Dr. Vegapunk has presented a theory on the origin of Devil Fruits, but it still doesn’t explain how the Fruits with more abstract powers came to be.

WARNING

The following contains spoilers for One Piece Chapter 1069, “All Things Are Brought Into This World With Hope,” by Eiichiro Oda, Stephen Paul and Vanessa Satone, available in English from Viz Media.

Chapter 1069 of One Piece, “All Things Are Brought Into This World With Hope,” was surprisingly enlightening. Dr. Vegapunk presented his theory that Devil Fruits came about because of desires to have certain powers. If that’s the case, however, then people must have some pretty odd desires.

A lot of fans like to talk about the absurdity of certain Devil Fruit powers. Dr. Vegapunk’s theory implies that someone once wished to have these absurd powers and that’s why there’s a Devil Fruit for them. However, perhaps there’s more to it than that. Devil Fruits might not be the direct result of desires but rather an abstraction of them, which would cover far more Devil Fruits than Vegapunk’s initial theory.

Does Vegapunk’s Theory Explain Abstract Devil Fruits?

According to Vegapunk’s theory, every Devil Fruit power represents the desire of someone to have a certain power. The Fruits manifest these powers and lead those who eat them down a branch of evolution that allows them to develop their powers. The essence of this process is unnatural, which is why it incurs the wrath of the sea, the origin of all life. All of this is just a theory, but considering how it comes from the world’s smartest man, it carries some weight.

This theory covers a wide variety of Devil Fruits, but not all of them. While there would be people who would want to fly or turn into an animal that could fly, not many would think to fly by turning their body parts into propellers. These unusual manifestations of powers that nobody would consider are what bring Vegapunk’s theory into question.

It’s also questionable how Devil Fruits with more complicated powers came to mind. Fruits like the Hobby-Hobby Fruit or the Op-Op Fruit, while intriguing, come with all sorts of activation conditions, restrictions, additional abilities, and adverse effects. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would have all of these things in mind when thinking of what kind of powers they would want. The whole point of this line of thinking is to imagine freedom from limitations.

This would be one thing if there were just a few Devil Fruits like this, but there are a lot of weird powers in the world of One Piece. There are people who can steal shadows, wash others like laundry and hang them to dry, manipulate butter, swim on land instead of in water, and become a jacket. Powers like these sound highly impractical and random at first, so it’s difficult to imagine why anybody would think about having them.

Where Could Abstract Devil Fruits Have Come From?

It’s possible that these odd and complex powers came about as an adverse effect of becoming Devil Fruits. Someone could have wanted a certain power, but the way the power manifested was up to the discretion of the Fruit. For instance, the basic desire to repel things led to the creation of the Paw-Paw Fruit; this Fruit ended up having the then-unforeseeable consequence of adding paws to the eater’s palms and creating paw-shaped techniques. The eater can even repel concepts like pain and exhaustion. Other such unintended results of Devil Fruit powers could be the mutation of whatever initial desires led to their conception.

of course, this all assumes that the Devil Fruits came about through means not entirely within human control. The way Dr. Vegapunk refers to Devil Fruit powers as unnatural could imply that their design was more than an act of conception. They might have been an artificially engineered phenomenon by someone who desired these powers, possibly a scientist or scientists from the Great Kingdom. However, that could also explain why the Devil Fruits have more complex powers than one might be able to imagine on a whim.

However abstract Devil Fruits came to be, it won’t be clear until more about them is revealed. Vegapunk’s theory has only just been presented, so there’s still plenty of space for interpretation and changes. If there’s a more concrete origin to be given for Devil Fruits, it should make the logic behind the seemingly-illogical Devil Fruits more apparent.