Blackbeard is one of my favorite villains in the series, and the discussions/theories involving him had been, at least for me, one of the highlights of the One Piece fandom. I’ve seen the most popular theories about Blackbeard, especially those about his 3rd rumored Devil Fruit. While the popular consensus is that his 3rd DF will be a Zoan (which I agree with), I am not sold on the idea of it being a Cerberus devil fruit, mostly because all of the evidence for this is Blackbeard’s Jolly Roger (the 3 skulls).
My theory is that Blackbeard already owns a third Devil Fruit, in the form of a Mythical Octopus fruit Tako Tako No Mi, Model: Kraken or Model: Akkorokamui (Japanese Kraken). I’ve had this idea for a while, considering it as just a crazy idea, but after the revelation of Kaido’s Uo Uo no Mi, Model: Seiryu (Fish fruit), the idea of an octopus fruit is not as wild anymore.
First, I’ll go through some relevant information about octopuses, and then expand on how this relates to Blackbeard’s character.
As you all know, octopuses have a really strange body, even for invertebrates. The only animal remotely similar to them are squids. Most octopuses have 8 arms, 3 hearts and a very well developed nervous system. Actually, 2/3 of an octopus’s nervous system is located in their arms, meaning that their tentacles have, more or less, a mind of their own. If you cut a tentacle, it will continue to move, even being able to grab things, and pulling them to a now missing mouth. They can regenerate though. However, because of the arms’ high sensibility, the octopus is unable to create a mental image of its body, and has low control over its arms’ movements.
Another particularity about octopuses are their 3 hearts: though only one of these pumps blood through the whole body, the other two pump blood through each of the two gills. However, their main heart stops when they are swimming, tiring them very quick; that’s why they mostly crawl, using their tentacles. Apart from this, octopuses are known to be very intelligent, they can camouflage within their surroundings, they shoot ink. Another interesting things about them is that they rarely sleep, and even when they do, it’s in a safe space for them.
So, how does this relate to Blackbeard? Ever since his introduction in Jaya, we’ve been given hints that Blackbeard’s body is not normal, finally being confirmed by Marco at the end of Marineford. It’s possible that Blackbeard ate the Tako Tako No Mi before joining the Whitebeard Crew. While a bit of a stretch, it is not impossible for Teach to have hidden his power for 20 years.