Predictions and Observations:
Double Trouble Duel III - Shining Friendship

Double Trouble Duel III | Face Off I | Face Off II | Face Off III | Shining Friendship

Double Trouble Duel III - 2/4/07
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kaiba-boy. In my dungeon, in my castle, in my realm, the only one who makes threats—is me.”
Why wouldn’t anyone adopt Mokie? The way it was told, plenty of folks wanted to adopt Seto because he was so intelligent; Mokuba’s smart (sometimes smarter than his big brother), and a really nice kid—I could see plenty of people wanting to adopt him. I suppose it was more a matter of taking the both of them at once; adopting two kids is quite a big commitment!
Kaiba’s presence *wasn’t* in the plan?! What was this grand plan of Pegasus’? He only tells us what it wasn’t; he didn’t expect Kaiba to help Yugi against the impostor, and he wasn’t planning on Kaiba making it to Mokuba, though he tells Kaiba that he knew nothing could keep him from his brother for long. The only hint he gives as to what it *might* be is that he has plans for Kaiba’s technical knowledge, but I don’t remember anything occurring that would have made use of them.

Face Off I - 2/10/07
“Yugi, you said you won before by tapping into the Heart of the Cards, and for a long time I didn’t know what that meant. But now I think I do, and it took Pegasus to show me. He gave me a reason to put my heart in the cards.”
“Or maybe I want something that you’re incapable of comprehending, something that you’ll end up delivering to me, all tied up in a bow.” We’re all dying to know, and I don’t think we ever find out, because he never manages to accomplish it. I’m workin’ on it, though…
Foreshadowing: Tea’s discussing Atem in the start of this, and this duel ends up with a major upheaval in this misty portion of events—the idea of there being two Yugis.
Nervous, Atem? Probably because he has no idea what Kaiba’s motives are or why Kaiba’s so sure. He seems unusually on-edge and easy to provoke.
I’m getting a bad recording. Did anyone else’s show skip a few times? That’s awfully nice of them, to not only have this be the last time but to have it play badly too!

Face Off II - 2/10/07
“Let’s finish this, Kaiba!”
“He enjoys toying with his opponents almost as much as he enjoys winning,” Yugi said of Kaiba. Quite perceptive. I suppose having seen Kaiba duel twice now, thrice if you count the fat guy, Yugi has a pretty thorough grasp of Kaiba’s style. Both Yugis are really, really sharp when it comes to that. In later seasons, they don’t show it off as much.

Face Off III - 2/10/07
"Yugi. It can't end this way. If I don't defeat you in this duel, Pegasus will keep Mokuba prisoner...forever. I can't let that happen. And even though I don't have a card that can keep you from attacking, I think I still have a strategy that will stop you in your tracks!"
“There’s just somethin’ about him. He’s intense, that one! It’s like he wouldn’t let *nothin’* stop ‘im from winnin’!” That’s just the kind of energy Yugi gives off. It’s inspiring, really.
“That punk Yugi coulda won the match, but he threw it away to Kaiba! Whoever heard of a *duelist* doin’ *that*?!” I love this line; I’ve had the last half or so of this episode memorized for years now, and that line sticks out at me as a continuation of the theme of what makes a good duelist and what an ideal duelist should be. At the beginning of the tournament, the common sentiment is that good duelists are merciless and crafty, like Weevil, say, or Pegasus himself, or how Kaiba was when we had seen him last. Yugi was quite solitary in his belief in the cards. As the tournament has progressed, every one of his victories has not only gotten him closer to Pegasus, but shown that honor and respect have more than just a place in dueling, they have an affinity for it. As the tournament progressed, as Yugi made friends and confounded enemies, you could almost feel the change in atmosphere. Mai has a unique position in this plot, because she starts out as devious as the rest of them, but her belief in that road is sorely tested time and again, as she witnesses Yugi, the honorable duelist, slamming Weevil the sneak; as Joey beats her with, let’s face it, not much more than faith to his name; as Yugi takes on and defeats Panik by being unafraid to duel with guts and honor while the supposed bully cowers in the dark; and finally, next week, when Tea challenges her, once more with not much more than faith and friendship on her side. The fact that they’re doing things that no “tough” duelist would ever attempt and succeeding begins to show Mai that she can, too. But she’s not the only one; during the Duel With a Ghoul, Kaiba and Mokuba both actually start believing in the Heart, and in this duel and his next one, Kaiba is forced to make phenomenal leaps of faith. By the end of Duelist Kingdom, both of these characters are significantly different people and show it. But mainly I just noticed that in this Keith clearly voiced this common sentiment that was quickly getting turned on its ear by an incredible duelist with a heart.
If Kaiba hadn’t freaked, could he have come up with another strategy? It’s easy to understand why he did, of course, the symbolism and all. This had been his plan: use Ultimate Dragon to crush Yugi utterly and save Mokuba. The symbolism of that would have sat very nicely indeed, considering the Blue-Eyes’ history and all that. But if Kaiba hadn’t been freaking out about his most trusted monster, loaded with symbolism, melting and rotting away, could he have found a way not to lose the duel? I’m sure a duelist of his caliber could have, and from how much fun Yugi was having out there, I think that he was expecting a fresh challenge from Kaiba after he apparently clinched the match with the Living Arrow play.

Shining Friendship - 2/17/07
“It’s like the card says—Shining Friendship. No matter how dark things may get, the special bond I share with my friends will always find a way to shine through. I may be scared, but that fear won’t keep me from dueling! Or from helping Yugi! Or from winning this duel!”
For the record, Mai wasn’t actually being mean to Yugi when she started calling him a chicken and told him to go back to the nursery and so on. Most duelists would never take insults like those, and if he got angry, that would at least mean he’d snapped out of it, and he could duel her for her stars. She wasn’t expecting to beat him, of course; she was only challenging him because she wanted to make sure he got them and she thought he might not be accepting them because he’d think it unfair or cheating to take someone else’s stars without a fight. Like she said, she owed him, so she didn’t think it at all unfair to pay him back, especially since she didn’t need the extras. It’s anyone’s guess whether she still would have helped him if she didn’t have them, though she definitely would have considered it. This is another installment in the saga of “Mai learns what dueling is really about,” and keep in mind how much of her respect and awe Yugi has gained in the past by doing far better honorably than any would-be challenger could do with trickery and showing that friendship is more than a myth and has a place even in this competitive game when it stays just a game no matter what the stakes. It’s anyone’s guess, also, whether she saw the end of the duel, though her comment at the end (a favorite line of mine: “*Some* cards just aren’t worth playing; huh, Yugi?”) has had me wondering if she happened to stroll out of the forest, heading for the castle, and see the duel’s conclusion. It seemed to me that she was basically telling Yugi that she “lost” to Tea for the same reason Yugi “lost” to Kaiba, and neither of them did anything wrong by conceding to someone who needed them.

“- Whaddaya think?
-I think Yugi’s in good hands.”
No kidding—dueling for Yugi, Tea isn’t going down without one heck of a fight!

Yugi must be completely out of it, to not notice any of this going on. I confess that the first analogy that hit me was when Jaden’s cards went blank and he couldn’t duel again or hear monster spirits. I have a feeling that it must be much the same condition. It’s a concrete reason that these two are the champions of their respective times and locations, if losing the ability to play the game affects them so harshly. It also means that they’ll never stop playing; they couldn’t if they wanted to, except under such a serious deterrent as Yugi had here. Hint, hint, Powers That Write: where on Earth is Yugi in GX? It’s not like he’d settle down and stop dueling!!

Doesn’t it say on the Waboku card what it does? Perhaps, being a rookie duelist, Tea doesn’t know some of the terminology, so the card did have text but she didn’t understand it, though she’d used it before when she remembered what it meant in plain English (or Japanese as the case may be).