Nidhogg — The Jet-Black Dragon That Breathes Thunder
The chapter title itself delivers the answer: Loki’s Devil Fruit is the jet-black Thunder Dragon — Nidhogg. So the color is black. The only traces of Loki’s human form that carry over are his horns and bracelet; the helmet doesn’t appear in the dragon form. Either way, he’s enormous and looks absurdly powerful.
Luffy Actually Listened
Luffy’s new move — “Gomu Gomu no Dawn Thor Rifle” — shattered Somers to pieces, and then Loki finished him with a stomp. Even with immortality, that’s enough damage to take him out of the fight for a while.
But here’s the thing: the only way to deal damage to the immortal God’s Knights is with the same method Loki used to kill Harald. You could only replicate that if you actually paid attention to what Loki said. Which means — Luffy listened? And then applied it in his attack on Somers? Luffy must have been genuinely fascinated by Loki.
Luffy’s Technique Names
When he defeated Golden Lion Shiki:
- Gear 3 form
- No Haki
- A stomping technique with lightning
- “Gigant Thor Axe”
When fighting Don Chinjao:
- Gear 3 form
- Coated with Armament Haki
- Both being Conqueror’s Haki users, the crackling sound effect appeared
- “Thor Elephant Gun”
And now, “Gomu Gomu no Dawn Thor Rifle” — Gear 5 attacks have started including “Dawn” in the name. Is it simply because it’s Nika’s form, or does Gear 5 always maintain Conqueror’s Haki coating? No explanation yet, but probably the latter. So the attack that shattered Somers was “Conqueror’s Haki + Lightning” — the same as Loki’s attack that killed Harald.
Someone should send in an SBS question about the pattern behind Luffy’s technique names!
Dragon-Dragon Fruit
The Beast Pirates’ commanders included many Ancient-type Dragon-Dragon Fruit users. This time, Loki’s is a Mythical-type Dragon-Dragon Fruit. So what’s the model for the regular Dragon-Dragon Fruit? Maybe the Komodo Dragon?
On the flip side, Chopper — he doesn’t seem like a regular Human-Human Fruit user. He’s almost certainly Mythical type. Hopefully his true ability gets revealed and he achieves awakening during the Elbaf arc. Oh, and someone should translate what the squirrel is feeling and tell Loki.
The Mythological Source
The model for Elbaf’s war deity legend is probably Thor, the thunder god of Norse mythology. And Thor too must have been based on a real human who once existed — just like Harald thought Garleya was mythology until it turned out to be real people.
Long before mythology existed — in an era without paper, pens, or writing — the only way to pass down the achievements of extraordinary people was by word of mouth. Some embellished the story; some remembered it wrong. That’s how remarkable humans ended up being passed down to future generations as superhuman figures, and why great people of the past became gods. I think that’s how Oda understands the roots of mythology. So even the gods of myth should have had eras when they lived as ordinary humans. “I wonder what Thor looked like during his human era” — Oda imagined that, and depicted it through the person who wielded Ragnir. The same probably applies to Zeus in Greek mythology — likely just an extraordinary ancient king.
Cover Page Theory
This week’s cover page was “Sabo surrounded by koala cubs.” Those two are probably going to end up married eventually, and we’ll get a future image of “Sabo surrounded by his own children with Koala.”
Speaking of cover pages featuring Koala — the most famous one is Chapter 922.
Chapter 922’s content: Kaido’s Devil Fruit turned out to be a dragon, and he blew up Oden Castle with his Bolo Breath. Strikingly similar to this week.
When you search for past cover pages with keywords similar to a current one, the chapter content tends to mirror each other too — the cover page holds more foreshadowing than it looks.
That’s all for today. See you next week.