You're implying she ever did like it, or him. I don't believe either.

Aelanie wrote:

You're implying she ever did like it, or him. I don't believe either.

But she did love Dios, though they seem to be completely separate characters to her by now, and it is unclear whether or not their relationship had any sexual elements before (they seem to have a somewhat normal brother and sister relationship in the flashbacks).

Eh?

I mean, it would certainly be morally convenient if Anthy never liked having sex with her brother, but when has anything about Anthy ever been morally convenient?

Personally, I think she was always fairly ambivalent about the matter, with varying degrees of hesitation or complicity at various times.  Yes, there was that time he grabbed her, but after that, she doesn't avoid him, and she doesn't hesitate to go back up there when Nanami is staying over.

Aelanie wrote:

You're implying she ever did like it, or him. I don't believe either.

Basically.  Not the way we think about loving a brother or loving a lover and especially not both.  Not without there also being disgust and resentment mixed in.

Kita-Ysabell wrote:

Personally, I think she was always fairly ambivalent about the matter, with varying degrees of hesitation or complicity at various times.  Yes, there was that time he grabbed her, but after that, she doesn't avoid him, and she doesn't hesitate to go back up there when Nanami is staying over.

Precisely.  Though I can't imagine them ever rolling around joyfully together, so my idea of "complicity" is more about whether she ever initiated anything and whether she ever managed to convince herself that she wanted him, wanted their relationship.  Not about whether she was happy, because I don't think she was ever happy.

satyreyes wrote:

She spends most of the show doing whatever he says out of, I think, a sense of all-consuming guilt over what she did to Dios, a feeling that she owes complete loyalty to the person she turned Dios into, a fitting punishment for sealing him.  Is that the same as caring about Akio?  If so, I don't think she stops until the end of episode 39, because if it had been earlier then she would not have put a sword through Utena.  If by caring about Akio you mean loving the person that he is now, I think she stopped a long time ago.  And if by caring about Akio you mean loving the Dios in her memory, I don't think she ever stopped.

I see her as acting out of desperate need for validation.  That's guilt, but it's not I hurt my brother, so I will stay with him and serve him because I feel bad about it. Rather, it's a freaky mix of I deserve to be punished, so I'll let him mistreat me and I hate myself, but if he can still love me I am worth something.  The idea that, as a Prince, Akio can save Anthy from herself and, in so doing, unmake her original sin of destroying Dios (because, if Akio saves her, he's a Prince again, so she didn't destroy him).  And--not at all incidentally--at the same time Anthy gets what she so desperately wanted in the first place...she's made a Princess, because the Prince rescued her.

Episode 39 wrote:

Anthy:  You are he who chose this road, knowing the whole of the world.
Akio:  Knowing the whole of you, I love you.
Anthy:  Yes, brother.

The weird, passionless, rote way this plays out always made me feel sick.  It doesn't even seem like the conversation is about any of the desires either Akio or Anthy have expressed aloud up until that point.  So why do they mouth it like it's an inevitability?  Because it's always the subtext between them.

Episode 38 wrote:

Akio:  There never was any such thing as a Prince anywhere in the world in the first place.
Utena:  Didn't you just say you were a Prince?
Akio:  Do you know what that is?
Akio:  It's Dios's, the Prince's Grave.
Akio:  When she became known as a witch, Dios perished.
Akio:  The Princely me no longer exists.

That's what I see in all this, "I was a Prince, but there never was a Prince" contradiction.  Anthy asking for help Akio couldn't give, when he defined himself as a man who helps women, destroyed him.  It made him realize that his persona of a Prince was a callow lie from the start.  No wonder he hates her--she not only destroyed his identity, she made him see how ridiculous he was.  Some Prince--Akio couldn't even rescue his own sister, and eventually he even came to deeply resent Anthy for asking him to.

For a long, long time Akio needed Anthy there to help him pretend he still wanted to be a Prince.  For Anthy, keeping her by Akio's side was a promise that he'd eventually help her.  That promise, being something he could never (and eventually didn't care to) fulfill, extended Anthy's torment (giving her plenty of reason to hate him, because it made her admiration pointless and sacrifice meaningless, plus ouch, harsh).  But they both needed the hope, though ultimately it became more like: he wanted the power the illusion gave him, she wanted to guilt-trip him.  Thus the dynamic between them...

Episode 37 wrote:

Akio:  Does it hurt, Anthy?
Akio:  But I'm not the one causing your pain.
Akio:  It's the world.

Episode 34 wrote:

Akio:  But a star is a star. It belongs to nobody.
Akio:  It belongs to nobody.
Anthy:  Good night, brother.
Akio:  Do you still torment me?

It's a cyclical self-fulfilling prophecy.  Anthy begging, "Save me (you're the only one who can; regret it)," and Akio replying, "I can't (screw you for pressuring me; I'm sorry)."  They can't even totally blame each other, because they're both complicit in their own individual and each others' problem (needing to be saved/not being able to save).  They also can't stop it by walking away from each other, because it would be an abandonment that would take away (a) their only hope (b) their sibling's only hope (c) expiation for Anthy, power and status for Akio, and (d) their revenge on each other.

This is all the very definition of dysfunctional, so I don't buy the idea that sex was ever pure enjoyment for them.  They'd obviously stopped liking each other long before Episode 1, though I don't think Anthy admitted it even to herself until Episode 39 and Akio never admitted it out loud.  However, I don't think she actually had to stop caring about Akio to leave (though she probably more-or-less had out of sheer exhaustion).  All she had to do was see the situation for what it was: that they were the sole perpetrators of their own misery.  Her absence and her final jab could be, in some respects, the best thing she could for him.  But her motivation was finally, correctly, and completely not at all about Akio, but rather about herself.  She's going to rely on herself, act in service to herself, and think for herself; that's how she's saved.

Let's say there's this really popular, handsome fellow in your circle. Everyone wants to get their hands on him. He's a prize. Hell, maybe a lot of them have had their hands on him, but he sneaks away, and they never seem to keep him where they want him.

Let's also say, somehow, by some twist of fate, some extraordinary act on your part even, you come to snag this prized item. He's yours. You won. You're the envy of everyone around you, and they wonder what, exactly, it is, that brought him to you over anyone else. What's so great about you?

So you've happily stolen the prize out from everyone else's reach. But it turns out, he's abusive. He's cruel, and he hurts you. You could leave him. You probably should. But there was always more to winning him over than just him. You had to admit, on some level even then, it felt good to deny the other girls something they wanted. They underestimated you, cared nothing for you, let you live in a fucking barn. It was a sweet, nasty little victory. It felt good.

Leaving him? You'd be giving up that satisfaction. You'd be giving up the prize, admitting you couldn't hold on to it, and what's maybe worse now...the prize knows what he is. You leave, and you admit to him that he's gotten to you. That he really has hurt you. You're too proud for that. Fuck him. And fuck anyone else who thinks they can handle him. Let them try. He'll always need you in the end, because you're the only one that can take his hits and keep on standing. He needs you because no one else can take him like you can. And he knows it. You might be his proverbial punching bag, but he's your creature. Your pet. You own him.

And that's why you grin when he beckons you to him. Because you could say no. And it would hurt him before he lashed out.

Giovanna wrote:

YES.bmp

Yeah, I'd say so.

Last edited by Chrome Homura (11-22-2013 08:56:36 AM)

Neither Gio nor I assumed that it was a one-way power play. We always figured that both of them were getting something out of it, or else it wouldn't have lasted so long.

Guys...ever been in a situation where you seriously disagreed with someone and couldn't write a decent argument about it?

Orphic Okapi wrote:

It's kind of difficult to say how much anyone "enjoys" sex in SKU, considering it's almost always a means to an end.

I think that's the challenge. Where does the enjoyment end and the means to and end begin? Does Touga enjoy sleeping with Akio? I would say so. Would he put himself in that position without some outside benefit? I suspect not. He's no submissive by nature. Does Anthy enjoy sleeping with Akio? I'd say so; even if she hated the act, she's enjoying knowing how easily she could destroy Akio with it. (That said, I suspect she enjoys the act as well. The show doesn't want it to be easy for her to leave--for any reason.)

The only time there seems to be no agenda involved on someone's part is Utena--she clearly had no agenda sleeping with Akio. She thought she was delivering roses. Heh.

It's a realistic, if not entirely pleasant, outlook on sex. Everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power.

I tire of your Wilde conjecture, Gio.

Thinking more about it, I think that maybe she never actually stopped enjoying sex with Akio.
I think she still loves him in a way, even when she leaves, and the easiest thing for her would have been to stay with him forever, but Utena's sacrifice made her realize that, yes, rules can be broken, roles can be defied, a princess can become a prince, a princess can love a 'witch'...the roles set upon them mean nothing, people are complex and layered, never defined by any single thing.
Even if it was a hard choice for her to leave their little arrangement, she finally sees that the world is open to her, she can be so much more and Ohtori is holding her back.

And I believe that her goodbye to Akio is truly without malice, she knows he likes 'playing prince', but she now understands that they could both be so much more.
Maybe his time is yet to come, and one day he will liberate himself as well...who knows?

Giovanna wrote:

Anthy and Akio are complicated by a need on both their parts to maintain a facade based wholly on what was once true and no longer is. Akio has to pretend he's trying to save Anthy, and Anthy has to pretend she loves Akio as if he were Dios. It's a totally bent relationship with no clear winner or loser on either side. You can enjoy the sex far past the point where a relationship should break down, or so I hear. I've not been in such a relationship but I've certainly watched plenty of people in that situation. One good thing can always feel like enough to hold everything together. And Akio and Anthy have several good things, or at least by their standards. Stability, power, safety, and acceptance...of a sort.

Well, nothing is completely good or bad. Every relationship in SKU has something good in it's core, which is precisely what makes it so hard for the characters to realize they are being choked by them. As with real-life relationships, good sex is a good thing, but is it worth continuing a dying relationship is a question with a different answer for every one of us.

Yeah, you're right, sorry. Got a bit too idealistic there