actually so fascinated by the fact atem is 15. this is really important to me. hes 15. he was king of egypt. he died at 15. he sacrificed his life at 15.
its true that teenagers as a culture didnt exist until long after ancient egypt, and generally speaking in times as old as that, adulthood came a lot sooner, so its not like this fact is an outlier for the time period, but that just makes it that much more interesting to me. In a time when people, statistically speaking, had shorter lives, his life was even shorter than that.
I think a lot about core memories that I have as an adult now. And like. I have core memories I developed at 18, at 20, and Atem never even got that far. For him, developmentally, there were probably still a lot of Firsts he never got to live through. Or a lot of Introspective Philosophical breakthroughs he never got to have because he didn't live long enough to have the experience required to have them in the first place.
I wish there was more about that in the manga. Atem, who woke up and thought he was Yuugi, who had teenager problems for just a moment, before Shaadi came and took it away. Did he ever think about that? Did he ever think about his short life and the insurmountable responsibility placed upon him and wish for a moment that he didn't need to worry about destiny? Throughout the entire story he is so confident in it, so , just, willing to sacrifice it all over again because it's his destiny. What does that do to a person?
Even after he leaves, he's separated from the second life he was given and returned to the afterlife, torn away again from what he knows, like destiny is more important.
Did he ever yearn for freedom? Do you think seeing Kaiba break the laws of reality just to see him again made him feel some kind of way?
