{{YGO Musings}} A rambled contemplation of Items & Hosts. Please ignore the mess.
Hey.
So thanks to rereading the Bakura-pair-intro chapters of the manga and writing a ficlet of Yami no Yuugi & (sort of) Yami no Bakura spatting it out over their nature, I've been considering said nature. And particularly how the pair really started out very similar in the manga, down to their initial actions. Really, cut out the crazy talking-to-Bakura part, replace gym teacher with Ushio, and put in a game and you've got the intro of Yami no Yuugi. Curious, isn't it? Given the two end up such different beings despite similarities in nature.
Course, one easy slip-by answer to this is like many things in the first arc, Takahashi did a retcon, and this similar intro no longer lines up right. But assuming it did, what can we draw from their near-identical behavior with post-series knowledge? Are we to say it's coincidence, or is it saying something?
Like perhaps both “Yami no” characters stem from the similar make-up (Item influence? Zorc? General stuck in power of darkness for 3 millenia?), and the only reason they develop into different people is their different experiences? Or, hosts?
I'm not sure exactly how to explain that idea, except for a mental image that the spirits of the Puzzle and Ring were like untapped, unformed beings (of darkness~) set on protecting themselves and their chosen hosts, and only a small portion the souls of the pharaoh and thief. And that those portions didn't really set in until the Items were in the hands of the chosen hosts, because something in their hosts' souls had to set off the emergence of the pharaoh and thief, and eclipse the original, identical persona shown by the spirits at their intro.
Course, the natural progression of that theory is Yuugi & Bakura are (also) the past selves of the Pharaoh & King of Thieves, since they're the other half of the recipe. ...again, my brain goes “NO” just because of the major differences in character, but then in the original manga, we never get a real look at either, do we?
I mean yes, the thief king is there as an NPC, but who knows if YnB messed with his presentation or not, especially given his own potential confusion of identity. And even if he's exactly the same, life experience alone could warp TK into a completely different person from Bakura. ...and in a twisted way I could compare Bakura's loyalty to his friends and standing up for them in Monster World to TK's vengeance.
In the meantime, Atem's much easier. The pharaoh NPC is played as an extension of YnY in pharaoh form rather than the man himself, given he remembers Yuugi and friends and such. And the manga never even shows those childhood flashbacks the anime does, or really anything to give us a sense of the real Atem. We never see the real Atem. (Which is why I hesitate to ship him anywhere but that's neither here nor there.) All we go by is that not-really-him NPC. So who knows, maybe he was more like Yuugi than YnY.
...and despite just making a would-be-sound defense of Yuugi & YnYuugi and Bakura & YnBakura being the same person, or branching from the same person, my gut still says no. xD Eh, I guess I can excuse that by saying either way they aren't now, what with different lives and experiences and so on. It's likely closer to canon-intention than my usual theory.
Though now that I've written this all out I see holes, like Atem did clearly seal his own soul in the Puzzle - my main protest to Yuugi being the pharaoh in any sense. Come on, Atem's ghost saving Sugoroku anyone?
Ah well, no theory will fit perfectly, I've come to accept. But I could at least see this idea coming up at least as a potential answer in the characters' heads during canon. Particularly in YnY's post-Duelist Kingdom, when he was wondering about the things Pegasus said about the Items and the darkness in them.
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Also, I'll be missing until late tonight, graduation and all. But this week the only thing I'm up to is job hunting, so anyone up to plotting?? If not, and everyone's still busy with end of the school year stress or other plots in progress or just not up to it, poke me with a writing request? Despite my ficlet mention I'm at a block. xD;; It'd be good to get a kick start. And for something to contemplate for the five hour ceremony.
So thanks to rereading the Bakura-pair-intro chapters of the manga and writing a ficlet of Yami no Yuugi & (sort of) Yami no Bakura spatting it out over their nature, I've been considering said nature. And particularly how the pair really started out very similar in the manga, down to their initial actions. Really, cut out the crazy talking-to-Bakura part, replace gym teacher with Ushio, and put in a game and you've got the intro of Yami no Yuugi. Curious, isn't it? Given the two end up such different beings despite similarities in nature.
Course, one easy slip-by answer to this is like many things in the first arc, Takahashi did a retcon, and this similar intro no longer lines up right. But assuming it did, what can we draw from their near-identical behavior with post-series knowledge? Are we to say it's coincidence, or is it saying something?
Like perhaps both “Yami no” characters stem from the similar make-up (Item influence? Zorc? General stuck in power of darkness for 3 millenia?), and the only reason they develop into different people is their different experiences? Or, hosts?
I'm not sure exactly how to explain that idea, except for a mental image that the spirits of the Puzzle and Ring were like untapped, unformed beings (of darkness~) set on protecting themselves and their chosen hosts, and only a small portion the souls of the pharaoh and thief. And that those portions didn't really set in until the Items were in the hands of the chosen hosts, because something in their hosts' souls had to set off the emergence of the pharaoh and thief, and eclipse the original, identical persona shown by the spirits at their intro.
Course, the natural progression of that theory is Yuugi & Bakura are (also) the past selves of the Pharaoh & King of Thieves, since they're the other half of the recipe. ...again, my brain goes “NO” just because of the major differences in character, but then in the original manga, we never get a real look at either, do we?
I mean yes, the thief king is there as an NPC, but who knows if YnB messed with his presentation or not, especially given his own potential confusion of identity. And even if he's exactly the same, life experience alone could warp TK into a completely different person from Bakura. ...and in a twisted way I could compare Bakura's loyalty to his friends and standing up for them in Monster World to TK's vengeance.
In the meantime, Atem's much easier. The pharaoh NPC is played as an extension of YnY in pharaoh form rather than the man himself, given he remembers Yuugi and friends and such. And the manga never even shows those childhood flashbacks the anime does, or really anything to give us a sense of the real Atem. We never see the real Atem. (Which is why I hesitate to ship him anywhere but that's neither here nor there.) All we go by is that not-really-him NPC. So who knows, maybe he was more like Yuugi than YnY.
...and despite just making a would-be-sound defense of Yuugi & YnYuugi and Bakura & YnBakura being the same person, or branching from the same person, my gut still says no. xD Eh, I guess I can excuse that by saying either way they aren't now, what with different lives and experiences and so on. It's likely closer to canon-intention than my usual theory.
Though now that I've written this all out I see holes, like Atem did clearly seal his own soul in the Puzzle - my main protest to Yuugi being the pharaoh in any sense. Come on, Atem's ghost saving Sugoroku anyone?
Ah well, no theory will fit perfectly, I've come to accept. But I could at least see this idea coming up at least as a potential answer in the characters' heads during canon. Particularly in YnY's post-Duelist Kingdom, when he was wondering about the things Pegasus said about the Items and the darkness in them.
==
Also, I'll be missing until late tonight, graduation and all. But this week the only thing I'm up to is job hunting, so anyone up to plotting?? If not, and everyone's still busy with end of the school year stress or other plots in progress or just not up to it, poke me with a writing request? Despite my ficlet mention I'm at a block. xD;; It'd be good to get a kick start. And for something to contemplate for the five hour ceremony.