#I've never mentioned the outer-space shots before but by god have I noticed 'em. they're weird!

[imminent-danger-came]

MK Breaking his 1x01 Seal (I am insane)

Soooooooooooooo *twirls my hair and kicks my legs*.

I made this post like, a day ago, about a theory where the seal Wukong places on MK in 1x01 was broken in 4x07. The more I've been thinking about it, the more I think it might actually be the case, so here's a more in-depth post on it!

Let's start off with looking at how powerful MK starts off in 1x00 "A Hero is Born".

He's zipping around, he's punching the Demon Bull King with incredible force, and his final blow to DBK shifts the planets and cracks the earth:

This use of power is clearly uncontrolled. MK pretty much levels a good portion of megapolis, and in the next episode 1x01 Bad Weather, he needs a seal to be placed on his powers in order to function.

Now, we don't ever see MK that powerful again, not until after this moment in 4x07:

Between this and Sun Wukong's 1x09 comment when MK uses the staff to further destroy the mural—"Look kid, using that much power, your body can't handle it."—I'm thinking MK's seal in 1x01 also sealed away his monkey form, and that in 4x07 he broke that seal.

Bonus kinda scary MK shot:

Now, there are also these scenes in 4x13 during MK's fight with Azure:

There are a number of outer-space/world shots in this show, typically used at climactic points to show how overwhelming the battle is. In both 1x00 and 4x13, these shots are prompted by MK alone. The exception to this is 3x14 (and 3x11, more on that later), where everyone working together makes one giant magic circle to stop the Lady Bone Demon, engulfing the whole universe in light.

Next, we have the seals.

Now, it's very intriguing to me that these two seals are the same in design. The Chinese characters on both of course mean "seal", but the rim around them is also the exact same. It's a very interesting design choice, and something that could have easily been avoided had the intention been to not draw a connection between the flower fruit mountain seal and MK's seal.

(It could be that they wanted to keep Monkey King's seals consistent, however this is what the waterfall seal looks like in 1x00 and 2x01: )

(These are different, meaning the LMK team explicitly chose the seals from 1x01, 4x01, and "The Emperors Wrath" special to look the same.)

Here's what especially get's me: this same seal is used to seal away both MK's powers, and to seal away the powers of the Jade Emperor.

Mei with the Samadhi fire and Azure Lion with the Jade Emperor's power had both characters acting as containers for their world ending power source (here's that pesky 3x11 outer-space shot I mentioned):

Mei: "You mean—if I lost my cool on any of the million training exercises we've been doing, there was a chance I could have exploded and destroyed the whole universe?" Red Son: "Yes, that could have happened, but it didn't. My guess is that somehow your dragon ancestry has protected you. And if your strong enough to contain the samadhi fire, your strong enough to use it."

(3x11 This Imperfect World) (Gonna be real I don't think it was Mei's dragon ancestry that protected her, I think it was MK, but that's a theory for another time lol)

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However Azure, unlike Mei, fails as a container. He fails to control his power, almost destroying the whole universe and sacrificing his life to stitch the world back together.

You know who ALSO doesn't control his power at the cost of others?

MK, even if it is on a much smaller scale, loses control of his powers in 1x01:

And, he loses control of them so much so that he needs to put that same specific seal on his powers until he can learn to control them better.

And well, the moment that seal comes off? We get this:

MK grappling to control his powers and a shot of him in a crater. Interesting!

And so, now that MK's seal has broken (assuming any of this theory is correct lol), I think he's going to struggle to be a container for his own powers. He was already frighteningly explosive against Azure, causing irreparable damage to flower fruit mountain and literally splitting it in half:

He also happens to look like this before entering his monkey form:

If that doesn't look like "struggling to contain his own powers", I don't know what does!