Predictions and Observations:
The Dark One Cometh IV

What the heck happened to Seto? He didn’t turn to stone like any monsters did, nor did he glow white like his fellow guardians did. How come? And what made this situation different? All he said of it was that the shadows were taking him, which is pretty much what happened to the others. I wonder if it was just an anomaly, or if it’s somehow significant to what happens next?

Shadi and Hasan. Seems a bit crazy, but I was starting to wonder there whether I was wrong about Shadi having been Shada and Karim’s future manifestation, carrying both the Scale and Key and looking pretty much like Shada. I had thought that since Karim gave Shada the last of his strength, it was only fitting that that be their manifestation in the future. However, I’m starting to think I was wrong, and am pretty sure that Shadi either stands alone or that perhaps he was even the future manifestation of Hasan. I can’t explain why, but that’s how my perception of Shadi changed pretty drastically.
Shadi said he’d been waiting his whole life. How long was that? Then again, Shadi is the immortal spirit that guarded the Millennium Items, so it stands to reason that perhaps he was created when they were, or that he was yet another provision set in place when Yami sealed himself in the Puzzle, along with the Tablet, etc.

Mana’s magic’s been improving- for real! I have to wonder if there are any strings attached to that “As we approach our final hour…” part, probably out of paranoia (if Yami’s about to faint on us once we’re not approaching our final hour anymore, then we definitely will be!). But no, seriously, she’s been getting better and better with this magic stuff. I’m still waiting to see if anything more happens with her and Dark Magician Girl, or if Dark Magician Girl’s just her heart monster, like Kisara’s Blue-Eyes, and that’s what there is to it.

Well, looks like Mokuba’s okay. Maybe it was because Bakura went into the Ancient Past, or maybe it’s because he was bluffing. Who knows why, but he’s fine.

Mokuba’s voice really is very different. It’s really starting to bug me; why change it now of all times? Moreover, I feel sorry for the show’s newcomers anywhere in this season, not only because it’s pretty intricate, but also because it’s impossible beyond a shadow of a doubt now to learn that Mokuba is not a girl. I came to first like Yu-Gi-Oh! watching round one of Battle City, and while it took me a while, soon I figured out the characters. I can just imagine my thirteen-year-old self watching any part of this season and going ‘what the heck? *Now* who was *that?*’

Things appear in that world if you just think them? That doesn’t quite fly. For one, if you were about to be hacked to pieces or whatever, why on Earth would you want a duel disk? I mean, it saved Joey, but why would he have been thinking of a duel disk rather than, say, a shield? Maybe all he was thinking of was something with which to defend himself and his friends, and in that world where monsters are real, a duel disk was the perfect fit. But why didn’t the “pork chops and applesauce” thing work? Maybe just because it was a want, rather than a real need, like you have to really really need it, rather than ‘I wish those goons were pork chops and applesauce’. That explains Joey’s and Kaiba’s duel disks, but what about Tristan’s, Bakura’s, and Yugi’s? It might also be through power of fighting spirit, explaining Joey’s, Kaiba’s, and Tristan’s duel disks. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Bakura had so refined the skill of manipulating this world that he didn’t exactly need to focus his entire being on it, or at least not visibly show such. However, there’s still the question of how and by whom their decks were conjured. There’s evidence in all of the cards we’ve seen come out of them so far that it was their respective duelists’ own being that created their deck. So far we’ve seen all signature cards from Kaiba (the three Blue-Eyes), Joey (Flame Swordsman and Gearfried), and Tristan (Swamp and Lava Battleguards), and both Yugi’s and Bakura’s decks reflected their duelist’s style and personality, with Bakura’s zombies and trickery against Yugi’s small monsters that aren’t quite as weak as they first appear. Maybe when a deck is conjured, no matter by whom, it follows the essence of the person for whom it was conjured.

Speaking of Swamp and Lava Battleguards, I had been thinking recently of what monsters or cards would represent Tristan. Since we haven’t often seen him duel, it’s not easy. Certainly Cyber Commander, seeing as how that was both the card he was transformed into in Evil Spirit of the Ring and his deck master in his only duel, Mechanical Mayhem I. But the other cards that came most to mind were the Battleguards, because of The Dueling Monkey. To recap, while searching for Mokuba after he was recaptured following Yugi’s duel with the fake Kaiba (or the evil side or whatever), Tristan happened to drop some cards, and Joey, picking them up for him, noticed that one of Tristan’s monsters and one of his looked like long-lost brothers! Still, Joey teased at the time, that doesn’t mean Tristan’s Lava Battleguard packs the same wallop that Joey’s Swamp Battleguard does! Tristan retorted that his monster’s ‘wallop’ is just fine, and challenged Joey to borrow it and see for himself. Joey, reading that they work best together, agreed. Shortly afterward, when Mai challenged Joey to duel Rex, Tristan tried and failed to get Joey to walk away, even to the point where Joey shoved him to the ground. Tristan, furious, walked off, telling Joey that if he wants to throw away his star chips he can do it on his own. However, when Joey was cornered by Rex’s Serpent Night Dragon and sure that nothing could save him, he drew Tristan’s Lava Battleguard, and, thinking ruefully that Tristan always shows up somehow, realized that Tristan doesn’t look out for him because he thinks that Joey can’t take care of himself, but because he’s a true friend. He looked up from his hand to find that Tristan (with some persuasion from Yugi) had returned.

It wasn’t Tristan’s fault! The only thing he did was whack Bakura a good one in the face! Why did Joey get mad at him? Why not get a good shout in at Bakura while he was still around instead?

It could end at any minute. I realized that this morning before it showed. For all I knew (considering how I remain intentionally clueless as to anything absolute that happens next), this could have been the final episode, ever! I was excited, but I was also scared, wondering if this very post would be my last. It’s kind of frightening and sad to stand this close to the end, to think that in a few weeks there will be no more. However, I console myself with this thought: it all comes down to this. This is what the past four years have built up to, have set up. It may be ending, but until it does, this is as good as it gets!

The time vortex warping loophole (the term used in A Lying Legend) or whatever in the sky. It’s pretty safe to say that it doesn’t discriminate in usefulness or visibility between people who, say, have a close connection to the Past, or to Zorc, or to Kaiba, because not only did Mokuba and Roland see it, but that other dude did too or he probably would’ve asked what the heck they’re talking about. Probably. Another big question: is it permeable? That is to say, are Mokuba and company about to fly through it and into a time warp of some sort? Are they going to find themselves flying a jet over the smoking, burning city of ancient Cairo, watching a gigantic monster try to destroy a Yugi-in-Pharaoh’s-clothing (Mokuba would probably be even more lost than Kaiba was), then see whatever happens when Yugi and pals arrive (though they won’t see Yugi and pals because they’re ghosts)? That is, what’s clearer, to say, is this hole in the sky a window or an actual hole?

They keep referring to the light of hope. At first I thought it was just part of the saga, you know, another Yu-Gi-Oh! cliché like “it all comes down to this”, and just went with it. However, Shadi said in this episode that the light of hope would soon show up with the information that Yami needs, making it either more general or more specific, depending on your point of view. To be more general, he’s saying that it’s not over yet, that something will arrive bringing what he needs, and hope will return as well. To be more specific, he’s referring, of course, to Yugi and his friends, who come with the name. Soooo… it’s possible that all these times they’ve said ‘light of hope’ they’re referring (though they might not know it) to a person: probably Yugi. That means (and this is pretty symbolic and fatey) that Yami went to the future and brought back with him (though he didn’t mean to) the light of hope.

Which came first- the light or the shadows? Well, no one really knows how it started. Space is pretty dark, but only where there’s warmth and light does anything much congregate (like, say, planets) Therefore, they both, I suppose, have a point. The universe would be, in theory, mostly darkness; however, only where there’s light is there actually anything at all. Then again, we don’t know that. However, I very much doubt Zorc was talking about extraterrestrial life, as much as the general principle. It’s the question of whether the world in general is basically good with a few evil flickers and tendencies, or does it lean more towards evil? To go way back, I’d imagine that Kal’elna would have definitely put Bakura in the worldview to perceive the latter, to have his entire village, everything good he had ever known (because it was his home, even though from what I gather people there weren’t exactly model citizens) massacred for power in the middle of the night. I’m not even sure if that’s true anymore, considering everything. I mean, he created the shadow realm centuries ago and all. Manifestations of Bakura, it would probably be easier to kill Zorc than to get a straight answer on this deplorably important topic!

Where’s Kaiba??? Probably out cold in the rubble somewhere, but I’m nervous; we didn’t see him since the big Dragon Master Soldier blast.

“Kaiba! I know you know what to do!” What was that supposed to mean? Maybe Yami just got this feeling, this compulsion. That’s quite possible, that he was compelled and knew exactly what to do when the time came, and he knew that Kaiba knew it too.

“No one likes a bully—especially me!” After life at the orphanage and under Gozaburo, I don’t find it all surprising that Kaiba loathes bullies. I believe that Mokuba revealed in ESP Duelist that his brother used to protect him from bullies when they were kids, just like Espa defends his younger brothers.

The littler kid who was running from Zorc when Kaiba stepped in looked and sounded a lot like Mokuba. I wonder if that’s why Kaiba chose then to step in, or perhaps why Mokuba ended up being his brother in the future?

Does this mean that Kaiba’s seen the light? I mean, if he hadn’t conjured up that duel disk, he would have been fried, but what made him think it would work? It’s unlike Kaiba to make such a leap of faith (literally), most certainly when under normal circumstances he would’ve thought that there was no possible way it could have worked? Why prove himself completely wrong about magic? Unless… unless he conducted some small test earlier without our knowledge? It would have taken his, say, perhaps leaving something behind and then trying to make it appear out of thin air later.

“In fact, my first words were ‘Neutron Blast Attack!’” Probably hyperbole, but still a very cool line. In fact almost certainly hyperbole, because holographic duel monsters were Kaiba’s invention, and yet he says he’s been fighting them since he could talk, which isn’t possible. Moreover, back before holographic duel monsters, dueling probably wasn’t as theatrical, and since the monsters were just cards, it would probably have been more like, “my monster attacks your monster…” therefore, it would have been uncommon for someone to announce their attack in that fashion, although nowadays it’s par for the course. However, Neutron Blast seems to be Blue-Eyes, Ultimate Dragon’s attack, which points to the fact that even as a kid Seto Kaiba dreamed of possessing the Blue-Eyes, Ultimate Dragon. Reminds me, once again, of when Mokie drew him that cute Blue-Eyes card…
This also points, the first clue we’ve had, to Seto and Mokie’s life before the orphanage. While the ‘first words’ thing may be hyperbole, I wouldn’t be surprised, given this statement, if Kaiba had been dueling at a very young age.

Yugi’s deck, Joey’s deck, Tristan’s deck, Kaiba’s deck… is it any use asking by what criteria or anything they were built now?

Why is the Millennium Puzzle crumbling? According to Shadi, it was because the Pharaoh was regaining his memories. So that means that his mind is no longer an unsolvable puzzle. Makes sense. Okay. But something unnerves me: Yami was the spirit that inhabited the Millennium Puzzle. If it crumbles away, he will no longer, which means he will no longer be tied to the present-day world, essentially. Not only must I wonder how Yugi and the others, having come by way of the Millennium Puzzle, will get home, but also how Yami will, if he is. Yugi’s conversation with Bakura in Spiritual Awakening comes back to me:
“Bakura: I know that when the seven Items are returned to the [Millennium] Stone a gateway to the spirit world will open!
Yugi (whispered): A spirit world? If that exists, it could be where the spirit of the Pharaoh belongs! (louder, to Bakura) Are you saying that when this doorway opens the Pharaoh will be set free?
Bakura: You’re catching on.”
What did Bakura mean? It seems pretty obvious that the Items’ being returned to the Millennium Stone was basically what was needed to summon Zorc. So that opened the way to the spirit world, I guess, to let Zorc in. But was Bakura just messing with Yugi (entirely possible, considering that he relentlessly messed with everyone in this episode), or is Yami’s spirit, with no Millennium Puzzle to tie it down, going to, I don’t know, drift away in the wind once this is over, with his memories restored and his mission complete? Moreover, if the Millennium Puzzle, Yami’s binding to it also, was broken when his memory was restored…now I’m lost. Okay, so five thousand years ago he locked away both himself and Zorc, using his name as the key, and for good measure, to make sure Zorc couldn’t be released, he erased his own mind. But if what he erased being returned is undoing the binding, then it seems to me that the act of erasing his mind *was* the binding.

The Millennium Items—a Pandora’s box

“Even your so-called ‘deities of domination’ were forced to surrender in the face of pure darkness!” Trying to recall from whence that phrase seems familiar…Ah, yes. “Deities of domination, I call upon thee: use the Pharaoh’s force to penetrate the Dominion of the Beasts and liberate the fury of ten thousand years…” Probably just a coincidence, but who knows?

It really struck me, more than anything else, the certain merit Kaiba’s philosophy with regard to the Ancient Past holds. I suppose it’s only fitting since in this episode both Kaiba and his ancient self were pretty much center-stage and showed what they were made of. Anyway, what I realized is that while Kaiba’s origins are clearly in the Ancient Past, Seto and Kisara, he is not the same. As he always says, he makes his own destiny and calls his own shots. I can’t think why I thought his role in the battle being imminent would change that; it doesn’t. Seto played one role in this fight, and then Kaiba stepped up and, under his own steam and quite differently from how it originally must have played out, fought the good fight. It was rather jarring to see him take over where those of the Sacred Court left off, and match Zorc, but completely rockin’ and completely what needed to be done. I’m not saying that Kaiba cheated destiny again like in A Duel With Destiny (though, come to think of it, he did NOT, the Millennium Necklace followed destiny’s agenda by tricking Ishizu into losing, because can you imagine the Semifinals and so on with Kaiba not a contender? Of course not! Yugi and Kaiba would never have dueled, and remember Yami was thinking in Obelisk the Tormentor that that was why Ishizu told him to enter… I digress in a huge way), but more that it was his destiny to create his own and to write a new chapter in the ancient battle, and he followed his destiny by just doing what he felt was right. I’m not sure if I’m getting across what I’m trying to, but that’s the best way I can think to put it. An excellent example of something else that occurred to me was that Seto’s signature, important monster was Blue-Eyes, and while I thought that Kaiba’s was too, it’s really that Seto’s was Blue-Eyes and Kaiba’s is Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Since Ultimate Dragon’s origins are from Blue-Eyes, it ties Kaiba to the Ancient Past, however Ultimate Dragon is a different monster entirely, just as Kaiba is a different person, though similar to his ‘other half.’ However, I began to wonder about several future remanifestations in this episode, including Shadi like I mentioned before, Yugi, and Kaiba. They look similar and are wired similarly to their ancient counterparts, however they have their own role to play in this battle and really are different people entirely. I can draw few parallels, even, between their other halves’ actions and theirs, and am beginning to think that maybe it was just destiny that they came to be, and that they happened to look and act similarly to follow destiny’s agenda to make them think that they’re past selves remanifested, when actually they bear no relation and *are* the past. I’m not sure if that made sense; I’m still trying to understand what I mean myself. But here I thought this battle was past being able to tackle “remember the past vs. look to the future” as Clash in the Coliseum did and as I had expected as the most important parallel!

I guess it’s useless to ask where Yugi’s duel disk happened to get to. It went missing in action after they got out of the tomb. Unless there’s some sort of property of this thinking-of-what-you-want business that we don’t know about, like that it only works as long as you’re in the same area in which it was thought of, or if it only works for a limited time?

It’s not the cards, it’s the heart. Just like in the shadow games of this world, these duelists put their heart into their monsters, and that means that the holograms are just for show, because Yugi, Joey, and Kaiba’s monsters are powered by the same force as those of the Ancient Past.

Hard to remember that no one can see Kaiba except Zorc and Yami. One must wonder what Mana thinks of all this…

Were those waves around the column from Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and Zorc’s combined attacks a golden spiral? They reminded me of a nautilus shell. Then again, if they were, the geometry teachers of the world would never let us hear the end of the fact that even the apocalypse follows the geometric pattern of nature. Lol.

Does this mean that the Ancient Egyptian capital is canonly Cairo? To find out, I looked up the locations of landmarks that they passed on the way to the Tablet in Memoirs of a Pharaoh, most particularly the Sphinx, on the subject of whose nose Joey and Tristan (naturally) began to bicker about. It’s located at Giza, about six miles outside Cairo, as are the Great Pyramids, which they probably also passed but my summary isn’t specific enough to tell. It’s quite possible that the Egyptian capital in this is Cairo. I’m wondering about this because Mokuba and the others in KaibaCraft 2 were directly over Cairo when they saw the portal, and I can think of no reason why the portal would move in space as well as time. Something else I looked up was what the capital would have been at that point in actual Egyptian history (which, I confess, wouldn’t tell anything at all). Firstly, I discovered that the year 3000 BCE, when our story is set, marks the turning point from the Predynastic (Semainean, to be specific) era to the Early Dynastic. The capital in those days would actually probably have been Memphis, which is about as south of Cairo as Giza is to the west of it. Maybe Mokie and company are flying in from the north, and therefore see a portal over Memphis from flying directly over Cairo?

My brain is barely functional at this time of night and I’m pretty sure that I overlooked or underexplained something, so please let me know if this is so much incoherent babble, ’kay? Thanks again, everyone, for your patience. In the Name of the Pharaoh will be the next episode, next Saturday! ’Til then, good night! -Clio