Thoughts on the Battle for the Bronze
The Battle for the Bronze is very heavily framed around the assumption that because this is a low stakes friendly duel for Jounouchi, the same is true for Kaiba – or would be if he wasn’t such a monumental jerk. I am, as always, ready to concede that Kaiba is, on almost every possible occasion, a jerk, but once I started questioning the assumption that Kaiba should regard this as pure fun, the set-up to the duel got a lot more interesting.
Jounouchi has just fought off Malik’s penalty game. He’s confident that Yugi will be able to defeat Malik. It makes sense that he wants to cut loose and have fun, and as the underdog, this is as close to a just-for-fun duel as Yu-Gi-Oh! gets.
But is the same true for Kaiba?
It’s canon that the fortunes of Kaiba Corporation are at least partly tied to Kaiba’s status as a duelist. Kaiba losing a private, unpublicized duel led to a takeover attempt on his company, his brother being kidnapped, Pegasus sending assassins to kill him and both their souls being stuck on playing cards. What’s going to happen if he fails to place at his own tournament?
And that’s before we get into the emotional stakes. At the start of Battle City, even before Mai is put into a coma as the result of a penalty game, Jounouchi, like every character in the series, put emotional stakes on his duels – he’s trying to prove that he’s a true duelist and each match is about his self- respect and confidence. By fighting off Malik’s penalty game, Jounouchi has made enormous strides towards that goal; he recognizes himself as being on the path of being a true duelist.
In contrast, Kaiba is literally walking off the dueling platform after an emotionally devastating loss. Kaiba believed that he could only earn the right to a future if he beat Yami no Yugi at Alcatraz. Not only did he lose that duel, but Yami no Yugi made it clear that he lost because the demons he has to defeat first aren’t the ones in anyone’s deck, that Kaiba’s attempt to build a future using the anger and bitterness of his past as fuel was doomed to failure from the start, that if he wants to have a future he first has to accept the past, no matter how painful. That’s a lot. Honestly, Kaiba taking some time to sulk uh… process all of this is far from the most unhealthy thing he’s ever done.
And it’s at this moment that Jounouchi jumps in front of him demanding a duel. Now if this was truly a low stakes duel, when Kaiba refuses, Jounouchi should accept it, because that’s how low stakes friendly invitations work.
But Jounouchi wanted a duel, so what he does next is brilliant. He proceeds to push Kaiba’s buttons, taunting Kaiba with being a loser and being afraid, like a kid in a school yard going, “I dare you. I double dare you!”
Now I want to make it clear, this is 100% fair to me. Kaiba and Jounouchi aren’t friends. And given how Kaiba laughed at the prospect of jounouchi’s death and has been outrageously nasty to him at every encounter, Jounouchi is certainly under no obligation to consider Kaiba’s emotional state. Which is kind of my point: this isn’t, and never was, a no-stakes duel between friends.
And I would also suggest that Kaiba not having fun dueling and not having fun dueling Jounouchi in a duel he never wanted to participate in in the first place might be two separate things.
