The Pendulum Guiding Towards Uniqueness
Oh man. I haven’t done this in a while but...
Let’s talk about something real quick:
Let’s talk about what an important and wholesome message this is.
I know the fandom loves to give Yusho a lot of crap, especially with how he acts during the last arc of the show, among a few other things, but let’s just appreciate that even if Yusho isn’t the best father in Yugioh history, he’s still a good dad overall.
Good especially for Yuya.
Let’s talk about the fact that Yusho isn’t entirely pushing an entertainment persona onto Yuya. I’m certain he’s beyond happy that his son looks up to him and is following in his footsteps, but he’s never wanted Yuya to be like him. He’s wanted Yuya to be like Yuya.
I mean...
Children of celebrities and public figures like Yusho usually have their work cut out for them. If normal kids are already expected by their parents to be the absolute best at everything, I think celeb kids can have it especially hard because they’re dealing with living up to their parents’ expectations, their own expectations, and lastly...
Society’s expectations.
y’all know where i’m going with this, right?
*coughszarccoughs*
Yusho supports Yuya no matter which direction he chooses to take for himself, so at the very least Yuya doesn’t have to worry too much about pressure from expectations from his parents.
That leaves just his own expectations and what society expects from him as the only pressures affecting him constantly.
Well the problem is, Yusho isn’t there for most of the story to reassure him of this. To reassure him that there is no pressure on his part at all, something that Yuya, due to Yusho’s prolonged absence, isn’t entirely aware of.... (if you don’t believe me, recall Yuya’s painful breakdown in ep. 135 as proof... the poor boy apologizes to Yusho, even when he’s not there, thinking that Yusho would be disappointed or ashamed in him, even though we, the audience, know that he has nothing to apologize for).
Hell, we saw in the second duel Yuya had against Jack Atlas that it apparently took Yuya years and an intervention from Jack Atlas himself for him to realize what Yusho meant about “preserving his Yuya-ness” and not using his “borrowed words”. He wanted Yuya to find his own words instead.
The pendulum itself is a great symbol for this since it can represent two things: swaying between one thing to another, a.k.a. indecision or uncertainty (specifically, uncertainty in yourself) BUT it can also symbolize a tool for discovery, as Yusho has pointed out before in a different flashback— if Yuya ever gets lost, the Pendulum is there to guide him.
But the Pendulum only swings between two (2) extremes; in this case, since Yusho is gone and with him his expectations of Yuya (if any) as well, what’s left is that, for Yuya, the Pendulum swings between: his own expectations vs. society’s expectations.
We see several times that Yuya is always troubled between either to entertain people and make them happy or to fight to save the world, and of course striking a balance between the two isn’t quite as simple as just stopping the Pendulum in the middle of its tracks, especially not when there are other factors that are in the mix. Thus, we get Arc-V’s story and the conflicts Yuya faces throughout it.
Going backwards a bit, though, I also want to point out the sad irony that is carried by Yuya repeating the words “preserve my uniqueness...”
This should be a bit more straightforward for a couple of reasons (such as the fact that he isn’t the only Pendulum user anymore, or later on, as stated before, the fact that his entertainment style is based on his father’s “borrowed words”, etc.), but mainly because as the story progresses, we find out that Yuya isn’t quite so unique:
There are 3 other boys who look just like him. Granted, these 3 other boys might look like him, but they act nothing alike (thankfully). But, okay, then it’s revealed that they were once actually all one person.
I’ll repeat that and add onto it:
Yuya and these three other boys who look just like him are actually the same person, and, to top it all off, this person that they once all were (Zarc) had no Pendulum at the time, meaning he had no guidance, and, as a consequence, found himself succumbing to society’s expectations.
So given his ultimate background, how does Yuya, aka a fragment of someone’s soul, as Zarc likes to call him, “preserve his uniqueness...”?
Well, think of it this way: if you break a glass, you end up with fragments of that glass. And although you can gather the pieces and put them all back together to make it into the original whole again, you still have just fragments merged into a whole again. Each fragment has its own unique edges that make up its own unique shape, and I guarantee that none of the other fragments are quite the same, even if they’re all equally important to the whole.
It’s this uniqueness about him that Yusho wants Yuya to preserve, but that Yuya can’t see for himself. It’s why Yuya’s Pendulum is so necessary to him: it’s why when he lost it as a child, he cried, or why when Zarc finally takes over him and Yuya is lost to his darkness, his Pendulum falls to the floor— unswaying and directionless. And it’s why Zarc doesn’t even bother with it either— why would he since he already chose a path— just like he did the first time before Ray split him into four fragments. He said so himself: he made a vow back then to meet the expectations that society thrust upon him for more violent entertainment, and that vow remained unwavering even after his revival...
I suppose it’s, once again, ironic that Yuya doesn’t regain control over Zarc & himself until Reiji points out to Zarc, who denies being Yuya, that he is Yuya... but that he’s also always been Zarc. Always been swaying back and forth between his two extremes: Yuya, the entertainer who ultimately always seems to choose to live up to his own standards of what he believes Entertainment should really be for (which is to bring and protect smiles), and Zarc, the entertainer who lived solely for the purpose of meeting society’s expectations.
And thus, the Pendulum guides Yuya back to his own heart again...
But what about the other three fragments: Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri? Are they even unique? What can make them unique?
Well of course they’re unique! The nuance here is that they’re parts of Zarc, as Yuya is as well, that make up Zarc’s whole HUMAN entertainer personality.
Yuto was the part of Zarc that didn’t actually want to hurt anyone but did so because it was expected of him. Yugo was the competitive and obsessive part of Zarc that kept him motivated to continue his violent duels since it was expected of him. And, of course, Yuri was the psychotic, lost part of Zarc that led him to his ultimate endgame: fusing with his dragons to become an ultimate force of destruction, as was expected of him. Leo himself expected Yuri to be reliably unstoppable and used him (since he was a mere child, in fact), much like the Original Dimension’s society did, to meet his expectations of completing Arc-V (the machine).
But then we’re back again to question which part of Zarc Yuya made up. Well, it’s very simple:
Yuya was the part of Zarc that originally just wanted to make the people of the Original Dimension, his monsters, and his opponents smile.
THIS is the uniqueness that Yusho desired for Yuya to preserve about himself.
Yusho, despite the adversity and the reality about Yuya that inevitably presents itself before him...
...has absolute faith in Yuya.
That Yuya, as Yoko would say...
... will surpass Yusho Sakaki in that ability. Thus why Yusho would be at ease if he passed on, knowing that Yuya is still alive and well and would take on his role.
But again, we’re back to an expectation of Yuya. Neither Yoko nor Yusho actually care how he does it, they just know that Yuya will bring smiles to the world. Because they have that much faith in his uniqueness.
But it’s not a far-fetched expectation— Jack Atlas himself knows this is true of him. He knows it’s Yuya’s role to play in his life. That why he pushes Yuya to recognize that his father’s borrowed words about entertainment and smiles aren’t his true dueling, his Pendulum summoning is.
This is why Yusho never led his son into the path that Dennis eventually took as his protege: he had faith that Yuya would eventually found something completely UNIQUE of his own, just as he did, and SURPASS HIM.
The courage to take YOUR OWN step forward.
By the end of Arc V, we see Yusho recognizes this in Yuya, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered challenging him head on (as he claimed previously within the last few episodes that if Yuya wasn’t able to save Reira, and to an extent the world’s, smiles, then he wouldn’t be a true duelist after all, but Yuya of course did).
In the end, Yuya himself has outgrown his own ambition of becoming like his dad, Yusho. He’s learned that his uniqueness due to his Pendulum has given him the unbound potential to surpass Yusho.
And that truly is a Miracle Drawn by the Pendulum of Uniqueness.
