@Blissed:
I mean, using that logic, what happened to the people saying we'd get a proper candidate from Wano? There hasn't been as much chatter in here period.
That was mostly born as a counter argument.
The general consensus is toppling Kaidou and Luffy becoming a full fledged emporer,and the story heading into its final sprint of its last few years, is just too big a deal for anyone to still come in after that. And both sides largely agree that feels like its the case. Wano and beating Kaidou made sense as the deadline as far back as four or five years ago. Of course, Luffy became an emporer since then and the Big Mom stuff has gone in a crazy direction, so stuff is upended that way.
(Also, setting the arbitrary "they missed too much stuff" deadline means half the crew didn't meet Laboon Brook did, and Zoro didn't meet Gaimon but Usopp did in the anime, and some of them never met Mr. 2 or Vivi, and so on. Someone has always missed something, even from the start.)
But based on "It's gotta be Wano cause where we are in the story" the Carrot argument becomes "well its now or never for somebody, and she's the only one here right now with any chance." ANd in Carrot's case that has to be the hard deadline because if she doesn't leave with them after this arc there's no sensible place to put her back in.
So, with the standard being set, what else can be said to that except "well, she's not joining, but Wano is going to be a big arc."
Very few people set their foot down on "there HAS to be a member from Wano because Wano!" and more just… if its a hard deadline, the arc is big enough to have space for someone. But that only matters if its actually a hard deadline, and not just a goalpost set years ago based on the overall outline of the story we could see that far back.
I've said for months only Oda knows all thats coming, and he's almost certainly got an island or two hidden we know nothing about, and there's still 10 years to go, there's space. ( Also a dash of "well, Oda's holding off Jinbe for SOME reason")
So you end up with cases like Bone Spitter guy. Where we know absolutely nothing, and its a complete joke to say "Bone Spitter for nakama!" but at the very least, he was set up like 10 chapters ago and haven't had any follow up at all on that. WHich isn't "Aha, he's the next crewmate!" but "man, Oda teasing something for that long means its probably important." Given how many other reveals he's just jumped right to a chapter later.
See also the fact that he showed off Pudding years before she showed up.