yu-gi-oh cards

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Old thread resurrected, but pretty much along the lines of my own thinking.

 

[hapmom]

My son got some of these YuGiOh cards and I worried if they were ok for him to play with. I emailed an exorcist who has been a guest of Catholic Answers before because I knew I could trust his advice. He told me to not allow my child to use them. He had research done on the cards and said, **“I would absolutely keep this game away from your children and forbid them from using this type of game **or any other game involving spirits or anything else in the New Age.”

He told me:
“I had a member of my exorcism team research your question. Yu-Gi-Oh!
Tells the tale of Yugi, a shorter-than-average high school student was given
the fragmented pieces of an ancient Egyptian artifact, the Millennium
Puzzle, by his grandfather. Upon reassembling the Puzzle,* he is possessed*
by another personality who is later revealed to be the spirit of a 3000 year
old Pharaoh called Atern, with no memory of his own time. As the story goes
on, the two of them(together with Yugi’s friends), try to find the secret of
the Pharaoh’s lost memories and his name, with the Duel Monsters card game
being an ever prevalent backdrop to plot device.
** I would absolutely keep this game away from your children and forbid
them from using this type of game or any other game involving spirits or
anything else in the New Age.” **

Since he is a well known and respected exorcist, I respect his opinion and will heed his advice. I hope this helps others out there who are looking for clarification about these cards.

God bless.
ps The words are a direct quote from his email, but I added the bold and italics to this post here in this thread so that those scanning responses would see it and hopefully take the time to read it.

 

[Nec5]

It came from 2005, the yu-gi-oh thread. Threadnomancy at its finest…or worst.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

It came from 2005, the yu-gi-oh thread. Threadnomancy at its finest…or worst.

I say worst given that, priest or not, what hapmom received has got to be one of the poorest analysis of the first season’s story. Atem is not a demon. He truly is a human spirit wanting to pass on but can’t due to lost memories. It’s not like in our world were demons are the only ones capable of possessing people.

Furthermore, the game itself does not involve summoning spirits. It just another fancy way of throwing down special/fancy art cards.

 

[patrick457]

I say worst given that, priest or not, what hapmom received has got to be one of the poorest analysis of the first season’s story. Atem is not a demon. He truly is a human spirit wanting to pass on but can’t due to lost memories. It’s not like in our world were demons are the only ones capable of possessing people.

Furthermore, the game itself does not involve summoning spirits. It just another fancy way of throwing down special/fancy art cards.

You do have to remember that the card game only became central to the franchise midway through the original manga. The original idea was for different games to be showcased per chapter, hence the title 遊戯王 (yuugi-ou): ‘King of Games’.

The original plot (before the cards became the central element), which is basically episodic, went like:

1.) Yugi and/or his friends run into trouble in some fashion in the person of bullies, evil teachers, homicidal gangsters, corrupt TV producers, etc.

2.) The spirit of the Millenium Puzzle takes over Yugi’s body (which was at first totally involuntary on Yugi’s part), and then challenges the antagonist to a “Shadow Game,” which involves a seemingly normal game having oftentimes spiced up with some danger and a sort of fatal (or just plain nasty) penalty imposed on the loser.

3.) The antagonist invariably loses (some of them try to cheat when they realize they are losing), which leads them to suffer the consequences. The implication is that they totally deserved the punishment. (The only complaint here is that a number of the penalties imposed on the losers are somewhat harsh and disproportionate for their crimes.)

 

[patrick457]

I say worst given that, priest or not, what hapmom received has got to be one of the poorest analysis of the first season’s story. Atem is not a demon. He truly is a human spirit wanting to pass on but can’t due to lost memories. It’s not like in our world were demons are the only ones capable of possessing people.

Furthermore, the game itself does not involve summoning spirits. It just another fancy way of throwing down special/fancy art cards.

You do have to remember that the card game only became central to the franchise midway through the original manga. The original idea was for different games to be showcased per chapter, hence the title 遊戯王 (yuugi-ou): ‘King of Games’.

The original plot (before the cards became the central element), which is basically episodic, went like:

1.) Yugi and/or his friends run into trouble in some fashion in the person of bullies, evil teachers, homicidal rapists, corrupt TV producers, etc.

2.) The spirit of the Millenium Puzzle takes over Yugi’s body (which was at first totally involuntary on Yugi’s part). It then challenges the antagonist to a “Shadow Game,” which involves both Yugi and antagonist playing a sort of improvised game ‘spiced up’ a bit with some danger, with a penalty (almost always resulting in death, insanity, grievous bodily harm, or some other nasty consequence) imposed on whoever loses.

3.) The antagonist invariably loses (some of them try to cheat when they realize they are losing - which in a few instances involves trying to kill Yugi outright), which leads them to suffer the consequences. The usual implication is that they totally deserve to be punished for the evil they have dome: in other words, what they are getting is some sort of poetic justice, since the Shadow Game is in reality some sort of a judgment upon the player’s soul, forcing them to reveal their true selves. (The only complaint here is that despite this justification, some penalties are just outright disproportionate to the actual deeds committed.)

At first, the (unidentified) rather malevolent spirit that resides in the Millenium Puzzle does seem to be more of a cold-blooded antihero: one who will not hesitate to be cruel and evil to deal with cruelty and evil. It is only later, upon the introduction of the ‘Nameless Pharaoh’ element that the spirit (now revealed to be that of an Egyptian pharaoh who sealed himself in the Puzzle and subsequently lost his memories) is given a more favorable portrayal and more depth of character.

EDIT: Sorry for the double-post. To the mods: please kindly remove the first one.