I think only One Piece could deliver a chapter of pure, actionless exposition and infodumping and make it this exciting to read. This is the kind of thing other fantasy writers only wish they could make people invested enough in their worldbuilding to get away with. We're following up on the hype of last week's chapter setting up the collapse of the global power structure with a dive into the personal histories of some of the biggest names in the world, confirming again that the end is within sight and Oda's really trying to put his ducks in a row for the big, conclusive lore reveals and final battles.
Interesting that Viz has chosen to change Rox to Rocks. If this had come out before Volume 90 went to print and immortalised Rox in my collection it would have made sense, but after… I don't want to have to buy a reprint for things to be consistent. Despite the issues it sometimes creates, I like that the names and terminology don't change from chapter to chapter in the official release as they sometimes can in scanlations. But whatever, even with this new addition, the list of retcons is still pretty short. These kinds of things are the price that sometimes has to be paid to keep the official translation so close behind the Japanese release.
To be honest, I don't expect Rocks himself to be the most interesting of characters. I'm certainly not expecting him to be secretly alive and also the end boss or anything like that. He's interesting because of the context surrounding him, and I'm sure he'll have something interesting to do in Big Mom and Kaido's inevitable flashback, but on the whole I think he'll be more of a distant, mythic figure with a will to be carried on by one person or another (likely Blackbeard) but with little personal stake in the main plot. Circumstantial evidence suggests Rocks' ultimate goal was chaos and conquest, not to overthrow the World Government for the sake of freedom, but to take the power for himself. This stands in contrast to the nobler but no less chaotic ideology of Roger. I'm sure that in time we'll come to see why both failed (or perhaps in Roger's case decided it was not the right time to succeed).
Some are saying Blackbeard must be a descendant of Rocks, and I'm not sure where I stand on this. On one hand, being someone not related by blood but carrying on the same ideology and goals regardless would parallel Luffy and Roger's relationship. On the other, Blackbeard being a true heir that fails the ultimate goal because he's not the right person, while Luffy not being a direct successor but being the right person to follow up Roger would be an interesting point of contrast.
The Garp and Roger stuff really paints both characters in a new light. I'm glad it's being addressed, the moral dissonance between Garp's obvious desire to protect the innocent and the Navy being forced to participate in genocides and pad its ranks with purchased slaves and so on and so forth. Garp doesn't really get moral highground, since he chooses to remain in such an evil system, but the revelation that the Celestial Dragons would straight up murder him if he wasn't so good at his job is a reassuring show of how hard he sometimes pushes back. All Marines are bastards, but you could do far worse than Garp. But then Sengoku goes on to explain that not just Garp but Roger as well went out of their way to protect the Celestial Dragons and their slaves, he adds very specifically and with emphasis, which 100% does not scan with what we know about either character. If they had just protected the Celestial Dragons, fine, I can see Rocks seeming at the time to be the greater of two evils, but the addition of the slaves in this explanation is so deliberately worded and so out of character that you just know we're being fed a propaganda spin if not an outright falsehood. The true nature, causes and outcomes of the God Valley Incident are probably the thing I'm most interested to learn more about after this chapter.
The news about bounties has interesting implications. Firstly, by setting the ceiling at this point, it undermines basically every possible remaining bounty reveal, from King to the newly re-criminalised Warlords. I think we'll get less of bit part minions hyping up their superiors' bounties and more figures just casually being dropped in the odabox with no fanfare going forward. But the real interesting thing is the reactions of the sailors present for the explanation. There's shock and awe. Even Brandnew says he'll "reveal" the bounties of some legends. I think this implies that Emperors are set bounties mostly as a formality and after a certain point the posters aren't widely distributed or the figures often discussed. It makes sense to a point; after you go outside the law hard enough to be a household name criminal the Government wouldn't need big money to convince people to keep an eye out for you anymore. People know who you are. They'll talk about seeing you if it happens.
The final pages hint again at the idea of the Navy sailing to Wano, but I still don't see it happening. Assuming this is all going on on the day of the Fire Festival, there's no chance they'll make it in time. More likely they're being set up be a factor in the final act or come into the main plot just after Wano ends. Or perhaps, to spitball, when the fighting is done and the country is rid of big name pirates, they might rock up and offer World Government membership or at least an alliance, in hopes of using all those powerful samurai to compensate for the loss of the Warlords. It would make for interesting consequences whether the country's new leadership accepts or rejects an offer like that.
Anyway, great chapter. Can't wait for the next one, but I'm expecting it to be a bit more low key, and probably take us back to Wano. Fingers crossed for an in medias res start to the Fire Festival raid!