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

iamcelestos:

I probably talked about this ages before, but I’m not sure if I did so hey let’s talk about it again, this time with screencaps (thanks @alicethedragonvalkyrie, and I think those are @kaiowut99​‘s subs). I thought about the Dark World arc and specifically, the creation of Super Polymerization (Super Fusion). The way in which it was created made me think, and I’ve come to some… interesting conclusions.

This relates to episodes 134 onwards.

The five Wicked Doctrines/Runes/curse marks were implanted onto Judai’s friends, each representing one of five negative emotions: anger, sadness, anguish, hatred and doubt. These, as are sacrifices in general, are said to be critical to activate Super Poly:

Most important here is the fact that there are FIVE of these runes, and all five appear to be needed for Super Poly’s activation.

Now, clearly, issues arise with the gathering. The five runes all attach to different hosts, but the absence of one causes problems. Manjoume, Asuka, Fubuki and Kenzan are captured by Brron’s men, but Shou (the fifth) is missing.

During his duel with Judai, Brron then attempts to use Super Poly, despite having a missing component:

Of course, as we know, Brron does not succeed in using it, and even as Judai gains it post-duel, it does not seem to be complete. Haou/the Supreme King, within Judai, is aware of the card being incomplete:

Considering there was such emphasis on the 5 runes and their hosts being sacrificed, why is it that suddenly, the focus has switched to sacrificing anyone that dares to oppose Haou?

There were five components to activate Super Poly: the five hosts of the five runes. Five ‘special’ souls. One is missing, so… perhaps, it looks like the countless ‘ordinary’ souls of those in Dark World appear to be the replacements for that one ‘special’, marked one.

Shou, interestingly, never seems to be aware of this, and he never notices his own mark. This is in line with the other four who were sacrificed - none of them seemed to notice that they had been marked, and did not pick up on the emotions the runes were drawing out of them and emphasising. Instead, Shou does what he feels he can do: run, survive, and gradually come to accept his role as an observer in the game of life (I may discuss this in another meta post - Shou’s behaviour in later S3 is so so fascinating).

Either way - five special souls, or four special ones plus as many mundane souls as is needed to replace the fifth. How many souls became the replacement for Shou’s one, it is impossible to say, but it’s chilling to think it may have been as many as millions (as some fans have claimed). If Shou was unaware of his mark, then it’s likely that he never made the connection between himself and the fact that so many others had to be killed.

Still, that makes for some interesting thinking, in meta analysis and fanfic: how Shou would have felt, knowing the choice rested between either his one death, or the death of so, so many others - and the latter ended up being the case.

TL;DR - the countless civilian ‘deaths’ during Haou’s ‘reign’ in Dark World were due to one person’s absence. Shou himself may or may not have been aware of his position as a lynchpin, but it’s frightening to think what would have been going through his mind if he did know.