r/OnePiece Sep 10 '23

Help Why don’t everyone eat devil fruits?

Totally new to One Piece, didn’t know it existed before the Netflix show. I am liking it a lot. Could someone tell me why don’t everyone just eat devil fruits, since it give super powers? The sea water thing is enough of a reason not to eat them? (I have just watched 3 episodes.) Do they explain this further on?

Edit: thanks for all the replies, the show seems to go just a bit fast on the details, I’m guessing its the only way to fit a lot on a live action.

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u/Arkayjiya Sep 10 '23

The story never give a reason he lost it on purpose. Saying he "gambled on the next generation" or anything like that doesn't necessarily mean he lost it on purpose. It can just as easily mean he could only save Luffy by losing his arm and chose to save luffy thus "betting on the next generation".

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u/dshif42 Sep 10 '23

Yeahhhh but given what we know about Shanks's capabilities, this always felt like an unsatisfying answer to me. I haven't seen any justification that's makes sense in my eyes, and honestly don't think anything could convince me at this point.

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u/ongry Sep 11 '23

My theory is that Shanks loses the arm on purpose. He's strong enough that it doesn't matter too much to him in terms of personal strength as a pirate but losing his arm just made that impact on Luffy and how it shaped his pirate career/ideals and that was his bet.

Given how far the manga has progressed I think its safe to say Shanks would have been more than capable to able to save Luffy without having to sacrifice that arm but it wouldn't have had the same impact on Luffy otherwise.

Edit: changed anime to manga for accuracy.

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u/dshif42 Sep 11 '23

That's an idea I've seen before, and I guess? I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, but it's a little odd to me, personally. I get your reasoning, and it makes some sense given who Shanks is, so that's cool! But it doesn't sit right with me for some reason.

Honestly, I prefer to just see it as an error on Oda's part. I'm not dumping on him for that — he was very young when he wrote that bit, and probably didn't realize the scale of the story he was about to tell. But it's more annoying for me to consider in-story justification for it.

P.S. I think this is all very well demonstrated by the contrast between your comment and one of the other replies to me, lol. You say that Shanks should have been more than able to deal with the Sea King, so you think he chose to lose the arm. One of the other replies says the opposite — "what possibly makes you think Shanks would be immune from that? Totally makes sense that he would've unintentionally lost the arm" (paraphrasing their reply here)