The following post contains spoilers for the “One Piece” manga up to chapter 1165.
Author Eiichiro Oda is one of the best fiction writers and artists working today. Whenever you want to feel more frustrated about the seemingly lack of progress on the next “A Song of Ice and Fire,” consider that Oda has been publishing new chapters of “One Piece” every single week pretty much uninterrupted since 1997, with few exceptions and never longer than a month at a time. This is part of what makes “One Piece” such a legendary manga, one of the best-selling books of all time, and an equally legendary anime. Sure, the high chapter/episode count can be daunting, but it just makes this story a true epic that’s worth embarking on because it just keeps getting better with the years.
In that time, Oda has mastered the art of the callback and the pay off, planting small seeds that take years and at times decades to pay off — like, say, a dumb Marco Polo joke. Indeed, now that “One Piece” is approaching its end after nearly 30 years, we’re starting to see some pretty spectacular payoffs, from finally introducing Elbaph 26 years after it was first mentioned, to revealing Shanks’ origin story and much more. Arguably, the biggest feat of the current Elbaph story arc flashback is how it introduced arguably the greatest character after 28 years and made him unforgettable in just a handful of chapters.
We’re talking, of course, about Rocks D. Xebec, the captain of the strongest and most infamous pirate crew in history, a man so feared his name was all but erased from history, and is also the coolest pirate in all of “One Piece.”
A legendary pirate named Rocks
“One Piece” readers first heard the name Rocks back in chapter 907 (published in 2018) when Marine Rear Admiral Hina mentions the Rocks Pirates in conversation with Monkey D. Luffy’s grandpa, Garp, as an old group that was active decades before the start of the story. A bit later in chapter 957, former Fleet Admiral Sengoku instructs some recruits in the history of legendary pirates and explains who the Rocks Pirates were, describing them as an incredibly strong group of legendary individuals, some of whom went on to become Emperors of the Sea — Big Mom, Whitebeard, and Kaido. Sengoku described their captain, Rocks, as someone fearful enough to keep those mighty pirates under control, saying that the group was so violent they often fought one another to the death on their own ship.
At the time, we knew only that Rocks was so feared, so strong, that only the combined forces of Garp and the future king of the pirates, Gol D. Roger, were enough to defeat him. Rocks was considered so strong, so legendary, that we would probably not properly meet him, and we only did seven full years after his name was first introduced.
When we first met Rocks, he was still an antagonistic figure, one who was idolized by the giant prince Loki as a little kid (who then Rocks beat up in a fight when the kid giant asked to join Rocks’ crew). But Oda quickly switched gears and turned Rocks into a complicated figure, one with a lot more in common with the likes of Luffy than readers expected, starting with the news that Rocks once killed a Marine Admiral, a feat we haven’t heard anyone accomplish in “One Piece” before.
Rocks is a tragic figure
Sure, Rocks was still a violent and ruthless pirate who conquered and destroyed entire kingdoms and islands, but he was also a man with the specific goal of toppling the ultimate villain of “One Piece” — the world government. Not only that, but Rocks was also revealed to be the only person we know of to confront the mysterious and overpowered leader of the government and live to tell the tale.
If Blackbeard was once considered to be the truest pirate in “One Piece,” not only because he’s the closest to the archetypical look of a pirate (minus the eyepatch that continues to elude the story), but because of the chaos he unleashed, Rocks (who happens to be his father) is even more so the ultimate pirate — or at least the idea of one. Rocks not only fought against authority, attempting to shake the world, but also someone fun enough to quite literally gather a crew by playing the silliest game in “One Piece,” the Davy Back Fight, in which pirate crews play dumb games, the winner of which gains a crewmember of the losing team. He pillaged and he plundered, but he also had fun sailing the seas, befriending giants, and even creating a literal pirate republic like Nassau.
That’s what makes Rocks’ downfall so tragic, that we knew it was coming, but not the context for it. We knew Rocks would need the two other strongest men alive to take him down, but when the time came to show Rocks literally begging his rivals to kill him after being possessed by a demonic entity, Rocks went from the ultimate villain to one of the most tragic figures in “One Piece,” which is saying a lot.
