Stormcrow wrote:

...but...I thought Jesus was the lamb? I thought that was kind of the point?


*is an ignorant Jew*

So did I... Isn't Jesus the Agnus Dei? I thought that was kind of included in the dogma.

I wish I knew more to be able to contribute to the thread, because it's just so damn interesting. Thanks to you all.

Edit: I'm late xD

Last edited by Asfalolh (02-26-2008 08:22:26 AM)

I reread my post and found that I had meandered too far from my point, particularly as I jumped to another subject at the end rather than summarizing.  So I wanted to add a clarification post. 

I do think it's somewhat of an artificial division that I'm making between the kinds of "grace" and the birth v. death angle.   For illustration's sake, I have, on one hand, a religious and, on the other, a secular/humanist grace.  Humanism isn't incompatible with religion, some religions are humanistic.  However, there is a curvy line that can be drawn between an absolute morality handed down to us by a God and subjective morality that we determine for ourselves.

Anthy couldn't live up to the standards under the first system.  Her failure made her a Witch.  Under the second system that was made available by Dios's death, she could be saved...though she had to do it for herself.  So Dios's death changes the way Anthy, and the rest of humanity, are able to go about finding fulfillment and grace, just the same way Jesus's birth/death did in Christianity.

Sorry if I am actually repeating myself.  When I reread my post I wasn't sure I could pick out what I meant to say.  Bad habit of mine.

Last edited by rhyaniwyn (02-27-2008 05:27:43 PM)

Rhyaniwyn's comments about her former church surprise but don't astonish me. Some Southern Baptists are scandalously uninformed about some of the basic precepts of Christian doctrine. I have my own stories about that but it's off-topic. Part of the problem may be that they don't want to acknowledge the heavy debt that Christianity and Judaism owe to pagan religions. More sophisticated people like C.S. Lewis were fully aware of it, and far from being embarrassed thought that the pagan substrata could be a source of great power for telling Christian stories. J.K. Rowling has just re-proven that idea. Certain kinds of fundamentalists can be as humorlessly rationalistic and mechanistic as Communists.

Utena's name and some of the iconography from the first manga and the series imply that she is some kind of angel or deity who is trying to bring salvation to Anthy -- but she forgot her mission until it was almost too late. Maybe that is one of the underlying messages, that we are all metaphorical angels born with a mission that we are trying to remember. That "Michaelangelo" scene from the final episode could be seen as a marriage of Heaven and Earth, Anthy, ground down into the Earth, seeing Heaven for the first time, and Utena representing a Heavenly desire to connect with the Earth and perhaps to get a sense of groundedness that she did not have before.

Another possibility is that Dios/Akio represent an eternal battling duality that has gone into a kind of stasis; and Utena and Anthy both need to walk away from it and just live.

If Utena is a ministering spirit it may not be that she was destined to it but was just a mere mortal who was given a mission by a desperate and dying Dios who wanted her to help Anthy and bring balance back to the world. Therefore her victory was not inevitable.

Anthy could be seen as the Earth, or Humankind, or Womankind, violated and subjugated by thoughtless exploiters or Satan or the Male gender.

This may not be the best thread to post this thought but here goes. I've often fancied that Kozue is not really the incest-crazed monster that she is made out to be (by Ikuhara no less.) She may not be that much different from Nanami: inappropriately  possessive, jealous, and even violent about keeping their brothers but not really incestuous. Probably both have vaguely incestuous feelings but neither would actually act on them under normal circumstances.

But perhaps Anthy somehow draws vulnerable girls like them into her web: first she inflames their barely conscious passions to an extreme and then punishes them for starting to follow in the sin she committed. On the one hand it could be seen as horrible hypocrisy on her part but on the other she could be showing them before it is too late where their madness could lead. A one-goddess Scared Straight program. So is it a case of misery loving company or is she genuinely trying to warn people away from the shoals that she crashed upon?

For his part if Akio may, in some sense, be a Bringer of Light. An educator so to speak.

Anthy and Akio could be fallen angels still showing traces of the noble white wings they both once had. Or perhaps like the devil said in the novel Master and Magarita, (paraphrasing), "I always will evil and always do good."

Edit:
the sin she committed? Actually we don't know who first did what to who or precisely why. Utena's great insight though may have been to realize that those particular historical details did not really matter in the end.

Last edited by brian (02-29-2008 10:53:12 PM)

Could we not perhaps see the cave Anthy's in in the flashback as her true place of origin? Sure, it's outside the barn that Anthy takes on the swords, but it's not until she's placed in this cave, alone with her endless pain, that she takes her true place, her role, in events. In a matter of speaking, could you not argue Akio and Anthy (as the witch) are conceived in the barn, and born shortly after? That would certainly fit the stereotype of the barn as a popular locale for sex, and neither of them are truly what they're going to become at that point.

I don't know if Campbell says much about it (I need to read his work eventually here), but aren't caves also a popular place for burial?

Giovanna wrote:

I don't know if Campbell says much about it (I need to read his work eventually here), but aren't caves also a popular place for burial?

I don't have any particular quotes so far.

All in all, I think that's definitely a good way of looking at it, the sexually charged atmosphere and the idea of birth.  You could even say it's Anthy/Witch and Akio/Lucifer that are being born in the barn (due to the events in 'Tale of the Rose').  Where that falls apart a little for me is that at some time later, they are presumably in the cave together, because...

Interestingly enough, at some point yesterday I ended up learning some new info about Mithra, who Campbell mentions in the passage above.  The article I read said that a spinoff god of Mithra, Mithras, was a pre-Christian dying god who was, in most accounts, born in a barn surrounded by animals and was interred in a cave after his willing sacrifice (only to come back to life shortly thereafter, do some good stuff, & ascend to heaven).  He was supposedly born around Christmas/Yule, too.  I'm not sure about the 100% historical accuracy of which religion influenced which, of course, but the point is more that...  We have various cults, Christianity, and modern interpretations of old cyclical "pagan"/nature religons that have the general area of Christmas/Yule as the time of (and in 2 of those, the barn is the scene of) the rebirth of the god [of light/of the sun].  And a documented mythical cycle of virgin birth, followed by sacrificial-type death, followed by ressurection/rebirth.

Depending on how reliably we can trust Utena's flashback...AND on how reliably we can count on it as a timeline... We have them in a barn prior to Anthy's initial stabbing, when Akio was still Dios.  Then we have them in a cave.  They don't seem to be "dead", though--Anthy is actually still "crucified" and Dios/Akio appears to be in a state of flux.  Then later we have them walking around participating in life again at Ohtori.

So we have this birth of savior(light) in barn, followed by the destined death of savior(light) in some sacrificial way, followed by the ressurection/rebirth of the savior(light) from a cave.

So it seems to really be harkening to this cycle there'd have to be some transformation of them...  Well, actually, why?  Christ doesn't go from 'bad' to 'good' after his ressurection.  He's Christ the whole time.  I guess I'm just operating on the assumption that the transformation of Anthy into a Witch and Dios into Akio (taking away the light from the world) is kind of a negative thing and that neither of them is living their appropriate role...and that when they are "reborn" they will transform more positively.

I get two things from that...

1-Someone has always been the light of the world, they are just thinking they aren't.  Akio has always been Akio, how he viewed himself changed.  Anthy has always been Anthy, how she viewed herself changed.  The light was never really "taken" from the world.  And/or possibly...

2-"Stay in your coffin forever" is literal.  They aren't "really" at Ohtori, they are in the cave where they were interred after 'Tale of the Rose'.  Because they won't come back out of the cave/coffin, winter never turns back to spring, and the light is never reborn into the world.

That's a far more complex subject than you give it credit for, Mishi.  :-) 

Within the Bible, Jesus is referred to as "Christ" by his followers, allegedly during his life.

“And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Matthew 16:16).
And Thomas the disciple once said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

Historically, when Jesus was recognized by various people as being "The Messiah" and called Christ varies and there is a lot unknown about the early development of Christianity.  And, ultimately, some people don't recognize Jesus as "Jesus The Christ/The Messiah" at all.  Also, not everyone agrees about the gravity of the application of the "Christ" appellation, there are different outlooks on the word from a linguistic standpoint.  I think a lot of the stuff I've heard in that vein is modern re-assessing, but it still complicates the issue.  Furthermore, several of the denominational fragmentations of Christianity are based on such questions.  Was Jesus always fully human, always fully divine, or half human and half divine, or did he become fully divine after his resurrection after being not fully divine beforehand?  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christology.

I do agree with you that no matter what various denominations believe, there does appear from an objective standpoint to be a distinction of some sort, a distillation, or some other important confirmation of/change to Jesus's role after his resurrection.  And the most commonly accepted consensus seems to be that "Jesus" refers to to the guy during his life while "Christ" refers to him after his resurrection and assumption of his fully divine role.

What's interesting about all that is the camp that believes that he is fully human and fully divine at the same time, always.  That's in keeping with thought #1 in my last post.

But, no, what I am saying is that WE are drawing a clear distinction between Anthy/The Witch and Dios/Akio and saying there is a moment of transformation or an evolution.  That they "changed" from these more "positive" roles into more "negative" roles.  What I am implying is that they were always the same people and always had the "positive" sides of themselves inside as well as the "negative" sides and that it was their own folly to think otherwise.

Raven Nightshade wrote:

The "Nanami's Cowbell" episode keeps popping up in my head. Nanami turning into a cow reminds me of the story of Io, the girl who was turned into a cow by Zeus to hide her from Hera. I can't really explain beyond that, though.

Oooooh. God knows it's easy to slip Anthy into the role of Hera there, as someone Nanami really should be hidden from, but can't be. I did always wonder about why they went with cow, when as far as I can tell the stereotypes only bear a small resemblance to Nanami's personality. But Io, sacred Indian cows, Hathor...guess I shouldn't be surprised! I'm curious about the sacred Indian cow thing, specifically why do they worship them, and are they viewed as wise? That might be the closest connection to Nanami. She's a bulking figure, self-centered, but wise by implication.

Wikipedia also told me that Krishna was a cowherd, which might explain some of it. Cows are also referred to in India as, "mothers of civilization". Also, they give so much and ask little in return besides food and water. We know Nanami's not a giver, but I think that may be part of the underlying lesson that Anthy intended to give. 

Another thing I forgot to mention is the Golden Calf story from the Old Testament. After reading it again, I'm sure a case could be made for a connection between Nanami and idolatry.

Also, it's not that hard to make Anthy into Hera, because Akio/Dios being Zeus is ridiculously easy. After all, Zeus slept with anything with a pulse, and Anthy has a bit of a jealous/overprotective streak. I should also add that Hera has been referred to as "the ox/cow-eyed goddess".

Raven Nightshade wrote:

I should also add that Hera has been referred to as "the ox/cow-eyed goddess".

That epithet sounds funny to us, but it's actually an indicator of beauty. There's a definite similarity to 'doe-eyed' that my mythology prof pointed out-- and it's probably because both cows and does have wonderfully warm, mild brown eyes.

Stormcrow wrote:

All I ever think of when I think of cow eyes is Jessica Simpson. Seriously folks.

Back on topic though. I think Nanami would have more in common with Hera herself than she does with Io. I mean, Hera's main job in Greek mythology seems to have been to punish girls that Zeus raped, er, showed interest in...sort of like Nanami and anyone who looks sideways at Touga.

The only thing about that is that it would appear she didn't care about the girls who chased Touga, but the girls Touga chased: Anthy and Utena. From what I have seen, she didn't care about Kozue (who she probably has known for a long time) or Juri(who may give off a "brother in arms" vibe to Nanami), who are around Touga more than she is.

Which I find interesting.

As for the cow, it may also be referencing the labarynth with the ox(cattle) headed-man (the real word eludes me at the moment) and how it was this being who would sacrifice the ones wandering too far from the center of the labarynth and how Jason/Utena, the hero, instead "sacrifices" the bull-or in other terms, changed Nanami back by taking away the mask/cowbell. After it was gone, so was the role.

That is the minotaur, yes.  Although transforming into a cow and Greek mythology more make me think of Io.  ...yeah, the men of Ohtori Academy are sometimes a bit sexually tame compared to the Greek gods.