Since the Satsui no Hadou/Dark Hadou in Street Fighter, does KI have a counterpart in Gargos?
Omen is his herald.
In Street Fighter, Gouki became addicted to the Satsui no Hadou’s power and ended turned into Akuma, killing his master Gotetsu.
Ryu is succumbed to the dark hado but tries to be free of it. Jago became possessed by Omen turned into Shadow Jago.
Any difference yet?
There is a big difference in how these energy sources are portrayed and described, but there are a lot of similarities too.
The Satsui No Hado…
The SNH is a sort of “natural” force of energy in the SF universe that anybody can tap into as long as they reach a certain level of knowledge or skill in the Ansatsuken style. It is a seemingly endless / infinite supply of dark energy, that makes the user incredibly powerful, but at the cost of their humanity if they ever were to succumb fully to it.
Akuma when/if he “succumbs” to this power fully, he essentially would become a demon of immense power, but at the same time the power can’t really ever be tamed, just borrowed and manipulated. In the SF3 manga (non-canon right now), Akuma was destroyed by the power (after he was grievously injured by Ryu), which shows that it is a very volatile source of energy. After Akuma faded away in the manga, the power still remained, just the vessel was gone.
Gargos’ Power…
“Gargos’ power” on the other hand doesn’t seem to be some natural power in the universe, rather it is essentially the corruptive life-force of the being Gargos. Jago was “infected” by Gargos’ power (I assume by Gargos himself through some astral projecting scheme), and that “infection” took on a life of its own after it combined / syphoned off Jago’s own life force for a certain amount of time. Omen was the product.
Gargos’ power objectively can make a person very powerful, but it isn’t a stream of power that one taps in to like the SNH, it is like a shot of adrenaline that increases one’s power, and continues to increase that power as one continues to fight. The new Jago bio suggests that Shago went on a rampage across the globe (killing people, not killing people…we don’t know (probably killing people)), all in an effort to “feed” Gargos. I assume that means that as “Omen” became stronger, Gargos became stronger, and furthermore, the Season 2 story suggests that there may be other “heralds” out there too (that is that I got anyway).
…
So yeah, in my opinion, the SNH is more powerful just for the fact that it is an infinite stream of readily available power. It does seemingly have a built in ‘ceiling of power’ though, seeing as it is the vessel that uses said power that is the limiter of that energy. Even Akuma (the strongest SNH user in SF) can die / be overwhelmed by it’s corruptive force, so in theory, the stronger the fighter using the energy, the stronger the SNH can manifest, but the power will always be limited. The SNH itself may not have a limit per say, it just can’t / won’t be able to perfectly manifest (at least not in any of the vessels shown yet).
Gargos’ power is not a part of any stream of power one can tap into, but it is similar in that the vessel can be a potential limiter for the power. As such, it may / should have the same weakness as the SNH in any / all of its manifestations…OUTSIDE OF GARGOS HIMSELF (this is speculation on my part). Gargos himself may have the potential to become more powerful than Oni (Fully succumbed Akuma), or any other potential SNH user, seeing as Gargos’ power…is HIS power, and as such, Gargos’ power may be able to “perfectly” manifest in his actually body. Essentially meaning that Gargos may have no limit to the power he can attain through battle, though he would have a finite well to draw from at any given time.
Right now, we just don’t have enough information right now to come to any definitive conclusions.
TL;DR…
The SNH objectively is an infinite source of corruptive power that is only limited by the vessel in which it manifests.
Gargos’ power is a finite source of corruptive power, that may not have a cap on how powerful it can get within a given vessel.
That is one wicked theory!
But I wonder now about the Devil Gene too.
It got Kazuya, even Jin.
It seems like all the info about the Devil Gene is in flux right now…so I really don’t konw currently where they are going.
Back when I was really into the Tekken story (like Tekken 3/4), it seemed as if the DG was a gene that started with Kazuya, and was passed on to Jin through DNA, and as such it added an incredible power through some connection with a supernatural force…that doesn’t seems to be the case any more…at least not fully.
In Tekken 5, Jinpachi, Heihachi’s dad, was revealed, and it was shown that he too had an incredible power within him. It was hinted / straight up revealed that “that power,” the DG, skipped a generation over Heihachi and went to Kazuya and then Jin. BUT I just read that according to the Tekken creators, that Jinpachi didn’t in fact have the DG within him, thus we are back to Kazuya being the progenitor of the DG…that is until Tekken 7 was announced. In this new upcoming Tekken 7 story, we are supposed to learn more about Kazuya’s mom, and it (I guess) has been hinted that the DG started with her as she was the first of the Mishimas to have the DG within her. So yeah, the whole bloodline of the DG is being turned upside down from games to game, as they are seemingly still trying to figure it out themselves.
Regardless, the DG is a power source of energy that allows one to augment their form to produce superhuman physical strength, as well as many other supernatural abilities. In the (now old) Tekken: Blood Vengence, it was shown that all the Mishimas (Hei, Kaz, and Jin) were all capable of great power, I guess just because they are Mishimas, as Heihachi was able to keep up with his son and grandson through just training and determination, but as Kazuya and Jin began to take it up a notch, they were clearly on a level beyond even Heihachi, blowing up buildings, flying around, as well as surviving blows that presumably would have killed them before their transformations.
All in all, I have to say that I don’t fully understand all the “Angel” and “Devil” stuff (even from way back in the day), and I honestly don’t think the Tekken creators have tried to explain it all, but it is clear that those who use these transformations gain a great power, but it does have a limit. That being said, there are various levels to the transformation process. In the Tekken: BV movie, Jin himself went through at least 2 transformations, the last of which trumping Kazuya’s full devil form, so it is wholly possible that there are more levels to this power yet to be shown.
In regards to comparing the DG to the SNH or Gargos’ power, the DG is WAY different, in that it doesn’t seem to be connected to any power source other than the host. The only other character officially to have been said to also use the DG was Azazel in T6, and still much of his story is shrouded in mystery. It was said that he is connected to / works for the Devil, and as such was the one who originally infected the Mishima family with the DG…most likely Kazuya’s mom, but yeah, we just don’t know yet.
Of the 3 power sources, the DG, SNH, GP…which one is more powerful? Well, as you can see the DG is really just as fleshed out as Gargos’ power, even though Tekken is now on its 7th game in the series. So I’d have to say that the SNH is more powerful, with the DG in 2nd, and the GP fighting for 3rd place.
Objectively, the DG has shown itself to be less powerful that the SNH as it has manifested in Akuma, but more powerful than the GP right now with the movie and all, but I think the potential for the GP to be more powerful is there. Not to mention, that I don’t find the DG, its current iteration anyway, to be that interesting overall. Transformations in themselves are cool and all, but I want to learn more about the origin of the actual power, which they haven’t tried to go into yet with any degree of detail.
When Tekken 7 comes out, they better have a COMPLETE explanation on how the Devil Gene was brought into the Mishima family! Including the Kazama family’s power!
We’ve known the Satsui no Hadou for a long time. So the power of Gargos will be explained to us in season 3.
Has anyone found out more of Gargos?