O SHI

Gio will arrive in 5...4...3...2...

Oh ok then...I have learned something new:school:

Erm, well, I know Venus (the Roman goddess of love, yes I am a Greco-Roman myth lover) is considered the morning star, and Lucifier is sometimes refered to as being the morning star as well. Interestingly enough that love spelled backwards sounds like evil isn't it?

Well, I like looking at the stars, I plan on getting a telescope so I can go out and look at the constellation of Orion carefully.

Last edited by G&Ysnumber1fan (11-02-2006 01:02:27 PM)

Ragnarok wrote:

It should be noted that while Akio heavily implicates a connection between himself and Lucifer (via his name originating from Venus.) the connection between Lucifer and Satan is due to a widely spread mistranslation. In actuality Lucifer was never a fallen angel at all and is not a proper alias of Satan.

Akio, likely to have known this (Even if the writers didn't.) could be making a connection between himself and Satan/evilness-in-general due to Utena's lack of knowledge on the subject.

Or he could be indicating that often people misunderstand the true nature of something due to misinformation.

Or his words about the morning star only being visible at night may not actually relate to the nature of Lucifer at all.

Other explanations are also possible, but of course all Utena thinks is "Gee, Akio, you sure know a lot about stars! Ps. I looooove you. "

Not to mention that his metaphor is still quite apt even taking into account the misinformation about Lucifer.
Lucifer was still originally an angel of highest rank, generally placed as either seraph, cherub or archangel, who while not the Enemy himself, was complicit in rebellion against heaven and was cast into hell as punishment.
So perhaps this is explaining that while he was a prince in heaven, he has now become quite the opposite - quite a good way of hinting to Utena that "hay I wuz Dios." Not that she's listening.
Furthermore, his name comes from the Latin 'lux' and 'ferros,' that is to say his name means 'the bearer of light.' Since the princely or heroic figure is usually identified with the light, another good connection.

So really, shitloads of metaphorical play in that scene... oh Ikuhara, you bastard

I have a simply marvelous idea!

Erm, I'll be back to this topic eventually...

satyreyes wrote:

Guess he's a jackass 

He is, but not for this, I'm afraid. If he can use 'hoshi' poetically and 'kagayaku' can mean shine, then it checks out. I was going to jump his for describing a planet as sparkling. They don't. Which would have meant he was pointing Utena at something other than himself.

Which would have been very like him, I think.

brian wrote:

In the original mange you immediately see that he has a planetarium and that he has a telescope inside of it.

Oh that's right, it does. I tend not to connect the manga, movie, and series, but you clearly do, which gives you a very different perspective. But in this case it would seem to me significant that the series neglected that detail...

brian wrote:

I always assumed that Satan and Lucifer were the same, but in any case I think Akio genuinely liked astronomy. He suddenly turned against it when Anthy rebuffed his "star speech".

Oh. Ohhhh. I like this. I don't know that I agree with it, but I like it. It's so bitchy of him. Maybe it's not as absolute as you're drawing it out to be, but it does, now that you mention it, seem odd that those two exchanges line up close enough for someone to still be thinking about the first when the second takes place. Even if he's still working in the metaphor, as Anthy was at that point, it wouldn't matter that Utena is not. He'd still be bitchy about it, and that manner of bitchy does line up with what other bitchy moments he has in the series, like calling the play 'sophomoric'. He might as well have stuck his tongue out and rolled his eyes there.

I found this article recently and thought it was relevant to the Lucifer/Satan discussion.  The Biblical quotes and interpretations sure remind me of Akio...

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2215

Apologetics Press :: Scripturally Speaking   
   
Is Satan “Lucifer"?
by Bert Thompson, Ph.D.

Q.
Isaiah 14:12 mentions the name of "Lucifer." I’ve heard it said that this is Satan. Are Lucifer and Satan one and the same?

A.
It is sad, but nevertheless true, that on occasion Bible students attribute to God’s Word facts and concepts that it neither teaches nor advocates. These ill-advised beliefs run the entire gamut—from harmless misinterpretations to potentially soul-threatening false doctrines.

Although there are numerous examples from both categories that could be listed, perhaps one of the most popular misconceptions among Bible believers is that Satan also is designated as “Lucifer” within the pages of the Bible. What is the origin of the name Lucifer, what is its meaning, and is it a synonym for “Satan”? Here are the facts.

The word “Lucifer” is used in the King James Version only once, in Isaiah 14:12: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” The Hebrew word translated “Lucifer” is helel (or heylel), from the root, hâlâl, meaning “to shine” or “to bear light.” Keil and Delitzsch noted that “[i]t derives its name in other ancient languages also from its striking brilliancy, and is here called ben-shachar (son of the dawn)... (1982, 7:311). However, the KJV translators did not translate helel as Lucifer because of something inherent in the Hebrew term itself. Instead, they borrowed the name from Jerome’s translation of the Bible (A.D. 383-405) known as the Latin Vulgate. Jerome, likely believing that the term was describing the planet Venus, employed the Latin term “Lucifer” (“light-bearing”) to designate “the morning star” (Venus). Only later did the suggestion originate that Isaiah 14:12ff. was speaking of the devil. Eventually, the name Lucifer came to be synonymous with Satan. But is Satan “Lucifer”?

No, he is not. The context into which verse 12 fits begins in verse 4 where God told Isaiah to “take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, ‘How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!’” In his commentary on Isaiah, Albert Barnes explained that God’s wrath was kindled against the king because the ruler “intended not to acknowledge any superior either in heaven or earth, but designed that himself and his laws should be regarded as supreme” (1950, 1:272). The chest-pounding boast of the impudent potentate was:
   

"I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High (vss. 13-14)."

As a result of his egotistical self-deification, the pagan monarch eventually would experience both the collapse of his kingdom and the loss of his life—an ignominious end that is described in vivid and powerful terms. “Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming,” the prophet proclaimed to the once-powerful king. And when the ruler finally descends into his eternal grave, captives of that hidden realm will taunt him by saying, “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” (vs. 16). He is denominated as a “man” (vs. 16) who would die in disrepute and whose body would be buried, not in a king’s sarcophagus, but in pits reserved for the downtrodden masses (vss. 19-20). Worms would eat his body, and hedgehogs would trample his grave (vss. 11,23).

It was in this context that Isaiah referred to the king of Babylon as “the morning star” (“son of the morning”; “son of the dawn”) to depict the once-shining-but-now-dimmed, once-lofty-but-now-diminished, status of the (soon to be former) ruler. In his Bible Commentary, E.M. Zerr observed that such phrases were “...used figuratively in this verse to symbolize the dignity and splendor of the Babylonian monarch. His complete overthrow was likened to the falling of the morning star” (1954, 3:265). This kind of phraseology should not be surprising since “in the O.T., the demise of corrupt national powers is frequently depicted under the imagery of falling heavenly luminaries (cf. Isa. 13:10; Ezek. 32:7), hence, quite appropriately in this context the Babylonian monarch is described as a fallen star [cf. ASV]” (Jackson, 1987, 23:15).

Nowhere within the context of Isaiah 14, however, is Satan depicted as Lucifer. In fact, quite the opposite is true. In his commentary on Isaiah, Burton Coffman wrote: “We are glad that our version (ASV) leaves the word Lucifer out of this rendition, because...Satan does not enter into this passage as a subject at all” (1990, p. 141). The Babylonian ruler was to die and be buried—fates neither of which Satan is destined to endure. The king was called “a man” whose body was to be eaten by worms, but Satan, as a spirit, has no physical body. The monarch lived in and abided over a “golden city” (vs. 4), but Satan is the monarch of a kingdom of spiritual darkness (cf. Ephesians 6:12). And so on.

The context presented in Isaiah 14:4-16 not only does not portray Satan as Lucifer, but actually militates against it. Keil and Delitzsch firmly proclaimed that “Lucifer,” as a synonym, “is a perfectly appropriate one for the king of Babel, on account of the early date of the Babylonian culture, which reached back as far as the grey twilight of primeval times, and also because of its predominate astrological character” (1982, p. 312). They then correctly concluded that “Lucifer, as a name given to the devil, was derived from this passage...without any warrant whatever, as relating to the apostasy and punishment of the angelic leaders” (pp. 312-313).

REFERENCES
Barnes, Albert (1950 edition), Barnes’ Notes on the Old and New Testaments—Isaiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Coffman, James Burton (1990), The Major Prophets—Isaiah (Abilene, TX: ACU Press).
Jackson, Wayne (1987), “Your Question & My Answer,” Christian Courier, 23:15, August.
Keil, C.F. and Franz Delitzsch, (1982 edition), Commentary on the Old Testament—Isaiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Zerr, E.M. (1954), Bible Commentary (Bowling Green, KY: Guardian of Truth Publications).

Originally published in Reason and Revelation, October 1998, 18[10]:79.

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Last edited by rhyaniwyn (11-21-2006 07:47:44 AM)

dlaire wrote:

Well, IMHO his interest in stars shows how much he finds eternity amusing. He enjoys watching 'sparkling dead-stars' (stars could shine after their death, because light needs time to get from point A to point B blah blah..) as well as watching already dead Ohtori students.

I....totally overlooked this fact. But wow, it really does fit! The analysis threads of late draw attention to the question of how alive the students in Ohtori are...you could certainly argue by the star metaphor that some are, and some are not...but that all of them appear far younger than they actually are.

Also says a lot that in Akio's whacky world of astronomy, Utena is a comet. Akio's a planet, she's a comet, everyone else are stars. Everyone else is slow (relative to a solar system), unmoving, dim. A comet can pass right through a solar system, it moves fast, and because it can get vey close, it can be roughly the age it actually is when you see it, suggesting Utena is not one of the people that's been in Ohtori's starmaps very long.

And of course....comets can crash into planets and destroy them.

Poor Akio. He needed Bruce Willis.

Edit: Oh and I'm planning a section on the Akio shrine about the planetarium and may use conversations like this one for inspiration of the 'get off your ass and do it you douchehat' sort.

Frau Eva wrote:

Alternatively, could him referencing being named after Lucifer be a veiled "I'm the King of Babylon"? I mean, sure it fits in the Biblical idea of Babylon being hedonism-central, but also the fact that Akio used to be a Prince in the dawn of human story and history. By referencing the King of the most ancient civilization, he could be drawing parallels to his royal roles in a story that shaped mankind.

I find it improbable that the cultural connoctations in the show go quite that deep. As Akio says, Lucifer is "an angel that chose the devil's path" - and that's the comparison he's making about himself. As for the whole Satan/Lucifer-thing, we just have to accept that in some stories these two are separate entities, while in others they are two names for one. Nobody says that mythology has to be consistent, after all.

Every time people talk about Akio's interest in stars, I remember that one scene that shows him and Anthy lying on top of each other post coitus, and while Anthy is solid and naked, Akio's body is filled with stars. I think this associates the two siblings with the classical sky-god/earth-goddess connection. Akio used to be up there, in the starry sky, in some sense, metaphorical or otherwise, and he years to be back there. That's how I his interest in stargazing. But he still rather looks at the false stars of his planetarium, that he has control over, than the real stars in the real sky...

I'm just going to interrupt this otherwise intelligent and thoughtful conversation to make an utterly immature quip.

If Akio is a planet, Utena is a comet, and most of the students are stars - then Touga must be...

and

That is all.

Jellineck wrote:

I'm just going to interrupt this otherwise intelligent and thoughtful conversation to make an utterly immature quip.

If Akio is a planet, Utena is a comet, and most of the students are stars - then Touga must be...

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e320/ … artist.jpg and http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e320/ … lkyway.jpg

That is all.

...Jelli, is that a rocket in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Oh, if you insist.

I like this thought of Gio's that not all of the students at Ohtori are even alive. Certainly you could make a case for Mikage being some sort of specter or wraith, but what about others? Leaving Movie!Touga out of the equation of course, too obvious. Is it possible that any of the other characters are just lingering dream images of some sort?