MikoGalatea (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mikogalatea) wrote2018-12-14 09:15 pm
mikogalatea) wrote2018-12-14 09:15 pm
Entry tags:
Utena meta: Black Rose feels concerning Wakaba and Anthy
Here's a particularly old one from around 6 years ago, written when I reblogged a gifset of Wakaba's Black Rose duel -- which I still think is one of the most gutwrenching duels in the series with one of the saddest songs.
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While all the Black Rose duellists were angry people, Wakaba strikes me as being one of the angriest of them all, if not the angriest, which I believe was exemplified by her elevator scene beforehand; remember that the butterfly on the wall was already a caterpillar when we first saw her in there, which goes to show just how hard this normally cheerful girl snapped. And while all the Black Rose duellists had the stated goal of killing Anthy, Wakaba's the only one who really tried to do it. Yikes.
Speaking of that, I find it significant that Anthy was so insistant on Utena drawing her sword from the outset, despite the latter's utter refusal to do so. There's a number of ways to interpret her reasons for that, but I think Anthy was scared of Wakaba, and I can't help but wonder why; it's hard to know how complicit she may or may not have been in the hairclip incident (though Saionji and especially Mikage were far more at fault than her no matter how you cut the cake) but it did seem to me like she knew that Wakaba would've been especially pissed at her.
[The following was originally put in its own post, but I'm adding it here because it's related to the above.]
I'd imagine there are people who look at that arc again after finishing the series and wonder why Anthy would have anything to fear from Black Rose duellists like Wakaba if she can't actually die. But I think that whether or not she can die is besides the point here. She's not afraid of being killed; she's afraid of being stabbed. If those duellists had succeeded in their stated goal, for Anthy it would be like the trauma of being stabbed by the angry mob all over again, and it wouldn't matter a blip if there were a million aggressors or just one.
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While all the Black Rose duellists were angry people, Wakaba strikes me as being one of the angriest of them all, if not the angriest, which I believe was exemplified by her elevator scene beforehand; remember that the butterfly on the wall was already a caterpillar when we first saw her in there, which goes to show just how hard this normally cheerful girl snapped. And while all the Black Rose duellists had the stated goal of killing Anthy, Wakaba's the only one who really tried to do it. Yikes.
Speaking of that, I find it significant that Anthy was so insistant on Utena drawing her sword from the outset, despite the latter's utter refusal to do so. There's a number of ways to interpret her reasons for that, but I think Anthy was scared of Wakaba, and I can't help but wonder why; it's hard to know how complicit she may or may not have been in the hairclip incident (though Saionji and especially Mikage were far more at fault than her no matter how you cut the cake) but it did seem to me like she knew that Wakaba would've been especially pissed at her.
[The following was originally put in its own post, but I'm adding it here because it's related to the above.]
I'd imagine there are people who look at that arc again after finishing the series and wonder why Anthy would have anything to fear from Black Rose duellists like Wakaba if she can't actually die. But I think that whether or not she can die is besides the point here. She's not afraid of being killed; she's afraid of being stabbed. If those duellists had succeeded in their stated goal, for Anthy it would be like the trauma of being stabbed by the angry mob all over again, and it wouldn't matter a blip if there were a million aggressors or just one.