#this is distinct from Yami Marik who is simply doing whatever the fuck he wants

[kujakumai]

Sorry but what was Mariks goal in Battle City? The dub said he wanted to rule the world but I think that was a dubbism.

Marik was raised with the belief that according to prophecy, one day the pharaoh will return (and that "you will know [the pharoah] by the gods he wields") and at such time he and the rest of the clan were to turn over the millennium items so that the pharaoh will regain his memories, after which the tombkeepers "will have no reason to exist."

Marik does not like this prophecy, and deeply resents the idea that he and his ancestors are supposed to dedicate their lives to suffering in the dark for thousands of years for some jerk, especially since the pharaohs ghost will or whatever (he believes) killed his father. He also interprets the "have no reason to exist" bit to mean he and his family all die at the end.

Marik's plan is to do some good ol fashioned "exact wording of the prophecy" trickery. If you'll know the pharaoh by the god cards he wields, then all Marik has to do is get all the god cards FIRST, and get rid of any other candidates, then the prophecy will have no choice but to determine that Marik Ishtar was the true pre-ordained pharaoh all along! This puts him in a position of divine power, gets revenge for his father's murder, and probably allows him to avoid mass tombkeeper death; it also sort of symbolically re-takes the past few millennia of tombkeeper servanthood away from the pharaohs who ordered their entombment and gives it to one of their own.

Obviously a lot of the underlying facts Marik is operating under are wrong (he killed his own father, and the pharaoh's return means the tombkeepers as an institution ceases to exist and the people themselves are free to live new lives) and we have no idea if this would have worked even if he had successfully knocked out Atem and collected all 3 gods. But I do appreciate a good literal-prophecy gambit.