Marshall D. Teach, better known as Blackbeard, is the main antagonist from the manga and anime series "One Piece" by Eiichiro Oda. He was introduced in Volume 24, Chapter 223, of the manga, and he has since been one of the most influential and feared people within the story. His actions shook the world of One Piece, having a huge influence on the pirates, the World Government, and the Revolutionary Army.
Background
Marshall D. Teach used to be a member of the Whitebeard Pirates under Edward Newgate, over twenty years ago. In his period, he did not bring much spotlight to himself and waited patiently all the while hiding his true intentions. He turned his luck around by murdering his fellow crewmate, Thatch, for the Yami Yami no Mi, a tremendously powerful Devil Fruit he had been searching for all along. This betrayal only drove him to defect from the Whitebeard Pirates and set him on the path to becoming one of the world's most dangerous pirates.
Appearance
Marshall D. Teach is a tall, powerfully built man at 344 cm in height with a round body and relatively thin limbs. He bears some remarkable features, such as a crooked nose, missing teeth, and a black, thick beard that gave him the nickname "Blackbeard." Teach usually wears an open white shirt, dark pants, and a black tricorne hat featuring his Jolly Roger – three skulls and crossed bones, along with a red beaded necklace draped around them.
Personal Information
Name: Marshall D. Teach
Alias: Blackbeard
Age: 40 (pre-timeskip) 42 (post-timeskip)
Birthday: August 3
Height: 344 cm (11'3")
Bounty: 2,247,600,000 berries
Devil Fruits: Yami Yami no Mi (Dark-Dark Fruit) Gura Gura no Mi (Tremor-Tremor Fruit)
Affiliation: Blackbeard Pirates (Captain)
Former Affiliation: Whitebeard Pirates (2nd Division)
Personality
Teach comes across as a very complex personality with often contradicting traits. He can be comical and light-hearted, bantering light jabs with his crew and other people. This demeanor simply covers up the actual ruthless, calculating, manipulative person inside. Teach will stop at nothing to get his way across, as depicted in the murder of Thatch and the betrayal of the Whitebeard Pirates. With a keen intellect and patient calculating mind, he proved to sit patiently for decades on the lookout for an opportunity to acquire the Yami Yami no Mi and manipulate events from behind the scenes to achieve the position of Shichibukai.
According to the One Piece Databooks, Teach's favorite food is cherry pie, and his laugh is characterized by a very distinctly said "Zehahaha!" These details, even though minute, help give depth to the characterization Eiichiro Oda is celebrated for in his work. In an interview, he has explained that Blackbeard acts as a foil for the series's main character, Monkey D. Luffy—what constitutes a dark path to fulfilling one's dreams.
Motivations and Goals
The whole idea is based on Marshall D. Teach's desire to obtain the legendary One Piece treasure and to become the Pirate King. For this purpose, he has been working through a series of well-planned misdeeds, such as acquiring a lot of Devil Fruit powers, which was considered unimaginable to be done by a person. His ambitions were huge enough to plot the capture of Portgas D. Ace, an event that would end up causing the Summit War at Marineford. Immediately after this battle, he cashed in on the confusion to defeat Whitebeard, who was already mortally wounded by then, and snatched the power of Gura Gura no Mi away from him.
Popularity
As a whole, the character of Marshall D. Teach has received very positive reception from fans and critics alike. Teach ranked 49th out of 100 characters in the 6th Japanese popularity poll for One Piece characters. The many possible complex motivations and mysterious aura about his powers have fueled numerous conversations and theories about this character among the One Piece community.
Fighting Styles
Marshall D. Teach's fighting ability derives from two Devil Fruits: Yami Yami no Mi and Gura Gura no Mi. Through the Logia-type Devil Fruit, Yami Yami no Mi, he could control and create darkness. This fruit is usually ranked first among all the Logia that appear in the series.
One of Teach's signature techniques using this fruit is the "Black Hole," which enables him to create a curtain of darkness that could span a large area and suck everything into another dimension, thereby crushing it. With this ability, Teach can nullify other powers of Devil Fruit users by touching them, making him most definitely one of the more dangerous foes for too many characters in the One Piece world.
Other than the Yami Yami no Mi, Teach has consumed the powers of Gura Gura no Mi from Edward Newgate after his death. This Paramecia-type devil fruit allows Teach to create a powerful shock wave or "tremor" that can instantly cause devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. What is more, their combination definitely makes Teach the very first and only known person within the One Piece Universe to be able to wield two Devil Fruit powers concurrently.
For combat strategy, Teach usually applies a very patient and calculating move. He often tries to make an estimate of the opponent's strengths and weaknesses before jumping into the full scale of battles. He displayed such a mindset when he was fighting Ace and made use of the insights pertaining to Ace's powers in order to repel his attacks effectively.
It is also worth realizing that Teach's fighting style overall involves his crew, the Blackbeard Pirates. Recent manga chapters depict Teach's crew battling using water-based fighting techniques, indicating strategic fighting that uses the environment to its advantage and exploits the weakness of Devil Fruit users to defeat them.
Character's Role in the Plot
The first time Teach appeared in the series was as a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, specifically the 2nd Division, under the command of Portgas D. Ace. He then kept a low profile, waiting for his chance while concealing his true ambitions. His first role seems to be that of apparently a normal pirate, so his later actions and the character revelations truly contrast with this.
Teach's turnaround came when he murdered his own crewmate, Thatch, in pursuit of the Yami Yami no Mi (Dark-Dark Fruit). This act of perfidy nailed Teach's falling from being just a background character to becoming one of the main antagonists. It sewed the seeds of a turn of events that would shake the world of One Piece.
Teach didn't show up personally again until the Jaya Arc when he betrayed the Straw Hat crew. Before that, he had a very minor encounter with the lead protagonist of the series, Monkey D. Luffy, briefly in Mock Town, as a foreshadowing device for future conflict between these two characters and opposing ideologies.
Teach's role drastically increased during the Impel Down Arc. He captured Portgas D. Ace and then turned him in to the World Government and consequently earned Shichibukai. This step shows how cunning Teach is and how he manipulates the power systems of the world to his advantage.
Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the breakout of Impel Down, Teach aimed to gain the addition of some of Level 6's more powerful pirates into his crew. Doing this greatly increased his crew's power, most notably adding infamous pirates like San Juan Wolf, Catarina Devon, and Avalo Pizarro.
Another major turning point for his plot involvement was the Summit War at Marineford. He arrived at the battle with his now-powered-up crew, and for a time, he seemed to be working with the Marines, only for his intentions to be revealed through actions when he killed Whitebeard and stole his powers of Gura Gura no Mi; this was utterly unexpected. That moment solidified Teach as a major threat and brought about another mystery to the series: how he was capable of using the powers of two Devil Fruits.
Enraged by the events of the Summit War, Teach used his newfound powers to destroy Marineford, which proved he would not hesitate in showing his power and defiance against the world's powerful elite. Through this event, as well as his later victory in the Payback War against remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates, he came to be known as one of the Four Emperors, replacing Whitebeard after the power vacuum caused by his death.
Major Battles
Among the very first famous and historic confrontations of Teach was with Portgas D. Ace, who served as the 2nd Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. This fight occurred on Banaro Island in the New World, often counting in one of the most important events in the entire series. Teach used his powers of the Yami Yami no Mi to cancel out Ace's powers from his Mera Mera no Mi.
The fight was very fierce, as Ace used several fire techniques like "Hiken" and "Dai Enkai: Entei." However, Ace's defeat came due to Teach's ability to absorb and nullify those attacks with his ability for bearing powerful attacks by physical strength. This victory would give Teach an opportunity to capture Ace and sell him to the World Government, which gave him the Shichibukai position in return.
Another major fight that Teach had was in the Impel Down Arc. Again, it wasn't exactly a fight, as much as Teach breaking into Impel Down caused such a racket that he had to fight against Magellan, chief warden of the prison. Indeed, even Teach found the abilities of Magellan's Doku Doku no Mi quite a challenge to handle. This battle revealed a weakness in Teach's powers: his Yami Yami no Mi powers increased his vulnerability to damage. He and his crew ended the battle severely poisoned and were forced to retreat, saved by Shiliew, a former jailer of Impel Down that joined Teach's crew.
Another very important battle for Teach was the Summit War at Marineford. It was here that he confronted Edward Newgate, otherwise known as Whitebeard, who was reputedly the strongest man among pirates. This fight was more of an attack calculated to kill rather than a fight that really dragged on. Teach and his crew assaulted the already wounded Whitebeard. Though Whitebeard is incredibly powerful, evident in his devastating attacks with the Gura Gura no Mi, Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Teach had caused substantial damage. The battle finally ended with Whitebeard's death, and amazingly, Teach had stolen Whitebeard's Devil Fruit powers with some unknown method.
With the newfound powers of Whitebeard, Teach flexed his new abilities and devastated most of Marineford. He could create powerful shock waves and tremors that showed quite devastatingly what it is to have two Devil Fruit powers working at the same time. More than that, this turned into an open declaration of Teach being finally recognized in the world of One Piece as a serious threat.