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The Heart
of the Cards
The Soul
Monsters
In
Ancient Egypt, those that were strong enough had a soul monster, one
that they could summon without using a tablet. The strength and existence
of these monsters was tied directly to its master. Interestingly
enough, monsters in general were sometimes called "Kaa",
which, in Egyptian terms, was the name of the shadow/mind of a man.
The master was sometimes referred to as the "Baa", or the
heart/phsyical presence of a man.
There
are a number of soul monsters that never seemed to make it
into modern times. Priest Seto's Kaa, Diyuosu, for example,
bears no resemblance to his much favored Blue Eyes White Dragon.
Neither does Bakura's soul monster, Diaboundo, bear
any resemblance to the Dark Necrophia or the Change of Heart.
There was, however, an incident in
which a thief's soul monster showed a remarkable resemblance
to Sagi the Dark Clown, another one of Seto's monsters. He was
arrested by Priest Seto, who was experimenting at the time
with methods of extracting soul monsters and forcing them into
his service. |
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A Dark Theory
Since
Kaa that was not your own could only be summoned using tablets, it's possible that Priest Seto needed a way to
capture the souls of the unfortunates he was experimenting
with by trapping them in tablets.
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There's one known case of this occurring voluntarily. Priest
Mahaado, holder of the Ring, was a spirit mage. By willingly
sacrificing his life, he merged his Baa with his Kaa and
became the Dark Magician. As such, he pledged to serve
his pharaoh for all eternity.
Could it be, then, that every monster
ever recorded in a tablet has its own soul (or heart), and was once a
person who was willing/unwillingly captured into eternal slavery?
It's alluded to in the manga that the former pharaoh, Yami's father,
stopped a war some 40 years ago (AE time). If this even coincides
with the events described by Isis (in the anime), in which shadow
monsters wreaked havoc on the land and had to be sealed, perhaps the war was won at a higher
price than most realize. Did the ex-pharaoh
seal the souls of his enemies and bind them into his service as
shadow monsters? |
Yami Bakura believes that the Millennium
Items were created by the ex-pharaoh for an evil purpose. When he
talks of the powers sealed in Kuru Eruna, only Akunadin, the eldest
of the Priests, showed any reaction/knowledge. Akunadin, perhaps, is
the only one old enough to remember/have worked with the ex-pharaoh on
the so-called evil plans.
When Seto tells of his plans of extracting soul
monsters to Priest Akunadin, the old man is visibly shaken, warning
Seto to turn back before it's too late. He hints that something like
that has happened before, and resulted in grave and dark consequences.
Both these figures have rather
incriminating names: Priest Akunadin and ex-Pharaoh Akunamukanon. Aku,
is the Japanese word for "evil".
If this theory holds, then those like Seto,
Yami, and Bakura were free to be reincarnated because their souls
were not trapped in tablets (well... half-soul trapped in Millennium
Items, but that's another story). This would be why Pegasus was
never able to find any record of them to turn into modern day
cards.
Those people who are studiously missing
from the present, however, might just have another story, and a card
to prove it.
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