Yami Marik

Name: Yami Marik

Age: 6 (well, technically, although he looks the same age or older than Marik ...)

Nationality: Egyptian

Special Skills: Gaming, psychological torture, using Shadow Magic

Likes: Torturing people, being immature

Best Friend: Himself

Image Songs: Deceiver of Fools by Within Temptation

I Must Be Dreaming by Evanescence (Marik talking to/about him)

Background: Yami Marik is a being of complete darkness, created out of Marik's hatred and pain when he was 10 years old. Although originally created to be a protector, Yami Marik had other ideas. Soon he was betraying Marik, murdering people he loved and eventually kicking Marik out of his body in order to be in complete control. Despite his origins as a split personality, he clearly became something much different or he could not have literally kicked Marik out, as he definitely did.

Although Marik renounced him at the end of Battle City and kicked him out of his body and into the shadows, that wasn't the end of his existence, for he truly could exist outside of Marik's body. He has returned again and again to inflict misery on the others, especially Marik and Yami Bakura. Currently, he has formed a disturbing alliance with Dr. Portman, who also enjoys psychological torture. Together, they are making everyone from the Big Five to the Kaiba brothers suffer.

Personality: Yami Marik is a very twisted and confusing being. He began as a split personality of Marik's, says that he is the true Marik, and refers to Ishizu and Mr. Ishtar with the same relationships as Marik has with them. At the same time, he considers that he is complete without Marik. Following Battle City, he demonstrated this to be true when he returned in a separate body. Although he can be cast back into the shadows, he will always return when he regains enough strength.

He is an expert in psychological torture and preys on people's worst fears in order to break them. He did this with Mai during Battle City, destroying her self-confidence and her trust in her friends. In the new timeline, he also does it to Yami Bakura, kidnapping him and brutally tormenting him to the brink of insanity.

He claims his ultimate goal is to kill everyone until he's the only person left, as he wants to be alone. Yami Bakura poked holes in this concept, however, when he pointed out that then Yami Marik wouldn't have anyone left to torture, and he highly doubted Yami Marik could stand for such an existence.

Differences between the timelines: I started writing YGO fics when we American fans didn't know much about Yami Marik's origin, and I originally believed he was an ancient spirit like the other ones called Yami. Admittedly, there are a few people who believe this even after all canon became known, but I am not one of them. I tried to change the references in the old fics once the backstory was known, but I discovered that I didn't quite remove all the references as I thought I had. Oh dear.

In the old timeline, Yami Marik explains his continued existence as being because he is the personification of the darkness. If Marik hadn't created him, someone else would have. He also had black blood, something that may or may not be true in the current timeline. The new timeline says that because he is a being of complete darkness, being cast into the darkness cannot destroy him. This implies that using complete light, as Atem did to destroy Zorc, might vanquish him altogether. But then again, would it really? ... And for that matter, since Zorc canonically is the personification of the darkness in peoples' hearts, can anything truly destroy him either, since people will always have darkness in their hearts? ...