Predictions and Observations:
The Profiler

Episode Aired: February 7, 2009
This Post Posted: February 13, 2009

No wonder Goodwin said that no one would believe Greiger. That rat. Greiger didn't seem too surprised at this tactic, though.
And Goodwin explained away the other suspicious bit of that, his hand, by telling Jack it was the result of an "unfortunate accident". I don't know if Jack believes him-- Jack's enough of a duelist and enough of a people person that I wouldn't be surprised if he can see right through these lies, but I can also understand that Jack doesn't want to believe that Goodwin is not the good guys here-- but I sure don't. What is he hiding?

The Commander said he had 1872 duels to analyze before he would be done with Akiza's profile. I was tempted to write that down as a statistic like the ones Crump rattles off for Tea: "Five foot five, size six sneaker... you've dueled five times in your life..." but we don't know how many he'd analyzed yet. In any case, he didn't get through them all; analyzing duels takes a while, lol. It amazes me, his shortsightedness to have analyzed her duels and yet not understand her at all; in a duel, the truth always comes out, but he obviously missed it, all x - 1872 times.

How does telekinesis make the Rose's cards act real? Because the cards represent the duelist, is my answer. As monsters in shadow games are maintained by the energy of the person who controls them, duel energy flows between a duelist and their monsters even when no magic is involved. To me it seems only natural that Akiza's uncontrolled psychic energy attacks with her monsters and therefore the blows land as though they were real. This also may explain why her very presence in the arena sets off every other Sign in the stadium; her psychic energy and Signer power might build on each other.

"You're a psychic, not a sorceress. You don't need this mask... it's time we stopped living in the shadows, Akiza. It's time the world knew about people like us." I changed my mind. I like Trenchcoat. Well, I'm ambivalent. Sayr, Sayer, Sayre, Saere, Saer are the different spellings I've come up with so far. Two syllables: SAY-er. I think he really is on Akiza's side here; he encouraged her to stop hiding behind a disguise, something Yugi did for Mokuba, Jaden did for Abidos III, Blair... I digress, and you get the point. He has an organization to lead andprobably plenty else he could be doing, but he's standing there in the stadium supporting her. Just one more thing is bothering me, though. If the Arcadia Movement is an organization of psychics who look out for each other, why couldn't *they* teach Akiza to control her powers?
There have been duelist psychics in the canon before. Sartorius, a fortune-teller, is the one who came most immediately to mind. Then there are the fakes, like Mai and Espa Roba. But the main difference in ALL of these is that they claimed to be psychic in that they could read their opponent's thoughts, know their cards before they were played. Akiza's psychokinesis doesn't help her win duels, aside from scaring people a bit, so I don't think she cheats and I definitely don't think she's faking.
Sayr sees right through Goodwin, too, huh? Points for perceptiveness.
Which voice actor is that, as Sayr? Might be Blister?

I did some research on psychics, such as it is, specifically psychokinesis. Psychokinesis, or telekinesis (abbreviated PK or TK, respecively) is the power to move objects with one's mind. That, even, is a fairly broad definition as this means all objects down to the atomic level; with PK powers, Akiza might also be able to control the weather and temperature, by causing atoms to vibrate differently. She might fly. Or teleport. Or walk through walls. Or shape-shift. Or write images onto things with her thoughts. Or cause things to spontaneously combust. She might influence the outcome of random events (like a duelist has never done THAT before). She might also have healing powers.
But as far as we know, she's only shown psychokinetic abilities, nothing else. No telepathy or precognition. She can't read minds, or she would have had nothing to fear from Yusei when she saw his Sign.

I swear, the Fortune Cup is KCGC writ serious. It had a dueling detective, too, but this guy's more than just a stereotype.
The best profiler the Facility has, huh? Wonder what he has to say about the tournament's felon, Yusei? Wonder why Goodwin didn't send Shira after the Rose and put Yusei up against Koda, or something?
"Your past is a crime scene, and I'm just following the clues until I bring you down!" That is, I think, the line that most represents Commander Koda as a character.
Koda doesn't think she's a witch, either. Points for doing your homework. But no, in all seriousness, my first impression to hear Koda call her out in that way is that by not underestimating her, by understanding her, he shows himself to be an opponent with something of a chance. So much for that.
"He's famous for uncovering the truth, and now that he's dueling we expect a similar result." But it takes something different to uncover the truth in a duel.
Another servant of Iliaster (SoI?) with a personal grudge against a Signer-- gee, what're the odds? Oh yeah, this tournament chart is SO random...

"Sorry. Fixing my runner comes first." One: how badly did intercepting Greiger in midair like that damage it? Two: Yusei doesn't want a chance to size up his opponent in the Finals, whether it's Koda or Akiza? But, Yusei already apparently knows all he needs to. After all, when Tanner asked if Yusei thought she was actually a witch, Yusei replied, no, she's more dangerous than that. Is he talking about her being a Signer? Or did he somehow already figure out she was a psychic? Or could he just tell that she had superpowers of some kind and not much control over them? However, we already knew how important Yusei's runner is to him, and also, if my predictions are right, its next duel is against Jack.

I noticed that this time Akiza led off with a card called "witch"; the cards express the duelist, but I suppose the mystique of being called a witch, even when it's untrue, has become part of Akiza's personality. A witch is feared; a scared girl with powers she doesn't understand is vulnerable.

DUEL ACADEMY?!?!?!?!?!!?
A Slifer first-year trounces a third-year Obelisk set to turn pro... imagine that. Sounds like a female Jaden.
What's so important to Tanner about Duel Academy?
Why the big excitement over Duel Academy? I mean, *I* was excited; I shrieked something and bounced off the walls a couple times before continuing, but... why's everyone else?
This makes it canon, for what it's worth, that, barring grade-skipping, Blair-style time warps, being held back, and so forth, Koda is two years older than Akiza.
Incidentally, I accidentally surfed into a pack of spoilers that say this wasn't the same Duel Academy, but to that I say that in the dub canon, it just became canon that it is, unless there's another duel academy that has Obelisk Blue and Slifer Red.
I notice also that Akiza dresses in red, even now that she's out of school.

"It serves you right for confusing justice with revenge!" To me it seems that the unifying theme of this duel was Justice vs. Revenge. I looked up the specific definitions:
JUSTICE, n: Just behavior or treatment; the quality of being fair and reasonable; the administration of law or authority in maintaining this
1. fairness, fair play, fair-mindedness, equity, evenhandedness, impartiality, objectivity, neutrality, disinterestedness, honesty, righteousness, morals, morality.
2. punishment, judgment, retribution, compensation, just desserts
(Just), adj: 1) based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair 2) (of treatment) deserved or appropriate in the circumstances 3) well-founded, justifiable
REVENGE, n: 1) the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands; the desire to inflict such retribution; (in sports) the defeat of a person/team by whom one was beaten in a previous encounter
vengeance, retribution, retaliation, reprisal, requital, recrimination, an eye for an eye (and a tooth for a tooth), redress, satisfaction
Koda insisted that revenge and justice were the same thing; that's true only if it's meant in the sense of retribution. He wanted "justice" for her having beaten him as a Slifer freshman to his Obelisk future-pro. That's straight-up revenge. But he also wanted to demonstrate that the same law applies to all, even psychics, which could be construed as justice. He also stated the intention of keeping her from harming others. However, he reveals his own bigotry by not even listening to what she has to say in her own defense. Akiza has tried much harder, I think, than most would, to be herself and still live in the world with other people. She has lived with being feared and despised, with not knowing why her cards weren't just cards, and she's kept going anyway. It would have been easy to just try as hard as she could to be normal, to ignore the power or to seclude herself away before she hurt anybody instead of trying to have it all, to give up her life to keep it contained, but she, as Koda put it, 'refused to give up the power that was inside of' her, and persevered. However, in the end of the duel, Akiza loses her patience with Koda's insults, accusations, and overall prejudice; with her final attack, she said, "I'm sorry-- but you brought this upon yourself!" Koda wasn't the only one walking the line between justice and revenge.
Now, dueling for justice and for revenge both have lots of instances in the canon. Rule of thumb: dueling for revenge is an instant one-way bus pass to loserville. Except, oddly enough, in the case of "A Blast From the Past". Jack mocked that Yusei has "a thing with revenge", but noted that even though Yusei said he was there to get even, he was "still acting like that scared little kid from the playground" who got bullied, and that he hadn't "thought this little revenge fantasy through." I think that Yusei, for all it was enough to get him there, was unclear what he was after in seeing his old friend again, and I think by the end of this arc of the plot, Yusei will figure it out: whether he truly wants revenge or whether he wants his best friend back. Another person who considers justice and revenge synonymous is Aster, c. A New Breed of Hero. "Dueling isn’t about having *fun!* At least not for *me.* But someone like *you* would never understand that. I duel for justice, and revenge. Aw, forget it...I chose my hero cards for a reason, and punks like you that use ‘em just ‘cause you think they look cool, make me sick!" Aster, too, had a personal grudge he was out to settle, in the matter of his dad and DH Plasma.

Turning someone's signature monster against them is an important kind of move, so I noticed it when Black Rose Dragon appeared, even fleetingly, on Koda's side of the field. Other times that's happened most memorably include Blue-Eyes (probably because Kaiba makes such a fuss about that sort of thing) in Champion vs. Creator ad Battle For the Bronze, to name two. But then of course more pertinently there's Jack playing Stardust against Yusei, and the symbolism of having had to step on him to escape the Satellite.

"Unlike your spells, I don't need to cheat." What's that supposed to mean?! She didn't cheat! Okay, so her spells are like real spells ("and her traps're like--" "Lemme guess-- *real traps*?"), but that's magic, more or less, not cheating. Okay, depends upon your definition of cheating, but magic has been part of this game since before cards were. Then again, if the Commander thinks being so powerful and unique you can't figure it out all by yourself is an imprisoning offense, or that a future pro getting revenge on a brand-new freshman who beat him is justice, he has some pretty twisted ideas about fair play.

I looked up Arcadia. There's a city northeast of LA called Arcadia, and some fantasy locations. But the main Arcadia, on which all of the other Arcadias are based, is located in the Peloponnese, the southern chunk of Greece that contains Sparta, Argos, Olympia, and so forth (I'm a bit of a Greek mythology and history nerd); in myth, it's a pastoral paradise, and the home of Pan, satyr and god of flocks and herds. Arcadia is named after Arcas, a figure in Greek mythology. He was the son of Callisto, a nymph, and Zeus, the notoriously promiscuous king of the gods. When either Artemis (Callisto's patron goddess) or Hera (Zeus's wife), depends on who you ask which one, found out Callisto was pregnant, she was not happy about it and turned Callisto into a bear. Now, Arcas grew up to be a strong young man and one day he was hunting in the forest when he saw this bear. He didn't know any better; he was about to shoot it with an arrow or a javelin, but Zeus stepped in to avert this tragedy, and turned both of them into constellations: Ursa Major (the mother bear) and her son Ursa Minor. However, the angry goddess, whichever one it was, appealed to a sea god to punish the pair of them by making it so that they would never touch the sea and cool their feet, which is how the Greeks explain the bears' position in the night sky. Now, back to Arcadia (which is also touted as a possible birthplace of Zeus and/or Hermes and also the home of the sap who managed to earn being turned into the first werewolf by Zeus); it's stereotypically, conotatively seen as a sanctuary, an untamed sanctuary of a forest or meadow, not unlike, yeah, the Duel Monsters Spirit World. What does it communicate that Sayr's organization of psychics is named for Arcadia? For one, the word is similar to 'arcana' which has meaning in the clairvoyant field of Tarot, and is the Latin word for secret. But what is this organization to Akiza *but* a sanctuary, too? A group of people who understand her power, who welcome it, when everyone else shuns her?

I was particularly struck by Koda's assertion that his job was "Making sure you never hold a dueling deck again". I can get it, on a logical level; Akiza's dangerous with a deck. But Akiza is dangerous, period. Dueling is just how, like so many others, she expresses herself, and that means that's how the danger is expressed. But the connotation of making sure someone else doesn't have a deck is that of making them powerless. It's why satellites aren't allowed to carry cards, and why decks are banned in the Facility; they're how people stand up for themselves in this world.

In Akiza's last match, it's certainly true that Black Garden was formidable, but even more formidable was the effect when it died. From the brown, brittle decay, Akiza grew stronger and with that same move pulled out a victory. This time, though, Black Garden just disappeared, removed from play, and the difference was palpable; its departure left Akiza not powerful, but vulnerable. I could even go so far as to say that Black Garden is akin to her mask; when she intends to lay it aside, she is the more powerful for it, but to have her disguise thwarted is frightening.

They said that the Commander got the prototype of a card, one that hadn't been released yet? Don't tell me Industrial Illusions is corrupt these days, too!

That is a cool hair thingy. But what was the significance there of letting her hair down? Why did it happen?

Akiza's mark showed when Black Rose Dragon was destroyed-- a pattern, when the dragon is seriously threatened, the Sign shows? Luna's showed 'roundabout when she saw Ancient Fairy Dragon sealed in stone, and Yusei's and Jack's did when their dragons attacked each other.

So far, Yusei's Sign has shown every time Akiza has played a card anywhere near him. Does that mean his Sign will show in the next match, Stardust or not? But-- it may appear, but it isn't visible through his glove. Joke's on you, Goodwin; how are you going to get around that?

Akiza said Rose Curse was a new card, one she'd never played before, one that couldn't be profiled? In addition, her psychic powers have been called a 'curse'. Rose Curse was the card she used when she gave up the fight to keep a rein on her powers against someone who would persecute her for them; she said that he brought this upon himself. Of course we should watch out for it in her duel with Yusei, though in that exact same context I can't think of how Yusei would give her a reason to play it.

Three down and only two more to go, Lezar said of the Signers. Only two marks have shown. Who's the third? It could be Jack, but they have no more evidence of Jack's mark showing than they have of Yusei's, other than that weird tattoo of his; in both cases, they only have Jack's word. So, this could mean: Luna, Akiza, and the unknown fifth Signer that Lezar and Goodwin know about, and Jack and Yusei are the two left to show. Or, it could be Luna, Akiza, and Jack, and Yusei and the unknown fifth are the two to go.

"Duel of the Dragons I" is the next episode. Yusei vs. Akiza. Sweetness. Entirely coincidental that it's on Valentine's Day, I'm sure... But the only thing that sticks out at me: 'Duel of the DragonS.' Is Yusei going to abandon his plan of keeping Stardust back for Jack?

Who Will Win! This is a tricky one. Power, Skill, Plot, and the Heart. Power goes to Akiza, Skill and Heart to Yusei. Plot, as always, is the wacky one. We gotta see Jack and Yusei's rematch. That is going to be absolutely off the charts. I say again, anyone in that stadium for this tournament just has no inkling how lucky they are. But what if it doesn't happen? Jack would hit the roof, for one, and Yusei would never end up using Stardust at all if he keeps it out of his match with Akiza and loses. I predict an unpredictable circumstance. Yusei and Jack will get their rematch eventually, but it won't be this easy. This point in events isn't meaningful enough, other than that Jack lost to Yusei and can't stand it, or that Yusei's fighting for the right to keep Stardust, and they still kinda have a score to settle. And of course the Crimson Dragon will be expected to put in a cameo appearance. But it doesn't have the poignancy and energy that it had when they hadn't seen or spoken to each other since Jack stabbed Yusei in the back, which, by all indications, is years. Yusei is not the underdog he was in that match. On the other hand, Jack got his wish that they duel out in the open, in front of his adoring masses ("Yusei, the only thing I'm gonna *regret* is that this duel isn't being broadcast to the millions of fans around the globe who cheer for me night after night! They've earned the right to witness my greatest challenge ever, and my greatest victory!"), and he isn't fool enough to make the mistake of underestimating Yusei again!

I wonder if Jack'll go all weird on Akiza, too? Tell her she'd better not beat Yusei? Her being a telekinetic who doesn't like to be messed with, I wonder if she'll lose her temper and slam him into a wall or something?

In imagining this duel, the symbolism of the cards, I see nature and "magic" vs. technology; a dragon of the earth vs. a dragon of the stars. Yusei, aside from being a duelist, is a very talented engineer and mechanic; Akiza's other talents lie more in the supernatural than the mundane. In addition, both Yusei and Akiza are 'undesirables': Yusei practically got booed out of the stadium before his first match for being from the Satellite, and Akiza has been feared and hated all of her life. But they deal with this differently. We've seen Akiza hide from her opponents behind a mask and a fake name, making herself a feared urban legend. As a normal duelist she would be just a freak, but the Black Rose is already more of a force of nature. We've also seen her lash out, at the Commander when he wouldn't understand that she wasn't some monster to be caged. But what about Yusei? Just looking at him tells anyone in New Domino that he's a convicted crimanal who survived the Facility. Even before that, though, when he wasn't considered a nobody, he was tarred a delinquent, such as in his encounters with Trudge. Trudge dueled Yusei three separate times, all three of them with Yusei fighting for what he cares about, and still didn't get it. No one in the canon has dueled Yusei more (that we see; Jack probably has), and yet Trudge still can't get it through his head that Yusei is no common street punk. Yusei's never lashed out, though; he's never done anything more or less than escape Trudge. In addition, Yusei's cheek marker alone puts him in constant danger in New Domino, makes it easy to identify that he's a Satellite and a Facility-bird, two things most citizens probably consider less than human. But Yusei doesn't cover it up, even for practicality's sake. As I noted earlier, he was the only person in this tournament who wasn't entering under a pretense; Akiza was secretly the Black Rose, "Luna" was secretly Leo, and the rest of 'em were secretly in Goodwin's pocket.
In addition, Yusei respects his opponents, unlike everyone Akiza has dueled so far in the tournament, and won't stop respecting her no matter how much he might get hurt. I can imagine that surprising and even angering Akiza, who's used to being feared. If she actually ends up liking him for not calling her a witch, she'll be angry that he won't back down and save himself from what she and her cards might do to him. Akiza wants to control her powers, and I think with a strong enough reason to, a duel with someone she wants to duel full-out against and doesn't want to hurt, might just do that. Akiza loves to duel; if she didn't, she wouldn't have stayed in the game this long with all the good reasons for her never touching a card again.

Will this be a turbo-duel? I doubt it, for one simple reason: the field spell Black Garden. To work in a turbo-duel, it would have to take over the whole stadium. Could work, and freak out the audience. In addition, if it is a turbo-duel, we'll find out whether or not another field spell can be played along with Speed World.

We're still waiting to find out why Akiza entered. She might have decided to accept outright, to advance the cause of persecuted psychics everywhere, but knowing Goodwin, I have reason to doubt that the invitation was delivered such that she had a choice. Now we do know why she was nervous, though; she was planning to reveal her true self in this tournament, give up the mask.

Somehow I managed all week to overlook the obvious question a duelist with PK powers brings up about the Heart of the Cards (not a philosophy, but a magical property). Among the abilities ascribed to psychokinesis is the ability to affect a random event, such as, indeed, the drawing of a card. But wouldn't *that* be cheating, we'd ask ourselves, to cause yourself to draw the right card through the power of your will? If that didn't happen all the time. We call it the Heart, and it's as natural a part of any true duelist as his or her (more on that later, lol) deck. Does that, then, mean that all those who duel as they live are just a little bit psychic? Or magical? Or that in the YGOverse such a manipulation of cards, though logically unnatural, is too commonplace for one to term it the result of psychokinesis?

Speaking of which, the line between psychics and magics is very thin, to the point of sometimes being synonymous. But here the line is definite: Akiza is a psychic, not a sorceress. But where does it fall?

It occurs to me that, as the leader of a psychic organization, Sayr probably has psychic powers, too. We haven't found out what yet, but considering his predictions thus far ("I have a feeling he will be the biggest test that you have ever faced."), for now my money's on precognition or possibly mind-reading.

Akiza just hurt someone again, even if he might've deserved it. She just won justice through revenge. I get this strange feeling she might have some second thoughts about dueling tonight.

I was thinking the other day that between Rally, Luna, and Akiza, 5D's has some awesome ladies. I can count the number of ladies who ever duel in the original and literally not run out of fingers, while there are as many hotheaded guys with decks as there are stars. Even though I'm female myself, I don't mind, but it's an interesting observation anyway. Two of four Signers we've found so far are female, which is an absolutely astounding ratio in this canon. I actually crunched the numbers, just for a fun mental exercise; here are the totals in the format...
(Time Period) : (Total Number of People Who Duel Onscreen):(Total Number of Males Who Duel Onscreen):(Total Number of Females Who Duel Onscreen) <comments, if any>
Duelist Kingdom : 20:17:3
Battle City Round 1 : 19:17:1 <Kaiba's computer in Obelisk the Tormentor was counted as neither male nor female.>
Battle City Finals Round 1 : 8:6:2 <just the finalists. btw, alter-egos only count as one unless we actually see separate distinct ones in the same place at the same time, e.g. the Final Duel>
Noah's Virtual World : 14:12:2
Battle City Semifinals & Pyramid of Light : 8:8:0
Waking the Dragons : 15:13:2 <Atem was counted separately in this total due to the Self Destruction duel>
KCGC : 21:19:2
Millennium World/Dawn of the Duel : 13:9:4 <incl. pure shadow games>
Yu-Gi-Oh! Total : 72:62:9
GX Year 1 : 40:34:5
GX Year 2 : 45:33:8
GX Year 3 : 27:24:3 (only up to 155)
GX Total : 94:78:13
5D's so far : 17:15:2
So actually the ratio's not that impressive (the closest ratio is 2.25:1 in Dawn of the Duel, which contained Kisara, Mana, Isis, and Tea; on average the ratio is about six to one between male and female duelists, and at 7.5, 5D's is currently above that but give it time), but as Signers, both Akiza and Luna are important, and we're very likely to see them duel a lot more than most girls do.

That's all, folks. -Clio

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