Predictions and Observations:
Syd is Vicious and
Dawn of the Duel Board I

Episodes Aired: October 30, 2010
This Post Posted: November 5, 2010

Kaz, like Trudge, is the good kind of Security. We seem to be encountering more and more of those, though we've still got the PSB thugs who hush up the stone tablets, probably on orders from the Directors-General. What I want to know is, once we get to the point of figuring out that the town's 'ghost problem' leads back to the new Directors, will Trudge, Kaz, Mina, and their type help out our heroes with getting to what the other side of the Public Security Bureau's been covering up?

One thing we're finding out, I think, is how much New Domino's shady side has changed, and how much it's stayed the same. Back in the day, when carrying cards was illegal, the Satellite's powerful duelists would probably have been classified as among the biggest criminals in town. We saw, early-on, how many laws Yusei and his friends broke just to get by, just to live their lives and to hope for a better future. Security was very much the enemy; consider the legend of the Stranger, and how the Enforcers broke up. In the Facility, we never heard anything about what the other guys were in for; all we ever found out about the other inmates' crimes was that Yanagi was arrested for his illegal magic relic cards. Armstrong was the enemy there, and there really was the sense that regardless of what they were imprisoned for, the prisoners of the Facility are essentially good guys. Where are Domino's nastier criminals, the dangerous people who actually really *should* be locked up? Murderers, for instance?
We do begin to see a shift in this; we see Security start to become something that protects people-- consider Taka, the kid at Martha's house who wants to be Security; consider the people of New Domino rallying outside the PSB headquarters and pleading "You're Security, right? Well, *secure* us!"; and Trudge's changing role in the plot from villain to ally. We also see the not-so-friendly outlaws of the Satellite-- in Outcast Alley, for instance.
Now that we're more on the right side of the law, now that there aren't as many innocents who must break laws to get by, we see real criminals like Syd show up; those who hurt good people for their own gain. Don Piero was another such.

I'm wondering why Jack seems to be on this sort of kick; first Piero, now Syd. He's taking us on a tour of the new shady side of New Domino. He doesn't seem to have much of a role in the main plotline yet, he's just doing a bit of crimefighting here and there. But what does this tell us about Jack? That he stands up for the little guy, certainly. That he uses the little guy's own cards to thrash the bad guys, which is always good fun. That he avenges those who are truly wronged, no matter what it takes. That he fights for the right reasons. All this is true of Yusei, too, but Yusei's a bit busy right now to show us that, what with being everyone's favorite freelance mechanic whenever he isn't preparing for the WRGP, teaching turbo-dueling, keeping the twins out of trouble (or trying to), or working on learning to accel synchro summon. Right now, I'm thinking Jack's crimefighting kick is a demonstration to the audience of, 'this is what we're about'; not even about Jack specifically, more about what he and his friends stand for.

Yusei says that, when he gets onto a dignity kick, Jack's common sense goes out the window. I agree entirely, but would like to follow that up with, then what *do* you do when he gets like that to keep him from doing something even dumber than this! If anyone would also know the answer to *that* question, it would be Yusei. How *do* you talk sense into Jack? Is it even possible?

The WRGP is about to start, and the best riders in the world are pouring into town with their runners; why on Earth would Syd's operation want to be anywhere else? You bet this town has runners left in it; remember how much more popular turbo-dueling has gotten, how many more turbo-dueling trainees Duel Academy has? Demand for runners in Domino is huge right now, not to mention everyone pouring into town and bringing their own. What on earth are these guys talking about?

Why does Jack accept this duel? It makes little or no sense. I've called Security on you, but sure, let's duel, because of course it's just for kicks and we're both playing fair. Even faced with absurd and unnecessary dangerous stakes, Jack accepts. Why not answer that with, "what kind of arrogant moron do you take me for"? Until they introduce the conveyor belts, this duel doesn't even have any stakes . However, I do have an explanation. Consider Jack's position; sure he called Security, but in the meantime he's facing a united front of about thirty nasty thugs who have already managed to beat him up twice. If he refuses a challenge, they will see him as weak; what better reason to attack him? If he accepts a duel with Syd, it's unlikely anyone would violate the boundaries of the duel; Syd would take any attempt to mess with Jack once he accepted the duel as an insult to himself, because it would imply that Syd's dueling wasn't good enough without help. Therefore, by accepting the duel, Jack defends himself, no matter what rules Syd is playing by.

I notice that Syd's strategy specifically forces Jack onto the defensive, when we all know by now that 'aggressive' is Jack's middle name. Syd actually turns that against him, by landing an attack that takes advantage of the fact that Mad Archfiend has no defense points. Jack turns the tables on him in the end, with that exact same tactic actually.

"At least I use what I've taken!", seems to be a line of Syd's that tells us how his dueling style is like his style in life. I wonder how he got into all this shady stuff, originally?

So this entire time, Jack faked out Syd's gang by letting them think they'd been able to beat him up easily? That's a Crying Ogre move right there, the come-from-behind aggressive that used to not really be Jack's style. Or was he able to cream all of them now because he broke their unity by defeating their leader?

I notice that Jack immediately feels a very deep connection to Officer Kaz, even though until the last scene we've heard the man say less than ten words and we barely know him. I think Jack is very strongly moved by the risk Kaz took to protect him; even though he blew his cover and put himself in danger to do it, Kaz chose to defend a bystander at any cost. Another pattern I'm noticing is that Jack identifies with and defends those who make sacrifices for the safety of others; like when Marco was going to give up his own dueling deck, his dreams of becoming a pro duelist, for the sake of his family suffering under Don Piero. This pattern of Jack standing up for those who sacrifice themselves to protect others reminds me of something. We still don't know how Jack and Yusei originally became friends; right now by best guesses connect to Jack's comments about schoolyard bullies in A Blast From the Past. But we're seeing how Stardust Dragon's brand of selfless sacrifice inspires Jack to stand up for people. It's seeming more and more likely to me that one day a long time ago in a Satellite schoolyard, since apparently we must conclude there is or was one, little Jack finally wouldn't tolerate it anymore and stood between little Yusei and those bullies he wouldn't fight back against.

"When they invent duel training wheels," Luna said. You mean they haven't yet, and all those hecklers were just joking? You know, "Come on, get the lead out, Yusei! I got the need-- the need for speed! You're gonna hafta take off your training wheels if ya wanna keep up with me!" (ep#4) "You call that thing a duel runner, Yusei? Did it come with training wheels for ya?" (ep#20) So Jack and Greiger were actually joking about the existence of training wheels for runners?

So, clearly the three Directors know exactly who the Signers are and are planning for them. Oh, great. We may in fact learn a lot from them about the properties of individual Signs by seeing how they go about this; for instance, is Lester surprised that Luna was just defended by the Spirit World, when Regulus saved her there, or was he expecting it since he probably knows already that she wields Ancient Fairy Dragon? Is the wielder of Ancient Fairy Dragon always connected to the Spirit World? Is the wielder of Stardust Dragon always the person to mess with to get to the Crimson Dragon itself? How much have the Directors planned before they even saw the Signers' faces or knew their names, because they already knew properties governing the Signs? Considering how much the rule of "like cards, like duelist" applies to the Signer dragons, I wouldn't be surprised if they already understood a whole lot about who these duelists are and how to go at them.

Yusei and Akiza's duel right there would probably not even have registered on Zigzix's D-Tector, let alone the Directors' super-battery. Both were fairly relaxed, and felt no genuine threat from each other; it was a practice duel, even if between Signers. We've found that the Signs typically react to a threat or perceived threat to the individual, especially by another Signer or Dark Signer, and to being pushed to their limits.

Primo opines that the Crimson Dragon was the one factor that led to Goodwin's downfall. Do we agree? Well, yes and no. Goodwin was in control of the Signs, and thus the power of the Crimson Dragon, but the Signs returned to their Signers when it became clear that Goodwin still missed Roman; at the time it seemed to me that the Crimson Dragon gave him, too, a happy ending by helping Yusei defeat him. Do the Directors know exactly what happened and is that their interpretation, or do do they not have the whole story? Then again, I'm the first to argue a position that's usually counterintuitive at the time in the YGOverse, that it's never about the power, it's all about the duelists.

The three Directors show us different and conflicting motives, and begin to reveal the relationships between each other. What do we know so far? I will write about this in my next post, next week, promise. I am so out of time.

Haven't we been through this before? They'll let just about anyone into Duel Academy unless you go through the correct and proper channels to become a student? Any nasty supervillain or random interloper can just show up as a transfer. Again, when it comes to Duel Academy, some things just never change.

Man, what is it about guys from East Academy? Would this be the same East Academy Adrian Gecko hails from, or are we splitting hairs again as this Duel Academy clearly isn't the same as Jaden's Duel Academy. And Lester's only pretending to be from East anyway, so it's more or less a moot point.

Gals at Duel Academy kind of have their pick of crushes, I'd think, though they seem very well-represented at Luna's level; yet all of them here are very interested in Lester specifically. The D's-G seem to have abilities to influence people's motives and emotions; remember Sly? I still think the sort of irrational leaps of motive point to their not being natural; Sly goes from not really caring much at all to caring all too much in the blink of an eye.

By the way, remember Sly? Where is he these days? Are we ever going to see him act on that impulse to take Stardust Dragon from Yusei?

Duel P.E. is new-- remember, Fonda Fontaine taught regular P.E. at Jaden's Duel Academy; we saw a baseball unit and a tennis unit. Do they still teach regular P.E. at Duel Academy or *is* this P.E. now?

Luna holds back and keeps her powers a secret in school? You don't learn much that way, you know, and she still does have plenty to learn. And her hasty lie to Lester there when he asserted that she wasn't giving it her all and she could do better hints to me that she's doing this on purpose.

Shapeshifters. Slifer, Obelisk and Ra. *Shapeshifters*. Okay, we now know that at least two out of the three Directors-General can shapeshift. So far, we've seen Lester shapeshift into student Lester and also into Miss Bartlett, and we've seen Primo shapeshift into Lester's butler. This means we know that they can definitely assume the appearance of existing people (like Miss Bartlett), not just made-up ones, and they can probably also assume the appearance of made-up ones, assuming there's no Duel Academy student elsewhere on earth that has long, braided red hair and no butler elsewhere on earth that looks exactly like Primo's. It's possible there is and we wouldn't know it, so I don't want to assert for certain that they can originate characters, not just duplicate. Now, we've seen them imitate bystanders, as it were-- the butler and Miss Bartlett; since it's a fairly well-known fact that bystanders can be 'realmmed, sealed, or netherworlded without a duel, while more powerful individuals can't, it's worth asking whether the same rule applies when it comes to who can be imitated. Or, to stop beating around the bush and get specific-- can a Director-General take on the form of a Signer and use it to get to another Signer, or something to that effect. That could get really nasty, really fast.

However, I think I may already have some evidence that this won't happen. Notice how every single student in that class was falling for Lester immediately-- except Leo, who had the opposite reaction. I've theorized before that some of Luna's more mundane Signer power has spilled over to Leo; she's the Signer, but Leo keeps her grounded. Is it possible that Yusei, Jack, Crow, and Akiza would also see right through Lester? In which case we have little to worry about on that particular front, because they'd notice fake copies of each other, though there's plenty of other mischief for shape-shifting and probably evil Directors-General to get up to.

Like what kind of mischief? What about their imitating contenders *without* magical power, such as, oh, Trudge, or Sherry? What about their imitating Signers to people who *aren't* Signers, framing them for something they never did or said? What about their imitating really *important* bystanders-- like Carly, Crow's nestlings, Martha, Blitz, Tank, Nervin, *Rally*, Zora, the twins' parents, Akiza's parents, Mina? If they can originate people who don't actually exist, they can most definitely also imitate people who are no longer around-- like Sayer, Professor Fudo, Goodwin himself. In short, the Directors-General have not just a strategic advantage here, but also an easy way to get at the Signers emotionally and throw them off balance.

So where *did* Lester take Luna after school? Is the mansion also fabricated by the Directors' powers? Is it the new mansion for the holder of the office of Director-General, considering the *last* Director-General mansion got demolished by a giant Peruvian pyramid erupting from the basement? Is this location somebody else's house that Security 'cleared out' for the day for this purpose or something wacky like that?

Lester said he made the duel board especially for Luna. Is he mechanically inclined? Is making things (like the house too) also part of the Directors' powers? Did he have it made so it could be used in this scheme?

I notice that Lester goes to a lot of trouble to get Luna turbo-dueling. Can't the Directors-General duel standing still? Or *can't* they?

I notice Yusei is still coaching Akiza to 'take it easy'. Lester later also says this to Luna. In fact, Lester gives Luna the *exact* same advice: compare "let the board do the work" (Lester to Luna) to "let *it* steer *you* as much as you steer it" (Yusei to Akiza). This could show us one of two things: A, most turbo-dueling amateurs, including both Akiza and Luna, tend to excessively tense up and not trust their equipment, and any experienced rider will spot it right away. B, Lester definitely knows how to seem like an attractive and trustworthy acquaintance to Luna, and there's a good reason that Yusei is Luna's crush confidante even though he's a guy. Remember, another of Luna's crushes this year, Sly, also reminded us a bit of Yusei. Lester may not even be doing this on purpose, but if the form he's taken is specifically contingent on the psychology that will lure in Luna, the result may closely resemble someone she already looks up to and trusts.

"It's not every day you get to play host to a Signer" is a statement that stuck out at me. Right now my best guess as to why Primo says this is explained above, with how Leo got the real-world intuition part of Luna's Signer power; that most Signers would see right through Lester and Primo, and would suspect them, making Luna, all unawares, something of a rare treat.

So what's going through Yusei's mind in this episode? He seems a bit reluctant to get involved or take sides in a disagreement between the twins. But considering all he's watching out for these days, he can't entirely disregard Leo's suspicion either. And then later he tells Luna what Leo's up to, which leads to them making up. Since he helped Luna find Leo, he probably already knows where the twins were; might even know where they are, if he can track the duel board he made for Leo.

What does Lester hope to accomplish? What happens if the twins lose? For starters, he'll capture, probably permanently if he wins I guess, Ancient Fairy and Power Tool Dragons. Does he share the deep hatred of synchro monsters expressed by the Ghost and most likely felt by Primo (since those were Primo's cards the Ghost was using)? The damage is real in this duel, which will leave the twins in bad shape physically if he wins. So far we have had no mention of soul-stealing or anything. However, we *have* had mention of extracting energy from duels; it may be that Lester's real aim is to push the twins into exerting a lot of duel energy, in which case he doesn't necessarily care who wins or loses.

I casually note that this is the first time we've ever seen Speed World *or* Speed World 2 in the form of an actual card. It's always been a picture on a runner screen.

What kind of turbo duel will Central Grid Authority *not* authorize? Two eleven-year-olds on equipment that would literally have been registered yesterday if at all, equipment obviously hacked into a forced duel? Ah, sure, why not? Not like turbo-duelists *ever* bully amateurs, and not like we'd stop them from forcing people into duels they aren't ready for. Then again, if Lester could hack Luna's board, he could also make it tell CGA that it wasn't hacked and this is just a friendly duel.

Well, it's going to be a win, loss, tie, or interrupt. I find it unlikely that either the twins or Lester get taken out of the battle so early-on; if one side or the other does lose, the effects won't take them out of action very long. It may, quite possibly, be an interrupt; leave us waiting for a real rematch. Might be Lester'll get what he wants out of them then do an obvious throw, like Visor did, so he doesn't show us his full power just yet. Somehow I doubt Lester's that restrained or mature, to keep his powers secret this early in the game or to throw any duel he doesn't have to; if anything, he's demonstrated a lack of such restraint so far, and he entirely didn't understand why Visor did that. Is one of the other two D's-G going to step in and break this up, because they *do* have that restraint?

Well, what next? You can bet that his Sign glowing because of Luna is going to get Yusei out there in a hurry; remember how quickly he grabbed his runner when Dexter showed up at the garage and said he managed to lose the twins in the haunted forest? We may find out if Leo's instinctive dislike of Lester is a Signer thing from Yusei's reaction when he does get there. If he can, I bet he'll try to take over the duel to protect the twins, because he knows far more than they do just how bad this is; he'll recognize this situation the moment he sees the chestplate of that monster, and he is not going to like finding the twins up against this thing at all. I doubt Lester will agree to a swap, though, because he thought Primo's idea of beating Yusei in a duel was laughable and he's not about to trade an easy victim like Luna for what he seems to view as a sure defeat from Yusei. I wonder if the twins'll figure out, before Yusei gets there, that this is what Yusei had been freaking out about over the last month or so?

Chances are that Lester's infinity combo monster can *also* capture synchros. We have yet to see a Majestic version of Ancient Fairy Dragon-- will we, here, to allow Luna to pull out the same kind of victory Yusei did against the Ghost? I think the twins are definitely not at the accel synchro level yet; they're even greener riders than Akiza, and even Yusei has barely begun learning to accel synchro summon. Will the twins, having witnessed Yusei's duel with Visor, try to work up to faster speeds during this duel, try to stumble upon figuring out the technique just in time?

If the twins get good enough with those duel boards, are they qualified to enter the WRGP as turbo-duelists, or is it runners only?

Dawn of the Duel Board II and Putting It All Together are the next two episodes, about nine hours from now. My posts should be getting back to a half-decent level of earliness now; this is going out at one in the morning on Saturday, which is way too late. I've had a couple of very full weeks, and now my next play is finally about to open. It's about time. I'm shooting to be done by Thursday night next week, so people actually have time to read it! 'Til then! - Clio

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF SYD IS VICIOUS

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF DAWN OF THE DUEL BOARD I