The Purpose of Exodia in YuGiOh's Pilot
Exodia the Forbidden One is such a powerful set of cards that that just holding them all in your hand is enough to win a duel. While some series might build to a protagonist eventually getting the power of such cards, YuGiOh instead gives them to Yugi right in episode one (“The Heart of the Cards”).
In a series all about playing games, primarily Duel Monsters (the in-universe name of the YuGiOh card game), what’s purpose of this unbeatable monster showing up so early?
To get to the bottom of this, we’re going to have to talk about the themes of YuGiOh. But rather than jump right into Exodia, I want to start with how these themes are demonstrated in with the first episode’s antagonist, Seto Kaiba.
Themes and Kaiba
In this first episode, Kaiba wholeheartedly believes that the most important element to winning is power, and more specifically, raw attack power from strong monsters. He believes in power so strongly that his goal for the first half of the episode is to acquire the fourth and final Blue Eyes White Dragon card, just so it could never be used against him.
In this search for power, Kaiba proves himself to not only be an antagonist to Yugi, but his mentality is shown to be the antithesis to the series main themes of faith and friendship (more on this later).
We see Kaiba scoff at the idea of faith as having anything to do with victory throughout the episode. An early example comes in the scene immediately after Yugi’s grandpa refuses to sell his Blue Eyes White Dragon. Kaiba says, "heart of the cards, ridiculous. These cards are all about power. And one way or another, his Blue Eyes White Dragon card will be mine."
His ideas on friendship, or any personal relationships, are never made so explicit, but we can read into quite a bit. There is the first scene after the opening, where Yugi and Joey are having a duel. Their best friends Téa and Tristan are hanging out next to them with a couple other classmates. Elsewhere in the class, other students are bunched together. Through all of this, Kaiba sits alone. But from his face, this appears to be out of a lack on interest rather than loneliness. At least, until Yugi mentions his grandpa’s rare card…
When Kaiba comes into Yugi’s grandpa’s game shop, Joey offers for them to duel sometime because of their shared interest in Duel Monsters. But Kaiba refuses. Joey isn’t strong enough to be worth his time.
There is an exception to this idea that Kaiba has no personal relationships though. During the duel with Yugi, while Joey is there cheering for Yugi, Kaiba’s brother Mokuba comes in. But where Yugi’s friendship gives him the strength to believe, Kaiba never once even looks in Mokuba’s direction. If the shots of Mokuba were cut, it wouldn’t change anything. Mokuba is more of a symbol of Kaiba’s potential for these relationships, than a demonstration that he has any currently.
And finally, let’s talk about the monster that essentially represents him, the Blue Eyes White Dragon. This is a monster with 3000 ATK, 2500 DEF and no effects. One of the most powerful monsters that doesn’t use an effect to raise their points, or come from a fusion, ritual, etc. While he uses three of them, I think it is worth emphasizing that it is three of the exact same monster, not a group of three equally powerful monsters.
"Faith or no faith, you will fall before my superior monsters, Yugi. Power is what this game is all about, you fool. Faith is for losers, like your pathetic grandfather. In your entire deck, there's not a single card that can stand up to a Blue Eyes White Dragon, so what hope do you have against two? Why don't you just admit defeat, Yugi?"
- Kaiba
With the counterpoint to the themes established, let’s look at Yugi and Exodia.
Yugi and Exodia the Forbidden One
While it might seem backwards to start with the antagonist, Yugi and Exodia are so linked that it felt like separating them would mean retreading a lot of the same ground. And so, here we are, putting them together.
First off, let’s just look at the literal reality of what Exodia is. Exodia the Forbidden One is a monster built out of a set of five cards. These cards consist of the two legs, two arms, and the body/head of Exodia. Each one on its own is pretty weak. The leg and arm cards have 200 ATK and 300 DEF each, and the body/head card has 1000 ATK and DEF. As standalone cards, the legs and arms aren’t good for much, and the body/head is okay fodder best. But, if you hold all five cards in your hand at one time, you automatically win the duel, regardless of how many life points either player has.
But let’s jump over to Yugi.
Yugi’s strengths are shown to be his faith in the heart of the cards and his friendships. This belief he has in the heart of the cards, the idea that if you believe in your cards, they will reward you, is instilled into him by his grandpa. In Yugi’s big duel of the episode, this is emphasized by the fact that Yugi is playing with his grandpa’s deck rather than his own. Yugi doesn’t even appear to know exactly what cards are in this deck, driving home the point that his belief in his grandpa that is symbolized by his belief in this deck.
The biggest friendship moment in the episode, potentially even the series, is when Téa gets Yugi, Joey, and Tristan to hold out their hands together with hers, and she draws a large smiley face across them. As she does this, Téa explains, "It's a symbol of our friendship, so when Yugi's dueling, no matter how tough it gets, he'll know that he's not alone. We're all right there with him."
Toward the end, when Yugi has one last chance to draw a card, knowing he’ll lose if Kaiba gets another turn, he has a moment where he loses his faith. In this moment, he sees the symbol on his hand, and feels as though his friends are there, drawing this final card with him. And it is because of them, that he has the faith to continue.
And with all this laid out: Kaiba’s belief in power, Exodia’s basic concept, and the strength of Yugi’s beliefs and friendships, it should be easy to see why Exodia’s the perfect tool for showing how correct Yugi’s beliefs are.
The fact that Exodia is made up of five weaker cards does two very important things. First, it lessens the odds of ever using this monster because of the unlikelihood of getting them all in your hand. Yugi needs his faith that he will draw these specific cards, and the faith is all the more important when at first, he doesn’t know what the cards are even for. And secondly, Exodia is the power of friendship epitomized. Five weak cards that together are an unbeatable whole. Just like the idea of friends standing together to defeat even the most powerful enemy.
"You play only for power, Kaiba, and that is why you lost. But if you put your heart in the game, there is nothing you can't do."
- Yugi
When looking at the themes present in the first episode of YuGiOh, we can see Yugi relationship to the themes as its thesis, Kaiba as its antithesis, and ultimately Exodia as a conclusion to the argument between them.
But this is only episode one, and there is a whole series left to go.
Exodia After Episode 1
I’d imagine this goes without saying, but even with luck (or faith) being such a large factor in its use, Exodia is extremely overpowered. Even more so when dealing with fiction, where luck is less of a factor than when the writer choses to employ such a tool.
Yugi having Exodia right from episode one is worse for drama and tension than if Goku gained Ultra Instinct Super Saiyan God right from the first episode of the original Dragon Ball. With this power, he could win every battle, so what does anything matter?
So, in episode three, “Journey to the Duelist Kingdom”, Weevil Underwood throws the five Exodia cards into the ocean, and they are gone from Yugi’s deck forever.
But if Yugi is going to have the ultimate monster for only a little more than two episodes, and only use it once in that time, what is the point of Yugi ever having Exodia?
I think the answer to this comes back to how much Exodia symbolizes the themes of the series. The first episode of YuGiOh is such a standalone story (outside of Pegasus’s minor tease at the end), that it could function entirely on its own as a single short movie. Exodia is there to fully demonstrate what this series is about, even if you only ever see this episode. While Exodia is amazing shorthand for a one-off story, the cards are just too powerful to keep around for any longer.
And while Exodia is never used by Yugi again, the monster does continue to exist. They are a powerful force in the background that is used when explaining the ancient Shadow Games, and they even come up being used by enemies (such as the cheating Rare Hunter with a deck full of the pieces). And Yugi overcoming Exodia is all the more special after we begin the series with showing how unstoppable they are.
