I think I get the OP.

Basically, the shadow girls...it's kinda like the Lost Woods scenario for those who have played Ocarina of Time.  You lose your way and you became trapped forever and turn into a monster.  So the shadow girls, according to this theory, never did succeed to obtain eternity or whatever and were confined to their fate as being the shadow girls.

But then you're saying that Utena, for instance, is one of them and fudged up along the way in the past but is in now a Matrix like scenario where she is stuck in this cycle of fate where she loses, loses her memories, only to start over, like being data in a system.  But this time, Utena seemed to have 'glitched' the system and broke out of the cycle, to Akio's surprise...

The idea is novel though I would not call it canon, but is interesting and different nonetheless.  However, it would help explain why the shadow girls know as much as they do.

Well, Zekkass, if you're right, that puts the scene where the Shadow Girls are fondly encouraging Utena to join the drama club in an entirely new light, doesn't it? 

I still think that the Shadow Girls pretty much stand apart from the narrative and should be understood as supernatural, omniscient commentators, like Ohtori's very own kitsune.  But if I had to contextualize them and make them a part of the plot, saying that they're failed princes and princesses makes some sense.  It explains how they know what's going on and why they seem to have a mildly adversarial relationship with Akio in episode 34.  I don't know if I like the idea that Akio is somehow "recycling" them, though.  Utena, after all, has an on-screen childhood; she hasn't been recycled, unless recycling includes reincarnation, which is reaching a little.  But the scene I mentioned at the beginning of this post, plus Utena's participation in the Black Rose Shadow Girl skits, plus their obvious interest in her -- if failed princesses do become Shadow Girls, that makes our three seem pretty sinister, doesn't it? 

I think that they are personifications of the Fourth Wall, quite aware that they are living in fiction, and bridging the line between the show and the viewer. They're clearly unthreatened by Akio, as they don't mind openly mocking him both by phone and in person, and he doesn't seem able to do anything but to try to ignore them. They come of as an audience doing some really esoteric MST3K on the show, and occasionally messing with the protagonists, like lots of viewers would undoubtedly want to do, if they could. I think that Alan Harnum did the best explanation in his fanfics, essentially stating that they are not human, and that they are not tied to the world the story is set in, but beyond that it's not possible to define them. If you really want to, then they resemble folklorish fairies more than anything else.

You know how astonished I was to see the shadows girls reveal their physical selves (well, their backs actually) in the beginning of episode 34? I never thought they are real people.

If you look carefully you notice that no-one else appears to pay attention to them, and that they seem to dissapear in thin air - Wakaba only comments the invitation they left behind by saying that she didn't know the school had a drama club. I took it as confirmation that there is no such club in school, and that the Shadow Girls were just posing as ordinary students to lure Utena to their theatre.

In the movie the SPG's were left behind as straw dolls. What strikes me about that is the fact that after UTena and Anthy broke away, the SPG's became something just as flimsy as the shadows they once were, but they also lacked the spirit they once had.

As far as the series, I think this is an interesting theory. Utena and Akio seem to be the only characters who actually interact with the SPGs.

If it was indeed Akio manipulating the course of events in Utena's 'life' then that actually intercrosses into another theory I've heard of and contemplated. After rewatching the series sometime back, I realized that Utena has been going to Ohtori for quite a while. Madam Lamer makes the allusion in episode one about having to deal with Utena for another school year... Anyway, the theory that can be associated with that is the one that states that Ohtori is an afterlife of sorts, and Utena is dead, and has been dead since she climbed in that coffin. The eternal thing showed to her by Touga was actually death... anyway, it's possible that she's been going through cycles of the *underworld* and has finally broken free of the hell like place she ended up, and has left Ohtori in the end to finally *pass on*

The shadow girls are the 'knowledge' she's accumulated on the way to this incarnation. That's one connection between this theory and another. I'm sure there are more, and I really like this idea.

Zekkass wrote:

And another thing: Utena is like a religion, cause we all have different theories for the meanings of the show aka God and how to worship. I don't want to get into trouble - cause Utena is NOT a religion. It's just like one, and we all have different ideas on who and what God really is, or if there are different Gods (Christianity is not the only answer, see. What about Hinduism?)

And so on.

I agree with this statement wholly. Perhaps the absolute truth is not apocalypse, but that truth is determined by the person evaluating it. Something along the lines of beauty is in the eyes of the beholder...

*** also as for the theory I mentioned earlier, another argument was that Ohtori is shaped like a burial ground... I forgot to add that.

Last edited by Melancholic_Soul (08-19-2009 10:54:19 AM)