Invid's Bizarre Card Ramblings #1: Theinen the Great Sphinx

[EDIT: Something rather amusing about this article: Since it was originally published, the wiki's anime effect for this card has been corrected. I guess I did a bit of good.] Hey, people who are mostly from DeviantArt who probably care less about the card game than about how awesome GDG's comic craft is! I'm here to talk about cards!

A long-standing gripe I have with the card game is that they monkey with effects for what often seems like no good reason. Other times, there's clearly a good reason. Meet high-class good reason, Theinen the Great Sphinx (link to a picture)!

Theinen (pronounced "Thin-e-in" for some reason) the Great Sphinx (Japanese name: Sphinx Androgynous)
Light Attribute/Beast Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 3000

All versions of the card have the above characteristics. Now, let's turn to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game wiki for the effect of the card in the real life game.

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by paying 500 Life Points when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" (Japanese name: Gynosphinx, hence "Sphinx Androgynous") on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time; then you can Special Summon this monster from your hand or Deck.
When this card is Special Summoned successfully, pay 500 Life Points to increase the ATK of this card by 3000 points until the end of the End Phase.

I recall that this card was touted in promotional materials as "the strongest monster ever made" when the movie came out; I suppose a potential 6500 ATK is pretty impressive.

However, the effect of the card was radically different in The Pyramid of Light. Its ATK rose not to 6500, but to 35,000, which is a rather significant difference. Let's see what the wiki has to say about it:

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Set this card as a Normal Magic/Spell Card. This card cannot be Special Summoned except from your Magic/Spell & Trap Card Zone when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time. When this card is Special Summoned successfully, increase this card's ATK by 30,000 points.

The first part actually makes some sense-Anubis did indeed set the card on the Field, and presumably it was not as a Monster. The part that doesn't: How do you add 30,000 to 3500 to get 35,000? (Another speculative version of the effect mentioned on the wiki involved suggesting that it merely had its ATK multiplied by ten, which would have made sense; more sense than the wrong number, anyway.)

Answer: You don't. They've got it wrong. In fact, it's not even a fixed increase.

How do I know? I checked.

The nice thing about The Pyramid of Light is that the English version is the only English release with readable card text. And while it's a borderline case, I could read it well enough that I can tell you what the effect was (simplified to help the important bits stand out):

When an "Andro Sphinx" and a "Sphinx Teleia" on your Field are destroyed at the same time, pay 1000 Life Points to Special Summon this card. (I don't recall being able to tell if it specified where from.) When this card is Special Summoned, pay 1000 Life Points to increase this card's ATK by the combined ATK of all Monsters in your Graveyard.

Now, it's possible that someone affiliated with the wiki examined the footage and concluded that this couldn't have been the effect. They're wrong, but it's understandable. Why would they have assumed it was incorrect? Because several cards clearly must have had different effects in Pyramid of Light, and they would have assumed they didn't, because that's just how they think over there.

Specifically, in the TCG, Peten the Dark Clown removes itself from the game banishes itself* in order to summon another copy of itself. If it did so in the movie, the total for Theinen's ATK would have been off; however, it matches if Peten's effect was different and simply activated when it was sent to the Graveyard. (There's a similar issue with the other two Sphinxes, as their TCG characteristics would have meant they'd be banished when the Pyramid of Light card is destroyed, but one can easily come to the same conclusion regarding those. Another issue of sorts involves Life Point totals, as Anubis inherited Kaiba's Life Points and the other Sphinxes needed 500 Life Points apiece to be summoned, but one can assume that's another difference. There may be other points of divergence, but I don't recall at the moment.) If Theinen's effect is based on the ATK of Monsters in its Graveyard (which Anubis again inherited from Kaiba), it would also explain the "dead souls set free" remark.

Which makes me wish the animators had cared enough to depict the "dead souls" as the spirits of Kaiba's monsters, so that the audience could more intuitively understand just what Anubis was doing.

So, myth busted mystery solved.

*I'm super happy about this new piece of terminology. It's great that they've simplified an aspect of the game so much with a single piece of changed terminology. I'm sure they more or less ganked the idea from Magic: The Gathering, but that's not really bad...

-Signing off.