Predictions and Observations:
In Search of a King

It just came back to me: “What has he done to you, Kisara?” The flashback from Spiritual Awakening! He was sitting before a tablet of Blue-Eyes, and Akhnadon said that to harness Blue-Eyes’ power they must seal her soul in a tablet! That must be what happened!

It seems even less likely after this chat between Seto and Akhnadon that Seto would ever storm into the Pharaoh’s chamber one day and challenge him to a duel with the fate of the world at stake (paraphrased from Ishizu’s words to Kaiba in The Past is Prologue). What on Earth happens?

It’s been bugging me all night (I got some good thinking time in for once). If Mana could see Yugi and the others, then what properties govern who can see them and who can’t? Okay, I’ll try and think of it this way: since Mana, it’s becoming increasingly clear, is or becomes or whatever the Dark Magician Girl, she has technically met them before, they’re familiar to her. Since she is one of Yugi’s main monsters, it follows that there’s a bond between them and she can see them. Therefore, though this is after Mahad’s time, if he had met them he would have seen them too. Therefore, for one in the past to see one from the future, it’s necessary that they have a bond in the future with that person from the future which then carries to the past. However, since Joey and Tristan have no real connection to Dark Magician Girl (Tea might, remember Freeze Play?), that doesn’t explain why she can see all of them, unless it’s sort of, if-you-see-one-you-see-his-friends-because they’re-connected-to-him. Or, as another theory, one could hypothesize that since this is the world of Yami’s memory, this is governed subconsciously by him, and perhaps this is just a nuance of the mind. Or, as a third theory, one could propose that since Yami’s memory of Mana was strong enough, even after his memory was wiped clean, that he identified her when he met her again (which he did in The Intruder II), so some part of that became part of Yugi’s memories subconsciously, forming a bond between them that let her see Yugi. Again, though, that wouldn’t explain Joey, Tristan, or Tea’s visibility. In any of these crazy theories, I also tok into account that Seto could NOT see Yugi, Tristan, Tea, or Joey, even though the connection between Yugi and Kaiba is one of the story’s cores. However, I explained this by saying that Dark Magician Girl, if I am indeed correct, *is* Mana, so therefore they’ve met in person. Kaiba, however identical-by-fate to Seto, is not the same person, and so therefore Yugi may know Kaiba well but has never met Seto. That means no connection and hence he can’t see him.

Yugi recognized it, too! About Mana and Dark Magician Girl! That foreshadows that I was right! Yay! Yay!

Mana’s going to change her name to Dark Magician Girl, huh? I wonder if she’ll put it together that it’s quite the coincidence of fate that Mahad, according to Isis, will now be called the Dark Magician, and it happened entirely unrelatedly that Mana, his loyal student, comes to be known as the Dark Magician Girl?

Don’t hurt me, O People Who Know How It Ends And How It’s Supposed To Be, but wasn’t that chip out of the Tablet of Lost Memories the name of whoever won the duel that got worn away? And speaking of that chunk of the tablet, wasn’t that the same image that Tea referred to when she gave Yami the blank cartouche? And what would that particular duel, Yami vs. Seto as it were, have to do with Zorc? Wouldn’t it be Yami vs. Bakura?

So the real question to ask in asking if Akhnonkannan was evil, is asking whether he knew about Kal’elna before the fact. From Akhnadon’s narration of the incident in Village of Lost Souls, I gathered that Akhnadon never told Akhnonkannan what he was about to do, knowing that Akhnonkannan would never approve. Wait, I just answered my own question! Okay, so considering that Akhnadon was saying that his brother could never be told, I would guess that Akhnonkannan didn’t know until after the deed was done, and then somehow found out. So why was Akhnadon kept on the Court after this? It’s clear from this episode that he did eventually find out, because he apologizes for it in Yami’s flashback, accepting full responsibility and asking their wrath toward him to spare Yami. To me it seems from this that he felt guilty for giving the go-ahead without inquiring closer, and that he blamed no one but himself, not even Akhnadon. To me from these facts he seems to have been a kind and caring person, who ended up making a costly mistake and did his best to own up to it, in doing so protecting his son and showing his brother mercy.

Where history-of-the-Millennium-Items is concerned (me and my crazy chronology), in all three of the flashbacks, Akhnonkannan already has the Millennium Puzzle. Therefore, the Items were created before Yami was born, but it seems that Akhnonkannan didn't find out until eight or ten years afterward, at which point the third flashback occurred. After all, why else would he wait to do this ritual, unless it was necessary for Yami himself, the person being protected with the ritual, to witness it and to have a certain level of maturity or be a certain age?

Speaking of Akhnonkannan, what these flashbacks seem to say to us, in addition to the importance of the last one where the Items are concerned, is that while Akhnonkannan loved his son, he encouraged him to, and even sometimes made him, stand on his own two feet and get out of his own trouble. This is represented in his asking Yami-as-a-toddler to stand up on his own, and asking Yami in the third flashback to pull himself up when he fell off the ledge. In the first case, it even seems as if he's keeping himself back, like there's an important reason he's raising Yami this way, but he would rather be nicer to him.

I think that the scene about the Eighth Key, in addition to providing us with some useful information, also served the purpose of showing a more human side of Bakura. For once, he was lost at what to do, he didn't have this whole thing worked out.

I noted that Yami could see Yugi still even though the Puzzle was gone. Apparently their bond is strong enough that they no longer need the Millennium Puzzle to connect them as it did in the first place. Or something else entirely.

Speaking of the Puzzle, in my never-ceasing quest to discover its power as the greatest of the Millennium Items, I add to my canon information this week that Bakura said that it is the item around which the other six revolve. Well I guess it's really true; in four years' time, the bearers of the Millennium Puzzle and their companions have run across five of the other six, and have been right in the middle of conflicts involving them. If you think about it, all of the disasters recently have had something to do with Yugi. As Leon once put it, "Some might call that luck, but *I* call it fate!"

I'm still wondering whether Yami, Bakura, or Mana even can see Bobassa. It may be that Yugi and the others can only see him because he's a "ghost" like they are.

When are we going to see what Kaiba's up to? It's driving me crazy! And did poor Mokuba get Shadow-Realmmed or not?!

Sorry these took so long to get out, I'm a bit under the weather. I hope everyone enjoys them nonetheless. Next week's episode is The Intruder I! Yup, we're in the dreaded Winter rerun zone again. Gack! That makes it *both* shows on reruns! No fair! I shall, of course, keep everyone posted on when the new episodes play! Until next time! -Clio

Oops, right after I sent the last post, I found a whole other place I’d written stuff down. Usually I work only off one computer, but since I was sick I borrowed a laptop for convenience so I wouldn’t have to move around as much. So on the laptop I found another bunch of predictions to throw your way, and also thought of another pretty big (and weird) one recently. Enjoy!

I think that the scene about the Eighth Key, in addition to providing us with some useful information, also served the purpose of showing a more human side of Bakura. For once, he was lost at what to do, he didn't have this whole thing worked out.

I noted that Yami could see Yugi still even though the Puzzle was gone. Apparently their bond is strong enough that they no longer need the Millennium Puzzle to connect them as it did in the first place. Or something else entirely.

Speaking of the Puzzle, in my never-ceasing quest to discover its power as the greatest of the Millennium Items, I add to my canon information this week that Bakura said that it is the item around which the other six revolve. Well I guess it's really true; in four years' time, the bearers of the Millennium Puzzle and their companions have run across five of the other six, and have been right in the middle of conflicts involving them. As Leon once put it, "Some might call that luck, but *I* call it fate!"

I'm still wondering whether Yami, Bakura, or Mana even can see Bobassa. It may be that Yugi and the others can only see him because he's a "ghost" like they are.

When are we going to see what Kaiba's up to? It's driving me crazy! And did poor Mokuba get Shadow-Realmmed or not?!

I just put two and two together, and figured out that since Bakura said in Village of Lost Souls that Kal’elna “may have happened fifteen long years ago, but time doesn’t heal all wounds,” and in this week’s flashback to when Yami was an infant Akhnonkannan already had the Millennium Puzzle, this means that Yami’s no older than fifteen! And while I’m talking about that, Seto’s only a few years older than that, because we saw in the flashback in Village of Lost Souls that he was a toddler of no more than four years fifteen years ago. Wow. That means that all of this is happening in Ancient Egypt when about half the Sacred Court if not more (Seto; probably Isis, Shada, and Karim; almost definitely Mahad-the snakebite flashback-; Yami…) are about the same age as I am, as Yugi and the others are. I reiterate, wow. Then again, the 4kids folks may just not have done the math, and since I’m the nitpicky person with too much time on her hands (as a matter of fact, I don’t have that much time, but Yu-Gi-Oh! is worth pretending that I do) I figured out a continuity error they didn’t think of, and am left to wonder, what the heck?

I’m putting together the pieces of the riddle of what happens when the Millennium Items are put into the Millennium Stone. To begin with, Yami Bakura told Yugi in Spiritual Awakening that when the seven Items are returned to the Stone, it opens a gateway to the Spirit World, leading Yugi to believe that by putting the Items in the Stone he would be freeing Yami from the Millennium Puzzle, and doing him a great service by doing so. Next, the Stone was mentioned in The Intruder I, when Bakura tells the assembled Sacred Court that if one places the Items into the Stone ultimate power is theirs. Next, in Village of Lost Souls we actually see the Millennium Stone, and I note that with the Millennium Ring alone in the Stone it seems to have power and a will of its own- that shadowy thing that grabbed Akhnadon and later, in In Search of a King, Bakura himself. Bakura mentioned in In Search of a King his aim in collecting the Items to the Stone, to summon Zorc the Dark One, making what he said to the Sacred Court an outright fib, considering that more than anything else the shadowy thing Bakura spoke with seemed to have been in control, not Bakura, so you’d have to ask, ‘*what* ultimate power?’ To me it seems that Bakura seeks revenge on the kingdom, on the world, for Kal’elna, and will therefore turn it into a shadowy wasteland. But Bakura seems to have been in pursuit of power all these years, I seem to recall some of his first words to any of our heroes: “I am a thief and a stealer of souls; and I have done terrible things in my quest to possess the seven Millennium Items. You do remember the legends, don’t you? ‘Whosoever wields all seven will possess power unimaginable…’” Come to think of it, where would those legends have come from but from Ancient Egypt? What if after Bakura told that complete lie to the royal court, somehow someone… Anyway, my point is that it seems as though there’s something more to it than just summoning Zorc, something it does to Bakura, making this true and therefore his words to the Court true also. But summoning Zorc would’ve been enough of a motive for him, considering how vengeful he was, and it would have been his foremost concern, or at least it was in the scene in In Search of a King. Then, it’s always probable that he told Yami the same tale, to get Yami to take him less seriously. I mean, another guy who wants power, that we can deal with; however, wanting to destroy the world is much more pressing. They would’ve probably done something about him much sooner. To get off this string entirely and add one last thing, I wanted to say that there’s still the possibility that what Bakura told Yugi is true. Worst-case scenario, Yami is freed into the spirit world whether he wants to be or not, just when the world needs him most; Bakura gets superpowers; and Zorc turns the world into a second Shadow Realm. Delightful…

I’ve been pondering something else—how did this event come to pass? No, read me out; it comes down to asking who won last time this battle was fought. Obviously, since the shadowy wasteland Yugi and Kaiba saw in Clash in the Coliseum is not the present-day reality, we can logically assume that Yami won and prevented Zorc the Dark One from turning the Earth into another Shadow Realm. So then I have to wonder how they ended up back in Ancient Egypt for a redo. It was because Yami was going to the Past that Bakura went with him, hitching a ride. So wouldn’t Yami’s having been content with winning and not having gone forward in time have kept it that way? I reasoned that since Bakura lost, he would have wanted another chance, long after the Pharaoh was gone. So he somehow survived to present-day to get another shot at it. After the first battle, Yami would’ve probably realized Bakura would try something like that, and therefore went forward in time in the hopes that he would be back in time to stop Bakura should he need to again. But it remains a pretty nasty irony that because Yami went back in time this battle is repeating as Bakura had wanted it to, and the reason he went back in time was because he didn’t remember anything when he went forward. Then you have to wonder why Yami’s memory was erased when Bakura’s was retained, when Yami’s knowing the consequences of going back in time would have prevented the redo. Bakura states in In Search of a King that only the Pharaoh knew how to release the binding with which he contained Zorc because he couldn’t destroy him, and he never told a soul, and then he erased his own memory so now even he doesn’t know! So hold on, if Bakura’s talking about this *now,* then that must mean that the Pharaoh already fought and defeated Zorc when he got there, and it’s his binding Bakura is striving to undo. But we know that when Yami arrived was basically his first minute as Pharaoh. So he wouldn’t have applied said binding yet. Now I’m starting to get a headache, I do hope I’m still writing coherently. There’s the possibility that it was Akhnonkannan to whom people were referring when they said ‘the Pharaoh,’ but it seems unlikely to me. Perhaps the binding, once it was made, endures through all temporal distortions, and somehow (through the bizarrity of Shadow Magic) once it as placed exists in all past and future times. This would prevent anyone from, say, going back in time to before he had bound Zorc and preventing him from doing so and thus undoing the binding in the present. That would be some pretty nifty magic, though, though I bet it wouldn’t’ve been beyond him at the time. To me it seems that time travel is incredibly rare in Yu-Gi-Oh! as a rule, that it’s very difficult and happens all of once in five thousand years, so you have to wonder why that precaution in specific, if that’s what happened, was taken. To me it seems that the loop would become endless: Yami and co. defeat Bakura, they both go forward in time, they both come back and fight it out all over again. Therefore, you’d have to wonder how many times it’s happened, and therefore it’s possible that the Yami from the previous conflict was also from the future and therefore knew to take that precaution. However, then you’d have to wonder where he picked up so much shadow magic, because while we know that the original Ancient Egyptian pharaoh was an incredibly powerful sorcerer by all accounts, much of that power, along with the knowledge it takes to use it, was destroyed when Yami’s memory was. Therefore, the current Yami would probably not be able to, and so any previous Yamis who were also from the future and were destined to have gone through exactly what he did would therefore be the same. I’m beginning to lose myself. The fact is, I don’t know enough about Yu-Gi-Ohian temporal distortion, nor is there enough in canon for me to. I’ll stop there before I make my head explode.

Speaking of what Yugi and Kaiba saw in Clash in the Coliseum (mentioned back a page and a half ago…), what was that? An alternate outcome? The world was shrouded in shadows, a ruin. The Egyptian Gods were turned to stone, frozen in a fierce struggle. The pyramid, the Millennium Puzzle, was still sticking out of the sky and they could both see it (though come to think of it I don’t believe that Seto of Ancient Egypt could. Let’s see, no, he showed up right after they got done talking about the pyramid in the sky, and he made no notice of it. Maybe he had always been able to see it and figured everyone could or something.) Wait a minute- after writing more on the above paragraph, I realized that that reality there, if my theory is correct about an endless cycle until Bakura wins or is permanently defeated, then the stalemates would not be part of the past because they keep being overwritten with the next outcome, which is eventually going to be either a loss or win. Therefore, they saw one past, the loss, or at least right down to the wire, with the world shrouded in darkness and the Pharaoh and Seto battling it out. I must ask again how it ends up happening that Yami and Seto end up dueling over the fate of the world, when it seems even more evident currently that Seto will not proceed with the plan he concocted and at the moment isn’t doing or plotting anything that would pit them against each other. In fact, he showed unwavering loyalty to Yami (as I keep going on and on about, sorry), even in the face of the possibility of taking the throne of Egypt for himself. He said that it wasn’t his place, it seemed to me that he felt that something would be wrong with the world if anyone but Yami took the throne. The only possible trouble I can forsee is that I believe at some point or another Seto told the guards not to tell Yami about Kisara. I can understand that he would be worried since it was done for personal reasons rather than as a guardian really, and if it was done as a guardian it was for the despicable plan aforementioned, so therefore he could get in trouble because it opens a bit of a Pandora’s Box (an uncommon expression favored by my second-grade teacher- taken from the Greek myth of Pandora, it means essentially to let one person do or have something and make it so that everyone else wants the same, like if I brought candy to a Kindergarten class and gave some to one kid, everyone else would want some too) with regard to the rest of the townsfolk, because there are probably plenty of other such incidents and everyone would be angry that the Pharaoh’s guardians didn’t help *them,* too. However, I believe that Yami would be perfectly understanding that Seto saw Kisara in the streets, getting beaten unconscious by a mob, and rescued her from them and let her recover from the ordeal somewhere safe. After all, isn’t it their job to keep the peace as well? They saw a wrong and they fixed it. Personally I don’t see why it’s this big secret.

So is Shada going after this lead of his to Bakura? If so, that could be the next major issue, his going up against Bakura.

Alright, folks, this is it! Less than 24 hours until brand new Yu-Gi-Oh!- Village of Vengeance I! In honor of the occasion, I will finally post another batch of predictions I've been sitting on for a while now. See, while I was sick during In Search of a King, I worked on a laptop so I didn't need to move about as much and could get better quicker. I found out that after I posted my main Predictions post for the week I had left a few in another document, because I wasn't using my usual system of organization. This batch of predictions, part II, you might say, contains those predictions I wrote down and lost, along with a few new ones more recently added on matters I've been giving the most thought during the wait. I hope you enjoy, and sorry for holding out on everyone, lol!