Yu-Gi-Oh Manga: 311 The Vessel of the White Dragon

The chapter title isn't exactly a GREAT sign for the content to come, with the dehumanization baked right in there. I'm just hoping that it's limited to the characters and not the narrative enveloping the whole situation. It's one thing to have characters (WRONG characters) talking about a woman as though she is nothing more than a jar they have to open to extract the valuable substance within, and another altogether to never afford said woman the opportunity to assert herself as MORE than a jar through expression of will and human emotion/goals/thoughts/etc. It may be too early to tell yet, but I'm holding out some hope that Kisara will still be given some time to establish WHO she is so we can care about her more than the dragon.

But there's a cynical voice in my head warning me not to get my hopes up.

Why are you guys surprised? Isn't the mere rumor of this creature PRECISELY why you guys had her brought down here in the first place??

S&S expresses disbelief that Kisara summoned her ka now as he looks down at it from his harness of sticky webbing. He calls his centipede-monster Gudoul, commanding it to cut the chain his enemies hang from and send them to their deaths. While it crawls down closer to where they're dangling, because just cutting the damn chain wouldn't allow them to ruminate on the situation, Priest Seto scoffs and calls down at Kisara. She does not respond, still unconscious. Priest Seto sweats, worrying that if she doesn't wake up and make the dragon DO something, they're doomed. Gebelk and Akhenaden lean forward, the latter literally on the edge of his seat for this suspenseful (heh) situation, the former exclaiming that he can't believe SOMETHING about Kisara. He kind of trails off.

Priest Seto yells at Kisara to wake up, and still doesn't receive any response from her, as she's out cold. Gebelk shouts down from the edge of his observation deck NOT to try to wake her up anymore, though, to which Priest Seto fires back some confusion. Gebelk launches into a long explanation about how normally a person's ka (spirit guardian) is controlled by their ba (self), but he asserts that in THIS case, the dragon is Kisara's ba freed from her body. So, she's having a very visible out-of-body experience? Gebelk warns Priest Seto that the white dragon might disappear when she wakes up, because it only roams when she sleeps. 

Priest Seto interprets this to mean the white dragon being the true form of Kisara's soul. All while the slowest centipede creature ever keeps holding off on cutting that chain. S&S impatiently yells for the priest to die, but doesn't seem too frustrated with his monster's procrastination of orders yet. Priest Seto makes a nervous noise, Akhenaden calls his name in panic, both probably more concerned that Priest Seto will release the chain before the damn centipede gets around to cutting it.

Gebelk points out to Akhenaden that the dragon is shielding Priest Seto and Kisara with its tail coiled around them, and a bright ball of light is building in its slightly open jaws. Priest Seto stares in alarm at the light, questioning if it's an attack, while S&S does the same from above, recoiling from the brilliance. 

Just so there's no doubt, we're shown S&S dissolving in the blast along with his Gudoul, and even after, the white dragon just keeps vomiting fire toward the ceiling. Akhenaden and Priest Seto gape in awe and clench their teeth respectively, Gebelk the only of the three to speak words of admiration for it. The whole-ass death ray punches straight up through to the ground overhead, alarming the many guards of the palace nearby (who weren't KILLED outright, no doubt) who stutter about the pillar of light from the ground. It keeps going up, up, straight into the night sky, and it can be seen for MILES. Pretty impressive. 

Hey, she's still out, but where'd the dragon go?

Priest Seto stares down at Kisara's lolling head, looking kind of stern, like he wants to lecture her about being so sleepy or whatever. Akhenaden stares at Priest Seto in turn, also coming across as something of a glare. A good half of folks looking pretty ticked off by the recent course of events, I'd say, but the only other person who's actually awake is more on the excited end of things. As Priest Seto steps off the ramp from the arena, Gebelk gushes about how great a sight it is to his old eyes that this woman has such a powerful god dwelling within her. 

Not responding, Priest Seto hands Kisara off to a couple guards, saying she's tired and ordering them to take her to her room. All tuckered out from astral projecting her dragon soul and blasting a hole through the ceiling. The guards give their affirmative, carrying her out of there while Gebelk continues to expound upon how amazing she is for releasing her very soul from her body to summon the dragon. He tries out her name for the first time, presumably because she has such great power he's moved to like, give her basic RESPECT. No one is deserving of having their name remembered unless they have an uncontrollable nuke at their disposal, I guess.

Priest Seto agrees, reiterating that Kisara doesn't know ANY of this about herself. Gebelk elaborates on his earlier assessment, saying that a person falls into a coma when the ba departs the body, and she probably doesn't remember anything from when the white dragon appears. Akhenaden addresses Priest Seto, speculating that this dragon's power might be even greater than Diabound's. Priest Seto agrees with this as well, saying that they can counter Diabound's power if they can harness the dragon. But when Akhenaden adds that the white dragon might ALSO be more powerful than the pharaoh's three gods, Priest Seto looks a little shocked by this prospect. 

Akhenaden asks Gebelk how they capture the dragon, and Gebelk reiterates that this whole incident can only mean one thing - that Kisara's ba and ka are one in the same. Akhenaden asks if this is just another way of saying that the dragon is possessing the woman's body and using her as a vessel, which doesn't SOUND like the same thing to me, but Gebelk confirms this is what he meant. Turning to Priest Seto, Akhenaden tells him that HE has to become the vessel of the dragon now, to which Priest Seto's mild surprise becomes alarm. Gebelk says that this assertion of Akhenaden might just work, and they just need to free her soul from her body.

Just because he actually said her name once doesn't mean he won't advocate for her death so you can have her soul dragon-thing. 

Akhenaden tells Priest Seto that the god will become his if he sacrifices the girl, Priest Seto looking seriously disturbed by this proposal, but doesn't argue against it. He seems to have frozen up on the cusp of questioning/defying Akhenaden again, as Akhenaden thinks at him that the throne will accept him as the new pharaoh once he gets that dragon, his Millennium Eye practically straining in its socket. 

Priest Seto turns away, looking in the direction Kisara was taken quietly for a panel or two. Then he says he thinks they're getting ahead of themselves - they need to discovered what happened to the current pharaoh first. He starts to leave, calling on Akhenaden to join him, and he kind of glares at Priest Seto's back as his son walks off. He contemplates that Priest Seto doesn't know they're father and son, and that he's already sold his soul to the shadows. Akhenaden thinks that there's only one thing he can do as a father for Priest Seto now...

"So what's a little more"? Is that what we're saying here?

By the way, speaking of finding out what happened to the current pharaoh:

Wherever it is, waking up to some dude in a cape and with unsettlingly familiar tattoos CANNOT be a good sign.

Yami's hurry to sit up twinges his right arm, which he grasps in his pain. It's at this moment when he remembers that thief!Bakura took his Millennium Puzzle, then the stranger in the mask with Millennium Item-themed tats tells him he shouldn't be moving since he was badly injured. Little late with the warning, huh buddy? He says Yami should rest and regain his strength, then gets up and starts to walk the fuck off, as though recovering is just a matter of laying there and getting some shut-eye. What about fluids? Food? Dressings for wounds so infection doesn't set in??

As the stranger starts to make his exit, Yami asks him who he is, but receives no reply. Yami struggles to stand, asking the exiting stranger to wait up a moment, and again is ignored. At least for another panel, until he decides to identify himself as the one who watches all memories. Creepy, and also a little sad, if he's stuck watching everyone else's memories instead of making his own. Anyway, The WATCHER says a great battle is about to begin, and while Yami contemplates in question this identity The Watcher has chosen, he starts walking again. Out the mouth of the cave, Yami groaning in his efforts to follow. 

It's not long before The Watcher disappears, Yami dragging himself out of the mouth of the cave he was heading for. When Yami finally makes it out, he gapes in alarm. 

Better lay down and heal up beforehand! You know, since it's apparently so fucking easy and all.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Well, I was unfortunately not wrong that the thorax of the chapter had a panel of dudes discussing murdering a woman in order to extract her soul for one of those guys' benefits. Yes, the guy this would benefit is arguing against it, but that doesn't mean much when the audience is cursed with knowing that the Blue Eyes White Dragon is commonly played by Kaiba in the future. Nor does it make up for the fact that Kisara is rendered effectively, literally voiceless in her plight by the nature of her condition, conveniently enough for the male characters discussing her fate. And the man writing her, incidentally, because the less he has to show her being an autonomous human being, the more acceptable to the audience an eventual "sacrifice" she will be. I want to point out that KT very capably introduced Mana in her first appearance a few chapters ago with a ton of personality, but Kisara has appeared several times now and has spent her scant time awake showing no distinctive traits whatsoever. I had to be generous in an assessment of her lone show of will (to die) in the prior chapter, and that was more than likely a pure projection on my part. She is literally DESIGNED to be a vessel, so any protest by Priest Seto against killing her to get at the dragon rings hollow, because her very creator doesn't view her as anything but a means to an end either.

I just have to emphasize how I'm finding it uniquely disturbing to be covering this storyline on my blog when anti-choice legislation is gaining momentum in my country. It's almost painful, and I just don't know how I'm going to handle it long-term. We'll see - I'll let you guys know if I have to take a break for a minute. 

But that aside, I'm intrigued that Priest Seto's arguments against Akhenaden's push to have Kisara sacrificed were kind of truncated again. He cited the intense passion in Akhenaden's eyes before freezing him up, but I can't help but question if there is something more sub-surface-level than that. Perhaps, despite Priest Seto not KNOWING Akhenaden is his father, is feeling a little filial obedience subconsciously. Or, maybe it's a function of the wish Akhenaden made on the Millennium Eye, making Priest Seto's refusals to follow the path to that wish coming true ultimately flaccid. Maybe both?

And I also had to laugh a little at the strange Watcher telling Yami to rest up for his big battle, then just up and fucking off. It probably wasn't supposed to be funny, but man, there's something amusing about this big buff masked guy totally failing to actually do anything useful and then disappearing. Just the chortle I needed after being infuriated for a good portion of the chapter, honestly.

Off-topic digression - happy birthday to my mother today! <3 <3 <3