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What Is Blackbeard’s Goal In One Piece? What Is He Upto?

After the Paramount War, not much was heard about Marshall D Teach, except that he had taken over vast chunks of Whitebeard’s territories after defeating the remnants. We just got small tidbits of information here and there about his bounty and the fact that his crew was collecting strong devil fruit powers.

But in chapter 1059, we suddenly see the Blackbeard Pirates attack Amazon Lily wanting to “take Hancock’s powers,” Further, in 1063, when they attack Law and the Heart Pirates, it truly makes us wonder, what this man is truly up to??

Understanding Blackbeard’s personality:

Bleackbeard One Piece

Blackbeard’s character analysis can be a whole massive article by itself, but we can just take a quick look at him to try to figure out his plans. While I’m no psychologist, a few things seem clear about Teach. He is cunning and opportunistic, which has got him this far. In fact, he is the perfect opposite of Luffy in this regard.

With Luffy being one of the most straightforward and impulsive characters in the series, Blackbeard plans out every single detail to get to his goals (or maybe he’s lucky like Usopp and Buggy, and things just work out for him).

I would like to add a very important detail to this. Blackbeard and Luffy are literally opposites – Luffy is the user of the Sun god devil fruit and Blackbeard uses the fruit of darkness. And based on what Oda does this definitely isn’t a coincidence.

There are many more mirrored qualities and experiences they share that are too long to list in this “small” personality analysis.

But at the core, Blackbeard seems like a “weak man.” I say “weak” as he lacks the raw determination to go up against impossible challenges.

Unlike Luffy, Blackbeard is a coward who will turn his back on his allies without a second thought if it ensures his survival. These cowardly and backstabbing qualities make Whitebeard realize he is not the one

While Luffy’s crew operates on trust and a familial bonding with each other , Blackbeard’s crew operates on power and their selfish desires. This is very similar parallel to how say Roger/Whitebeard and Rocks’ crews functioned.

What has Blackbeard been doing?

Oda has a unique way of letting us know about the events happening around the world in the background without changing the focus from the current arc – He uses the cover pages of every chapter to reveal details to us bit by bit and yes, the cover stories are canon.

So throughout the cover story arc of Germa 66 from chapter 1035 to 1075, Oda has slowly been showing us the aftermath of the attack on Whole Cake Island.

While the core narrative revolves around the rescue of Niji and Yonji, who were left behind, there are 3 specials chapters that I would like to focus on. Chapters 1062, 1063 and 1064. Again these chapters reveal to us the mindset of Blackbeard.

Blackbeard One Piece

To brief you up, we see Van Augur and Aokiji sneak up on Chocolate town , with Aokiji literally freezing the whole island and its people to kidnap Pudding. Why you ask? Of course its because of her yet-to-be-awakened ability to read the poneglyphs.

Here again we see Blackbeard silently attacking a powerful organization once it has already been weakened after fighting against 2 strong powers – the Straw Hats and then Germa 66.

Going back just to before the start of Wano Act – 2 in chapter 925 , we see an angry Gecko Moria stepping on Blackbeard’s main base – Fullalead just to find out that Absalom has been killed and Shiryu has taken his power. He hears a rumor that the Blackbeard pirates are looking for people with particular devil fruit abilities.

While we all knew what that meant we never knew the true scale of their actions. Only during his recent fight with Law , do we see the full scale of the commanders of the Blackbeard Pirates. Every single one of them has a powerful devil fruit – be it a Super strength devil fruit or multiple Mythical Zoan fruits.

So to sum it up real quick, during the timeskip, when the Straw hats were training and the other members of the Worst Generation were moving ahead, Blackbeard put his full effort into collecting the best devil fruits for his crew members and solidifying his position as a Yonko, while also making preparations to do what he does best, scheme and take over enemies once they have been weakened by others .

Why did Blackbeard attack Hancock?

In chapter 956, when Blackbeard orders his crew to go somewhere, it is very unclear as the direct panels above it refer to something about Sabo. But in hindsight, it couldn’t be clearer.

Since the Warlords had just disbanded, it should’ve been obvious that Blackbeard would try to get them to join his crew.

But why Hancock first? Well, it’s for a simple reason. Hancock’s fruit is very effective against most people, and Blackbeard probably viewed it as a threat.

As he says, he does not want Hancock’s powers to fall into the hands of the Navy. Because, if it transferred to their Pacifistas and Seraphims (which has already been done), it can be very potent, as there is no known counter to it, so far (can you break out of petrification using haki??).

And Blackbeard also knew that Hancock wouldn’t side with him due to her relationship with Luffy. So he tried to steal the fruit for himself. He wouldn’t be able to use it, but no one could use it against him either.

As for why he is fighting Law, it is even simpler.

Why is Blackbeard fighting Law?

Law is a direct competitor to the title of Pirate King, and he had just recently taken down one of the strongest people in the world. A perfect threat to take out just after he’d fought and earned himself a road poneglyph.

Here again, you can see his calculative side. Instead of going head-on against another Yonko, Blackbeard invaded Big Mom’s territory while she was away taking her poneglyphs. And he then proceeded to fight a weaker crew that had a copy, minimizing his losses and effort overall.

Why did he kidnap Coby?

This is where the real questions start. On the surface , Blackbeard has no real reasons to kidnap Coby. His friendship with Luffy is a secret to most people and in the grand scheme of things Coby is still a weak marine grinding his way up in the ranks.

So then why is it that Blackbeard chose to take away Coby?

I would say it is because of 2 major reasons –

The SWORD angle:

Blackbeard might know about the existence of SWORD and likely wants Coby to act as a double agent. Unlike our friendly protagonist’s crew, most other organizations do not care much about spying and backstabbing.

Like the World Government, Blackbeard too has spies in most pirate crews and now wants a powerful one in Marines. It would be even more beneficial to Blackbeard if he was a member of a new secret faction with the Navy, who would one day turn against the authorities due to their harsh and oppressive methods.

It is quite possible that Blackbeard thought of such an idea by seeing Doflamingo’s relationship with Vergo and how it helped him setup his own underworld empire.

To lure in Garp:

Coby is a direct apprentice of Garp and a growing hero of the Marines in his own right. By kidnapping Coby, Teach is essentially luring in Garp to get some information out of him – most probably about Rocks and the location of God Valley.

Think about it. Blackbeard would want to know the location of God Valley to probably find Rocks’ dead body and maybe extract some devil fruit power out of it??

Also as mentioned in a previous article, it is highly possible that Imu used the Uranus to destroy the whole island taking it off the maps of the world. Maybe Blackbeard wants to see the power of the weapon used as his real enemy in taking over the world would be Imu.

Why is Aokiji a member of the Blackbeard Pirates?

After losing the battle to become Fleet Admiral we learn that Aokiji has left the Navy and for a long time we didn’t know what he was doing.

But eventually we learn that he has become a member of Blackbeard Pirates which was completely unexpected and took everyone by surprise.

But to this day it still hasn’t been revealed what his motives are. So we can only speculate and here is what I think.

  1. Just like Blackbeard possibly needs an insider in the Marines, they too might need some spy inside Yonko crews. With Kaido we had Drake acting as the informant. So maybe after his loss, Aokiji decided to take on this role in Blackbeard’s crew as he was one of their biggest concerns.
  2. Alternatively after his loss, Aokiji might’ve decided that the Marines had gone into the wrong hands and would now unjustly persecute people for even the smallest of reasons.

    Hence, he joined the only organization he thought was strong enough to topple over the Marines – the Blackbeard Pirates. This still leaves room for debate as he could’ve also joined the Revolutionary Army but this is all speculation.

Blackbeard’s Grand Plan?

Finally we get to talk about the interesting stuff. We know Marshall D. Teach has been plotting his grand plan for many many years.

The very reason he joined the Whitebeard Pirates was not to gain friends or a family, but to make his search for the Yami Yami no mi easier. For twenty six years he remained on the ship waiting for an opportunity to come by and once it did he killed his crewmate and ran away.

We see his insane amounts of planning and patience to become the Pirate King being shown here. While he might be a coward, he is definitely someone who is ambitious.

Blackbeard on his dream

With some luck and manipulation he was also able to sneak into Impel Down and created one of the deadliest pirate crews to exist.

To top it all off he entered the Paramount War once Whitebeard was weakened, killed him and stole his devil fruit. This just goes to show how much he has thought over and perfected his plan. This man singlehandedly changed the power balance of the world that had been maintained for decades.

If you take a look at his actions, most of them involve him striking a powerful foe once they are severely wounded or weakened.

To understand his grand plan, consider the following scenario:

“Luffy finds the way to Raftel , but gets into a fight with say Kid or Law and defeats them, taking a lot of damage in the process and then being ambushed by Blackbeard who defeats Luffy in his moment of weakness and becomes the first one to reach Raftel after Roger, becoming the new Pirate King “

This definitely doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility. But, if he does want to become the Pirate King, what is driving him to be so?

Alternatively he could be the one to finally start an all out war between the Revolutionary Army and the Marines and taking advantage of that chaos to attack Mariejois and take control of the Throne of the World.

Whatever it might be, one thing is for sure , Blackbeard is planning something big and as a member of the ‘D’ clan his actions will shake the world.

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