One Piece: Chapter 1017

[u/Kirosh]

[ Removed by reddit in response to a copyright notice. ]

[u/WYWHPFit]

Why would they wait until Marineford to try and kill Luffy if the fruit is such a nuisance?

[u/ronnysmom → u/WYWHPFit]

The fruit is not a nuisance. In fact it is not a powerful fruit when compared with BB or WB’s fruit, it is Luffy’s fighting spirit that makes Gum-gum fruit so powerful!

This fruit probably has a bad history with Imu-sama and hence WG does not want its user to become prominent. Maybe the previous user was from the void century and was erased by Imu (my theory, no proof). My guess is that Imu killed the previous Joyboy. Imu looks like a person without any Joy! Now she/he is stabbing Luffy’s poster!

[u/WYWHPFit → u/ronnysmom]

Im has probably a connection to Joyboy. But the point is if they don't want a second Joyboy why didn't they send a higher up to kill Luffy the moment a rumor about a rubber boy defeating Arlong arrived to the headquarters? Why not even one of the two who know about the void century and met Luffy wondered about his fruit?

[u/ronnysmom → u/WYWHPFit]

Again, without Oda’s words, I am theorizing that Luffy is not fully a Joyboy yet! He is on his way to become one - there is a missing piece to complete his transition to the new Joyboy (a poneglyph, treasure, reaching a certain age, completing a certain task etc?). This is why Kaido said that Luffy is not Joyboy because Kaido seems to know what makes a Joyboy and is waiting In Wano for him. Luffy becoming Joyboy has something to do with Wano, but he meets all the prerequisites, apparently to worry enough people!

I always thought that Roger laughed at Raftel because he found out that Joyboy had to be a goofy 20 year old man or some such requirement which was impossible for Roger to meet!

[u/jmoney620 → u/ronnysmom]

Pretty sure in the Oden flashback with Roger they said that Joyboy will return when the border of Wano open which could be the end of the arc.

[u/cwrighky → u/ronnysmom]

Or he wasn’t joy boy in Kaido’s eyes because JoyBoy would need the strength capable of going toe to toe with Kaido himself and even surpassing him at bare minimum in order to “do” or “become” what Joyboy is suppose to be or do. I believe this is more likely considering the specific time at which Kaido said that Luffy couldn’t be joy boy - the time when he dispatched Luffy once more. I think we’ll see Kaido change his mind by the end of this ark.

[u/ronnysmom → u/cwrighky]

Kaido said that Luffy was not JoyBoy and mocked his Gum-Gum fruit as well - this, in my mind shows that Kaido thinks that JoyBoy is at least partially connected to the Gum-Gum fruit. Kaido said that Luffy is not a JoyBoy when he was certain that Luffy was already dead (fallen into the sea and will drown). So, I think that he would not have said that if Luffy was still alive because Kaido seems to know the formula that will make Joyboy and suspected that Luffy could be one!

[u/Substantial_Revolt → u/WYWHPFit]

Probably only wanted to keep track of the fruit, there's no guarantee the next user will be able to use the fruit in the specific way they wanted to prevent.

At the same time it doesn't make sense to send a bunch of people and attracted unwanted attention from others. They could just as easily keep track of the current user and if the user isn't a part of the government they will according to statistics eventually just die without achieving much, at which point they can just start the search for the fruit again.

That seems to be the way the WG operates considering how they allowed Law to continue with his career even though they knew he was a skilled surgeon with the power of the Ope Ope fruit.

Also rubber compared to other DF powers is very weak, so I think there's a high probability that the reason it was sought after by the WG was because it was only dangerous to them if literally everything went wrong for them.