Theory on Bartholomew Kuma

Tenhou

Hello everybody. My name is Kelvin, and I would like to share with you a theory that I've had for a while about Bartholomew Kuma. I've searched around, and I didn't find any similar theories, but I'm sorry if you've posted it before.

You can find a copy of this theory on my Tumblr.

I've had this hunch for a long time. It just came to me one day; I don't know if this has been posted before, and I hope no one steals this:

When English words are introduced to the Japanese language, they can become corrupted when they are shortened or mispronounced.
For example in English, the acronym VIP has each letter in the acronym pronounced (vee-ai-pee), but in Japanese it is pronounced as it looks: vip (as in it rhymes with the word tip).

Now on to my theory-

Consider this about Bartholomew Kuma:

He carries around a book entitled Bible
He pushed the StrawHats to seemingly non-random locations in a deliberate manner.

No consider these facts:

The word Bible can be read in Japanese as biburu (like bee-boo-roo).
The One Piece term Vivre Card is read in Japanese as ビブルカード or biburukādo

I believe that the book that Bartholomew Kuma carries around is an index of Vivre Cards of important and significant people. Notice that when he asks people where they would like to go, he is flipping through his Bible. When looking through it, he is confirming a target person's location so he can send the individual in front of him to that location with a certain degree of accuracy.

That's just my stupid theory. I think it'd be pretty fun if I was right.

zerocustom1989

Well, they would all point in the directions he would need to launch the characters…

No character ended up on a desolate location, though some ended up in places that had seemingly unimportant people...

Idk, that could be true. Neat idea.

Xajen

Wow… That's very insightful. I've had my theories on One Piece that turned out to be correct but this one is really interesting.

Vermouth

No, no, the theory about biblecards and the bible relation is interesting.

Xajen

If I were to share this with fans on other forums, what name would you want it to be credited to?

Tenhou

Thank you all for your input. Xajen, I've already made forum topics on sites like MangaShare, Yibis, OneManga, and MangaHelpers to see if anyone else can add to this. Thank you for wanting to spread this, and you can credit the theory to Tenhou if anything. I hope I can spark some more ideas to other people who can piece other parts together.

herr_sebbe

Great theory. I know vivre is the French word for "live", but I never though about the fact that Bible is spelled the same way in Japanese. If this isn't correct, then I'll actually be a little disappointed. :P

Perhaps they're the Vivre Cards of people connected to the revolutionaries somehow. We already have Ivankov and the curly hair guy, so I wonder if people like Herakles and Haredas would have some sort of tie to them. Though, Mihawk and the tribe people, dunno.

iPenguin

I really like this idea. Every island had life on it so I think it may work. My objection would be that some of the islands (such as Chopper's) didn't really have anyone that would stand out enough to have their own card.

I think this also explains why Kuma knows so many islands, and their directions, even though the world doesn't have a full map.

StrawHatRican

AT first I was gonna shrug off this theory but then I went back and found the chapters in question.

http://manga.animea.net/one-piece-chapter-473-page-15.html

Kuma is STRAIGHT up writing on that Bible.

Anyone with high level scans should go back to that chapter.

And then in Saobody… I couldn't find a SINGLE instance of Kuma looking at his Bible in both manga OR anime.

But the Thriller Bark action remains...

icel

Wouldnt he have had to take Perona's fingernails to be able to send Zoro to where she was at?

Xajen

Nevermind. I see what you mean now…

NANLIT

Interesting theory.

Don Quichotte De Flamingo

Even when he knows in which direction those Vivrecards are pointing, they wouldn`t give him any hint how far he has to shoot his targets.
SO sending someone in a specific direction 1mile to far could mean he ends up in the ocean(cause there are just islands).
So how would he be able to get the target exactly as far as needed?

Xajen

@Don:

Even when he knows in which direction those Vivrecards are pointing, they wouldn`t give him any hint how far he has to shoot his targets.
SO sending someone in a specific direction 1mile to far could mean he ends up in the ocean(cause there are just islands).
So how would he be able to get the target exactly as far as needed?

We don't know all the details on his Devil's Fruit and he is a cyborg so he may have the ability to calculate things like the projected distance for his power.

I don't think hypotheticals that lack information are a very good argument for disproving the theory. I think he's dead on.

StrawHatRican

Yeah… Let's ignore the fact that he was writing on the Bible. >.

Don Quichotte De Flamingo

@Xajen:

We don't know all the details on his Devil's Fruit and he is a cyborg so he may have the ability to calculate things like the projected distance for his power.

I don't think hypotheticals that lack information are a very good argument for disproving the theory. I think he's dead on.

He wasnt all the time a cyborg^^ (kay we dont know if he had this ability before), but when just a cyborg is able to use the fruit right..mehh

Also like SHRican says now for the second time, we have the fact that he actually writes something in his book.
How exactly would that fit in this theory?
I mean this theory sounds cool and stuff but we have definitely some points who point against it.
Non the less some good thoughts at least.

StrawHatRican

I'm not saying the Theory is 100 percent on the point. All I'm saying is… WHY is he writing on the Bible?

Don Quichotte De Flamingo

I could think of him writing down where he sends which target (maybe because to remember later after Vegapunk turned him in a full cyborg).

Xajen

@StrawHatRican:

I'm not saying the Theory is 100 percent on the point. All I'm saying is… WHY is he writing on the Bible?

Maybe he's writing down coordinates or just keeping record of where he sent who and when etc.

What Don said as well^. My memory of a few parts of One Piece are a bit fuzzy atm but I recall Kuma warning that he'll soon be completely converted and won't be the same so that seems likely.

Captain Shmeckie

@StrawHatRican:

I'm not saying the Theory is 100 percent on the point. All I'm saying is… WHY is he writing on the Bible?

Interesting find. I'm sure we'll find out later, but it is curious… I couldn't begin to guess why, though. As for how he knows where to send people, I always assumed he could just decide what location to send someone to as part of his power.

Cyber-Robin

I like how nobody has mentioned the fact that Kuma used to be a Revolutionary. Robin is the light of the Revolutionaries apparently. They are supposed to ensure she lives.

Kuma sent her indirectly to somewhere he knew the Revolutionaries were gonna find her.

I'm sure the rest were important too. Although we don't know how much information he has on the crew (Although considering Shakky said she was already a fan of the crew and knew how to appease Chopper.) it seems that he has deliberately sent them somewhere they can train.

Xajen

@Cyber-Robin:

I like how nobody has mentioned the fact that Kuma used to be a Revolutionary. Robin is the light of the Revolutionaries apparently. They are supposed to ensure she lives.

Kuma sent her indirectly to somewhere he knew the Revolutionaries were gonna find her.

I'm sure the rest were important too. Although we don't know how much information he has on the crew (Although considering Shakky said she was already a fan of the crew and knew how to appease Chopper.) it seems that he has deliberately sent them somewhere they can train.

I'm so excited to see exactly what they need her for, most likely something with poneglyphs but best of all, this should guarantee a new Robin P.O.P. I hope she gets released first.

Don Quichotte De Flamingo

@Cyber-Robin:

I like how nobody has mentioned the fact that Kuma used to be a Revolutionary. Robin is the light of the Revolutionaries apparently. They are supposed to ensure she lives.

Kuma sent her indirectly to somewhere he knew the Revolutionaries were gonna find her.

I'm sure the rest were important too. Although we don't know how much information he has on the crew (Although considering Shakky said she was already a fan of the crew and knew how to appease Chopper.) it seems that he has deliberately sent them somewhere they can train.

But that is not rly of help for the theory..
I mean "why" he send them there could have many reasons, and we all know that he saved the SH with that.
But the questions was "how" he managed to punch them exactly to the spot they landed^^

paranoik0s

@Don:

But the questions was "how" he managed to punch them exactly to the spot they landed^^

1)it may be a cyborg ability he has from vegapunk(We dont know if he was sending ppl flying before being a cyborg)

2)exceptional master of color of observation(detects everything and everyone)

3)if a target whose vivre card u have is close to u and moves a little,then the vivre card will change direction.this wont happen if he is far away as the movement of the vivrecard would be tiny.

4)he has already been in all these places so he know sthe distances.we have seen him travelling a lot

these are the reasons i can think of now :P

vorlianis

@paranoik0s:

1)it may be a cyborg ability he has from vegapunk(We dont know if he was sending ppl flying before being a cyborg)

2)exceptional master of color of observation(detects everything and everyone)

3)if a target whose vivre card u have is close to u and moves a little,then the vivre card will change direction.this wont happen if he is far away as the movement of the vivrecard would be tiny.

4)he has already been in all these places so he know sthe distances.we have seen him travelling a lot

these are the reasons i can think of now :P

I would have to refute the 3d reason i just am rereading the manga and completed yesterday Thriller Bark Lola said the vivre cards hold no clue whatsoever towards the distance of the person.

JERK DISEASE

This is a very good theory overall.

Gekko135

I don't really have anything to add, but damn this would be kinda cool.

Tsukishima

That's an interesting theory, but it really needs to be completed in order to convince me.

Airflow

Yeah this is pretty much true.

Nice find.

Mr M

it is indeed a cool theory , we will see if it is true

Lucky Roux

This really is a good theory. Maybe he just writes in the bible to note where he's going to send everyone? Would be cool to find out his powers for sure.

Mokenda_mint

Dammit I love this idea

Sakonosolo

It's obvious that Kuma just likes to deface The Bible :sideways: .

Pretty good theory, though. Although wouldn't Bible in Japanese be バイブル (baibulu) and not ビブル (bibulu)? I suppose your mention of corruption could account for that, though. I'm really looking forward to finding out if this is true or not, though.

Vivvi

I really like this theory, but whose vivre card would it be on the bird island Choppa was sent to? or the island Brook was sent to?

Xajen

@Vivvi:

I really like this theory, but whose vivre card would it be on the bird island Choppa was sent to? or the island Brook was sent to?

We can keep asking questions like that but it's known fact that there are almost always characters or events happening that never appear on page or on screen.
His theory sounds pretty dead on and we'll just have to wait and see as more information presents itself. No point trying to disprove his theory with arguments based on nothing.

Gokuyuske

If so, Kuma would be the ultimate spy. He has access to pretty much the entire government, so he could make Vivre cards for all of them.

Also does you name come from mahjong, Tenhou?

brennen.exe

@Tenhou:

I believe that the book that Bartholomew Kuma carries around is an index of Vivre Cards of important and significant people.

Pretty interesting theory, but I think it relies a little too heavily on the unlikely scenario that Kuma had cards for people like Hereclesn, Heredas, or basically any of the other unnamed or unimportant people on the various locations the crew arrived on. It also begs the question of how or why he has Moria's, Mihawk's, or Hancock's, as well as why Mihawk's worked without him being present. A few of those could be easily explained, but there are a ton of red flags (IMO).

@Tenhou:

I hope I can spark some more ideas to other people who can piece other parts together.

An adjustment to the theory that Urouge thought of is that Kuma had multiple cards made for himself, and then he planted them at various islands throughout the world for travel purposes and such. As his own anchored cards, it makes more sense that he has so many, and seems a little bit more logical in general given he has ease of access and travel as a warlord with such a Devil Fruit. Of course, it still runs into a few of the same issues yours does.

Rubber Fist Luffy

What about what the other dude mentioned?
Kuma didn't look in the book before sending each of the crew members.
Unless he memorized where he's going to send them and the direction, that could always be a possibility.
Either way, that's a nice theory you came up with.

UsoppSpell

@brennen.exe:

An adjustment to the theory that Urouge thought of is that Kuma had multiple cards made for himself, and then he planted them at various islands throughout the world for travel purposes and such. As his own anchored cards, it makes more sense that he has so many, and seems a little bit more logical in general given he has ease of access and travel as a warlord with such a Devil Fruit. Of course, it still runs into a few of the same issues yours does.

You possess great Color of Observation, Tenhou.

Great adjustment there by Urouge as well. Let´s say that he has the direction of the Repel down. If he somehow figured out a way so that the paw field that keeps them flying is affected by the individual island's magnetic pull, then what could have happenned is that the Strawhats landed at the magnetic center of their respective islands. This would mean that Kuma would only need to know the direction and make the subject cruise at an altitude in which they would be affected, which he does.

maxterdexter

Remember, the cards aren't pointing to people but to other cards, kuma could have gone calmly island to island (or use other revolutionary, Marine or WG agents) to plant his own vivrecards on islands all over the world, as they are supposed to be indestructible, and islands are BIG there's bound to be places where to hide the cards.

And Rican, Kuma most likely had planed where to send every strawhat before going into battle, and memorized each direction. It was a fast paced battle, there wasn't any time to spare.

Overall a great idea. Kuma could be always be hiding the "card" part of the "bible" with his arm.

Ryuunaga

I like that idea very interesting I was at first expecting another person saying a theory about him not being really "dead" and actually be working for the Revolutionaries but this is good too lol

Strohhut-Ruffy

good one, tenhou!

GotRubber

@StrawHatRican:

AT first I was gonna shrug off this theory but then I went back and found the chapters in question.

http://manga.animea.net/one-piece-chapter-473-page-15.html

Kuma is STRAIGHT up writing on that Bible.

Anyone with high level scans should go back to that chapter.

And then in Saobody… I couldn't find a SINGLE instance of Kuma looking at his Bible in both manga OR anime.

But the Thriller Bark action remains...

Nice find on Kuma writing in his Bible. If Tenhou's theory is true, perhaps Kuma was creating a Vivre card for Perona before sending her away. The reason why there was no need to do the same for the SHs is because he had already gotten the chance to do so @ Thriller Bark when everyone was passed out.

alexamasan

Great insight, could be very much true…no way to prove it though

I survived the buster call

Am I missing something? I thought the cards needed to be unencumbered in order to move and show the direction–(thinking of all the times we saw Luffy placing Ace's card in his hand, freely, to find out where he was by watching how the card moved---so if the pages of the bible were bound, I don't see how that would work, since they couldn't move and show direction by their movement. Perhaps instead they are vivre cards placed loosely, like bookmarks, into a real Bible, or even an atlas, with the cover of a Bible, with teh appropriate card on teh appropriate place page?

tigerlilly

@StrawHatRican:

AT first I was gonna shrug off this theory but then I went back and found the chapters in question.

http://manga.animea.net/one-piece-chapter-473-page-15.html

Kuma is STRAIGHT up writing on that Bible.

Anyone with high level scans should go back to that chapter.

And then in Saobody… I couldn't find a SINGLE instance of Kuma looking at his Bible in both manga OR anime.

But the Thriller Bark action remains...

I think this could be a very important piece of the puzzle to understanding Kuma's powers. He might be writing down random stuff about Perona to remember who was sent where, when and why. But it might just aswell be a vital part of how his power works. Anyway, good eye Rican.
Also kudos Tenhou, nice discovery, and if your descriptions are for real, this sounds like a wordplay oda could go for.

@Cyber-Robin:

I like how nobody has mentioned the fact that Kuma used to be a Revolutionary. Robin is the light of the Revolutionaries apparently. They are supposed to ensure she lives.

Kuma sent her indirectly to somewhere he knew the Revolutionaries were gonna find her.

I'm sure the rest were important too. Although we don't know how much information he has on the crew (Although considering Shakky said she was already a fan of the crew and knew how to appease Chopper.) it seems that he has deliberately sent them somewhere they can train.

About this one, Kuma seems to know so much about people it's a bit creepy. Chopper's shtick with the cotton candy is pretty easy to keep track of (with him eating it on his Wanted poster ). Also knowing about Robin and her past should be basics for a former revolutionary.
However he knew of Nami's talent for weather, Chopper's conflict between his animal and human side, he knew the revolutionaries were planning to attack Tequila Wolf next and were bound to stumble over Robin there.
Also he knew that it would be safe for Luffy on Amazon Lily, a place infamous for its contempt for men. The only explanation is that he knows of Hanock's past and thus knew that after Luffy's actions concerning the Tenryuubito, the leader herself couldn't do him any harm. I really wonder how he found out about that one, or if he just sent him to a men hating island at a venture. It might look like everything was a gigantic coincidence, but I say Kuma was a walking talking encyclopedia, smart and sneaky as hell.

maxterdexter

Considering Kuma's skills he could be very well present in the whole eines loby incident. Or more likely he went back to drum (or wherever necesary) and found out about the strawhats, or the revolutionaries did for him.

Chopper's info is the key here, he's used monster point 3 times, drum, eines and shabody, and unless kuma reacted quickly enough to change his master plan in the fly, he either got better intel than WG or went to drum.

Smash_Lampjaw

I like this theory and would really like to see it prove to be true in some form. However, for those of you saying that it's dead on, I have a question. If Kuma must rely on other means to determine the exact position of a location he would like to send someone, why is it that he needs to look up a vivre card to tell him the direction?

In other words, if some quirk of his fruit or cyborg technology allows him to know that X island is exactly Y distance away from his current position, why are we thinking that he needs some other source (the cards) to tell him which direction that would be? The nature of the distance calculation strongly suggests previous knowledge of the direction IMO.

To me this is more of an all or nothing kind of theory, either Kuma can somehow get a lot more information out of vivre cards than your typical person (and is thus using the vivre card to get ALL of the info he needs), or he doesn't really need cards to do his transporting tricks. Even if he's not using cards to directly help him transport people though, I'd not be surprised if he IS collecting them for other reasons. The relationship between vivre and bible is certainly suggestive in any case.

Silvers Rayleigh

@Smash_Lampjaw:

I like this theory and would really like to see it prove to be true in some form. However, for those of you saying that it's dead on, I have a question. If Kuma must rely on other means to determine the exact position of a location he would like to send someone, why is it that he needs to look up a vivre card to tell him the direction?

In other words, if some quirk of his fruit or cyborg technology allows him to know that X island is exactly Y distance away from his current position, why are we thinking that he needs some other source (the cards) to tell him which direction that would be? The nature of the distance calculation strongly suggests previous knowledge of the direction IMO.

To me this is more of an all or nothing kind of theory, either Kuma can somehow get a lot more information out of vivre cards than your typical person (and is thus using the vivre card to get ALL of the info he needs), or he doesn't really need cards to do his transporting tricks. Even if he's not using cards to directly help him transport people though, I'd not be surprised if he IS collecting them for other reasons. The relationship between vivre and bible is certainly suggestive in any case.

If you search, Bartholomew on google, a saint will come up in the 1500's, so far all of one piece, (blackbeard, whitebeard) names were taken out of history some way or another. Hense the Bible.

Pipio

edited.

After learning new information about the vivre card. It is quite possible for Kuma to have his bible full of vivre cards. But after thinking about it, isn't the only reason for log post and vivre cards is because the grand line weather is so drastic you could get turned around any second, but the island them selves never move right? If Kuma had a Gps system installed in his brain he wouldn't need vivre cards placed on each island.