I'd say Anthy for stabbing Utena in the back. Literally.

Nariel wrote:

Well Anthy wasn't really wanting to be cruel to Utena when she stabbed her, I don't think, I think it was more a way to get her out of the duel with Akio so she wouldn't die, I don't think it was a fatal wound just a wound painful enough to incapacitate Utena. Whereas Shiori goes out of her way to be mean to Juri. So she is more evil in my opinion.

Seconded. That's my take on the stabbing as well. Anthy, resigned to her fate, keeps Utena from taking the swords for her. But sheesh, that determined girl got up anyway and isn't even mad she got stabbed. Now that's .

As for Shiori, well, she's a mixed up girl but hey, Jury could be a little more open with her feelings. I mean, if I were Shiori, I would feel like Jury was ASHAMED of loving me because she's so closed off about it. And that would make me feel BAD. And give me a complex, uh, like the one she has.

Maarika wrote:

Oh, if you put it that way then I'd have to agree too. I was thinking of what each of them had done to others, more than why they did so. This makes me wonder how Anthy knew how to stab her the way she wouldn't get too severely injured. Especially because that seemed to be first time for her to hold a sword.

Well, she gets stabbed with the million swords of hatred a lot so she would know where to place one to make someone fall over etc, because she would have experienced it herself.

Maarika wrote:

But she could never die from the swords, it was just a torment. And weren't the swords a metaphor anyway?

Hmmm, well I'm pretty sure she felt physical as well as mental pain, but it was never her actual mortal body that was getting stabbed so she couldn't die, because her mortal body and 'heart' were in a coffin. The swords I think were forged from hatred that was so strong it metamorphsed (dunno if that's the right word) into metal.

Don't get me wrong. I love Anthy, but I still think that she is cruel.

A while ago, I made a chart with each Utena character's name on it. An arrow pointed from one name to another, based on if that person had made the other person suffer. To this day, I still show this chart to people just to surprise them with the complexity of it. There were more arrows than I care to count. Then, as though that weren't enough, I decided to list out each characters name, with a list of the character's they upset. Then, I gave a number to each character depending on how much they hurt them. One being, only hurt a little, three being very hurt, and four being very, very hurt. Four wasn't supposed to come up very often, but it showed up surprisingly often.

Since Shiori has only upset one person, she only got a four. Both Juri and Ruka scored higher than that. Anthy, however, scored the highest, and that was before I was even aware that she was behind the cowbell and such.

Anthy is cruel, more so than Shiori. She is a witch, after all. For a while, I didn't understand how she was a witch, since she was always so nice. My second or third time through the series left me thinking, "Wow! Anthy is really evil!" Some of what Anthy does is slightly justified, though. Nanami tried to embarrass her and make her suffer in the first few episodes, so from then on, Anthy did all she could to make her suffer. The Cowbell was her doing, as was the egg. In episode four, she put all of those things there, knowing that Nanami would try something.

She also intentionally upset Juri by offering her that rose. This, I assume, was revenge for that sadistic smile of hers in the first episode, and the glare she directed at Touga for ruining her fun.

That's only the tip of the iceberg. I didn't even mention the people in the Black Rose saga.


As for Shiori, she is cruel, though I don't think she's as cruel as some people might think. It is the most commonly used word to describe her.

I don't think that the term, "Cruelly Innocent," means that Shiori is both cruel and innocent, or that she is seemingly innocent but actually cruel. It means that Shiori's innocence is cruel to Juri. If I'm not mistaken, in the dub, Juri even says that Shiori is "unintentionally" cruel. (I could be wrong, since I can't watch the dub without expecting Shiori to cast the Dragon Slave.)

Shiori's innocent belief in miracles is cruel to Juri, because it gives her false hope. When Shiori confronts Juri, she talks about how she wishes they could go back to the time when they were friends without realizing that Juri does want to go back time, so much that it hurts. In the next scene, Utena makes the same mistake. She encourages their friendship without realizing what this does to Juri, thus revealing the term "Cruelly Innocent."

When Utena confronts Akio about this, he says, "You're just like Ganymede, the boy from the constellation Aquarius: Innocent and pure. But such innocence can be harmful to other people, you should be careful." Shiori's birthday is February 2nd, making her an Aquarius. Ganymede, in Greek mythology, was the Cup-bearer of the Gods. Zeus saw Ganymede, and fell in love with him at first sight. He then took the form of an eagle and abducted the young boy so that he could become the Cup-bearer of the Gods. Zeus placed his form among the stars as the constellation Aquarius to give him eternity. This story was often used as justification for homosexual relationships in Greek history.

Unless you squint, there isn't much of a relation between Ganymede and Shiori, making it seem like a rather strained way to call her "innocent and pure." The only relationship of any real interest is that Ganymede is symbolized by water. This explains why Shiori is always around water whenever she is depressed over her feelings for Shiori, as we see in the next scene.

Could this innocence just be an act, and that she knew that saying all of this knowing it would hurt Juri? Perhaps, though I can't help but think that they wouldn't have gone through all that trouble to make that comparison if she was. Had it been Anthy who said, "You and Shiori should be friends again," then that would definitely mean that Shiori was doing it on purpose. Yet it was Utena, who genuinely thought that they would be friends

Over all, yes, Shiori is cruel, but Anthy is crueler, and her cruelty seems to spread over a wider range. Being stabbed with hundreds of swords would make anyone bitter, but being cruel doesn't really help her at all, whereas Shiori is cruel to satisfy her own ambitions.

Sadly, I believe I'm going to hop right on the bandwagon, at least when it comes to those anime versions of the characters. While Shiori can be very cruel, Anthy is more willfully vicious. Anthy may have better reason for being what she is, but the reason does not excuse her from her actions.  Shiori is not to blame for her actions as Juri interprets them, asking to become friends and not understanding Juri's feelings toward her, but she is to blame for ending their friendship with an attempt to hurt Juri by taking a boy from her.

This was actually a harder choice for me to make, after the knee-jerk choice of Anthy. Let's compare them using sphere and intent..

Sphere:

Their sphere of influence, as well as the size of the pain they inflict and the amount of people they have hurt. Clearly, Anthy has won in this particular section: as previously mentioned, she has tormented Juri in particular, Nanami with more subtle and indirect ways, Wakaba, and even Utena. We can't see these as the only people she has hurt, since we don't know how long the duels have been in action, or how long Anthy has been the Rose Bride. Shiori's actions pale in comparison, although she has one thing over Anthy: while Anthy hurts and takes pleasure in inflicting small emoints of emotional pain in the people she comes across, Shiori reveled in the humbling and heartbreak of a childhood friend who was very dear to her. While Anthy's acts of cruelty were more widespread, they were almost parlor tricks, all played on people she had no interest in, no emotion invested into.  Compared to the very close and very personal betrayal Shiori committed, Anthy's cruelty is widespread, but shallow. However, to be fair to Shiori, she made one enormous mistake, and through the series can be seen dealing with it, even growing. Anthy took a longer time and the right person to help her along.

The argument could be made that Anthy hurt both Akio and Utena, who were close to her as well. However, it's clear that her relationship with Akio is now something devoid of love or affection, and has more to do with her duty and with desperation and her inability to free herself. They seem to have physical desire, and an ongoing powerplay. This is a severely unhealthy relationship. With Utena, the first actual cruelty she showed her was early on in the relationship of Bride and Victor, when she clung to Touga and rejected Utena's offer of friendship by smiling happily at her and telling her that she was happy being a mindless doll. She had none of the closeness that they shared later in the series, and certainly not the emotional bond that Shiori and Juri would have as best friends since childhood.

Intent:

Anthy is a practiced manipulator, and she uses these skills frequently in her role of Rose Bride, constantly shaping the actions of the Duelists to fit the desires of Akio and herself. Many of the actions that people would call 'cruel', such as her posing as long-dead Mamiya for Mikage, only to give him back his memories at a critical point in his Duel, are pivotal, necessary actions for their plan to progress. I'm using the word 'cruelty' to mean willfully damaging and hurting another person and taking pleasure in their pain, either for sheer amusement's sake or for another purpose. Anthy's actions when they are necessary for the Duels, I see more as ruthlessness than actual sadistic cruelty, she may take no pleasure in them, but sees them as necessary means to their goal. When she does take pleasure in the pain of others, it's shown, if subtly, as a faint smile or a narrowing of the eyes. We see this in Saionji's failed Duel, where she smiles as she reminds him of his failure and new position.

Shiori's pleasure is more blatant, but it comes with strings of guilt and confusion attached. She doesn't , as Anthy, take a minute to enjoy what her actions have wrought. She strikes me more as the type to keep a memory off triumph vivid, to gloat over at night or when she has time to herself, if only to remind herself that she, at one time, had power. She openly triumphs over Juri's defeat in Mikage's elevator, saying that she was glad to have Juri suffering, to see her so pathetic. Of course, afterward, she tosses that locket away, looking afraid of it, and utters her deeper feeling: 'why can't you tell me what you really feel?' Shiori is confused and her actions are desperate and clumsy attempts to make herself feel better. She's selfish, insecure, and angry, while Anthy is coldly sadistic.

A fantastic post that summarizes my own thoughts quite well. There is not much left to say except that almost every character is cruel, even if only inadvertantly. I imagine that all of them will re-unite some years later and laugh at their immaturity.

It is funny how females seem to draw more heat than the males.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

brian wrote:

is funny how females seem to draw more heat than the males.

I think this has something to do with the fact that Akio, Touga, et. al. just look so damn good when they're being cruel that nobody seems to care.

Truth. However I also think the series makes you expect bad behavior from the male cast. There's such a strong OMG GRRL POWER theme present that you just assume the men are going to be bastards. The series does a fantastic job of setting up your expectations in gender roles. The message is focused on the women, and so the women are more varied, but the male cast is almost blanketly a bunch of godless bastards. Miki is the lone exception. Well him and Tatsuya, however they make a point to tell us Tatsuya himself is a bit of an abuser of his prince act. But from the very beginning we're shown SAIONJI BAD. By the end of the episode, Touga doesn't appear quite as fantastic as he was when he was introduced. Akio is similarly shot down by the end of the episode he's introduced in, and Mikage is dangerous and foreboding right from the start. Ruka? Well even at best, the show doesn't paint him in a good light.

I really have to disagree with you on that one. That smile she gives Saionji when he loses: I'm pretty sure she took some enjoyment out of that. Anthy didn't need to offer Juri that symbolic Shiori rose after the duel, but she did so anyway. She didn't need to break Utna's spirit even more at her loss by wrapping herself around Touga- and we see she has a measure of control in how she answers. She seemed dejected when she made the 'I Am Rose Bride' speech to the student council when she was engaged to Saionji. With Touga, she seemed to be nailing a point in to Utena. She takes pleasure in giving Akio the cold shoulder, making him remark that she is cruel. Her reply to this is a smile. Do these methods accomplish something? Certainly. But that doesn't mean that she gets absolutely no pleasure out of them. I'd like to give Anthy some credit for having a complex and conflicted personality under the 'soulless doll' routine.

When it comes to subtle mental cruelty, passive-aggressives are the masters of that sort of thing.

And when you have access to magic, you can turn up the suffering quite a number of notches.

Shiori cruel streak is like a molehill, Anthy's streak is like K2 in comparison.

Akio's cruel streak is more like a large phallic-shaped stalactite that is waiting to fall on some unsuspecting victim.

Rampala wrote:

So, from this perspective, I don't see Anthy as cruel but merely a pawn.  She's a slave to her own heart, practically a zombie, and it's sad, but she's not cruel for kicks.

I'm sorry, I can't believe that it didn't occur to me that saying that Anthy is cruel might offend someone.

Actually, I used to think the same thing. I thought that everything she did was an order from Akio. It's just that it doesn't explain why she did what she did in the filler episodes, when her actions didn't contribute anything to Akio's plan...

Passive-aggressiveness is a big part of my life and that behavior is what makes Anthy real to me. I think that she feels it's the only weapon available to her because she doesn't think she has the strength to just walk away from everything that's hurting her.