A short chapter relatively speaking. I had been spoilt by reveal of ragnir and it’s df (Ratatoskr) and also people had then speculated what loki’s fruit was (it’s very likely nídhögger). and my thoery turned out to be wrong.

for those who do not know norse myths (like me 1 week before) - there are 3 mythical beings on the tree of life (yggdrasil - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil) - Veðrfölnir (a eagle which sits/perches on the top), a serpent-dragon Níðhöggr which sits on the bottom (along the roots) and a squirrel Ratatoskr, who ‘carrying “malicious messages” between the eagle and Níðhöggr’. It is considered that it was his lies that angered the nidhogg, and nidhogg then scratched the roots of tree.

Some people also went on and found scrathes in the present day exploration of castle (when luffy, zoro, and gaban were in castle), so this was likely some foreshadowing from Oda.

There is not much for me to say about the chapter, as it is mostly the visuals to take.

It was interesting to know that god knights knew about shanks and try to take him back. I expect roger told them about applying conquerer’s haki coating, which i do not know it was not obvious (like we know you can coat with conq since like big mom and kaido battle), so it was not a big reveal that oda made it be (I was behind the love theory - where you need haki and love, and somehow sanji would get redemption from that).

I do not know how or why rat decided loki was the one. Yes loki was strong, but i would guess that harald was just as strong if not stronger. maybe it liked that loki was a hammer user. so like has there never been a strong hammer user in elbaf line in centuries? was it a judgement of character, or like did ragnir see it is either harald, which it percieved is mad with imu bad aura or whatever ragnir could percieve, vs loki, which is not that bad. still not sure about this. I am fine with loki being strong, but yet another chosen one seems too much coincedence and more like plot filler to make it seem hard or impossible, when it was not. Still unsure about most of it.

beyond that - yeah, with power of 2 df fruits, harald did not stand a chance. I liked the final talk between loki and harald, where they both said I love you. I hope loki is not too heart broken, but he probably is. I feel really sad for him.

Now it seems very clear that there was no fight between shanks and loki (there are some timeline issues that suggest that loki must have gone to see, meet lola, and done some exploits, and then fight with shanks and then be chained). With current power level, I do not see a chance for shanks. if shanks + gaban had a hard time with harald, and loki, won, loki vs shanks solo must be a complete whitewash. My thought process suggests that loki took all blame and just asked shanks to chain him. for the timeline stuff, I would say that oda retcon.

There is likely 1 more chapter of flashback left which will clear out everything, if not, we will resume in present, and then in mid hcapter flashbacks it would be cleared.