Yep yep. I'll edit this with my real thoughts tommorrow...

Collectively we have puzzled before about all the incest both here and in much mythology and never really come to a conclusion.

Colloquially when we say that an organization or a process or a piece of art is incestuous we tend to mean that it's self-alienated from the rest of the world, fearful, weak, weird, useless and infantile.

I think that might be a good description of what many of the characters are or are in danger of becoming.

It's what turned my sister off from the show-- and all anime. :|

Anyway, it's best to remember that just about everything in Utena has a purpose. Even as a fictional creation, this stands true; when I'm writing, things don't "just turn out" a certain way, they're made that way for a particular reason. Even if a trend emerges without me realizing it, something as glaring as prominent incestual themes would at least be noticed by an author who incorporated them, and then be either kept or dispensed with, according to the author's wishes.

So, I know I'm getting away from Utena specifically, but someone else can probably tell you WHY it's there.

dabouse1 wrote:

Akio and Anthy, Miki and Kozue, Touga and Nanami.  Is there a point as to why there're different tones/versions to incest in SKU?  Is it a good thing or a bad thing?  Or is it there because the charcters just turned out that way?

I would actually go for "it just turned out that way."  I mean, puberty and all is a theme of SKU, isn't it?  And my reasoning for Touga and Nanami is simply that Nanami was just coming to see how sexy Touga is, and Touga already knowing how sexy Nanami is.  But I'm wondering what everyone else thinks.

In Nanami's case, I've seen it argued by more eloquent people than I that Nanami isn't incestuous at all, her affection/obession for her brother is strictly in a family sense, and she behaves like a trophy wife because she's emulating her mother (although that part is just an educated guess). Touga, for his part, did think she wanted him in a sexual way and manipulated her accordingly, but this was more a part of his usual mind-games than any specific desire for his sister.

It's somewhere in the symbolism thread.

Last edited by Mishi (08-24-2008 12:04:42 PM)

Mishi wrote:

In Nanami's case, I've seen it argued by more eloquent people than I that Nanami isn't incestuous at all, her affection/obession for her brother is strictly in a family sense, and she behaves like a trophy wife because she's emulating her mother (although that part is just an educated guess). Touga, for his part, did think she wanted him in a sexual way and manipulated her accordingly, but this was more a part of his usual mind-games than any specific desire for his sister.

That's what I thought as well, but because I couldn't ignore the scenes where Nanami blushes when she imagines her brother taking a shower and when she actually watches him take a shower, I'd say she at least thought briefly, "I'd tap that."

It could be taken as a very low-tone incest, or it could be taken as nothing at all.  I'd actually go for the latter. Nanami doesn't want to have sex with Touga -- she loves him accordingly, but I think she's realizing just how attractive he is.  She's in puberty, after all.

OnlyInThisLight wrote:

dabouse1 wrote:

Mishi wrote:

In Nanami's case, I've seen it argued by more eloquent people than I that Nanami isn't incestuous at all, her affection/obession for her brother is strictly in a family sense, and she behaves like a trophy wife because she's emulating her mother (although that part is just an educated guess). Touga, for his part, did think she wanted him in a sexual way and manipulated her accordingly, but this was more a part of his usual mind-games than any specific desire for his sister.

That's what I thought as well, but because I couldn't ignore the scenes where Nanami blushes when she imagines her brother taking a shower and when she actually watches him take a shower, I'd say she at least thought briefly, "I'd tap that."

I interpreted that scene in a different way.  It's in the symbolism thread, and I'm far to lazy to restate the argument, but it's a fairly recent post, so it wouldn't be too hard to find.


/evasivelaziness.

I think that scene is again Nanami's immaturity coming through, I think the scene's more nostaligic than incesterous, she talks about missing the times when they were younger and could do everything together like bath together etc etc, of course sadly Nanami and Touga are male and female and there's puberty to think about, you can't be seventeen and bathing with your little sister, however unlike Touga Nanami doesn't seem to have moved on from those times and clings on obssesively, in fact the fact that they are brother and sister seems to give her the licence to obsess over her brother all she wants. She can be as crazy and adoring as she feels like and know it doesn't have to mean anything because they're related, the second that gets taken away from her however and she learns their not brother and sister the emotions she has for Touga pretty much fall into the same basket as any other girl on campus, and this upsets her greatly, the pure feelings that she has that attach her to a long time passed run the risk of being tainted, she's no longer so special since it's through Touga she requires her unquieness, and she loses her a piece of her family and world. I never really saw Nanami and Touga as incestrous despite how it looks, in fact they're probably the least like that in the series.

P.S this has been bothering me for the last two years now. Am I the only one who finds it strange in a program full of themes of incest that Juri is a lesbian and has an older sister?

Last edited by Coco Melancholy (08-24-2008 06:02:26 PM)

Coco Melancholy wrote:

I think that scene is again Nanami's immaturity coming through, I think the scene's more nostaligic than incesterous, she talks about missing the times when they were younger and could do everything together like bath together etc etc, of course sadly Nanami and Touga are male and female and there's puberty to think about, you can't be seventeen and bathing with your little sister, however unlike Touga Nanami doesn't seem to have moved on from those times and clings on obssesively, in fact the fact that they are brother and sister seems to give her the licence to obsess over her brother all she wants. She can be as crazy and adoring as she feels like and know it doesn't have to mean anything because they're related, the second that gets taken away from her however and she learns their not brother and sister the emotions she has for Touga pretty much fall into the same basket as any other girl on campus, and this upsets her greatly, the pure feelings that she has that attach her to a long time passed run the risk of being tainted, she's no longer so special since it's through Touga she requires her unquieness, and she loses her a piece of her family and world. I never really saw Nanami and Touga as incestrous despite how it looks, in fact they're probably the least like that in the series.

THANK YOU! I've been trying for a while to figure out how Nanami's affection for her brother, and the fact that her identity is almost completely dependent on the fact that she's Touga's sister, tied together.

8P The whole thing is actually pretty simple, when you think about it. But their relationship still bugs me, because in all the flashbacks of Nanami's childhood, she and Touga are never actually hanging out together. Those scenes seemed more to me like a child seeking the approval of her parents rather than a brother/sister relationship. Notice that even back then, Nanami has to fight to get Touga's attention. She went God knows where in order to get him the perfect birthday present. You'd think that in a party full of boring adults he'd make a beeline for his sister, instead of sitting complacently in his chair. He only notices her when all the adults make a fuss about how dirty she is. Then there's the part where she wants to go apple-picking and he's playing with the cat. She's competing with a goddamn CAT to get Touga's attention. I mean, seriously. Was he already fucking with her mind at that point? It's like the only time she has his full attention is when she's about to get mauled by some random animal.

It's stupid, but I have this image of little Touga and Nanami playing with the kitten together. In my opinion, that's how things should have gone. But then I'm a sap, and then Nanami wouldn't have turned out so messed up, and Akio would be short one duelist.

Last edited by Mishi (08-25-2008 01:37:34 PM)

Giovanna wrote:

I tend not to think incest itself is a major theme in SKU as much as a means to an end, like Coco said. The reason for this is if they wanted to make a theme out of it, it would be kinda...absent, to skip parent-child sex dynamics, especially when they're the better known ones. (Thanks to Freud. There is much more clinical documentation on sibling sex dynamics, because much more of a sexual explorative nature goes on between siblings.)

Really, Miki and Kozue are the only ones I'd say had a situation where being siblings factored strongly into the state of things. Touga/Nanami and Akio/Anthy had situations that in and of themselves didn't really stem from being siblings. Being siblings made it worse and gave us a nice easy reason for why they'd be tangled up in each other, but when push comes to shove, it's not as vital. Especially for Akio and Anthy. It's easier to have them being siblings, it fits together with less explanation, but they could have come from different planets and ended up in that relationship. And if you expect guilt and such to factor into any analysis of sibling sex relationships, well.*

*I'm talking about both of them, here. Anthy didn't seem too bent up about it.

That's sort of what I meant about it "just turning out that way," except now I'm starting to like Coco's interpretation and mixing it with mine. I just noticed that the implications of incest or its potential were heavy. I was even wondering about Juri and her sister as well, and little things like Mikage and the fake Mamiya. Originally, Nemuro wanted him as merely a brother/son. But I assumed it was like how Gio described Anthy and Akio. Besides, those boys are not really related.