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linkspooky · 3 days

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Yu Gi Oh GX and Alchemy: Citrinitas and the Splendor Solis

Yu-Gi-Oh GX, an anime that exists to sell you Trading Cards is a also a piece of media with some of the most well-researched, and layered symbols and references to the Great Work in Alchemy. The show is built around it's alchemical symbolism, each of the four seasons representing a step is the Great Work of turning lead into gold.

Season is Nigredo or 'blackening', Season 2 is Albedo or 'whitening', Season 3 is Cintrinatis or 'yellowing' and Season 4 is 'reddening,' where Judai achieves wholeness of the self, and completely his journey of growing from a child to an adult.

Season 3 is the yellowing, symbolized by the color yellow, the element of earth, and where Judai completes his final chemical wedding with his opposite and his soul Yubel.

The entirety of GX s a metaphor for the Great Work, with season 3 focusing on the yellow stage. The group that surrounds Judai represents each of the 4 stages of alchemy.

Manjoume, (Nigredo Black, and Fire)

Asuka (Albedo, White, and Water),

Misawa (Citrinatis, Yellow, and Earth)

Judai (Rubedo, Red, the Philosopher's stone, and Air).

Season 3 depicts the drowning of the king, only for him to be reborn again. The king in this situation being Judai who drowns and rises up as the Supreme King associated with yellow, is defeated and dethroned, only to embrace the Supreme King's power and integrate it into himself.

All of Season 3 is a necessary dissolution of Judai, in order for him to be reforged into a stronger person, the way metal is purified through the process of alchemy. Judai even states in embracing Yubel at the end of the season that even if his previous self was destroyed he's fine with that because it's a part of growing up.

The entire season is themed around solve et coagula (dissolve and coagulate, rinse away the impurities to refine yourself into a better version of yourself / reforge the stone). Letting things dissolve away is needed in order to become purified, the same way that death alway proceeds a rebirth. We will call back to these ideas time and time again over the course of this meta. This symbolism starts in the very first episode of the season 106, where Judai experiences a dream premonition of the future.

In this dream Judai wakes up in a desert dimension, the same dimension, Yubel will later teleport the academy to. He sees his friends all turned to sand, only for the wind to scatter them on the breeze.

Not only is this a reference to Dissolve et Coagula, but Judai's friends will also literally dissolve later when they are used as sacrifice materials for Super Polymerization, only to coagulate at the end of the season. This scene also takes place in a desert, and earth is the element associated with citrinitas.

The Exchange Students

This episode also features the introduction of the four transfer students, particularly Johan. Each transfer student is associated with an element and a phase in the four step process of Alchemy.

Austin O'Brien, uses a fire deck, associated with nigredo

Amon Garam, uses a water deck, associated with Albedo

Jim Crocodile Cook, uses an earth deck, associated with Citrinatis

What about Johan, you ask?

So far we've been talking about Alchemy as a four step process, but sometimes there is a fifth step called Peacock's tail (The Prismatic Phase).

The peacock tail is a physical stage in alchemy, a brilliant flash of green which comes to signify that the alchemist is one the right path. It can also be recognized in spiritual/psychological alchemy as a flash of visions that come to the adept as they move through the phases of transformation.

The Splendor Solaris painting of Venus / The Peacock is associated with love (the domain the goddess venus presides over), spirit, spiritualism, and inspiriation. II often compare it to the star Major Aracana in Tarot, which is a card of renewed hope and faith and a flash of temporary insight.

What better step fits Johan who not only plays a deck based around seven monsters, which represent the seven colors of light that make up the prismatic rainbow, but also is a character who is capable of seeing duel spirits like Judai.

The most important part of the prismatic phase though is that it's temporary, it's a flash of insight. Johan most notably, after appearing and burning so bright he captures all of Judai's attention disappears halfway through the season.

The search for the yet to be discovered Rainbow Dragon is also what drives both Judai and Johan the first half of Season 3, especially when it becomes their only way to get home. While the search for Johan himself, is what drives Judai in the second half. Johan really is the star in the distance who's light Judai is following.

Judai's first duel against Austin is meant to invoke Nigredo, the boiling away of impurities. Austn uses a fire themed deck, and over the course of the duel Judai helps "purify them" to the point where they remember they're not supposed to blindly follow orders. Austin invokes the fire symbolism by quite literally saying his father was a man who blazed with passion.

I'd forgotten what my father taught me. My father wasn't jsut a dog who fought as he was told. He was a warrior who burned with passion. And he...Judai made me remember that.

Judai's purifying of Austin's soul also starts his character arc here, as he quickly grows from more than just Professor Cobra's willing collaborator.

Kenzan and Jim's duel is a reference to the step of Citrinitas. Kenzan and Jim both duel with earth centered decks, Kenzan's deck revolves around resurrecting dinosaurs, and Jim's deck digs fossils out of the earth. Jim's deck even revolves around fusing summoning monsters in the graveyards, which is a reference to his career as digging fossils deep out of the ground. Kenzan also wears yellow, and when his dinosaur DNA gets out of control his eyes turn yellow. The two of them have their duel on a dry patch of dirt in the middle of the forest.

Cintriatis is referred to as the drawning of the "solar light" inherent in one's being, and that reflective "lunar or soul light" was no longer necessary [source]. What this essentially means is that the subconscious becomes conscious, or we become aware of what we usually keep hidden about ourselves.

Jim's duel against Kenzan references this because the purpose of the duel itself is to wake up Kenzan from a primal, animalistic, subconscious state activated because his Dinosaur DNA went out of control. Jim is basically attempting to show Kenzan the light by calming him down with a duel, something he'll do much later with Judai. A duel between them is a duel betwee instinct and higher reasoning.

The last duel of the exchange students is Manjoume vs Amon. It's a duel that reveals so much and yet so little about Amon's character.

The second stage of alchemy is called albedo, a latinicized term of "whiteness." It's a purification thatfollows after the nigredo stages where all impurities are washed away. It's associated with water.

Amon invokes this stage in several ways. He plays a cloudian deck, clouds are associated with water. Albedo is associated with water because it features the "washing away" of impurities. They duel each other over a a pool of water, in a duel where the loser will be dropped into water below. Manjoume even refers to himself as the lightning going through Amon's clouds, there's only lightning when it rains.

Manjoume: I'm not a spoiled rich dude, casually gazing up at clouds like you were. Manjoume: If you're a white cloud, then I'll be the black thunder.

Albedo is also a stage associated with purification / purity, and the entire duel Amon is remarked upon as being pure / being unreadable like the white clouds themselves.

Manjoume: I'm beating him. It's obvious that I'm cornering him, but... Manjoume: ...What's with this cavelier attitude of his? It's almost like he's like a cloud. Manjoume: I haven't seen him dueling yet. What could he be hiding in those clouds?

Manjoume is also a character associated with Nigredo as he's wearing black, and plays a dragon deck, and the duel ends with him falling in the water.

The exchange student duels end, as the duel academy kids begin hunting down professor Cobra. There's a few moments of interesting elemental symbolism in these duels.

Judai is forced to duel his professor while Asuka, a character who also wears white and is therefore associated with Albedo is about to drown in a chamber slowly flooding with water.

This also doubles ad Jungian symbolism because this is Judai's first confrontation with his jungian shadow the repressed part of his personality. His professor derides him for lacking darkness of the heart. These words speak of Judai's flaws that have previously remained hidden, his selfishness, his unhealthy habit of taking on other's burdens because he lacks a purpose of his own.

Satou: You can't win. I have something that you lack? Judai: Something that I lack? Satou: The darkness of the heart lying deep within a duelist. Judai: Darkness of the heart? Satou: It is what a duelist burdens his heart with. Judai-kun, you lack anything of the sort. Judai: Something I'd burden my heart with? Satou: Thus far, there hasn't been a single duel which I've dueled for myself. ALthough, because you only think only of yourself, I suppose you couldn't possibly understand. Judai: But where's the fun in dueling like that? Satou: There's nothing fun about it! Being burdened with the expectations of others, yet continuing to stay strong. THat's what it was like.

His entire deck strategy revolves around taking control Judai's monsters and turning them against him. His ace monster is also known as "scab knight", a warrior covered in scars from fighting whil enduring the burden of everyone's expectations. Judai will come to resemble this card later on in the season.

I'll make a brief mention of Giese because this is the moment where Johan's role as the peacock feather come into play. Judai asks if Johan has a goal for dueling other than fun, and Johan shares his.

Johan: Those spirits gave me dueling a purpose! A purpose to become a bridge between spirits and humans... Judai: To become a bridge between spirits and humans?

A goal which Judai clearly admires him for. The prismatic phase shows insight, and Johan gives Judai something to aspire to be like because he admires him for having a goal - and for his relationship with spirits. However, it's only a temporary insight because rather than thinking about his own goal it's moments like these, and shortly afterwards in the Cobra duel where Johan tells Judai that he duels while carrying the burdens of others that Judai simply decides to glue himself onto Johan.

Rather than come up with his own answers, Judai just accepts the answers that Johan gives him. Rather than using Johan as support and inspiration, Johan becomes an unstable emotional crutch.

There's one final reference to the Spector Solaris plates in the vial in which Yubel has been baking in the entire arc as they absorb duel energy in order to reconstitute themselves. Yubel at this stage is a reference to the 12th plate, Saturn Dragon and Child.

The plate depicts a child and a dragon sealed together in a flask. Within the child's right hand is a black flask they are forcing down the throat of the dragon, in the left hand are a pair of bellows which he is holding against the dragon's arc. The child is pouring the black Prima Materia in the dragon's mouth, while he increases the heat of flame. This will result in the decomposition of the Prima Materia into a substance that can be reconfigured and rebuilt.

Yubel represents both the child and the dragon. They are a dragon, specifically a child who underwent surgery in order to become a dragon. Just like the child forces their right hand down the dragons throat, Yubel possesses people by grafting their arm onto them.

Yubel also specifically appears as a child, Cobra's missing son, in order to manipulate him. Then feasts on the darkness of his heart and induces him to commit suicide by covering Cobra's entire hand with their fiend arm, and feeding them a false memory of a scenario where their son actually survived. They then transport the entiretyof the school to a desert, more earth symbolism and where the series begins referencing the seven parables.

Splendor Solis

The Splender Solis are an alchemical text from around the 1500s. They are a series of 22 elaborate images, which symbolize the alchemical processes.

They are divided into 4 groups. 4 introductory plates which depict the typical archetypal characters appearing in an alchemical story. The 7 parables which describe the process of death and rebirth of the king. The 7 flask plates which show the making of the elixir. Then the 4 final plates which shows the spiritual refinement.

The main arc of Season 3 revolves around the death and rebirth of the king, and from now on this meta will exclusively focus on Judai's process of becoming the awakened Supreme King.

As mentioned above he entire school is transported into a desert world. One of the first major events in this new world is the appearance of a Wise Man.

Carl Jung interpreted the process of alchemy as an analogy for psychoanalysis. Each stage of alchemy to him also represented an archetypal schema of the human mind. Nigredo is the shadow, Abledow the anima and animus (feminine and masculine), citrinatis i the wise old man (or woman) archetype, and rubedo is the self that has achieved wholeness.

It's the appearance of Misawa who physically resembles a wise old man, complete with a cloak, long hair and a walking stick that helps clue the protagonist where they are, and how to escape.

I also must make mention of Yubel, who begins enacting their plan to turn Judai into a king. Their first plan involves transporting the academy away to a different dimmension, and slowly taking over from inside by converting the duelists into mindless zombies.

Yubel: Attention, lost duelists. I am the rule of this new world. Yubel: I am the one controlling these zombies as the King of the Martin Empire. Yubel: You are the ones opposing my empire, and doing it well I see...

We don't know exactly what Yubel's first plan was, before they switched to their backup of super-polymerization - but considering Yubel's unique logic they likely planned on converting everyone in the school to zombies, while reforming their body. At which point it would be them and Judai alone together, and they would offer Judai the position as king, which Yubel thinks Judai would be grateful for.

Either way it's Yubel who pushes Judai through the journey of dying and being reborn as king. Yubel goes through a parallel death and rebirth (dissolved) , as they were torn to pieces and enact their plan to reconsitute their body back together and revive (coagulate). Either way Yubel's actions start Judai's journey.

The 7 steps of this journey / 7 parables are:

Plate 5 - Miners excavating a hill

Plate 6 - Philosophers beside a tree

Plate 7 - The drowning king

Plate 8 - Resurrection out of the swamp

Plate 9 - Hermaphrodite with an egg

Plate 10 - Severing the head of the king

Plate 11 - The bath

We'll be going mostly in order with these, as Yu-Gi-Oh GX also references them in order. Here's another post covering similiar spector solis symolism from RWBY which I'm lovingly ripping off. Beginning with:

Plate 5- Miners Excavating a Hill

The search for Rainbow Dragon has been a focus of Johan's arc since his introduction, but when the main characters learn that Rainbow Dragon is their way out of the dark dimension than excavating Rainbow Dragon out of the earth becomes the main focus of Judai and Johan's shared journey.

The plate depicts a mountain mined by two figures, dressed in gold and silver. The contrasting colors represent the dualism of the sun and the moon, which is also shown shining bright in the sky while the moon floats along in the river below.

Rainbow Dragon is quite literally mined out of the side of a hill. The two figures could be referencing both, Samejima and Pegasus who are sent out to retrieve it, Johan and Judai who summon it in their partner duel against Yubel.

The number seven also occurs here. There are seven splender solis plates, seven planets, seven alchemical symbols, seven metals, and Rainbow Dragon is a monster that requires the sacrifice of seven gemstones, which also represent the seven colors of light that make up the rainbow.

Featured on the plate is a picture of a scene from the book of Esthter from the Old Testament. This is a reference to the King Ahasuerus and Eshter. THe king is convinced by his grand vizier to kill the jews, starting with executing chief minister Mordecai. This is in spite of the facthe'd already married Mordecai's jewish cousin, Esther.

Eshther appears and touches the king's golden scepter with her hand. This convinces the king not to kill the jews.

“So it was, when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, that she found favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter. And the king said to her, ‘What do you wish Queen Esther? It shall be given to you – up to half the kingdom!’” (The Holy Bible, New King James Edition, Esther 5.3)

It's a union of opposites (gold and silver, king and queen, sun and moon) based upon communication and empathy. Gx references this story in two ways.

When Samejima and Pegasus are trying to excavate Rainbow Dragon from the mountain, Echo appears and threatens to kill everyone inside in order to allow Amon to remain in a world where he can become king. In a way it's gender flopped because Echo is playing the role of king, threatening everyone at Duel Academy.

The second way is a reference to Judai and Yubel's entire arc of learning to understand people with empathy. Yubel threatens to massacre both Judai's friends, and the twelve dimmensions at large in their painfully wounded state from Judai's abandonment.

This is gender flipped like it is with Echo, where the queen (Yubel) is threatening violence, and the king (Judai) is the one who sways them with empathy. They're linked to queen and king roles, Judai serving as the supreme king linked to the sun, Yubel their feminine bi-gender counterpart and shadow linked to the moon, Judai eventually does so through a union of souls during their final duel, which resembles s a jewish wedding.

Plate 6- The Philosophical Tree

The plate shows three philsophers underneath a tree. The third is a youth, climbing a ladder and handing them down a golden branch.

The two philosophers underneath a tree is a reference to the Aeinid, in order to enter the world Aeneas requires a golden branch from a special tree.

A journey to the underworld is as on the nose for a symbolic journey of death and rebirth as it gets. Judai technically journeys to the underworld twice, the first time when Yubel sends the whole school there, and the second when he like Dante or Orpheus journeys into the underworld to retrieve his lost one - Johan.

The desert world that Judai is transported too is literally filled with zombies, or the wandering dead like in classical depictions of the greek Hades.

Whereas in the world Judai travels to find Johan, losing a duel results in a permanent death for the duelist forcing every character to confront their own mortality.

During that Journey, Judai specifically experiences a death of his ego and a rebirth as the supreme king, before dying a second time and being reborn as the fusion of Judai / Yubel.

The three philosopher's under the tree is specifically referenced when Judai and Johan have their tag team with Yubel, they are the three under the tree. During that duel Johan uses gem tree, a tree that grows a fruit after certain conditions - it grows three fruits in total like the three phases of alchemy.

The duel is fought to return everyone from the dark dimension, a figurative underworld. Whereas in the Aeinid the tree is what grants them free passage into the underworld.

The golden branch and yellow flowers in the splendor solis painting also represent the yellow / citrinitas stage, where light is shed on the unconscious. By the end of the duel, not only is Yubel fully reborn after being torn apart, but they also force Judai to recall the repressed memory of them buried in their subconscious. Yubel's colored yellow when begging Judai to remember them.

Plate 7- The Drowning King

Judai's second journey to the underworld begins after this duel, and this time it's fraught with death. Albeit a necessary death for Judai to be reborn as a whole person.

“The Destruction of one thing is the birth of another.” – Aristotle

The painting depicts an old king drowning in the background, while a new king dressed in yellow emerges in the foreground. While the king is begging to the saved, both the old and new king are actually the same person, being reborn again.

GX references the drowning king in several ways, firstly the entire Supreme King Haou arc is a plan by Yubel to break Judai down and reforge him as the Supreme King.

Not only does Judai experience an ego death first where their mind breaks down and they choose to become the Supreme King going forward and rule with power after the loss of their friends. Judai is also the reincarnation of the original supreme king, which is why Yubel is obsessed with them in this lifetime. Which means he's already died once as king and been reincarnated into a second lifetime.

The king drowning in the river is also a reference to the Nigredo stage of alchemy:

Within the stages of physical alchemy there is a set referred to as the drowning king; this is the dissolution step of the Nigredo process. This is when the alchemists would take their chemically calcified ashes and dissolve them into water. The water itself would absorb the ashes, the word we use to describe this solution, an elixir, comes from the Arabic: Al-iksir translates to “from the ashes”. Elixir.

In order to forge the elixir you have to dissolve away all impurities. Yubel prepares a ritual to literally dissolve Judai's friends away, in order to forge Super Polymerization (which will eventually help Judai and Yubel fuse and become the philosopher's stone).

For now though, the ritual requires five sacrifices, and five of Judai's friend. Just like the five steps of alchemy if you count the peacock stage (the monster Judai fights in his duel is even named Reign-Beaux, a pun on Rainbow).

Manjoume, Asuka, Fubuki, and Kenzan all dissolve while Sho escapes leaving the ritual incomplete. It's after the ritual however, that Judai experiences an ego death and is reforged as the yellow king. Ego death, is the Jungian term which means a "Complete Loss of subjective self-identity." In this case symbolically the Judai identity "dies" as he loses his purpose which was previously dueling for the sake of his friends, and he finds a new purpose in dueling for power alone. A power that will simultaneously bring order to the chaotic world of the dark dimension, but also protect himself from his own insecurities and weaknesses.

Nigredo is also meant to be the dissolving of the ego. While many cultures have negative associations tied to the color black (Islam being an exception, where white is considered an impure colour), there are no such connotations for the alchemist about the Nigrido stage; it is merely the first stage in the Great Work, the dissolving of the self/ego complex. It is probably a fair observation that in cultures without spiritual safe-guards, or even safe-guardians (shamans, priestesses, lamas, et. al.), the spontaneous occurrence of Nigrido may be labeled as a nervous breakdown, or even psychosis. Mythcrafts

Nigredo is again associated with the arhcetype of the shadow in Jungian Psychology. The Supreme King persona first appears to Judai as a vaguely person shaped shadow, before taking on his form. The shadow is also a reflection of the self, Judai's internal landscape is a dark placed filled with mirrors.

Haou: Yuki Judai. In order to defeat evil, one must become evil. In a world with the law of the jungle at work, one must rule with power. Judai: Power, I don't have that power. Haou: In your hand lies the Super Fusion card. Defeat any spirits who may oppose you, and confine their lives into it the perfect card. Judai: Who are you?

There's also two suns in the background. Judai is referred to as being like the sun, by Sho.

Sho: Aniki, You're too selfish, Aniki. All the time, Aniki, I thought of you like a sun, giving us all strength, able to make the impossible possible. Sho: But I guess I thought wrong. For you, Aniki, things were okay if you were okay. It didn't matter who you sacrificed as long as it all helped your plan! Even if you avenge them, everyone you sacrificed won't come back. Sho: Big bro, you've been dueling just to satisfy yourself. Judai: Sho... Sho: Don't say it like that. You're not my Aniki. You're not my Aniki.

There's two suns depicted in the sky, and this scene we're shown two judais, to show just how divided his self is between his ego and his shadow. Sho even says that he doesn't even recognize Judai and that he's not "His Judai" right now.

Plate 8- Resurrection Out of the Swamp

“She clothed the man with a purple robe, lifted him up to his brightest clearness, and took him with herself to Heaven.” -Trismosin

On the left a strange being, dressed in black and red arises from the mud. He reaches forward to accept a red robe being offered to him.

On the right appears a winged woman, dressed in white, yellow and blue waiting for him to emerge from the mud and giving him a cloak to dress himself.

There is once again many different ways in which this painting is referenced. Haou first appears dressed in armor mainly colored in black, with a red cape exactly like the one the woman is handing the man in the painting.

If Judai is the man emerging from the mud, then the winged woman waiting for him is likely Yubel. Yubel is a winged figure and a hermaphrodite who represents both the masculine and the feminine.

On the bank of the river, holding out the red clock to the emerging man is Sophia. She has angel wings of white peacock feathers and is dressed in a floral robe. Upon her head is a crown topped with a six-pointed star, a symbol used in many traditions to signify the union of male and female energies; hieros gamos again.

The masculine king is reuniting with a feminine winged figure. Yubel as a hermaphrodite represents a union of masculinity and feminity. The winged woman is awaiting the man.

Judai's rise as the supreme king is engineered by Yubel as a part of a plan to reunite them. More specifically to get into plot details Yubel sacrificed their body to become a dragon to protect prince Judai in a past life until the day he would become king. After Judai saw Yubel make such a sacrifice he promised them his eternal love, and to eternally love them alone.

Yubel and Judai then both died at some point and were reborn, Judai as a person and Yubel a duel spirit. Yubel was Judai's best friend when they were young and took the role of protector too serously hurting anyone who came near Judai which made Judai decide to send them away (on a satellite into space).

While alone in space Yubel was hit by the light of destruction, which tortured them with terrible agony for ten years straight. Yubel called out to Judai at first, but Judai stopped responding. Ten years later Yubel crashed back down to earth, and when burning up in earth's atmosphere they continued begging for Judai's help only to be met with silence.

They asked why Judai would abandon them and their love, and that silence became their answer. Judai must have intentionally made them suffer both as a show of love, and to make them stronger.

Yubel then resolves to inflict the same suffering on Judai, first making them all alone like Yubel was, then putting them through trial after trial until they died like Yubel and woke up stronger as the Supreme King: at which point Yubel believed they would reunite again as equals. Yubel also had the additional motive of trying to make Judai recall his past life, which Yubel remembered and Judai did not.

Yubel: I was suffering as you came to forget about me... Yubel: It burns... It hurts...It's killing me. But why? I love him so much. Why is Judai treating me like this? Yubel: 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. Yubel: So when I solved the riddle that you posed to me, I was delighted. And that fueled my decision. I would try to fill the entire twelve dimmensions with my love for you. Yubel: And once I did you would have to recognize my love for you, wouldn't you? Yubel: That is why I sought to fill all those linked to you - your world - with both sadness and anguish. Yubel: ANd my line of thinking wasn't wrong. Yubel: I mean you are right before my eyes, Judai.

Yubel: Though, I did have your friends help me which pulled out the darkness inside your heart and ushered you this far.

The entirety of Season 3 is Judai's journey of becoming king, which will lead to his eventual union with Yubel, his soul, and his other half.

The union of Judai and Yubel is necessary in a Jungian sense, because his fusion with Yubel mirrors the process of individuation.

The alchemical texts at our disposal offer four distinct stages in the transformation of base metals into gold: nigredo. the black stage, albedo, the white stage, citrinas, the yellow stage, and finally, rubedo, the red stage. Physical chemists took this literally; depth psychologists, following in the footsteps of Carl Jung, took this figuratively. From the standpoint of depth psychology, the black nigredo is the shadow, the things we hide from ourselves. The albedo, the white stage, is the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage of male/female, or anima and animus. The citrinas, the yellow phase, is the wise elder, the shaman. And the red, or rubedo, which seems to be the point of this image, is what Jung called individuation; the point when the raw materia prima of our psyches turns into something whole.

Yubel sort of represents all three of those archetypal schema. Yubel is Judai's shadow, they awakened the supreme king which embodies all of his negative traits his darkness of heart. As a hermaphrodite Yubel is a sacred marriage of male and female, and Judai also fuses together with Yubel becoming a hermaprhodite himself. Finally, Yubel is the wise man by serving as the mind character to Judai's heart.

Heart, Mind and Body are traditional roles assigned to characters in an alchemy story. The male character s usually heart, and their female protagonist is mind. Judai is emotional, hot-headed, and most of all stupid. Yubel is tactical, capable of making succesful plans long in advanced, calm and thoughtful, and also possesses deep insight into things Judai is clueless about like the nature of love. In fact after the two of them are united, it's Yubel who serves an advisory role to Judai the way Aster does with Yuma in Zexal. Heart and Mind characters are often, but not always romantically linked to one another.

Yubel also appears as a wise guide in a twisted sense, as they're the one guiding Judai throughout the whole journey and eventually they reawaken the memories of his past.

Judai therefore needs to unite with Yubel in order for his psyche to be whole.

There's other characters who can also serve as the sophia / wiseman figure in this instance. Jim Crocodile Cook is the first character to fight Judai to try to get through to him. Once again Jim is an archealogist, he likes trying to reach Judai to digging for sleeping fossils under the earth.

He also possesses a special eye, given to him by a wise man which allows him to see inside of Judai's psyche. Jim is quite literally trying to dig Judai out of the mud. When using his power the comet his eye is associated with turns red, like rubedo and the philosopher's stone because Jim is trying to make Judai whole again.

Austin follows through on Jim's iniatitive and succesfully reaches Judai. His fire deck allows for a nigredo of sorts winning with his fire themed deck to boil away the impurities of Judai's soul starting up the alchemical process.

When Judai awakens he's reborn again underneath a tree into a new self, that's both the supreme king and Judai. Another wiseman figure appears to him in the form of Misawa shortly afterwards to highlight to Judai that the Supreme King isn't a split personality, Judai is the supreme king and he did all of that of his free will.

Judai: The supreme king's gone, though... his powers can't be mine. Misawa: Not quite... Your current self and Supreme King Judai are each one side of the same person. We all have a good and evil side. Judai: But... Misawa: Will you quit it, already! You won't be able to rescue the others with powerless heroics! Controlling your powerful Supreme King side will allow you to bring about justice. Judai: The power of darkness? I can't! Just stop it! Misawa: Stop your whining. Someone who was given special powers will have to fight for all those who've placed their hopes on them, won't they?

In that sense Misawa is the Wiseman who appears to guide Judai to integrate the Supreme King into his psyche, to be more whole.

The Nihilixir

Let's take a break from alchemy to talk about reverse alchemy for a moment, because I can't do a Season 3 post without talking about Amon Garam.

The relationship between Amon and Echo form a dark mirror to the relationship between Judai and Yubel. There are many ways they correspond to each other, both features a king (Judai and Amon) and their servant (Yubel and Echo). Amon is named after a sun god (AMon or Amon-Re), he was abandoned in the desert as a child, he's associated with the solar king. Echo is his Echo more or less, she was raised alongside him to be devoted to him, she's named after the nymph echo cursed to be left behind as nothing more than an Echo. She is passive and subservient, Amon is active and dominating.

I once mentioned Echo above threatening to kill everyone present, so Amon can be in a world where he can become king. Just like Yubel it's Echo's deepest desire for Amon to be king, and Echo genuinely believes Amon has the right to stand above others. They're also set up as the only other explicitly romantic couple besides Judai and Yubel. Yubel drops the extremely intimate "aishiteru" to Judai, and Echo confirms she loves Amon with "Aishiteru" when talking with Edo.

Echo and Amon attempt a union, but unlike Judai and Yubel's union it goes wrong, instead of purifying each other they both basically destroy each other.

Instead of forging a philosopher's stone, what Amon and Echo make is what's called a Nihilixir, a negative transformation. The process of reverse alchemy is elaborated on this posts here.

Love’s alchemy had once transformed him to “Sun”--to ”a quintessence even from nothingness.” A normal, positive transformation. But now he has been transformed in reverse. a negative transformation. For I am every dead thing... He ruined me, and I am rebegot Of absence, darkness, death, things which are not.... I, by love’s limbecke, am the grave Of all, that’s nothing. (”Limbecke” is another word for the alchemical vessel, the alembic.) The reverse of the Philosopher’s Stone, the Elixir, is the Nihilixir

While Death and Rebirth is a necessary part of Alchemy, Reverse Alchemy is Death without the rebirth. It's a love which should usually redeem destroying both parties instead.

Kate in this post likens reverse alchemy to the relationship between Oz and Salem from RWBY, an incredibly destructive romance. To paraphrase Kate, death and rebirth is necessary for moving forward in alchemy, but reverse alchemy happens when a character resists death and the grief that comes along with it.

Amon's arc is more or less refusing to feel his own grief. He is undeniably an abused child with a terrible lot in life, left to starve to death when he thinks he's finally saved and works hard to earn his parent's love he is replaced by a biological child and learns how conditional his parent's love is.

Yubel basically takes advantage of all the unprocessed grief that Amon has in order to move him forward to his destruction.

Yubel: My power is not especially great. But those with darkness in their hearts can unleash great power in me. Yubel: The pus welling out of your injured heart forms a second heart. I can see that other heart. The darkness in it. Yubel: The darkness in your heart that has nowhere else to go. You desire life-risking tasks because, all you want is a place to die. Yubel: That’s right. That is the darkness of your heart. it’s there, in the depths of your mind. The cream of your other heart, born from your stagnant blood!

In other words Amon is plagued by thoughts of suicidal ideation and takes on risky missions for the sake of the Garam Conglomerate because he's hoping to just die somewhere far away from his parent's - because he thinks he's been shunned from his family and therefore there's no place for him in this world.

He believes that so thoroughly he even leaves this world and doesn't come back, for a chance to be king in an alternate dimmension free from family obligations.

Yubel says that in order to become whole, to become his true self he would need to "kill his god." More specifically kill his iron will, the resolve he made when his brother was born to only exist for the sake of the Garam conglomerate.

However, you cannot kill your own god. That is because it is the role of a devil.

There's an element of truth to Yubel's words, Yubel is the spirit of wisdom after all. Amon needs to accept death, in order to be reborn as someone new.

Kate basically says where Salem and Oz's relationship goes wrong is that Salem cannot accept death or grieve Oz, and imagine living in a world without him. Which is why she's cursed with immortality, literally becoming undying, and unable to change as well.

Amon cannot accept grief. He's still obsessed with the idea of becoming the head of the Garam family, like he was promised when he was younger - symbolically coming king. He can neither let go of that idea and try to find other ways to be happy in life, or grieve his parent's abuse of him by basically raising him to be a tool only to discard him.

In fact, I believe a lot of people have trouble connecting to Amon as a character because he doesn't openly grieve - he remains stoic b/c he's so dedicated to trying to repress all his pain from his terrible life.

This is another way in which Amon foils Judai, they're both referred to as being pure of heart, and therefore lacking a shadow and darkness. This is not a good thing, Judai's lack of darkness of the heart makes him blind to his own flaws until he hits his lowest point. Amon's so disconnected from his own emotions, he can at one point cruelly lure Echo to her own murder, then five minutes later claim to love her. It's this resistance of grief, and lack of darkness of his heart that makes Amon unable to transform into his better self.

Paralleling Judai yet again, Amon conducts a ritual to sacrifice his loved one in order to forge a powerful card, Superpoly for Judai and Exodia for Amon. However, him and Echo don't die together, it's not a union it's a one-sided affair with Echo taking on all the sacrifice herself. As I said, Amon is unwilling to bear the pain in any way. This is something that Yubel gleefully points out to Amon.

Yubel: I get it now... You weren't in love with Echo. Yubel: No. You may have loved her just enough to clear the conditions in place for you to control Exodia. Yubel: But then, you didn't truly love each other. Yubel: You were only unfairly hurting her, while you would stay unharmed. Yubel: You wouldn't suffer. You wouldn't be in pain.

Yubel: And that's why I'm having Judai go through the same feelings! That could be what it means for us to love!

Again there is an element of truth to Yubel's words. Amon and Echo's relationship was fundamentally unequal and Amon has no desire to change it, and even takes advantage of Echo in that way.

Yubel for all the pain they inflict on Judai desires to be equal in their pains, and their goal is connection and communication which is fundamental to the process of alchemy. Yubel does many things, but they're not resisting grief. In comparison to Amon who shows almost no emotion at Echo's passing, Yubel openly cries on multiple occasions from the pain of Judai abandoning them.

Amon's inability to process his grief of let himself feel pain, or just let go of the idea that he was meant to become his parent's heir and inherit the world - he can't see that he could try to live some other way. He's blind to the people who love him in his life. This is also something that Yubel points out, he could have tried to live a different life from what his family set out for him with Echo. Echo who was always there and loved him. He can't get over his parents lack of love to see there was still love in his life. He can't see a world where he can live without his parent's love.

Yubel: That isn't a world! Yubel: I wouldn't even think of living in a world like that. Yubel: You see, a "world" is something that you build with the one that you love! Yubel: For me, it's something I'll build with Judai! That is a world!

Amon could have created something new with Echo, but he refused to change. Which is why in the end they both destroy each other.

Of course, Judai and Yubel's love isn't exactly a paragon of healthy relationship. Yubel is also unable to imagine a world where they can't live without Judai. However Yubel does allow their beliefs to change after a union with Judai, originally Yubel was so afraid of Judai's rejection they wanted to monpolize all of Judai's attention and essentially live in a world with only them and Judai.

However, after their union in season 4 Yubel is able to accept Judai having bonds with other people doesn't mean that Judai will abandon them.

The parallel with Amon and Echo shows that Judai and Yubel have the potential to destroy each other, but by accepting each other's grief thy both changed for the better instead.

Plate 9 - The Hermaphrodite

The hermaphrodite is the smybol of the marraige of Solar and Lunar (Sun and Moon.) This is usually embodied by a chemical wedding. This post will be shorter, because I already detailed Judai and Yubel's chemical wedding in this post here.

The Splender Solis depicts a winged figure with two heads, one male and one female. The masculine side of the figure is solar symbolism, his radiant shield, his red wing, his golden halo. The feminine side of this figure is lunar symbolism, her white wing, her silver halo, the egg she holds in her hand. Menstrual cycle are lunar, eggs are lunar, etc.

Yubel’s design is a Rebis, split male and female down the middle. It’s even implied in their backstory they were more masculine, and through an alchemical process to become a dragon altered their body to look as such, giving them several feminine traits.

Yubel as one boob and one pec, one muscular leg and one femine leg, speaks in two voices a deep masculine one and a light feminine one, defaults to using masculine “boku”, but plays a feminine role to comparison Judai’s more straighforward masculinity, they even have their face split one side being drawn with eyelashes.

he appearance of the Hermaphrodite comes after what Jung called the Conjunctio, metaphorically the marriage of Solar and Lunar, or the physical marriage of alchemical sulfur and mercury. While the imagery of plate 9 is quite explicit in its depiction of the hermaphrodite, it is subtle in comparison to another illuminated medieval text: the Rosarium Philosophorum (Rode Garden philosophy)

Judai and Yubel also literally duel together in a Rose garden.

When opposites are finally reconciled, the great hermaphrodite is formed. Judai even refers to this as an act of finally purifying the light’s corruption from Yubel’s soul by uniting it with the supreme king’s soul. The union is a purifying process, and the end of Yubel and Judai’s long journey of losing each other and finding each other again.

However, in order to be purified they have to both let their old selves die in order to form something new, the final death but one they experience together. In order to do that both need to experience a dismemberment.

Plate 10 and Plate 11

I'm coupling these two together because the Severing the head of the king an the bath represent the final process of death and rebirth.

Alchemy is violent, Solve et Coagula requires things to dissolve away before they can coagulate together again. Before the psyche can rebuild, it has to be ripped apart. Before a relationship can get better, two lovers need to clash.

The image itself is set in a city in a countryside, a man is holding a decapitated head severed from a body lying at his feet. Both Judai and Yubel experience a dismemberment at one point or another. In another classical alchemical text Lunar King and Queen experience this dismemberment together, in order to represent the violent union of opposites.

Judai experiences Ego death after his friends are dissolved and adopts the moniker of the supreme king. When he's finally snapped out of it, Hell Kaiser takes his helmet off and throws the helmet to the crowd below in a symbolic decapitation.

Yubel is torn to pieces when they re-enter earth's atmopshere, and quite literally are reduced to just a hand the way the body's limbs are all cut off. They need to use duel energy to restore each other. The second time they dissolve in the duel against Judai and Johan and they physically dissolve a second time and need to possess Johan's body in order to recover.

Another feature of the Splendor Solis painting is the kingdom by a river in the background invoking water, and Air which is related to the sword suit in tarot like the sword the main holds.

Judai and Yubel duel atop the clouds (air) and recalls the past when the air starts blowing the clouds away revealing a kingdom by the waterside.

While experiencing the past he recalls the violent surgery Yubel endured to be reborn as a dragon, literally tearing their body apart in a painful procedure.

Afterwards Prince Judai touched by the sacrifice Yubel made for their sake, unites with Yubel, promising Yubel their eternal love. He also recalls that he and Yubel were together in their past lives, and therefore they've already experienced one death only to be reborn again and meet each other. Judai: You did this... to protect me. Yubel: It is fine. Protecting you as you grow from a child into an adult is my duty after all. Judai: Yubel, I promise you. My love will only belong to you. No matter what anyone says, I will keep loving you.

The union and promise also take place by the waterside, which is symbolic of the bath which is the final plat of the Solis.

The final image is a man sitting in a bath, with a fire beneath it. The plate is an analaogy for sublimation the boiling fo a substance - Judai experienced a sublimation when the water of the clouds turned to air, in a breeze that revealed his past.

IWhen a bath appear in fiction it's often depicted as a man and woman bathing, though it doesn't necessarily have to involve water. For Judai and Yubel, it's their final union brought about by Super Polymerization fusing their souls together.

Judai even refers to this process of purifying the corruption of the light of destruction by joining his soul together with theirs.

Yubel is not destroyed, but rather pacified with a single touch must like Esther with her king, and ends up giving up on their plans of destruction from one act of communication and understanding.

The parable contains a reference to Medea.

“OVID the old Roman, wrote to the same end, when he mentioned an ancient Sage who desired to rejuvenate himself was told: he should allow himself to be cut to pieces and decoct to a perfect decoction, and then his limbs would reunite and again be renewed in plenty of strength.” (Trismosin 33).

Medea married the hero Jason. When he asked her to strengthen his father, she instead ritually killed him, bleeding his old blood away only to restore him later. Medea's also famous for dismembering her brother so that's kind of fun.

Yubel is a very Medea like figure, the embodiment of a woman scorned, after Jason abandoned Medea to marry a new wife, Medea decided to avenge herself by killing his wife, his children, his new father in law but sparing Jason. Her revenge is making him just as alone as she was. Yubel also cannot bring themselves to kill Judai, but take out their pain on all of his friends so Judai will have nothing left but them.

However, as mythcrafts says:

This image relates the ultimate cost of enlightenment, and the curse of growing up; all growth requires sacrifice. New life demands a little dying.

The path is physically painful. The man in the bath is being boiled. Chemical weddings are violent. Hudai screams out in agony when his soul is being fused with Yubel's. He even says that this fusion might destroy who he is now.

However, acepting that death is what allows both Judai and Yubel to take the first steps into healing together.

The plate is also a metaphor for the Hermes Trismegistus, “it arises from the earth and descends from heaven; it gathers to itself the strength of things above and things below” often shortned to "As above, so below."

Judai and Yubel's chemical wedding in the material world, also radiates to affect the cosmos or the world of the heavens. We see this in the effects of Super Polymerization changing the world around them, as it cuts to several characters in the outside world as the destruction of super poly spreads outward.

However, after the violent process of disolve et coagula is over, the two are empowered by each other to fight the light of destruction together. The change is now spreading out to the cosmos. They begin a journey of atonement which lasts even beyond season 4 and into the rest of their lives, to make up for the destruction they've caused.

Judai's friends who've been dissolved away finally return at the same time, and even Judai who is pronounced dead makes a return by the next episode changed into a fusion of himself and Yubel.

Death and rebirth, Grief and healing, all of Yubel's grief even dissolves away into tears as they finally let go of the idea they need to hurt others as much as they've been hurt.

Also because this is citrinitas the entire scene is dyed yellow. By accepting Yubel into his soul, Judai has transformed the dark night into a solar light. THe sun has risen for them both, as the lunar queen reunites with the solar king, they are no longer servant and master but equal.

The third stage, citrinitas, brings forth the light of the sun (the masculine), a light which magically transforms the shadowy and fearful subconscious into valuable consciousness. From the dark night of rubedo, to the pale morning light of albedo, the sun rises in citrinitas to the culmination of day in rubedo.

As Judai and Yubel depart together, we finally move onto the fourth stage of alchemy Rubedo where Judai and Yubel become one whole self!

I'll elaborate more on that on my next alchemy post though, because alchemy is still a four step process and there's still more to come for Judai / Yubel.

#ygo meta #yu gi oh gx #yu-gi-oh gx #judai yuki #soulshipping #yubel #alchemy #yu gi oh gx meta #yu-gi-oh #yu gi oh #jaden yuki

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