Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.20-26 Part 2 (Dark Yugi VS Silent Doll "Marik")

This post will be a brief summary of the duel (not transcription) and the keys points, I want to compensate for these months for not post anything, by becoming more active (since these lasts months has been busy preventing me from being active).

Plot Summary:

As you remember, I left off in the previous post, Silent Doll "Marik" challenging Dark Yugi, who accepts the challenge.
The duel starts as both duelists testing the waters, then Marik makes metaphor of his strength as a duelist as he advances with his strategy and cornering Dark Yugi to the point of facing Slifer The Sky Dragon, Dark Yugi at first feels terrified for some time but tries to fight back, as he is about to lose the will to fight, Kaiba appears (who received info from his company for detecting Slifer The Sky Dragon) and tell him as his rival not to lose to anyone but Kaiba himself, Kaiba notices the difficulty Dark Yugi is facing and gives an interesting advice, Dark Yugi gets back on track...displays a good amount of skill with a very smart move.
The duels ends with Dark Yugi's victory!

Key Points:

 

Both of them have such huge egos, so funny, it's funny and amusing really when Dark Yugi says "You can catch me...but can you beat me?", that's his overconfidence and ego, and cheesy phrases from an overconfident character, then when his opponent praises his skills he goes quiet not of nervosism, just plain serious, usually when someone praises you, you would say thanks, makes me think why he doesn't it? is he acting humble or to not let flattery get to him? or his ego is so big because of something he already knows and thinks he is very skilled himself? we have to remember his pride and confidence mostly bases on his skills...but he is not aware yet of his own weaknesses yet, at least not completely, there is others, we will explore it in this post a little.

I think is more about not getting flattery get to him and at the same time is super confident that his skills are superior than most players, he can be so contradicting sometimes, probably because is uncommon an overconfident person and character with reserved personality without being snotty but generally a good person, strong sense of justice and righteous, he has unusual combination of traits.


If you want to continue reading click "read more" below:

 

Even though Marik is just provoking Dark Yugi (he knows it well, sure he is a bit temperamental but he is not easily provoked), Marik brings up interesting points in these panels, when it comes to your attitude or duelling style, for example, how you face certain challenges in a duel such as facedown cards, I do agree to disagree with Marik, you can do both at the same time, being cautious and active in the duel at the same time, as proof, Dark Yugi isn't afraid at this moment, in the last panel (the one with exclamation points), is not of fear, but evaluating the timing to makes his move, as we know, uses the "de-fusion" quick-play spell card after this Marik's comment about Dark Yugi's tactics.

 

It's interesting and amusing he compares almost everything with water, he sure loves water, but there is flaws in it, to measure a duelist skill, to provoke his opponent to make a "move (the pebble)" to then measure how big of ripple it makes...

Marik later thinks to himself, he moves like the water, his duelling style is like water, because it's who is receiving the pebbles and it's ripples, but also shapeless defense and the pressure of the water to represent the sword, but even water has it's weaknesses if receives too much heat, it can evaporate and dry (ironic enough that's how he will lose, perfect metaphor to describe his defeat :p).

I want you to notice where Dark Yugi's top priorities lie, by the order of what he is thinking...

"I can't let my partner die! I can't lose my memories forever!"

One could think it might be because he needs Yugi to get back his memories, but isn't really, even before himself knowing he lost his memories, he was and is always protective of his host, sure he is aware Yugi is essential to get his memories back but you can see he cares more about Yugi's safety than his own because he feels it's his responsibility to protect him for Yugi being his host also being someone very close, because if was it for himself, he knows Marik is after Dark Yugi first to kill him, he would think a bit differently, more inclined in using Yugi to get his memories but if we compare the host and spirit bond between Dark Bakura and Ryou Bakura (Dark Bakura is the one who uses and "takes care" of his host for his selfish goals) and theirs, you see Dark Yugi is more caring about his host, we see these differences as we progress, which makes glaringly obvious and I will approach it in detail in due time.

  

The intentions of the author in these panels and 2 scenes is to showcase Dark Yugi's moments of weaknesses (these are the kind of weaknesses he is not fully aware) and happened before in Death-T against Kaiba, Duelist Kingdom against Kaiba, Mai and Pegasus, when he is cornered he tends to lose his will to fight a bit easily when he needs it the most, the only time it usually happens fortunately is when he is against very strong opponents, so you can't fully censor him, that's when overconfidence takes it's toll.

 

One of the most constant arcs in this series is the rivalry between Dark Yugi and Kaiba, it's understandable, they're both very competitive, one is more open and bold about it (Kaiba) and the other is more reserved about his competitive trait (Dark Yugi), which gives a contrast to their rivalry, Kaiba is the one who feels most pumped and intense about it due to his obsession with TCG "Magic and Wizards" and his prideful personality and huge amount of ego, while Dark Yugi has  gained different approach towards rivalry, specially after the Duelist Kingdom events (the duel against Kaiba and Mai), he prefers a friendly rivalry.
I will focus a bit more on Kaiba POV  about his rivalry, Kaiba sees Dark Yugi as his "fated rival" (that sounds pretty exhausting), after seeing the palette on the Domino Museum, the sense of rivalry towards Dark Yugi increased, now what got my attention was this line Kaiba said:

"You are one of the few people I recognize as a duelist!"

It's not only Dark Yugi, but he is at the top, to Kaiba a duelist is probably a fully fledged player with pride and is bold and also very active player, as we progress we will see who he might consider as a duelist already at this time...(one wonders who, but when you think of few people, it must be around 3 to 5 players he considers a duelist).

 

I have to admit, Kaiba sometimes says very cool lines like the one above "If god stands in your way...mow him down! Have no regrets!", there is another cool one and interesting that I'll approach in the next panels.

Now Dark Yugi's POV in their rivalry, it's obvious he has lots of respect for Kaiba and considers him as his top rival (but there might a new contender to be his top rival in the future..., same applies to Kaiba), it's not just their skills, it's also their fighting spirit, pride and confidence are on similar level.
But are their standards the same? not fully the same, for starters Dark Yugi wants to be friends with Kaiba while Kaiba refuses a hand of friendship being a prideful loner to a fault, Dark Yugi would prefer a friendly or camaraderie rivalry with Kaiba, the rest of it is honour, dignity, principles and pride which is something they agree on.

I also want to point out another contrast between these 2 rivals, it's how dramatic they are, Kaiba is more bold, straightforward and enthusiastic, Dark Yugi is theatrical (like some epic hero) and composed.

 

Kaiba giving him advice and clue to help him to beat Marik says a lot, Kaiba maybe a prideful loner content seeing Dark Yugi (and Yugi) as a rival but deep down he feels a bit of friendship in there.

Now going to the interesting part of these panels, when Kaiba says his advice and clue to the weakness of Slifer the Sky Dragon and Marik's tactic:

"Yugi!Listen! Nothing is infinite! That's just god's deception!!"

This is actually pretty poetic and metaphorical advice, the "infinite cards", it can't be because a deck consists of 40 cards, so there is limit, also "god's deception" is that the infinite card combo and Slifer The Sky Dragon attack points effect is an illusion, because even a god card is still a monster card, which changes a little bit of Dark Yugi and Kaiba perception of the god cards, Kaiba was able to realize it due to his pragmatic thinking.

This is Kaiba's interpretation of the god cards, he can sense they're not normal powerful monsters cards by not just being the most powerful cards in the TCG "Magic and Wizards"... they chose their wielders, Kaiba can sense that, but Kaiba refuses to connect it with the palette and with destiny (exception only open seeing Dark Yugi as his fated rival), seeing god cards as choosing only the proudest duelists...they're only picky to who is connected to the pharaoh's spirit from the past connected to the present and guiding to aid the pharaoh soul and it's host to recover the pharaoh's  memories.

See Ya in the Next Post!