Blackbeard Killed his Mother, Eris, to Pursue his Ambitions

Eris is dead and Blackbeard killed her. This is a pretty dark theory for One Piece but it isn’t unprecedented and I’d like to lay out my reasons why I believe this.

In Doflamingo’s flashback, he was most explicitly illustrated as pure evil when he killed his own father. I think it would be extremely powerful if Blackbeard were to do the same to a character that the audience is already endeared to.

In SBS 78, Oda offered a mildly humorous response to a reader’s question that I believe holds some validity, particularly regarding this theory. The reader asked why so many characters have absent mothers in the story and Oda answered: ‘That’s because "Mother" is the antonym for "Adventure"’. From what we can glean from the events of God Valley Eris is a loving mother so it would be unlikely for her to let Blackbeard become a pirate thus she would be dead by the time Blackbeard joined Whitebeard’s crew as a child.

What reason would Blackbeard have to kill his loving mother rather than just abandon her? I think that it’s precisely because Eris loves Blackbeard that he would kill her. Eris would probably recount the tale of Rocks to Blackbeard, including the Davy Clan’s history, and recognize that Rocks nearly reached his aim of ruling the world. What restrained Rocks? His loved ones.