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spokeSo I'm thinking about last Saturday's episode of YuGiOh, and how this is not the first time I’ve thought Joey and Seto were similar... it just floored me to hear Joey say it.
But the thing is, is why they get on each other’s nerves so much. Because each of them sees something of themselves in the other guy.
And it’s not a part of themselves that they really like.
It’s a sad thing that before I can even get into explaining this, I need to diverge to explain DeNile. <<; Seto has Issues severe enough that he probably needs professional help for them, and the foundation that’s holding all of that mess in place is his skill at denial.
Most of the time, when a person denies something - well, they deny it and that’s it. And if you push, they change the subject. Seto will plow through these incredibly long conversations with anyone who tries to push him through his denial and never admit to a damn thing, and so far I don’t think any of the characters have noticed it’s not just about the magic. We just notice the magical DeNile because it is shoved in our faces via it’s being shoved in Seto’s.
The reason he pulls this off, and continues to deny magic long past the point of sanity is... how to put this... In order to be able to deny something, you have to have recognized it first. Have to. That’s the whole point of denial, to pretend a thing or situation isn’t there when in fact you damn well know it is. Seto takes it a step further, and nearly forgets that he ever knew what they were talking about in the first place. If Yugi/Pharoah weren’t there, practically chanting ‘Magic is Real’ at him every single duel, he’d probably manage to forget entirely.
The best example I can think of right now is back in the 4-way duel, when the Pharaoh tries to warn him that his tournament has become ‘far more dangerous than he could possibly understand.’ Now this is the Pharaoh, for whom magic goes without saying. Obviously, he’s talking about Marik and the impending end of the world. Then we hear Seto’s thoughts. And it’s all detailing his intentions - not strategy, just who he intends to beat and when - and ‘danger’ is only addressed as the possibility that he might lose. Because Pharaoh did not actually say ‘magic‘, that thought doesn’t even occur to him.
Why it is important to explain this: Magic is not the only thing Seto is in DeNile of. He has in the past thought that Mokuba would end up hating him, never mentioned again, and that Joey might actually have some potential, never mentioned again, and I’m sure I could find other examples if I went through the tapes I could find other examples. But try to get him to admit to having these thoughts, and you’d get the same reaction as trying to get him to admit to the existence of magic: That Never Happened/Doesn’t Exist/etc.
So. What Seto sees in Joey that he will not admit to having seen in either Joey or himself. Joey was a bully. It is how he and Yugi met, after all. Not a real creep of a bully, (he is a puppy, after all) but still. Seto hates bullies. From the orphanage and protecting Mokuba, to Gozaburo... Except - Seto is a bully. It’s just that he’s verbal about it, rather than taking a punch at people - and I think that’s how he pulls off denying that. He never hits people, therefore he is not a bully. It is a non-thought, a ghost of awareness hovering at the edge of his mind along with Magic.
From Joey's side... I don't know if he'd call it being bullied, but he knows Seto is picking on him. It's kind of flat out impossible to miss, what with the dog comments and knocking his dueling skills and generally... well, generally Seto's a jerk. >.< To Joey specifically - he tends to leave the rest of the gang along for the most part. And Joey makes with the comebacks as best he's able, but it's still - Seto verbally attacking Joey is kinda like either of them physically attacking Yugi - it's too blatantly unfair.
I kind of suspect that Joey’s way of ‘dealing’ with things, prior to Duelist Kingdom, was avoidance. But he kind of went through this during that arc - learning not to ‘let Yugi do his fighting for him‘, but also that it’s okay to accept help too. It was like he had no line between self-sufficiency and being dependant, either he was totally cheerleading Yugi or he was totally kicking himself for not doing everything himself. ...along with sooo much talk about his sister Serenity that I was fully prepared to hate her before she even showed up just because she was all he would talk about and >.</ >:o !!! Rather like not-so-evil-Marik and his constant use of the phrase ‘mind-slave’. *shudders*
Moving on...
Part of what makes Seto so arrogant, is this belief he has in his own total self-sufficiency. He only needs himself! Oh, and Mokuba. But Mokuba is family, his only family, which means it goes without saying to Seto. Sadly, up until Duelist Kingdom, his life pretty much bears out this theory. I mean... who gets them out of the orphanage, deals with the Gozaburo problem, and turns the company into a huge success? Seto. The only person who slightly helped with this? Mokuba. Family.
Yugi may have been the first to beat him at Duel Monsters, but it was Pegasus taking Mokuba - and his own failure at getting him back - that really floored him. All of a sudden he has this new situation, something he is totally unprepared to deal with - he owes somebody. I suspect he felt gratitude? But it being such a new emotion, he had no idea what to do with it.
Now Joey knows how to show gratitude. ‘Thank you’ is actually a part of his vocabulary. But it’s also he’s a lot better at dealing with both losing and with failing. He does not make this huge production out of it - he cried over thinking he wasn’t going to be able to help Serenity, but with losing his Red Eyes, he just kind of went... ‘silent tough guy’.
...Which is how Seto tries to deal with everything. He has been seen getting freaked out, but that fails under DeNile, sub-heading ‘It Never Happened’. And as soon as he realizes what’s happening... the best image I can think of is that it’s like a dog shaking off water. ‘Right, that’s enough whining’, and he resumes the reserved tough guy bit. Or smirking bad-ass, if there’s a duel on.
Joey is a lot more bouncy about it, but really it comes down to the same thing. Joey’s ‘public face’ is more ‘cheerful friendly tough guy’. Nothing ruins his mood! But the ‘tough guy’ thing... I think, although he would choke and sputter and try to change the subject rather than admit, looks up to Seto in a sense.
It’s... Joey is not the type to hold something against someone if they’ve earned it. It’s cool Yugi is better than he is because Yugi kicks butt at dueling. Which is kind of circular logic. But - I wish I could remember - I think I’ve actually heard him say something like this before.
It’s weird - I’ve tried to think about Seto because, well, the boy has Issues. And it’s kind of a challenge trying to figure them out? But Joey just is, and of course I get it - and now that I’m trying to explain I’m finding it harder to put him in words than Seto. ^^;
So... ‘looking up’ to Seto, in the sense of ‘Hey - I can do/be that! How come he’s there and I’m not?’ Kind of the way beating Yugi is a serious goal for Seto, and both of them have the same answer to their respective questions - ‘Work harder!’
No, it’s not looking up so much as Seto being a standard to measure himself against. Yugi doesn’t count in the same way, because Yugi is just so different from either of them - he is not the tough-guy, he is not after anything in particular (just what destiny has forced him to seek), he doesn’t have anyone he has to protect the way Seto has Mokuba and Joey has Serenity. He is nice, and kind out of his own nature rather than out of a sense of gratitude/honor, depending (Joey) or not at all (Seto).
Seto... XD Seto is as much a dog-person as Joey is and really should not be using that as an insult. Right down to their mannerisms - okay, yeah Joey is the ‘friendly puppy dog’, and the way he talks sometimes - swear the way he will yell a person’s name at them, it’s like he’s barking hello.
But Seto is the big, tough dog. The one that sits there and watches you and maybe growls if you get too close, and generally convinces you without moving that you don’t want anything to do with him. And maybe if you get waaay too close, he will start barking - Seto’s short, sharp yells of ‘Enough!’ and the like if someone or other will not stop harping about Magic.
The thing is, this puts off everyone but Yugi - who really does not get it, although I think the Pharaoh does - and Joey, whose reaction is more ‘What, me? Ya don’t scare me, tough-guy!’ Even when he has been scared, in the past. You’ve got to hand it to him for standing his ground even when he knows he’s been shooting off his mouth, and cannot back it up?
I’m just not sure what you should hand him. Maybe a newspaper...
Another thing is, ever since Yugi started trying to ‘make friends’ with Seto, Joey’s sort of been going along with that. Kind of following the leader of their little pack? ^^; But also, I think, out of that sense of similarity. Especially after they spend more time around Mokuba. He likes the kid, no problem there. It’s kind of been shifting from ‘Got to catch up to Kaiba’ to ‘what is wrong with him?’ After all, he’s been offered Yugi’s friendship. This is the ‘in’ - once Yugi decides he likes someone, they pretty much end up part of the gang, which has grown from Tea, Tristan, Yugi and Joey himself, to include Bakura (even if everyone still worries about him), Mai, Serenity (naturally) and Duke. Duke! Who showed up and promptly put Joey in a dog-suit! Who called Yugi a cheat and a lair x-infinite times until you'd have thought it was his name!
Even Mokuba half-counts! Except when Seto is present and he is worshipfully trailing after. ^_^
But not Seto. Oooh, no. Because he has Issues and would rather choke and die than end up a soppy sentimental weak little hanger on to Yugi and his happy little gang. He has more important things to spend his time on than friends. *insert sneering here* <<;; Honestly, I love him to death, but he would be so much more mature if he’d failed in life a little more often, and really learned from said failures, rather than shoving them into DeNile.
Except I’m afraid he may snap if he loses to Joey immediately after having lost to Yugi for the um... what time are we on now? Let’s see, the one over Grandpa and the Blue Eyes - Duelist Kingdom was a win but Seto said it didn’t count, generous of him considering the threat of suicide - is this the third or was there sometime in between Duelist Kingdom and Battle City Finals? *ponders*
I need to learn to stop these things before I wander totally off course...
Oh. And it bears pointing out, that in getting fed up with Seto’s stubbornness, Joey not only admits to their being alike - were before he might have had his own fit at being compared to Seto - but also... he was harsh. He would raise heck if anyone took a shot at Serenity the way he did at Mokuba. And I’m not sure he sees the hypocrisy in that - I’m afraid he’s so focused on the need to knock Seto down a peg that he doesn’t notice he’s backsliding. Joey learning to hit with words is not a good thing - Joey is plenty like Seto without expanding on their shared flaw of bullying, you know?
But the thing is, is why they get on each other’s nerves so much. Because each of them sees something of themselves in the other guy.
And it’s not a part of themselves that they really like.
It’s a sad thing that before I can even get into explaining this, I need to diverge to explain DeNile. <<; Seto has Issues severe enough that he probably needs professional help for them, and the foundation that’s holding all of that mess in place is his skill at denial.
Most of the time, when a person denies something - well, they deny it and that’s it. And if you push, they change the subject. Seto will plow through these incredibly long conversations with anyone who tries to push him through his denial and never admit to a damn thing, and so far I don’t think any of the characters have noticed it’s not just about the magic. We just notice the magical DeNile because it is shoved in our faces via it’s being shoved in Seto’s.
The reason he pulls this off, and continues to deny magic long past the point of sanity is... how to put this... In order to be able to deny something, you have to have recognized it first. Have to. That’s the whole point of denial, to pretend a thing or situation isn’t there when in fact you damn well know it is. Seto takes it a step further, and nearly forgets that he ever knew what they were talking about in the first place. If Yugi/Pharoah weren’t there, practically chanting ‘Magic is Real’ at him every single duel, he’d probably manage to forget entirely.
The best example I can think of right now is back in the 4-way duel, when the Pharaoh tries to warn him that his tournament has become ‘far more dangerous than he could possibly understand.’ Now this is the Pharaoh, for whom magic goes without saying. Obviously, he’s talking about Marik and the impending end of the world. Then we hear Seto’s thoughts. And it’s all detailing his intentions - not strategy, just who he intends to beat and when - and ‘danger’ is only addressed as the possibility that he might lose. Because Pharaoh did not actually say ‘magic‘, that thought doesn’t even occur to him.
Why it is important to explain this: Magic is not the only thing Seto is in DeNile of. He has in the past thought that Mokuba would end up hating him, never mentioned again, and that Joey might actually have some potential, never mentioned again, and I’m sure I could find other examples if I went through the tapes I could find other examples. But try to get him to admit to having these thoughts, and you’d get the same reaction as trying to get him to admit to the existence of magic: That Never Happened/Doesn’t Exist/etc.
So. What Seto sees in Joey that he will not admit to having seen in either Joey or himself. Joey was a bully. It is how he and Yugi met, after all. Not a real creep of a bully, (he is a puppy, after all) but still. Seto hates bullies. From the orphanage and protecting Mokuba, to Gozaburo... Except - Seto is a bully. It’s just that he’s verbal about it, rather than taking a punch at people - and I think that’s how he pulls off denying that. He never hits people, therefore he is not a bully. It is a non-thought, a ghost of awareness hovering at the edge of his mind along with Magic.
From Joey's side... I don't know if he'd call it being bullied, but he knows Seto is picking on him. It's kind of flat out impossible to miss, what with the dog comments and knocking his dueling skills and generally... well, generally Seto's a jerk. >.< To Joey specifically - he tends to leave the rest of the gang along for the most part. And Joey makes with the comebacks as best he's able, but it's still - Seto verbally attacking Joey is kinda like either of them physically attacking Yugi - it's too blatantly unfair.
I kind of suspect that Joey’s way of ‘dealing’ with things, prior to Duelist Kingdom, was avoidance. But he kind of went through this during that arc - learning not to ‘let Yugi do his fighting for him‘, but also that it’s okay to accept help too. It was like he had no line between self-sufficiency and being dependant, either he was totally cheerleading Yugi or he was totally kicking himself for not doing everything himself. ...along with sooo much talk about his sister Serenity that I was fully prepared to hate her before she even showed up just because she was all he would talk about and >.</ >:o !!! Rather like not-so-evil-Marik and his constant use of the phrase ‘mind-slave’. *shudders*
Moving on...
Part of what makes Seto so arrogant, is this belief he has in his own total self-sufficiency. He only needs himself! Oh, and Mokuba. But Mokuba is family, his only family, which means it goes without saying to Seto. Sadly, up until Duelist Kingdom, his life pretty much bears out this theory. I mean... who gets them out of the orphanage, deals with the Gozaburo problem, and turns the company into a huge success? Seto. The only person who slightly helped with this? Mokuba. Family.
Yugi may have been the first to beat him at Duel Monsters, but it was Pegasus taking Mokuba - and his own failure at getting him back - that really floored him. All of a sudden he has this new situation, something he is totally unprepared to deal with - he owes somebody. I suspect he felt gratitude? But it being such a new emotion, he had no idea what to do with it.
Now Joey knows how to show gratitude. ‘Thank you’ is actually a part of his vocabulary. But it’s also he’s a lot better at dealing with both losing and with failing. He does not make this huge production out of it - he cried over thinking he wasn’t going to be able to help Serenity, but with losing his Red Eyes, he just kind of went... ‘silent tough guy’.
...Which is how Seto tries to deal with everything. He has been seen getting freaked out, but that fails under DeNile, sub-heading ‘It Never Happened’. And as soon as he realizes what’s happening... the best image I can think of is that it’s like a dog shaking off water. ‘Right, that’s enough whining’, and he resumes the reserved tough guy bit. Or smirking bad-ass, if there’s a duel on.
Joey is a lot more bouncy about it, but really it comes down to the same thing. Joey’s ‘public face’ is more ‘cheerful friendly tough guy’. Nothing ruins his mood! But the ‘tough guy’ thing... I think, although he would choke and sputter and try to change the subject rather than admit, looks up to Seto in a sense.
It’s... Joey is not the type to hold something against someone if they’ve earned it. It’s cool Yugi is better than he is because Yugi kicks butt at dueling. Which is kind of circular logic. But - I wish I could remember - I think I’ve actually heard him say something like this before.
It’s weird - I’ve tried to think about Seto because, well, the boy has Issues. And it’s kind of a challenge trying to figure them out? But Joey just is, and of course I get it - and now that I’m trying to explain I’m finding it harder to put him in words than Seto. ^^;
So... ‘looking up’ to Seto, in the sense of ‘Hey - I can do/be that! How come he’s there and I’m not?’ Kind of the way beating Yugi is a serious goal for Seto, and both of them have the same answer to their respective questions - ‘Work harder!’
No, it’s not looking up so much as Seto being a standard to measure himself against. Yugi doesn’t count in the same way, because Yugi is just so different from either of them - he is not the tough-guy, he is not after anything in particular (just what destiny has forced him to seek), he doesn’t have anyone he has to protect the way Seto has Mokuba and Joey has Serenity. He is nice, and kind out of his own nature rather than out of a sense of gratitude/honor, depending (Joey) or not at all (Seto).
Seto... XD Seto is as much a dog-person as Joey is and really should not be using that as an insult. Right down to their mannerisms - okay, yeah Joey is the ‘friendly puppy dog’, and the way he talks sometimes - swear the way he will yell a person’s name at them, it’s like he’s barking hello.
But Seto is the big, tough dog. The one that sits there and watches you and maybe growls if you get too close, and generally convinces you without moving that you don’t want anything to do with him. And maybe if you get waaay too close, he will start barking - Seto’s short, sharp yells of ‘Enough!’ and the like if someone or other will not stop harping about Magic.
The thing is, this puts off everyone but Yugi - who really does not get it, although I think the Pharaoh does - and Joey, whose reaction is more ‘What, me? Ya don’t scare me, tough-guy!’ Even when he has been scared, in the past. You’ve got to hand it to him for standing his ground even when he knows he’s been shooting off his mouth, and cannot back it up?
I’m just not sure what you should hand him. Maybe a newspaper...
Another thing is, ever since Yugi started trying to ‘make friends’ with Seto, Joey’s sort of been going along with that. Kind of following the leader of their little pack? ^^; But also, I think, out of that sense of similarity. Especially after they spend more time around Mokuba. He likes the kid, no problem there. It’s kind of been shifting from ‘Got to catch up to Kaiba’ to ‘what is wrong with him?’ After all, he’s been offered Yugi’s friendship. This is the ‘in’ - once Yugi decides he likes someone, they pretty much end up part of the gang, which has grown from Tea, Tristan, Yugi and Joey himself, to include Bakura (even if everyone still worries about him), Mai, Serenity (naturally) and Duke. Duke! Who showed up and promptly put Joey in a dog-suit! Who called Yugi a cheat and a lair x-infinite times until you'd have thought it was his name!
Even Mokuba half-counts! Except when Seto is present and he is worshipfully trailing after. ^_^
But not Seto. Oooh, no. Because he has Issues and would rather choke and die than end up a soppy sentimental weak little hanger on to Yugi and his happy little gang. He has more important things to spend his time on than friends. *insert sneering here* <<;; Honestly, I love him to death, but he would be so much more mature if he’d failed in life a little more often, and really learned from said failures, rather than shoving them into DeNile.
Except I’m afraid he may snap if he loses to Joey immediately after having lost to Yugi for the um... what time are we on now? Let’s see, the one over Grandpa and the Blue Eyes - Duelist Kingdom was a win but Seto said it didn’t count, generous of him considering the threat of suicide - is this the third or was there sometime in between Duelist Kingdom and Battle City Finals? *ponders*
I need to learn to stop these things before I wander totally off course...
Oh. And it bears pointing out, that in getting fed up with Seto’s stubbornness, Joey not only admits to their being alike - were before he might have had his own fit at being compared to Seto - but also... he was harsh. He would raise heck if anyone took a shot at Serenity the way he did at Mokuba. And I’m not sure he sees the hypocrisy in that - I’m afraid he’s so focused on the need to knock Seto down a peg that he doesn’t notice he’s backsliding. Joey learning to hit with words is not a good thing - Joey is plenty like Seto without expanding on their shared flaw of bullying, you know?
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-17 07:34 am (UTC)Joey is still a street kid, in a way. He figures rich guys with all kinds of power should be classy... but then he meets Seto and he's like, hey, he's just a junkyard dog! Like me! Why does he get all the glory? Thing is Joey is not nearly as single-minded as Seto. He can get into pickles like saving Serenity vs. helping Yugi because he has lots of priorities.
What's weird about Seto is he's learned at the foot of Gozaburo. All his methods are honing off the unnecessary bits, like a knife. Yet when he duels, he thinks more laterally than Gozaburo. He blocks all the routes out with power while Gozaburo just crushes. Yugi consistently beats him because Yugi does the power game *and* he thinks laterally -- i.e. he doesn't give up. Seto also doesn't stop but with the subtle difference: he doesn't allow himself to lose.
So, Seto's trying to escape Gozaburo with Gozaburo's methods. That's only going to turn him into the old man, and I base that on the fact that he would have no idea what he'd do after winning the tournament.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-17 09:30 am (UTC)Meanwhile, Joey has driven him to the brink of murderous insanity by screwing with his Blue Eyes. O.O I would never have imagined - and how can Joey not get why Seto freaked?!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-17 12:59 pm (UTC)Great analysis. Analyses^^
...yep, spankin' time^^
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-17 03:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-17 03:13 pm (UTC)