Thoughts&Observations | Mangá Vol.27-31 Part 8 (Dark Yugi VS Kaiba Part 2/2)

Now we're reaching the last part of this duel and make the transition to the next volume, Volume Duelist 22 to 23 (Japanese Print 29 to 30), now we're one volume away from going to Memory World Arc, it's definitively getting closer.
Now the posts publishing speed is coming back to normal, thank goodness...this post took so long to write (the summary may be small, but the key points aren't).


Plot Summary:

Kaiba and Dark Yugi still reflecting on the visions and coming to their own conclusions, the back and forth between them starts and both of them discuss about the vision and more, it reaches the point when it seems Kaiba is taking the lead, Dark Yugi driven to a corner...Jounouchi spirit appears behind him and given him an advice, that Dark Yugi and Yugi has given to Jounouchi before...Dark Yugi becomes inspired again, right after this, Jounouchi recovers from his clinical death condition, he is perfectly fine, even physically (remember it was mental damage, not physical damage), the gang are relieved he is alive and both will go to the top of Duel Tower to watch the rest of the duel, again Kaiba and Dark Yugi have a important talk about Kaiba's views...and ends in Dark Yugi victory.

(the summary is small, but there is many key points).



Key Points:

 

This scene, it's Dark Yugi slowly confirming and transitioning to acknowledge he is an entity and identity of his own, being separated as a consciousness of his own, differentiating from Yugi's own consciousness too (I think from here on out, he won't take credit of Yugi's decisions), becoming more determined in recovering his memories.

Kaiba's reflective thoughts are highly amusing sometimes, specially under mystical circumstances for what he has a sceptical attitude with, the flaw in Kaiba and probably most people who have such or similar attitude, such the sceptical and believers or religious have similar reactions and perceptions such being occult or magic or supernatural is something with no logical explanation, however where it differs is the attitude and chosen mindset, believers is being something beyond human comprehension, while scepticals is if there is no explanation, it doesn't exist and is just product of our own imaginations.

Due to Kaiba upbringing of high education from his foster father Gozaburo, his circumstances, naturally an individualist has grown to be sceptical, he is sceptical about trust too except for Mokuba, so he is struggling, to some extent he is right, it is an illusion but from someone's memory of this event, the memory is real but in shape of an illusionary world, from the looks of it, but there is more to it than that.


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

 

What fully convinces him that memory is real is from the fighting spirit from within the king and the priest, he recognises straight away Dark Yugi's presence in the memory, whose fighting spirit that he is very familiar with, once again like previous post, it's based on the rivalry towards Dark Yugi overall.

Yami Marik is spot on being memories sealed in the mentioned millenium items, what's curious is why he would be so worried and irritated about it? the conclusions we can draw from it is probably concerned of losing the right to wield the Millenium Rod as a possibility.

Another thing is Yami Marik saying:

"My Millenium Rod...and Yugi's Millenium Puzzle...If their memories are sealed inside them..."

Yami Marik is hinting at the readers that they were inside the memories sealed in these particular items, in other words, inside the memory world of the millenium items (remember that pyramid upside down in the sky? that, I'm suspicious it could be the millenium puzzle).

 

Dark Yugi fully realising this tournament besides being a test to become a "true duelist", it's also a test as previously mentioned in the last post inside the thoughts from Ishizu's mind that this battle is mainly a test in order to Dark Yugi regain his memory, it will be the first test about regaining his memories, while the first test as a "true duelist" were pretty much at the start of the tournament.

Kaiba, it's good to know at least he does see as an illusion of the past at least, but he has a different perspective of the vision which will be explored, Kaiba is more focused on present and fututre.

 

What Dark Yugi is saying here is curious about his own interpretation of the vision:

"Kaiba, you saw it too...The carving of a Duelist's Battle made in Ancient Egypt 3000 years ago!
Pharaoh or priest...it doesn't matter who they were...What was carved there was their spirit as duelists! and that spirit...has been passed on to us!!"

Dark Yugi is mostly right technically but the fighting spirit of the pharaoh from the stone slab displaying the duelists and their ace monsters wasn't exactly passed down onto Dark Yugi, because it was already there since Dark Yugi is the duelist spirit of the pharaoh himself carved in the stone slab, it applies completely to Kaiba, when you think about "being passed down" is more or less giving the the continuation of a legacy to the next generation, in this case from the previous to the next generation of duelists, Dark Yugi comes from the previous generation while Kaiba is part of the next generation fused with the previous, possibly with his past life (the priest), but is possible Dark Yugi is speaking for Yugi too of who will carry his legacy as a duelist and his fighting spirit - his sucessor, since Yugi represents the next generation and Dark Yugi representing the previous.

Kaiba reaction to Dark Yugi's words, it's a silent of full agreement but when it came "passed on to us!!", there is agreement mixed with irritation, I suppose it confirms, Kaiba having a more pragmatic mindset, he must have understood the full meaning of these words in a sense as I stated above, specially the latter, deep down he is stubbornly refusing to admit in seeing Yugi as a rival too.

 

The "truth" of the vision which Kaiba claims and is explaining is the process of what awakened the vision coming from "the power of subliminal suggestion" as he states, with one flaw, the clash of the gods doesn't truly relate but merely awakened it to revive that image carved in stone of the priest and the king due to the stress of battle since both Dark Yugi and Kaiba have seen it before in the museum for being familiar with it and claiming Dark Yugi is a prisoner bound by a chain of the past, in other words, because Dark Yugi is a spirit of a deceased pharaoh with "unfinished business" of the past, who will be stuck in this situation until is solved, in some manner Dark Yugi is a prisoner of his past.
Kaiba is well aware of who Dark Yugi really is, you see Dark Yugi type of silence means he thinks Kaiba is giving valid points.
Kaiba is mostly right, but the last panel...

"There is no light for those who are shackled to the past...When you turned your back to me, you tread down the path to useless nostalgia...and defeat!"

It's pretty obvious he has a grudge about the word "past", he thinks the ways he sees it can applied to every individual's past case, since Kaiba is so single-minded and conceited on his views, Dark Yugi's case and his own case about their past are different circumstances.

He is right, you should not turn back on someone by looking at the past in other circumstances, but this isn't what Dark Yugi is doing, it seems more something Kaiba has been telling to himself all these years from even before he met Gozaburo for mentioning "useless nostalgia", at first one would think it has to do with the duel and the one carved at the stone slab, but there is deeper meaning behind it.

The first panel of this key point, we see the stone slab which aided to have that vision from the millenium items, however when Kaiba says this:

"And destroy you along with the vision of the past in my heart!!"

He is not just referring to Dark Yugi being a spirit from the past and the vision connected to the stone slab from his possibly past life, he is obvious including his own personal past too.

Here is an interesting and nice titbit about Kaiba here in this duel, he considers this Battle City duel being their third duel, it's curious because technically this is their fourth duel, the first one when Kaiba was first introduced (Volume 2), the 2nd being the Death-T (Volume 5), the third would be in Duelist Kingdom (Volume Duelist 5) but due to the special circumstances Kaiba threatening Dark Yugi/Yugi that he would commit suicide if he lost and Yugi chosen to lose on purpose, so Kaiba didn't considered an honourable duel being schemed by Pegasus in order to buy time and to be at each others throats, for that reason he consider this Battle City match as their third duel, there is some grown moral conduct in him.

 

I wouldn't say wallowing in the past, chained maybe, but not wallowing (that's going out of proportion), Dark Yugi is willing to learn about the past he has no memories of and about himself, for learning experience in order to move forward, the way Dark Yugi is facing it, it's actually the right way dealing with your past, its discovering, learning, accept it to move forward and becoming stronger and wiser from the experience, Kaiba on the other hand, of how he wants to "destroy" and "discard" is the same as running away from the past.

 

When Dark Yugi was about to lose hope...tcham tcham, Jounouchi mysteriously appeared and speaking to him, how? possibly telepathically and kinda like he talks with Yugi, like Dark Yugi questions how...hmmm, NDE (Near Death Experience) subject starting to come back, in this scene can't be fully confirmed yet that is Jounouchi spirit outside of his own body, but it's a huge hint...
I didn't show a certain scene that was under the pack of panels on the right, when Jounouchi gives an inspirational advice about looking at your cards in your hand which was the usual advice from Yugi and Dark Yugi given to him...

 

After the advice, he adds the common ground principle between players and duelists is to not give up until the end, now here is some curious thing happening, it seems Jounouchi was using a bit of spirit power tp cloud the cards to point which could help turn the the tables, one of them being Jounouchi's Red-Eyes and inspired him to make his move and taking the duel to his favour...
When Kaiba saying:

"My dragon lost to a mere ghost...?"

Kaiba still thinks Jounouchi is permanently dead, so in a way this is a hounourable mention from him...*sigh*

 

Dark Yugi becoming inspired and determined to win this duel from the spirit of Jounouchi's support, while he leaves, he goes back to his own body right after leaving Dark Yugi side so he can come back alive with the gang, so they can go cheer for him...penultimate proof from Jounouchi himself being outside of his own body watching the duel.

This is an important sign of character development, in the Duel Tower Break Part 1 post , remember how he questioned the importance of his memories when his friend was clinically dead, the vision from his memories and now his reminder of the promise with and faith in Jounouchi will come back alive, he is learning to acknowledge that both are equally important, make him more focused and strengthening his resolve.

Aww, Honda, but you can see Honda seems to know a little of NDE by surviving from a clinical death (since the chance is very low) by saying:

 "Don't ever die again!"

It shows he does have a bit of knowledge about it, he knew he was technically dead, maybe, however the others might be a little different in perception about it, they thought he was dead until he came back, Shizuka seems to have a bit of knowledge about it, Anzu for seeing coming back fine and alive perceives as almost dying.
Now the doctor has a pretty funny reaction, someone who few minutes ago clinically dead and now he looks like he wasn't in a coma and wake up from sleep and is perfectly fine, what the doctor isn't aware, Jounouchi type of damage he took wasn't physical damage but mental damage and besides Jounouchi like Honda always say he is thick-skinned :D, the reasons why he is looking very healthy.

 

After noticing he is up, he immediately asking where is Yugi since the others were here, Anzu answers that he is dueling Kaiba now, if you noticed his response is "!!" not "!?", which pretty much confirms to him and to us that he watched the duel outside of his body (I think he asked finding strange why the gang here but Yugi wasn't and to confirm something to himself that if his experience outside of his body during the NDE was a dream or not, which confirms to him it wasn't), to confirm it further while he was running to the duel site. Jounouchi was thinking:

"Yugi!Don't lose!"

Further confirming, when he left Dark Yugi to come back to his body, Jounouchi knew Dark Yugi was in a pinch and just given him some inspiration to not give up on this duel against Kaiba.

The situation seems to be is Kaiba is going to win for Yami Marik and Mokuba, but Ishizu seems to think differently, in fact it seems to know more about the specific carved battle and what is actually written there, here is her mysterious thoughts:

"Kaiba... You defeated me and became the master of your own fate...And now... You will face the truth hidden in the carving of this battle, so many centuries..."

The "truth" Ishizu mentions is that there is deeper meaning behind the battle carved in the stone slab, like I stated in the previous post , in the antepenultimate key point of the vision happening, written that at first "the vision of the duel of the carved battle" looked like it was from rivalry at first, as we advance to the end of the series, we discover it isn't really the case, with these Ishizu's mysterious thoughts implies the circumstances of the carved battle with the present one were different.
In the next post, it will be approached what was written in stone slap that carved the battle between the pharaoh and the priest.

 

Now here is the discussion between them that gets really interesting, Kaiba explaining why he was so fixated in defeating Dark Yugi and one of the main reasons he organised and fought in this tournament was so he could find the answer (he somewhat admits he was obsessed to defeat Dark Yugi...), he reveals everything started with the carving stone he saw in Domino Museum, but he says something interesting about the carving stone:

"Yugi, You've fought to pursue the memories carved on that palette... A foolish act, chasing a past that has already gone by..."

It means he knows very well what was written in the carving stone palette, the fact he mentions that Dark Yugi has been pursuing his lost memories, it's hinted that he could read what was written there, including the conditions (except the location of the memories, since is one Marik's back), due to Kaiba be able to read through the hieratic text in Ra god card with his heart, it would make sense he could read the carving stone too and acknowledges Dark Yugi being a spirit of the pharaoh from the carved palette and more...

 

We have seen how Mokuba perceived their past in Death-T when he explained their backstory to the gang, this is the first time we see how Seto perceives their past, so I'll go in parts in each small text representing his thoughts, since both are important, including how he feels and thinks about it...:

"Mokuba...When we lost our parents at a young age, those filthy adults forced us to live in an orphanage. It was hell."

The tone when he mentions and thinks of Mokuba and their biological parents, you see there is a tone of care and love in there, at the same time avoiding to think about their parents as if is something tightly shut and doesn't want to open it again, who are his main family, but how he refers the other two members of their biological family who stolen their endowment left by their parents after they died and these same members forced them to live in a orphanage being their aunt and uncle as "filthy adults" and Seto thinks his experience living in the orphanage was horrible, there is deep hatred and anger towards their aunt and uncle.

Kaiba has a much more intense and negatively emotional response to this part of their past except probably before the death of their parents...

"Then, when we were adopted by Gozaburo Kaiba, I was abused in the name of education. That Monster of a "father" was all the family I ever had..."

So Seto Kaiba is well aware what he went through with Gozaburo Kaiba was abuse, it's curious that the "monster of a «father»" sees as family he ever had, one would think how come by discarding Mokuba and his parents, the conclusions it can be drawn from this are his "definition of family" changed a few times, first the main one was from the time when his parents were alive (love and care), however after they died, it was his biological aunt and uncle who abandoned him and Mokuba by leaving them in the orphanage and for him his experience in the orphanage was terrible (probably lost most trust in the biological family), lastly with Gozaburo Kaiba changed drastically his definition of family being the ones who raise you and investment in your education, in other words, it changed into a pragmatic view about family.

"So I wrested power from him! I ousted my stepfather from his position as corporate president, and became the master of a world of treachery and backstabbing...
Kaibacorp died and was born again, but even after I took my revenge I was filled with anger..."

As can be read in his own thoughts about when he took over KaibaCorp to take revenge on his foster father, he was still filled with anger, he felt somehow unsatisfied for still being filled with anger...
Now here what he says to Dark Yugi:

"My past is nothing but hatred and anger! It's not like your stupid fantasy world!"

For Kaiba's hatred and anger towards his past and still within in the present, it means it didn't reached a closure for him, he is desperate to do so, he thought by taking revenge on his foster would solve it, now he thinks is by defeating Dark Yugi since he is a spirit from the past, he thinks he can reach a closure this way...the funny thing is that was never mentioned of him trying to reach a closure on the source of this hatred and anger, it didn't started with Gozaburo but with his aunt and uncle who left them in the orphanage and took their parent's endowment, Gozaburo Kaiba made this negative emotions growing stronger and at the same time obscuring positives that always been there with the love for his little brother and in the depths of Kaiba that are tightly shut for their parents that he tends to overlook and forget most of the time...
He is also implying that Kaiba himself had and has it worse than Dark Yugi based on his own past and that while Dark Yugi needs magical artefacts (the millenium items) to restore his memories...

(wow, this is the longest key point I ever wrote)

 

As I presented in the previous key point, he sees Dark Yugi as he says in the first panel in this key point, a creature of the past and that he only cares about the future and the only way he believes he can get rid hatred and anger is by destroying Dark Yugi and the past along with him...and thinks by only looking at the future, he will be able to be freed from it...however Mokuba as seen in the last panels doesn't share the same view and disagrees with Kaiba, as to the depth as to why, the time in the orphanage, Mokuba doesn't see as really bad as Seto does and seems  to know who Seto truly is at its core best, it will go more in depth in Mokuba's perspective in the next post...

 

Everything Dark Yugi is saying is correct except one thing that bugs me a little but understandable, when he tells to himself that he fights for himself while the panel shows Dark Yugi and Yugi, he knows full well he is an entity of his own and so is Yugi, but since he shares the same body and name of his partner for the time being, he states this way (and would be too long of a phrase in such a small panel to say "for myself and my partner").

Dark Yugi when he says hatred and anger isn't going to give true victory to Kaiba, I think Dark Yugi is also speaking from experience a little in a small portion such as his battle against Pegasus, when Yugi lost consciousness, Dark Yugi was the only one remaining, he was fighting with anger and hatred in the beginning but as he was seeing that these negative emotions were a weak source of strength while being cornered and what helped him through was the power of unity shielding his mind from being read by Pegasus...even this little moment shows signs of character development and how much the duel against Pegasus impacted him.
Dark Yugi also describes perfectly the metaphor of what the Duel Tower represents itself in symbol and what it means for Kaiba, if Kaiba keeps going with this path, he will wander forever and never be satisfied...

*long sigh* Kaiba, you see the line he tells to Dark Yugi:

"Get ready, Yugi! I will bury you here along with the detestable past! Make your peace with yourself!"

For starters, he clearly sees Dark Yugi as a spirit from the past thousands years ago with unfinished business, he is right about this but the way he is going with this, it's not how is done, and it isn't your job to send Dark Yugi to afterlife anyway, specially in Dark Yugi's case and the "detestable past", he refers to his own past (Kaiba's past), obviously, when Dark Yugi shouldn't be involved in Kaiba personal past to begin with.
Now his thoughts...

"I will surpass everything! I alone will be King of Duelists...and rise to a higher plane of being!!"

Ridiculous kind of mindset, he thinks he can rise to higher plane of being with hatred and anger, like Dark Yugi said in the previous key point panel, he can put hate in top of hate which later becomes rubble being a part of the past that he removed from the tower he was building based on hatred and anger, of course, it won't reach "higher plane of being" at this rate, ever, it will be going like this forever, basically.

 

Dark Yugi continues to share his wisdom about Kaiba's current source of strength :

"Kaiba...Even if you can defeat me...You will only find an endless chain of hatred!! I've tried to tell you again and again, but until you listen, you will never escape from the darkness!"

Basically, what he is saying is keeping in investing on these negative emotions to achieve his goals, not only doesn't gets anywhere, he won't get out of his own darkness which blocks him from truly evolving as an individual and keeps you stagnated because he is always invested on the same emotions, therefore giving the same results...

"Hmph...Hatred and anger give me power! They always have! The power to dominate everything!"

Such contradictory claims...if you invest in emotions such hatred and anger, the kind of emotion which won't let you  ever be satisfied, in other words, it doesn't dominate everything.

After this Kaiba's claim, Dark Yugi tells:

"Then hit me with all your hatred! If you think you can defeat me with that!"

If we look at Kaiba's reaction to this reply, in the top panel on the right, Kaiba somehow deep down knows Dark Yugi is right but since he is so stubborn, he refuses to admit it...
At this point, Dark Yugi is trying to help him not only as a rival and while seeing him as a friend too...

Indeed, Dark Yugi, indeed, hatred is not a worthy investment, I would add a few more, the source of the hatred shows how impactful and relevant is to you and should been seen and solved wisely with a clear mind and neutrally, in Kaiba's case, his personal past.

See Ya Next Post!!