Predictions and Observations:
Magnetic Personality

Aster said that Sartorius’ power was to prey on the weaknesses of others.
I know that was definitely apparent in how he defeated Chazz; he used Chazz’s fear of admitting that he relied on others combined with how much Jaden’s condition had shaken him up, and in order for Chazz to realize what was happening, he would first have had to admit that Jaden had come to matter to him.
What was it with Alexis? It has to have something to do with the fact that Chazz made it so she could see all his cards (speaking of which, I was wrong; it’s not a set condition for him now); Alexis was unaccustomed to that, and in trying to use it to her advantage, threw her own game off trying to anticipate Chazz. That’s not really a specific weakness, though, except for the fact that Alexis isn’t exactly the strongest as a duelist. She’s no pushover, and all of the components of good dueling are there, essentially, but they haven’t really built to full strength yet. I guess the thing was that Chazz kept making her second-guess herself, and took advantage of the weakness that she wasn’t entirely confident of her own abilities.
However, Bastion’s weakness here was as easy to see as Chazz’s, and gives a lot of insight into Bastion’s character. Bastion’s weakness was that he wanted to be appreciated for his talent far more than he wanted to defeat the White Dorm and far more than he wanted to stay with his friends. Interesting that I should relate to this also. Bastion’s a bit of a loner; he’d rather be inside working out a tricky math problem or maybe reading a book than out wandering around getting into scrapes with Jaden, Syrus, and Hassleberry. This is apparent in that he never moved into the Slifer Dorm, even though all of his friends were there at one point (Chazz and Alexis included, way back when). He still preferred to have his own space. Now, given this, the only reason people pay him any attention at all (to his way of thinking and still a bit to my own) is because he’s the smart one, if they need help on their homework they know where to turn; and because he’s trustworthy and responsible. Therefore, this reputation is very important to him—it’s why anyone bothers noticing he’s there—though he hasn’t realized it until this turn of events has threatened to take it away, by saying that he’s *not* the best. That means he’s *not* the smartest one, and that he *can’t* be trusted to win. Therefore, the need to prove this wrong both to himself and to anyone who’s watching is quite strong. Sartorius subtly manipulated that need, changing just one thing in Bastion’s mind: what was needed to achieve it. Bastion, it seems to me, didn’t want to join the White Dorm—he wanted to prove that he was worth their trying to get him. He could have done that better by defeating them; even the people who were “good enough” had failed to do that. But Sartorius changed this ever-so-slightly, just enough to make Bastion think that he *didn’t* want to win in the crucial moment.

So, what next? If another of our heroes were to take on the White Dorm, what would *they* be confronted with? Of the four, I think that Aster, though still quite a mysterious and ambiguous character, might be most susceptible simply because he doesn’t seem too sure about anything, followed by Syrus and his confidence issues with Zane (speaking of which, how *is* Zane?). Jaden and Hassleberry are pretty much immune, or so it seems. Then again, what about Crowler? We never see the teachers anymore, but Crowler is enough of a main character that this might mean something. Crowler has plenty of weaknesses, but I think the one that would wind up playing a role is the one that’s also his strength: his devotion to Duel Academy. It would be easy for Sartorius to convince him, the way he convinced Bastion, that he could best serve the Academy by throwing the duel. I also wouldn’t be too surprised if this happens; the White Dorm has essentially taken over the school, and since Crowler’s chancellor, the only way he’ll take that lying down is if the Powers that Write just leave him out of the picture entirely like they’ve been doing.

We’re pretty deep into this and I still haven’t quite figured out what game is being played and why, and I mean more than Duel Monsters (I *have* figured *that* out, thank you!). There’s Sartorius, and his trying to get Jaden on his side through brainwashing, taking over the school, preying on people’s weaknesses. There’s Sarina’s story that Sartorius was corrupted by an evil hero card. There’s Hassleberry as the Strength and his dino DNA. There’s Aster, and his rather strange role in all this. And then there’s Zane and his plotline. How does it fit together? Why was Aster so interested in what Bastion was up to in this episode if not to stop him? What does taking over Duel Academy have to do with getting Jaden, other than eventually Jaden will have to fight on the White Dorm’s terms to get his friends back? What does telling the future have to do with exploiting weaknesses and brainwashing? Who gave Sartorius the hero card, why, and where is the card now?

But one game that seems to be being played for sure is that of conformity, acceptance, and being “good enough”. If you’re in the Society, all of you are serving the same purpose and think the same thing. It’s very comforting to know that you’re not the only one who thinks the way you do, because it lends credibility to what you think and believe, helps assure you that you think that way because you’re an intelligent, reasoning human being, not because you’re a fruitcake. Being part of such a group also means that others *aren’t*, and everyone in the group can gang up on and bully and tease those who aren’t. That’s what makes the Society such an interesting entity to have at Duel Academy, because high school is inherently one of those times when we feel the strongest need to conform. I remain immune, happy to say, or I wouldn’t be writing this, lol. On this note, I observe that the Obelisk dorm actually hasn’t changed much except for a new coat of paint. I nice segue into Chazz, who got his old life back, as it were, when he became one of Sartorius’ head goons. Once more he has a posse. Bastion also has a group that he fits into now. Neither realized that they had friends who liked them as they were before all this. One hopes that they will after all of this is over. Moreover, Zane had something of the same problem. His main thing was that he was an amazing duelist and people looked up to and respected him for that. Since he kept losing, he felt like something was very, very wrong, that he had lost something, when really the higher stakes probably just threw him off his game. They kept getting higher and higher as things got more and more desperate with regard to his career (as in, lose one more duel and you’re through), and that just made it worse. Dueling, as a competition, has to do a lot with what others think of you, but the best duelists are the ones who learn that what others say can only rattle them as much as they let it. Yugi’s confident in his abilities and his deck, Kaiba’s got better things to think about, Joey and Jaden are likewise confident and sometimes just oblivious.

Let’s review, shall we? Bastion won his exam duel with ease, and clever banter to boot. Bastion did indeed “give Chazz a run for his money”, by kicking his tush all over the arena in Formula for Success, back when Chazz was an Obelisk. Bastion *did* hold his own against Jaden, in Duel Off I and II. Bastion did NOT do well against “that Amazon girl”, Tanya, because she kept talking about marriage and he got flustered far too easily. The two of them dueled several more times, and Bastion kept on getting creamed. Bastion did not duel again, until now. Took them long enough.

One thing I’ve really been noticing is that this is a very intricate plot and deals a lot more in the reasons why people duel. It’s very juicy. I still miss the original, give me a good shadow game any day, because it had a different sort of tone, a certain manner to it that had a charm all its own that this lacks, but it does retain the same ideas and takes them to a new level, which is very nice. This is only the second season; it’ll probably get even better!

Aster—you *are* aware that this whole mess is partially your fault? The first time someone mentioned that the reason the Society hadn’t come for Bastion might be because they deemed him too poor a duelist to be worth the trouble, it was Aster, in Taken By Storm I—Bastion asked him about Sartorius, and I have a feeling that was Aster retaliating for Bastion’s bringing up such a touchy subject.

Hey, look, it’s the Ojamas! Ojama Yellow’s realizing that they should root for Bastion shows that he’s a bit sharper than Green and Black, or maybe just wants Chazz back enough that he thinks about it a lot. They got whacked around an awful lot in this episode, and that’s the duel’s way of telling us that Chazz has lost entirely the confidence that relying on such weak monsters showed, in favor of the confidence that comes from having an army of white-blazered thugs at your back. Then he threw the cards away. Well, they came back when he tossed his deck back in Chazz-anova! We haven’t seen the last of the Ojamas yet!

For the record, Bastion COULD HAVE won, if it were just a battle of cards. This places him far higher on the dueling totem than I think anyone deemed him before.

Poor Don Simon… now there’s no one in his dorm again, with the technical exception of Syrus and Hassleberry. I bet the Slifers wouldn’t mind if he came and cooked for *them.* It’s not like they have a headmaster of their own!

So now it’s safe to say that all of Obelisk, ladies included now, and all of Ra, with the exceptions of Atticus (whom, come to think of it, we haven’t seen since J-Dawg and T-Bone, but we’d know if he was brainwashed, right?), Syrus, and Hassleberry, now belong to the Society of Light. It’s unlikely that they’ll bother with Slifer. Since the entire

Next week’s episode is Schooling the Master. “Master” in what sense? This could refer to Sartorius, whom the kids of the White Dorm call “Master Sartorius”, as Chazz and Alexis reminded Bastion this week; it could refer to Zane taking on a high-level pro-leaguer, though if it’s one of the original’s three, I think it’s safe to say the one getting schooled is *him,* and I pray that it might knock some sense into him because right now he needs it desperately (isn’t it nice how hope springs eternal?); it could refer to Crowler, the “master” of the school, and there’s actually a fairly good chance that he won’t take Sartorius’ organization’s having a death grip on the Academy lying down; it could refer to Jaden, whom we all know is the best duelist on campus.

What about the title? Bastion used mostly magnetic monsters, but I think that it’s also possible that it was called this because someone with a magnetic personality is someone that other people like to be around, someone who attracts attention and social interaction. This might refer to the fact that the White Dorm didn’t need to bother challenging Bastion, because Sartorius knew that by their not doing so, Bastion would challenge *them.* It also might be because the Ojamas cared about Chazz, even though he could care less about them, and couldn’t leave, until he tossed them. Even then, they said that they’ll be together again someday (Oh, Pharaoh! Heeere, kitty, kitty!). It might also be because this episode was all about what I discussed about Bastion above, about how he felt like the white dorm’s leaving him alone meant that he wasn’t up to scratch, and his wanting to be accepted.

THE DUELIST KINGDOM SECTION
Maybe I should just give these things their own post. The episodes that showed this week were The Legendary Great Moth (part II of II!) and First Duel.
I don’t know if I’d ever watched the former before; it’s all pretty hazy. I know that when first I saw this, when Duelist Kingdom reran back in Fall 2004, they showed the montage version. While I have a thing for montages, I really enjoyed seeing this. I’m not sure if Mai even appeared in the abbreviated version, and if so, it slipped my mind. In any case, this was better in that it lent a bit more depth to the story; we get a real chance for the group to get to know Mai as a foe or at least as very annoying before Joey takes her on in the next episode. Before, my logic was sorta thus: Yugi and Joey met her on the boat, and I think Tea and Tristan might have eavesdropped on that (it was on the boat deck, and I don’t feel like going back and looking), which was originally how I thought they all knew and disliked Mai by the time First Duel rolled around; Joey just noticed she was pretty, Yugi was somewhat uncomfortable because she was *so* interested in his beating Kaiba and because, back then, people getting in Yugi’s face made him nervous. If Tea and Tristan had seen/overheard that, Tristan would have seen Mai as something of a jerk, and Tea, of course, would have been angry at her for getting in Yugi’s face. Hence, there you go. But this is better, whether it was there in the abbreviated or not. We begin to see, through Tea’s extreme dislike of Mai, how much Tea cares about Yugi; a bit of foreshadowing for Shining Friendship and later (in which we also see how much Tea cares about Yugi), when Tea finally duels Mai and it’s once again she, the amateur that cares but can’t do much (everything Tea said to Mai in this episode just about bounced off), against Mai, the pro. This also shows Mai that Yugi is a person to contend with, and proves her expressly wrong in saying that having friends’ support doesn’t help. She thought he didn’t have a chance, just when he started laughing and informed Weevil that cheats don’t win. Mai’s respect for Yugi also plays a major role in later parts of Duelist Kingdom; her respect and even admiration for Yugi and, yes, Joey, are what show her that you *can* have friends and duel, and that dueling with honor means something. It means that it doesn’t really matter if you duel a friend or a foe, because it’s *not* just about kickin’ the other guy’s butt. She saw in herself what a difference it makes; they dueled against her with honor and extended a hand of friendship, and she realized, as she cared about them more, that doing those things makes everything a lot better. On a last note for The Legendary Great Moth, Yugi smiled so much in this episode; in many later duels, he has the poker face not to break down, but the stakes are far too serious to smile, even though he may at times be having fun. I think I’ve mentioned that before; you can be having fun, but be concentrating too hard to show it. It’s not like Yugi wasn’t having fun in later duels, especially because that’s part of the Heart and a first rule of dueling Moto-style (by which I mean Yugi *or* Mr. Moto, who taught him that). That part toward the end of the duel- “He’s not smiling; I think he’s laughing!”- I laughed out loud, because not only was Yugi having lots of fun here, but Yugi laughing is a very sure sign, especially when I’m used to later episodes, that Weevil is utterly toast.
I know First Duel a bit better, so there weren’t quite so many surprises. One thing I did notice though is that we get our first view up close of Mai, so to speak, by which I mean, we know what she duels for, we know what she thinks about things. She fully becomes a character, as in, no longer just someone who is for them or against them for any old reason. The second thing I noticed was how much Mai was really getting to Joey. Amazing how little time it takes for Joey to become one of the best bluffers in the game (“…the *left* hand then?...Are you *suuure*?…*Reeeeeally* sure?” (Courtroom Chaos II) and the one I really thought of today: “So… is your harpy ready to dance?” (Fighting for a Friend IV)).
Speaking of people who are confounded at how quickly Joey became adept enough at Duel Monsters to be ranked professionally (like, for instance, Kaiba …), next week’s episodes are Attack from the Deep (in which the gang end up eating Mako’s lunch, because it beats munching on Tristan’s survival handbook, and Yugi gets challenged to a duel for it) and Everything’s Relative (the only episode in which Mokuba duels, and I mean ONLY! By the way, I just realized that these poor people seeing it for the first time get to wonder if Kaiba just jumped from a window into a frothy ocean full of sharp rocks and then somehow returned from the dead and came to Duelist Kingdom, just to duel Yugi in favor of Mokuba’s continued captivity, for an entire week!)!

Well, that’s all for now, folks! Next week, like I said above—Attack from the Deep, Everything’s Relative, and Schooling the Master! ‘Til then, that’s game! -Clio