Eiichiro Oda is a master at creating incredible twists, and One Piece fans are shocked time and again by his amazing reveals. Hiding an important character in plain sight is nothing new to him, which is why a fan theory claims that the notorious pirate, Rocks D. Xebec, had escaped death despite the official records stating otherwise.
According to the theory, Rocks was still alive when One Piece began and was even featured in the present. It’s just that no one was clever enough to catch Oda’s trick. All suspicion falls on Dr. Hiriluk, the quack doctor from the pre-time skip era of One Piece.
Eiichiro Oda Hid Rocks D. Xebec in Plain Sight
According to a fan theory, Rocks D. Xebec is actually Dr. Hiriluk. Xebec was the notorious captain of the Rockls Pirates who was supposedly defeated by Monkey D. Garp and Gol D. Roger working together. Dr. Hiriluk, on the other hand, was a quack doctor who always experimented on unsuspecting humans. He is the father figure of Chopper. So how do these characters, who are poles apart from each other, be the same person?
Dr. Hiriluk was a criminal before he reached the Drum Kingdom. He also had a heart disease that he believed was cured by a serene vision of a grove of cherry trees in a Western country. Rocks was defeated at God Valley; it is possible that Hiriluk is actually referring to the battle at God Valley when he says he was cured. What if the battle with Garp and Roger forced him to open his eyes toward the right path?
Dr. Hiriluk wasn’t originally from the Drum Islands and often told Chopper about the outside world and how small the island is by comparison. He was also fond of pirates, calling them great men of the sea. All of these point to the fact that Dr. Hiriluk was indeed a pirate and the worst one at that. According to the timeline, Dr. Hiriluk died when he was 68 years old, which happened 10 years before the current timeline. God Valley happened 38 years before the current timeline, so that means Dr. Hiriluk/Rocks was 40 years old during the God Valley Incident.
Rocks D. Xebec Turned a New Page During His Final Years in One Piece
Assuming that Dr. Hiriluk was indeed Rocks D. Xebec in One Piece, fans would obviously ask why such a huge change took place in the character. It is possible that his last major battle left him to reflect on the way he had lived his life. So when he received a second chance, he dedicated it to being who he really wanted to be: a mad doctor.
Dr. Hiriluk was a quack, and his skills were mostly experimental; this aligns with a person who suddenly wanted to be a doctor with no real experience. He eventually loved Chopper and raised him as his own son and apprentice. Chopper is a testament to the fact that Hiriluk had indeed forgotten his past to begin a new life.
Another fun fact is that the first island attacked by Blackbeard after acquiring the Yami Yami no mi was Drum Island. Did he know Rocks D. Xebec’s identity all along? Did he wait for the doctor to die so that he could procure something Rocks might have left behind?
One Piece is available to read on Viz Media, and the anime is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
