History Characters / YuGiOhMainAntagonists

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Symbolic of Dark Bakura's role in the story, as Dark Master Zorc was physically connected to Bakura's body as his PlayerCharacter. Dark Master Zorc starts off as a stranger lying unconscious (a figurine that resembles Dark Bakura) in the middle of the road, whom the party helps and befriends. He lies and says his goal is the same as the adventures, and that he was heading to the next town to give the ChosenOne a holy sword that would defeat Zorc. He leads the party into a trap and reveals himself as the Dark Master Zorc himself. But deep down inside of him lies the soul of the White Wizard Bakura, who is a genuine ally to the adventures.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Symbolic of Dark Bakura's role in the story, as Dark Master Zorc was physically connected to Bakura's body as his PlayerCharacter. Dark Master Zorc starts off as a stranger lying unconscious (a figurine that resembles Dark Bakura) in the middle of the road, who the party helps and befriends. He lies and says his goal is the same as the adventures, and that he was heading to the next town to give the ChosenOne a holy sword that would defeat Zorc. He leads the party into a trap and reveals himself as the Dark Master Zorc himself. But deep down inside of him lies the soul of the White Wizard Bakura, who is a genuine ally to the adventures.

* AdaptedOut: He appears in the first series anime, but that adaptation ended at the Monster World arc and never finished the entire storyline. Since the better-known second series anime skips over the Monster World arc, he doesn't appear there. He doesn't even appear as a Duel Monsters card during that anime's Duel Monsters-reenactment of the manga's Monster World game during the anime version of Duelist Kingdom, so none of the anime-only fans got the references to Dark Master Zorc and the Monster World RPG when the anime arrived at the final arc.

* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: Tabletop role-players often fear party-wipes. Dark Yugi fears his characters getting party-wiped by Zorc for a whole different reason because they contain the souls of his friends.

* AffablyEvil: He may seem like a carefree goof until he gets serious, but even then he's genuinely good-mannered compared to most of the ''Yu-Gi-Oh!''' manga villains.

* KnightOfCerebus: In the anime and especially the English dub. Duelist Kingdom (or at least the anime version) was pretty light-hearted, with the only major Shadow Games all involving Pegasus--and even than, they only got truly ugly if you lost. Marik's arrival heralded an entire season of duels designed to maim, kill, or "banish the loser to the Shadow Realm" (in the dub), and his love of MindRape and mind control only made things worse. Then Dark Marik made things even ''worse''.

* BigBad: Of the first half of Battle City.
* BigBadWannabe: While he is played up as a major threat in the Battle City arc, the finals reveal Dark Marik to be the true manipulator of events, and an even greater threat than the normal Marik.

* BigBad: Of the second half of Battle City.

The initial BigBad of the Battle City arc, he's a former tombkeeper charged with protecting the Pharaoh's Millennium Items and carvings, awaiting for his return in the modern world. As a little boy, an ancient ritual which involved carving the ancient writings onto his back using a hot dagger traumatized him so much that he created an alternate personality to cope with the pain. This became his SuperpoweredEvilSide, Dark Marik. He later betrayed his order, set up an underground organization within the gaming world's black market ("the Ghouls"), and sought to defeat the King of Games, the reasons of which vary between adaptations and dub or original -- in the 4Kids dub, Marik wants to claim the Millennium Puzzle and become the new Pharaoh, in the original Japanese anime and manga, he wants to kill the Pharaoh because he thinks the Pharaoh's will was responsible for his father's death, dividing their family clans with blood for 3,000 years.

* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: Every battle he sets up between Yugi and one of his minions ends up being Death Games. Buzzsaws that chop off the loser's legs after they lose? Check! A bomb that's set to explode, destroying the floor and sending the loser falling down over ten stories? Check!

* ArcVillain: Of the Battle City arc, up until the finals at least.

* BadBoss: He pulls YouHaveFailedMe on most of his minions when they lose and inflicts Penalty Games on them, [[MindRape using his hold on their mind to break them]].

* BigBad: Of the Battle City arc until the finals begin. Also see BigBadWannabe.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Marik brain controls Bandit Keith (only in the anime, as Bandit Keith is dead long before this in the manga), Pantommer, and Jonouchi during three separate duels with Yugi. He also uses mind control to punish the first Ghoul (Rare Hunter), Pandora, and Mask of Light when they fail, driving them insane.
* BreakTheHaughty: At the hands of his SuperpoweredEvilSide. After a section of floating around as a disembodied ghost, and being repeatedly victimized by Dark Marik when he tries to fight back, Marik becomes TheAtoner, and looks to aid the Pharaoh.

* DirtyCoward: Marik never confronts Yugi directly, preferring to send minions after him and speak to him through mental slaves even after he's arrived in the city, has Risgid pose as him at first to avoid being found out, and relies on cheating and trickery in his plans, including turning Yugi's friends against him. This is lampshaded by Dark Marik, who outright declares the normal Marik was a wimp compared to him, and indeed he has no such problems taking care of things personally.

* KnightOfCerebus: In the anime and especially the English dub. Duelist Kingdom (of the anime version) was pretty light-hearted, with the only major Shadow Games all involving Pegasus--and even than, they only got truly ugly if you lost. Marik's arrival heralded an entire season of duels designed to maim, kill, or "banish the loser to the Shadow Realm" (in the dub), and his love of MindRape and mind control only made things worse. Then Dark Marik made things even ''worse''.

* SissyVillain: Normal Marik has some traits of this. Especially in the dub, he tends to angst over his past, wears a pink midriff-bearing hoodie, and prefers to have his minions do his work for him rather than dirty his hands personally. We actually never see Marik himself duel in the anime or manga at all, he's so hands-off.

Marik's SuperpoweredEvilSide, formed from the trauma, pain, and hatred Marik felt as a child, and was created during the ritual in which the Pharaoh's secret was carved into his back using a hot dagger. He performs a SplitPersonalityTakeover late in the Battle City arc to become the main BigBad of the rest of the arc. Unlike the original Marik, who had actual goals and plans, Dark Marik only seeks to cause as much pain and misery as he can, to anyone he can, and enjoys doing it.

All of the duels Dark Marik employs are Shadow Games. Dark Marik uses a Fiend deck which focuses on summoning and reviving the Sun Dragon Ra and is meant to signify immortality. Many of his cards emulate torture devices; thanks to his ability to make the duel real, he tries to get the opponent to give up, pass out, or die from the extreme pain and injury before the game is even over.

* BigBad: For the first half of Battle City, the normal Marik is the BigBad. But in the finals, Dark Marik is revealed to be the ultimate villain of Battle City, and the one behind the normal Marik's motivation.
* BiggerBad: While the normal Marik is the BigBad for the first half of Battle City, Dark Marik has been implied to have corrupted him and, of course, killed Marik's father.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: His duelist tactics. In his first couple of duels, he plays like a normal duelist (relatively speaking) and uses the Sun Dragon Ra as his trump card like the Dark Magician or Blue-Eyes. By the time his duel with Yugi comes around, his deck is devoted to summoning Ra over and over and giving him ways to power it up once he has it in play. This is justified though, given that Yugi has two Gods of his own.

* TheCorrupter: It's implied that once he was created as Marik's split personality to cope with his traumatic childhood, bits of his psyche leaked over throughout the years and drove the normal Marik evil too.

* DarkIsEvil: Dark Marik is a hideous man in dark clothes, whose deck uses Fiend-monsters and Traps and Spells that mimic torture devices. He does have a bit of LightIsNotGood with the Sun Dragon Ra, however. He even states that, while the normal Marik feared darkness, he ''loves'' it.

* EvilMakesYouUgly: Pretty-boy Marik was hardly a good guy, but he's got nothing on his disfigured SuperpoweredEvilSide for sheer malice. Notably, the more AxCrazy Dark Marik gets, the more his veins stand out, the more his eyes bulge, and the more his face stretches. They're actually identical in facial structure when Dark Marik is normal, but the glowing eye and the hair tend to offset this.

* FanDisservice: As Dark Marik, where he's not near as pretty as his normal half. Thank God he puts on a less revealing outfit within an episode of his first appearance.

* {{Foil}}: To Dark Yugi. They both have spiky hair and a glowing third eye. Also, Dark Yugi used to be just as sadistic as Dark Marik, but Dark Yugi always had a sense of justice, while Dark Marik is a BloodKnight.

* GambitRoulette: Some of Dark Malik's strategies rely on having the right cards at the right time, not to mention NewRulesAsThePlotDemands. Notably, using the De-Fusion he acquired from Yugi's hand a couple turns earlier to separate himself from Ra in [[CastFromHitPoints point-to-point transfer powered up mode]] to evade defeat from Yugi, and also regaining his life points in the process.

* GreenLanternRing: The Sun Dragon Ra has as many special abilities as a swiss army knife has attachments, and Dark Marik reveals new ones every time he duels which let him win when otherwise Ra would be useless.

* KnightOfCerebus: He is '''easily''' the most deranged, dangerous, bloodthirsty, flat ''evil'' character in the entire original series. The other villains were evil too, but none of them were insane maniacs who killed for fun. Only Bakura came close, and even then it either wasn't killing or a means to an end.

* TheMentallyDisturbed: Dark Marik's a psychopathic sadist whose grip on reality gets looser by the moment, and he's an alter-ego of a teenager that suffered a painfully traumatic childhood. Sanity is nowhere in sight here.
* MindRape: Dark Marik ''loves'' doing this in his Shadow Games. His Penalty Game for Mai involved her being trapped in an hourglass, while slowly being devoured by the scarabs that acted as the sand.

* OffModel: Dark Marik is frequently off-model. Throw in the facial stretching, the tendency towards sticking out his tongue, and the [[VoiceOfTheLegion voice]], and it makes him really gross. Despite having the exact same face as the original Marik, it can seem so different that you wonder how they're connected.

* OneWingedAngel: To the normal Marik. He also fuses with the Sun Dragon Ra to deal the final blow in his duels.

* {{Sadist}}: Dark Marik's the most blatant example in the anime/manga. He freely admits this.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: He thinks there's no way Jounouchi can survive an attack by the Sun Dragon Ra. He not only does, but Jounouchi was seconds away from winning the duel afterwards because Dark Marik had no plan to defend himself if Jounouchi survived and kept dueling.
* UnskilledButStrong: To an extent. He's not a ''bad'' Duelist, by any means, but he tends to rely a lot on the power of the Shadow Games and the fact that no one can peg Ra's effects - he beat Mai only because she couldn't read Ra and wasted her Harpies summoning it, he beat Bakura because Bakura didn't realize Ra's Graveyard effects, and he beat Jounouchi with Shadow Game torture rather than skill. He also lost first in the four-way Duel (the only Duel he had where he didn't get either Ra or Shadow Games). It's quite likely that if he played fair, he would have been knocked out by Mai in the first round. Too bad he doesn't play fair.

* BossBanter: Half of his dialogue cosnsit of reminding Yugi and his party of their hopeless situation.

* EyeScream: Jonouchi's character takes out one of Zorc's eyes with his sword, blinding the real Dark bakura on his corresponding eye as well.

* OneWingedAngel: Last Zorc. The Dark Master Zorc is relatively humanoid, but when his final form is a complete EldritchAbomination, comparable to the real Zorc.

Zorc of the Monster World RPG, as well as his story, closely parallels Zorc Necrophades and the demon's battle with Pharaoh Atem 3,000 years ago - except in Monster World, Zorc managed to kill the king. According to Dark Bakura, the Monster World RPG was created as a warm-up to the final game of the series, so Dark Master Zorc of the Monster World RPG is a CallForward to the ancient Zorc Necrophades of the Shadow RPG; being based on the evil god himself.

Zorc of the Monster World RPG, as well as his story, closely parallels Zorc Necrophades and the demon's battle with Pharaoh Atem 3,000 years ago. According to Dark Bakura, the Monster World RPG was created as a warm-up to the final game of the series, so Dark Master Zorc of the Monster World RPG is a CallForward to the ancient Zorc Necrophades of the Shadow RPG; being based on the evil god himself.

* TimeStandsStill: Zorc's third Hourglass ability stops time for the natural denizens of the Shadow RPG (naturally, the Dark Yugi-possessed Atem piece and his friends are exempt). This allows Akhenaden to steal the Millennium Items and summon Zorc.

* LegacyCharacter: In-universe, he is named after Zorc Necrophades and has similar abilities, minus his three Hourglass abilities and being TheCorruption of humanity.

* LegacyCharacter: In-universe, he is named after Zorc Necrophades and has similar abilities, minus being TheCorruption of humanity.

* LargeAnDInCharge: In terms of the diorama.

* AttackItsWeakPoint: For a KillerGameMaster, Dark Bakura sure made Dark Master Zorc's weakpoint obvious.

* AttackItsWeakPoint: For a Killer Game master, Dark Bakura sure made Dark Master Zorc's weakpoint obvious.

* LegacyCharacter

Zorc of the Monster World RPG, as well as his story, closely parallels Zorc Necrophades and the demon's battle with Pharaoh Atem 3,000 years ago. According to Dark Bakura, the Monster World RPG was created as a warm-up to the final game of the series, so Dark Master Zorc of the Monster World RPG is a CallForward to the ancient Zorc Necrophades of the Shadow RPG; being based on the demon.

* Homage: Zorc's name may be a reference to {{Zork}}, an early text-based adventure game.

* Homage: Like the Zorc from Monster World, Zorc's name may be a reference to {{Zork}}, an early text-based adventure game.