User blog comment:Fliu/New Thoughts on the Whole Cake Island Arc/@comment-53539-20171122004806

A lot of the toughness of the 4 Emperors seems to just enforce what Whitebeard was described as, as being a monster. I don't expect them to be tickled into submission.

I said it before, the problem with burning Shanks' flag is Bartolomeo has basically declared war on Shanks... This is going to mean that Luffy is brought into the conflict because of his links to this guy. Even if Bart discovers the truth on Shanks and Luffy, what has been done can't be overlooked because of Shanks' reputation. Shanks himself doesn't want a war, sure, but... At the same time his hand will be forced. It may proved to be the thing that gets Luffy and Shanks into a fight because the pair will have their hands tied over the matter. If Luffy even defeats just 1 Yonko, he himself will have crippled the 3 powers and possibly ended up being declared one. Two yonko cannot meet without the WG noticing it.

I half suspect that in the end, Blackbeard will be the random event that will cause either a team up of multiple pirate forces, or the WG's fear of a alliance between yonko. Either that, or he interfers with Luffy and Shanks' conflict, causes Shanks to be killed and Luffy goes after BB for what has happened, as it will be the second time someone of value has perished because of him. There was a bet going on years ago, that Shanks wouldn't survive the storyline alive and it was a debate on if BB was going to be the one to do so. I'd like to see if our theories from pre-2008 came true.