@uniaka:
But there is also jimbei as nakama that luffy needs to get, and there have been some wrong things going on in cake island that needs to be solved. BM steals the years of people, same way there was that plot about dressrosa with people that turn into toys.
There is also the thing that Pedro is stealing her poneglyph… and I don't think she just doesn't care about it to forgive luffy. and Pedro said he won't fail this time.
So at the end BM will get the short end of the stick while luffy leaves with sanji, jimbei, poneglyph and is at peace with BM. Nah, way to unlikely.
Big Mom asking for parts of one's lifespan is nowhere near as dangerous as Doflamingo having every single dissenter be forgotten and turned into toys that would immediately be dumped into garbage shafts if they started spilling the beans. Basically taking political prisoners to the extreme. Every Totland citizen is willingly giving away parts of their life to live in a land of racial harmony in the New World, which is plagued with power struggles between the Yonko who probably have all sorts of racketeering corruption when it comes to Teach and Kaido's portrayals so far. Sure, there COULD be a twist where all of the citizens that pick "Leave" instead of "Life" are imprisoned or have their entire souls harvested or something, but there's nothing specific suggesting that Big Mom betrays her word. There is a reason why someone as wise as Jimbei allied with her instead of Kaido, Teach, or Shanks after Whitebeard's flag fell (although I am curious why he wouldn't go for someone as cool Shanks, or if even could. Unless he just parties all day lol).
Don't get me wrong, she's megalomaniacal and homicidal with amassing power through the political marriages of her children and ravaging countries that don't fulfill their food quotas. But the one consistent part of her character compared to other antagonists is that she's actually open to negotiation and respects the selfish pursuits of others as the definition of what pirate life should be. As seen in how she accommodated Luffy's request to declare war on the Straw Hats specifically and not destroy Fishman Island. Or in how she didn't even care about why Jimbei was leaving and entertained him leaving, but only in exchange of playing a game where he would have to give something valuable in return due to Jimbei's power and Fishman Island's resources being highly valued. Big Mom's primarily so dangerous (at least when her illness isn't acting up), not because of being a ruthless pirate that abhors
I don't see why Oda would have this part of her character being into deals be so emphasized if it's not going to play a role in how she interacts with Luffy, who she seems to respect to some degree despite being a rookie. To the point where it looked like she was actually disappointed to hear that Luffy didn't defeat Cracker by the morning and was likely defeated. Not to mention that Luffy's definition of being a pirate is similar to Big Mom's in how he believes he's not a hero because heroes are selfless while Luffy is selfish (such as having to share food), along with his definition of Pirate King being that he is the freest man in all of the seas (hence why he didn't want the Grand Fleet to tag along as a huge burden). Now, I'm not saying that Luffy and Big Mom are going have a tea party and politely talk things out, they're definitely coming to a head. But Luffy is both stupid and prideful enough to take such serious deals (remember that this is the man who naively agreed to a Davy Back Fight with Foxy and declared war with Big Mom right before making it to the New World). Big Mom's shtick doesn't seem to be that she's deceitful as much as that the stakes and likelihood of winning are too risky for most people. Also, Luffy's crew could make enough of a mess of things to put Big Mom in a position where they can get away with their own conditions and idea of an equal exchange.
Luffy "making peace" with Big Mom can occur in a LOT of ways. They don't have to become buddy-buddy, and Totland is going to end up becoming one huge mess by the end of the arc. Big Mom is still not likely to go down, but her forces are going to be weakened with Cracker down, the Vinsmokes (besides Reiju) definitely getting defeated with how irredeemable they're being built up in abusing Sanji and their soldiers, Capone's path to power by betraying Big Mom when the opportunity presents itself, whatever Caesar's antics in making successful gigantification for Big Mom leads up since it's impossible and there is no way the Straw Hats are sticking around in Totland for two weeks when the wedding is tomorrow, Jimbei joining up at some point with the Sun Pirates, Carrot and Pedro being able to rally up the Mink Pirates from the latter's former crew, Nami using her Vivre Card to sway the Homies, Big Mom's abandoned ex-husbands like Pound playing some sort of role, and Nami's weather powers and Brook's soul powers having the potential to manipulate/inhibit/cancel out Big Mom's abilities, and several of Big Mom's children such as Pudding and Praline being willing to to help out her enemies.
Now, this list still isn't big enough to bring down a Yonko (her strength and Haki is still available if her powers can't help, and she's still at least going to try starting up a huge storm at some point from the established hype. And Luffy stalemated Cracker before Nami intervened and presumably hasn't had enough time to fully recover), the rest of her crew including two active Sweet Commanders, Germa 66 before they're defeated, the Firetank Pirates before they rebel, legions of loyal children with Devil Fruits such as Brûlée and Perospero, any other allies that may be present during the Tea Party, her information network letting her know about things ahead of time, and half of the Straw Hats not being present (especially with Nami, Chopper, and Brook being some of the weakest ones). And I'm sorry, Razh, but there is absolutely no way that Pedro and Brook's recon is going to work without a hitch when we know that Pedro and Pekoms' backstory will be relevant in the future along with Brook's Revive-Revive Fruit interacting with Big Mom's soul powers in some way, making their meeting likely (or at least Brook interacting with those shadowy soul constructs that collect soul pieces in a basket). Oh, and the fact that it's Brook who is on the team of all people lol, never underestimate his ability utterly fail. But at least Whole Cake Island is going to embrace pure anarchy on the day of the wedding, that's for certain. However, the Straw Hats still have enough to push Big Mom to a corner where she's willing to negotiate some sort of truce from all of the chaos potentially bringing down the progress she's made in bringing together so many territories, races, and souls.
Additionally, Oda chose to bring the DOCTOR of the Straw Hat Pirates during a halfway crew split along for an arc where one of the main antagonists has a mysterious ILLNESS. That is not a coincidence, and I do not see Chopper inevitable diagnosis and treatment of Big Mom amounting to Linlin not feeling the slightest bit gratitude and debt, along with any follow-up twists on the plot thread her dream of wanting a giant family since she neither knows that Caesar can't make that work and has experimented on children with addictive self-destructive drugs. Capone's future betrayal and Pekoms likely still being loyal to Big Mom but wanting to vouch for the Straw Hats will certainly be a factor as well, along with the explosives from Big Mom being opened by either Big Mom, one of her cronies, or Germa 66 (most likely Germa 66 since there's not really a reason why Big Mom would open a gift she already has instead of one she's given, so she may give to the Vinsmokes as a dowry of some kind since she already knows it has treasure).
Lastly, we have to acknowledge that the big bad that's been built up throughout the New World for the past several arcs is Kaido in varied, yet consistent fashion. He's the spotlight at this point in the story that's been hyped up as a savage monster who attempts suicide as a hobby, gets drunk enough to flip between acting depressed and suddenly venting frustration on his crewmates, whose crew in unable to be negotiated with by wanting to find any excuse to cause destruction (as seen with Jack in Zou) and tortures minions who fail their objective no matter what their excuse is, is helping the Shogun of Wano Country subjugate and isolate that land while trying to find info on the Road Poneglyphs and Raftel and hunting down/killing whoever refuses to confess any leads, the kingpin of the SMILE chain of production and distribution in order to create an artificial Zoan army, and wants to start the greatest world war.
Big Mom's cool and all with her crew razing countries off-panel that fail to pay candy tributes on time and attaining power from alliances through political marriages, but Kaido's the REAL big cheese in the grand scheme of things in the story right now since Moria hyped up how his crew got slaughtered by the Beast Pirates years ago in the Thriller Bark arc (ironically the same arc where a character as significantly connected to Big Mom as Lola appears. I doubt that's a coincidence, especially with Moria being bound to return to the story at some point to get revenge in Wano Country after presumably working during the timeskip after getting beaten three times from being lazy). So I doubt that the Totland arc is just going to be a diversion that focuses on another Yonko without feeding into the Wano Country build-up, especially since Big Mom and Kaido both want Caesar to create their ideal crews and Minks being present (along with the whole Mink traitor side plot). Since Luffy is focused on building up an alliance to take down Kaido, is it really too farfetched to believe that Big Mom might want to take advantage of this and let Luffy's crew go once the tension dies down and both sides' motivations are understood in order to support Kaido's takedown? She has everything to gain from such a situation: a huge rival getting taken out, more territory to claim, another Road Poneglyph being available, being able to keep Caesar for herself, and Luffy and Kaido possibly destroying each other so that two birds are taken out with one stone.
Luffy has an established power at making allies with even the most unlikely of characters, including antagonists like Crocodile. So Big Mom getting convinced to bet on Luffy is certainly a possibility, and a big one at that. However, this will most likely be the only arc focused on Big Mom with how One Piece's plot progression works, and her powers can get weakened enough so that the Marines/World Government or Blackbeard Pirates swooping in later on to gain more power by the final war. I bet on the former since the Vinsmokes' invitation to the Reverie being revoked by becoming Yonko allies is recurrently mentioned, which can draw such a faction's attention.
EDIT: Ugh, such a long wall of test. I apologize! XD But it just goes to show how narratively complex this arc is and why Luffy taking down Big Mom isn't likely.