"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

irregularflowers:

As fun as it is to poke fun at Seto’s arrogance, I think it’s important to remember that his obnoxious monologues are likely just bravado, and when you get down to how he really feels about himself, the reality is likely much darker and more sad. 

He talks about how much he hates Gozaburo a lot and I’m sure that he does, but I don’t think that’s the end of the story. At the bottom of everything else, I suspect that a lot of this hate and anger he’s describing are directed at himself. Because he not only gave into the world of treachery and backstabbing—he mastered it by becoming a treacherous backstabber himself. Because he’s grown up to become the embodiment of Gozaburo’s worldview and now he can’t escape from it. Because he spent some of the most formative years of his life being used and feeling powerless and weak and now—even after all the work he’s put in and all the good and delicate parts of himself that’s he’s lost—he still just can’t get to the point where he feels secure about his place in the world. 

The fact that he is so fixated on beating Yuugi and falls apart so completely when he fails says so much. He believes he is only as good as what (or who) he can destroy. Without an enemy to overcome he literally doesn’t know who he is. He has no independent sense of self-worth, so every time he is defeated it’s like his right to exist is being stripped away—which is terrifying. The prospect of losing fills him with existential terror because he’s cut out all the other parts of his identity. And when he looks back on what most people would probably consider their greatest achievement, the only feelings it inspires in him are bitterness and resentment. Notice that when he talks about the past he wants to forget and destroy, he’s not just referring to his years being abused by Gozaburo—he includes the moment he overcame him as well. His memories of ousting Gozaburo are something that he wants to destroy. He may believe that he’s smart, logical, and strategic, but I think it’s pretty clear from this panel that his takeover of Kaiba Corp—perhaps the most defining moment in his life and certainly the one that cemented his new identity—is not something that he’s genuinely proud of.

I suspect that when Seto talks about the irrelevance of the past, he’s trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. He can’t stand to look back on his own personal history and relive the painful feelings he has experienced and the difficult choices he has had to make. He can’t stand to face himself and openly acknowledge how much he has changed, how much he has given up, and ultimately how pointless it’s all been

(via this-wreckage)