the early trauma episode

[mikogalatea]

I love episode 9 of Revolutionary Girl Utena so much. I have about a million feelings about the coffin flashback alone.

Comments

Re: [CW: suicidal ideation, CSA]

[sarajayechan]

Yep. It was such a long time ago and trauma can impact memory, but it's also pretty obvious to me that Dios-becoming-Akio meddled in some way. Maybe not an outright memory wipe or brainwashing, but something that replaced the true memory with the story that started the first bunch of episodes.

Aww! :D I still love that fic. I just really love slotting Touga's movie backstory into the series, and imagining other people in his life being mostly clueless but wondering WHY Touga does certain things.

GOD, SHE IS. Touga was a dick in episode 11, but no matter who would've beaten Utena she still would have been forced to learn a harsh lesson about Anthy and how in the end her wishes for her were no different from other Duelists'. The whole first arc makes Utena's admission of her selfishness in ep 38 even more meaningful, because you know she's referring to those instances in addition to everything else.

Re: [CW: suicidal ideation, CSA]

[mikogalatea]

In Anthy's case specifically, I wonder if a lot of her childhood memories in general after the initial million swords incident just blur into each other as a mass of constant pain, making it hard for her to remember specifics from then. :(

I don't even think of it as slotting Touga's movie backstory into the series anymore; I've long since accepted it that thoroughly as also being series canon, thanks in great part to Enokido's commentary. His character just makes so much sense if he's a childhood rape victim.

Yeah, Touga isn't any less of a prick in ep 11 just because Utena's being a self-righteous hypocrite, and she was going to get a nasty wake-up call in one way or another. Utena admitting to how she'd wronged Anthy really does have its full impact because we can see in the first arc how she wronged Anthy; the series doesn't just tell us she fucked up, it showed us how she fucked up. It annoys me when fandom sometimes likes to cheapen one of the most powerful moments in the show by acting like Utena never actually did anything wrong and totally had full respect for Anthy as a three-dimensional autonomous human being from the very very beginning. Utena's a good protagonist because she's flawed and makes mistakes and has to learn from them -- and she does!

Re: [CW: suicidal ideation, CSA]

[sarajayechan]

Oh, I can see that. She's been living an eternity like that, and the way the show suggests she may be older than she is in a sense doesn't help.

Good point. Yeah, that's actually how I see it too. Not wanting to go home until very late, letting Akio have his way with him, stomping down all his empathy because feeling was just too painful.

YES. Both sides were the asshole there, and when you learn Anthy's backstory and how she's been suffering all this time it makes both of them look even WORSE in hindsight. Yet at the same time they had no idea, and it was meant to be that way until Akio stepped up his game to manipulate Utena even further.

It annoys me when fandom sometimes likes to cheapen one of the most powerful moments in the show by acting like Utena never actually did anything wrong and totally had full respect for Anthy as a three-dimensional autonomous human being from the very very beginning.

It's because they're an official yuri couple and people want it to be pure romance and wholesomeness. Which...no, the entire point of them is their Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome in which it's not JUST outside forces fucking them over - it's Utena herself!