Was mother Caramel eaten by Big Mom? And does eating Devil Fruit Users transfer the powers?

Question

My question is divided into 3 subsets that have been bothering me for some time now. But they are all related to a theoretical way of gaining devil fruit abilities.

1. In the flashbacks of Big Mom's past, Mother Caramel and all of Linlin's (Big Moms) friends "disappear" after her food rampage. In the background we see Streusen, and he is obviously terrified by what happened. In the anime, it was stated that Mother Caramel disappeared. Big Mom herself has no memories about the event.

Is it a coincidence that Big Mom has the exact same devil fruit ability as Mother Caramel? Or could it be the case that Mother Carmel was eaten by Big Mom?

2. If we assume (1) to be true, can we also assume that eating Devil Fruit Users will give a person the ability of the fruit?

If so, is it required to eat the entire devil fruit user, or would the person need "only a bite", like how only a bite is enough to attain the abilities from the fruits?

3. If (1) & (2) are true, can this help in answering how Blackbeard stole Whitebeards "Earth quake" devil fruit abilities?

I know the last question is only a speculation, because we don't know why Blackbeard can have two powers, and there are some theories out there why he is able to. But could this explain how Blackbeard gained Whitebeards abilities?

Answer 1

The answers are 3 different levels of "I don't know".

1. While technically we don't know, I believe that we can say that Big Mom probably ate Mother Caramel and the other children. While there may be some survivors, this was heavily implied by the scene in question. She is demonstrated to do similar things later in life under similar situations. Furthermore, we can speculate that Big Mom is so emotional about Mother Caramel's photograph because she is in denial. I would actually be interested in hearing any other interpretations but I'm certain her saying "Mother" eating a large confection was the exact moment.

2. We don't know. While she is shown to have Mother Caramel's ability soon after eating her, she ate a lot during that event. It is probable that, if there were any fruit in the area, should would have eaten that too (devil fruit or not). We know the devil fruit transfer was shown to be immediate with the salamander fruit so timing makes sense.

Let me ask you these questions to consider:

• How did Bartolomeo, the cannibal, get his devil fruit?
• Have we ever seen any other cannibal or creature eat someone with a devil fruit? If a Sea King would eat a DF user, he would almost immediately die.
• What constitutes eating? Luffy has been bitten and/or swallowed on a number of occations.

We do, of course, know that if you eat Luffy, you will get food poisoning (Oda said so).

3. We definitely don't know. I am certain that we will eventually learn what happened as long as Oda continues to write. Whatever happened will be more complicated than just cannibalism or bringing the right fruit. I will note that the hole in White Beards chest would make it easy for Black Beard to access either the stomach or heart without us noticing that he took it.

Answer 2

Here's some extra points to consider that I didn't see above

There were 2 witnesses to the event that know the "truth" but it was purposefully left ambiguous for US, the viewer - meaning, what you THINK happened will most likely be a misdirection so that revealing the "truth" is surprising later. There's no reason for Oda to plant witnesses otherwise! He deliberately left what they know a secret!

One of her daughters can manipulate memories, this might be a future plot device for revealing big mom's or the cook's memories.

Caramel's ability is directly linked to souls and giving/taking life. I don't know what she's capable of, but there's certainly room for a caveat here where she could transfer or fragment her soul. I think this has something to do with Caramel's abilities transferring to BM. It's just too unlikely BM would find the right devil fruit so soon after. Also, Caramel's robes were left behind. Idk, it doesn't add up.

On Cannibalism - my first instinct was to say BM ate Caramel and friends. Now I think it's definite she did NOT.

• eating someone kills them ( my weakest argument, but dead fruit eaters relinquish their power and the fruit is reborn elsewhere ) This gets wiggy however if you consider Linlin ate Caramel and she didn't die v_v one piece can been weird like that
• LinLin has since been around HUNDREDS of fruit eaters including her own children. Whenever she rages, she's like godzilla and stomps on everything and eats food. But she doesn't eat people. In all the story's test scenarios she has killed her own children and enemies and giants in rage but never eaten them (she'll slow down and eat their life force instead). IF you believe cannibalism transfers devil fruit power, THEN you have to accept that being a devil fruit eater and eating another devil fruit eater comes with the same consequences - ie, death. A devil fruit eater can't eat 2 fruits.
• funny but in popular mythos, it is giants who eat people, and LinLin ain't even a proper giant. She doesn't even seem to like meat - you only see her eat candy and sweets.
• Someone brought up Bartolomeo. His "the maneater" is a play on words in Japanese, similar to english's phrase "what's eating you" ie, he teases people a lot, he doesn't literally eat them. Though in japanese the phrase can mean either

Answer 3

It is heavily implied that Big Mom eat Mother Carmel but i doubt we will ever get an 100% confirmation, maybe if someone who witnessed it mentions it somewhere.

Even if that is true (that you can eat people to gain their power) it would not work if you eat a part of them, at least based on what we know so far. There can only be 1 active fruit user and we know that they must die first, before they power can be transferred to someone else. So why it maybe true that you can gain DF power if you eat a part of someone, i would say that that person has to die as well to gain power.

So yeah maybe that is a way BB got his power but so far we can not be sure, at this point it is just another theory.

Answer 4

It seems like Linlin accidently ate Mother Caramel. Not only Caramel but also some if not all of the children present there. There is no other explanation for Linlin gaining the powers of Caramel unless Caramel died there suddenly and there was fortunately some fruit lying there that Caramel's powers got transferred to and Linlin ate that.

For answer to your second question, it is not confirmed but personally I think transfer of power from DF(Devil Fruit) must be possible if you eat the whole person.

As we saw with Ceaser Clown's pet Smiley when he died his DF power was transferred to a fruit, and many DF users have lost their blood but unless they do not die they do not lose their DF ability. So, it must be necessary for a person to eat another person or else eat a bit of them after they die and before their DF power gets transferred to some fruit or someone else. Please note that this is all specification and may also be the explanation for how Blackbeard gained his powers, not why he has multiple DF's

Answer 5

It is 100% that Linlin ate mother caramel. There is no other way she could have got the power of the soul soul fruit. And she had it directly after they vanished. Why else do you think the giant ran in terror. The only reason the world doesn't know is because the giant want even mention mamas name. They hate her that much. And as getting devil fruit powers from eating someone there whole body must be swallowed and digested. I think the devil fruit sits in the center of the users stomach. And I think black beard just grabbed the fruit from white beards chest. Which doesn't really make since because once you die your devil fruit is Suspose to appear randomly somewhere in the world. And white beard was already dead. It's like how that devil fruit randomly appeared on punk hazard in the bag of apples. That was a real devil fruit not a smile. But I'm really a noob at one piece I just started watching it a month ago and I'm on episode 840. The episodes that she eats mother.

Answer 6

Just to be weird and put some thought on things let’s not forget the giant that ate the little little fruit (it’s probably not that but I didn’t feel like searching) did get swallowed by Luffy and then used her powers to expand Luffy