Yubel (character)

Yubel (ユベル, Yuberu) is the primary antagonist of the third season. An evil hermaphrodic Duel Monster whose card was in Jaden Yuki's possession when he was a little kid, Yubel is deranged and manipulative, mainly alligning itself with others to accomplish its goals.

It first acts through Professor Viper and Marcel, being supposedly defeated by Jaden and his new ally, Jesse, after showing itself. However, behind the scenes it orchestrates the events that led to Jaden's descent into darkness and later returns as the final antagonist of the season, using its powers to unite all twelve Duel Spirit dimensions together and reign over them with Jaden at its side.

Character Biography
Yubel is the mastermind behind the Survival Duels and the creation of the Martin Empire. It was Jaden's favorite card in childhood–given to him by his father–but it grew obsessed with the boy and intended to keep him to itself. During that time it caused anybody that Jaden duel fall under a mysterious illness that resulted in them being hospitalized, including an acquaintance of Jaden's named Osamu. This caused other people view Jaden as cursed and were too scared to duel him. Under Jaden's request (hoping that it would gain the "powers of justice" that Elemental Hero Neos would eventually gain), Yubel was sent into outer space by KaibaCorp in a separate satellite from his contest-winning card designs after it put an but the card absorbed a different type of energy, and the craft crash landed back to Earth, resulting in the near-complete destruction of its body upon re-entry into the planet's atmosphere.

After an indeterminate amount of time in isolation, Yubel's capsule returned to Earth, though the shock of reentry destroyed all but a single forearm of Yubel's body, which was eventually found by Professor Viper. Tricking Viper into helping it with the promise of restoring his adopted son Pierce to life, Yubel coerced him into creating the Bio-Bands and Survival Duels, absorbing the duel energy produced by them so it could reform its shattered body. After Viper was defeated by Jaden, Yubel killed him because it had no further use for him. It then transported Duel Academy into another dimension. Yubel then possed Marcel, and turned the students of the displaced faculty of onto duel-obsessed zombies to help fuel its restoration, and eventually securing the Sacred Beast cards. Yubel then challenged Jaden to a duel, threatening to "dispose" of the duel zombies if he turned the challenge down, and saying it would send everybody back home it Jaden won (it was lying about the later). Jaden then faced the Yubel possessed Marcel, but the duel was going badly for Jaden until Jesse showed up (Yubel was confident it could beat them both). Late in the duel, Yubel discards Marcel upon achieving full physical form, no longer needing him. Yubel nearly wins the duel using Armitael, Phantasm of Chaos, but is stopped by Jesse's Rainbow Dragon card. The monsters battling results in an explosion that consumes both Jesse and Yubel, although it's later shown that they both survived.

Yubel later reappears in the Duel Spirits universe, possessing Jesse to continue its mission to destroy those who dare separate it from Jaden while it simultaneously tries to unite all twelve Duel Spirit dimensions together with the Super Fusion card so it may reign over them with Jaden at its side. Meanwhile, Yubel also orchestrated the events that led to Jaden's descent into darkness, the sole reason being for it have a person who can understand its cruel ideology of "real love". When Jaden finally duels Yubel to save Jesse, it is revealed that Yubel actually removed Jesse's soul from his body and placed him inside the Rainbow Dragon before taking over. Jaden manages to release Jesse from Yubel's influence and later duels with Yubel in order to settle the problems between him and it once and for all.

Yubel demonstrates many powers through its appearances. It can possess anyone with inner turmoil and manifest itself through an avatar of energy. It can also render itself invisible to others, even to those who can see Duel Spirits, although Duel Spirits themselves can see it. Yubel is able to warp reality as seen with the snakes that prevent Jaden's comrades from helping during his duel with Professor Viper, but after absorbing massive amounts of Duel energy, it is able to warp reality to a much greater extent, although the ability itself is mostly limited to the effect of the card which Yubel uses to focus its reality warping ability. Yubel can also teleport itself and others as it teleported Duel Academy to an alternate dimension. It also has the ability to bestow its power onto others as evidenced in the fight between Professor Viper and Adrian, although the same ability can also be used to control others as shown with the "Duel Zombies". Lastly, it has the ability of seeing the darkness of a person's heart, and tempting one to do its bidding by playing off an individual's desires. This ability is a necessity as Yubel derives its power mainly from the darkness of others. Adrian Gecko also demonstrated these numerous abilities when he was temporarily imbued with a portion of Yubel's power, which was given to him while she was controlling Jesse. Yubel can however, be weakened if it goes through a hard enough duel (even it wins), such as when it beat Zane. However, it can also regain power by feeding off the darkness with the souls of others.

Personality
Yubel is not only evil and deranged, but also quite psychopathic. It knows how to manipulate others to do what it wants by playing on their innermost feelings and hidden desires. Staying true to its villanous nature, it doesn't bound itself by its word: although it made a deal with Viper to bring back his son, Pierce, Yubel instead merely changed his memories so that he thought his son had never died. Yubel also throws away allies that it deems as useless as seen with Viper and Marcel. In addition to the above, it is also quite emotionally sadistic, often enjoying picking at the insecurities of others for the above reasons or its own enjoyment and crushing/trivializing their hopes and ideals after it attempts to bond with its opponents.

Yubel's main goal is to keep Jaden to itself, and it harms anyone that gets between it and Jaden (regardless of whether they mean to or not). Despite its outspoken love for Jaden, Yubel has no qualms about hurting Jaden to accomplish its goals or bend him to its will. Yubel has further been shown to have an enormously warped and masochistic view of love: because love, in part, is sharing feelings, both joy and suffering, Yubel therefore legitimizes Jaden's suffering as "true love". Yubel feels it has suffered greatly (whether in its capsule or by some other cause is unknown), and desires to share that suffering with Jaden. To that end, it also openly Jaden's insults and defiance, seeing the pain it suffers as Jaden expressing his "love". Its also claims that life isn't worth living without that person that one loves the most, actually shedding a tear at the thought. However, it appears unable to understand any other form of love, and dismisses any relationships in which joy and suffering are not mutual as immaterial.

In the English Dub, all references to Yubel's "love" for Jaden have been omitted thus far, replaced by its childish desire to "play" with him. It also states that it wants Jaden to pay for "discarding it". This would imply that its goal is to punish Jaden, presumably for its being banished into space, although this animosity isn't seen in the original version. However, it seems still to have some possessive feelings towards him, and may still try to reclaim him as its own. The simplification of its motives is likely due to the disturbing possible implications of Yubel's associating physical and emotional pain with love. Yubel is called "Boy of Light" in the closed captions, though this may be a reference to using its energy to take the form of Viper's son.

Voice/Mannerisms
In the Japanese version, Yubel is voiced by Hisao Egawa and Hiromi Tsuru. Its two voices alternate evenly, though Yubel tends to use the female voice when speaking to or about Jaden. Occasionally it uses both voices, usually when its switching from one voice to another. It's been refered to as both a "he" and a "she" in the Japanese version, although it usually identifies itself with male pronouns. Yubel's American voice actress, Priscilla Everett, who ironically enough also voices Alexis Rhodes, portrays Yubel with only a single (androgenous though presumably female) voice. Additionally, Yubel's English voice is given childish mannerisms and electronic effects that reflect its own childish nature: Yubel's behavior in the dub is that of a spoiled brat determined to get its own way and remove those who oppose it.