沐玖

What do you think Ryou's soul room looks like?

sorry for the late reply. I honestly had some things to do lately and I knew it would take me some time to reply to this, anyway

I’ve seen many posts speculating about Ryou’s soul room and from what they say overall they mostly see it as this room of a simple boy, ofc, but with some dark traces or secrets hidden away thanks to the influence of the ring (see here and there) - which is a very realistic way of seeing his soul room imo because no matter how many times they try to deny it (in canon itself) the spirit of the ring has 100% been a big influence in Ryou’s life . period. It left an impact, for sure, and naturally so, otherwise, it’s just sloppy characterisation which is a common bad habit with the Bakuras I noticed anyway I am digressing...

Drawing conclusions from the fanon’s pov, I also tried to analyse some of the canon content... In the anime we were blessed with that wonderful, good-quality animated episode 79 which is literally just a Bakura filler cause none of it is shown in in the manga and in that episode (if you watch the sub version cause it was cut out in the dub) we can see, before that moment where Malik and Yami Bakura are talking “inside Bakura’s host”, a transition that goes:

...from Ryou’s dreaming face -> to Domino City -> to outer space -> and then this:

I’m 99% sure this is the animators’ idea/theory of Ryou’s soul room - which looks very similar to Yugi’s in fact.

You can clearly notice that it starts with an “opening of doors” sequence, almost like we’re entering a room, and it ends with another set of opening doors as well in the same ancient style of Windows Moviemaker. What i guess we can decipher from that, is that Malik was looking around for Yami Bakura, entering Ryou’s soul room at first and then leaving it. The next “room” we see might even be Yami Bakura’s soul room - even if it looks just like a vast space/infinite sky.

Here we see Malik in the middle of this infinite space. The “opening of doors” that precedes this setting is a clear sign for me that we are NOT in Ryou’s soul room anymore here. Also cause Malik says:

“...found it.” So he was probably looking around for Yami Bakura’s soul room, proving in fact that he was in Ryou’s before that. We even see Yami Bakura “flying” and coming from somewhere else to reach Malik:

...so we can’t even imagine how big and vast and almost infinite Bakura’s soul room might be (the concept of it being infinite even makes sense when you think about how big/endless Atem’s soul room is - the labyrinth of stairs)

Yami Bakura’s first reaction to that is:

which proves to us even more that Malik really managed to enter their soul rooms in this scene. Also because it makes sense since he gained access with it through the Rod. I like the idea of Yami Bakura having to fly to talk with him because I think his soul room is so vast and has more to offer than anyone can imagine...

ANYWAY, sorry i am digressing again - we were talking about Ryou here:

Ryou’s soul room looks pretty similar to Yugi’s: a room full of scattered toys of their childhood. What is peculiar about Ryou’s is that, between all the toys of cars and Godzilla and a big ass soldier, we see what looks like some sort of Barbie dolls:

here is one, and another:

One could, of course, conclude from that that Ryou liked to play with Barbie dolls as a kid (which is fucking CUTE) BUT i have to say that seeing that second doll placed right next to a figurine of a plane with a broken wing kind of feels like... telling to me... I know these are all headcanons but what if these dolls are supposed to be Amane’s toys?

What we know about Amane - Bakura's deceased sister - is that she died at a young age, with her mother, in a car accident - so it’s no reach to think that this plane and the fact that it is broken might even suggest that some of these toys might have even belonged to Ryou’s little sister at the time of the tragic incident?? And he keeps them in his soul room as a memory of a past long gone in which they used to play together and he was more happy ofc and careless?? fucking tragic, i know.

So... what I’m gathering from that animation sequence is that the toys in Ryou’s soul room do NOT ONLY symbolise some sort of innocence in him - kind of like in Yugi’s case - but they give me more of a nostalgic meaning, because in fact if we have to point out the difference between his and Yugi’s childhood, in Ryou’s case it’s marked by memories of a past long gone, a state of being he never got to live again ever since the tragic event. But the fact that he keeps them in his soul room symbolise like a longing, imo, of that peaceful state of mind he used to know back then, only as a child. *cries*

So, in conclusion, if you want to hear my version of Ryou’s soul room it would in fact be very similar to what the animators did there: A scattered pile of toys and objects of his past, his innocence, and his nostalgia. More objects that allude to his sister cause let’s not forget he still writes letters to her in heaven like shown in the manga and his mother, and the natural grieving that comes with it. Plus, i would add some duel monster cards and most of all some figurines of his DnD campaigns, cause they left an impact on his life as well. I’d imagine most of them are placed neatly inside a glass case, like a proud collection, but the ones hidden in the back are stained with blood and have cracks on their surface - cause a big portion of traumatic events that happened in his life were, unfortunately, alluded to these DnD figurines.

Since we can also see walls in some depictions of these soul rooms (like in Anzu’s case we can see them belonging to a dance room), I like to imagine Ryou’s walls to be transparent, made of glass, and reflecting onto that vast sky-like place that seems to belong to Yami Bakura’s soul “room”. Cause as much as it might be painful for him, he is always fully exposed to the spirit. Whatever goes on inside his room, or his head, is for the spirit to see and control, whereas he still has no clue from where or what that spirit comes from - and it’s portrayed in that infinite space he can only gaze upon but never venture in. But I like to think, by the time the Millennium World arc took place, most of his DnD figurines were immersed in sand, and the vast space he gazed upon changed into that of an ancient village, wrecked and abandoned, but for Ryou finally clear to see.

sorry this got so long omg