#while rewatching The Seal of Orichalcos arc

[sapp0w0]

I spent 50k on this /ref

[browniesnivy]

I’m not going to pretend that Dartz isn’t easily the weakest villain in the series, but I feel like there was at least some effort put in to giving him some interesting contrast with Yami (even if, like most decent or even good ideas in Season 4, they ended up diluting the message in the paper-thin writing). Unfortunately, before I explain what I mean I have to go into excruciating detail about Atem’s character arc, so buckle up because it’s essay time. 

One of the things that Season 4 touches on that I actually rather enjoy is Yami’s obsession with destiny and how this affects his perception of victory and of himself. Though people complain that Yami had nothing to lose in his duel with Raphael before he activated the Seal of Orichalcos, I actually think this was intended to highlight how he perceives winning and losing. To lose for any reason is (at least to him) not just a personal failure that will injure his own pride, but one that will put the balance of the entire universe in danger. He has no memory of who he was or even who he is now, but his past follows him around everywhere he goes and dictates every second of his afterlife (just as it did when he was alive, although he has no idea about that at this point). He is told by Ishizu and many others around him that he is responsible for everything, that it is his job to fix everything wrong in this world, and thus he has developed a complex of thinking that it is his personal responsibility to eradicate every evil in this world and any failure is an apocalyptic catastrophe. That mindset is obviously terribly unhealthy, but Yami’s destiny is the only shred of his identity that he even knows. It might require him to constantly endanger himself, but it’s the only thing that anyone seems to understand about him and is certainly the only thing he understands about himself, so he continuously throws himself in front of Ra’s attack again and again and again...

Unlike the major story arcs in the show that proceeded it (and sadly the one that follows), Season 4 treats this as a major flaw in Yami’s mentality. Raphael is able to manipulate him into activating the Seal by convincing him he will lose everything if he can’t defeat him, and the fact that there is no actual danger involved at present might actually help convince Yami of his point even more. We see in Season 0 that Yami often puts himself in unnecessarily dangerous situations for what appears to be no reason, but to him every situation with even a possibility of “failure” is dangerous. In this instance, the fact that he could lose at all is dangerous enough, and he invents all sorts of imaginary reasons why he has to play the Seal of Orichalcos no matter what the cost. Raphael is expertly manipulating his opponent’s insecurities here. Of course it was a huge mistake for Yami to play the Seal, but with all this in mind it is a mistake that I could at least easily see myself making if I were in his shoes. 

In the end, Yami ends up paying for this mistake. He loses despite his best efforts, but unlike before he played the Seal and was on the verge of defeat, he actually has something tangible to lose now. Yugi didn’t deserve to have his soul stolen for a mistake his partner made, and yet that is exactly what ended up happening. Yami is able to see that this is unfair when it happens to Yugi, and yet he still is at first unable to see that same principal applies to him when he tries to brazenly sacrifice himself for other people’s sins. Yami is forced to confront this nasty part of himself and realize that his life is worth more than it’s use to the universe at large. Only by the lose of his closest friend, the only one who sees him as a real person and not as a Messiah or an extension of someone else, can he come to the realization that he isn’t meant to single-handedly solve every single problem in the world. That emptiness when his friend isn’t around makes him realize that it isn’t his destiny that fills the void in his soul but his connections, and that he doesn’t have to constantly throw himself under the bus in order to make the world a better place... because there are people who love him and who want him to love himself too. 

Of course this is basically ignored by the fact that the show ends with Yami being forced to abandon all his meaningful connections in order to fulfill his depressing and lonely destiny, but in isolation this is a pretty nice character arc that honestly should have been carried over into future seasons. And before you ask, I don’t take constructive criticism. 

Now, back to Dartz. There are several surface level similarities between Atem and Dartz, most obvious being that they are both ancient kings who wield the powers of darkness. What I think often goes unnoticed is the fact that they have nearly identical views of the world despite being on opposing sides. Dartz desires to consume everything he deems evil by fulfilling the destiny given to him by the Orichalcos, not just because he was instantly brainwashed by it (because that would be stupid) but because after his kingdom crumbled he realized that he was the only one left to stop the destruction of Atlantis from happening to the rest of the world. This is basically exactly what Yami is trying to accomplish: Yami was unable to stop the consequences of his father’s sins from bleeding into the future and now seeks to use the last of his remaining strength to completely purge the world of sin. One major difference in Dartz and Yami’s thinking is that Yami seems to be focused on destroying the very concept of “evil” while Dartz just wants to get rid of the people that do evil things, but nonetheless both of them have personally taken on massive responsibilities spanning generations in an attempt to stop something they aren’t even responsible for themselves. It isn’t Dartz’s fault that Atlantis was full of unrighteous people in the same way it wasn’t Atem’s fault that his father committed genocide an entire village, but they both think it’s up to them to face the consequences head-on regardless of what that means for them. 

Dartz sacrifices himself to the Great Leviathan in the end to achieve his goal, an action which I believe is the final culmination of all of Yami’s self-worth issues and the logical extreme of his mistake to play the Seal of Orichalcos earlier in the season. Yami can not be fooled into blindly sacrificing himself after what he learned on this journey, not after he realized that he had value despite the darkness inside his heart. He is able to defeat the Leviathan by calling upon his friends to help him accept his flaws and learn to work past them instead of force himself to constantly atone for them. It might have been corny, but it gets the point across that Yami will not become Dartz (ignoring the fact that he ends up basically doing just that even if it is “for the right reasons” later on which drives me INSANE) and will no longer treat himself as something less than human, as just a vehicle for destiny’s righteous judgement. Dartz tried to fix a fundamental evil of the world by sacrificing his own humanity and ultimately became the very thing he sought to destroy, just as Yami became dangerously close to doing in his duel against Raphael. But he knows better now and for once, he actually puts his past behind him and moves on towards a better future alongside his friends. (I know I keep bringing this up but take notes, Ceremonial Duel.)

I’m not going to pretend that I’m not thinking way to hard about this, or that the way the show handles this is done expertly. I already acknowledged that Dartz is as bland as an unsalted cracker, but I also have to mention that Yami still basically has to defeat Dartz alone even after all the set up with Kaiba, Joey, and the Legendary Dragon Knights, which I really have no excuse for. Season 4 definitely isn’t perfect (I don’t think I’d have such a soft spot for it if it was) and I still have a lot more to say about it, but I just wanted to bring some attention to this contrast since I only noticed it on my fourth complete rewatch of the season. I think Dartz could have been a much stronger antagonist if his similarities to Atem were made more pronounced, and I hope I explained that in a way that was at least slightly thought-provoking in this essay that took me far too long to write.