Yu-Gi-Oh!/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

*** Original poster here: thank you!

** I personally suspect that it's because 5000 years ago would be 3000 BC.

* Is there any particular reason Yami can't create his own Shadow Game before Bakura, Marik, Pegasus, etc. create theirs? I assume the rules say that anyone with a Millennium Item can turn a duel into a Shadow Game so long as the rules are fair to both players. And why would one Shadow Game overwrite another?

** Yami kept on pumping out Shadow Games against random people in Season Zero (the Toei anime before the one more widely known), but he stops doing this when the 'real' Yu-Gi-Oh anime starts. In that anime, his sadism magically vanishes, and seeing as the stakes are quite high in Shadow Games, he really doesn't have a reason to.

** And it's not ''technically'' cheating: there's no rule against having a player take your physical place on the field and giving him commands, and odds are there weren't any traps or spells to stop the kid, Pegasus was just humiliating Keith by showing that he was so much better that he could tell someone exactly what to do, the child part was just for extra humiliation, and win that easily.

*** That would still be cheating if only because Keith himself pointed out that asking for help wasn't permitted in the tournament. Even ignoring the ludicrous idea that the audience would accept some kid being thrown into the last match when dozens or hundreds of them lost in early rounds Keith still should have pointed out that Pegasus giving the kid instructions is a case of the kid cheating.

*** Remember though, the match in question was an ''Exhibition Match'', Bandit Keith had already won (and retained) the title of Intercontinental Champion, so the match between him and Pegasus was just [[Fan Service]], there was actually nothing at stake. As such, ''yes'', what Pegasus did was cheating by having a proxy take over, but he's the creator and owner of Duel Monsters, and since the match was superfluous anyway, I doubt anyone really cared enough to lose their job over it.

* Let me make this simple: How the Hell can holograms cause explosions, knockback, wind, etc. outside of Shadow Games?

** [[Hard Light]]?

** Because even if they ''did'' just shoot Yuugi and try to take the Puzzle, the Puzzle would not let them. It's shown (in the manga at least) that Atem is capable of creating illusions/hurting people/generally using magic even inside the Puzzle. For whatever reason, I don't think he'd be willing to go happily with someone who murdered [[Heterosexual Life Partner|Yuugi]].

** In the manga, there's at least two instances of Atem being able to take control of Yugi's body even if Yugi's soul has been trapped in something else. One instance was a soul eating jar, the other was Bakura's lead miniature. And in both the manga and the anime, Atem is perfectly able to stand up and continue the duel with Pegasus even after the strain of the Shadow Game caused Yuugi to collapse. So unless the gunshot physically crippled the body they share, shooting Yuugi would probably do nothing more than bring the wrath of the Pharaoh down upon your head. Even then I'm not sure how safe you'd be from a crippled and pissed off Atem...

*** I was always under the impression that Yami just calmly sidestepped the bookshelves at the last possible moment, since Yugi was standing near the end of one of the falling ones. Although in the anime's version (sub and dub) of the duel with Panik, Yami DOES use the puzzle to shield himself from the flamethrowers.

** I believe this is because the puzzle has to be 'won', not stolen. So if even if you get past the pharaoh and the magic of the puzzle and manage to kill Yuugi, you wouldn't be able to harness its power because it was not won in a proper battle (I think Marik explained this once), you stole it instead from the cold fingers of a dead boy.

**** You mean similar to how Jinzo was given the new effect of ''destroying'' rather than just negating all trap cards? That wasn't doing Odion any favors either - it left him open to Joey's multiple direct attacks.

***** Wouldn't have made a difference. Embodiment of Apophis is returned to the spell zone it came from and treated as a trap card when its effect is negated, so there wouldn't have been a functional difference for Odion if his traps got destroyed or negated.

**** Duke may have been a rewrite, but its still canon for the anime. He also was participating in a draft duel, which most duelists will agree is the only way to have a level playing field in a battle between a champion who has had his deck rebuilt over and over with rare cards and a noob (which I'll remind you is exactly what that was). Duke may have topdecked Fairy Meteor Crush, but Joey admitted he topdecked Goblin Attack Force, so saying that diminishes his loss is just wrong.

***** Which would mean that Duke really was a good duelist who suffered a case of [[Redemption Demotion]] at the end of that mini-arc.

* In the first volumes of the manga, the part where the series doesn't revolve around Duel Monsters, there's always been something I can't figure out. There is at least two instances where the strap that the Millennium Puzzle is on gets broken. One happens when a street thug cuts it off of Yugi's neck to steal it, the other when Yugi grabs the Puzzle back from Imori. What bugs me is that in each of these cases, someone is wearing the Puzzle a few panels later (the thug and the Pharaoh respectively in each situation) and the strap is whole! There is no knot to indicate that the torn/cut ends have been tied together, there's no tape, no glue, or anything else that might be used to mend a broken strap. So how in the world did the strap get fixed so quickly?

** This troper, who works with her hands far too much, wonders the same thing. Possible awnser: the strap is not so much a strap and more of a rope/string. If it's as old as the puzzle and from ancient Egypt as well, and the manga seems to imply this, then it's probably something highly fibrous such as goat hair or plant fibre (probably palm fibre). I know from experience that ropes/strings made out of this kind of thing will simply slide appart if they carry too much weight; a hefty tug will do the trick. But at the same time, a broken string can simply be matted or twisted back together by rolling the two ends in the palms of your hands. This only takes a few seconds and leaves no visible join, so it would be possible that Yugi fixed the Puzzle's cord like this. But it raises another question; if the cord is made of goat hair/plant fibre and is as old as the puzzle, how the hell did it survive 3000 years and near-constant handling without crubling to dust?!

* In the Fourth Season, after it turns out that Pegasus got his soul taken, Yugi and co. are stuck in America with no way back home. A big to do is raised over the fact that Kaiba is their only way back home. What bothers me is that Pegasus is the one that flew them out. Did he not have the foresight to ensure that their flight was round-trip? The very least he could have done was buy them all tickets back home in advance to give them after he explained everything. Hell, Yugi and his friends could have just explained their situation to Pegasus' staff and gotten back on the plane. Surely his staff wouldn't be that uptight to not fly them back without an explicit say so from a conscious Pegasus, especially if they were clued in to what was going on.

** Pegasus probably didn't know how long it take them to finish, and thus, couldn't get tickets for the time they would be leaving. As for his staff, they're a game company, not workers at an airport. Lots of companies in real life wouldn't bother with such a thing, as they would see it as a waste of money. Why should we expect the staff of Industrial Illusions to be any different?

**** My theory is that Thief King summoned Zork to avenge Kul Elna. The arnt the same person and never actually merged, Zork though possessed Thief King and actually repressed him. Theres a part in the Millenium World story where Zork stops controlling him and he sounds and acts differently then he was. Furthermore the spirit of the ring is only Zork, Thief King's soul is in the ring too, but like before, its repressed.

* Not so much a question as something of note; why do most villains after Pegasus merge with their monster at the end? You've got Noah and Shinato, Yami Marik and The Winged Dragon of Ra, Dartz with Leviathan, and Yami Bakura with Zorc.

*** Hell, even ''Relinquished'' had Thousand Eyes Restrict.

* There's one thing that both confuses me and bugs the crap out of me. Some people (particularly shippers) seem to treat Yami and Atem as if they are two different people. As far as I can tell, they're the same person and the only significant difference is Yami can't remember his past or his name which is part of why he doesn't go by his real name in the series. So either I missed some big announcement in the manga/anime that officially declared them as being two separate people, or I just can't figure out what strange logic people are using to justify that.

*** So Yami is basically a future Atem who's gone through some rough things the other/younger has yet to experience?

*** Yami Yugi and Atem are the same person. The only time when you can consider them to be different is in the final arc when he's simultaneously fighting Yami Bakura in the present and the past.

**** I can see how some people would interpret his being in two places at once as meaning there's two separate people. But while you and your five year old self are not exactly the same, are you so different that you go by a completely different name when you grow up?

****** The original point was that it bugged me to see some fans absolutely insist that there is no way in the world that Yami = Atem when I've never seen any official canon declaration that says "Yes they are ''two separate people'', not two ''versions'' of the ''same person''." The first time I saw that there's an official shipping threesome of Atem x Yugi ''x Yami'' made me do a doubletake...because if Yami and Atem are the same person...isn't that kind of pairing impossible (or at least very tricky) to pull off?

******* Oh, I see. Sorry for arguing against you all the time. As for this seemingly impossible pairing, I have to admit that I'm guilty of liking Yami Bakura x Thief King Bakura, and Seto x Priest Set. I know, it's impossible (just as impossible as finding good fic) but I can definitely see the appeal. However, it's important for me to keep up a certain narcissistic [[Screw Yourself|self-cest]] element. (My favourite fics for these pairings are both takes on the Narcissus tale; the present incarnations see their past selves in mirrors. That's the only way it works for me. I'm not very fond of time travelling fics, and I can't even imagine fics that try to pull of these pairings without even bothering with such things and completely leaving the self-cest element out.)

** Didn't Sugoruko put the extra 200,000 yen there? I was under the impression that he gave Yugi more money in case Ushio demands more later on.

** Same place he got the knife.

* The fact that Ryou Bakura barely reacted to not being possessed any longer. Maybe I skipped the important blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but assuming that he was possessed 90% of the time, shouldn't this have been a big deal? Shouldn't this elicit any kind of reaction?

** He spends the several days that it took to finally kill Zorc outside the illusion - he probably adjusted to it then, off camera.

** Well actualy, he's not outside the illusion: in the manga, he's still possessed during this time by Yami Bakura when they're playing the RPG, and in the anime, he's sort of... passed out on the floor, and he doesn't regain consiousness until the game ends. And then he passes out again due to starvation. Would you accept him finally getting to eat something as a reaction?

* On the same vein as above, in the manga after Battle City is said and done, Yugi has the Millennium Ring, and hides it from Bakura (which is a VERY good thing). But then why does Bakura have to go out of his way to try and find it and then PUT IT BACK ON?! This has bugged me for a LONG time, since Bakura knows Yami Bakura is in there (he has at least two on-screen conversations with him), and so he has to know what's going to happen when he puts in on. I mean, does YB have the power to wipe the memory of himself from Bakura? Please, someone come up with a better explanation than that.

*** He only voluntarily takes it back in the manga (in the anime, he takes it back after being re-possessed). If I recall correctly, Ryou's conversations with Bakura in the Duelist manga generally consist of Bakura claiming he's 'changed' and 'wants to help'. If Ryou's as gullible as the rest of the cast (which is entirely possible), that's a plausible enough explanation for him taking back the ring; his normal form can't 'help' as much as Bakura can. I also think the theory about Bakura leaving a bit of his soul in Ryou could be true; considering how [[Crazy Prepared]] Bakura tends to be, it seems like the kind of thing he'd do in case Ryou lost the ring.

* The timeline. Pegasus met Cecilia when he was 12, at 18 they were married, and she developed a terminal illness. Distraught, Pegasus roamed the earth, coming to Egypt, got his Millennium Eye and created Duel Monsters. 6 years later, when he's 24, the series begins. Okay, but 6 years before the series began, when Seto Kaiba was 12 (or 10 in the Japanese, but that just further complicates things), he was heavily into the game, with his cards being the only thing that got him through Gozaburo's torture. So that would put him being a huge fan of the game at the point when Cecilia was either dying or recently dead, and Pegasus had yet to create the game.

* How are these tournaments expected to function? The KC Grand Prix would work, with a set number of contestants and regularly enforced rounds, but Duelist Kingdom and Battle City? There are way too many people in both for it to function properly - Duelist Kingdom would need at most 20 people (4X10 Star Chips means 40, 2 Chips Apiece means 40/2=20) and there were far more than that, and Battle City would require 48 - more, yes, but still far more than the number shown.

** And even then, why allow people to just go wandering off? Why not actually make them fight? You know, like an actual tournament. What use does setting them loose in the city serve apart from giving the writers an excuse to put Yugi in a deathtrap?

**** But Odion, Marik and the Rare hunters duel disks weren't stolen -- each was given to them after the man in charge of handing out Duel Disks edited the information, fabricating their accounts and giving them a spot in the tournament - just like he did to Joey.

***** Well, that wasn't exactly legal either, was it? From a legal standpoint, we'd have to know whether the guy was distributing the names as Kaiba's employee, or has just bought a bunch of disks to distribute, in which case he could do whatever he liked with them. However, given that Kaiba wanted to control the distribution of the disks, it can be assumed that the guy had a contractual obligation to only give out disks to people who are qualified. Changing information and giving disks to peoeple who shouldn't have gotten them does amount to stealing and reset in the cases of the Rare Hunters and Marik.

** It's explained in the manga before Yugi's duel with the Player Killer of Darkness that there are 40 contestants in Duelist Kingdom, with a total of 80 Star Chips, and the goal of the Player Killers is to take 40 chips from the duelists, with the remaining 40 going to the tournament finalists.

** Both tournaments had time limits.

* If Kaiba's whole plan was to get powerful cards, why would he ban any cards at all? And then, why is Hinotama considered bannable but Harpies Feather Duster, the signature broken card, allowable?

** In this case, I think Kaiba's pride played a big role. Maybe he thought that cards that can reduce lifepoints without any condition are a cheap way to win?

** There was no Kaiba Corp Grand Prix in the manga. It just goes straight to the Millennium Arc after Battle City.

* Why are there so many contradictory titles? Weevil's the Japanese champion, but the Japanese Kaiba is the best duelist in the world? Bandit Keith, an American, is the intercontinental champion (which is the same as world, but he and Kaiba have supposedly never had a match), but Rebecca Hawkins is the #1 American duelist? And not a single Rare Hunter or member of Paradius has a ranked title, despite both groups having triple copies of every single card in the game?

** Rare Hunters are Marik's mooks. Paradius was part of a filler arc. Rebecca was also a filler character.

* Everyones asked it, but it was never answered - why the hell do they never go to the police?

** Most of the time Pre-Battle City, Dark Yuugi was merely treated as a more confident version of Yuugi. He thought he was Yuugi. He thought Yuugi's grandfather was his grandfather. He got angry whenever YUUGI's friends and family were in danger as if they were HIS friends and family. The fact of the matter is, Dark Yuugi didn't know that he was an ancient spirit trapped inside the puzzle and treated himself as another part of Yuugi's personality, which was why he was never dumbfounded with the world around him during his first few appearances and jumped straight into action. He knew what was going on through his other half and was aware of everything his other half experienced before he awakened. The only thing he didn't borrow was his knowledge of the shadow powers the puzzle held and used them to dish out justice. He might have been kind of aware that he wasn't exactly "Yuugi", but the person he was then was just an extension to Yuugi, only more confident and knowledgeable of the powers of the Sennen Puzzle.

* Why the HELL did Joey's parents have a [[Solomon Divorce]]? It was obvious that Joey loved his sister, and that it really hurt him to be separated from her. Adding to that, his dad was a drunk and a gambling addict (which I'm going to assume was the reason for the divorce). Why leave a child in that kind of environment? Did she have some kind of vendetta against her son or something? Why the hell would she leave her own son in such an obviously abusive environment?

* I think this is anime only, but it still bugs me. It has been established that you need to have the actual fusion monster, which is consistent with real life rules, unless one of the mystical dragons in season 4 is involved. So, for what reason does Yugi carry a card he could ONLY every use in a 2 vs 2 duel with Kaiba? I'm talking about the fusion between Black Luster Soldier and the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. This card cannot be used in any other situation, and unlike other cards that only work under a certain condition, this is no in-game condition. The condition is Kaiba, who's not known for being a team player, to actually have a double duel with you. It just strains the [[Crazy Prepared]] trope a bit too much.

** BLS is a good card on its own (as good as any similar card can be in the anime), so Yugi keeps it around. It being able to fuse with Kaiba's most powerful mon is a bonus.

*** Yes, but why does he actually have a Dragon Master Knight in his deck?

** At the time when the series came out (i.e. before the creation of Syncros) there was no limit to the number of cards you could have in your fusion deck. It would make sense to keep any fusion monster you got your hands on on the off-chance it may be useful - even if not against Kaiba, a person could use a fusion substitute monster.

** I know Headscratchers and WMG insists on answering questions that normally are assumed to be [[Hand Wave|hand waved]], but come on. Fusion Monsters (and Synchros and Xyz) exist in a state of dimensional flux. When Polymerization is activated, the Fusion Monster crosses from the other dimension into this one. If it makes you feel better, just imagine the card creating itself like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4deOQct8rTk what happens in 5D's].

* Why does Otogi challenge Yugi to a game of his own creation, without even properly explaining the rules? Douchey much? What was he trying to accomplish? His chances to win were incredibly high, which would have made victory nearly meaningless. Kind of like beating a little child at their first chess game and acting all superior about it. And on the other side of the coin, Yugi's chances of victory were so low, if he won, the loss and humiliation would be pretty much worse. (Which, as we know, happened in the end.) Wouldn't it have been much better to start off on a more or less equal footing? Winning then would have proved that Otogi was truly superior.

* Why does the fake psychic, who's implied to have burned a house down, attempted to murder or at least severely harm Yugi, and was apparently attempting to rape Anzu only get humiliated, when a guy who's only crime was being a jerk over a spot at a school carnival die in a violent inferno?

* I have a friend who brought up an interesting question. When Yugi's grandpa took the Puzzle from the Pharaoh's tomb, where were the tombkeepers? Their whole purpose was to guard the tomb of the nameless Pharaoh, right? If they guarded a different tomb, then why was Atem's body not buried with the Puzzle and all his funerary stuff? And if it was the same tomb, then how did they fail so miserably at guarding it? Or, if they didn't actually guard his TOMB literally but rather his memory, then why would they need to live underground?

** The tombkeepers guard the millenium items in Kul Elna (Shadi's branch) and wherever the Ishtars lived, not the Pharoah's tomb. It would be necesary for them to 'fail' at guarding the nameless Pharoah's tomb because SOMEONE's going to have to find the puzzle and kick-start the rebirth of the Pharoah eventually, and it has lots of deadly traps in the mean time. They don't really need to live underground. Shadi's group doesn't look like they do, so why the Ishtars do it is a mystery, maybe they got paraniod and decided the items would be safer that way? That said, all of these folks probably shouldn't have been called tombkeepers in the first place. But it sounded better than item-keepers, so there you go.

* During Battle City tournament, Yami Yugi has two sources of motivation; his first priority is to learn who he is. As the arc goes on he mostly just wants them all to get out alive so that he could keep his promise about dueling Jounouchi in the finals or after the tournament. Okay, so Battle city finally ends, Kaiba blows up Alcatraz, gang stands on top of the blimp and Jounouchi and Yami Yugi put their decks in duel disks. Back to the Domino City we go and there's this double page featuring two of them all ready to duel, with the text "Our battle city isn't over!" Chapter ends. Next chapter: flashback to the time Yugi's grandpa found the Millennium Puzzle. Afterwards the memory world starts and no one ever mentions for the rest of the series that Jounouchi and Yami Yugi had duel. Or that they were supposed to, which is really weird considering half of Yami Yugi's internal monologue that wasn't about card games was revolving arout his friend and how he's looking forward to that duel. I've never really watched the second series of YGO seeing that it never aired where I live, so I don't know if this applies to anime or is it just a plothole the manga has. Maybe Kazuki Takahashi was just plain sick of drawing card games at this point that he didn't want to bother anymore, seeing that Jounouchi would have lost anyway. Who knows. It's still really odd how the whole thing was just skipped over like that.

** It's the same in the anime. However, I did not think at all that the arc was incomplete, and I certainly wouldn't call it a plothole (maybe an anti-climax). Also, from Jonouchi's POV, it was not about the outcome of the duel, but rather about the duel itself. He didn't want to face Yugi until he became a real duelist. Them facing off at the end means that he accomplished his goal. It doesn't really matter who wins. Personally, I thought it was a great way to end the arc on a positive note.