Blackbeard’s Transplant Theory

There are a lot of theories flying around, about why Blackbeard is able to wield two devil fruits. Some think he have split personalities, which I think is unlikely because it’s already been done

The other prevalent theory is that it’s a feature of his devil fruit. I don’t like that explanation, because it breaks one of the big rules of devil fruits. It’s the same reason I don’t like the idea of a water devil fruit.
From there, the theories gets increasingly outlandish. My favorite is the one I saw not so long ago, that BB had taken WB’s power by eating his genitalia.

Well, I have a theory of my own.

Why did he cover WB with a blanket before taking his fruit? I’ll tell you why.
It’s a magic trick. Blackbeard wanted it to look like he’d eaten two fruits. But he didn’t actually. He even says it himself:

I’ll give you the ultimate show.
His crew may or may not be in on it, since they’re helping him set things up.

So what actually happened under that blanket? Well, we do have one clue. Like that one kid in the audience who knows you’re hiding the penny up your sleeve, Marco saw through Blackbeard immediately.

If it’s BB’s body that’s strange… One possibility is that Blackbeard has recieved transplants. He does look like a person who’s been beaten to the inch of his life some time in the past, lacking teeth and is that a broken nose or is he just ugly? He might have had a mechanical arm in the past, which would explain why his crew knows about his body, and why Shank’s scar looks like someone clawed him in the face. Blackbeard might actually have done that, before later replacing it with an organic arm. Remember Blackbeard has a doctor in his crew, who, honestly, looks like transplants are right up his alley.

But what does that have to do with magic tricks, you ask!

Well, just because you have transplants, doesn’t mean you can eat two devil fruits. And that’s exactly my point. BB didn’t eat two devil fruits.

He infused the df into his transplant. Now, we’ve always wondered what would happen if an object got a logia or a paramecia fruit. I remember a theory once about Nami’s staff getting the yuki yuki no mi. Fascinating stuff. Obviously, the problem is that the df needs a mind to move it.

With a transplant, you pretty much get around that problem. It was still a pretty big gamble of course. If it’d gone wrong, Blackbeard could have blown up, or just ended up with a fake arm with a gura gura no mi that couldn’t be controlled.

As an aside note, did anybody else notice BB’s mysteriously dissapearing beads? I noticed it while pouring over the pages looking for clues.

*Theory by Birdy