This text was originally written for Arlong Park forums’ discussion thread.

The hits just keep on coming. And I thought the last chapter’s talk of the Ancient Kingdom’s technology was a big one, but this week blows it out of the water. The story really is pulling together now.

The Water Seven Saga remains my favourite part of this story, even after all these years, and Robin’s flashback building up to her “I want to live” scene is one of its greatest highlights, so it warms my heart to see Ohara and its legacy made so central to the current plot. Despite what some around the internet are saying, it’s pretty reasonable that both Saul and Ohara’s books would survive. Robin and Vegapunk make it clear this week that it takes exhaustive study of historical reference material from around the world to piece together than the Ancient Kingdom existed and was erased from history. No one book from the massive library they’d compiled was illegal or worthy of destruction. You can imagine the method of research involved hours of poring over texts and comparing records for inconsistencies that could only be explained by a coverup. All the things there that were specifically against the rules were the texts that related directly to the Poneglyphs in the underground chamber – and you can look back to the flashback and see that those are what the Navy was told to seek out and destroy.

It’s easy to imagine the Navy men checking out the island after seeing the lakebed pile of books, including even popular texts like Brag Men, thinking about how quickly they would degrade underwater, and calling it a day, having been told that objectionable material was burned first in the secret room. It’s not suspicious that the scholars would try to save the rest – these are still cultural materials for countless nations that have self-evident value even if you couldn’t piece together the existence of the Ancient Kingdom with them.

We finally learn a tiny little bit more about the conflict of the Void Century. It’s been a given since Ohara that the Ancient Kingdom was annihilated by the World Government, but for the first time here we have the implication that the century was a protracted war rather than a one-sided genocide. We also learn that the World Government’s motives are more to do with erasing the Ancient Kingdom’s ideology than covering up their own crimes, as I had previously assumed. So the next burning question becomes what ideology did this kingdom have that the WG found so objectionable. It would have to be something that would resonate with Luffy and Roger too, I think. So big on freedom, liberty, and worldwide parties.

This also makes me all the more curious about the line from Oden’s flashback that lives rent-free in my head: “It’s not the weapons we’re after, it’s the people who called them weapons.” Maybe we assume now that the Ancient Weapons predate the Ancient Kingdom and it was the war that forced one side or the other to weaponise them.

Saul’s survival, while something I would have bet against a week ago, does make sense considering who “killed” him and how. It was theorised for years. I’m not expecting any other revivals from Ohara though. Olvia and Clover were both inside the burning Tree of Knowledge when it collapsed, and with no way to get off the island alone, Saul must have remained frozen until long after the fires died down and the Navy did that final inspection in which they glimpsed the lakebed pile of books.

And hey, meeting Saul again should be fun. It’ll be a good Robin moment, and his connections with Elbaf and the other giants are going to be interesting to explore. How’d he end up in the Navy? Was he one of Caramel’s trafficked giant kids like John Giant? The (now-totally inevitable) Elbaf arc will be fun.

The first half of the chapter alone could have satisfied me for a week, but then we keep going with the young Vegapunk and a cameo from Dragon. Punk’s design is a certified Oda classic, while Dragon seems to have had a pair of pants he liked so much he got their design as a tattoo. Or maybe it’s a legband with some other meaning, a symbol of the Freedom Fighters perhaps. I’m not sure where to sit on Vegapunk morally, knowing he put the money it would take fully capitalise on his ideas ahead of opposing the tyrannical World Government. But on the other hand, he’s obviously kept in touch with Dragon and still shares his sentiments, and the efforts to reach reasonable voices within the organisation are admirable (if a tad misguided inside a hegemony where those people won’t ever get to be decision-makers).

I love that Ohara turns out to be the spark that ignited the Revolutionary Army. I think the original flashback was one of One Piece’s darkest scenes, and is the moment I think the series well and truly gets political. We’re told in the flashback that the World Government was looking for an excuse to connect Ohara to Poneglyph research so they could make an example of them, and it certainly seems like their efforts had that impact, both in and out of universe.

I’ll be curious, when we get to Dragon, to learn more about the Freedom Fighters and what it was about them that fell short of what he needed to oppose the World Government, and how the Revolutionaries differ.

Robin’s face when she connects the dots that Saul made it out gives me great joy. To repeat myself, Elbaf’s gonna be something else. And still Vegapunk has more to show us…

The final scene is a light and funny introduction to the main body. The perfect follow-up to seeing Vegapunk’s absurd head in the past is seeing that it was apparently sectioned off to make his clone squad. The absurdity of this guy. But the fact that he showed up in an apparent warping experiment is pretty concerning. That would be a rough one for the World Government to get their hands on, especially with the new Seraphim to drop instantly anywhere around the world. But it could also be setup for the Strawhats method of getting everywhere they’ll need to go before the final battle in a reasonable timeframe. Or it could be another one of those things that still doesn’t work outside Egghead’s controlled environment, and I’m overthinking it all. Still one to keep an eye on.

I’ve got nothing else to say. This is exactly the kind of lore and big reveals I’ve been hoping for in a One Piece finale. My hopes for next week are through the freaking roof here.