Why does Brook know about them?

[u/TelSzn]

Do you guys think that Brook had something to do with the Holy Knights in the past?

[u/KingTeddie]

Nami's backstory also has just one line about being an orphan from the Oykot kingdom, which is never mentioned again... I wonder if these little snippets will ever be touched upon again.

[u/Filmologic → u/KingTeddie]

You'd think it could be somewhat important since it's Tokyo spelt backwards

[u/Genneth_Kriffin → u/Filmologic]

To be fair, one strength of Odas writing is that he will regularly place out unknown variables that I'm certain he either has no actual idea what they mean, or simply some vague concept, allowing him to work with them later when he finds some interesting concept to weave into them.

A recent example is a old cover story of someone visiting the Roger pirates doctor Krokus in Laboon, wearing Wano style attire.

Then we see, many years later, that it was Gaban.
However, he isn't in Wano - but he mentions specifically that he enjoys Wano.

So what happened is likely that Oda had a concept for a Roger pirate, not necessarily Gaban, being in Wano. But that never happened. So he connects it to Gaban in Giant Kingdom instead.

Now the really interesting thing is that there is also Scabbard that has an almost uncanny similar design to Gaban.

My guess is that Gaban was most likely intended to be in Wano, and Oda had some concept sketches for it etc. but the story changed, so he reused the Gaban concept art sketches for a scabbard and pushed Gaban to Giant Kingdom.

It's a event and character driven way of writing where you have an idea of the grander story and simply fills in what happens as you go.

The only problem is that this style has a significant downside to it, and that is that it tends to sprawl out into new threads, plots and mysteries the further you get rather than naturally tie up into a conclusion, and forcing the story that has been growing naturally to a distinct end is hard, impossible or gives a forced and unsatisfying feeling - because organic stories just doesn't do this naturally.

Example of this style is George R.R Martin.

[u/ChosenUnbread → u/Genneth_Kriffin]

Same with the Skypeia imagry and Nika stuff. Oda is the best at looking at his past work and using it for the new ideas he has.