The key in understanding Haki is within its introduction.
“Haki can generally be divided into two main shades”
This is what has been bothering me for such a long time. Why is Conqueror’s Haki not in Rayleigh’s explanation immediately? If typically you can divide Haki into two shades why can’t you do the same with Conqueror’s Haki? Wouldn’t Haki typically be divided into three shades but one just has no access to it? Rayleigh is not stating “for most people Haki can be divided into two main shades” but says “Haki can generally be divided into two main shades”, which is wrong unless he is right but we just don’t understand yet how. Hear me out, this is going somewhere and this has been an observation I had for at least six months. The point is that Conqueror’s Haki is atypical. You cannot divide the Conqueror’s Haki like the other forms of Haki, it can interact with the other colors to create a new color, hence why the color metaphor is used in the first place. Its actually extremely fitting to the idea that Oda is going for. It’s a color pallet and go figure, the three main colors are green, red and blue, with which you can create the rest of the colors.
The only reason why Oda would use the color pallet metaphor in the first place is if the colors can mix. This is sorta the point of colors and that Oda picked the 3 main colors shows that he is going for this idea but what does this mean for Haki? We will soon see but first we have to recognize that the plan has changed and what started as Ryou being the only form of Armament Haki was altered after the time skip. I have talked about this issue already in my previous theory. The point being it’s a bit more complicated now, because the metaphor doesn’t perfectly apply any longer and we take some artistic creativity in illustrating the “new color pallet”. Before we do that we have to find out what the new colors are and why they exist in the first place.
Typical & Atypical Haki
Let’s think about Observation Haki as BLUE. But for Armament Haki it’s not that simple: for Ryou we take RED and for Hardening we take BLACK. These are the two colors of Haki you can typically divide. They are distinct in a certain sense but Conqueor’s Haki is different. For the Conqueror’s Haki let’s say it’s YELLOW but it can’t be typically divided like the rest. It has its own effect and usefulness but it has a certain property, it can mix with the other colors creating new forms of Haki that can’t be taught.
This is what Hyou is referring to. These forms of Haki can’t be thought because only a selected few have a access to this Haki. I know most people think Luffy showing his abilities was just to create hype but there was a purpose all along.
The point of Luffy showing off is to realize that Hyou doesn’t possess Conqueror’s Haki. There is a distinction between those two that explains what is the meaning of the current “Haki training” plot line in Udon and what people can reach.
Even though he used to be a big shot that Lord Oden(a Conqueror’s Haki master) idolized, he himself isn’t a Conqueror’s user.
Is this where the Haki story line is heading? We discover that you can only obtain certain colors of Haki only through the mixture of Conqueror’s Haki? Rayleigh already told us that it can’t be typically divided and that it can’t be trained. Hyou tells us that the form of implosion Haki goes beyond any Ryou that he can’t teach, which doesn’t make any sense. How can Hyou not teach Luffy the mastery of this level of Ryou if he himself is a Ryou master, who almost certainly even trained Rayleigh/Shanks/Roger/Oden himself?
People who possess this type of Haki seem to have the same take on how to improve your Haki as Hyou does. There were two Haki training arcs since the New World began. The first was with Rayleigh’s flashback/Katakuri fight and Luffy learning future sight, an ability that has only been mastered by Conqueror’s Haki users(Luffy, Katakuri, most likely Admirals like Aokiji/Akainu) solely. Rayleigh couldn’t teach Luffy future sight and Luffy has learned this ability through extreme conditions of battle. By experiencing extreme conditions in battle he grew and obtained this ability. Doesn’t this sound exactly how one trains his Conqueror’s Haki? The same is “coincidentally” also true for what is currently going on and mind you, Luffy again showed something else off.
Luffy is using this ability before Hyou, who seems to encounter the ability for the first time. Taking into account that Hyou doesn’t posses Conqueror’s Haki and he doesn’t know what future sight is it shows its relation to each other. If one doesn’t possess Conqueror’s Haki one isn’t able to learn these unique colors of Haki and it just makes sense why Conqueror’s Haki would be different. Conqueror’s Haki is the manifestation of its user’s spirit and hence why one can impose it onto others. That is why this color can “impose” itself on other forms of Haki to create new colors. For instance, we get the color of FUTURE SIGHT by mixing Observation Haki and Conqueror’s Haki, a form of Haki that can’t be learned by non-Conqueror-users. Especially, if we consider how the same is true for this “new” type of Haki that I call “implosion Ryou”.
By mixing Armament Haki(Ryou) and Conqueror’s Haki we get IMPLOSION RYOU, one imposes their Ryou onto the enemy and this leads to them being destroyed from the inside. This is the reason why this goes beyond “normal Ryou” and why it can’t be taught by someone who doesn’t posses Conqueror’s Haki. It is still a form of Ryou but it has a shade in it that can’t be progressed through teaching. Conqueror’s Haki can only be strengthened by ones personal growth. The descriptions are the same and the connections are all there. The truth about the Conqueror’s Haki is that it can mix with the other two shades to create new colors.
