Predictions and Observations:
Family Business

Wow. Everyone’s having family trouble: Syrus and Zane, Alexis, Chumley… And all at the same time, too. Odd coincidence. I thought that there would be more to the Truesdale Brothers saga today with that title.

Anyway, Chumley’s dad, Mr. Huffington: What a character. I have several questions: if he’s such a good duelist, why did he ever want Chumley to give in? What on *Earth* inspired Pegasus, or perhaps a GX-era counterpart for all we know, to make a series of hot-sauce-themed cards? What really made Mr. Huffington decide to let Chumley stay? After he witnessed Jaden and Syrus giving Chumley the cards and stuff, he still was determined to defeat Chumley in the duel. He did look, though, like the jury was still out on whether he would make his victory mean anything or drop it like he did. And Chumley’s statement that his dad keeps buying him self-help books doesn’t sound like the Mr. Huffington we met.

We see a lot of Banner in this episode. He seems to be not that strong a personality, which we already knew, but now we really know. When Mr. Huffington kept forcing hot sauce on him, he timidly accepted.

How could Chumley live with his dad growing up and not like the smell of hot sauce?

From this we can imagine some of what made Chumley who he is. Chumley, by nature, seems to be a very nice guy, if a bit lazy. Now we have a big clue as to what makes him so defensive. I confess I’m tapping on my English-class knowledge here, but bear with me. I believe my teacher said at one point that it’s against our original selves to hold in our feelings, but to many people something happened at one point or another, that tells them, ‘you’re not allowed to feel this way’ or ‘you’re not allowed to show your emotions,’ like if anyone’s read “Catcher in the Rye” (that was what this lecture was about), it was Holden’s being sent away to another boarding school after smashing up the garage that sent the message ‘you’re not allowed to grieve or show your emotions or we’ll send you away.’ Quite a far-fetched analogy, but still. Chumley’s dad shows himself to be a bit of a bully, very forceful, very macho sort of a guy. Chumley, on the other hand, is clearly projecting a tough exterior to hide insecurities and comes across to me as much gentler and he’s shown in this episode as well as in the past that he can be pushed around and just takes it without standing up for himself (how about his description of the status quo at Duel Academy in Welcome to Duel Academy?). Therefore, I have to conclude that underneath all of his defenses, Chumley’s a pretty mild guy. It seems clear to me that Chumley’s dad’s harshness of criticism and personality may’ve made Chumley very self-conscious and defensive.

Chumley says he can hear cards talking to him. I wonder if Jaden will ever confide in Syrus and Chumley that Winged Kuriboh coos at him, and therefore he hears monsters too. That may be a special bond between them. And that’s not all. Remember that story Jaden told back in The Shadow Duelist I? About waking up in the middle of the night hearing noises and voices, and following the sounds to his deck? I think that this special connection to their decks shows that they feel the Heart. It will be interesting to see where this special affinity for Duel Monsters takes them.

And speaking of affinity for Duel Monsters, today in Spanish class I realized how I could really put the thing from yesterday about knowing how to play your cards rather than just use them in an understandable way. What I realized was that today in class I was making up words based on my knowledge of Spanish grammar and vocabulary, like changing adjectives to adverbs to nouns, and stuff like that. On and off since Kindergarten, I’ve been learning Spanish; what words mean, memorizing verb conjugations, learning rules for pronunciation… But it’s only now that I’m beginning to be able to write and speak without having to translate my thoughts to Spanish, find the words I’m looking for, et cetera. I think that’s what Zane means, a ‘fluency,’ to use language terms, in your deck and options that lets you play your cards rather than use them, the same way you speak a language rather than process and fling vocabulary and conjugations. I’m not sure if that made sense either, but to me it seems to be getting more coherent.

I think that’s all for now, folks, as always, please write back and argue with me, it’s fun. Let me know, also as always, about matters of clarification or any other questions. My next posts will be tomorrow or Sunday, regarding the new Yu-Gi-Oh! (the original) Spiritual Awakening. I would like to warn that I might take quite a long time on those, because most of my Saturday is very busy with something else and I won’t be here a good part of the day. I will, however, finish them before the weekend is out! The next GX episode will be on Monday, the first part of a two-parter entitled Tag Team Trial. We’ll find out who Jaden and Syrus’ opponents are! The big match will begin! Suspense! Suspense! Excitement! Excitement! -Clio