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]

Yes. Having her parents die and seeing a girl her age suffering is a hard blow, definitely enough to make one question the value in living...and then she decides that if no one's going to save that girl, she will.

OH MY GOD, YES. Lexi made a comment when we watched that episode about how Touga didn't want to go home because it meant being molested again, and in my first fic about him and Saionji I had him not look both ways and Saionji go WTF MORON YOU ALMOST GOT RUN OVER. His appearance and behavior definitely track for suicidal.

Yeah. Anthy was both their "something eternal" in different senses, and both of them are pretty awful to her in different ways (Saionji physically abusing her while Utena tries to force her to be something she's not, then later admitting she just wanted to save her for her own ego).

Re: [CW: suicidal ideation, CSA]

[mikogalatea]

Rewatching this first arc is making me wonder if Utena seems at all familiar to Anthy at this point, even if extremely vaguely, from when they originally met as children. She did seem intrigued by her as early on as when Utena was like "I just gotta beat this guy, right?" just before the first duel... I might rotate this in my head a bit more as I rewatch the rest of the show and see if this take holds up. (Obviously Utena doesn't remember either way.)

I remember you saying Lexi said that back then, and I also remember that fic of yours; in fact, I was rereading it not all that long ago. I can certainly see it, if Touga doing way more kendo matches with Saionji than planned was a way of staying away from home as long as he could...

Those are good points about who and what Anthy is to both Saionji and Utena. (Sheesh, Utena really is kind of awful to her in her own way in the first arc. Telling her to her face she'd lose the second duel against Saionji in ep 2, outright forcing her to socialise at a party she herself wouldn't have otherwise attended in ep 3, getting arrogant about her in ep 11 and saying she'd turn her into a "normal" girl even when the only thing Anthy actually admitted to was wanting more friends, generally deciding Anthy's feelings for her and doing similar shit to Miki in acting like what she wants for Anthy must be what Anthy herself wants too... honestly, I couldn't help finding her a bit frustrating at times.)

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!