It's time for more Yubel analysis! This time: Yubel and the concept of symmetry and asymmetry reflected in their design, beliefs, and relationships. I've argued previously that Yubel's idea of love is immature and oversimplified in how it conflates many kinds of relationship into a single concept, but that isn't the only dimension to how Yubel understands love. Yubel's idea of love - and of themself - is tied to reciprocity and the relationship between being loved and loving yourself.
Obligatory disclaimers:
As I've written previously (see the above link), I explore Yubel's idea of love as not exclusively romantic love but as the broad concept of giving/receiving compassion which includes romantic love.
This post is meant as character analysis and is not intended to discuss the merit of any ships. My personal interpretations are also not me trying to define how everyone should see the character, but instead offering one of many potential angles I find interesting.
As with most of my posts, this applies to the sub version of GX but not the dub where Yubel's character is changed significantly. Once again I'll briefly discuss why the dub doesn't really work with these themes at the end of this post.
Core Philosophy: The Reciprocity of Love and Pain
Yubel's stated core philosophy in S3 is that love and pain are intertwined, and the shared experience/understanding of pain is what it means to love and be loved.
Yubel: The anguish and sorrow it forms is what will allow us to understand our love...
(episode 153)
But to Yubel, it's not that love is hurting someone however you like. Inflicting pain is a form of love ONLY when it's reciprocal - you must feel pain at the hands of the one you love, as well as causing your loved one to feel pain at yours. This distinction is showcased when they call out Amon for his treatment of Echo.
Amon's sacrifice of Echo isn't love if he hurt her without being hurt himself. Pain must be symmetrical for it to be love. Otherwise it's just cruelty.
Of course this is 100% undistilled copium on Yubel's part trying to justify what happened to them. They do genuinely tell themself love is like this, but it's also a rationalization for them to lash out at Judai.
Yubel's Coping Narrative: Symmetry is God
Like Amon, Yubel is deeply loyal to a certain person to the point of configuring their life around him. Amon had Cid; Yubel has Judai. The god Amon serves (Cid) is not the one he loves (Echo). Yubel, on the other hand, loves and serves Judai and Judai exclusively.
That Judai loves them is a central truth that defines Yubel's existence, i.e., their god. This is part of why they're so incensed when Amon kills the one he loves to break the chains tying him to the one he serves: they still can't kill their own god because their love is their god, and those two things are what Yubel lives for.
To Yubel, their and Judai's love is in itself a symmetry that cannot be broken, only reshaped. Yubel would rather die than believe Judai doesn't love them the way they love Judai. And yet he sent them out into a torturous experience in space and then went silent, and through no fault of Judai's own Yubel doesn't get any answers on why until several years later.
So they try to justify their pain with a narrative. This suffering has to mean something, otherwise they're just a victim of a senselessly terrible situation. Judai's silence has to mean something, too, because the alternative (that Yubel loves Judai but Judai doesn't love Yubel) is mathematically impossible. Taking both those things as pillars of logic, Yubel bends over backwards to invent a narrative to reconcile that central dogma of his love with their present suffering.
What they come up with is: Judai hurt me even though he loves me, so this pain must be his form of love now. Therefore, showing Judai love means causing him pain as well. Even when the facade of their dedication cracks and their resentment bleeds out - which it does on occasion (calling him a liar in episode 129, for example) - they go right back to proclaiming how Judai taught them everything they're currently putting him through and how they're doing this all to make him happy, really.
Yubel: How cruel, Judai… After all, despite the love I have for you, you only threw me out into space. [...] I was suffering even as you came to forget about me. "It burns…it hurts…it's killing me… But why? I love him so much. Why is Judai treating me like this?" And then, it hit me. "This is just a form of Judai's love. Judai is hurting me and making me suffer because of his love for me." But you see, I couldn't possibly forget about you in the time I've suffered… So when I solved the riddle that you posed to me, I was delighted. And that fueled my decision.
(episode 153)
So Yubel sets out to prove all that suffering meant something by hurting him back. The pain is not currently symmetrical, so they'll MAKE it symmetrical.
And why do they cling so tightly to the idea that Judai loves them? Why is that such an unshakeable truth? Because the idea that Judai loves them is deeply tied with Yubel's image of themself as unlovable by design. In fact, their idea of love involves symmetry in defiance of their own nature as a monster.
Nightmare Pain: (A)symmetry in Yubel's Design
The asymmetry in Yubel's monster form hardly needs to be discussed. Asymmetry is all over their body, from the split hair and eye colors to the textures of their arms/legs and even the coverage of the black portions of their body (armor? scales?). And of course their chest is asymmetrical too, with a female breast on one side and a male breast on the other. (This has alchemical symbolism as well, but that isn't the focus of this essay.)
More than that, reflecting damage and not taking any damage themself is an explicit part of Yubel's card effect. Judai even calls this out in the duel:
Yubel frames it as mutual ("My suffering will come to be your suffering, Judai!") but Yubel very much does not get hurt the way Judai does when the Nightmare Pain effect hits. This is, inherently, asymmetrical pain.
Not to mention, Yubel's effect only activates once attacked. Theoretically, Yubel can only deal damage if someone else initiates: the existence of their offense is symmetrical to that of their opponent. However, in the anime Yubel can force an opposing monster to attack them to trigger their own effect - forcing pain onto their opponent, while immune to the same thanks to their own defenses. Even the reactive symmetry of their damage reflection can be made into an asymmetrical weapon.
Even in their higher forms, (the anime version of) Yubel's effects use a symmetry of their own. Their second form destroys every other monster on their field but themselves, and an equivalent number of monsters will be destroyed on the opponent's side of the field. And rather than force the opponent to attack, their third form can directly trigger their effect by attacking and turning the opponent's offense against them.
But more than just the design elements in battle, it's very important that Yubel's monster form and its asymmetrical nature are viewed as something that will repel others. Yubel is aware of the implications here. As the duel closes, Yubel reveals their true feelings about their effects:
Yubel: My ability always leaves me unharmed by an attack. All I can do is harm others without getting hurt myself. In such a state, I never received love from anyone…
(episode 155)
They're aware that they harm others asymmetrically, and that very quality distances them from the rest of the world. Strip the coping mechanisms away, and you've got someone who thinks they are inherently unlovable.
This probably isn't something they came to believe entirely on their own. The Japanese names for Yubel's higher form are Yubel - Das Abscheulich Ritter and Yubel - Das Extremer Traurig Drachen (roughly "Yubel - The Horrible/Abominable Knight" and "Yubel - The Extremely Sorrowful Dragon" respectively). These suggest Yubel to be reviled yet tragic.
And indeed, we see some potential roots for that in their backstory. Yubel was once a normal-looking human, and was transformed into the draconic, aggressively asymmetrical monster we see them as today. And they were told from the start, in very explicit terms, that the thing they became would be hideous and reviled.
For the sake of Judai's past life, Yubel took on a body that they knew would be unlovable. And from what little we know about their history, they were already dedicated to him in such a way that they accepted that fact as a matter of duty. Possibly, though not certainly, without expecting anything in return.
It is certain that they internalized the point about their nature making them incapable of being loved.
Yubel: My ability always leaves me unharmed by an attack. All I can do is harm others witout getting hurt myself. In such a state, I never received love from anyone…
(episode 155, emphasis mine)
Love: Turning Asymmetry into Symmetry
But to Judai's past life, it wasn't right for Yubel to give everything for him in a one-sided gesture. He refuses to let that asymmetry stand, and responds to Yubel's devoted sacrifice of their humanity with his own promise of devoted love.
Asymmetry becomes symmetry. The ugly becomes beautiful. The unlovable becomes loved.
The reciprocity of a boy's love pretty much forms the basis of Yubel's entire self-image and world view. Because Yubel loved Judai enough to the point of sacrifice, Judai loves them to the point of devotion. And because Judai swears such love and devotion, Yubel is able to embrace the horrible hurt-and-never-be-hurt monster they've become as a result of their sacrifice.
For Yubel, love is a force that takes an impossible asymmetry - Yubel's existence as a monster - and pushes through to create symmetry anyway. Love is symmetrical, reciprocal, mutual, mirrored, even in spite of Yubel's asymmetrical nature. And as long as Yubel loves Judai, reflected in the body they took on for his sake, Judai cannot possibly stop loving Yubel by his own vow.
Or so their logic goes.
The flipside of that mutual devotion is what we see in season 3 when that reciprocity is disrupted by both reincarnation and outside factors. If Judai doesn't love Yubel, if his love has already been given to others, then what's left for Yubel? Maybe once Yubel was okay with becoming a martyr for love, but not anymore. Love has become Yubel's god, and without the assurance of Judai's mutual love Yubel's entire belief system comes crashing down. Everything they suffered - in this life or in the previous one - has no meaning, they're just a horrible creature doomed to a lonely existence.
Yubel: Do you hate me that much? I thought of this twelve-dimension universe as a space for us to live together, Judai. So, I tried to fill this universe with my love. But, if you're calling on your friends and going to such lengths to get rid of me, I no longer need to fill this universe with love. No, I no longer need this world! …Let me put an end to this universe, to the void we're in and to our time together.
(episode 154)
This is how we get to Yubel's choice to blow up the universe outside of themself and Judai, eliminating everything else but the minimum necessary to maintain the illusion they are still loved (which is in turn tied up with fulfilling their purpose as a guardian). And let's be real, it's very possible Yubel might not have survived blowing up the universe either - and it's likely that even if they didn't survive, death would still be preferable to existing alone with their self-loathing. Of course the Light of Destruction doesn't help, but I think it guided Yubel's thoughts towards total annihilation more than it forced them.
Judai and Yubel: Equal and Opposite Halves
Thankfully, Yubel does not successfully blow up the universe. In the end Judai recognizes that he and Yubel are really the same.
There's many, many things you can say about how Judai and Yubel are set up as narrative foils. In fact, my friend @linkspooky has written about this multiple times, including plenty of alchemical symbolism as well as Jungian. Even from a basic story perspective, Yubel's torment works in the end because Judai's experiences in Dark World teach him that they're both immature people who feel very strongly about the ones they love, but are capable of terrible things while at their worst. The asymmetry of their relationship becomes symmetrical as Yubel intended, both of them hurting each other and understanding each other through their pain. And while it done was through force, Judai's exposed flaws were also there from the start.
Judai is the hero. He wins and he saves the day. That's what his friends depend on him for. If he wins duels, then everything will work out. His breakdown into the Supreme King is in fact started when that system comes crashing down on his head: he defeated Brron, but his friends are still gone.
"Winning duels means my friends will stay with me" is as fragile a principle as "Loving Judai means Judai will love me." And when that crumbles, Judai's coping mechanism is to flip to the other direction as the Supreme King: victory means being alone.
Once he's back to himself Judai spends most of his final duel against Yubel denying they're the same, claiming that his fight for his friends is righteous while Yubel fights for their selfishness.
Judai: While you took in the Wave of Light, sunk into evil, and burned with your thoughts of revenge alone…I made a lot of friends. And they all taught me something. Real love is wide enough, large enough, and deep enough to fill the universe. Your so-called love is only a conceited delusion!
(episode 154)
Judai is the hero and Yubel is the villain, so that's why he will win and Yubel will lose. That's what heroes and villains do. That's how it's been for every enemy he's fought until now.
Judai: We can't protect what matters to us just by being kind. I'm prepared to fight for the friends I love to the end, even if it means being a demon or devil! It just dawned on me that power comes from purpose! And without the unity that friends share, you won't stand a chance!
(episode 154, emphasis mine)
But as he learns eventually, Yubel also became a demon for the sake of someone they loved. There is no way that one of them can be the hero and one the villain, because any justification he can use to condemn Yubel can be used against him, too. Likewise, redeeming himself can only happen if Yubel is redeemed as well. Their fates are mirrored and symmetrical.
The difference between Judai and Yubel is that Judai is past his lowest point, because his friends went in and pulled him out of it even when it cost them. Yubel is still deep in the trenches, and it's for that reason that Judai abandons his righteousness and flips to saving Yubel as someone he cares about and as a victim of the Light of Destruction.
At the start of their final duel, Yubel explicitly outlines part of the symbolism of Super Fusion for the duel.
Yubel: Super Fusion symbolizes Supreme King Judai. I dream of using Super Fusion to combine the twelve dimensions and fill them with my love. Judai, if you have accepted my love, choose Super Fusion for me!
Judai: Who'd do that?!
(episode 153)
And of course at the time Judai doesn't go for it, because why would he accept the villain like that? But by the end of the duel, he willingly chooses Super Fusion - a gesture that Yubel has long given up on by that point.
Fusing their souls is a mutual redemption, a way to take Yubel's hand and say let's grow up together. It's also an acceptance of Yubel's feelings, and a way to match the love that Yubel has been looking for this entire time. Where Yubel is hurting and alone because of a sacrifice they made for his past self, now in the present Judai is ensuring that neither of them will ever be alone again by making his own sacrifice.
In the end, Judai and Yubel's love of each other also ties into their ability to love themselves. Love between yourself and your now-literal other half is symmetry: to deny your other half love means to deny yourself love, but as long as there is love you will never be alone.
God is real. The unlovable becomes loved. That doesn't mean everything is perfect, but it makes continuing to live worth it.
Aside: Yubel in the Dub
Yubel's appearance is one of the more infamous examples of 4KIDS censorship in GX, giving them a second female breast and a tank top rather than the slanted top emphasizing their single-pec design. Yubel is also referred to as exclusively female rather than variably gendered as in the sub.
This, quite obviously, erases some of the asymmetry in Yubel's character design (though various other elements remain). Along with their appearance, their motives are also changed. Yubel operates on a twisted association of love and pain that characterizes them in the sub, driving them to harm Judai as a means to validate the justifications on which they've hung their self-worth. They outline this in episode 150 against their duel with Amon.
Yubel (sub): I've been hurt! I've suffered! I've been in pain! And that's why I'm having Judai go through those same feelings! That could be what it means for us to love!
(episode 150)
Dub Yubel, on the other hand, just wants revenge. The dub version of the above line is as follows:
Yubel (dub): He left me! All alone...and so now he's going to suffer for all the wrong that he did to me! After the darkness in you [Adrian] restores my power!
(episode 150)
And revenge is a symmetry in itself, eye for an eye, but it's a different form. Dub Yubel harms Jaden as an end in itself rather than the means of making another, more important point to either Judai or Yubel themself. It's something of a nuance to their motives, but as I've spent the rest of this post outlining it's a very importance nuance that drives why they do what they do.
This isn't to say dub Yubel is a bad character, but the claims I make about sub Yubel just don't apply to dub Yubel because they don't have the same core motives. There's probably a lot you can say about dub Yubel instead, but I'm not qualified to discuss it until I see all of GX season 3 dubbed.
Heyo, I’m back! :D Randomly felt the urge to resurrect an old art style of mine, and naturally I ended up drawing Saiou again (if you follow my sketch blog on here you already know, haha!) I went rogue on his outfit design because I can, and this kind of art is all about the Shapes™ anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This stencil-like style really takes me back though, I would doodle stuff like this all the time in high school! I never fell out of love for it or anything, I think the only reason I stopped doing it over time is because I feel it hits differently when done in ink or pencil, and I just don’t do nearly as much traditional stuff as I used to. This is one of only a handful of times I’ve done this style digitally, and while it still feels different to me, I continue to love it nonetheless ;u; I think it’s a good combo of my affinity for flowing graphic shapes in my logo designs with my character illustration art in general.
Also I did not plan this whatsoever, but I suddenly remembered that today is once again the anniversary of me posting my art online (15 years!), so doing an old art style with a new muse honestly could not have been more perfect for today. Combining old love with new love, I suppose :’D
It's not currently big enough to fit on much (might be able to fix that later), but I've still put these two designs up on my Redbubble if you’re interested! Thanks <3
Takes a guy who's obsessed with saving people even if it risks his life and a guy who is literally allergic to asking for help in any situation and puts them in My stew puts them in my fucking stew and stirs it
