Predictions and Observations:
Sinister Secrets II - III

Pegasus does seem to really like myths and stories. Remember Noah’s cards from Indian mythology? And Zigfried’s from Norse mythology? And how after everyone who worked on creating the Egyptian God cards mysteriously met with untimely accidents, Pegasus undertook their creation himself? Pegasus *really* gets into the creation of good cards, and all sorts of cards from stories and tales from cultures around the world. I could go into a whole rant about this, because I think that he was destined temporarily to wield the Millenium Eye because it would protect him so he could create the Egyptian God cards, and that Pegasus really was fated in the truest sense to create the game.

Right after the flashback, Leon nails the problem on the nosey so well I had to mention it. “But this isn’t about my dreams!”, said in such a way that it seems he’s criticizing his dreams for being utterly useless and worthless. I believe when I first saw that it made me cry a little.

Remember Spinning Wheel Spindle? It’s the card that Leon gave to Rebecca in exchange for drawing a new card. Rebecca asked why he was throwing it away when he could destroy her powerful dragon with it, and Leon replied, with the utmost confidence, that the card would destroy Rebecca’s monster but not end the duel, and he has a better idea.

What does Leon mean when he says that them both drawing Pot of Greed in the same turn is fate rather than coincidence?

It’s weird how Yugi was able to hear all of the chatter about the illegal card but Leon couldn’t, because when Zigfried kept lying to Leon, Yugi knew it, and demanded, “How *could* you?!” Leon, however, didn’t know he was being lied to, because he apparently didn’t hear all that was said about the Castle. Go figure.

From what is said about the cards’ registration and whatnot, a stab could be taken at guessing the process of card registration Industrial Illusions uses. One thing we know is that there are a bunch of cards that were never released for their power or not being done. Toon World is one such, and Golden Castle of Stromberg is another. There’s some sort of induplicable registration code or stamp on each card that can be read by duel disks and other holographic technology (like duel frizbees- wait! Omigosh, how on EARTH did those work?! I wouldn’t imagine that Industrial Illusions and KaibaCorp were real chums at the time…btw, duel frizbees are my nickname for early, Duelist-Kingdom duel disks, to differentiate- and dueling arenas). It seems that each card is distinctive, because Yugi’s Dark Magician Girl shows some personality when she’s on the field this time around, and Leon admires her as Yugi’s Dark Magician Girl, rather than any other, so it would seem that each is unique. On a sidenote, you have to wonder how much Kaiba or Pegasus really understand about the Heart of the Cards and respect of your monsters, because the holograms, it seems, can become resentful of their duelists, or really like their duelists and always do their part proudly, and sometimes make choices of their own to save them. Then again, the incidents I’m citing are highly unusual, and now that I think of it, logic only states that that was a cleverly-concealed shadow game (I’m referring to incidents in the duel during The Master of Magicians I, II, and III, Yugi vs. Arkana, in which Yugi’s Dark Magician actually made a choice of his own to protect Yugi from what would have been the last attack of the duel, while Arkana’s Dark Magician looks foreboding and mean, and seems to fear Arkana like Arkana wants him to; the only way the energy disks could have transported them to the Shadow Realm (that’s sort of a Millenium-Items-only thing), is if Marik had made the duel a shadow game with no one the wiser. For the loser, the end result is the same, and in the Shadow Realm, the monsters are basically real. Anyway, I’m babbling. The point is, what Zigfried must have done was to hack into Industrial Illusions, change the card’s information, print it out on official playing-card-making paper, etc. For the card to act the way he programmed it to act then, there must be a signature on the card itself that instructs the duel disk how to use the card. Otherwise, the card would have no effect because computers don’t read so well. Therefore, there must be a little code on each card that tells what destroys the card, what the card does, whether it has a cost, etc. And that’s separate from the registration code, for whatever reason. The duel disk only accepted it because Zigfried reprogrammed the duel disks’ rulebooks, meaning that if it had not, it would still have been able to function, it simply isn’t allowed. I also note from Zigfried’s statement that half of Yugi’s deck being sent to the graveyard each turn is a price, rather than just another effect of the card. So it seems that Pegasus’ computer program that makes cards has a sort of balance system of its own. If a card is a certain amount powerful, then it must come with a cost. Otherwise, Zigfried could have thrown that in on the card’s pros instead. But rather he tricked the computer into accepting that as a penalty, with all of the implications thereof, like if the penalty can not be or is not paid, then the card’s effect ceases. I was raised on computers, so let me know if I’m not making sense.

Zigfried implies that KaibaCorp currently has a partnership with Industrial Illusions. In theory it must, but since its presidents are such bitter foes—Pegasus lives to annoy Kaiba; Kaiba has been usurped, almost assassinated, had his brother captured and then de-souled before his very eyes, had to abandon his pride and morals, then ruthlessly toyed with before finally being de-souled himself, all at Pegasus’ hands. Not exactly best buds—you have to wonder how on EARTH that happened.

Why doesn’t Zigfried let Leon surrender? It would have made the virus impossible to stop, since the duel would have ended and therefore the castle would have been truly impossible to destroy. Come to think of it, why did Zigfried go to the trouble to design the virus so it would stop if the castle was destroyed?

What does Leon take from Yugi’s words about how he must follow his dreams and see the duel through to the end?

I think that Zigfried just really needed it to be okay that he failed. His family has expected him to defeat Kaiba ever since he could talk, and he’s just been failing again and again and becoming more and more frustrated, more and more bitter, more and more ashamed.

Did you see? Did you see? In those shots of the world cheering that Yugi won and disaster is averted, Valon’s…uh…somewhere, and Alister is in Italy of all places. They were watching the duel too! I looked for Rafael too, but he wasn’t anywhere. I just thought it was quite cool that we caught a glimpse of what they’re up to. If anyone recognizes that building, then please tell me! I’m so curious! I’ll try to look it up! I think I got it- the Gaudi Cathedral! I’ll see if I can put a picture here- it’s worth a try! If it doesn’t work, the best picture I found was at: http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/misc/phenomen64.jpg
<img src=http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/misc/phenomen64.jpg width=”200” align=”left”>
This would put both Alister and Valon in Italy, since the Gaudi Cathedral is in Barcelona and the Leaning Tower is, of course, in Pisa. What an odd coincidence… Then again, as you see below and in previous posts, location means very little if not nothing whatsoever.

When did Duke get the time to set up a date with Serenity, or have the opportunity? As far as we know, he slipped her his phone number, but he never got hers, and she lives separate from Joey, whose number it could in theory be logical to postulate that he *did* somehow get. So when did he set up a date with her? Unless he has a cell phone (which probably *would* actually fit), then he hasn’t been at the number Serenity would have called even if she had called him (which given Serenity’s personality is also quite unlikely). One theory could be that Serenity was getting worried, and could have found out at some point or other, or just guessed because Duke lives in San Francisco and that’s where they were going, or something that they met Duke and Duke might know what on Earth happened to her brother and his friends that they’ve been gone anywhere from a little over a week to somewhere around a month with no news. Then, come to think of it, Yugi, Joey, Tristan, and Téa spent a month or so (see my past ramblings on this issue of time) at the Hawkins’, so Joey would probably have gotten in touch with Serenity at *some* point then, so so much for that theory. We know that Joey would have told her where they were and kept in touch, because on the night they first packed to leave for California, Joey was telling Serenity on the phone, “We fly out tomorrow, Serenity…Somewhere in California…(grin) Yeah, I made sure to pack plenty a’ sunscreen…” Here’s another theory to chew on: Joey got in touch with Serenity and of course gave her the Hawkins’ number since they were staying there. One day, Serenity calls for whatever reason and Duke answers the phone. It would be natural to assume at this point that the others were busy or out, or else Duke would never have been able to ask Serenity for a date then. Then again, he had no way of knowing that he would be in Domino when the date was set, because if the gang is trapped in California, so is he. Unless it was an open-ended thing like, “Next time I’m in Domino”. That’s kind of a Duke-sounding thing. We also need to take into account that Duke isn’t on their plane; he’ll be there in a few weeks or whatever. So he’s taking a second plane? Why on Earth? Maybe he’s there for some other reason unknown, but he told Joey and Tristan that he had a date with Serenity just to bug them. There could be the idea that it’s just big talk, and Duke hasn’t talked to Serenity yet, but knowing that Serenity is kind of charmed by him, he doesn’t doubt that he can follow through.

Location, Location, Location! (oh, give it up already!) Okay, now we’re really having fun; Kaiba watched their plane fly away, from the KaibaCorp building. The KaibaCorp building is, we know, in Domino. What’s the deal? More lack of continuity? A new building that is KaibaCorp’s California Headquarters and looks like the old one? Somehow I’m inclined to think the latter. Man, though, this is so weird. Wherever Domino is, it is, in relation to San Francisco, a flight of approximately 24 hours, making it as far away as, let’s see, 13,560 miles, that makes it as far away as—man, I can’t find what source will give me this information, did you know that Marana, Arizona and Aurora, Ohio both have a population of 13,560? Oh, I’ll just grab an atlas and measure!—okay, I’ll put it this way: when measured roughly, the continent of North America, from the tip of Canada to the Panama Canal, is about–about!- 4,500 miles long. This is over three times that. This is a little over halfway around the world, whose circumference is 24,902 miles (40,075 kilometers). Come to think of it, the Pacific Ocean is pretty big. I’ll check-nope, they’re all talking about voyages around 5000 miles. If were to go with information that is only canon in the loosest sense of the word, then Domino is in Japan by default and a few random camera shots (Noah’s missile in Burying the Past I targets an island of Japan). Therefore, it could also be imagined that they kept changing time zones, which meant they were actually be getting earlier and earlier heading Eastfrom Japan to California. That would explain the darkness and temperature (“Rex: The last thing I needed was icicles forming in my underpants!”), and why they left at around late morning and arrived around late morning (from the lighting), but could not possibly have taken a journey of 24 hours. They arrived the day before. Now I’m making myself dizzy. Anyway, then take the trips *back.* They encounter Kaiba, Mokuba, and Roland, and they fly back in a helicopter at sunset and arrive, back in Domino, by early evening, meaning that they flew VERY fast, or something, because not only that, their time zones were moving forward, because they were going west from California to Domino, and they moved ahead about three hours. Then again, this could explain why a break in at KaibaCorp and four duels (Joey v. Valon, Joey v. Mai, Rafael v. Mai (lasted none too long it seems), and Yami v. Rafael) lasted them throughout the night until dawn breaks as Yami v. Rafael comes to a close; if they left California at, say, five or six in the evening, then flew to Domino, lost three hours in time zones, making it closer to eight or nine then take flight time to make—oh, dear. The helicopter would have taken 21 HOURS or so to reach Domino. Great. So it would’ve taken an extra day to get there. How interesting. Of course this plus the time zone places their triumphant return to Domino at the perfect time the next day. But I don’t think that anyone who was in that helicopter could have stood to be stuck in a helicopter with the rest of them for a whole day. They would have been at each other’s throats (I think particularly of the state that Joey and Kaiba would be in if forced to spend that long in each other’s company). ANYway, I just like to try and make sense of the Impossible, because there’s plenty of things to wonder about.

Now for the non-stupid stuff. What will Leon do? What will Zigfried do? What will Kaiba and Mokuba do? What are Yugi and Yami about to discover now that they finally have the Egyptian Gods and are returning home? What on Earth will the rest of the season be ABOUT?! Well, to answer such questions, we have our imaginations to guide us and our patience to contain us! ‘Til next week, and please write back! –Clio

P.S. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is also showing tomorrow night! I’ll try my hardest to write predictions for that too, and let’s discuss it! The first episode: The Next King of Games!