Utena: Agency & Choice

[branchandroot]

Everyone involved in the duels is concerned with agency, the ability to act and cause things to move. The duelists are seeking it for themselves, and Akio intends to steal it from whoever achieves it. The Brides appear to have it in their gift, but not to use for themselves. It is not until the very end that we see, through Anthy, that agency must come from oneself and must remain with oneself, not alienated or sacrificed or stolen, in order to actually work.

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A Lady's Favor

The duels are a fascinating locus of choice and power. The danger of them is losing power and will, not losing life. Because, of course, while the duelists' desires, rather akin to a Witch's reservoir of free desire and will, are at stake in the duels, their lives most certainly are not. It is Anthy's life that they fight for, her right to have a life--a right that only Utena believes exists. No one else believes it's possible for the Rose Bride to have a life or desires, or, really, a soul of her own. Not even Anthy herself, who seems to believe she has paid with her soul for her one great, selfish act of desire.

This is made all the more ironic by the implication, increasingly forceful as time goes on, that it is the Bride's wishes that are made manifest in the duels. In the final arc, when other Brides appear, this becomes clearest. Ruka, for example, wishes Juri to be free of her obsession with Shiori. In Juri's duel, where Ruka stands as her Bride, Utena destroys, not Juri's rose, but her locket--the symbolic focus binding Juri to Shiori. In Miki's duel, where Kozue stands as his Bride, Miki finds himself bereft of any support, direction or power because Kozue seeks to touch Anthy's power for herself, directly. That was likely a duel doomed from the start, since Kozue, before the final Revolution, is incapable of focusing on anyone outside herself, or letting her wishes be carried out by another.

This suggests that when Utena takes on the power of Dios it is Anthy's wish and doing. And that suggests, in turn, that the place Anthy sealed Dios away, the place where no one else would be able to reach him, was inside her. And, having internalized the Prince, she had no choice but to become a Princess, and thus became obliged to giver her agency to someone else to act out. At least until she saw an option beyond pining vs. sacrifice or Witch vs. Princess.

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The One Who Turns

In the final analysis, it is not Utena who has the first and last choice, the overriding agency in this story. It is Anthy.

In order to break everyone out of the stasis she is the lynchpin to, Anthy has to move. At the end, Anthy has to reach out, has to make a choice and act on it. Has to act on her own behalf, and for her own desires. That is what frees her.

Neither Dios nor Akio have the right answer to get past the Rose Gate and/or save Anthy. Dios thinks Utena needs to be a Prince, and Akio thinks she needs to be a Princess, but neither of those things will open the door. Utena rejects being the passive Princess, and she admits at the end that she hasn't succeeded in being the Prince who saves the day either. What she hasn't seen yet, I think, is that she's done something far more profound. She opened the door and offered Anthy the choice of passing through it. Anthy takes the choice, and that is what frees her. If Utena had been a Princess, Anthy would still be the Witch, the target of the swords; if Utena had been a Prince, Anthy would only be a Princess and still wouldn't have any agency of her own. Instead they both find the third way and break out into a new age.

I don't think Utena understands that, quite, by the end of the TV series, though she may at the end of the movie. Anthy has freed herself, and that's why she is free--no one else could do it for her, that was the point. Dios was right that she needed someone she could trust and believe in. But that someone could not, by definition, be a Prince. A Prince is everywoman's property, that's the nature of Prince-ness; a Prince defends the helpless and innocent (ie Princesses) in general, not any one particular person. Anthy needed someone who wanted her for herself. Lo and behold: Utena. This, I think, is why the words that open the gate, when Utena finally reaches it, are "I was happy when I was with you". It wasn't the Prince's heart (the sword) that could be the key; it had to be Utena's heart--the person's heart.