe even on a mysterious secret island with a whole bunch of kidnapped people. Which would kinda make sense except that it would be very weird if NO ONE on the giant’s ship saw the Sunny get taken.
I mean sure the giants were partying hard and it seems like most of them passed out, but surely SOMEONE was awake to be a lookout and pilot the ship. Like I just can't believe that EVERYONE was asleep. Which brings me to nee very interesting possibility that could explain EVERYTHING going on with this disappearance.
What if the Sunny and the straw hats were shrunk down to a tiny size? I mean just think about it. Shrinking everyone would make it WAY EASIER to pull off the kidnapping.
It would also explain how no one saw the Sunny vanishing. And it would one hundred percent be the most Oda thing to do to introduce a power that allows you to shrink people in the arc that is supposed to be about giants. He just loves those types of clever reversals like that.
And seriously, I CANNOT get this idea out of my head. We’ve already dealt with the idea that we thought these people were giants, but clearly they aren’t based on when we see them next to the Straw Hats in this chapter. So we had people who we thought were giants but they actually weren’t, so wouldn’t it make sense for this false sun god, who we think is a giant, to not be a giant as well and instead everyone else was shrunk!
DO YOU SEE THE VISION! ? And if that's true then it brings up the possibility that the false sun god might not even be a giant but just a normal sized human who looks massive because everyone else is shrunk.
It also fits with the toy theme, the Legos, the giant animals, and so on. But that’s not even the biggest piece of evidence we have for this idea here. Because now we know that there is supposed to be a temple for the Sun God inside the fake kingdom.
Plus we know the people inside can communicate with the false sun god, so all that makes me think the false sun god can actually show up inside the diorama. But clearly based on their size shown in this chapter that should be impossible. At least not without destroying everything, so it would make sense that they can shrink themselves down to better fit inside the mirror cage?
We even see that a bit when they are chasing the straw hats at the end of the chapter. We also have this line from Usopp in the last chapter that it would take an incredibly delicate giant to dress them in these small clothes, but that wouldn’t need to be the case if the false sun god could dress them while they are normal sized. And just to throw one more bit of evidence in there, we know Elbaf is tied to fables.
Plus we've already had references to Alice in Wonderland with the cat and the rabbit. And how does Alice in Wonderland start out? With Alice shrinking as she enters Wonderland.
So do you get what I’m saying here? ? ?
I think we can safely say this is a very strong theory that this person isn’t actually a giant, but a human with a shrinking devil fruit. Or maybe they could still be a giant who has shrunk themselves as well, but in this case I think it makes more sense for them to be a human who just worships the sun god and wanted to feel what it was like to be a giant. There are also hints though that the false sun god isn’t the only false god around here in this mysterious building, but more on that in just a minute.
So those are basically the two main theories I have in my head right now. And they could both be true at the same time as well where this false sun god is supposed to be a sympathetic character that the straw hats will save, possibly a neglected child of loki or something like that. And this person ALSO has a shrink devil fruit power and likes to pretend to be god.
So it could be one or the other or even both. BUTTT… we still can’t rule out the idea I threw out in my exclusive early chapter thoughts on patreon where I still like the idea of this being some hallucination or game like world and what we are seeing isn’t even completely real. I mean the title of this chapter is even called RPG or Role Playing Game, so I’m definitely not dismissing that possibility considering all the weird drawing inconsistencies in the last chapter.
Plus, just how funny would this all be if Nami just wakes up suddenly and this was all just a bad dream and they are really somewhere else entirely? But I discussed all that and more in my early thoughts which I’ll be posting each week on Patreon, so if you want to get access to that and even more special perks, you can sign up using the link in the description below. I have to say though, there are some INSANE hidden clues in this chapter that we are actually in Elbaf.
Because take a look at this symbol right here which you probably didn't pay attention to at all when you read it but in reality it is likely a SUPER important clue for what will happen in the next few chapters. Now there are a few ways the interpret this symbol. The more normal option is that it is a regular construction for the door which means nothing at all.
But that’s completely boring so of course we’re going to dive into way more lore than we need here. Because in fact the more interesting option is that this symbol is a Nordic rune which has a ton of secret meaning for this room and also this entire building that Luffy and the others are trapped in. And you should have seen the rabbit hole of norse research I went down looking at all these runes.
Because actually if you look into history here a bit and with my german roots and all that you could start to see… *Manu look intently like you are researching and then get PTSD look* Let’s just look at this chart right here this symbol could be this one right here. Which just so happens to be the rune representing the Sun. And that just makes perfect sense because the prisoners in the room all refer to this mysterious person as the Sun God.
So you might be asking, well, what does this mean for the upcoming chapters? Well, it could mean that just like there is a room with a Sun God there could just as easily be other rooms marked by different nordic runes. And some interesting ones to point out here could be this one which represents wealth or this one which represents death.
Which also looks very similar to a Z symbol so maybe the straw hats room is actually the Death room and everyone inside was destined for death? And you should have seen the rabbit hole of norse research I went down looking at all these runes. Like there’s even one that looks like Drgon’s face tattoo and one that could represent Shanks, but what I think this all means is that there are probably many other rooms just like this one with people trapped inside.
So, based on what we know about Luffy and his role as someone who frees people, I could very easily imagine that in the next few chapters, we could see Luffy freeing everyone trapped in these mysterious rooms. At least that’s the theory for now. It also ties nicely into the idea of the nine realms we discussed in the last chapter review because many of the Nordic runes fit nicely with the themes of the nine realms such as the Sun for Asgard and Death for Hell or even the rune for Ice to go with Jotunheim or Niflheim.
What’s funny is that the rune for the sun also looks like the scar on Harry Potter’s head, which is just a hilarious tie in with the color page for this week’s chapter with the straw hats wearing the Hogwarts wizard robes. I love when Oda ties in these things. We’re not quite done with the Nordic lore though because just like we have the Sun God there is also a norse moon god who is the sibling of the sun god.
And if Oda sticks with these parallels we could even be seeing another false god, this time the moon god, make an appearance very soon. And speaking of false gods, I just can’t go any further without once again pointing out the parallels we’ve seen so far between this arc and Skypiea. Because this chapter gave even more hints about their similarities with there being a false sun god here and of course Enel was a false god up in the sky.
What’s even crazier though is that Enel wanted to go to the moon and we just discussed that we might also see a moon god very soon. We also have a parallel of giant snakes with the creature Luffy fought in this chapter compared to Nola from Skypiea. Then we of course had the giant plants with Giant Jack in skypiea and the Yggdrasil tree here in this arc.
So perhaps we’ll also see Yggdrasil or possibly the Adam tree come crashing down just like Giant Jack fell. And we can’t forget that Skypiea was also the first hint we got of Nika with Luffy dancing around the bonfire. But bringing this back to this chapter, we finally found Chopper!
! And while you may have just thought this was not super important, the fact that Chopper was separated from the others actually connected some SUPER INTERESTING clues about deers and the giants. Becuase Check this out.
When we first see the false sun god walking down the hallway we see them wearing this deer skull on top of their head. And at first you might just think like that’s interesting because Chopper’s also a deer, but wait until you see this! Have you ever noticed that each of the giant ships that we’ve seen in the story also has something like a deer skull masthead?
Just look at the masthead of the Great Eirik and the masthead of the New Giant Warrior Pirates’ ship right here. Notice that they both have this same skull with horns. And while it isn’t exactly the same as Chopper’s antlers, the fact that both of those ships have deer like mast heads means that they consider these animals pretty special in some way.
So put that together with the false sun god’s deer skull and I'm starting to think that they had some special plans for chopper. Now what those plans are, we aren’t too sure yet, but my guess is they either wanted to kill Chopper for his horns or on the other hand maybe they were going to treat them like a special guest. Either way, having Chopper back means the weakling trio is reunited, but what’s really interesting from this chapter is that Usopp pretty much got told straight up by his captain that he can do much better.
In fact, Luffy told the sniper that he should have been able to defeat the cat-lion creature by himself. Which you could look at it as an insult or as Luffy showing his belief in Usopp, but either way it highlights the fact that Usopp’s strength is going to be a focus for his character once again, similar to how it was back in Water 7. Only this time I think we are all hoping for some major character development from Usopp since this is the arc we expect him to fully accept himself as a brave warrior of the sea.
And they’ll all certainly need that because there could be DISASTROUS consequences for any crewmates that can’t hold their own in fight during the final saga. Because it is clear there are tons of MASSIVE threats coming for the Straw Hats in the final arc such as the Gorosei, God’s Knights, Marines, and even the Blackbeard pirates. So if the weakling trio can’t step up and win when it counts then it might be time to once again consider which powerhouse fighters could actually still join the crew.
And if you want to see EXACTLY who I think could still join, you can watch this video right here. Shanks so much as always for watching and a big, big thank you to all my nakama on the patreon. If you still want to join you can sign up using the link in the description and as always I’ll see you in the next one.
