I choose to think that when Akio says that he and Anthy can't die, it's more of a metaphorical sense, in that so long as they're in the game, they're good. It makes me wonder if Anthy was forgotten when she followed Utena into the outside world, or if people remembered her.

Something I've always been annoyed with is this principle in several religions that basically states the lower you start, the more opportunities you have to become heavenly. Did Akio think along the same lines, that the more revelation a person went through, the more "princely" they'd become? I know that in the soul swords discussion, there was some debate on the actual forging, so I guess it would be the same thought process, the more times you heat and cool the swords the stronger it becomes (but also more brittle, if I remember correctly). By the same token though, what makes starting so low better, is that you have more opportunities to take paths to make you lower, less heavenly. If they choose to keep themselves in their own coffins,  that would make them less "princely," and thus, less usable to Akio. The more trials a person goes through, the stronger they become, or the weaker and more despondent they become. I see this as having lasted a long time with hundred, maybe even thousands of duellists, but veeeeery few Princes. Like maybe two or three.

Another part of choosing to use duellists with bagagge might be because as low as he may be now, he used to be a Prince. Who's to say that someone has to be better them him to be a Prince?

rhyaniwyn wrote:

They might be immortal, or god-like, but they are gods like the Greek gods, not gods like Jehovah.  They are not omniscient or omnipotent, they are simply more than human.  But, like humans, they have faults and tragic flaws.

Actually, since this came up in the other thread too...

The concept of God being omniscient and even omnipotent is a relatively recent one, and you won't find support for it in the original Old Testament. YHWH is not omniscient, not all-good, contradicts himself on occasion, is not the only god, and is very, very arguably not omnipotent. He's still way bigger than YOU, though.

IE, he WAS a God like the Greek gods. So when I refer to Dios as God, I mean it in the sense of the actual literal one, not the popular public image of one. I think this is intentional by the series; the name Dios was not chosen to not give the impression he's God.

Well, after years of watching this series, and trying to pick apart what "it's really all about" I had a strange kind of revelation. When you simplify everything down to far-too-broad-generalizations, what you're left with is a pair of selfish siblings who are just as weak as the characters they manipulate.

Akio looks at his sister and says something to the effect of "Well gee, this [Dios "dying"] is going to pot. So instead of dealing with these issuses ourselves, lets screw with the emotions of people who have almost as much baggage as we do...sex now? " And Anthy, out of guilt or her own new power over Akio or just glad to finally be someone's princess...goes along with this obviously flawed idea.

This is something people do every! day! ofthe! week! Because they don't want to do the work to overcome their issues, they foist the responsibility onto someone else, with the idea that "someday my prince will come to save me"

It's a cop out I'm guilty of using. And it usually takes a Wakaba-type of friend to snap me out of my unwillingness to address my problems. Best of all, they usually have the same advice too, "just deal with it Archer" And I have to recognize all over again, that my issues won't get resolved unless I'm the one to solve them.

That's what I was trying to get at. That the underlying issue of the Ohtori dueling games may not be eternity or nobility, but rather two siblings who didn't want to face their issues themselves.

I see Akio as a few too many beers (or cognacs, as Gio decided). Alone, he's useless. Just stays in the bottle. But when people drink of him he gets them to do things that, while they wouldn't ordinarily do those things, are not entirely against their natures. And because he's so delicious the people around him continue to drink of him and in that way he continues to have power over them. But as soon as anyone decides to abstain he loses any power or influence that he had.

Yes, this is oversimplified. But it's late and I'm tired.

I totally agree with that, Gio.  AND I love your imagery there.  Haha.

I wondered why I said that...then I realized I meant it more like, "he doesn't know what he needs/what would be a genuinely fulfilling way to live."  'Course, getting your every little desire gratified is probably pretty fulfilling in some ways.  Some pretty fun ways.

Do you really think the object of the game was to keep Anthy hopeful that he might save her?  I figured Anthy did have some secret hope that he would, but I didn't think he really encouraged it beyond occasional (false) exhibitions of sympathy and guilt.  I thought he genuinely wanted more power, and I thought it was pretty funny that he's blind to the fact that it's impossible.  I always took that conversation they have:

Akio: "Perhaps if I were trying to become a Prince like in the old days, no one would have gotten hurt."
Anthy: "You are he who chose this road, knowing the whole of the world."
Akio: "Knowing the whole of you, I love you."

As meaning:
Akio: "I'm not going to try to save you." 
Anthy:  "You know everything, and continue to make the same choice."
Akio: "And so do you, but I still 'love' you."

Obviously that "love" is pretty suspect.

But everything you said on that score makes sense, even though I never thought of it in that light before.  Maybe he does know what's behind the gate (not just once he sees it, but the whole time), and the game to get the Power of Dios is more a game to preserve what little "Power" he still has, much of which apparently lies in Anthy.

Another reason why I like the manga better: His superficial goals are easier to understand. He is trying to get rid of Anthy and replace her with Utena. When Utena refuses to leave Anthy he shrugs it off.

In the end, of course, it is still futile. If Utena had chosen him he would have either discarded or destroyed her.

Wow, ok. I've never liked Akio, and I've never understood him, for as long as I've been an Utena fan. I still don't like him, but now I think at least I kind of understand where he's coming from. Thanks Gio.

Giovanna wrote:

It's just easy to miss because everyone's busy writing him off as the end boss.

... OK. Now I have a very disturbing image of Akio as Bowser and Utena as Mario. Utena may look cute in the little red jump suit, but the giant shell does nothing for Akio.

alexielnet wrote:

... OK. Now I have a very disturbing image of Akio as Bowser and Utena as Mario. Utena may look cute in the little red jump suit, but the giant shell does nothing for Akio.

...so...do you defeat him by grabbing his tail and spinning him around and throwing him out of the tower?

Xu Yuan wrote:

EDIT 2: In the script it has Akio saying "You don't know what'll happen!" when Utena open's the Rose Gate, rather then "Don't you realize what will happen!" as what we hear, which one can we trust though?

I think they're close enough, although that is a fine point of interpretation that can swing things a little...except if Akio doesn't know, he's equally likely to put it either way. It'd be like him to act like he knows what will happen even if he doesn't.

Frosty wrote:

Great Akio Scholar

Muahahaha.

...really that's probably a Very Bad Thing.

Frosty wrote:

So, he does not want the power to revolutionize the world, the Power of Dios…or to turn back into a prince and rescue Anthy (ha), or anything of the sort. He really has no noble goal at the end, just wants to keep Anthy as his shield so he can to continue to play his game safely?

Yep. The series, especially with Akio and Anthy, tends to offer us the truth when we don't think there's honesty in what's being said. When Akio says 'There are no Princes anywhere in this world.', he means it. Whether that's true or not is a whole other debate, but he doesn't think just anyone can be a prince. That age is over. When Anthy's walking out on him and telling him to 'Please continue playing prince in this coffin forever.', she means exactly that and knows it's what will happen. But what's so tragic and awful about Akio's fate is that we know it's pathetic, but he doesn't, even when his behavior is pointed out to him. If he's aware at all of the position he's in, he doesn't care that it's pathetic in and of itself. That might be even worse. Anthy is completely calling him out there on the lie he's fed her for centuries. She ate it willingly for so long, but what has he been doing but playing like he might be, is trying to be, will be, a prince for her? (Granted that specific behavior will probably cease when she leaves, but she was referring to her own situation with him, not what he does to others.)

Frosty wrote:

Is it that simple? Akio is severely more wicked than I had imagined. Did he hope to gain some sort of power so that he could eventually remove the swords from chasing his tail? I mean to ask, what did he want at the end?

I don't think Akio quite understood how the swords or the prince thing work. Unsurprisingly, his ignorance falls squarely on that he's selfish even about what damns him. Akio doesn't try to remove the swords, he only sees to it there's always a barrier. Akio, I suspect, doesn't believe the swords can be nullified or diverted, and he doesn't want to believe that, since it would suggest he's not the center of the universe after that. He's not the prince, but wow he must be a big deal if a million swords are after him, huh?

Akio no doubt would be all over any power he could get his hands on, but while he talks a lot about getting the Power of Dios, nothing he does makes any sense for any pursuit of it. He doesn't really think there is any such thing. Especially if you consider the PoD to be his innocence. Something Akio probably misses in a philosophical sense, but really wouldn't ever take back if given the opportunity. If you run with the PoD being the innocence that made him able to do truly selfless acts, then it's pretty amusing that Akio sends the whole student council after it for themselves. Because they mirror any pursuit he'd make for it. That they're after the PoD at all, with no understanding of what it is, is itself the reason they can't have it. They lost their innocence when they decided the power to do good things needed to serve their purposes.

I don't think Akio's chasing anything at all except his own tail in the series. He just wants to stay where he is, and continue to do what he's doing. The only thing that could ever change is the sphere of influence, but it will always be that same influence. The Prince wanted to save everyone. Akio wants everyone in the dirt with him.

Frosty wrote:

Any relevance to the fact that, he seems shocked to notice the coffin, right? When Utena's at the gate, he's sipping his iced beverage... but when the coffin appears, he looks quite concerned. Did he KNOW the coffin was there the entire time? Did he know what would happen if it were opened? Apparently, because he shouted, "Don't you know what will happen!?" Or something. So he did. Well, why is that significant? He simply wanted to keep Anthy trapped, or was it, he wanted to be the one to open it himself, or was it, he wasn't sure what would happen with the swords if Anthy went back into her coffin?

I think Akio had some idea Anthy was behind the gate. I'd have to doublecheck the sequence, it's been a while, but I always felt his freaking out at that point related very much to what I said above about the swords. Akio thinks they will always come after him. He is the prince. No one else. Even this pink-haired upstart, if she frees Anthy, won't become a prince herself. The course of events Akio's imagining is that Utena might actually reach Anthy, and Anthy might actually agree to go with her, and that means he has no Rose Bride and without that barrier, the swords will finally find their original target. He thinks the swords will come to him. He's too self-centered to imagine them ever finding another target.

Why isn't Akio wondering in the next scene why the swords didn't come after him? Because that's a question he doesn't want to answer. Someone else was worth the world's hate? Bah. And even if they were, the swords obviously weren't satisfied if Anthy's still there being his Rose Br-...hey, Anthy, where are you going???

This conversation just shifts my interpretation.  It's similar, but it makes my head spin a little.

So, I was just thinking...

The Power of Dios isn't innocence so much as it's something that only an innocent person can possess.  And innocence might be giving the wrong impression (considering I don't think anyone is ever innocent)…more like idealism and a dedication to said idealism.  It's that "sincerity" that Akio recognizes in Utena, the belief she still has that faith and trying hard enough can change the world.  And Saito once said that the power to revolutionize the world was really the power to change yourself. 

Utena has a kind of power due to the way she sees the world, through being a fool, because it allows her to persevere.  Utena doesn't have the power to revolutionize the world, because she continues to be the same person and see things in the same terms she always has.  That's a fault, but Utena is still our heroine because of what she accomplishes seeing the world through rose-colored glasses.  Her stubborn foolishness keeps the world from trampling her quaint ideals and "treasured memories".  Harkening to this thread, one thing Utena does "rise above" is the notion that her worth as a woman is determined by her attractiveness to men--closely related to the idea that she necessarily loses her "innocence" and purity with her virginity.  She goes through things that could easily break her heart, but she doesn't change.  She turns her face away.  She doesn't change for the worse, but neither does she change for the better.  That's just the sort of person she is, and there are pros as well as cons.  I'd rather be an Utena than an Akio.

Akio doesn't have the Power of Dios or the power to revolutionize the world.  The first, because he is a determined cynic, the second because he lacks the capacity to change.  He doesn't want to, either.  Not only is he incapable of being a Prince, he's incapable of being the sort of person who sees any value in it, who might take a chance of walking out onto the wire with the desire to be Princely in his heart.


(That's the wire I'm talking about)

But we know that within the context of the series, some of the symbols are real.  The swords are symbolic, but they also exist.  Same with the coffin, etc.  So the PoD (heh) probably also exists in some form.  Probably as some form of magic that Dios had that Akio no longer has.  It's long been viewed as a godhead, though, impossible for someone to possess without sincerely taking on the duties and persona of Dios.

So does Akio know that?  Does he really want to get it?  Or is the dueling game one he plays because it amuses him and in order to give Anthy false hope?  Gio's take fits really well. 

However, I always thought he wanted it.  I thought the futility of using a sword to open the Rose Gate was something of a metaphor for an external locus of control.  Akio doesn't want to look inside himself for a reason or for revolution, he instead decides his powers are diminished because they are locked behind a gate.  He thinks that revolution is something you can impose from the outside.

Actually, from that perspective he and Utena are not so different.  Which isn't so surprising when you remember that Utena reminds Akio of the person he used to be.  That's one of the problems with the Prince.  You can do good things, but your worldview is so limited.  You can never see the whole of any person and accept it, you are doomed to only see people through some filter--Prince, Princess, Witch.

So what does Akio know and what doesn't he?  His character is, ultimately, so pathetic it's easy for me to believe he had almost everything wrong.  That he thought someday a sword would open the gates and that when that happened, he'd be able to take a piece of Dios's magic for himself.  That he had no idea the only thing behind those gates was an opportunity to redeem himself by trying to save Anthy.  So when the swords freeze and he sees that coffin, he realizes that Utena had summoned Anthy.  And he thinks, "Crap, the swords are here and the Bride is gone…they'll be after me now."  (Whether that's true or not.)  The sight of it doesn't change his mind, either, he wants to start the dueling game over.  Perhaps he, like Utena, thinks that Anthy would only have been "saved" had her Prince not "failed" and let Anthy fall.

Why did Utena head toward the gates?  Did she know Anthy was there, or was she going there because Dios told her she could save Anthy if she got the power (which they told her was behind the doors)?  What she got was simply a chance to try.

The only one I can trust, strangely, is Anthy.  She is the one who changes.  And she completely rejects the Prince, seeing it as a childish illusion only fit for someone in a coffin.

Both Utena and Akio seem to buy into the Prince, each in their own way.  Perhaps Akio does it only out of convenience, but perhaps that's part of his problem.  Both of them think that revolution is something you can do for other people.

Last edited by rhyaniwyn (12-20-2006 04:18:16 PM)

rhyaniwyn wrote:

The Power of Dios isn't innocence so much as it's something that only an innocent person can possess.  And innocence might be giving the wrong impression (considering I don't think anyone is ever innocent)…more like idealism and a dedication to said idealism.  It's that "sincerity" that Akio recognizes in Utena, the belief she still has that faith and trying hard enough can change the world.  And Saito once said that the power to revolutionize the world was really the power to change yourself.

I completely agree here, and if I seemed like I didn't, it's because I was totally railing off from Akio's POV. I keep equating the PoD with innocence because Akio does this. Only an innocent and completely pure heart can have that power, because that's how it worked for him. This is the root of the logical 'conflict' he capitalizes on. He thinks you have to be pure and innocent to really have the Power of Dios, but he also doesn't believe (rightly so, I think) that anyone's motives can be absolutely pure. That's why he's nice and safe. No one's going to save Anthy because by the calculations he does, no one can be the prince she needs.

Of course, he's wrong. It's that sincerity and dedication to the ideal that count, not the black and white absolute that once applied to him. But that's a convenient way for him to see things, isn't it? If you have to be pure of heart to save Anthy, well that puts him right out of the running. He doesn't even really have to worry about attempting to, because the option is completely not there.

And that comes to the question of whether he could have saved her. I think so. After all it wasn't a pure heart she needed, in the end. Physically speaking, Akio is as capable of helping her free herself from her torments as Utena is. It's that he's so mentally invested in not being that kind of person anymore that he might as well be totally incapable of it. The patheticness of his character that we all linger on is centered around this. That he could do everything the way the series says he should. It's that he could be redeemed. If we assume he's incapable of it, what's pathetic about it? Nothing. He has no choice. But it is pathetic, because he does have that choice. He'll just never, ever, ever make it.