This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)

#1 | Back to Top02-21-2009 03:58:45 PM

Riri-kins
World's End
From: Cloud Nine
Registered: 09-22-2008
Posts: 2354

Black Magic Roses?

I've been pondering why Mikage stopped recruiting duelists after a certain number of black roses bloomed if he could clearly brainwash people without them. Do you think the roses themselves had some necessary magical quality like a power boost?


Proud Saionji and Mikage fangirl
My Utena fanfiction: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2000115/Riri-kins

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#2 | Back to Top02-21-2009 04:06:32 PM

Ragnarok
Caption Captor
From: Canada
Registered: 10-20-2006
Posts: 4472
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Re: Black Magic Roses?

I don't think he could get them to duel without the rose. Specifically, it's by scattering (to use the sub's term) the rose that Utena frees the black rose duellists, without exception. Although we only see Kanae get impaled with a rose, none of Mikage's victims are in a state to duel Utena at the moment they hit the bottom of his elevator. At that point he's stripped them down and made them vulnerable, but they haven't become his tools until (the missing scene where) they get their rose and signet ring.

Regardless of if you agree with that, however, it's certainly plausible that the roses have some sort of magical property; as it's Mamiya!Anthy who grows them.


http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r9/RagnarokIII/spyschool.jpg

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#3 | Back to Top04-18-2009 09:48:57 PM

YostinAust
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From: Tallahassee, Florida
Registered: 04-02-2009
Posts: 352

Re: Black Magic Roses?

I always thought the rose's symbolized a capacity for darkness and evil in their souls. There were only so many potential candidates for Nietz-I mean, Mikage's scheme. The whole sequence, plus the questionability of Mikage's, um, aliveness points to the metaphorical nature of his character. He is Schopenhauer, Wagner, Kierkegaard, and Nietzche all rolled into one bundle of nihilistic angst. His natural enemy is the faded remnants of the Old Order (here Anthy and Akio represent a sort of currupt Christianity). It is eventually revealed that his goals - Mamiya - are the same as those of his enemies.


"In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service"
     - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

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#4 | Back to Top05-02-2009 06:10:57 PM

Melegant
Anthy Assailer
From: Tintagel, Kernau
Registered: 05-02-2009
Posts: 73

Re: Black Magic Roses?

YostinAust wrote:

I always thought the rose's symbolized a capacity for darkness and evil in their souls. There were only so many potential candidates for Nietz-I mean, Mikage's scheme. The whole sequence, plus the questionability of Mikage's, um, aliveness points to the metaphorical nature of his character. He is Schopenhauer, Wagner, Kierkegaard, and Nietzche all rolled into one bundle of nihilistic angst. His natural enemy is the faded remnants of the Old Order (here Anthy and Akio represent a sort of currupt Christianity). It is eventually revealed that his goals - Mamiya - are the same as those of his enemies.

I do not agree - nihilists like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer would never go in such pathetic "resentment factory" of Mikage. But yes, Mikage is kind of nihilist, but with very particular purpose ("revenge") which ties down him.


"Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes."

- William Shakespeare, sonnet n. 40 -

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#5 | Back to Top05-02-2009 06:17:12 PM

Bluesky
Chpn Dlst
From: Your window
Registered: 10-25-2008
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Re: Black Magic Roses?

You might also assume the roses are just a symbol of his power over them. Or maybe just that you just need a rose to duel because it's part of the rules.
It's kind of weird that the black rose duelists only get black roses and all the others get their own colour--maybe the black rose just enables them to be 'special' like the real duelists because they don't have that power on their own, for whatever reason.


/人◕ ‿‿ ◕人\

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#6 | Back to Top05-02-2009 06:20:43 PM

Melegant
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From: Tintagel, Kernau
Registered: 05-02-2009
Posts: 73

Re: Black Magic Roses?

...more likely it means that black duellists are ordinary slaves...


"Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes."

- William Shakespeare, sonnet n. 40 -

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#7 | Back to Top05-02-2009 08:20:29 PM

YostinAust
Pathtracer
From: Tallahassee, Florida
Registered: 04-02-2009
Posts: 352

Re: Black Magic Roses?

Melegant wrote:

YostinAust wrote:

I always thought the rose's symbolized a capacity for darkness and evil in their souls. There were only so many potential candidates for Nietz-I mean, Mikage's scheme. The whole sequence, plus the questionability of Mikage's, um, aliveness points to the metaphorical nature of his character. He is Schopenhauer, Wagner, Kierkegaard, and Nietzche all rolled into one bundle of nihilistic angst. His natural enemy is the faded remnants of the Old Order (here Anthy and Akio represent a sort of currupt Christianity). It is eventually revealed that his goals - Mamiya - are the same as those of his enemies.

I do not agree - nihilists like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer would never go in such pathetic "resentment factory" of Mikage. But yes, Mikage is kind of nihilist, but with very particular purpose ("revenge") which ties down him.

Sorry; to clarify, I meant that Mikage himself was the nietzche figure, not the black rose duelists. They're more like the unpopular emo/goth kids in school who quote aforementioioned philosophies without fully understanding them. They are a bunch of wannabes who like to think of themselves as freethinkers, hence all the "I've seen the truth" bullshit the Black Rose duelists spew.


"In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service"
     - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

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#8 | Back to Top05-02-2009 09:17:14 PM

Melegant
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From: Tintagel, Kernau
Registered: 05-02-2009
Posts: 73

Re: Black Magic Roses?

YostinAust wrote:

Melegant wrote:

YostinAust wrote:

I always thought the rose's symbolized a capacity for darkness and evil in their souls. There were only so many potential candidates for Nietz-I mean, Mikage's scheme. The whole sequence, plus the questionability of Mikage's, um, aliveness points to the metaphorical nature of his character. He is Schopenhauer, Wagner, Kierkegaard, and Nietzche all rolled into one bundle of nihilistic angst. His natural enemy is the faded remnants of the Old Order (here Anthy and Akio represent a sort of currupt Christianity). It is eventually revealed that his goals - Mamiya - are the same as those of his enemies.

I do not agree - nihilists like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer would never go in such pathetic "resentment factory" of Mikage. But yes, Mikage is kind of nihilist, but with very particular purpose ("revenge") which ties down him.

Sorry; to clarify, I meant that Mikage himself was the nietzche figure, not the black rose duelists. They're more like the unpopular emo/goth kids in school who quote aforementioioned philosophies without fully understanding them. They are a bunch of wannabes who like to think of themselves as freethinkers, hence all the "I've seen the truth" bullshit the Black Rose duelists spew.

Yes, You are right; broken and distressful characters from the Black rose have similar with nihilist as much as dragonfly with dragon. But still, I do not count Mikage as the Nietzsche-an (and specially not as the most known Nietzsche's creation - Übermensch). He might be very clever and with psychological abilities, but has no unworldliness and has not enough intellectual capacity to become more than manipulatory shadow with unfilled dream.


"Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes."

- William Shakespeare, sonnet n. 40 -

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#9 | Back to Top05-02-2009 09:56:45 PM

YostinAust
Pathtracer
From: Tallahassee, Florida
Registered: 04-02-2009
Posts: 352

Re: Black Magic Roses?

Melegant wrote:

YostinAust wrote:

Melegant wrote:


I do not agree - nihilists like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer would never go in such pathetic "resentment factory" of Mikage. But yes, Mikage is kind of nihilist, but with very particular purpose ("revenge") which ties down him.

Sorry; to clarify, I meant that Mikage himself was the nietzche figure, not the black rose duelists. They're more like the unpopular emo/goth kids in school who quote aforementioioned philosophies without fully understanding them. They are a bunch of wannabes who like to think of themselves as freethinkers, hence all the "I've seen the truth" bullshit the Black Rose duelists spew.

Yes, You are right; broken and distressful characters from the Black rose have similar with nihilist as much as dragonfly with dragon. But still, I do not count Mikage as the Nietzsche-an (and specially not as the most known Nietzsche's creation - Übermensch). He might be very clever and with psychological abilities, but has no unworldliness and has not enough intellectual capacity to become more than manipulatory shadow with unfilled dream.

Yes, but then would Nietzche himself fit your description of what a Nietzchean person is like? He spent his time toying with provacative aphorisms, deriding his critics, and screaming about his angst. He also always harbored a strange love for his sister. So.. an obsessed romantic who may not even represent the ideas he is discussing? Sounds like Mikage.


"In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service"
     - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

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#10 | Back to Top05-03-2009 03:47:22 AM

Melegant
Anthy Assailer
From: Tintagel, Kernau
Registered: 05-02-2009
Posts: 73

Re: Black Magic Roses?

YostinAust wrote:

Melegant wrote:

YostinAust wrote:


Sorry; to clarify, I meant that Mikage himself was the nietzche figure, not the black rose duelists. They're more like the unpopular emo/goth kids in school who quote aforementioioned philosophies without fully understanding them. They are a bunch of wannabes who like to think of themselves as freethinkers, hence all the "I've seen the truth" bullshit the Black Rose duelists spew.

Yes, You are right; broken and distressful characters from the Black rose have similar with nihilist as much as dragonfly with dragon. But still, I do not count Mikage as the Nietzsche-an (and specially not as the most known Nietzsche's creation - Übermensch). He might be very clever and with psychological abilities, but has no unworldliness and has not enough intellectual capacity to become more than manipulatory shadow with unfilled dream.

Yes, but then would Nietzche himself fit your description of what a Nietzchean person is like? He spent his time toying with provacative aphorisms, deriding his critics, and screaming about his angst. He also always harbored a strange love for his sister. So.. an obsessed romantic who may not even represent the ideas he is discussing? Sounds like Mikage.

Firstly) Nietzsche did not have to fulfill his philosophical ideal, he just created it in his thoughts.
Secondly) We have miscellaneous interpretations - in my opinion it is more probable he entered his insanity because he was disapointed by world.
Thirdly) Evidently we have dissimilar viewpoint on Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy. I do not want to be hard-hitting so I ask You if You want to continue with this discussion - which could become a philosophical "quarrel" (hyperbole).


"Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes."

- William Shakespeare, sonnet n. 40 -

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#11 | Back to Top05-06-2009 10:28:17 AM

sharnii
Pharaoh of Phanstuff
From: Melbourne Australia
Registered: 08-10-2008
Posts: 2416
Website

Re: Black Magic Roses?

For me black roses=melodramatic sexual tension (much like the spinning roses I commented on in another thread etc-wankgirl), only of the repressed kind. Sex not able to develop into the colored roses of...good sex. Or er...actual sex.

In other words a black rose means you want to sleep with somebody, and:
a) you've got no chance. Because he's in love with Touga, dontcha know school-devil
b) they're related to you. Naughty naughty girl/boy!
c) you're underage. I mean even more than the usual 5 years. Like 10-15 years under the legal age in any country.
d) they're dead. And you've been having a fantasy about them for the last hundred years.
e) they're unobtainable cos you're a loser with brown hair, unlike all the popular sexy people with rainbow-colored hair.

Thus the number of black roses is limited to the number of repressed sexual secrets, but even more than that, it's limited to the lifetime of Mikage's own dirty secret. He can hardly recruit anyone else when he's busy confessing to himself that his so-called life is a lie (I love his self-elevator scene).

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#12 | Back to Top05-07-2009 12:46:31 AM

Clarice
Well hello, Clarice...
From: New Zealand
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 3102
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Re: Black Magic Roses?

I think the limit is more to do with the number of duelling swords available rather than the number of black roses -- it's more or less implied that only the "special" people have duelling swords of a calibre worthwhile in the duelling game, and those people are Utena and the Student Council. Wakaba temporarily falls into this category when she is close to Saionji, but it is then said Tatsuya's reason for wanting to duel isn't dark enough. I wonder if it was also that Wakaba herself wasn't "special" enough? On the most basic level, though, I see Mikage as wanting to use each of the swords of the seitokai and then...he ran out. This falls down a bit with Kanae, because Christ knows where her sword came from, but perhaps failure there is why he focused on the other swords?

Which makes me wonder, all of a sudden, why he didn't use Wakaba or someone to pull Utena's own sword and kill Anthy with it. Maybe that's kind of morbid of me. Maybe disabling the Engaged One before the duel by yanking a dirty great sword out of her chest isn't sportmanslike. It just struck me as a rather sensible idea all the same. If slightly insane. school-devil


It takes forty-seven New Zealanders eight months to make just one batch of 42 Below Vodka. ...luckily, that leaves one of us free to be Prime Minister.

Beyond The Silver Leaves

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#13 | Back to Top05-07-2009 08:10:07 AM

sharnii
Pharaoh of Phanstuff
From: Melbourne Australia
Registered: 08-10-2008
Posts: 2416
Website

Re: Black Magic Roses?

Clarice: Which makes me wonder, all of a sudden, why he didn't use Wakaba or someone to pull Utena's own sword and kill Anthy with it.

Awesome idea for a horror SKU fanfic! emot-biggrin

And let's all be glad that you weren't a duelist, Clarice. You might have actually got somewhere! school-devil

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#14 | Back to Top05-07-2009 07:24:46 PM

Clarice
Well hello, Clarice...
From: New Zealand
Registered: 10-16-2006
Posts: 3102
Website

Re: Black Magic Roses?

sharnii wrote:

And let's all be glad that you weren't a duelist, Clarice. You might have actually got somewhere! school-devil

Nooooo, I'd still be in the rose garden. Possibly sleeping. Probably reading. Getting me to do ANYTHING is a task and a half in itself. emot-biggrin


It takes forty-seven New Zealanders eight months to make just one batch of 42 Below Vodka. ...luckily, that leaves one of us free to be Prime Minister.

Beyond The Silver Leaves

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