Who Is Davy Jones?
Davy Jones’ Locker is a legendary expression long famous among sailors.
There was a lying, good-for-nothing pirate named Davy Jones, a very greedy boatswain. One day he was cursed by the devil to live forever on the ocean floor. Since then, every ship, sailor, and treasure that sank into the sea was locked away in his locker on the sea bottom, never to be found again.
Pirates use it as: “Throw it into D. Jones’ locker!” = “Sink it to the deep and kill it!” (from Vol.38 SBS)
In terms of One Piece, the lying boatswain evokes Usopp, and the one who greedily hoards all the crew’s treasure is Nami.
Furthermore, the fact that Rocks — Roger’s rival — worships Davy Jones suggests that Davy Jones is the very embodiment of what Oda imagines a pirate to be — an extremely important figure?
Disney Homage
The final boss of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is Davy Jones — a monster with an octopus face and a crab hand.
In One Piece’s Fish-Man Island arc, multiple scenes and characters pay homage to Disney’s Davy Jones.
The Flying Dutchman
In the Disney film, the ship is called the Flying Dutchman. The curse setting is almost identical to Davy Jones’: doomed to wander the deep sea in eternal torment.
The captain was replaced by Vander Decken — a pirate cursed to wander the deep sea forever in divine punishment — but the ship name and the curse content follow Disney’s Davy Jones exactly. A clear Disney homage.
Gyro the Crab-Handed and Hody Jones
As you can see, Disney’s Davy Jones has an octopus face and a crab hand. Gyro the Crab-Handed is clearly a homage to Disney’s Davy Jones.
Furthermore, the pirate who destroyed Gyro’s crew in the deep sea is named Hody Jones — combining ‘H’ (from Hoddy, a play on ‘Davy’) and ‘Jones’, the surname of Davy Jones himself.
Thus, the early Fish-Man Island arc took Disney’s Davy Jones apart and distributed his elements across multiple characters. The deep-sea adventure was also packed with Tokyo DisneySea attraction references (Submarine Voyage, Prometheus Volcano eruption, Mermaid Lagoon Theater).
Why Does Rocks Worship Davy Jones?
Now then — why is the deep-sea legend Davy Jones worshipped by Rocks?
Rocks’ Ambition
Rocks’ ambition is to become King of the World. To achieve that, he: assembled a crew of future Emperors (Whitebeard, Big Mom, Kaido); attacked kings at God Valley; clashed with Roger and Garp; and more.
He already radiates enormous presence — so where in his profile do we find the ‘lying, greedy, no-good boatswain’ qualities of Davy Jones? Sharing the trait of greed hardly explains worship.
Everything That Sank to the Sea Belongs to Me
“Everything that sinks to the sea is mine!! Ships! Treasure! …People! Nations! Continents!! Even the world itself!!“
Vegapunk’s revelation: more than half the world sank to the sea floor. In other words, Davy Jones — who owns everything on the sea bottom — became the owner of more than half the ancient world. He could be called the true King of the World.
Interpreted this way, Rocks’ ambition to be ‘King of the World’ perfectly aligns with Davy Jones’ dominion. This may be why Rocks is described as a Davy Jones worshipper.
Turning the World Upside Down
Roger’s famous words to Rayleigh — ‘turn the world upside down’ — are generally read as ‘a revolution to overturn the power structure of rulers and slaves.’ However, after Vegapunk revealed that most of the world sank to the sea floor, a new reading emerges:
‘Physically flip the world — reverse the sea floor and the land.’ Perhaps Roger wanted to restore the world to how it was before Im’s reign?
If they find and activate One Piece (the ancient weapon), they could control sea levels or land height — literally reshape the earth. Even Avalo Pizarro’s Shima-Shima Fruit could manipulate land at an enormous scale; an ancient weapon of One Piece caliber could do hundreds of times more.
Raise the sunken continents back above the surface — the world reconnected by land, people able to travel freely again?
Lupin III Homage
Miyazaki’s debut theatrical film: Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. This blog has frequently analyzed Ghibli homages in One Piece, and the Egghead arc was itself a homage to Lupin vs. Clone Man. Surely Oda would work a Cagliostro homage into the very end.
Im is Clarisse, Joyboy is Lupin
Cagliostro is remembered for all time because of Zenigata’s final lines: ‘He stole nothing… except for a woman’s heart.’ The irreplaceable treasure of the whole castle turned out to be Clarisse’s heart. Could she ever move on to her next love after that? She’d likely think of Lupin forever.
Im and Joyboy share the same dynamic as Clarisse and Lupin. Im, who has been in love with Joyboy for over 1000 years, is Clarisse in the timeline where she could never move on.
