Predictions and Observations:
Welcome to the Fortune Cup
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Episode Aired: December 20, 2008
This Post Posted: December 26, 2008
Nice entrance, Jack. I especially like the flip. I wonder-- cards aside, who's the better rider, Jack or Yusei? I bet Yusei could pull tricks like the ones we've seen Jack do (the riding backwards and upside-down without falling, and that beautiful aerial flip) but unlike Jack he's no show-off. We've seen Yusei make extremely hairpin turns, leap huge fences, slide sideways under a closing door while dodging flying trash, and duel while falling down an elevator shaft, so don't think Jack's the only guy with a few runner tricks. Still, aerial flip.
Greiger-- how d'you spell that?... Doesn't matter-- I love this guy already! Aw, mannn! I really did forget that people in this tournament weren't to be trusted and he was probably working for Goodwin. Then again, doesn't mean he can't be genuinely a good guy even if he's working for the de-facto bad guys. Who does he remind me of? Someone who duels with honor, but is still on the other side and believes in it. He reminds me of Rafael, or even Alister or Valon; I get the sense that he's going to give Yusei one heck of a duel, and even though they're on opposite sides there will be no lack of mutual respect. THAT's who he reminds me of-- he reminds me of Odion, and I should've gone with my first inclination and saved myself a bunch of brainstorming. He even looks and sounds a lot like Odion. But most importantly, he's honorable and respects his opponent as another duelist, even if he plays for the bad guys.
Whoa-- having a satellite competing just about derailed the tournament! Goodwin had to be expecting that, though; did he put Greiger up to making that beautiful speech, was that planned, or did Greiger do that on his own? Did Greiger do that because he really believes that a duelist should judge another duelist as an equal, or because the tournament would probably have ended then and there if he hadn't, and he has a job to do that requires it not to?
Why is Greiger trying to expose the Signers? What reason does Goodwin himself have for doing this, what reason is he giving the people who go along with him, and do they sincerely believe in it or are they just getting paid? What do they think Signers are? Do they think they're doing the right thing?
The pink-haired lady-- what was her name? She was introduced as Miss Sakiza Yazinski. Spelling, as you may imagine, is subject to interpretation at the moment. She's the Black Rose. I'm absolutely certain. We were already looking for a woman with pink hair to be in the Fortune Cup; this is she, and she's the Black Rose. Otherwise, it's one heck of a red herring. If Sakiza isn't the Black Rose, we'd of course have to ask what happened, since it certainly isn't any other one of the Fortune Eight (unless it's Shira and/or she's better with deceptive makeup and hair than any actor or makeup artist I've ever met. Then again, she *is* the Black Rose, and THAT is a ridiculously cool costume), and we know Lezar delivered an invitation to her. Or, how 'bout this: what if she's not a competitor? Lezar stated that one of the five black-robes led him right to her (which, and why did this person have the ability to find her or predict her actions easily?), and she got the invitation. He went on to say that she would be dueling there along with Yusei. What if he didn't mean an actual envelope like Yusei or Leo got, but rather an incentive of one kind or another to show up that day for an unrelated reason? Did we see this 'invitation', since we saw Lezar watching the whole big street-duel-disturbance last episode? But the Black Rose wanted to put some serious distance between herself and Yusei after seeing that he had a Sign; Yusei might join the tournament if it meant finding her and getting some answers, but probably not the other way around, unless it was just a momentary freakout.
Come to think of it, why did Lezar not just tell Goodwin that he witnessed the appearance of Yusei's Sign? Did he, and did Goodwin decide that wasn't enough? After all, he considered Jack's saying that Yusei has a Sign no more than cause for taking an interest in him and making sure. Why didn't Lezar just snap a cell phone picture (what, they had smelly holograms forty years or so ago (The Scars of Defeat), holograms that you could drink thirty years or so ago (Let's Make a Duel!) but no cell phone cameras?) and save everyone a world of trouble? There's the old standby of 'it's a plot device, deal with it', but also I think Lezar might be the kind of guy who would rather let everyone struggle, especially an 'inferior' like Yusei.
Oh, is THAT why you threw this tournament, Goodwin? Don't you know that we've heard that excuse for singling out Yusei before? "I'm sure that many of you feel that you have been dealt a bad hand in life..." Still, you have to wonder whether Goodwin planned that truly heartwarming lie in advance or whether he went off-the-cuff and picked up where Greiger left off to save the tournament from collapsing before it even started. I must admit that if it wasn't planned in advance, 'Fortune Cup' is still a very fitting name for the tournament in which duelists with all different levels of monetary 'fortune', whom fortune has dealt very different hands indeed, all meet. It occurs to me that Goodwin would have had to make the tournament extremely diverse and have that be its theme to justify having Jack and Luna in the same tournament with Yusei: two different worlds.
So, this tournament contains everyone Goodwin thinks is a Signer, including Yusei, "Luna", Jack, and the Black Rose, and, since there were five of them, the five guys in black robes? Well, this is shaping up to be a fine tournament. For a moment I was having KCGC flashbacks when I saw all those people in crazy costumes show up, but if we've got another swath of loonies to duel through, at least they're loonies with an agenda or two. But that of course leaves us asking-- who's the fifth Signer, why is he or she not in the tournament, and most importantly, how did Goodwin know that he or she wouldn't be? Otherwise, why wouldn't it have been *four* 'servants of Iliaster'? So who's the fifth?
What did Zigzix crank up there, to give Luna a headache even though she wasn't dueling? 'Neuron' whatsis? No wonder Luna had a headache. We saw Yusei observing the duel, and if he started getting a headache he sure didn't show it, which is another point for the 'Ener-D-proof-bunker' theory in a few paragraphs.
The dog-breathmint ad was kinda funny, but it also told us a few things. For one, Leo said this tournament was being hosted by KaibaCorp; you're telling me that KaibaCorp even *needs* sponsorship these days? But also, the theme of dogs, including Yusei's alleged 'lost dog' gets instanciated here.
Star Blast-- didn't Joey play that card? I swear, I know that card. Yeah, I went back and looked, and Joey played Star Blaster in Down in Flames II; is it the same card said differently (Dragon Master Knight, anyone?), or a different card entirely?
Luna's a Signer? Then, if Goodwin's summary of this to Jack is true at all, and this point of it we've already seen hold some weight in the form of Jack and Yusei, Luna is one heck of a powerful duelist. Leo and Luna said earlier that Luna was scared to get out there and duel; might be the crowds, might be the tension, and admittedly a tournament is a whole lot of pressure. Despite her meekness, however, Luna is a wellspring of untapped energy, a natural; actually, it reminds me a lot of Yugi, who was notoriously shy and timid before his big adventures began.
If Greiger's the perfect choice to challenge "Luna", that means the bracket shuffler was rigged. What does Goodwin think makes Shira the perfect guy to challenge Yusei?
Ener-D is NOT duel energy; normal duelists generate duel energy too, not just Signers, though Signers are the kind of duelists who would generate more of it. Perhaps Ener-D is a specific kind of extra-powerful duel energy that's only emitted by Signers?
Doesn't Goodwin know Luna's style, if he knows so much else? Wouldn't he have been able to see as soon as Leo's signature monsters came out that this isn't the duelist he's looking for? Unless Luna duels with morphtronics, too...
A bit of deductive logic....
1. (x)(Sx ⊃ Dx)
2. (∃x)(Sx • Tx) • (∃y)(Sy • Ty) ⊃ (y = x)
3. (x)(Lx ⊃ ~Dx)
4. (∃x)(Dx • Tx)
5. (x)[(~Lx • Tx) ⊃ (Ax v Nx)]
6. [(∃x)(Nx) • (∃y)(Sy) ⊃ (y = x) • (Nx ⊃ ~Sx) / ∴ (∃x)(Sx • Ax)
Or, in layman's terms...
1. One is a Signer only if one emits Ener-D.
2. There is only one Signer in the stadium.
3. No one who is dueling is emitting Ener-D.
4. There is a source of Ener-D in the stadium.
5. If one is not dueling and one is still in the stadium, then one is in the stands or one is the announcer.
6. There is only one announcer, and he's no Signer.
/ Therefore, the Signer that is in the stadium is in the stands.
I'm still kinda missing my logic class over winter break, but the most interesting bit of this is the premises that must be assumed to make this work. Numbers 3 thru 6 are fairly well proven (why *couldn't* the crazy announcer guy be a Signer?), but the first two... We know there are five Signers, and we know that there are at least four in the tournament: Luna, Yusei, Jack, and the Black Rose. But that still leaves the fifth, and that Goodwin's toadies could safely assume they hadn't found the fifth Signer suggests that Goodwin already knows who it is and knows that he or she is not in the stadium. That they weren't worried about picking up signals from any other Signers suggests that the waiting room set aside for the contenders, and the area in which Jack is watching the tournament, are both Ener-D-proof bunkers, as it were. Also, note that the 'only if' is still a one-way 'then'; we saw it proven here that if one does not emit Ener-D then one is not a Signer, but it doesn't prove that if one emits Ener-D then one IS a Signer, at least not decisively. Otherwise, the data from the Blast From the Past duel would make it a certainty that Yusei is a Signer whether they saw a mark or not. So what are they looking for, a tournament-crashing appearance by the Crimson Dragon? Would that be enough hard proof for them? Well, if they think *satellites* aren't welcome in the stadium...
What would Goodwin have done if Luna just declined to participate instead of switching out with Leo? As Blister put it, 'if it's not a bribe it's a threat'; not like they could threaten a little kid, especially a little kid in the Tops. What they would have done, we're probably about to find out, because Goodwin's still planning to attempt to push Luna to her Sign-revealing limits even though she's in the audience. This is Rex "if it's not a bribe it's a threat" Goodwin we're talking about, so this will not be friendly. I'd imagine it'll be something to the tune of what Vivian Wong pulled in KCGC to end up in a duel with Yugi. I think someone's about to go missing, and for maximum effect, I think it's going to be Leo or-- how 'bout this-- Dexter, whom we've already seen that Luna has a bit of a crush on. Or, is it possible that there's consequences to the switch Leo pulled that we're about to find out about when they try to blackmail Luna with them? A couple black-robes are about to be knocked out, one by Yusei (don't even think for a minute Yusei's getting knocked out by some random looney-toon); one by his fellow black-robe; and the third, most likely, by Sakiza; will one of them end up being assigned to pester Luna? Or alternately, Greiger won't be needed in the tournament until his match with Yusei, so maybe Luna will remain his job, since Goodwin already singled him out as the one most likely to get a reaction from her Sign.
Identity pranks during a tournament-- perish the thought. The Duelist Kingdom finalists had only two sets of entry cards between the four of them when each duelist who was actually invited got his or her own set. The Battle City Finals contained as many duelists who got into the tournament in a shady manner as legal ones, more if you don't count the tournament host himself; three of those sets of locator cards were more or less forcibly taken with at least one shadow-realmming; and, yeah, there were some false identity issues which were not made easier by the fact that some of these guys just had more than one identity to begin with. KCGC, of course, had plenty of identity-pranking between Zigfried "Lloyd", Leon "Wilson", "Apdnarg Otum", and, of course, "Fortune Salim". Then there was Gx, in which half the tournament essentially had no identity going into it (but they got better...), and I'm still unclear whether the bad guy that year was bad because he was misguided or because he was possessed by a space alien... Anyway, my point is that such pranks are a grand tournament tradition, and it's not like anyone Goodwin put in that tournament is who they say they are... except Yusei. The only one left who isn't secretly working for Goodwin is secretly the Black Rose. But Yusei wears his identity right there on his cheek whether he likes it or not, and his presence in the tournament, albeit against his will, speaks exactly what he stands for, which Goodwin is forced to come out in favor of to justify having him there: equality between the City and the Satellite.
We didn't see the other side of the bracket. That means that, since Yusei is up against one of the black robes, that, um, "always-mysterious Shira", one match is the Black Rose, Sakiza, vs. one of the other black-robed folks, and then the fourth, since there's only three Signers (that we know of) and the rest are working for Goodwin, doesn't really matter and we might not even find out who wins until they end up dueling the Black Rose and losing, making the second round Yusei vs. Greiger and the Black Rose vs. whichever of Goodwin's peons is slightly better and not just cannon fodder as it were, the third Yusei vs. the Black Rose, and of course Yusei vs. Jack as the last duel. I predict it won't come out that whatshername, Sakiza Yazinski, is the Black Rose until her duel with Yusei, and until then she'll be a bit of a dark horse the way Leon was and we'll just kind of know in the background that she's winning her matches. Unless of course she plays her dragon, which, these matches are supposed to push duelists to their limits but Signers are no ordinary duelists if Yusei and Jack are any indication. Which one of them will actually duel her, though, and which one will just end up getting knocked out for the sake of making the tournament look halfway legit? The candidates are Sir Ansborg (the guy with the "nice 'stache" and the gold armor), Commander Koda, and The Professor. I think either Commander Koda or The Professor will be the quiet knockout, the Shane Jordan, Jafar Shin, Sergei Ivanoff, and/or Totani Ialos of the tournament; Sir Ansborg's armor is just too exciting to be barely seen, and besides we've seen his character developed more with his reaction to the "who's that loser" chant (nervous) and Leo's comment to him of "nice 'stache."
Battle With the Black Rose is the next episode. I can only imagine that, since Yusei is on the other side of the bracket, we're going to be seeing either a nonofficial duel or Sakiza vs. whichever of those three guys she's up against. But it seems a bit... well, obvious, to have such a match be the main focus of our attention. While this is happening, will Luna start being pressed to reveal her Signerdom? Will that pull focus off Sakiza's duel? Or, will it come out that Sakiza is the Black Rose this early? Or, I won't rule it out, that someone else is? Either way, the next episode is named for the Black Rose, so something is going to happen regarding her, unless they just want to leave us wondering why the heck they named it what they did.
Today (Monday) I put my stage makeup expertise to the test and gave myself a mark. It came out a lot better than my last mark because I used powder to keep the outline and the fill from smudging. Something occurred to me-- I think why they put the marks so close to one's eye is to make them more difficult to conceal; hard to wear a mask that conceals your eyes (there would be a lot of running into things) and if you did, that would be more suspicious than being marked in the first place. I also realized that while the crowd jeered Yusei for being a satellite because he had a mark on his face, we've already got proof that not all markers are satellites. Yusei himself is *not* proof because he's got Goodwin pulling strings to get him in the tournament, but we saw markers at the street duel in the last episode. Moreover, Tanner and Yunagi are both marked, but are able to pass as citizens just fine. Moreover-- and here's the real proof-- Blister made Yusei a photo ID *with his face marked* to say he worked at the Impound Center, proving that markers can work in a government building, a police building no less, in New Domino, instead of photoshopping the mark off the photo ID and using a heck of a lot of coverup on the actual mark. Granted, it was unlikely that someone was going to stop Yusei and ask him to verify his identity but if Blister was going to be thorough enough to *put* a photo on there, then may as well make it a good one.
That's it for now, everybody; merry belated Christmas, and a happy new year and everything else. I started rhyming the other day, and I thought you all might enjoy these:
Does it snow in Domino?
What's Yugi's New Years' like?
Does grandpa make hot cocoa
On a cold December night
When the core four finally call it
A well-fought snowball fight?
Does Joey pull out his dueling deck
And grab a comfy chair,
And Yugi accept, take off his hat,
And shake snow from his hair?
Does Mokie knock as they begin,
His brother too, irate,
To say when next they duel, he'll win,
And not because of Fate,
And by the way, good wishes,
He adds sincerely, swallows;
He scowls and leaves, quite vicious,
And Mokuba winks and follows.
It snows at the Academy,
Or seemed as though it did.
The final day of finals,
Could the whole school get snowed in?
Could Dorothy whip up sandwiches
And Chumley help out too?
For the desert-going students,
Does this seem like deja vu,
Except-- a plus-- no duel ghouls,
And this time lots to eat,
Within minutes, a few duels
Spring up, safe from the sleet.
Soon Slifers challenge Obelisks,
And Ras take Slifers, too,
This Christmas isn't white, we're glad,
But yellow, red, and blue.
And what about New Domino?
Does ice rime runners' tires
And freeze their fuel (if any, though)
And cool the meanest ires?
And in the frosty smoke smog,
Within the Satellite,
Do strangers band together
To last out the frost-bit night,
Swapping well-hid cards and tales
Across small, trash-fueled fires,
Keeping still a hopeful eye
On Domino's distant spires?
-Clio
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