Mirror Mirror: An analysis of Johan Andersen as a reflection for Yuuki Juudai and Yubel
Mirror 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 ( Read more... )
I think that part of Yubel's particular assault on Johan is also driven by the fact that he's the one of Judai's friends who doesn't succumb to 'basic' and 'general' attacks. People like Shou and Manjoume, who one would naturally expect to be closer to Judai and therefore more threatening, are nonetheless brought to heel by mere zombie minions. In that way, they're not something Yubel had to focus on directly him/herself, and they at no point appeared to be getting between him/her and Judai. Furthermore, of the survivors when Judai finally challenged Yubel, only Johan jumped into the fight. This means that of all of Judai's friends, only Johan ever directly confronted Yubel, and Johan did so while declaring himself a close of Judai's. In this way, he made himself a much more direct threat on several levels in one fell swoop, and I think that's a large part of the reason Yubel focuses so much hatred on him: he directly, and forcibly, DID put himself between them, and Judai accepted it. The message of 'I reject you and substitute this European guy' is an easy extrapolation from there.
I also think it's interesting that one of the other most famous 'rainbow as bridge' mythologies is Greek--tying in neatly to 'Caesar's Tablet' which contained Rainbow Dragon. and then there's Peru with the 'rainbow serpent' as bridge, and power conduit, with the black and white faces, but I think that has less to do with Johan as a character than it does with the Chavin references in the series so disregard
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Good point on that. Johan gets... pushy xD He definitely made himself look like far more of a threat than anyone else, whether he realized that or not (I'm inclined to say no, since Johan's first reflex to anyone being in trouble seems to be 'run towards the danger at high speed and disregard my personal safety'). One of the things I cut was whether Juudai noticed the same similarities or not, hence the rapid bonding, but for that to really work, there would have to be a more tangible connection between Johan and Yubel, which we have no evidence for. Not that I don't have several theories on that - I still want an explanation for that 'Have we met before' line.
I kind of wish that I would've been able to add in some Greek mythology... I suppose Rainbow Dragon was a messenger and a harbinger of war, in a sense, but it didn't seem to fit too well. Out of curiosity, have you ever read 'The Rainbow Bridge' by Raymond Lee and Alistair Frazer? It's a mostly general book on rainbows in several branches of science, but it did include a rather nice chapter on rainbows in world mythology. I found it a bit too general at times, but it gave a pretty nice overview. (Also, any suggestions for info on mythology in the Americas? That's one area of the world where my knowledge is woefully inadequate)
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Johan does tell us that fighting is how he solves his problems (in the doodlebug ep, isn't it?), even when it's not the best of ideas. So I think even if he had realized he was painting a target on his forehead he still would have gone barreling in guns blazing. Though, I would say that Judai's rapid bonding with him was just about Judai being Judai. You've gotta remember way back to the first episode--he clicks with Misawa and Shou instantly. And even if that were just to be brushed off as him being friendly, he picks back up with Misawa immediately at the school with no real indication of them having had any other time to hang out. He makes friends very fast with pretty much everyone, barring just a few exceptions, which I think is part of why I've always felt that the early parts of everyone's surprise at Judai and Johan bonding so fast, at least, were a little forced. But you're right about the recognition line. There are a lot of moments in Johan's character that make me feel like they were forced to drop a plot thread with him
Well here's another interesting one I've always noticed, though not from the Americas: Biblical. The way Rainbow Dragon is put together, all the stones are set around it's face, right? Well, the only actual place in the Bible that rainbows appear (the Noah story it's just a 'promise' across the sky; 'rainbow' isn't actually used in the original Hebrew text) is in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelations. The angels who act as harbingers/messengers of the apocalypse have rainbows about their faces. Bear in mind they're also the type of angel that is traditionally depicted as serpents, and the WOAH factor is huge! Especially if you tie Johan to the Light, given that Saiou and his cultists were dropping sometimes-not-even-thinly-veiled Biblical references and paraphrasings throughout season 2 (and the tree-of-life-shaped 'world' card). Since season 3 is basically the fruition of Light!Saiou's prophecy of Judai bringing a terrible End of Days...
A lot of the rainbow myths I know from the Americas are in South America, but I do know some 'American Indian' ones too. Come to think of it, there's at least one that involves a bunch of animals coming together to make the first rainbow. They shot two arrows into the clouds and all sang until the songs lifted two young spiders into heaven, where they begged the creator to bring spring back, and he was so touched by their teamwork and sincerity that he not only made it spring, but made their silk-and-arrow bridge to the sky a rainbow, and made sure their webs would fill with rainbows every morning. It's a cool little story. And then of course there's the 'Rainbow Crow' story. Generally though you're probably going to find the best information by looking up the mythology of the individual cultures and finding the rainbow myths in there than in books of general mythology, which will usually just be, as you said, really general.
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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?
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I 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.
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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.
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Looking at syntheticpoetic's reply, I noticed one story that was left out. Since it's famously known locally where I live in California. And it was also used as inspiration for the sculpture sundial memorial of the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 in Port Hueneme.
It pretty much explains the creation of dolphins from a Rainbow Bridge made connecting the islands to the mainlands. It is interesting to note that a "Sky Snake" is involved with the tale.
The Legend of the Rainbow Bridge
Imagine Neo-Spacian Aqua Dolphin's reaction.
Something else to make note of:
I also know of Coyote and/or Sky Coyote being a semi-creator and protector of humans in the Chumash myths. He is often portrayed as a fool or very wise at times.
And while Coyote is refereed to as a creator in some tribes he is also known for bringing death. Coyote and the Origin of Death.
One Chumash tale is that Coyote and Sun gamble together. When Sun wins, he gets to eat/kill people. But when Coyote wins, Sun isn't able to do that.
Both Coyote and Sun are often seen in both positive and negative dual perspectives. I don't think it would be that hard to make the comparison of Coyote to Darkness and the Sun to the Light.
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