So recently there’s been a wonderful personality chart circling around that states the personalities of the YGO characters. And while the chart is very interesting and useful, there’s been one thing we’ve found out that’s both surprising and confusing; out of all the characters, Ryou Bakura was ranked as having the highest level of narcissism, with altruism being the opposing trait.
Now what’s interesting about this is that he’s also ranked as being the most unselfish. Which makes no sense, seeing as “
showing a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others; unselfish.” So how on earth can Ryou be “narcissistic” (which is completely the wrong term mind you) and be unselfish?
Ryou Bakura isn’t narcissistic; what he is, is self serving. He does things that benefits himself above anyone else, and sometimes these things can put others into a dangerous position. [[MORE]]Such as Ryou keeping the Ring regardless of Yami Bakura’s presence in it, out of a sense of wanting to keep Bakura around so he wouldn’t be alone. Ryou isn’t however self preserving - he has absolutely no self preserverence and at the end of the day will sacrifice himself if it means to stop Bakura from harming his friends. This strikes a fairly odd balance, seeing as Ryou ends up being self serving up until a certain point. Ryou has his own motives for following along with the others, driven more by his desire to learn the origins of the items rather than the sense of serving the greater good. Being a hero is not in Ryou’s interest nor is Ryou interested in it. He wants to get something out of it, and he is willing to do underhanded things if they serve his purpose. But he isn’t outwardly selfish. All of this self serving Ryou does is completely internalized, dealing with Bakura and with his own motives, rather than being externalized. Externally, he’s polite and courteous and doesn’t want much from people.
This chart also brings up another very good point that I have been touching upon throughout this analysis series: Ryou and Bakura are extremely alike. They share a similar sense of being self-serving (narcissistic as it’s poorly put) and having lofty ideals/not really being there all the time. The only difference is that while Ryou is “selfless” or rather, without self preservation, Bakura is greedy, and he will tear down the world to get what he wants.
So essentially I want to make it a point that in the Bakurae being labeled “narcissistic” it’s not really the narcissism that’s self involved and vain like we are led to think of it being. It’s an internalized form of self serving that could be considered a survivalist mindset. They work for themselves and for themselves only. That’s what it means by narcissism.