Hello! I wanted to ask for your take on Ryoken in YGO Vrains. I haven't been able to find any detailed reviews on him overall (mostly scattered meta focusing on specific moments/seasons). Even the few "Revolver is the worst chara ever" criticism posts I spotted were too generic/vague or straight up deleted, so I haven't been able to figure out what actual issues people have with him beyond "tried to kill people" - which is something that, like, every YGO antag (& sometimes the protag) has done. I really liked your Vrains posts & your posts about hero & victim arcs & was curious about your thoughts on Ryoken's characterization/narrative purpose, if that's okay. Personally I like Ryoken, but I don't really understand his character & I've been trying to make sense of it (with difficulties as the meta about him is either disconnected or too polarizing what with "he's a technophobic terrorist!!!" or "he's the best cuz gun dragons"). (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡
A comprehensive character analysis of revolver, not just an analysis of any one specific duel - sure anon let's do it! Vrains is probably my second favorite Yu-Gi-Oh to analyze because it takes it doubles as a piece of cyberpunk fiction, which is a key element a lot of people miss when discussing Ryoken's character.
In my opinion, one of the major reasons people don't give Ryoken a fair shake, or are harsher on him than the other Kaiba-alikes is that he doesn't change his opinion once he's defeated in a duel. Daring to disagree with the main character is a cardinal sin for a lot of fans, because most series have protagonist centered morality.
However, the fact Revolver never quite joins the heroes side and sticks to his guns (pun intended) is what makes him so unique a character. More underneath the cut.
Vrains averts this the simplified black and white protagonist centered morality, because once again it's Cyberpunk which makes it speculative fiction. The point of speculative fiction is to speculate (obviously), which is why good speculative fiction has a tendency to represent multiple viewpoints as to avoid directly telling the reader what to think. Ryoken represents the viewpoint that AI technology's rapid development is too risky, because eventually they may get smarter and decide they don't need their human creators. Yusaku represents the view that it's possible for AI and humans to cohabitate, and it's also unethical to wipe out the six AI who are living sentient beings to avert a future that MIGHT happen. Through their opposing opinions a dialogue is created, which allows VRAINS to have a more in-depth discussion on the topic of Artificial Intelligence.
If Revolver easily changed his viewpoint to allign with Yusaku's, then Vrains would just be telling us what to think instead of presenting different viewpoints and allowing us to come to our own conclusions. Revolver's entire character also revolves around the concept of his unbending principles, which is key to understanding him.
HERO OF ANOTHER STORY
Ryoken more than any other Kaiba-alike embodies the trope of an antagonist with heroic qualities. The closest is probably to Ryoken is Reiji, but he's an ally to the protagonist, albeit one of scrupulous means. Characters like shark, Kaito and Kaiba have the goal of trying to save their loved ones, but unlike Ryoken they don't really care about the bigger picture or how their actions impact all of society.
In fact Ryoken and Yusaku flip the traditional protag and antag relationship on its head in the first season, because it's Yusaku who is laser focused on revenge while saving people is a secondary concern at best. The fact that the Knights of Hanoi are a threat to the link Vrains is completely incidental to his revenge quest.
While it's Ryoken who is thinking about the bigger picture and making his decisions based on what he feels will save the most people possible in the long term. Yusaku's goals are selfish wanting revenge for his personal satisfaction as a coping mechanism for his trauma, while Ryoken's are selfless in the sense that he is forcing himself to bloody his hands and do something unsavory and against his personal morals because he believes sacrificing people in the short term will save people in the long term.
Yusaku: Those horrible memories were burned into my eyes, feasting in my heart. It became my flesh and blood that I couldn't dig out. When I realized that, I decided to face my own destiny. If you think revenge is worthless that's fine, but there are things I am destined to do to move forward.
It makes sense Yusaku can't think of others besides himself, starving people only think of filling their own stomaches, people in pain can't afford to think of others. Yusaku doesn't react to trauma like a perfect victim years of processed grief can't be resolved by therapy or friendship, he's possessed by the need to do something because he doesn't feel in control of his own life. Another thing which connects him to, ding ding ding you guessed it - Ryoken.
The best way to understand Ryoken's character is to understand his relationship with his major character foils, Yusaku and Takeru. All three of them are shaped by the lost incident, though Ryoken is influenced in much subtler ways because the way Ryoken himself frames the incident he's not a victim but a perpetrator.
The entirety of season one builds up the voice that rescued Yusaku, someone Yusaku never learned the identity of but believes that they might be another child who was kidnapped during the lost incident.
Yusaku: Whoever kept encouraging me wasn't among the rescuees. If he's still captured I have to rescue him.
Only for the truth to turn out to be more complicated. Revolver is revealed to be simultaneously the child who helped kidnap Yusaku in the first place, and his rescuer, as well as the son of the man responsible for the entire incident.
Revolver: I was eight years old. I couldn't fully comprehend what was happening. I thought something scary might be going on. But I couldn't ask my father. I wanted to believe that my father was doing valuable research. But the children's screams tore at my chest. Crushed by feelings of guilt I reported the incident. Yusaku: An anonymous report uncovered the lost incident. So that was you, revolver? Ai: So he saved you? Revolver: I quickly regretted saving you. You were saved, but... when SOL technologies covered up the incident my father was imprisoned. I was alone for three years, waiting for my father to come home.
Revolver was not being simultaneously starved and electrocuted while being forced to duel over and over again for six months straight, but his life was also destroyed by the incident. Being subjected to the screams of other children, the realization that your father is the one tormenting them, then being orphaned all at eight years old is a different flavor of trauma but it's still you know... traumatic.
Revolver was also forced to face a complicated reality at eight years old, good actions sometimes lead to bad results. Reporting the lost incident was the right thing to do, but Revolver's father was made comatose and he personally suffered - he was punished for doing the right thing.
Revolver is a case of simultaneously taking too much responsibility for things that are not his fault, and too little. He holds himself responsible for both his father's actions and complicit in helping kidnap people, while also believing he needs to inherit his father's cause of fighting the Ignis to eliminate the potential threat to humanity. Ryoken has an incredibly negative self-image for most of the series, and cannot accept that he was a victim of the lost incident too likely because he wasn't being shocked and starved.
Yusaku: I kept wanting to save you. That the knights of Hanoi still had you. These thoughts still clung to my soul. When I battled you, your words encouraged me. Ryoken: How ironic. Ryoken: I'm your enemy but I gave you strength. Yusaku: Stop the tower of Hanoi, Revolver! Ryoken: You have the wrong idea about me. I'm not a good person!
Revolver has internalized he is at fault for the lost incident and complicit in his father's actions, therefore he is not a good person and unworthy of salvation. This also becomes his excuse for harming people en masse, to achieve his greater goal of saving humanity from the threat of the Ignis. He takes too much responsibility for what happened to him as a child, but takes too little responsibility in the innocent bystanders he is hurting now in his crusade against the Ignis, excusing himself by saying it's serving a greater good.
He blatantly ignores Playmaker's pleas to just stop, because he can't stop himself. Episode 44 is called Prisoner of Destiny, referring to Ryoken himself because Ryoken willingly chooses to cage himself. Not because he's selfish or cruel, but because of his overwhelming sense of responsibility that forces him to take on his father's burdens when really he owes the man nothing. If Revolver were on the heroes side, his willingness to shoulder the burden of other people would be a heroic quality on par with playmaker's, but as an antagonist it's his fatal flaw.
Which is what makes him the mirror to Playmaker, both trapped in the past unable to move on from the incident but Playmaker doesn't realize how much holding onto the past is hurting him until he meets Ryoken and empathizes with him as another child who's life was destroyed. Ryoken, similiar to Playmaker, doesn't realize how much he's suffering too because of those same unprocessed feeling in the past though for Ryoken he sets them all aside because he's too busy being crushed under the weight of his father's sins that he feels peronsally responsible for.
Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility, it's his best and worst quality. If he were the protagonist, once again his unbending nature would be a heroic quality but instead it's what damns him and it's something Ryoken has to unlearn over the course of the narrative. The fact that he does slowly unlearn it and change his opinion is what makes Ryoken different from Bohman and Ai, both of which can't accept the fact that they might be mistaken.
Unlike Ai, Revolver accepts Yusaku's pleas to save him.
Yusaku: You live in the same world as me! Back then, you said... You couldn't just stand by so you crossed the abyss. You're able to save me. And I'm able to save you!
Revolver laughs at this and insists that they'll never be friends, but his actions accepting his loss at the end of the duel and abandoning the tower of Hanoi plan contradict his words.
Which brings me to another reason Revolver is often misinterpreted, his tendency to play the villain means his words often contradict his actions.
One of Revolver's defining characteristics is how his bombastic personality in the VRAINS as revolver is the exact opposite of his more brooding and quiet personality in the real world. Revolver's two avatars also signify the discordance between his online and real world personality. His first avatar he wears a full mask, and his second a visor.
The first avatar he is wearing a mask, a symbol that he's putting on a persona, his face is fully obscured and both the people around him and we the audience aren't privvy to his real self. Even in the second season when Revolver changes his avatar and he's more of an ally with his own agenda than a direct antagonist his face is still partially obscured by his visor. The persona he adopts as a shield is to play the villain, I am a bad person Revolver says and even in the second season when he is helping others he clings to his villain facade until very nearly the end.
His avatar perfectly encapsulates his complicated nature, a villain with heroic traits, a villain who in a different narrative could have been the hero fighting to save the world from the threat of the ignis.
Revolver's deck also symbolizes these qualities of his, the overpowering willpower, and determination that could in another story make him a hero. I'm going to quote @talaofthevalley here because they already covered this subject wonderfully.
That Rokkets destroys themselves is relevant as well. Revolver is perfectly fine making himself the target of people's ire and hatred, even if it's not warranted or justified. He was willing to die for his mission in the S1 finale. And ofc famously no one hates Kogami Ryoken as much as Kogami Ryoken. But it's a self-destruction for the sake of something, not just self-destruction fueled by self-hatred. It fits with Revolver's knight theming, to fight and act for something greater than oneself. Which is also what the Rokket monsters do; they destroy themselves when targeted in order to fulfill a objective. Then we come around to Rokkets other noteworthy effect; at the end of your turn, they can special summon other Rokkets from the deck if they are in the graveyard because their beforementioned effect was activated. Revolver is as tenacious as they come, and equally resourceful. Even after losing to Playmaker, what he's hung up on is not that he was defeated, but Playmaker's identity. He swears he will win next time, and that's that.
Revolver like his favorite monsters destroys himself in pursuit of his goals, and also is a character with the determination to get back up no matter how many times he loses or the knights of Hanoi are destroyed, he just recreates himself, re-gathers his allies and tries again. His sense of responsibility being what both damns him and redeems him, because, I repeat for emphasis, Revolver self-destructs.
He takes on too much responsibility and always views himself as the bad guy, which is why his relationship with Takeru and his final duel with him is so crucial for the final step in his development. In season 2 Ryoken abandons his plans of destroying the Link Vrains, but still acts like an untrustworthy ally with his own agenda. In spite of his act, there are moments in season 2 where he is framed just like any other hero.
It's Revolver who shows up like a prince to rescue Yusaku when he's trapped by Windy and Lightning and does a superhero landing, only to immediately iterate that he's not on their side only following his father's will. It's Revolver who doesn't win the duel against Lightning when he has the chance, because Lightning takes an innocent person as a hostage.
Revolver: I must finish the work he left undone. Lightning: But we're the ones following Dr. Kogami's will as humanity's successor. Revolver: Silence! I'll crush those arrogant thoughts. I'll annihilate you! Get ready! Windy: Annihilate? How extreme. Yusaku: If you fight them there's no turning back now. Revolver: I never planned on turning back.
Season one revolver likely would have sacrificed an innocent to win a duel, and yet he still insists that he hasn't changed. Understanding Revolver requires reading beyond the surface, because characters are liars sometimes.
This is why Takeru is important, because like Revolver Takeru sees the world in terms of heroes and villains. While Yusaku pleads with Revolver to reconsider his way of thinking and is accepting of Revolver's cooperation, Takeru only meets him with derision and suspicion happy to lump him in with the rest of Hanoi.
This isn't just because of the kidnapping, but his unresolved feelings over his dead parents. The guilt he carries for never being able to make up with his parents over the last fight they had, because he was kidnapped for six months and his parents died in an accident during that time. Revolver and Takeru are both characters controlled by unresolved feelings of grief over their dead parents, and a misplaced feeling of survivor's guilt, a guilt that they somehow had a role in thier parent's demise.
Revolver on his end is all too willing to accept Takeru's scapegoating of him, he doesn't feel the need to explain himself or even reveal the fact that he was the one who called the police during the lost incident because in his eyes that would be avoiding responsibility in a way.
It's not until his final duel with Takeru where Revolver eases up on himself, by helping Takeru process his own feelings of grief over his parents. The same way that Yusaku once dueled not to stop a villain, but to save a friend from being trapped in the past.
Revolver: Your soul is still trapped here. And you don't know how to find the path to escape. You won't find the path. Soulburner: Then tell me. You know that when I went missing during the lost incident, my parents searched for me. The morning I went missing I had a fight with my parents. I said something horrible. Revolver: What did you say? Soulburner: I don't remember. Probably about not wanting to eat what's on my plate, or stop telling me to study. But pathetically, I was caught in fear so I don't remember. No matter how many times, I can't remember. I said something horrible to my dead parents. I've been living with that fact. Tell me what did I say? How am I supposed to apologize to those who are gone, who I'll never see again? Revolver: It's not pathetic. And there's no need to apologize. Those who are gone haven't completely vanished from your life. They just went ahead earlier. That's what I believe.
Revolver didn't have to bear the brunt of Soulburner's feelings, or let him beat him up in a duel, but that's what Yusaku did for him so you know pay it forward. Revolver's kind of harsh about it, because he can't entirely let go of the facade in the midst of this duel but he's still speaking from the heart and relating to him.
Revolver: But I live my life in a way that won't shame them when I see them again. Soulburner: You're saying I'm living a shameful life. Revolver: Currently, you are. Soulburner: What? Revolver: If you have time to complain, then defeat me. With your duel where you burn your soul! To overcome the hardships in your heart you have to become stronger. Yusaku: Revolver, are you trying to become soulburner's greatest test?
This right here, this is a protagonist speech. Revolver has more in common with Soulburner than shared survivor's guilts, they are both more subdued and quiet in the real world, while having overly bombastic online personas. Revolver is defined by his overwhelming sense of responsibility, Takeru got involved in the main plot because he felt like he was wasting his life away while people like Playmaker were dueling to save the entirety of the link vrains. Even their decks mirror one another, Revolver's dragons destroy themselves and constantly come back, and the entire central mechanic of Salamagreats is that they go to the graveyard then cycle back onto the field in stronger and stronger links.
Takeru is so important to Revolver's character that the mask he's been hiding behind the entire series doesn't shatter until his final loss to Soulburner. It's only through the conclusion of the duel with his second character foil that Takeru and Revolver are able to find a bit of liberation from each other. Revolver can abandon the villain persona and leave on a journey of atonement, and Soulburner can abandon his hero persona and return to his normal life and eventually forget and move on from the incident.
