Oh man, this discussion is painful for me to read. I want to contribute (so much!) but since I go on to say a lot of jumped-up-analysis about the million swords in my fic Roses Grow, I can't give away my secrets here.

I might post some of my random thoughts here after about 5 more chapters have been made public. In the meantime - great ideas everybody. I'm enjoying all your thoughts (and this thread gives me chills to read...)

pojypojy: The swords do not have to be a physical presence. I think their attacks against Anthy come in wave. When they do attack, we as viewers do not necessarily have to see them (well, actually we do for a split second in that particular scene)

This thread has been really helpful for me, since I'm in a RP that deals with a lot of these "Rose Bride" issues. It's been good to see what others think about it, so I'm not always the one trying to interpret things in my own head all the time. Thanks everyone for the input.

pojypojy wrote:

I guess I just can't help but interpreting Utena's main theme as ultimately similar to that of Evangelion *coughcoughonlymuchbettercoughcough* - the choice between being safe in the world you already know, no matter how it's doing you no good, and go outside and face the unknown, but finally free to be yourself.

Yes, I think so too. Since you bring up the duellist's experiences in Akio's car, it fits together quite well. When the seitokai are taken on his drives they're given a taste of adult life. They don't become genuine adults, just as Akio himself is not genuine despite having the trappings of an adult, rather they're artificially matured while the child-based drives continue to fuel their actions. For Anthy it could be Akio's way (or giving him the benefit of the doubt, the series' way) of showing how she cannot leave Ohtori/become an adult without experiencing an increase in her already eternal torture. Of course, when she does finally choose to leave at the end of the series, it's not as Akio's type of adult nor with any of that pain.

Ragnarok wrote:

My thoughts on that would be the sword of Dios draws the swords in, when Anthy's coffin is opened she ceases to be punished for sealing Dios away and ceases to contain the power of Dios within herself. This itself causes Anthy and her coffin to plunge away, they no longer have any support on their own to stay floating against reality. Utena in that moment becomes (as close to being) a prince (as possible) within the nature of the show or in the estimate of the swords. So they go for her first and, unsatisfied (either with an uneternal target or one that slips away) they wreck up the place. And then where do they go?

I think Ragnarok unlocked the key to the series here. If Utena became a prince, she would have been slaughtered by reality. Not because a prince is "too good for this world," it's just an unobtainable ideal. It requires a childish denial of human nature, and of what's really noble in humanity, which turns one's attempts to help into a greater harm--for the rescued and the rescuer. The only way to become a prince is to retreat into fantasy, or to fail by the standards of an ever expanding, ever more demanding clientele.

The swords head for Utena because they're disturbed, and they crave a scapegoat. They want everything to be "just like it was back then," forever and ever, without change. But Utena is an imperfect vessel for their hatred. She's not a prince, because princes can't exist. With nowhere to go, with no "safe outlet" to pin all their problems on, the swords destroy the whole charade. This is why it's key that Utena says "I failed...Sorry For being just a make-believe prince...forgive me..." because if she succeeded by her own standards, the cycle of victimhood, martyrdom and self-deception would have continued ad infinitum. She failed at fantasy, and thus won reality, as has been put better by others.

It's also impossible to "save" another person. Yes, Utena was instrumental in Anthy's emancipation. But Anthy had to free herself. You can connect with another person, love them, help them no matter what, even die for them. But you cannot save them; at best you can unlock their cage. Whether they leave it is not up to you.

There's an excellent essay by George Orwell called Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool. I only mention it because it contains this paragraph:

George Orwell wrote:

First of all, therefore, there is the vulgar, common-sense moral drawn by the Fool: ‘Don't relinquish power, don't give away your lands.’ But there is also another moral. Shakespeare never utters it in so many words, and it does not very much matter whether he was fully aware of it. It is contained in the story, which, after all, he made up, or altered to suit his purposes. It is: ‘Give away your lands if you want to, but don't expect to gain happiness by doing so. Probably you won't gain happiness. If you live for others, you must live for others, and not as a roundabout way of getting an advantage for yourself.’

Akio embodies the "vulgar, common-sense moral." Utena partially embodies the other moral. When she opens Anthy's coffin, she's not trying to gain eternity, or miracles, or the power to revolutionize the world. She's not using Anthy as a roundabout means to her own ends; she's just trying to rescue Anthy, and finally meet her.

Zigzagzoom94 wrote:

Fantastic ideas.

Thank you for this!  I agree with your feeling about why the villagers had weapons: they're moral cowards who planned to threaten Dios until he did the work that they ought to have been doing for themselves (with their own perfectly good swords).  While I can't prove it, I also like the idea that the "swords of humanity's hatred" in the finale might be created, sustained, and directed by Anthy's guilt rather than by anything the villagers intended.  If so, Akio may or may not understand this.  Even Anthy may or may not understand this.  (My guess would be that Anthy understands and Akio understands partially, but it's just intuition.)

Some people have suggested before that after the end of the show Utena is left being continually impaled by the Hundred Swords instead of Anthy and I actually think that fits in quite well with the idea of the swords being a metaphor for emotional pain. I'll have to check the exact order of events in the final episode but i'm pretty sure that the swords don't immediately attack Utena, they do it at the same time she says "I really...couldn't become a Prince.  I'm sorry, Himemiya. Sorry for ending up just a make-believe Prince...forgive me." She may have gained some degree of awareness that acting like a princess doesn't really help Anthy, she still thinks that she's failed in her attempts at rescue because she wasn't able get Anthy out of her coffin. If Utena was still at Ohtori academy this disappointment and pain over her own failure may well have been represented by shots of Utena bing impaled by swords, to go along with all the knife throwing and trains and inexplicale baseball games and other visual metaphors. But since the real world outside Ohtori has a lot less surreal imagery, all we would see would be Utena sitting in a building somewhere brooding and thinking "I wasn't able to save her".

Mmm hmm, the idea that Utena becomes the next Rose Bride (or at least the next person to be haunted by the swords) is one that gets tossed around sometimes.  There is undeniably a symmetry between Anthy protecting Dios and getting impaled for it, and Utena protecting Anthy and getting impaled for it.  On the other hand, there's also an antisymmetry.  Anthy protects Dios by imprisoning him, while Utena protects Anthy by liberating her (or, more precisely, helping her liberate herself).  Slightly more fundamentally, Anthy protects Dios by disempowering him, while Utena protects Anthy by empowering her.  So it seems a little odd to me that Anthy and Utena would share the same fate. 

You might say, "But satyreyes, you wicked genius, you've forgotten that Utena thinks she failed to help Anthy.  Utena could harbor guilt over that, the same way Anthy harbored guilt over what happened to Dios."  To that I would say, thank you, but I'm not a genius; and also, maybe that's right.  The situations leading to Utena's and Anthy's guilt are quite different, but it's true that both characters assume and accept a great deal of responsibility -- more than is healthy -- for the fate of another person, one whom they then fail or think they fail.  To me, though, it has to be decisive that Anthy actually did fail to protect Dios, and in fact created the circumstances that led to his corruption, while Utena did not fail Anthy at all.  That has to count for something, because it's not much of a revolution if everything ends up the same with a few of the names changed.  (Though Ambrose Bierce does define "revolution" as "an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.")

I see it's time for that 'Did Utena get infested by Hate Swords at the end?' debate again

Utena thinks she failed to help Anthy.  Utena could harbor guilt over that, the same way Anthy harbored guilt over what happened to Dios. <SKIP> The situations leading to Utena's and Anthy's guilt are quite different, but it's true that both characters assume and accept a great deal of responsibility -- more than is healthy -- for the fate of another person, one whom they then fail or think they fail.

I totally agree with this part, and I think the story sets it up such that the audience would understand this.

As always, the creators' viewpoints can often give hints as to what they intend for their stories. 

I know SKU is a team effort, but Ikuhara is a major force behind it.  And he had the following to say on the topic of 'sacrifice':

Taken from http://natori-umi.tumblr.com/post/23541 … h-kunihiko

Mawaru Penguindrum Guide Book - Interview with Kunihiko Ikuhara (director)

Q: An essential part is that you not only abstract your depictions, but also use them in a symbol-like way. That’s what “Penguindrum” is really made of, right?
A: I thought… of Yuri’s past as having nuances of a girl who’s fallen into a love that’s not good for her. Like the story of a girl who is being made dependent on her boyfriend who hits her. Even if you warn her “you’re being tricked by that guy,” she won’t listen. The man is sneaky and skillfully controls the girl’s mind. To open the girl’s eyes, her friends need to sacrifice themselves. <Skip>

I think it is safe to say that the show intends to portray Utena’s ending as one of her having made a sacrifice to save Anthy.  As for how much of a sacrifice did she made  - did she or did she not get infested by swords – is one up to open interpretation.  Textual evidence – that with the Hate Swords rushing her while she laid broken and weak from her perceived failure – suggests that Utena does in fact get infested.  The way Anthy gets separated from Utena at the end of the Duel - and that she had to stay behind in Ohtori for weeks afterwards, instead of leaving at once - hints at how Utena' initial post-show situation is likely as dire as it is out of Double A's control.   By the time Anthy does leave Ohtori, it's like already a month of separation between the girls, during which Utena is no doubt much weakened from her misconception-stemmed sense of failure.  Just how well can such a person stand up the Hate Swords – which surround her disappearance in the TV canon? 

Of course, SKU’s ending is an open one.  But, sword-infestation or not, I think it is safe to say that Utena will remain in a bad state until she gets reunited with Anthy, who presumably knows how to deal with the Victor’s situation.  Will it take 10 years as Ep 37 hints at?  Who can say?

That has to count for something, because it's not much of a revolution if everything ends up the same with a few of the names changed.

As Anthy said near the end: “Now is my turn to come to you.  Wait for me, Utena!”  I’m assuming that to mean she has an idea of what to do to rescue Utena and finally break the cycle/destroy the swords?  This, again, is but one out of many valid possibilities, of course.

And, in the case of Ikuhara’s other work Penguindum, everything actually ends up worse for the protagonists, as the outcome went from

a) the Takakura brothers losing Himari to death, and keeping her in their memories as they both live on

to

b) Himari losing the Takakura brothers to Fate, and forgetting them as she alone lives on.

More precisely, the swords represent a vague but personalized fear that has crystallized into a focused but impersonal anger and resolve that is completely alienated from the original intent. When this occurs on a large scale, you get fascism.

zevrem wrote:

And I think the fact that the swords are very fine, aristocratic-looking swords is a good piece of symbolism. Basically, pretty much everybody who gravitates towards Dios does so out of a desire to BECOME Dios, or at least his princess. Every man wants to be King, but obviously, if everyone were King, then there would be no peasants, and therefore nobody would be King. The system gets overloaded at the top, and it collapses, and when it collapses, the rabble needs somebody to blame.

This is accurate to a degree, but overlooks that the system is a) rigged, b) artificial, and c) self-destructive anyway.

It also shortchanges the various characters we see pursuing the power of Dios, primarily due to their youth. These aren't adults representing an adult world or adult perspective, but children with a child's perspective, a teenager's perspective and one raised in a bubble of a world, at that. The only people feeling horribly persecuted in this situation are two people with severely arrested adolescence who can, as we see, walk away and choose not to because choosing not to would require them to act autonomously, be responsible, be genuinely vulnerable, and to have to grow up.

The fanciness of the tools of Akio and Anthy's persecution is the same frilliness of Shiori's car-form. If Shiori's going to be a car, she's damned well going to be a very pretty car. If Anthy's going to get stuck like a pincushion, she's going to be persecuted by the best of things. Akio wouldn't get stabbed by cheap knives, he's not going to get poisoned out of a Sprite can.

This isn't fascism, but aristocracy, and while fascism can hinge on an aristocracy, aristocracy does not require fascism. It's not even real aristocracy; it's always a child's view of aristocracy, a teen perspective of a world where adults can do whatever they want in some mysterious fashion and things were better when the teen for four or five because they didn't know and they had more toys.

zevrem wrote:

Fascism kind of IS a child's perspective on aristocracy. Brownshirts see only the glory of "their" culture at its simplest and most brutish. They think their culture's magical and completely detached from material things and the need for caution.

There has never been a fascist government made up of children. Fascism is very much an adult arrangement. And, no, on the whole, I don't think you can say that fascists see "only the glory of 'their' culture at its simplest and most brutish" or that fascists, or those under a fascist government, inherently "think their culture's magical and completely detached from material things or the need for caution." Italian fascism, just as an example, exhibited caution on several fronts and had quite an interaction with and appreciation of "material things."

Further, I see little evidence that Anthy or Akio (or Dios) promote any extensive sense of strength in unity with the youth in their bubble-world. Self-supremacy is encouraged, a drive to individual authority and control (that is always, ultimately, dependent on those three who are two (or one)). The persecution Anthy and Akio receive is never even presented in any way that its decidedly not their own paranoia or masochism. "People want my good stuff! They hate me because they're jealous and I'm special! My sibling is special and people want to take them away from me!"

It's understandable when it's teenage jealousy, because Miki is young, Nanami is a little girl, but with ancient entities who are either a special kind of human or nonhuman things mimicking human traits? It becomes different, because they may not be able to grow out of it. But it isn't appreciably fascist.

zevrem wrote:

One thing that a lot of people don't know is that the Nazis and the military HATED each other. The Nazi Party actually banned military personnel from joining it, and the military publicly criticized the very poorly conceived foreign and economic policies of the party. The Nazis loved to talk about the Will to Power and "discipline" and "hierarchy," but the organization that they pretended to worship would have loved to see their Fuhrer die.

That's painting an awful lot of people with a very wide brush all at once. And, while all who lived or served under the banner of Nazi were not the worst of the Nazis, still, they were Nazis or serving as such. "The military" was not a uniform entity, nor is any military ever such, and while some in the military did plot assassinations of Hitler and others, while some armed forces did disagree with this policy or that, the militaries as a whole performed a role, having no agenda as a whole but diktat. Individuals are not groups, but groups are made of individuals. To choose one person out of an organization to exemplify it rather than another of equal or similar standing doesn't really prove anything about the organization itself.

zevrem wrote:

I never said that they were "made up of children," but they generally make an unusually strong effort to reach out to the youth.

You said it "IS a child's perspective." It's not. It's a set of systems all the major of which were developed and instituted by adults. None of which reached out to "the youth" appreciably more than any other form of government does.

zevrem wrote:

It's a "young man's" ideology, one that's suited for those who like fighting and fiery speeches. And they have an appreciation of material and economic concerns the same way that a cargo cult has an appreciation of aerodynamics.

Okeh, this is more of the infantilizing that I think is doing a disservice to the reality of fascist governments and, for that matter, to cargo cults or cargo-cultish behavior. When a society has a new technology introduced to it, they can, indeed, appreciate it and even learn the workings of it. This has been happening all through human history.

zevrem wrote:

I'm not painting with a "broad" brush.

Wide brush. I didn't mistype.

And, yes, you are. And in ways that don't apply to the topic on hand, except, seemingly, to get in barbs like your "a lot of people don't know" or "good American student" that literally go nowhere except to suggest you've got some inside track, much akin to your correction of my adjective above.

DD, zevrem, does it seem to either of you like this discussion is getting a bit far afield from the nature of the million swords?  Unless we think that the swords literally represent Nazis, internal Third Reich politics don't seem particularly germane to the symbolism of the swords.  Please make your case for why this is relevant or move the discussion to GD.

I probably took it too far afield. Sorry all.

To pull it back a bit, I want to reiterate that, at least as of my last watching, it still seems awful self-induced to me, not external. Possibly, that's just because no one else is there. Maybe I'm projecting, because "it's all those jealous angry rabble out there!" seems, to me, a very narcissistic and aristocratic response, not something backed by any evidence in the series. Alien, unclean rabble with all their faces and their hate, not like the precious, insular thing that is Anthy/Akio (or Anthy/Utena, or Miki...). The sea of excuse around a private island of desperate sands and phantom palm trees.

(I need to finish my rewatch. Maybe I'll change my mind. )