@Maju:
because the entire point of that cover story was to show us where past characters are now..and there it is,makino is still in the village and she has a baby,being now grown up and all, end of the story.
it's mostly the fans who made an huge deal of that.
Actually, the point of why Oda does cover stories in general is to almost always build-up future plot threads, both big and small. And the few cover stories he's done showing what past characters are currently doing are no exception to that. They're being kept fresh in our minds so they don't feel like an awkwardly distant memory when we see all of them, even just as cameos, during the Final War of the story bound to tie-in everybody the Straw Hats have met.
A few examples include Wapol being made the king of Evil Black Drum Kingdom, which we now know is tying into the Reverie, Vivi and her attendants getting clothes ready for the Reverie, Sabo leaving a newspaper and three sake cups at Ace's grave hinting that he didn't actually die, the Fishman Island kids wearing straw hats in honor of Luffy most likely being tied into Shyarly's vision of a silhouette wearing a straw hat destroying Fishman Island (she merely assumed it would be Luffy. Not that it still can't be Luffy though), and Shanks attending a wedding where someone in his crew (most likely Lucky Roo since he is the only absent crew member on those pages) probably getting married to someone to potentially promote an alliance (I'm betting on a girl from Elbaf as that island continues to become more and more relevant).
This is why you don't judge scenes and characters purely based on their current context. You need to consider the author's viewpoint and purpose for establishing these events, and expand your mind towards considering possible future contexts that put a twist on what the author may want your expectations to be so that they can surprise you.
but we already know that he has no freedom of movement..it's not something up to debate or to conjecturing…we already saw what happened when shanks moved to meet with whitebeard, we know the marines have surveillance in place...and we know the pirates are considered bad guys in the east blue too,so the possiblity that shanks can make a long journey like that without anyone noticing it's improbable at best and impossible at worst.
The Marines tried to stop it. They didn't. The Marines only acted in the fear that the two Yonko may ally with one another. That does not mean they will act to pursue a Yonko if they are traveling to islands or other oceans solo, like Kaido (the user in this forum, not the Yonko lol) already stated.
conjecturing has to start from something in the story..you cite shanks vs blackbeard..while i might not agree with the whole "blackbeard has to kill shanks for the fight with luffy to be personal" stuff,at least right now you are citing SOMETHING in the story that can hint to that..the scar, Teach saying that "now it's not the time" when Shanks asked him if he wanted to "dance" at Marineford..that is something that you can use as a lever to craft a theory…the "shanks made a baby with makino" theory has none of that..there's not a single thing IN THE STORY that hints at a relationship..it's all outside, all conjecture, no framework.
that without considering the problem with the plotholes that open up with that theory, problems that the shanks vs blackbeard theory doesn't have.
Ah, my bad. You're positively right. Conjectures can only work if you have evidence to start from in the story. Let me cite you something in the story to read on that shows Shanks' friendly relationship with Makino.
Chapter 1 of One Piece
They like each other, they have sex off-panel at some point in the series because they apparently like each other more than we thought, and then Makino has a baby shown post-timeskip. There's nothing complex or too assumptive about that at all. And we know that Oda isn't the biggest fan of showing romance as a notable focus in this series, especially pre-timeskip, so I doubt he would care about wanting to show Shanks and Makino's romantic relationship. Which isn't different from how Roger left Rogue or how Yasopp left Banchina alone on other islands, and reinforces how much Oda likes having deadbeat dads be admirable pirate characters.
again,oda patterns. if you wanna rely entirely on them without any kind of tangible proofor hint,even minimal, it's up to you..and to be honest your MO it's basically the 95% of theory crafting around onepiece.
In the end,is a fictional story..tomorrow Oda could eat too many mushrooms and end onepiece next chapter with bagy founding the onepiece by mistake, but i hold Oda to an higher standard…that's why i was so disappointed with whole cake island....if i want things to come out of nowhere and make no sense, i read fairy tail.
If I believed solely in Oda's patterns without understanding WHY and HOW he does those patterns, then I would be one of the people ignorantly believing that Luffy would defeat Big Mom in this arc like most of the previous arc antagonists. There is tangible evidence and hinting. It's merely nuanced and not made an emphasis of the story right now. Like all of the plot threads and twists Oda sets up early on before they become majorly relevant to the story. It doesn't matter how big a theory is if all of the evidence and connections are consistent and don't defy basic logic.
Yes, this is a fictional story where Oda can do whatever he wants. But that does not mean that doing whatever he wants will make One Piece stay a good story. He needs to consistently stick by what he has established in the series to still make it good. And by reading off of how he works as a storyteller, I can make effective conjecture on where he will most likely take the story. Conjectures may not be 100% certain since that requires full-blown confirmation in the manga or from the author's mouth. But that does not mean they cannot be 99.99999999% certain either.
Seriously, authors don't make up whatever stuff they want for a story and expect it to sell. What you're saying is basically doubting for the sake of doubting, which does not prove anything, without actually presenting effective evidence to support your case after it's been constructively criticized. If something new comes up in the story to indicate that a theory is no longer as accurate as it once was. I will always take it into account. But until then, I will stick to both what the story has shown thus far and my knowledge of how the author operates to note where the story will most likely go. You can continue to doubt for the sake of doubt if you want, but that's literally admitting you don't trust yourself or anyone else to predict future events in a story. Which is always possible to do. Obviously, theorizers are not always right. Even Greg's been wrong plenty of times. But that does not mean their thoughts do not have credibility behind them that made their theories plausible.
Oda can eat mushrooms and make up random stuff, it's always possible. But something being possible does not equate to being likely. And I hope you don't think that all theories are equally likely/unlikely just because their theories. That's a sloppy way to review likelihood of the future in general, not only with a fictional story.
yeah,it was stupid,and it has as much as a foothold as the "shanks and makino had a baby theory" in my eyes, as in, no foothold.
Presuming that a female character had a baby with the one guy we know is available and had a good relationship with her should count as a foothold.
nothing says they have to get makino and the baby the exact moment of the conception anyway..once they have the info,it's basically free to use from then till either the child or shanks dies from natural causes,so the child and makino are not safe anyway.
and still that's the last of the problems with this theory,since shanks still has to somewhat reach Fusha without being spotted,and that's a pretty long journey just for a little of action with a girl he met 10 years before. which they cannot know without following him,thus still knowing where he is going
also the only islands the marines have shown no interest in protecting are the ones run by shichibukais and the one outside of the WG..they still have the duty to protect,they can't allow a yonkou to go invade islands and then say to the population "well,we weren't really suuure he was gonna attacking,so we waited to see how things went, sorry for your now rided and burned to the ground island"
Who says that they even want to use the East Blue info or if the Marines even have the info in the first place? The only reason the Marines looked for Roger's kid was out of the sheer possibility one may have been left behind in the year proceeding his death, out of hilariously unjustified fear of his legacy being an excuse for making an unborn child a scapegoat to abduct or even kill.
Shanks doesn't need to care about being spotted. The Marines won't do anything without probable cause to arouse immediate action, like taking over East Blue or possibly allying with another Yonko. Also, not every Marine presence on every island is going to want to report on Yonko or pirate activity in general. Assuming they even know about it. Nobody we saw in the East Blue even knew whether Devil Fruits were real or not, so information networks can be wonky when stretched out so far.
The only thing the Marines can reasonably do is gather information, but that is assuming they even have the reach or capabilities to find out whoever Shanks decides to sleep with behind closed doors. The Marines are not the NSA where they have cameras everywhere to watch everybody's movements. They may control the Blues, but that does not mean they have significant and powerful presences in the Blues either. In fact, the Marines watching the movement of the Yonko are probably only relevant whenever Oda deems the plot needing it.
You're thinking too hard about lore circumstances that Oda himself probably doesn't care about at all aside from establishing character hype and future plot events whenever it's convenient.