One Piece - Sound of Life

[Don]

While it is not officially explained, there seems to be very strong evidence to suggest that to hit someone with a natural-type Devil Fruit requires being able to hear the Sound of Life, since Rayleigh can slice through pure light and as far as I know light doesn't have a counter element (Darkness is already taken by Blackbeard). This seems to be exchanging one absurdity for another. For about 50 volumes we basically are told people who are of natural type are more or less invinicible (there just isn't that many counter elements around... note that the heat from lightning would've been enough to melt rubber anyway). Now with Rayleigh showing up, apparently everyone's been doing it wrong. As long as you can hear the Sound of Life you can hit through light, ice, fire, darkness, or anything else for that matter. It'd look like the sound concept can be specialized. I'm guessing one of the new guys that have no devil fruit power and can hurt Luffy with just punching must be able to hear the Sound of Rubber, but obviously all the people at the top of OP should be able to hear the Sound of Life, which encompasses everything.

So for example the ice Admiral could've died 4 times already just in the fight against the Straw Hats. If anybody on the Straw Hats team could've heard of the Sound of Life (or even just the Sound of Ice) then any of the wound he took would've been fatal. The light Admiral basically got blown to smithereens and glued himself back together. Again if any of his attackers can hear the Sound of Light, then he would be dead! The most powerful force of justice could've been trivially defeated by anybody if they can only hear the respective element they belong to!

I know the author of OP doesn't seem to be particularly good at coming up with a good worldview, but going from natural = invinicible to sound of life = invinicible seems to be a step backward. Now every fight in the future, you'd have to always wonder what if the other guy can hear the Sound of Rubber or the Sound of (insert devil fruit here). And really if OP is to fight without these whacky rubber and other devil fruit abilities, it'd really not be that great.

[Eric]

You totally lost me, where did you read this whole "Sound of Life" thing from?

[Don]

When they ran into Rayleigh he said Gol D Roger can understand everything because he can hear the Sound of Life, which is why he can read the lost language that only scholars knows.

If you go back to some of the earlier stuff, when Zoro needed to slice through steel he needs to be able to hear the pulse of steel.

Although it is not revealed yet, One Piece is not exactly rocket science in terms of complexity. If you look at the latest part, Rayleigh can kick through light and slice through light. It does not look like he has a counter-element to light (it doesn't look like he's even a devil fruit user), and we can rule out stuff like anti-devil fruit boots and swords because it'd be incredibly dumb. So the only conclusion is that people from Roger's ship all have some degree of this ability, as well as the other people at the top of the world. Otherwise as OP stands you either need some of the special anti-devil fruit materal or you got to jump ship the moment you run into a natural-type devil fruit user no matter how powerful you are.

I'm guessing all the guys at the top have the ability to hit anything that's intangible to various degrees, sort of like how when Red Hair Shanks fought Whitebeard, they can split the sky apart.

[Eric]

So what you're saying is, this is a theory? Rayleigh is also called the "Dark King" btw, we also don't know what his ability is, he made an entire auditorium of Marines pass out somehow. I wouldn't read too much into what happened with Zoro 400 chapters ago when he was trying to cut through steel, and Roger's hearing of life.

Also we have no confirmation that Rayleigh can hear anything.

[Don]

All the powerful guys can do that. It seems to be just some instant KO thing on people who are not worth the time to draw getting KOed. Another popular theory is you use just that around your feet or whatever, but then you might as well just go buy some of these sea diamond things that neutralize devil fruits.

One of the new guys hit Luffy through the rubber immunity and he said he's not an ability user either. The exact mechanism involved might not be known but it's pretty obvious people 'in the know' can simply hit through devil fruit immunities as if they're not there.

[SineSwiper]

You know, coming from a person who has never read/watched the series, this conversation looks really really absurd.

[Don]

On another note, when Rayleigh intervened it's like exactly what I said should have happened on the Bear arc. Someone important at the top should've stepped down and say don't be beating up on the kids. For all that Luffy and others have done, they're essentially still just kids and I think they've gotten away from doing utterly stupid things for way too long. The weird thing is that Luffy may very well be the most well-connected person in the world of One Piece, and yet he was only bailed out twice (Dragon/Rayleigh). You'd think you ought to see Dragon show up more often.