Naruto wanted to be Hokage and there were a whole string of people between him declaring it and him becoming it.
Luffy already won't be the first pirate king, and it's been implied that Rayleigh. Shanks or Whitebeard could have gone to Raftel any time they wanted but none of them have, because they know what OP actually is and aren't interested. (Also Buggy has surprisingly shown zero interest in it.)
Given all that… sure, Blackbeard can be king first, then be beaten. If he's only pirate king for a couple hours and then Luffy beats him and becomes new king, history isn't going to care that he's the third instead of the second. He's still top dog in the end.
Just like becoming Champion in Pokemon. Your rival gets to be the champ for about 10 minutes before you beat him.
Similarly. Zoro doesn't get to fight Mihawk (unless he already did.) Dissapointing after decades of buildup, but that's just how the story flow works. That dream died narratively the instant Mihawk took Zoro in as a student. But the readers get to share in that dissapointment... and be mad at the badguy for taking that away.
@.access:
I find amazing that people are able to entertain the possibility of BB becoming Pirate King before Luffy, while Carrot joining the crew is something completely unthinkable.
One is about escalating the stakes and making things even more personal in the endgame and making the villain "officially" bigger and badder than everyone before.
The other is about a character's uniqueness and role compared to other characters.
They're completely different things, and even if they weren't, people are allowed to have multiple layers of ideas about things.
I've never really thought about it before as a thing because BB is obviously the final war villain and the timetable on him offing SHanks is weird, but it makes perfect sense in light of the fact that Luffy's status has already been officially raised to an equal billing of Emporer.
But him remaining an Emporer when Luffy will have already beaten half or 3/4 of them and is declared one himself… that's just not as impressive as it was two chapters ago.
Previously I'd just always assumed Luffy would become PK after beating Blackbeard, but his new inflated status giving them equal billing, makes that less workable dramatically now. ANd we cant very well have Luffy be king and facing BB who is "only" an Emporer, that's completely wrong for the underdog narrative. Emporer vs. Emporer is weak too, especially since we've already had (offscreen) Shanks vs Kaido and will have Shanks vs. BB, and on ELbaf may get a mix of all of them. Emporer vs. EMporer can't be the final battle, that's not escalation anymore. Lowly nobody Luffy vs. Emporer sure. But Emporer Luffy? Not so much.
while Carrot joining the crew is something completely unthinkable.
It's not unthinkable. It just means that if she IS the last one, Oda has completely dropped the ball in several areas he's consistently been strong in. First impression, unique design, and super dramatic flashback.