Predictions and Observations:
French Twist II and Synchro Straits

Episodes Aired: October 16, 2010
This Post Posted: October 22, 2010

*Some way* to introduce yourself, huh? Don'tcha just love Domino City before a tournament? The WRGP's three-person-team rule seems to be testing its competitors' diplomacy, how well they form alliances. From what we've seen so far, I am unimpressed. Can't anyone just walk up to Yusei and *ask politely*? Do we really have to kidnap him, try to throw him off cliffs, tell him his runner will explode then pick a fight with him... And, the last two weeks, nothing, totally peaceful, couple one-ep adventures, we're just working away on the new engine, then all of a sudden everyone notices they've left getting their teams together until the last minute? Are we really looking at a whole tournament full of procrastinators? 'It's the day before the gala, better get cooking and kidnap/threaten/make friends with the right people?' I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that Yusei got *only* two 'offers' of membership for WRGP teams today!

When Yusei takes such radical risks but keeps on smiling, Akiza feels like she can't understand him, feels distanced. I'm noticing a few times when she looks to him for reassurance, asks what next, and he doesn't hear her. I really feel bad for Akiza in this duel, when she asks, "Why isn't he like that with *me*?" "How does she know what's in his heart?!" "Does she really already know things about Yusei that I can't because I'm *not a turbo-duelist*?" I'm not even sure if Sherry's trying to steal Yusei in that fashion also-- but Akiza's bound to think she's losing him.

Sherry points out that Yusei is a thrill-seeker, and also that he keeps taking risks even though he knows better-- even though he knows that "such recklessness will be your undoing one day." I've said it before and I'll say it again, we know Yusei to be fairly cautious in a lot of things, but his being a turbo-duelist makes him a daredevil at heart. It's true that Sherry, as a fellow turbo-duelist, understands this about him because it's something they share; and it's worth noting that she implicitly tells us, by pointing it out in Yusei, that she is also that way.

"So much sacrifice for one monster! It seems you're not afraid of flying too close to the sun!" Hey, guess what-- it's a Daedalus reference! Or possibly Phaethon. But Daedalus, more likely, because we've already got a Daedalus theme going in this series. In the myth, Daedalus and his son Icarus escaped from the dungeon on pairs of wings made of wax and feathers. Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, or the wax would melt; but Icarus was lost in the thrill of flight and ended up falling to his doom.

The LeBlancs own a card company? Is it even wildly possible the LeBlancs are somehow descended from the Schroeders? After all, there aren't all *that* many companies that can be called purveyors of Duel Monsters-- of course, if the LeBlancs made some *other* kind of cards, the field may widen... but Industrial Illusions itself is based somewhere in the vicinity of Silicon Valley, I'm pretty sure we're agreed on that.

It seems to me that a very important symbol in Sherry's history is the teddy bear. Her father gives it to her right before whatever happens to him and Sherry's mom, and it's the one object from her old life that she brings with her. And there was something hidden inside it; looks like a card but might yet be something else. That teddy bear and the card that was inside it, if anything, symbolize her quest for revenge-- and I'm betting we'll see that card in this tournament; Centaurmina, Fleur de Chevalier, and Sacred Knight Jeanne are hardly the best she's got. Well, ya know what they say about dueling for revenge... something about it being a bad idea...?

I noticed that, the night they fled, Ellsworth offered Sherry a red flower, out of the vase in the hotel room. She was too frightened, crying, to accept it, until he 'gave' the flower to her teddy bear and she accepted it along with the bear. In the past I've noticed Mina in particular arranging red flowers for Jack in ep#6 and ep#29; Martha's tulips that Trudge wanted to offer to Mina were also red in ep#45; as were the flowers in the garden that Akiza walked through at Goodwin's mansion in ep#42, thinking of her parents. Here we see Ellsworth offer Sherry a red flower; a symbol that seems to me to mean being taken care of, nurtured. He promises to take care of her and protect her. But she doesn't accept it until it's paired with her teddy bear-- the symbol of her grief for her family and ultimately her quest for revenge. This says to me that Ellsworth is a bit like Odion Ishtar; he'll follow her wherever and help her however he can because he cares about her, but really he just wants her to be happy and live her life.

Wow, *everybody* hates Iliaster... As of the end of last season, I wrote about Iliaster as a loose end still, with foreshadowing as yet unresolved. They definitely seem to be pulling the strings-- they intended Zero Reverse to happen, and thus the battle between Signers and Dark Signers. I won't rehash all that. This is the first time we've heard of them doing something like this though; why would the LeBlanc family and their card company figure into Iliaster's weird magic-glue-related plans for the universe?

Sherry has put forward a great example of persuasive speaking technique. I just started learning about persuasive speaking in my public speaking course this semester, and here's what I've got.

One of the first things you do in any speech is get your listener's attention-- Sherry initially presented herself as a threat, which, you have to admit, got Yusei's attention. I think her posing as a male anonymous duelist was effective not because Yusei would perceive a male as more threatening, but because Yusei would not spend as much time wondering why this person was picking a fight with him; thugs who ride runners are a dime a dozen, and Yusei's dealt with plenty of that type, but it says a lot about a girl if she's a lady turbo-duelist, and she's not likely to be working for just anyone. Yusei never questioned all that much that a masked guy was picking a turbo-duel with him; he gets that all the time.

One of the next things to do in a persuasive speech is establish your ethos-- establish that the listener(s) can trust you. Similarly, in this duel the first thing we see happen is that Sherry and Yusei reach a point of mutual understanding and common ground where Yusei trusts her enough to make the leap of faith of stopping when she tacitly invites him to at the beginning of the last episode.

Sherry seems to use a criteria-satisfaction approach: she establishes her audience's criteria-- in this case, she establishes this by pointing out Yusei's yen for dueling on the edge: "It seems you are not afraid of flying too close to the sun!" "But this is what you live for, is it not? You feel most alive when you're at the edge!" And she presents joining her team as a way to satisfy that established set of criteria: "I will be riding full-throttle on the cutting edge with everything to lose and everything to gain-- *Is that not the kind of duel you want in on, Yusei Fudo?* If you race with me, you will find the drive you seek." She also points out his lack of a purpose, of a reason to win-- and offers him a cause to champion. The girl knows her kairos, her audience; she knows *exactly* how to tempt Yusei. She may not even know everything she managed to do right on that front. We all know how readily he'll defend people, even complete strangers. He definitely, deeply identifies with her longing for "answers", after what he went through last season, and with her mistrust of those in power-- the people pulling the strings behind the Grand Prix. In fact, she's a lot like him when he first came to New Domino City-- seeking revenge and reconciliation as one in the same, manipulated by powerful foes. She points out not only his skill and talent but also that fate is on his side-- when she draws twice and neither draw is the speed spell she needs to end the duel-- and passionately argues that she'll be able to win for sure with him as a teammate.

So I've said why it's understandable that Sherry's proposal caught Yusei's attention. I'd say, though, that the real reason Sherry is under his skin right now is because her proposal is a very tempting alternative to the dueling purpose he seems to be developing, around saving the city from Machine Emperor Wisel and the "Ghost". Sherry even says the following, which I found very interesting indeed: "Now your monsters must abandon you, leaving you to fend for yourself-- something I promise will *never happen* if you join my team, Yusei! " She probably didn't even realize that that very thing is what he fears the most right now, and in offering him a different purpose to duel for she has offered him what temptingly looks like a way out. Yusei knows that joining a different team won't change the situation with the Ghost, but a reason to join the WRGP that has nothing to do with the Ghost is bound to be tempting.

Sherry's french phrase there, in response to Starlight Road. I heard "Ça n'mettais pas!!" Which I've roughly translated to, "You did not just play that!" Literally, "Now you didn't put/place (it)!" I'll do my best to keep up with the French, I'm sure we'll hear more and actually I've had a lot of fun with it so far, but my French education was brief; I've got basic grammar and I can attempt to look up vocabulary. My Spanish is pretty strong, and that's similar.

Did she really just say "beaux dames"? Sherry said, "So in *other* words, you *have* no reason! There is nothing driving you but thrill, ambition, perhaps beaux dames?" That's French for "pretty girls". With the level of romance in this canon generally, that's not a reason most duelists generally talk about. Then again, I could've heard it wrong.

I note the small exchange between Sherry and Akiza at the end of the duel. Yusei may not have noticed, but sounds like Sherry sure did notice, that Akiza has discovered the thrill of turbo-dueling and she wants in on the action. Sherry also hinted at something else: "I hope to ride against you one day; or *with* you!" If Yusei says no, will Sherry ask Akiza to join her WRGP team instead? Akiza's an amateur rider, but she's a good duelist already and we've seen a couple people show interest in the fact that she's a psychic duelist, including Sherry.

Now, the other thing to be said regarding Akiza and Sherry is that Akiza's afraid that Sherry will steal Yusei from her. We've definitely seen some sparks fly between Yusei and Sherry on the track, but that can be attributed to the kind of affinity that rivals enjoy. Neither Yusei or Sherry has actually expressed romantic interest in the other, more competitive interest, which in this show translates into close friendship that could easily go that way. Sherry's offer definitely tempts Yusei because he's going through a rough time and her offer and her cause have nothing to do with that. I could even believe him entirely not noticing this, even if Akiza and Sherry really start competing for him.

Sherry told Akiza that she was indebted to her for saving her life; will we soon see her repay that debt? In other words, will that statement come back to bite us?

Sherry seems to know more about the organization that kidnapped Yusei than she's telling. She already knew, for example, that they kidnapped him because they were trying to recruit him to their team-- no one told her, by the way. I think Crow, Mina, and Akiza's mystery tipoff was Ellsworth-- but I could be mistaken. If that is the case, it explains how Sherry already knew where Yusei was. However, how did Sherry and Ellsworth know in the first place, and why did they tip off Yusei's friends if Sherry was also going there? Wouldn't she have preferred to encounter and challenge Yusei alone, just the two of them? Why get his friends there? Why single out Mina and Akiza? Sherry didn't know that Akiza was a psychic duelist and would be able to break Yusei out of the truck-- Akiza's saving her at the end there was a surprise. Unless the anonymous tipoff guy is not Ellsworth, which I think it was. Is it possible Ellsworth tipped off Yusei's friends without Sherry's knowledge, because he thought she might need some help? Then there's also the look on Sherry's face when she saw the mopheaded kidnapper guy up on the overpass; that wasn't just anger, it was fear. Who are that guy and his organization to her?

What an interrupt. Well, that's some nice tension for the next time Sherry and Yusei duel. Why not draw, though? She doesn't want to know if she *would've* won, she wants to find out if she can beat Yusei by beating him, I guess.

The way Ellsworth says, "so this is Yusei"... I wonder how long Sherry's had her eye on Yusei for her team?

The biggest question we're left with here is, "what is Yusei dueling for?" What is he looking for? What is he after? What does he really want? Sherry says that she has the answer, that if he fights alongside her he will find what he's looking for; Visor says that he does. Until Yusei answers this question for himself, he's not going to get much of anywhere, and all he has without a purpose is the fear component of the adventure.

So Yusei's having Ghost nightmares. What do they tell us about how Yusei perceives the threat, what he fears?

For starters, the dream starts with him dueling along as about normal; I note that Sherry's point about his enjoyment of dueling on the edge is again proven-- when everything's going relatively well in the beginning of the dream, he draws just what he needs at the last moment. Then, just when he thinks he's saved, just when he summons Stardust, his opponent morphs into the Ghost and summons Machine Emperor Wisel.

Now, the Ghost is a very dead robot; it isn't the duelist Yusei fears, it's the experience of having Stardust taken away from him suddenly, just when he needs it most. Of having Stardust turned against him, and of what someone who hates synchro monsters as much as the Ghost does would do to it if he should lose. It's fear of someone who hates synchro monsters and synchro-summoning, which to us has come to represent bringing out the best in people, hope, the future, all the good stuff the Signers stand for. The Ghost is the only face Yusei has that represents that fear. But why doesn't Yusei think the Ghost is gone for good? Or that the Ghost was the only duelist who had that viewpoint? Is it even possible that Yusei knows something we don't from the information he got off the Ghost's memory chip (he said that the Ghost wiped it at the end of the duel, but nobody actually believed it at the time and the understanding seems to be that Yusei didn't want to give Security the data)? Does he already know that the Wisel cards are still out there, or that they actually belonged to someone else? Is that why he seems to be looking over his shoulder for any random opponent he meets to suddenly become the new Ghost?

Why does Sherry then show up in the nightmare? Now, it's a dream and it's not supposed to make sense, but that connection threw me. Sherry is a more recent development that has very little to do with the Ghost. Specifically, in the dream, she expresses disappointment-- she asks if that was the best he could do, and points out that merely being a good duelist "isn't quite enough for people like us... we crave more." Sherry expressed a lot of admiration for Yusei's skill as a duelist, in asking him to join her team; does Yusei feel that he isn't the duelist she thinks he is if he can't even defend himself from the Ghost?

Isn't this the exact same way their *last* duel started? Yep, I looked it up: the Fortune Cup Finale started with Yusei leading Shield Wing in defense, then Jack attacking it twice with Twin-Sword Marauder. Jack's even stronger now than he was then, because now he goes one step further and special-summons Sword Master to actually destroy Shield Wing. I actually looked back and checked, and playing defense when he plays first is actually Yusei's standard M.O.; he plays defense when he goes first and plays offense when he goes second. The reason we always see Yusei leading defense against Jack, I think, is because Jack's one of the few duelists who knows Yusei well enough to strategize and go second whenever possible against him.

So Jack's not worried about the Ghost? No, it's because Jack is freaked out here. He won't continue the duel because the thought of Archfiend being compromised frightens him, and Yusei getting smacked around the track like an amateur, like he was here while trying to work around synchro-summoning, frightens him too. Remember how Jack reacted the *last* time he noticed Yusei faltering and freaked out? He punched him in the stomach. Yusei's the one duelist who can beat Jack; if Yusei starts weakening, that scares Jack, big-time.

Akiza blames Sherry for Yusei's moodiness at the Gala. To what extent is she correct and to what extent is she jealous? By the way, where *is* Sherry? We haven't seen her at the Gala. Is she worried she'll be recognized by the wrong people?

Jack says Carly told him he'd look extra-handsome in a tailored suit; I note that he listens to and follows her advice.

The final stage has loop-the-loop action? *Seriously?* Or am I just seeing that model at a weird angle?

Team Unicorn. Seem like pretty nice guys, I guess. We don't know much about them, other than that they're famous and they're the original three-person team that made dueling in teams of three popular enough for its own tournament. I guess it's fairly silly, but I've got to ask it anyway-- why on Earth did they choose a name like that?

Sounds like they plan to have subsequent Grand Prixes, but this is the first. By the way, I looked it up, and either "Grand Prixes" or "Grands Prix" is a correct plural form of "Grand Prix". At the same time, I looked up precisely what a grand prix is. "Grand prix" is French for "great prize"; it was originally the name of a specific horse race held in France, but later came to mean any big-time car race, especially "over a long, arduous course, esp. an international car race each year over the same course". (dictonary.com) We know the WRGP is probably international because Sherry is in it; we're fairly sure the courses are going to get long and arduous, especially since we've already been told they're whipping up some extra-challenging ones just for this.

Okay, so what are the rules for this tournament? Teams of three, and apparently all three teammates will be participating in duels at once; we're hearing about this style of team-dueling made popular by Team Unicorn. I'm sure we'll hear more about that. But right now, for the record, we have barely any idea what the duels in this tournament are actually going to look like.

Lezar calls the integration of City and Satellite, the completion of the Daedalus Bridge, a "triumph". We know what Lezar used to think of satellites. I'm amazed he kept a straight face. Who is this guy and what has he done with Lezar?

I'm noticing that this is the first time Lezar has been cast in a very visible, public role. He seems to be acting as spokesperson for the Directors-General so they can remain in the shadows. With Goodwin, it was just the opposite; Goodwin relied a lot on his own crowd-charming ability and had Lezar run around behind the scenes bribing and threatening as necessary.

I'm probably a bit late to the party, but I'm noticing that the stone apparatuses worn by the Directors-General depict infinities; two circles, side-by-side or one on top of the other. And the short one's arm frame looks like an infinity symbol because the two tips cross in front such that they appear to be the center of an infinity symbol formed by the curve of the back portion.

We heard the D's-G say that they're using the WRGP to generate power, for the "grand design". I note this as a clue to what their big scheme is.

Trouble in paradise already with the new D's-G? Did you catch that little slip by the Director-General in the mask, with the facial hair? "...me... I mean *us*..." Is Mask the only one of the three of them who isn't as loyal to the other two as he tries to seem? And check out the look on Sword's face after he says that, the guy who wields Wisel; is that because he caught that, or because he doesn't like his teammates as much as he tries to seem to?

So there *is* prize dough. Debacle said he wanted a cut of the prize dough; was he making assumptions because the party was fancy, or can we take this as evidence that the WRGP has, among possibly other prizes, a cash prize?

Why on Earth didn't Akiza jump out of the way? She had her duel disk on, clearly she was planning to make some stand. Was she trying to protect everyone else? Is it possible she was also trying to get Yusei's attention off of Sherry? To impress him or something?

Note the broken glass. Akiza, her history, and especially her powers are often associated with broken glass-- the shattered windows when she tried to run home from Duel Academy, Misty's hall of mirrors, the shattering side of the Kaibadome track, which gave the appearance of glass, and Carly's being blasted through a plate-glass window by Sayer are just a few examples.

We've just seen tournament host retribution in action. The fellow with the sword seems kind of capricious and whimsical; he said he liked this Debacle guy's style, right up until the point he apparently no longer did. For a moment there I thought it was *Akiza* he had a problem with when he got up and left, because she blasted Debacle and scared him off.

I'm noticing the similarity in visuals between Jack's final attack on Yusei earlier in the episode, with Archfiend, and the bonfire when ME Wisel got through with Debacle. Yusei's failed attempt to find the Synchro Solution with Jack earlier was a small taste of what Yusei fears from his next run-in with ME Wisel.

Akiza's throwing her weight around as a psychic duelist some, protecting people and intercepting danger with her powers. We're seeing that she's still a psychic duelist, but a very different person, and we're seeing that she has control of her powers and even possession of them; she can rely on them and use them to help her. Here she faces down Debacle and would've been crushed if she couldn't depend on her powers completely.

Now, I have a few questions about psychic dueling. Akiza was able to use her powers through Stardust Dragon to save Sherry because she put it on the duel disk, not Yusei. This brings up some questions about transference and so forth, i.e. by what definition do we define when a monster has been summoned by her and therefore is as good as real, but plenty of 'em might be answered with another instance of a duel monster saving someone that I'm thinking of, which is the end of A Score To Settle. The only way Majestic Star Dragon could have done that that logically makes sense (which the Signs don't have to, but it's worth considering they might) is Akiza's influence in the summoning through the five Signs combining. Therefore, it's because of Akiza that, when the Signs combine, any monster summoned with Majestic Dragon is as good as real. This also means Goodwin's monsters would've been psychic during Signs of Doom because the five Signs combined on *him*. I wonder if that power is inherent in Akiza's bearing that Sign or if it's something unique that most teams of five Signers wouldn't have? One of the only ways we might know is if we ever found out whether or not Akiza was still a psychic duelist without her Sign.

I already mentioned that Sherry took notice when she found out Akiza was a psychic duelist; now we see the Directors-General also take notice. What does a psychic duelist mean to them, and do her powers figure into their plans?

Now, Visor. Visor, Visor, Visor. That's one powerful gaze, when Yusei can feel it across the room. Yusei seems a bit transfixed when he first actually looks into Visor's eye. I say 'eye' because so far we've only seen Visor's right eye; his left has always been hidden by the glare of his visor. I'd be willing to bet that it's even more potent, and something about that intense gaze is why Visor wears that visor.

Visor speaks with almost mean candor; he bluntly says that the Signers won't be able to stop the Ghost or do anything useful even if they get there-- he states as a matter of fact that Yusei is not ready, and he knows that Yusei can already tell and is trying to figure out how to be ready, trying to find the Synchro Solution. It seems to me Visor knows Yusei is reaching out for something he doesn't even understand, and perhaps Visor can nudge his hand a bit in the right direction, so to speak.

Visor *already knows* plenty. It seems we're meeting a lot of people lately who can read Yusei like an open book; Sherry was another.

Yusei's facing an identity crisis here; he's trying to alter his deck and strategy in a huge way, trying to find a way to be able to function in the face of what the Ghost called a "synchro-slayer"; a monster that can absorb synchro monsters. True, Yusei never met a card he didn't like, but he's strongest with his synchros and certainly with Stardust Dragon. That's where I really see this getting interesting: all of the Signer dragons are synchro monsters. How can the Signers fight as Signers without summoning them? It looks like they're probably going to wind up saving the world again in the end, and how are they going to do that without their dragons? That's the real question here, the paradox called the Synchro Solution.

"Where I come from, trust is something you have to earn." Where *does* Visor come from? It's a very duelist-like mentality to earn trust through action-- note how Sherry established trust between herself and Yusei by establishing mutual respect for skill. But why does Visor believe so strongly that trust is something that can only be earned?

Of course, the big question here is-- will Yusei's duel with Visor reveal the Synchro Solution? Does Visor know the answer to Yusei's dilemma? I predict that Visor can only point Yusei in the right direction, and Yusei himself will have to make the leap, find what's needed in himself, that allows him to face this threat.

Our next two episodes are called "The Synchro Solution" and simply "Acceleration". I'm already excited! 'Til then, this post has gone on entirely too long-- good night! -Clio

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF FRENCH TWIST II

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF SYNCHRO STRAITS