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heleentjeMirror Mirror:
An analysis of Johan Andersen as a reflection for Yuuki Juudai and Yubel, and Yubel’s hatred for him
This essay contains unmarked spoilers for all four Yu-Gi-Oh series. For simplicity’s sake, I will be referring to Yubel with female pronouns. Episode numbers are preceded by DM for Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, GX for Yu-Gi-Oh GX, 5D’s for Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s, and ZX for Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal.
Johan Andersen, the champion of North School, is a mystery. Even though he is the main catalyst for the events of the latter half of season three, very little is actually known about him. He is first mentioned by Amon Garam, as the ‘mystery man’ who should be on board of the cruise ship to Duel Academia but is nowhere to be seen (GX 106). It is never explained why he wasn’t present on the ship, and this isn’t the only question surrounding him. Why did he and Juudai feel like they met before? If Johan is a Chosen One, what is he the Chosen One of? And last but not least, why does Yubel hate him far more than any of Juudai’s older friends? None of these questions are ever answered, but I feel like I can at least take a stab at answering the last one. Johan mirrors certain qualities in both Juudai and Yubel, and precisely because so little is known about him, it makes those mirror aspects stand out all the more. There, to me, lies the reason for Yubel’s hatred.
1.Yuuki Juudai
Comparisons between Juudai and Johan are unavoidable. They are very similar, and indeed, those similarities are pointed out more than once by several characters.
Edo (referring to Juudai and Johan): “Looks like we have another dueling moron.”
- GX 107 –
Shou: “Jeez… The similar ones [Juudai and Johan] hang out with each other…”
Juudai/Johan (in unison): “Huh? What’s wrong, Shou?”
- GX 110 -
What makes them alike is their passion for dueling, their ability to see duel spirits and the way they consider them as close friends or family. They are both incredibly talented duelists whose lives revolve around the game. Initially, this is far more the case for Johan than for Juudai. Without Duel Monsters, it can be assumed that Johan would have no family. For Juudai, Duel Monsters gives him more friends, a weapon to fight with, and eventually the person he promised to love.
Then there’s obsession, a trait they both share with Yubel. Johan’s obsession seems mostly harmless. He wants to find Rainbow Dragon, and when he finally gets the chance to obtain it, he leaves his friends behind to retrieve it, even though they are currently under attack (GX 128-129). While this would be a bad move in any other situation, the characters already know that they’ll need Rainbow Dragon to return to their own dimension. Yet I’m still inclined to call it obsession, since even if Rainbow Dragon hadn’t been necessary for their return, there’s a big chance that he still would have abandoned the rest of the school to get it. However, this all pales in comparison to Juudai, who plunges into danger without a second thought and ends up being responsible for the death of several of his friends because of his obsession with finding Johan. It’s a dangerous obsession, that leads to him losing his grip on himself and becoming a mass-murderer. Here, Johan is the object of Juudai’s obsession, and of course, in the same arc Juudai himself is the object of someone else’s obsession.
2. Yubel
Much has been made about the fact that Yubel targeted Johan above any of Juudai’s older friends. At first glance, this is indeed weird. Why does she feel much more threatened by a boy who Juudai has known for about two months than by all the people who he’s known for so much longer? In this section, I want to try to formulate an answer. My position on this matter is as follows: Yubel considered Johan as the biggest threat because he was the one who most resembled her.
To explain this, I will touch on various factors, but first I will return to obsession. As mentioned before, obsession is a trait that all the three characters discussed in this essay share. Yubel is obsessed with acquiring Juudai’s love for herself, and spends most of season three trying to eliminate the obstacles she perceives. And the biggest obstacle? Johan.
This too is obsession. She is obsessed with hating Johan, giving them one thing in common already.
Another factor is love. Yubel is defined by two things: her love for Juudai, and, stemming from that, her hatred for anyone who tries to come between them. This makes up most of her character for season three. Although the hatred later disappears, her love for Juudai remains a defining characteristic throughout the rest of the series.
Johan too is defined by love. When we meet him, we are immediately introduced to the Gem Beasts, who Johan calls his family and evidently loves dearly. It is tempting to say that Johan would not go to the same lengths to protect his loved ones as Yubel did, but I would argue against this. As shown in his duel with Giese (GX 115-116), Johan shows no qualms about confronting anyone who tries to harm his family. While it can be argued that Johan did not know that Giese would die when he lost, he shows no regret over his death either. He shows a very protective kind of love, and it is clear that the Gem Beasts reciprocate this, both towards him and towards each other.
Amethyst Cat: “I won’t show any mercy to those who make Johan suffer!”
- GX 107 -
Johan: “I won’t forgive you. I’ll defeat you, and take Sapphire Pegasus back!”
- GX 115 -
His love for the Gem Beasts, at least at this point, far transcends his loyalty for Juudai. Even though Juudai is suffering from the aftermath of his own duel with professor Satou, and clearly in no shape to be on his own, Johan abandons him straight away when the Gem Beasts are in danger.
Closely tied with love is loyalty. Of course, Yubel’s loyalty is immense and crosses the boundaries of several lifetimes. This, at least, Johan cannot compete with. Nevertheless, Johan has shown great loyalty to the Gem Beasts, as outlined above, but also to Juudai, and Yubel is certain to have noticed this. When Juudai faces Yubel in the Desert World, Johan chooses to fight with Juudai to save the rest of the school. His motivations here are probably not entirely selfless: he had, after all, recently acquired Rainbow Dragon and was itching for the chance to use it in a duel. Nevertheless, he is still very loyal to Juudai. When he catches word of the mysterious disappearances at Duel Academia (GX 172) he immediately travels from Europe to Japan. He’s also fully prepared to risk his life for Juudai, not just during the tag duel against Yubel, where losing means becoming a Duel Zombie (GX 129-130), but also in the Battle Royale versus Fujiwara, where the loser is assimilated by Darkness (GX 175-176).
Which leads us to the topic of sacrifice. Unlike a lot of typical protagonists in a shounen series, Juudai isn’t very sacrifice-happy. Whereas Yuugi gives up his soul to save the Pharaoh from the Orichalcos seal (DM 158), Yuusei is willing die to reverse the negative Momentum (5D’s 151), and Yuuma takes several hits for Shark during their tag duel (ZX 12), Juudai isn’t all that keen on making grand sacrifices. In fact, right before he fuses with Yubel he even tells Shou that he doesn’t plan on sacrificing himself (GX 155).
Shou: “Juudai, you can’t! No matter what happens, you can’t sacrifice yourself for us!”
Juudai: “What? No, it’s not like that. I don’t intend to sacrifice myself for you guys.”
- GX 155 –
However, Yubel and Johan are there to pick up the slack for him. They’re both shown to jump at the chance to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. Yubel gives up her human form and chooses to undergo incredibly painful and invasive surgery to protect Juudai. While Johan never goes through such a thing, he does sacrifice himself on two separate occasions. The first time, he stays behind to return Duel Academia and its students to their home dimension (GX 130). While undoubtedly a noble sacrifice, its consequences are severe. His disappearance causes Juudai to become obsessed with finding him, which leads to him eventually committing genocide. Yet Johan isn’t to blame for this, as he probably hadn’t expected to survive, let alone be possessed by Yubel. His goal was to become the bridge between spirits and humans (GX 116), and in a sense he had done so, by bridging the gap between the worlds.
Johan: “My goal [is] to become the bridge connecting humans to spirits.”
- GX 116 –
Johan: “Rainbow Dragon… Fly! Become everyone’s bridge!”
- GX 130 –
A couple of months later, when only Juudai and Johan are left standing against Fujiwara, Johan sacrifices himself again, negating an attack that would finish off Juudai at the cost of his own life points. He does so knowing full well that losing the duel means disappearing from the face of the earth, yet goes ahead with it anyway and gives up his life to protect Juudai’s.
The last similarity between them is far less noticeable than the previous ones, yet still noteworthy. Whereas Juudai is the incarnation of Gentle Darkness, both Yubel and Johan are connected to a form of Light. In Yubel’s case this is the Light of Ruin, which possessed her when she was sent into space and drove her mad, leading to her actions in season three.
Yubel: “There were many different waves in space.”
Juudai: “The cards I made took on the righteous dark waves of the Neospacians, and were given new powers.”
Yubel: “Yes. But a much more powerful and ominous wave of Light befell my capsule and granted me power.”
- GX 153 -
In Johan’s case, the connection is much less obvious… That is, until you look at his deck. The Gem Beasts symbolize the seven traditionally accepted colors of the rainbow, and when light hits raindrops, the light refracts to form a rainbow.
As mentioned above, Johan’s wish is to become the bridge that connects spirits and humans. In history and mythology, rainbows have often symbolized bridges, and one of the most famous rainbow bridges is Bifröst, the bridge that connects Asgard, the realm of the Norse gods, and Midgard, where the humans live. The bridge is guarded by Heimdall, described in the Edda as ‘the white As’ (‘As’ here refers to the Æsir, the best-known group of Norse gods).[1] Since it is commonly accepted that North School lies in Scandinavia, and Bifröst features heavily in Norse mythology, this gives rise to some interesting parallels. Yubel and Johan are both connected to a form of Light, which places them opposite to Juudai. However, whereas Yubel gets possessed by the Light of Ruin, Juudai’s natural enemy, Johan’s rainbow seems to symbolize a far more benign version of light. This makes them similar, but also opposite to each other.
3. Conclusion
What does this tell us? While Juudai and Johan are very similar at first glance, most of those similarities seem centered around Duel Monsters, and Yubel and Johan actually share some qualities that Juudai does not possess. In fact, in some respects they are opposites of Juudai. Since Yubel spends most of season three watching Juudai, and Juudai spends most of his time with Johan, she may very well have spotted the similarities between them. In conclusion: even though Juudai and Johan only met a few weeks previously, Yubel still considers him far more of a threat than any of Juudai’s older friends. The similarities between them make him very dangerous to her. After all, if Juudai can love her, he can also love someone who resembles her. Therefore Johan Andersen, far more than anyone else, gains her hatred by being a reflection of Yubel herself.
[1] The Prose Edda, written down by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century, contains some of the best known Norse mythological stories. For this essay, I used a translation by Anthony Faulkes, published in 1987 by The Everyman Library.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-18 04:41 am (UTC)And I absolutely do not have about three concurrent crack theories running about that, whatever made you think so?Mmm, even with it being Juudai it still seems too fast to me? Or too meaningful, perhaps. Though it might be me fixating on the 'have we met before' line. I agree that they were probably intending to go somewhere with Johan, but had to drop the thread. There are a fair amount of things we just never find out about him: does he have human family? Why was he not on the cruise ship? And one thing that always struck me as odd was in 172, where he sees that Juudai's Fusion card is infected by Darkness, even though no one else had been able to see it before. I want to write it off as being related to seeing spirits, but Manjoume didn't see the Darkness in the cards at the start of the season.
Oooh, I wouldn't have made that connection! (It's seriously been too long since I read the Bible). I might need to rewatch seasons two and three with that in mind. It certainly wouldn't surprise me, since the 'promise' meaning wouldn't be at all far-fetched in this situation.
Right now I'm mostly focusing on Chinese mythology, which sadly doesn't feature much in the way of rainbows (or, for that matter, a coherent narrative). It's easy to find info on the cultures that wrote down their myths, but since a lot of them didn't, for various reasons, I'm always a bit wary of books that purport to give a complete overview (I'm still headdesking over the one that decided that Pan Gu and Pan Hu were the same being, despite one being a cosmic representation of chaos and the other a dog). Also that's a sweet story! Which culture is that from?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-18 05:28 am (UTC)I have at least three crack theories about Johan being someone's time-traveling child so you are totally in good company there, huhrI think part of the reason it went so fast with Judai and Johan though is that it's not JUST Judai--Johan is also very enthusiastic and receptive about the idea of friendship. It's simply a case of two very gregarious people with the same set of hobbies and interests meeting and, naturally from that, becoming friends. The 'have we met before' line IS curious, but unfortunately it's just that: one single, isolated line that's never expanded on or brought up again--again, probably because of some dropped plot thread. But because of that obvious dropped thread, it's really hard to say. I'd also question why it is that Johan seems to know so much about everyone. Rewatching S3 recently, it really struck me how often he'll make random or cryptic remarks about things that really, I can't imagine how he would know since no one else seems to. Johan seeing the dark infection in the cards really didn't strike me as that odd though. Manjoume and Judai have always been very geared towards just seeing the spirits, it's true, but Johan is established a bit more to see 'auras' and things like that: during Judai's duel with Cobra, it's true he needs Ruby's help to see the dark miasma on Cobra and his cards, but he also expresses surprise that he SHOULD need help, going 'wow, this must be a big deal if EVEN I can't see it'. That's not the exact line, but the shocked 'even I can't see' is part of it, and it implies that he's used to being able to see and detect these things on his own.
Haha. I think I'm one of the few people who immediately picks up on the biblical and judeochristian clusterbombs that get tossed around, but once you start realizing they're there, they become REALLY hard to miss. Good times! But yeah, there are about fifteen 'signs of the apocalypse' specifically mentioned in the Bible that rear their heads in GX, and one of the rather spectacular ones is definitely the serpent with the rainbow around its face showing up periodically as both reference, goal, and actual presence in the season with a fair number of near-apocalypse brushes...and of course which leads into the big world-ender guns of S4.
Chinese mythology has always fascinated me! I used to be really big into it when I was younger, but material was so hard to find back then
Chinese alchemy remains a vast and tempting mystery to me as well. And yeah, no source is going to be completely reliable...especially since you consider that even within a 'single' culture, there can be massive regional differences in any given myth, story, or figure, even between a couple of settlements within that culture, or a couple of generations. Oral traditions and cultures were living, breathing things that changed almost constantly.The story I just shared was...uh...oh hell, northern California, let me think...uh...Achomawi, I think. I'm pretty sure. It's one of the variations on the Pit River tribe, anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-19 10:26 pm (UTC)This is not the point where I dig out my good Light theories. Really.Ooh, now I really need to find a copy of the Bible. I know we ought to have one somewhere in the house, but we're not exactly the most religious people ever :p Last time I read the entire thing was when I was eleven, because I was bored.
Chinese Mythology: An Introduction by Anne Birrell is a pretty good book, that stays very close to the source material, IMO (though I may be biased because I wrote my bachelor paper on it). The only disadvantages are that it's fairly disjointed at times, since the source material often only involves a sentence or two, and that it may be geared too specifically to sinologists. We only got the basics on alchemy in class, which is a pity, because I liked the subject, but it got mostly glossed over. And yeah, there are often so many different versions and trying to shove them all in one coherent narrative would be dishonoring the source material. I think I really need to hit the library soon now XD I should go there to return some books anyway so I might try to pick up some stuff on other cultures.