Charlotte Linlin

Charlotte Linlin, more widely known as Big Mom, is the captain of the Big Mom Pirates and the only female of the Yonko. She is the matriarch of the Charlotte Family, which makes up the infrastructure of her crew, including specifically herself and her dozens of children. She also rules over Totto Land as its queen, allegedly seeking to form it into an utopia where all the world's races can live together without experiencing discrimination or segregation.

She was the last Yonko to be named; her epithet was first mentioned just after the Battle of Marineford by Eustass Kid and her real name by Pappug on Fishman Island. Along with the Vinsmoke Family, she and her crew form the central antagonist groups in the Totto Land Arc.

Appearance
Big Mom is an incredibly large and obese, buxom woman with a wrinkled face, a barely visible jawline, and a chin that is often hidden by her rotund torso. She has a very wide mouth with full lips sporting red lipstick, large, round teeth, and a long, thick tongue that often sticks out. She also has long, curly and wild, light-colored hair that extends halfway down her back, as well as bulging, bloodshot eyes, a massive, beak-like nose, and plump, round cheeks. She also sports a dark-colored tattoo on her left shoulder and arm, consisting of a large, standard-shaped heart framed by thin lines curled at their bottom ends, which all tops a far smaller heart.

Big Mom often drools large quantities of saliva when talking. When in her frequent fits of rage from not having a certain food at her direct disposal, her pupils take on a spiral appearance.

Big Mom wears a large, dark bicorne hat bearing a jolly roger on the front. She has worn two versions: the first design consisted of a standard skull with crossbones behind it, as well as large flame-like patterns to the sides, whereas its current version has two crossed sabers instead of crossbones, possesses smaller lateral flame patterns, and is imbued with a fragment of someone's soul, causing its skull to change expressions and talk to Big Mom; on its top the hat is edged with a thick light streak, it has a strip snap-fastened to it, and beneath it is a light, polka-dotted bandana fastened around Big Mom's chin. Big Mom also dons a pink dress with red polka dots and white ruffles on its neckline and hemline, with a wide, rippling light cape attached to its back that falls to the ground. The outfit is completed with dark blue high heels, one turquoise pearl wristband on either wrist, and golden, jewelled rings on all her fingers.

Personality
I wonder if we can explain the situation? She is like a monster who would destroy a whole country for sweets! One of the Yonko... Big Mom! Big Mom loves to eat sweets above all else and has all the islands under her external protection pay her with metric tons of whatever kind of confectionery they can produce. She is obsessed with sweets to the point of destroys entire countries for failing to deliver them. Despite this, she does not lose control when Luffy claimed to have eaten all the candy that Fishman Island owed her; instead, she correctly deduced that he was lying in order to protect Fishman Island.

In addition, Big Mom has a peculiar eating disorder where, at seemingly random times, she becomes fixated on a specific food item and goes on a crazed rampage in search of what she wants to eat. While in this state, she will kill and destroy everything in her path—including her castle, her subordinates, and even her own children—until she receives the food she wants. When rampaging, her pupils become crazed and swirly. Once her cravings are satiated, she becomes more affable and retains no memory of her actions during her rampage. Even when calm, Big Mom is voracious to the point of eating her own subordinates when she is hungry.

When calm and thinking rationally, Big Mom possesses a rather businesslike mindset and strongly believes that a pirate must accept no compromises or delays for something they want. Pappug thinks she is protecting Fishman Island with a business perspective since the deals made with the candy qualify as racketeering, though she prioritizes sweets over money and treasure; she initially refused an alternative payment of treasure when Fishman Island's monthly candy tribute could not be met, only accepting out of amusement once Monkey D. Luffy openly stood up to and defied her over the payment. This even extends to her allies and crew; should one of them choose to leave her crew or cut ties with her, Big Mom forces them to give up something precious to them as compensation, uncaring of their reason for leaving to begin with. Similarly, she expects all citizens of Totto Land to sacrifice portions of their lifespan as the price of residing in her country, further illustrating her desire to be compensated for everything she provides.

Big Mom is also selfish and obsessed with power; her marriage of Purin to Sanji is solely for the sake of gaining access to the advanced combat technology of Germa 66,, a process which she is willing to repeat with all her children in order to strengthen her own crew. Big Mom has some interest in the Poneglyphs despite being unable to read them.

There are two things our Mama hates: bitter sweets, and tea-party no-shows. I have seen what happens to people who refuse her invitation out of ignorance. The sight of them breaking down in bitter regret is ohhh so painful to watch! A tea party invitation from Big Mom is tantamount to an absolute summons that cannot be refused! As they say, even the demons of hell dutifully attend our Mama's tea parties! An extremely ruthless woman, Big Mom is infamous for destroying countries over slight infractions (though most often when they fail to make their monthly payment of sweets), disregarding any and all reasons for the failure while rationalizing that she despises people unable to keep their promises. Generally, there are two things she dislikes: bitter treats, and invitees not showing up for her tea party. Demonstrating herself to be very brutal, she does not forgive those who refuse invitations to her tea parties, and she will kill people precious to the absentee as a "present". When it comes to dealing with enemy pirate crews, Big Mom specifically instructs her children and other subordinates to give her enemies false hope before crushing their spirits as brutally as possible.

Big Mom also desires to create a nation where all races can happily live together due to wanting a "family" comprised of individuals of all races that she can dine with at eye level via Caesar Clown's gigantification research. Big Mom is so dedicated to this dream that she is willing to invest massive amounts of money in Caesar's research, even building a working replica of Punk Hazard's laboratory in the event that it was destroyed and offering more financial support after Caesar is brought to her with no results; however, her fixation on this dream rendered her oblivious to how Caesar was simply embezzling money from her for his own indulgences. Her obsession with diversity is not just limited towards her family; she also wishes to collect rare and unique animals for her own pleasure, as explained by her 8th daughter who claims that Big Mom would not be satisfied with just having all the races of the world for herself. She is very jolly when in a good mood and enjoys celebrating the fulfillment of her ambitions with song and dance, but her cheerfulness betrays an underlying sense of malice, as she is completely unfazed by the violence necessary to achieve her goals. She is also willing to completely disregard her children's wishes on marriage for the sole sake of strengthening her crew. She also seems to recognize others by their lineage first and foremost, as she often speaks of others in terms of their relation to their parents and grandparents.

She refers to herself with "ore" (おれ), a very masculine way of saying "I", instead of the gender-neutral "watashi" (私) that most other females use.

Like many others, Big Mom has a distinct style of laughing: "Mamamama". However, she has also laughed in a normal "Hahahahahaha" style (occasionally with a drawn-out "Haaaaaaaa" at the beginning,) and has even combined it with her unique laughter in the form of "Haaaaaahahamamamama".

Crew and Other Subordinates
Big Mom's subordinates call her "Mama" (ママ), and most seem to be afraid of her. Big Mom does not seem to care much for the well-being of her subordinates, as demonstrated when she devoured one of them simply because she was hungry. So far, only the unnamed three-eyed girl and Bobbin appear to be unafraid of her, with Bobbin even having a friendly chat with Big Mom after returning to Whole Cake Island. Big Mom has scolded Tamago for being willing to negotiate over payments promised to her.

To sail under Big Mom, new enlistees must have their families form a connection with the crew; because of this policy, the patriarch of the Vinsmoke Family arranged for his third son to be wed to the 35th daughter of the Charlotte Family. However, in the event that a bride or groom from an outside family has multiple existing affiliations, they must sever connections that are external to the political agreement; this was the case with Sanji, with Pekoms revealing that Big Mom is only interested in Sanji's status as a Vinsmoke, rather than his present membership of the Straw Hat Pirates. For those who wish to leave her crew, Big Mom will allow them to do so, but only if they give up something valuable (such as a limb) as compensation; she uses a roulette to determine the exact nature of the price to be paid.

Jinbe
Sometime after the Battle of Marineford, Big Mom allowed former Shichibukai Jinbe and his crew to serve under her by having her daughter Charlotte Praline marry Aladine. This was enacted in part due to Big Mom placing Fishman Island under her protection, though she allowed the Sun Pirates to generally do as they pleased. However, Jinbe is not loyal to her and is considering severing ties with the Big Mom Pirates, but worries of what Big Mom will do to Fishman island. Jinbe has told the Straw Hats that he will join them once he settles his business with Big Mom. When Jinbe appeared before her with important matters, Big Mom immediately assumed that he intended to leave the Big Mom Pirates and, upon having her suspicions confirmed, demanded that he give up something in return.

Capone Bege
Capone Bege and his crew became subordinates of Big Mom following the Battle of Marineford. In order to seal the alliance, Bege married Charlotte Chiffon and had a son with her. Bege appears to be loyal to Big Mom, as he followed her orders of bringing Caesar Clown and Sanji to her and even shot Pekoms for trying to let Sanji go.

Homies
The Homies are the creations of Big Mom via her Devil Fruit powers. As such they are very loyal to her. She spends most of her time around her food-based homies which she gladly eats, and while they may be fearful, they will not mind being eaten as long as their flavor is appreciated. Despite their loyalty, homies are not above questioning Big Mom, as shown when she went on one of her craving rampages and threatened the lives of civilians and other homies. It seems this loyalty also stems from fear, as homies naturally fear Big Mom's powerful soul and will even be forced to obey anyone who holds her vivre card since it also exudes the essence of her powerful soul which only they can sense. Out of all her homies, Big Mom seems to be quite familiar with her tricorne hat, which seems to act as an adviser or informant, keeping her up to date on recent occurrences and her plans. However, even her hat is not above questioning Big Mom and even begged her to stop her senseless violence when she was on her rampage.

Family
Big Mom has 39 daughters, 45 sons, and 43 husbands, the latter of whom are scattered all around the world. From her 85 children, Linlin also has some grandchildren, such as Capone Pez.

According to Purin, Big Mom marries her children off in order to strengthen her own crew and does not give them a choice in the matter. In addition to this, they are fully aware of how stubborn she can be, and Charlotte Purin herself claims that most of them have already given up on their dreams of marrying someone of their own volition. However, Lola was undeterred from finding a husband of her own and left the New World to find one.

Purin has also stated that Big Mom would never harm any of her children. However, during one of her craving-induced rampages, Big Mom did not recognize Charlotte Moscato as her 16th son and killed him for blocking her path.

According to Charlotte Cracker, Big Mom's husbands mean nothing to her and officially have no connection to the Charlotte Family, demonstrated by how she discarded Pound once she bore two daughters with him and later gave Cracker permission to kill him.

Vinsmoke Judge
Big Mom has formed an alliance with the patriarch of the Vinsmoke Family, Vinsmoke Judge. Through the family, she plans to gain access to the advanced battle technology employed by its army, Germa 66. In turn, Judge wants to use her forces to conquer the North Blue once more and re-establish the kingdom of the Vinsmoke Family. Despite the alliance, however, Judge views Big Mom as a "madwoman". For this reason, he deliberately sought out his estranged son Sanji in order to meet her demands for a blood connection to her family, as he refused to give her one of his "precious" sons.

Protectorates
With her capitalist mindset, Big Mom only imparts protection upon her chosen territories for as long as they can meet the demanded candy tribute and will not hesitate to have them destroyed if they are unable to pay it. Her idea of "protection" specifically offers only protection from external pirate attacks, as Pekoms stated that the local uprising on Fishman Island was none of his crew's concern. The sweets produced by Fishman Island were a particular favorite of hers. She refuses to give any period of grace under normal circumstances, but was willing to do so once for Fishman Island simply because she was amused by Luffy standing up to her.

Monkey D. Luffy
Big Mom knows of Luffy's relation to Garp and of his involvement in the events at Marineford. When she sent her subordinates to collect the monthly candy tribute from Fishman Island and called them after learning that they may not receive it, Luffy picked up the Den Den Mushi and claimed that he was responsible for the island's lack of candy. Big Mom accused him of lying and initally refused the treasure that he offered as compensation, but admitted that he had nerve for standing up to her and decided to target him instead of Fishman Island. In response, Luffy declared that he would defeat her in the New World and claim Fishman Island as his own territory because he could not leave Fishman Island under the protection of someone who would destroy it on a whim.

Luffy's friction with Big Mom further intensified when he discovered that Sanji had been coerced into a political marriage with one of Big Mom's daughters, which would result in him leaving the Straw Hat Pirates. Knowing this, Luffy decided to sneak onto Whole Cake Island and ruin the ceremony.

Monkey D. Garp
It is unknown what her relationship with Monkey D. Garp is, but when she first spoke with Luffy, Big Mom identified him as "Garp's grandson", which is something that he is rarely addressed as.

Sanji
In order to gain access to the technology of Germa 66, Big Mom agreed to an alliance with Vinsmoke Judge. In accordance with her usual terms, she demanded a family connection to seal the alliance, so Judge offered his third son, Sanji, to be wed to her 35th daughter, Charlotte Purin. Because of this, Big Mom primarily refers to Sanji as "the Germa boy" and has ordered her subordinates to ensure that Luffy and his team do not succeed in meeting up with Sanji on Whole Cake Island.

However, in addition to his political value as a member of the Vinsmoke Family, Big Mom has great respect for Sanji's cooking skills and his pirating exploits as a member of the Straw Hats; Tamago further intimates that, if Sanji cooperates with the wedding, it is likely that Big Mom will offer him an even better position within her crew than the one he currently enjoys with the Straw Hats. Sanji, however, has flat-out rejected this offer.

Caesar Clown
In the past, Caesar Clown was commissioned by Big Mom to research and develop a viable method of gigantification. However, Caesar quickly concluded that such a goal is impossible to achieve even for him, and each time when Big Mom asked him about his progress, he simply requested more money to help further his research, only to spend it on hedonism instead. When her crew attacked the Thousand Sunny to retrieve him, Caesar begged the Straw Hats to protect him from her, fearing she would discover the embezzlement should she capture him. When she finally caught up with him, Caesar managed to convince her that his research had nearly been completed before it was destroyed by Luffy and Trafalgar Law during the Punk Hazard incident, but Big Mom merely revealed that she had constructed a replica of the required facility and would continue to offer more funding for him to rebuild and finish the gigantification drug within the fortnight that Caesar claimed he needed, making Caesar fear for what could be the last two weeks of his life.

Abilities and Powers
As one of the Yonko, Big Mom is one of the four most powerful pirates in the world. The Gorosei has stated that she is one of the few people capable of stopping Blackbeard. Even the Straw Hat Pirates recognize that she could crush them quickly and easily if they fought her recklessly.

Through her strength as one of the most powerful pirates, Big Mom has managed to amass a very powerful crew, as well as several strong subordinates such as Jinbe, a fishman and former Shichibukai, and Capone Bege, one of the members of The Worst Generation. She possesses considerable influence within the Underworld as well, having connections to the Vinsmoke Family, which leads the legendary Germa 66. Those who marry her children automatically become part of her crew.

While under Big Mom's protection, Fishman Island is protected from pirate attacks, indicating a powerful influence similar to that of the late Whitebeard. She is known to destroy entire countries over sweets and is intimidating enough that even her underlings Pekoms and Tamago, who are powerful in their own right, are afraid of talking to her when she is angered.

Big Mom's overall influence allows her to gather information about the backgrounds of people she is interested in, with said information being used to issue threats and demands. It is said that even demons would attend her tea parties if they were invited.

Physical Abilities
Big Mom possesses immense physical strength, demonstrated by her ability to climb tall buildings, throw punches with tremendous destructive power, and hurl her servants with great force using only a single arm.

Devil Fruit
Big Mom has eaten the Soru Soru no Mi, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that allows her to manifest the soul of whomever she touches into an ethereal substance. She can grab hold of this substance and extract it from the victim, taking away their lifespan by an amount of her choice and absorbing it into herself; if taken at a sufficient number, it will kill the victim.

She can put harvested souls into non-living things in order to give them life or into animals in order to give them human abilities. Those creatures are named Homies. Unlike the user of the Kage Kage no Mi, however, she cannot put souls into dead corpses or the body of another human. She can also create incarnations of her own soul that will complete the task of collecting souls.

Past
At some point in the past, Big Mom commissioned the rogue Marine scientist Caesar Clown to research gigantification so she could turn her family into giants. However, he used the money she provided to fund his own research and pay for Girls' Ships every night. She seemed to have not noticed, but Caesar feared that if she ever caught him, she would find out for sure.

Timeskip
After the Battle of Marineford and the death of Whitebeard, Fishman Island was once again vulnerable to pirate attacks and to the slave trade. Big Mom decided to protect it in Whitebeard's place, but demanded large amounts of candy as payment, thus leading to the Candy Factory's creation. The Sun Pirates would also ally with her crew for protection due to Jinbe having resigned from his position as Shichibukai.

Fishman Island Arc
After the Straw Hat Pirates and the Ryugu Kingdom defeated the New Fishman Pirates, Big Mom sent two of her subordinates to collect the monthly candy tribute, unaware that the factory had been destroyed in the fighting. Excited for an upcoming tea party at which she anticipated eating the candy from Fishman Island, she asked some of her subordinates if they were also excited, only to subsequently eat them while saying they could continue being excited in her stomach. Afterward, Bobbin returned from destroying an island that had failed to make its monthly candy tribute and reported that everything had gone up in flames. Pleased by this, Big Mom commented that the baked sweets from that country were delicious and that the island must have smelled wonderful as it burned down. Upon learning that Fishman Island might not be able to make their monthly payment, she demanded that a call to be made to the island at once. Pekoms and Tamago were too nervous to answer when the call went through, so Monkey D. Luffy answered it instead. When Luffy claimed that he had eaten all ten tons of the candy meant for her tribute, Big Mom accused him of lying, but Luffy insisted that he spoke the truth and offered her their treasure as compensation. As an offended Big Mom declared she would only accept candy and that she could not eat treasure, Tamago informed her that Eustass Kid had recently sunk two of their ships and the crew was in need of money to cover the damages, which meant they should accept the gold and allow Fishman Island two weeks to recover and make new candy. Though she further insulted by the suggestion due to her belief that pirates should not compromise, Big Mom admitted that she had become interested in Luffy and decided to shift the target of her wrath from Fishman Island to Luffy alone. In response, Luffy decided that it was too dangerous to leave Big Mom in charge of Fishman Island and declared that he would defeat her when they meet in the New World before announcing his intention to claim Fishman Island as his own territory, utterly infuriating Big Mom.

Zou Arc
Sometime after Sanji and his group arrived at Zou, Big Mom and Sanji's father arranged a political marriage between Purin and Sanji in order to unite the bloodlines of the Charlotte and Vinsmoke Families.

Totto Land Arc
Three days before the tea party, Big Mom oversaw the wedding preparations. As she sang and danced with her underlings, she looked forward to the wedding and revealed that she knew of Luffy's presence in her territory.

Some time later, Big Mom suffered from a severe craving for croquemboche and went on a rampage in search of it, eating anything in her path. As she tore through Sweet City, her sixteenth son tried to calm her down, but she ended up killing him in a blind rage by taking away his lifespan. Suddenly, Jinbe arrived and stopped her by giving her the croquembouche she desired. After she calmed down, Big Mom thanked Jinbe for the Poneglyph he had delivered earlier, only to grow serious and question if Jinbe planned on severing their alliance when he mentioned that he had something to discuss with her. Later, after Jinbe explained his desire to leave her crew, Big Mom did not care about his reason for doing so, but was greatly displeased by the loss of manpower this would cause and demanded that he give up something in return.

When Caesar Clown was brought to her castle a day later, Big Mom asked him about his gigantification research before revealing that her dream was to create a huge family consisting of all the races of the world and gigantify them using Caesar's research. Caesar claimed that it was progressing but had been hindered by Luffy, Trafalgar D. Water Law, and the destruction of his lab on Punk Hazard, so Big Mom provided Caesar with a new lab and gave him two weeks to complete his research.

On the next day, Big Mom was informed that they would soon be welcoming the Vinsmoke Family. Big Mom asked about the preparation for the wedding cake and was told that it was on schedule for the wedding day. She then asked about a status report on Luffy's team and was assured that Cracker would deal with them. She was also informed that all the Vinsmoke children had arrived at Whole Cake Island.

Translation and Dub Issues
In One Piece Green: Secret Pieces, Linlin's epithet was romanized as Big Mom. However, in Chapter 610, her name was romanized as Big Mam. Later, in Chapter 651, her name was again romanized by Oda as "Big Mom" when Sanji was fantasizing about her appearance.

Support Appearances

 * One Piece: Super Grand Battle! X

Trivia

 * When Tamago stated that the sweets-loving Big Mom was a female pirate, Sanji imagined her as an attractive redhead.
 * Brook believes that Linlin earned her epithet of "Big Mom" because she is the matriarch of a family of 129 people who are scattered across the world.
 * She shares her name with the real-life pirates Charlotte Badger and Charlotte de Berry, although in their case Charlotte is their given name.
 * Similar to Kaido, the real appearance of Big Mom differs considerably from the silhouette shown during Monkey D. Garp's explanation of the Yonko. Unlike her early silhouette, she has a rounder nose and rounder teeth. However, this may have been due to changes in her appearance over the timeskip or because her character design was not yet complete.
 * While the Big Mom Pirates, and Totto Land as a whole, seem heavily inspired by fairy tales and fantasy fiction, Big Mom in particular shares traits with several characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland novel:
 * The Queen of Hearts with their extreme selfishness, their similar appearances (obese, bulbous nose, and a very wide grin), abnormally size, and the way they dress. They both also have the tendency to order the decapitation of others.
 * The The Hatter with their obsession with tea parties.
 * The Duchess with their insane mood swings, oversized head, ugly face, and treating their children, and anyone else they see as subservient to them, in ways convenient only for themselves.
 * During Big Mom's rampage through Sweet City due to craving croquembouche, she climbed a tower, roared, and waved her other hand in rage, similar to the famous actions of King Kong.
 * Her rampaging for sweets is similar to the children that were experimented on by Caesar Clown at Punk Hazard during their candy rehab. It was later discovered that Big Mom was the one who ordered and financed that experiment.
 * She is the only Yonko who has not been shown using a weapon.

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