Someone on here is rewatching the Duel Monsters series, and is now on the Millennium World arc, and with it the whole Ancient Egyptian theme which pervaded the original YuGiOh.
Which, of course, brings to mind all the myriad stuff that Takahashi got blatantly wrong (even if it was still amusing) about Ancient Egypt, and yet the strange things he actually, accidentally, got right.
At the center of all this is, especially in the comic, is the concept of the "Soul."
The Soul in Egypt was thought to be divided into 5 separate parts.
Which brings us to the first megalithic 15-legged Elephant in the room...
Ka, Heka, and Ba.
In the Millennium World, a "Ka" is a summoned monster, born of the souls of humans.
Okay, so, the problem isn't the "Ka = Monster" thing. That you can forgive because, hell, it needs to be a plot device... add to that the idea that humans can become monsters is a very prominent mythological trope, especially in North African and Middle Eastern myth & religion (just look at Lilith for crying out loud).
No, the problem is that Ka in ancient Egypt wasn't the "soul", exactly. It was more the Vital Spark / Chi/Qi/Ki / Life Energy of a being - basically the fuel of the body which kept everything working. In other words: HP.
In fact, the entire PREMISE of the "Ka" in the Millennium World as Takahashi describes ir, and uses it, is wrong... he, accidentally, is hitting on ANOTHER concept of Ancient Egypt: The Sheut.
The Sheut is your shadow. Egyptians figured that, since shadows are ever-present and seemingly attached to people, they must be connected to us. And given how malleable they are, they must be reflections of us and our emotions.
Now, here's another funny total-research failure moment that ended up being hilariously right about the completely wrong thing: Heka.
Heka wasn't a force. Heka was the God of Magic - the incarnation of a force that Egyptians described as Magic. And, to be clear, the definition of Magic in Ancient Egypt was a RADICALLY different concept than what we're used to.
No, instead, Heka is basically treated as MP (Mana or Magic Points for the uninitiated).
Now, here's the funny thing... you could make the argument that that's MUCH closer in concept to the Egyptian idea of "Ba", which is the psyche or "personality" of a person. The BA is actually much closer to the concept of the "Shade" or "Ghost" of a person. It's ALSO basically the "reputation," etc. So, basically, it's the Charisma, force-of-will, etc.
... keep reading on reddit โกIt seems the other "Yami" alter egos are past incarnations of contemporary characters, with a lot of other familiar faces showing up in both settings.
Yami Yugi is obviously Pharaoh Atem, as is a fairly big plot point for the series.
Yami Bakura is Thief King Bakura, who is essentially the primary antagonist of Ancient Egypt (besides maybe Zorc).
You have other (non Yami) characters showing up like Kaiba, Tรฉa, and Solomon Moto (Yugi's Gramps) with Egyptian counterparts too.
But then with Yami Marik, it's strange. No-one with his resemblance (AFAIK) shows up back then. As far as I can tell, it all started with Hank Ishtar (or so the Abridged calls him) abusing his son Marik when the two clash over the duties of a tombkeeper and Marik's desire to live a liberal western lifestyle of riding motorcycles and other fun stuff. Marik's trauma was largely sedated by his adoptive brother, Odeon. However when Odeon was KO'd by the abusive dad, Marik's isolation and resentment towards his dad caused an alter ego to manifest and take over (presumably spurred on by or created by) the Millennium Rod. One patricide later, Odeon wakes up and Yami Marik reluctantly recedes for a decade or so. Is that all there is to it? Or is Yami Marik actually tied to some other character like the other Millennium "Yamis"?
You can find my video and discussion of this wonderful, real Egyptian Ghost - or Akh - Story here: https://youtu.be/SjBYy4DfIeM
If anything is just a sign of at least good scholarship.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_conception_of_the_soul?wprov=sfti1
It reads that part of the ritual for awakening in the afterlife is the opening of the mouth in which the soul enters a perfectly mummified body.
I am only at chapter 8. But we can all see, if we have died in the game, that at least the repatriate Sam reanimates this way.
As a French-Peruvian, the depiction of "ancient times" differs greatly between my cultures.
While the French clearly have an "Ancient" period of time (Antiquity - although the Merovingian dynasty is so sparsely documented that it sometimes "feels" more ancient than the Roman Empire !) in Peru, the "ancient" concept is way more generous: one could argue that the Incan Empire already counts as "ancient history", even thought it is contemporary with Joan of Arc!
Clearly, something counts as "Ancient" once historical recordings become more sparse.
This led me to wonder, how did the concept of "Ancient" evolve over time?
How did Ancient Egyptians imagine the "ancient" past (surely not as a cavemen, heh, but some proto-historical civilization?)?
Did the Unified Roman Empire feel less "ancient" to the Byzantines than to the Franks?
Has there been any studies about this subject?
From the movie: The Bucket List(2007)
My partner remembers learning this but I can't find any proof on the internet.
