Predictions and Observations:
Turning the Page II

Summary (sorry it slipped my mind for a couple weeks there; recaps on request):
Brron's two lackey-fiends chase Syrus and his duck down a canyon. One complains about Syrus' high-pitched screaming; can't they just let him *go*? The other replies that Brrons needs him, for the duel. The first retorts that if he keeps screaming, he *isn't* carrying him back! They're approaching a cliff; the fiends think Syrus will be cornered, until Syrus and his duck jump the cliff. The duck lands harmlessly and runs on; Syrus hits the ground hard, apparently dead. The fiends resolve to lie and tell Brron they couldn't find him. As soon as they leave, Axel retrieves his trap, and he and Jim tell Syrus that was a close one. Axel's trap made a fake copy of Syrus, and the real one is right there, safe and sound. Jim comments that the screaming led them right to him. Syrus says that that was his plan. Jim replies, sure it was.
Meanwhile, things go from bad to worse for Jaden. Brron's Wicked Canon captures the spirit of one of the remaining three victims—Atticus, Hassleberry, and Alexis—every time Brron receives damage. Unwilling to hurt his friends, even while they blame him for everything, Jaden keeps throwing defense and roiling in guilt. Brron finally plays a card that forces Jaden's monsters to attack him; Alexis, Atticus, and Hassleberry shout at Jaden to save them, even though there's nothing he can do. Brron now has four of his five needed offerings, and the fifth slips in through the door with Axel and Jim, just in time to hear that the fate of Chazz, Alexis, Hassleberry, and Atticus is entirely Jaden's fault. Brron decides to try summoning the Superpolymerization card with only four offerings, and it doesn't work. Despairing but no longer constrained by Brron's hostages, Jaden exacts vengeance on Brron for his friends, and really seriously loses it. When Brron lies defeated, he observes that Jaden won the duel, but lost far more! "You have nothing to show for it," he says to Jaden, "but anger, and pain. They will be your new friends!" Jaden demands of Brron where Jesse is, and Brron tells him that Jesse's in the stars, along with the rest of his friends.
After the duel, Jaden notices that Syrus is there and safe. He expresses his relief, and Syrus retorts that it doesn't seem to him like Jaden cares at all; he led all of them there, just so he could feel better about himself! Syrus runs off, and Jim after him. Axel is about to follow them, when Jaden asks him to wait. Axel hesitates, then turns and goes after the other two. Jaden is all alone. Jaden wonders with despair why this is happening; he only wanted to make things right, but now he's managed to make them far worse. How can he ever fix this mess? A blank card drifts to the ground before him: the Superpolymerization card, the card for which all of his friends were starstruck. A strange being appears to Jaden, and encourages him to duel and extract energy to awaken the card's power, so he can be the great warrior he was meant to be. The being identifies himself as the Supreme King.

"How does he reach that pitch?" One of the many times it's occurred to me that Wayne Grayson must just love his job. You can hear it in his characters; in addition to Syrus, he also plays Joey.

*Did* Syrus have a plan? Leaping that cliff without knowing whether or not Jim and Axel would rescue him doesn't sound very Doubtful to me. Maybe it only applies towards Jaden. And how would he have known they'd get there in time? What would he have done if they weren't there? Fall to his doom?

Nope. Lex is Sadness, Atticus is Anguish. My bad.

So, what I found most interesting about the runes is that all five victims had the same story—Jaden recklessly led them here because he cares more about Jesse than any of them—and interpreted it different ways, depending on the rune: interpreting it and becoming angry, sad, feeling hate, anguish, or doubt. But it's the *same* overblown story, not different versions, which suggests that the runes fed them *that*, too.

Reign-beaux and Rainbow Dragon? I just had that little twitch. Is there a connection, or is it just coincidence? For a moment, I seriously thought it had something to do with Rainbow Dragon.

The last time Jaden played Air Neos is Jewel of a Duel, if memory serves.

I don't like that smile…or those eyes, come to think of it. At first I thought they were dino-eyes, which would be weird. What do the eyes signify, or are they just kind of an effect, like when Zane started glowing blue in No Pain, No Game (i.e. we never saw it again).

It's the Zane effect. It seriously is. This is just about what happened to Zane. I wonder if Syrus has noticed that it's spreading…? This is going to *have* to be addressed now; it's not GX without Jaden.

Dueling for revenge. You know it, I know it; it never ends well.

So… what next? Do we have a rogue protagonist on our hands (which could get interesting)? Where will the focus of the story be? It looks like next week we're following Syrus, so maybe we'll jump around a bit. It's kinda hard to root for Jaden at this point, but I assert that that *isn't* quite Jaden, and I root for someone talking or knocking some sense into him. It looks like Jaden's going after the Superpolymerization card, and getting swayed by the Supreme King, and meanwhile Syrus is running off on his own and Jim and Axel are attempting to follow him. Syrus is still whammied with that Doubt rune; when is it going to wear off, and after it does, will Sy change his mind about abandoning his best friend to be bitter, angry, and confused all alone? Is Jaden crazy enough to go after Syrus and try to starstrike him for the fifth rune?
For the record, Jaden never asked them to follow him into this, and in fact tried to dissuade them. He couldn't have known what would happen, and in addition to the strain he's already under from this turn of events, I think he's being influenced by some magical thingamajig. Even without all the stress, this isn't Jaden, and if Syrus noticed the leather look after Zane started coming back from the brink in the League, he surely would have noticed that look in Jaden's eyes, let alone what he was saying.

It's like Waking the Dragons all over again, and I sure hope that Jaden gets a `Self Destruction' moment of his very own sometime very soon now; I still say that Jesse would be the first to forgive Jaden and remind him who he is. It's actually an extremely similar situation, come to think of it. Except that Yubel didn't turn things around and trick Jaden into becoming worse than that which he was fighting. But Brron did, come to think of it; or at least he made it seem to be Jaden's fault that Chazz, Hassleberry, Alexis, and Atticus got starstruck. And Atem still had Joey, Tristan, and Tea, and they actually wanted to help. And Jaden's duel spirits have been left out of the situation (so far). It sifts out to about even. But, Jaden still isn't alone; if Winged Kuriboh (who might even be getting a sudden feeling of déjà vu), Neos, Aquos, Flick, and the others care at all, they'll step in and give Jaden the support he needs. It would be thematically plausible: "I knew right then that my new alien peeps from Neo-space—that's you—had my back no matter what stood in my way! So if some maniacal villain shows up this year—which is *bound* to happen—we'll be ready!" "Ever notice how Jaden's always *talking* to his monsters?" This year is about duel spirits, so where are Jaden's right now?

Speaking of which, what happened to the Ojamas when Chazz got starstruck?

It seems somehow significant (or maybe just poetic) that Doubt escaped. It seems almost as though the symbolism of the runes matches Jaden's current state of mind; he's currently feeling a lot of anger, anguish, sadness, and, yes, hatred—but there's not much doubt there, and perhaps there needs to be. As Brron put it, "You have nothing to show for it but anger and pain. They will be your new friends." First the runes replaced his friends in the sense that they influenced his friends' actions and feelings, therefore making it not Alexis, Atticus, Chazz, Hassleberry, or Syrus talking, but the runes. Then it's the more literal sense; his friends are all constellations or run off, and his only companions, truly, are what was written in the Wicked Canon. This seems to be quite a wicked chapter of the GX canon (sorry, couldn't resist).

Once again, Syrus is on his own. That doesn't happen often, but has happened more in this season than any other. And it's for some of the same reasons: it has to do with Jesse being in serious competition for the position of Jaden's best friend, therefore leaving Syrus looking for a place; and it has to do with Syrus disagreeing strongly with Jaden. In Hanging With Axel, when another little falling-out occurred, Syrus found out that Jaden still cared about him when he walked into Axel's trap for him, and Syrus found out that he still cared a lot about Jaden when Jaden got drained by the bio-band and fainted. Before it was about the bio-bands, and now it's about this whole quest. And Syrus really gets upset out of his concern for Jaden above all, which is what brought him back before. At this point, Syrus is feeling like Jaden is obsessing over this so much that nothing else—especially not his other friends—matters to him, which, for Syrus, is very wounding, because Jaden still matters to him but he doesn't want to blindly be devoted to someone who could care less about him. I still say that the Doubt rune is whammying his judgment; Syrus knows Jaden better than anyone, and would know that it's time and past he got taken down a peg. Jaden needs someone to do for him what he supported Syrus in trying to do for Zane last year. And deep down Syrus must know it.

So. This episode is quite probably a contender, so I'd better revise my list…
Ten scariest duels:
Fate of the Pharaoh – Atem vs. Rafael (the first one)
No Pain, No Game – Zane vs. Mad Dog
Mind Game – Mai vs. Yami Marik
The Darkness Returns – Joey vs. Yami Marik
Turning the Page – Jaden vs. Brron, Mad King of Dark World
Self Destruction – Yugi vs. Atem (Waking the Dragons)
Tough Love – Syrus vs. Zane
Grappling With a Guardian – Atem vs. Rafael (the second one)
My Freaky Valentine – Joey vs. Mai (the first one in Waking the Dragons)
Trapper Keeper – Jesse vs. Trapper
Champion vs. Creator – Kaiba vs. Pegasus
This is just one of those crazy things I do when I'm bored. I list episodes. What are my criteria? Mostly, I think about how hard it would be to watch. I've only seen Fate of the Pharaoh once, when it first showed, and I seriously am scared to watch it again. I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I found out what had happened; I'd been away that Saturday and didn't have Tivo yet, so I found out from the online video clip preview for Trial By Stone, when Atem, Duke, Joey, and Tristan come back and tell everyone else. I couldn't see for myself until parts II and III reran that Friday. Currently, I happen to know that it's available to rent on DVD at my local Hollywood Video, and, well, I'm working up to it.

I've been guiding the first round of Battle City off the 4Kids site (yessss! It's been so long!!!), and I've found irrefutable duel spirit parallels. Duel spirits might have played a smaller role in the original, but they existed and were known. This is Yugi (well, Atem's switched in) in The Master of Magicians I: "You must know that when a duelist builds his deck, he chooses his favorites from many different types of cards. But sometimes a card can choose a duelist. The two are connected, and the duelist can tap into the card's true power, because each is bound by the Heart of the Cards! And the Dark Magician has chosen me. (shuffles his deck, and draws, straight off the top, Dark Magician) He has never let me down! And I place my complete trust in my Dark Magician." It was always there, but, like I said, it's been so long, that about all I managed to remember was a basic, skeletal outline of the plot as I understood it at the time. My memories are actually incredibly well-preserved, considering, but there are still a million and more surprises. I'm very excited.

The next episode is The State of Syrus. The first episode I thought of, just because of title similarity, is For the Sake of Syrus. But seriously, Syrus would be in quite a state. Jaden means more to him than anything; he gave up being in Obelisk Blue so he could stay at Slifer and keep an eye on Jaden, and he once dueled himself into a dead faint to prove that he was Jaden's best friend. And after the big showdown with Zane last year, we never did find out how Syrus felt about Zane being back on campus; I would have thought Syrus would spring for a rematch. And Zane is still wandering around here somewhere; Syrus' "state" may also have to do with him. I know I'm a wishful thinker when it comes to Zane, but I keep hoping that one of these days Syrus is going to have his brother back, and find that he's discovered what Zane so fervently wanted him to about dueling; Zane'd be so proud. Moreover, Zane's fall represents a triumph of bitter pain and hatred over dueling with honor and respect, and as a fan of the original duelists with heart, I can't easily accept that Zane is beyond hope.

Next Saturday is The State of Syrus. That's all, folks! -Clio