One Piece chapter 1189! We've got the name of at least nine of the nineteen swords by the "empty throne".
Mythological references are fun, so I made a deep dive to find out what each of these weapons were named for!
怨魔剣 スティグマ
”Stigma”. A word meaning ”mark, spot, brand” in Greek. Possibly referring to the Christian concept of Stigmata (the wounds of Christ)?
Meaning of kanji: ”Vengeful Magic Sword”
聖命槍 ロンギヌス
”Longinus”. The name of the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus’ side with a spear. It’s sometimes also used as the name of that spear.
Meaning of kanji: ”Holy Life Spear”
混沌剣 トーフー
”Tohu”. Comes from the phrase ”tohu wa-bohu” in Genesis 1:2 of the Hebrew Bible. It describes the state of the world before Creation, and is hard to translate. A modern translation is ”formless and empty”.
Meaning of kanji: ”Chaos Sword”
虚無剣 ボーフー
”Bohu”. Comes from the phrase ”tohu wa-bohu” in Genesis 1:2 of the Hebrew Bible. It describes the state of the world before Creation, and is hard to translate. A modern translation is ”formless and empty”.
Meaning of kanji: ”Void Sword”
海神剣 フラガラッハ
”Fragarach”. The sea god Marannán’s sword in Irish mythology.
Meaning of kanji: ”Sea God Sword”
憤怒剣 グラム
”Gram”. The hero Sigmund’s sword in Norse mythology. The name is etymologically related to ”grim”, and means ”angry”. (See latter-day Swedish ”gramse”)
Meaning of kanji: ”Anger Sword”
天罰剣 ネメシス
”Nemesis”. The Goddess of divine retribution in Greek mythology.
Meaning of kanji: ”Heavenly Retribution Sword”
村正 むらまさ
”Muramasa”. The name of a famous swordsmith in 16th century Japan. The name also refers to the swords he created. In pop culture, Muramasa swords are often depicted as cursed.
刑天の斧 けいてんのおの
”Xingtian’s axe”. Xingtian was a giant in Chinese mythology who fought against the supreme god. He’s mostly famous for fighting on even though he was decapitated. As such, he’s a symbol of the indomitable spirit to never give up no matter what.
There's this special attack that punches a huge hole in someone or something from a distance. Most recently, Gerd, Goldberg and Road use in chapter 1173 to get rid of a nightmare construct:
It's been used at least twice before in the series. The first one is, of course, when Dory and Broggy use it on the giant goldfish in chapter 129!
The second time, which I remembered just now when rewatching the Whole Cake Island arc, Big Mom uses it!
It's clearly the same attack each time, although the first kanji in the name varies. The second is always 国, meaning country or nation. None of the combos make existing words, so it's just the names of the attacks.
Dory and Broggy use 覇 (supreme), Gerd, Goldberg and Road use 轟 (roar, or being honored throughout the world), while Big Mom uses 威 (power). I don't know if it's intentional, but Big Mom's attack name is pronounced "ikoku", which, written as 異国, means "foreign country". Which seems appropriate if she's using an attack that came from the giants!
And it clearly did come from the giants! It doesn't come up in chapter 1173, but this attack is also refered to as エルバフの槍, "the spear of Elbaph".
Broggy calls it "The strongest 'spear', passed down among the giants of Elbaph".
And Big Mom calls it simply "The spear of Elbaph".
Luffy reacts to that, and rightly so - because why does Big Mom use an Elbaph attack?? The giants hate her. Who could have taught her this?
Going through the Wano arc, the attack is used two more times there.
In chapter 988, Big Mom uses 威国 (ikoku) again, exactly the same one as she used on Whole Cake Island:
And then, as @deepfriedyouyou pointed out, Big Mom and Kaido uses a combo attack in chapter 1009:
It looks the same as all of the other "spear of Elbaph" attacks, but interestingly this one is not a 国 (country), but an 海 (sea)!
It's pronounced "hakai", with the same 覇 (ha = supreme) as in Dory and Brogy's version back in chapter 129. "Hakai" is also pronounced the same way as the word for "destruction" (破壊).
Turns out I had forgotten one more use of this attack:
Dorry and Brogy uses 覇国 (hakoku) again in chapter 1079. (Y'know, 950 chapter after last time we saw them use it!) At least they're still using the same name they used before.
It completely destroyed Kid's ship. We still don't have any information on survivors.
There's this Japanese internet service called PictSpace! It's mostly for holding fan conventions online - which is an extremely good and useful service - but! It can also be used as a space to just hang out and chat with fandom friends!
Since my fandom had the 30th anniversary event on PictSpace in April (selling doujinshi and all), we've settled into opening this space for socialisation one weekend per month.
It's amazingly fun. So many people has gotten really into creating personal sprites to move around with instead of using PictSpace's default sprites.
Here are some pictures from the July meeting:
The zombie maid bites.
Three sets of Rostam and Huey. Only the cats are PictSpace standard sprites.
Tares cornered by three Surlents (one of which is also a snake).
I have come up with the funniest possible explanation for the existence of Sanji’s raid suit.
So first thing to keep in mind is based on Vito’s age and his claim that he read Sora, Warrior of the Sea as a kid, the comic must have started before the Vinsmoke children were old enough to go on missions, probably before they were even born, meaning the characters based on them must have been a later addition.
So imagine you are a writer for the very popular comic Sora, Warrior of the Sea, and your buddy in the Marines who gives you stories that you’re supposed to use as the basis for your storylines tells you about some new Germa commanders who have started showing up. Great, love an opportunity to mix in some fresh characters! There’s a girl and three boys, and the boys wear capes numbered 1, 2, & 4. So there is a glaring omission there, but when you ask your buddy, he doesn’t know, there just wasn’t a number 3. Well that might fly in the real world, but in a comic you can’t just leave that conspicuous absence without an explanation. So you do some brainstorming and finally come up with the perfect idea — nobody saw number 3 because his power is invisibility. Boom, entirely original character Stealth Black is born.
Pan back to the Vinsmoke family. Now, I know Judge is a religious reader of the Sora comics. This is a man who loves to spend 10 minutes reading the comic every week so he can then spend an hour ranting about how much it sucks. Then comes the introduction of Stealth Black, and Judge is genuinely pissed off this time because how dare they reintroduce that failure Sanji to the story and also secretly how dare they come up with a kick ass idea like invisibility before he did. He is so emasculated by this comic coming up with invisibility first that every time Stealth Black appears he goes on an extra long rant about how he could totally make an invisibility suit too if he wanted to, it would be easy, he could do it in five minutes, until Niji is finally like, okay so do it then. And so Judge, desperate to prove a point to Niji that Niji does not care about, creates the canister and presents to him, to which Niji is like great, good job dad, and then promptly throws the thing into the back of his closet. There is sits until the end of the Whole Cake Island arc, when Niji suddenly remembers he has it and thinks to himself, oh, I’m about to do something hilarious.
I'm trying not to take it the wrong way, because it's definitely a person and they might just be a bit awkward, but… I can't help thinking that it's rude to comment on someone else's fic with nothing but a plug for your own fic. Nothing that even makes it seem like they read the fic they're commenting on beyond confirming which fandom it is.
Basically nothing but, "Nice that you're in this fandom, I have written a fic that you should read!"
SHANKS TIMELINE, chronologically from 39 years ago and up to the start of the Elbaph arc. Spoilers through manga chapter 1171.
Edited to add: Please feel free to send me corrections and updates for this! 12 hours after posting and I've already been able to add several facts I'd missed thanks to others' excellent attention to detail.
Trying to keep this to an internal chronology - so not the published order. The "Shanks/History" section of the One Piece Wiki has been incredibly helpful for locating relevant chapters, but all mistakes to the timeline are my own. (Thanks @bumblingbriars for the update on Shanks' mom's name, and @invisibletinkerer for how long Shanks has been one of the Four Emperors for!)
Chapter 1158: 39 years ago in God Valley. Shanks born as the second of two twins to a local woman (Magnolia, according to a volume 114 SBS) and visiting World Noble Figarland Garling (scouting for human hunt locations?). At the start of The God Valley Incident, Garling murdered Magnolia. He then got a hold of and raised Shanks' brother Shamrock. As for Shanks, thanks to his dying mother's tenacity and Dragon's integrity, he was rescued from the God Valley genocide, and accidentally ended up in a treasure chest on the Oro Jackson. Instead of leaving their surprise baby somewhere, Gol D. Roger and his men decided to raise Shanks as their own. Presumably they found the baby's name sewn into his clothes?
Chapter 964: ~30 years ago, aged 9 or so. Reading the news with Buggy on the Oro Jackson, grumpy that Whitebeard is getting more attention than their crew. To date we do not know how Roger's crew ended up with two boys to raise.
Chapter 19: 25~26 years ago: Buggy's flashback gives us our first look at Shanks on the Oro Jackson (though it'll be almost 500 chapters until we learn they were on that ship). It can't be long before Roger disbanded his crew - even though he looks older (Odacchi probably hadn't figured out the exact timeline for these two back in volume 3!), Shanks can't be more than 15 here. (Drinking like an adult already, and making plans to go separate ways with Buggy.)
After Rayleigh makes them stop bickering, a ship heads straight for the Oro Jackson, and there's a fight and what may be some actual pirating! Buggy finds a treasure map, keeping it to himself - then later he steals a plundered devil fruit. ...and accidentally swallows it when Shanks startles him. In chapter 19 Buggy tells Luffy he's holding a grudge because Shanks lost him the 100 million berries he could've gotten for the fruit, and also having eaten it he can no longer dive to the bottom of the sea and get the treasure. (Later it becomes clear that Buggy also has a vast inferiority complex, but that's a different timeline altogether.)
Chapter 967: 25~26 years ago: Buggy gets too sick to travel with the others to the end of the Grand Line. Shanks is fine staying behind in the unnamed port town with Buggy, because "One day we'll go there in our own ship!"
Chapter 968: Oden says that when Roger came back from Laugh Tale, Shanks asked him some kind of question. And after that, he cried.
Chapter 968: About a year before his death (25 years ago) Gol D. Roger disbands his crew and leaves the Oro Jackson. The crew then swings by Wano to drop off Oden before presumably scattering.
Vol 0: At Roger's execution 24 years ago, aged 15.
Chapter 1082: The day of Roger's execution, 24 years ago. This is Buggy's flashback to Shanks saying he's changed his mind and won't go to Laugh Tale now (because he doesn't feel like it), but will continue being a pirate. He invites Buggy along, but Buggy interprets "come with me" to mean "as my subordinate" and refuses, accusing Shanks of being a coward.
Vol 0: 18~24 years ago: Shanks has heard rumors of Yasopp, and comes looking for him. "Oh - I'm Shanks, a pirate."
(It's very unclear to me if this was soon after Roger's death, and so that Yasopp returned to Syrup Village for a while after joining Shanks, or if it's 18 years ago and Yasopp left for good with Shanks. Also unclear: did Shanks have a crew along at this point, or was Yasopp the first person he recruited?)
Chapter 1167: 15 years ago Shanks shows up in Mary Geoise to claim his place as a Figarland, expressing regret that he's wasted 24 years of his life among the plebes in the hateful lower world when he could have been living as a Celestial Dragon. Garling and Shamrock seem to have accepted him back without hesitation, and he is made a Knight of God as a "Devoted Blade" (taking the Shallows Covenant).
While newly arrived he (secretly) assists Fisher Tiger's escape and revolt.
Chapter 1168: 14 years ago, after a year as a Devoted Blade, Shanks absconds while on a mission. He does so right before becoming a full Knight of God and thus getting in real deep with Imu.
Chapter 1152: 14 years ago Shanks visits Gaban on Elbaph. Gaban says it's been 3-4 years since the last time they shared a bath, and that the ten years since their Captain's death must feel like an especially long time for Shanks. (And you can clearly see the mark of the Shallows Covenant on Shank's left arm.)
Shanks muses that his life has changed completely - he was really set on having a carefree pirate life together with Buggy. But there are more things he wants to know here in Elbaph too. Gaban calls him a "Child of Destiny", and tells him to forget the little things bothering him, before reminiscing about Dorry and Brogy.
Chapter 1169: What seems to be the same day as they hang out in the hot springs, Shanks learns about Ace from Gaban. He says it's like having a little brother, and Gaban agrees: "Because you and Buggy were our sons." Shanks then tells Gaban all about the power the covenant he and Harald entered with "that person", which makes them unable to resist while in the range of Imu's influence. But once they both left Mary Geoise they could talk, and during that time Shanks confirmed Harald had been right about his identity as Red-Haired Shanks.
Aaaaand just after telling Gaban why it would be a bad idea for Harald to agree to the covenant, they get a horrible demonstration of it in action.
Chapter 1170: Shanks is confused about how Gaban knows that the Knights of God are weak to haoushoku, and Gaban is like "Yeah they kept showing up trying to take you back, so we tore them to shreds". Shanks also has a moment of talking about how the Celestial Dragons see themselves as gods, and shivers at the thought of what his life could have been. Gaban says that's what's called destiny! (運命 - same word as in 1152 he called Shanks a "Child of Destiny".)
Chapter 1171: Failing to save Harald is not great for Shanks. He has flashbacks to his father saying "common people" aren't even human, and to forget what happened in the lower world.
Gaban embraces Shanks, saying that it's a bad habit to resent his birth.
Shanks is beset by guilt - おれがもっと早く... - if he'd done something sooner or faster (it's not clear which to me), the pure-hearted Harald wouldn't have had to die. Gaban is having none of it. It's not Shanks' fault.
Gaban tells Shanks that he definitely still has role (or duty?). There's definitely meaning to everyone's life.
Chapter 1054: Seeing Luffy's Gear 5 wanted poster, Shanks flashes back 13 years to attacking a government ship with CP9 onboard explicitly to steal the devil fruit they were carrying.
Chapter 1: 12 years ago! The devil fruit in question ends up in Luffy.
Luffy needs rescuing, and Shanks loses his left arm (which is also his dominant arm). This was the arm that had the Shallows Covenant mark on it, so... with it gone, he's free of Imu's influence! And maybe that means the Sea King didn't actually get the better of him - maybe Shanks saw his chance to lose the mark, and chose to sacrifice his arm.
Chepter 506: Shanks shows up on Sabaody without his hat. He tells Rayleigh he was incredibly surprised: he found a kid in the East Blue who said the same thing Captain Roger did. Those words of the Captain's...! (This is 100% related to Luffy's actual dream, not just the "I'm gonna be King of the Pirates" goal, but since Odacchi still hasn't told us his dream... well.)
Chapter 1136: In Elbaph Luffy learns that 6 years ago, Shanks captured Loki and returned him to Elbaph, where he's been chained up ever since. (We have gotten no flashbacks to this in the manga.)
Chapter 957: Commodore Brannew's briefing mentions that Shanks has been an Emperor for 6 years. Clearly there's a connection there...!
Chapter 552: 4~5 years ago, Ace tracks Shanks down to thank him for saving Luffy's life, and Shanks says "Luffy's Ace?!" (not "Captain's son"...) and seems delighted that Luffy did have an older brother after all. Ace is invited to stay and talk - and feast, of course. (Unclear if this is before or after Ace joins Whitebeard's crew.)
Chapter 96: 2 years ago (but now finally in the actual manga timeline, not just flashbacks!) Mihawk brings Shanks Luffy's wanted poster. Shanks' reaction is "So you've come, Luffy!"
Chapter 234: While Luffy's preparing to go to Skypiea, Shanks gets news that Whitebeard rebuffed Rockstar, who was carrying a message from Shanks. He tells his men to prepare for battle, as he's going to go see Whitebeard himself - which the government will most certainly try to stop.
Chapter 434: As Luffy's crew is recovering from Enies Lobby, Shanks meets with Whitebeard on board the Moby Dick. They chat about the old days. When asked what enemy took his arm, Shanks says he wagered it on a new age. Then he gets to the point of his visit: he wants Whitebeard to stop Ace hunting Teach, because Teach is too dangerous, and because it isn't the right time for the two to clash. (How dangerous is Teach? Shanks says it's who gave him the scars over his left eye - and not because he was careless. Shanks doesn't say when this was, but he was wearing bandages over his left eye in Mary Geoise 15 years ago.) Whitebeard does not take kindly to this young upstart giving him orders, and the two clash, splitting the skies over the Moby Dick.
Chapter 533: Admiral Momonga receives a report saying Shanks is skirmishing with Kaidou.
Chapter 579: Shanks shows up at Marineford, saying he's come to end the war.
Chapter 580: With Shanks' arrival, the war ends.
Chapter 590: Shanks arranges Whitebeard and Ace's joint funeral, then leaves. He thinks about Luffy, about the pain he must in, and once again sees similarities between Luffy and Roger. He hopes Luffy knows it's okay to cry.
Chapter 928: While in Wano prison camp, Kid corrects the rumour that he had his arm cut off by someone on Big Mom's crew - he tells Caribou and Luffy that he lost it fighting the Red Hair Pirates. This would be 1-2 years ago.
Chapter 838: Cover art of Shanks looking pleased with Luffy's new wanted poster after Dressrosa (while at a wedding ceremony on "a certain ruined island").
Chapter 1054: At the end of Wano - after very helpfully knocking Admiral Ryokugyu out with his haki without even setting foot on the island - Shanks looks at Luffy's Gear 5 wanted poster. He remembers hanging out with Luffy - remembers saving Luffy from the sea king. As he does, he gives his throbbing left shoulder a squeeze.
Then he sits down with Benn Beckman, and basically says "Hey Beck, it's about time we went and got the One Piece".
Chapter 1059: On their way from Wano, the Red Hair pirates give Marco a ride to Sphinx, and Shanks invites him to join their crew. Marco declines - he's spent too long babysitting big time pirates, and Beck confirms that Shanks is indeed a handful.
Chapter 1079: In the middle of Egghead we get to see what's going on elsewhere. Eustass Kid comes for Shanks. In particular: through the Future Sight of his Observation Haki, Shanks sees Kid destroying his allies. So Shanks destroys him. He also takes Kid's Road Poneglyph before Dorry and Brogy sink Kid's ship with their joint attack.
Chapter 1121: Vegapunk's broadcast. We see the Red Force, and someone on the crew tells Shanks to take it easy on the drink. (Shanks does not take it easy on the drink.)
Chapter 1131: Loki says he's seen Shanks recently. (And he calls Shanks a coward, making Luffy fly into a rage.) We don't get an actual flashback.
Chapter 1132: Collun has a flashback to Shanks telling him to remember the name "Strawhat Luffy", though it's unclear when this was.
Chapter 1126: The most recent sighting of Shanks in the present, between Egghead and Wano. He teaches Barto a lesson about burning his flag (Shanks has friends and allies to protect!), and then - after being pleased to see the kind of loyalty Luffy can inspire - has Yasopp fire on the Going Luffy-senpai, which blows up. (The status of the Barto Club crew is listed as "Unknown".)
Chapter 1124 That is, the interaction with Barto is the most recent chronological sighting in the manga... unless this mysterious silhouette on Elbaph seen drinking from a bottle and saying "Come" is Shanks!
---
And that's Shanks' timeline as of chapter 1187, to the best of my ability to put one together with Tumblr's limit of 30 images! (This timeline also doesn't include Uta, given her highly liminal canon status.)
There's this special attack that punches a huge hole in someone or something from a distance. Most recently, Gerd, Goldberg and Road use in chapter 1173 to get rid of a nightmare construct:
It's been used at least twice before in the series. The first one is, of course, when Dory and Broggy use it on the giant goldfish in chapter 129!
The second time, which I remembered just now when rewatching the Whole Cake Island arc, Big Mom uses it!
It's clearly the same attack each time, although the first kanji in the name varies. The second is always 国, meaning country or nation. None of the combos make existing words, so it's just the names of the attacks.
Dory and Broggy use 覇 (supreme), Gerd, Goldberg and Road use 轟 (roar, or being honored throughout the world), while Big Mom uses 威 (power). I don't know if it's intentional, but Big Mom's attack name is pronounced "ikoku", which, written as 異国, means "foreign country". Which seems appropriate if she's using an attack that came from the giants!
And it clearly did come from the giants! It doesn't come up in chapter 1173, but this attack is also refered to as エルバフの槍, "the spear of Elbaph".
Broggy calls it "The strongest 'spear', passed down among the giants of Elbaph".
And Big Mom calls it simply "The spear of Elbaph".
Luffy reacts to that, and rightly so - because why does Big Mom use an Elbaph attack?? The giants hate her. Who could have taught her this?
Going through the Wano arc, the attack is used two more times there.
In chapter 988, Big Mom uses 威国 (ikoku) again, exactly the same one as she used on Whole Cake Island:
And then, as @deepfriedyouyou pointed out, Big Mom and Kaido uses a combo attack in chapter 1009:
It looks the same as all of the other "spear of Elbaph" attacks, but interestingly this one is not a 国 (country), but an 海 (sea)!
It's pronounced "hakai", with the same 覇 (ha = supreme) as in Dory and Brogy's version back in chapter 129. "Hakai" is also pronounced the same way as the word for "destruction" (破壊).
Here's an interesting bit of Enies Lobby lore buried in the Buster Call, Lucci vs Luffy excitement of chapter 426. Viz translated the line as:
"Enies Lobby has been secure for 800 years because CP9 has watched over it for generations". If the speech bubble had been bigger, the translator might have had a chance to elaborate: Enies Lobby has been an impregnable legend ever since 800 years ago.
With what we've learned the past couple of arcs, that is very interesting I think...!
Anyway, translation nuances aside (Viz's version is not incorrect, just suffering from the meaning you can get across in kanji compared with letters) - Enies Lobby was a built by the first World Government. Or maybe even: Imu had Enies Lobby built ASAP after the Void Century. And a reminder:
There's a HOLE in the OCEAN, with a waterfall crashing endlessly down.
Down into a bottomless hole.
...even for the Grand Line, this is not normal. In fact, I'd say it's not natural.
And then there are The Gates of Justice, which are very, very big:
And somehow it's a "noon island" where the sun always shines? Even in the Aqua Laguna?? That's...not how the sun works. Even on the Grand Line. But there's definitely light there, coming from the sky.
We don't know how any of that works, but it does seem like this particular location might be connected to the cataclysm of the Void Century, when the ocean rose 200 meters for what Vegapunk can only explain as "Ancient Weapon" reasons. (Which makes me wonder: Was Impel Down originally built underwater, or did it get flooded with the rest of the world?)
Was Enies Lobby - the strange, bottomless hole endlessly swallowing the ocean - maybe even the epicenter of whatever happened?
And those giant gates... Maybe back then they weren't built that massive just to intimidate. Maybe they were built to that scale because Imu had some really, really big enemies? And either Imu wanted to send those big enemies through the big gate as a show of strength, or the big gate is the only thing left of an equally huge wall that was there to keep the big enemies out of Impel Down.
Anyway. No answers, just more questions, but wow does a reread hit different when you know more about the world!
That first night, he is wide awake. Shanks, who easily sleeps through Grand Line storms, finds no respite in this immovable stillness. He's spent nights on land before, of course, making do without the soothing rocking of the sea. But maybe not without the sound of waves. Here, he catches himself holding his breath, as if waiting for the rhythm of the ocean to fill the silence between inhalation and exhalation. It doesn't. Here, there is only a silence more deafening than he has ever heard. In the dark, alone, he aches for the noise of his ship; his crew.
Shanks is introduced to Seaman First Class Beckman's skills with the rifle by way of it almost cracking his skull.
Impressive! And unusual, since most marines tend to prefer to use their rifles for shooting pirates, not practicing their swings on them.
Intrigued, he creates some space around the man - enough that they can talk without anything but the marine's continued attempts to bash Shank's brains in interrupting them.
"You're good," Shanks informs him, grinning.
The marine grunts, and swings at him again.
Shanks catches the blow against the hilt of his sword. "And I mean that. Good." He glances at the battle around them - his crew fighting side by side with the villagers, who are armed with nothing but pickaxes and sledgehammers and the odd frying pan, their eyes full of fury and desperation. "Better than this," he says, lowering his voice.
The dark eyes under the white cap reflect the flames of the burning village.
When they move together now, it's like a dance, with Shanks reading his opponent's every move. What he sees makes him drop his smile. "Stop that," he orders. "Letting me kill you isn't going to change anything."
"I'm not--"
Shank's lips pull back in a new grin. "Join me?" he says, and laughs at the way the marine's jaw drops.
"You're a pirate," the marine observes. Very acute fellow. Shanks likes him already.
"Yep! With a crew and a ship and all. Come on. Join us! It'll be awesome."
Shanks fends off a couple of marine nobodies, then dives in to spin his erstwhile opponent around.
They both look at the white-coated, gold-bedecked figure high up on a hill behind the lines, shouting orders.
"It'll be better than this," Shanks says, serious.
His new recruit nods, once, a slow smile spreading across his face. Then he hefts the rifle to his shoulder, and takes aim.
-fin-
I was chatting with my husband about Shanks, as you do, and said something about Benn being a former marine. As he blinked in confusion I went "...hang on, did I make that up?". Because when you've been in a fandom over two decades, bits and pieces of headcanon and speculation can get hard to tell from actual canon. And yeah. I made that up! But since we don't have a canon first meeting between these two yet... Here's my take. A fic first posted November 2009!
There's this special attack that punches a huge hole in someone or something from a distance. Most recently, Gerd, Goldberg and Road use in chapter 1173 to get rid of a nightmare construct:
It's been used at least twice before in the series. The first one is, of course, when Dory and Broggy use it on the giant goldfish in chapter 129!
The second time, which I remembered just now when rewatching the Whole Cake Island arc, Big Mom uses it!
It's clearly the same attack each time, although the first kanji in the name varies. The second is always 国, meaning country or nation. None of the combos make existing words, so it's just the names of the attacks.
Dory and Broggy use 覇 (supreme), Gerd, Goldberg and Road use 轟 (roar, or being honored throughout the world), while Big Mom uses 威 (power). I don't know if it's intentional, but Big Mom's attack name is pronounced "ikoku", which, written as 異国, means "foreign country". Which seems appropriate if she's using an attack that came from the giants!
And it clearly did come from the giants! It doesn't come up in chapter 1173, but this attack is also refered to as エルバフの槍, "the spear of Elbaph".
Broggy calls it "The strongest 'spear', passed down among the giants of Elbaph".
And Big Mom calls it simply "The spear of Elbaph".
Luffy reacts to that, and rightly so - because why does Big Mom use an Elbaph attack?? The giants hate her. Who could have taught her this?
In the One Piece Live Action, we see some wooden figures that Dory carved, right? One is clearly Brogy. One is Nika, which is a great easter egg. But the third was confusing.
But suddenly, watching the Whole Cake Island Arc of the anime (I hadn't watched that part of the anime before, only read the manga), I found that exact guy!
It's when Chiffon explains the marriage that Lola ran away from, which angered Big Mom so much. It would have been an alliance with the Giants...
It's that exact wooden figure, from the strange pegs on his head, the bloblike face and down to the flower in his hand!
And it's meant to be Loki. O_O
Seeing how he doesn't look like this at all when he actually shows up in the story, this OPLA easter egg is on a whole new level. XD
I had to go check what this looks like in the manga. Turns out he does look somewhat like the above in Chiffon's flashback (although it might just be her imagination?). The OPLA thing is more clearly based on the anime version, though. Also, the manga image does not do justice to the actual size difference between Loki and Lola. O_O
Mystery solved!
Although, I had completely forgotten that Loki had once tried to marry Lola! That part has not come up in the Elbaph arc at all, and knowing what we know of Loki, is seems kind of out of character for him to propose a marriage that'd put him on Big Mom's crew.
It would have been at some point after Harald's death but more than six years ago. I believe he was exiled from Elbaph and doing anti-government piracy at the time? He wouldn't have been able to bring Elbaph under Big Mom's sway even if he wanted to.
Besides, Loki is like Luffy, not wanting to serve under others. And Big Mom is not actually any more trustworthy than the world government when it comes down to it.
