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 Top06-05-2016 08:14:48 PM

pesimistamente
Anthy Assailer
From: Barcelona [former epi]
Registered: 01-12-2016
Posts: 70

"Dios", in spanish

The title is pretty much my question, why do you guys think they chose to say the word "god" in spanish? As a spanish speaker, it's INCREDIBLY ODD to listen a random single word in spanish. It's super common to use french or english words, but "dios" seems very specific.

Could it be to make their "ethnic brown background" even more ambiguous? What do you think?

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#2 | Back to Top06-05-2016 08:31:47 PM

deeds24
Miki Molester
From: Salisbury, Maryland, USA
Registered: 05-27-2016
Posts: 36

Re: "Dios", in spanish

When I first thought about the word's meaning in Spanish I thought perhaps the audience is supposed to notice a correlation between the character and the idea of God or a god. Not sure if that would suggest that the character, Dios, is to be seen as a god figure among the other characters in the cast. Then again, his character does have a large amount of influence and power at Ohtori, so maybe that fits. Yet I feel this can only be a portion behind the reason that the character's name is connected to the Spanish word for god.

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#3 | Back to Top06-05-2016 08:57:43 PM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: "Dios", in spanish

I don't think it's got much to do with "brown," so much as not being as loud, perhaps, as the two common SKU languages, Japanese and French, while continuing the foreign strain. It's not as if the show or movie go to any great lengths to obscure the god/devil stuff, but the they do layer obfuscation on for its own sake. All of the major players in BePapas clearly like using foreign terms and using things for the sound and resonance as much as the meaning, and much more than the consistency of use.


My Brain is the Wakaba and Shiori Funtime Hour. With limited commercial interruption.

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#4 | Back to Top06-06-2016 08:44:24 AM

barafubuki
Mikage Mistruster
Registered: 05-13-2016
Posts: 60

Re: "Dios", in spanish

No no no, like Decrescent Daytripper said, I do not think it has to do anything with making him more "brown". I do not even think it was deliberately chosen to be Spanish. In this case, I think it has more to do with Ikuhara's interest in classicism. Dios is, in fact, the genitive pronunciation of Zeus in the Greek language. Also, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyeus for the etymological history. I realize it is a bit esoteric to the lay viewer, but that is just the way Ikuhara rolls. Keep in mind, that Anthy's name is Greek too!

This is probably an opinion that some might contest, but as a moderate speaker of Japanese, I think there is also a case to be made for Dios being the "shortened" version of Dioscuri. Διόσκουροι --> Διόσ. See? The contraction of words is a very common practice in Japanese, and let's keep in mind that Anthy's name is not sounded out entirely from her Greek origin of Anthea. (Neither is it transliterated in a way to suggest it is Greek...) The same thing could be happening here with Dios. And I don't think I'm pulling this out of my ass. The "Dioscuri" is referenced in Utena a few times, but perhaps it is not picked up on by an English speaker. But even if it is too esoteric for the lay viewer, it is certainly not a term that is unknown to Ikuhara. We see evidence of this in the duel song in Episode 28: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-HkednwxBw&t=19m2s

"Dios Croix" should actually be translated as "Dioscuri" here.

Castor and Pollux are also referenced elsewhere in the series too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LPJJ6Qt3vU&t=9m10s
I want to say there was one other reference to Castor and Pollux, but I can't seem to find it at the moment...

Last edited by barafubuki (06-06-2016 08:48:25 AM)

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#5 | Back to Top06-06-2016 04:37:14 PM

Decrescent Daytripper
Best Disney Princess
Registered: 04-09-2007
Posts: 2791

Re: "Dios", in spanish

barafubuki, that's a fantastic angle. I wouldn't have connected that at all, and I'm intrigued!


My Brain is the Wakaba and Shiori Funtime Hour. With limited commercial interruption.

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#6 | Back to Top06-06-2016 04:44:46 PM

pesimistamente
Anthy Assailer
From: Barcelona [former epi]
Registered: 01-12-2016
Posts: 70

Re: "Dios", in spanish

Oh I'm aware of the etymology of my own language emot-smile Ikuhara plays with so many different ethnic background for Anthy (it was Ikuhara's choice to make her dress red, as it is traditional for brides in India), but I'm wondering if the word choice was made before or after Ikuhara started intervening. Saito's cultural influences on the series are obviously french, but "dios" is used for an ambiguously brown god, drifting away from the french theme of the rest of the show. Anthy and Akio are really an ethnic cocktail and it's something I enjoy from them, and I was wondering if drifting from french to spanish (usually associated as a "brown-er" europe) could also go along in the same line.

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#7 | Back to Top06-06-2016 05:46:28 PM

barafubuki
Mikage Mistruster
Registered: 05-13-2016
Posts: 60

Re: "Dios", in spanish

It has been my opinion that Anthy and Akio are ethnically Indian. That, I do not doubt at all, partly because I'm in the camp that they are deities or demi-gods or supernatural beings of some sort, and much of Japanese religion and philosophy comes from Buddhism/India. Or even if they happen to be humans, they are coded with a certain religious significance through their skin tone and cultural garments/bhindi. The fact that their names are essentially Zeus and Hera sells the idea that they are gods/demi gods to me.

Is this a form of exoticism and dehumanizing? No doubt, a powerful case can be made for that. But other than being Indian with Greek names, I don't really see them as being a mix of other ethnic cultures...and I don't know if a Japanese viewer would see it that way either.

I wrote in another post how I think they could be seen as Yama and Yami, the Indian deities of Death and Life. Even though Akio uses the word Lucifer, I'm not really sold on him literally being the Christian interpretation of Satan. I'm more of the camp of this being a codeword for being the King of Hades as conceptualized in Japan. (Enma Daioh 閻魔大王 being etymologically related to Yama and all...)

If you do see other connections outside of Indian and Greek, do enlighten me. It was just something I had not seen at all.

It is just my opinion as well, but I also believe the "French aesthetic" of the show is also an extension of Ikuhara+staff's interest in classicism. France was pivotal in the Late Baroque/Rococo and Neoclassical art movements that are referenced quite a bit in the show.

Last edited by barafubuki (06-06-2016 05:58:14 PM)

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#8 | Back to Top06-06-2016 06:48:30 PM

pesimistamente
Anthy Assailer
From: Barcelona [former epi]
Registered: 01-12-2016
Posts: 70

Re: "Dios", in spanish

barafubuki wrote:

If you do see other connections outside of Indian and Greek, do enlighten me. It was just something I had not seen at all.

The word "Dios" (in case it came from Spanish and not from Greek), adrift from the french theme of the rest of the show.

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#9 | Back to Top06-07-2016 08:28:55 AM

Herbal Rose
New Student
Registered: 06-07-2016
Posts: 3

Re: "Dios", in spanish

Dios is Spanish. The name makes sense since Akio really was looked up as everyone's prince when he was young. So he was technically a "god" and someone people looked up to. Once adulthood tainted him, he changed his name along with his image.

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#10 | Back to Top06-07-2016 11:21:54 AM

barafubuki
Mikage Mistruster
Registered: 05-13-2016
Posts: 60

Re: "Dios", in spanish

Dios is Spanish. The name makes sense since Akio really was looked up as everyone's prince when he was young. So he was technically a "god" and someone people looked up to. Once adulthood tainted him, he changed his name along with his image.

Yes, Dios is Spanish...but my only issue with accepting that interpretation means accepting a Christian mythology (which I don't see that much of) in comparison to all the Greek references (which I see quite a bit) throughout the entire show. We also don't have (as far as I can tell) any other names in Spanish...but we do have Greek names! Dios is also quite common (by various spellings) in several other languages. It also happens to be the name for Zeus in Greek.

I think there is a very strong case for Dios as Zeus. First, there is a ton of etymological evidence to support this. You see evidence of this in words like Dioscuri (lit. Zeus's boys) and Aetos Dios (Eagle of Zeus). And if we look back far enough, we even see origins for this deity in Proto-Indo-European cultures.

I think Dios as "Zeus" makes sense when we look at it also from the perspective that Anthy is Anthea (an epithet for Hera meaning "Flower") and Utena is Calyx, (the literal support for the flower).

Hera is known as a jealous deity who was always upset with her husband's philandering. He was notorious for raping Leda as a Swan and Europa as a Cow and Ganymede as an Eagle and Hera as a Peacock, and it didn't even end there! (He was really pretty awlful.) You could say that the Prince persona under which he rapes Utena was also an illusion. Anyways, all this running around and raping everything he saw caused Hera all sorts of anguish, so she resorted to TORTURING her rivals. https://mythmuses.wordpress.com/2010/09 … h-of-hera/ This feels very much like Anthy. Oh and did I mention that Zeus and Hera were SIBLINGS!?

If I had access to OED, (which I don't at the moment since I'm not in school) I'd post up more etymological sources from there, but here are some alternatives:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?ter … in_frame=0
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%94%CE%B9%CF%8C%CF%82

‌‌dyeu-
To shine (and in many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Zero-grades *dyu‑ and *diw‑.
Derivatives include Tuesday, divine, jovial, Jupiter, diary, dismal, journey, and psychedelic.
Basic form *dyeu‑, Jove, the name of the god of the bright sky, head of the Indo-European pantheon.
Jove, jovial; apojove, perijove, Sangiovese, from Latin Iovis, Jupiter, or Iov‑, stem of Iuppiter, Jupiter.
July, from Latin Iūlius, "descended from Jupiter" (name of a Roman gens), from derivative *iou-il‑.
Vocative compound *dyeu-pəter, "O father Jove" (*pəter‑, father; see pəter-). Jupiter, from Latin Iuppiter, Iūpiter, head of the Roman pantheon.
Dione, Zeus; dianthus, Dioscuri, from Greek Zeus (genitive Dios), Zeus.
Noun *deiwos, god, formed by e-insertion to the zero-grade *diw‑ and suffixation of (accented) -o‑.
Tiu, Tuesday, from Old English Tīw (genitive Tīwes), god of war and sky;
Tyr, from Old Norse Tȳr, sky god. Both a and b from Germanic *Tīwaz.
deism, deity, joss; adieu, adios, deific, deus ex machina, from Latin deus, god.
diva, divine, from Latin dīvus, divine, god.
Dis, Dives, from Latin dīves, rich (< "fortunate, blessed, divine").
Suffixed zero-grade form *diw-yo‑, heavenly. Diana, from Latin Diāna, moon goddess.
deva, Devi; deodar, Devanagari, from Sanskrit devaḥ, god, and deva‑, divine.
Asmodeus, from Avestan daēuua‑, spirit, demon.
Variant *dyē‑ (< *dyeə‑) dial, diary, diet2, dismal, diurnal, journal, journey; adjourn, ajouré, circadian, meridian, postmeridian, quotidian, sojourn, from Latin diēs, day.
Variant *deiə‑. psychedelic, adelgid, from Greek dēlos (< *deyalos), clear.
[Pokorny 1. dei‑ 183.]

I guess you can interpret it however you want, but I'm pretty convinced this was Ikuhara+staff's intention.

Last edited by barafubuki (06-07-2016 11:35:15 AM)

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#11 | Back to Top01-21-2017 07:35:33 PM

brian
Atlantean Singer
Registered: 10-22-2006
Posts: 589

Re: "Dios", in spanish

In another thread I was suggesting Dionysus, but the Dioscuri is interesting too. Castor and Pollux are also a constellation and lots of allusions to stars are made in the Utena corpus. I believe one was mortal and the other immortal. They are also associated with horses and so perhaps the mystifying horses in the opening sequence hint that Anthy and Utena were being thought of as Dioscuri earlier on.

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