The Master of the Game

The Master of the Game
Jumanji Elements
Crystal Ball Message	WHO IS THE FOOL AND WHO IS WISE? BEYOND SHIFTING SANDS, THE ANSWER LIES.
Characters	Alan Parrish Judy Shepherd Peter Shepherd Nora Shepherd Master of Jumanji
Wildlife	Lion Unnamed Rhino-like Creatures
Episode Credits
Directed by	David Schwartz
Written by	Peter Gaffney
Air date	October 26, 1997
Previous	The Palace of Clues
Next	Robo-Peter

The Master of the Game is the 19th Episode of the Jumanji animated series.

Plot

Before starting to play Jumanji again, Peter wanted to enter prepared and packs a suitcase full of stuff to help in Jumanji, but Judy rejects the excessive load only lets him take the binocular, rope and flashlight. Peter rolls and the the two are sucked into Jumanji again landing in a desert where they are chased by a one-horned creature and Peter drops his stuff as the two end up pinned against a cliff, but a hatch opens in the creature and reveals Alan.

Alan reveals the creature to be a mechanised tank that Ibsen created to chase him and he caught it after it chased him for three days and nights. He took it to use to travel across Jumanji safely and named it Gracie after his dog from before he got sucked into Jumanji. At night, Alan can't figure out the first part of their clue, but guesses that the rest of it means that they must cross the desert they're in, the Great Desert of Jumanji, but no one has ever managed to do that although Alan thinks that they can with Gracie. The group crosses most of the desert in Gracie, but after finding an oasis with similar creatures to Gracie, they run out of gas. They end up surrounded by the creatures who start attacking Gracie, but ultimately fall asleep hours later allowing the three to get out of Gracie safely and escape.

Exhausted from crossing the desert, they reach the end of the sands and spot and oasis, jump into a pool of water nearby to cool down but a voice suddenly says "the game must end as all games do, but will this game be the end of you." The mysterious voice tells them a final test stands in their way and continues speaking to them in riddles. They follow a path they figure out from the riddles and arrive at a door and have to solve another riddle to get it open. Peter solves that one by simply knocking on the door which causes it to open.

Next, they travel through a series of labyrinths and get chased by a Lion, but when Alan touches it, it disappears and the voice gives them another riddle. Following a glowing star (part of the riddle) they then arrive at a spike pit which Alan jumps and touches the star which causes a bridge to appear. Next they follow a tile puzzle where only the blue squares are safe and despite a near miss, make it safely across. At the other side they finally arrive at a massive palace. Inside they see what appears to be a gate to Brantford, but when they try to pass through it, they just end up back where they started frustrating them. However, Alan is seeing the Brantford of his time while Judy and Peter see theirs which Alan realizes means the gate is just another illusion.

The three track down the source of the voice and find a being that claims to be the Master of Jumanji who is mad at their intrusion. The Master tells them to return to the Gateless Gate and solve their clue, but when Peter tells him that that isn't their clue, he releases a Lion on them. Peter and Judy defeat the Lion and send it off a balcony to its death. When Alan threatens to do the same to him, the Master pulls off his hood and reveals himself to be an old man who reveals that he too is a player of the game. The old man reveals he's been trapped in Jumanji for centuries perhaps and his clue was the Gateless Gate but he was unable to solve it no matter what he tried. The old man hoped that someone wiser than he was would show up, solve the mystery of the gate and he could follow them home. Alan reveals the Gateless Gate is just another one of Jumanji's tricks and it doesn't actually exist. The old man finally realizes what he refused to admit to himself: the Gate doesn't really exist and he suddenly disappears.

Alan realizes what happened: the old man finally solved his clue and left. When he admitted the Gate wasn't real it solved his clue and sent him home as that was what his clue was really about. Judy and Peter apologize to Alan for not being able to get him home too, but it gives him hope if the old man could return home, so could he someday. Helping the old man solve his clue solves Judy and Peter's and they return home too. The two are disappointed they couldn't get Alan out again and Judy points out that listening to unseen voices could get you into trouble before an unseen Aunt Nora orders them to do their homework causing Peter to agree with Judy.

Continuity

• The old man's clue was previously vaguely visible in the Palace of Lost Clues, in the previous episode.
• The Lion that attacks the trio under the command of the Master of Jumanji is defeated by the trio missing his leap and resulting in him skidding over the edge is identical to the Lion event from the 1995 film.

Theory

• The Great Desert Palace is one of several Palaces in Jumanji, but this one and the Palace of Lost Clues may actually both serve as the equivalents to the actual golden city of Jumanji and consequently the final goal space from the original picture book. The Master of Jumanji's attempts to convince players he is Jumanji also supports this by several links:
• When announcing his challenges, he speaks in riddle rhymes, like the riddled messages manifested within Jumanji game-board's crystal ball, and was well aware of how clues and gameplay worked.
  • In the dark forest, there are squared paths that lead to the temple, like the paths on the game board for the player's tokens to run along.
    • The Palace he dwells in, is decorated in murals of animals, pointed spears and even dice akin to the Jumanji board game's decorations itself.

Gallery

The unnamed creature that Alan names Gracie after his cocker spaniel.

The Great Desert Palace entry.

The labyrinth to the Great Desert Palace.

Lion, Rhinoceros and Dice murals on the walls and tiled square paths; reminiscent of the Jumanji game.

Squared tile pathways; reminiscent of the Jumanji game.

Dice, spear and shield murals among field square paths; reminiscent of the Jumanji game.

Jungle trees and plants murals.

The Great Desert Palace.