Zigfried von Schroeder

High intelligence

Valkyrie Deck

Wearing extravagant clothing.

Reading up on Norse Mythology

Hacking and playing around with technolog

Manipulate his brother, Leon to defeat Yugi Muto (all failed).

“ Some things will never change, a rose will always be a rose, and a loser will always be a loser. „ ~ Zigfried's most famous quote after beating Joey Wheeler.

“ What's ruined us Leon is that I'm weak! I'll never beat Kaiba. „ ~ Zigfried breaking down to his brother after failing in his plans.

**Zigfried von Schroeder** is a supporting character in the *Yu-Gi-Oh!* franchise, and the main antagonist of Seto Kaiba's entire story arc.

Although not appearing in the manga, he appears as the secondary antagonist in series 5 of the anime *Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters* more specifically acting as the main antagonist in the filler arc *Grand Championship.*

He is a flamboyant German businessman of his family organization known the Schroeder Corporation and the archenemy of Seto Kaiba. He is the older brother of Leon von Shroeder.

He was voiced by Eisuke Tsuda in the Japanese dubbed version, and by Oliver Wyman in the English dubbed version.

## History

### Past

Zigfried von Schroeder's family had a long feud with the Kaibas, with both families owning competing companies. Similar to Gozaburo Kaiba's adopted son Seto, Zigfired was placed under a strict regiment of education, giving him an impulse to succeed. Zigfired and Seto first met at a business party, where Zigfried displayed his intellect by bypassing Kaiba Corp's security system and manipulating the building's power. Gozaburo kept stealing business contracts under Zigfired's father's nose, eventually driving him insane in anger and leading to his premature retirement. When Siegfried took over Schroeder Corp and decided to shift it's focus from weapons manufacturing to gaming technology, he discovered Seto had done the same with Kaiba Corp. Once more competing with his family's rival, Siegfried chose to work on a device able to project holograms of Duel Monster cards, only to to find out that Kaiba had developed his own holographic technology and made a business deal with Maximillion Pegasus before he could, much to his fury.

### Grand Championship Tournament

As revenge, Zigfried attempted to sabotage Kaiba's Grand Championship at Kaiba Corp. First, he set a computer to trap everyone inside, but the computer was defeated by Yugi Muto. Siegfried entered the tournament as Zigfried Lloyd, and easily defeated Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor in a single turn using his Valkyries Cards. He then dueled Joey Wheeler and won.

As he was about to face his younger brother Leon in the final round, Kaiba realized his true identity and dueled him. Kaiba won, but Zigfried still had his main plan up his sleeve while Leon was dueling Yugi in the finals, Zigfried had him play a card called the Golden Castle of Stromberg a card that is banned from all tournament matches which was infected with a virus that deleted Kaiba's data. Leon, who had no desire to willingly participate in evil plans, and Yugi were able to stop it during their duel. After Yugi defeated Leon, Kaiba revealed that all his information was saved on a backup, and was never lost. Zigfried was utterly defeated and broke down crying before Leon convinced him to make his corporation as good as Kaiba's without doing anything evil, leading him to finally reconcile and apologize for his treatment towards him.

In the final scene of the final episode of the series, he and Leon are seen making a deal with Pegasus.

## Personality

Zigfried was a very snooty, jovial, flamboyant and spiteful young man who held an extreme grudge against the Kaiba Corporation in particular Seto Kaiba himself. He was incredibly intelligent and strategic and was very good with technology, rivalling even Kaiba and Pegasus in that regard. He was a relatively arrogant and somewhat unfair opponent, often ridiculing and humiliating his opponents before crushing them, and was rather proud of his deck. He also tends to be condescending and snarky towards anyone he has reason to oppose, a trait he shares with Kaiba himself. He also has a fondness for roses and enjoys living in a luxurious and hedonistic manner in spite of the constant knowledge that his company is falling keeping him occupied.

Zigfried does have his good sides however as he genuinely did love and care for his brother Leon although wasn't above manipulating him for his greater goals, in the end however the whole reason for Zigfried's redemption was his brother's influence. He also has a fondness for Norse mythology to the point were his entire deck is made up of that particular theme.

## Appearance

Zigfried was a tall and slender young man with pretty and feminine features, fair skin and teal eyes. His hair was approximately waist length, pink in color and styled in a layered hime cut, his eyebrows also shared this color and were rather thin.

His preferred outfit was a form fitting velvet, plum suit with one button and black borders as opposed to lapels, a crimson jabot atop a long sleeved Victorian style frilly shirt, a purple rose corsage and black cuban heeled shoes.

## Deck

Zigfried's deck is the famed Valkyrie similar to the Norse Valkyrie. One of his favorite spell cards is Ride of the Valkyrie allowing him to special summon all of his Valkyrie monsters from his hand until the end of his turn all of his monsters return to his deck. His three powerful continuous spell cards are Goddess Urd's Verdict, Goddess Verdance's Guidance and Goddess Skuld's Oracle which allowing him to check 3 cards of his opponents' top deck and place one of them in the top in order, then guessing what kind of card either monsters, spells or traps to place them face down and last to guess the name of the card if it's right, Zigfried banish his opponent's cards from the duel, but in a duel with Kaiba, they would be useless when seeing three of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons. His second favorite spell card is Mischief of the Time Goddess which allowing Zigfried to skip his main phase 2 and his opponent's entire turn all the way to his next battle phase which make the Ride of the Valkyrie's returning effect useless in order to easily defeat his opponents in one turn but it wouldn't work when against Seto Kaiba after using Magical Trick Mirror to use Mischief of the Time Goddess.

## Trivia

* His English voice actor is credited as Pete Zarustica. He has a German accent.
* Zigfried's designs for holographic Dueling is near identical to the Duel Boxes used in the original manga.
* In the Japanese version of the anime, when Zigfried plays "Ride of the Valkyries", the actual Wagner melody Ride of the Valkyries can be heard.
* Zigfried bears certain physical similarities with Halldor from *Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds*. Both used Norse Mythology-based Decks, are in opposition to their respective show's main characters, until they realized the error of their ways and acknowledged their former enemies as comrades.
* Zigfried, Noah Kaiba and Gozaburo are the only major villains in the second series anime that have no awareness of Yami Yugi's existence.

* Fun fact - All 3 of these antagonists are deeply connected and exclusive to Seto Kaiba overall story arc.

* He's the only main antagonist of an arc who never duels Yami Yugi, rather Zigfried viewed Kaiba as his primary enemy. He's also the only main antagonist whose goals and methods are totally mundane (even Noah had access to advanced technology).
* Zigfried as a character appears to be something of an amalgamation between the pre mind crush version of Seto Kaiba from the manga and Maximillion Pegasus in terms of his backstory, personality and appearance as well as his relationship with his brother who acted as something of a morality pet to him and later led him into redemption.