I think it's really difficult with something as complex as Utena. Personally I'd do a chart like this:

Miki-------Dios--------Utena
Saionji---Chu Chu----Anthy
Akio------Nanami-----Kozue

Lawful Good:
Dios.  Has been said.

Neutral Good:
Utena.  No fucks were given that day.  But she isn't sporadic enough to be Chaotic.  She has a code, but it isn't necessarily in tune with social hierarchy.

Chaotic Good:
Saionji.  I believe he wants to do good.  He wants to find true friendship and eternity, not necessarily just for himself.  He claims he wanted to help Anthy, but she essentially spat in his face.  Same with Touga.  This sort of behavior drove him to more Chaotic methods like slappin' his bitch up.

Lawful Neutral:
Juri.  She is a judge.  She judges everyone.  Because she's a judgemental ho bag.  But she doesn't judge anyone according to a standard of "good" or "bad" so much as "strong" or "weak" according to social rules.

Neutral:
Miki.  He could go any way.  I agree that he has lawful leanings, but his largest idol is arguably Touga.  He wants to be the prince he thinks he sees in Touga, and he wants to be tough like Juri.  Mostly, however, he just wants to have sex with his sister.  He has too many conflicting sides to pick one.  He has an external fixation with rules, but he tries to reconcile that with his own internal malice.  I can't justify putting him anywhere else until he properly gets over his adolescence.

Chaotic Neutral:
Mikage.  He cares about one thing.  Damn everything else.

Lawful Evil:
Akio.  Has been said.

Neutral Evil:
Anthy.  I don't think anyone has contested this pick yet.

Chaotic Evil:
Touga.  Has been said.

Assigning standard morality archetypes to the cast of Utena is a fool's errand...but...

Lawful Good: Series Utena. Yes, despite her flaws, she really is the would-be paladin of this story. She is tempted and falls to that temptation, but she recovers herself and shows her character. The very highest.

Chaotic Good: Movie Anthy. The great mover and shaker of Movie Utena's soul, Anthy does whatever she needs to make Utena her prince. She might not play by the rules, but it's for the best of causes.

Neutral Good: Movie Utena. While still good, her background in the movie has caused her to become cynical and bitter until Anthy frees her from her past.

Lawful Neutral: Juri. I pretty much agree with this. She's not a bad person, but she is very, very proud and unyielding.

Chaotic Neutral: Nanami. Just doesn't give a damn, does whatever the hell she wants to whoever the hell she wants. Still, she's innocent, and not altogether bad.

True Neutral: Series Anthy. Can't believe I'm the first one to see her as this. Until the end of the series, she is neither good nor evil. She is simply a doll - ostensibly of the duelists', but of course actually for Akio. She is beyond moral judgments, internal or external. At the end, she becomes Neutral Good.

Chaotic Evil: Saionji. Sorry Saionji lovers, but nobody fits here better than him. The very fact that he's unpredictable and doesn't actually see himself as evil is the chaotic part.

Lawful Evil: Touga and Akio. Not much needs to be said here I think.

Last edited by Aelanie (02-21-2012 10:24:27 PM)

Dallbun wrote:

It partly depends on how much malice you attribute to her.

That, indeed. And I have my own, quite differing view on the matter:

---- Anthy: Innocent Victim or Malicious Co-conspirator?

Anthy was never evil, just resigned to doing what Akio wanted. Ikuhara said once that while it's true that Anthy has "venom", he would never characterize her as having "malice", and I think that's a good way of putting it.

Anthy's number one motivator was guilt. She hated what her brother had become after sealing Dios, but she also pitied him, and felt responsible for it. So she gave up everything except doing what he wanted, as a kind of endless atonement.

Now, does that mean Anthy is not manipulative, deceptive, and even callous at times? Of course not, but in some ways, Anthy is the most innocent person in the series. There's a diffence between antipathy and malice. Does Anthy despise the petty duelists with their self-centered ambitions? Without a doubt. It was true of Utena too, at first.

But there's a difference between that and actively seeking to do others harm. Regardless of her contempt for others, the person she believes deserves harm, far more than any of them, is herself. In her own eyes the enormity of her sin, and the degree to which she deserves punishment, are so much greater than anyone else's.

The duelists are, let's not forget, "children", and I'm sure that's how Anthy sees them. Obnoxious, selfish, loudmouthed children...and yet compared to herself and Akio they are innocent lambs, and I truly believe she pities them for being tangled up in Akio's web.

Never more so than with Utena. As Anthy comes to love Utena, her dislike for what she and Akio are doing, and her desire to save Utena from what's coming, grows agonizingly throughout the entire show. She starts to tell Utena the truth so many times...she begins, in the most feebly downtrodden way, to show resistance to Akio. This culminates in episode 36 and 37, where Anthy tries as hard as she's able to show Utena the abyss that's yawning in front of her.

So yes, I do think Anthy is "innocent", in the sense that she doesn't deserve her hellish fate, and really does not wish harm on anyone other than herself. She does what she does out of apathy and resignation, but she does not enjoy it, and Akio's self-justifying lies to the contrary are just that: lies, like everything that ever comes out of his mouth.

Akio asks Anthy why she tortures him, but she doesn't torment him, he torments himself - by wanting from her the only thing he could never gain: The same love and admiration that she had for Dios.

Last edited by Aelanie (02-22-2012 01:20:38 AM)

Here, though, you're saying that Anthy is non-evil because any hate on her part is outweighed by pity, and because she's driven primarily by "apathy and resignation." I'd say that's a different, and significantly more reasonable, argument than what you stated above - that she's a "doll" who is "beyond moral judgments, internal or external."

That's not two different arguments though, it's just cause and effect. Apathy and resignation is the reason she plays the role of the doll. She's not evil, but she's not good either. She may indeed feel pity for the foolish, ignorant duelists, but that doesn't stop her from doing what her brother wants and striking at their weaknesses. That's what I mean by "beyond moral judgments". You can't judge her actions on any conventional scale of morality, because whatever her own feelings may be, the only moral compass she has is "do what Akio wants".

I think I'd put the Shadow Play Girls as True Neutral or maybe Chaotic Neutral.

Million Swords might be Chaotic Evil.


But, I wonder, how might Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic be twisted and redefined to fit the Utena-verse? Would Lawful equate to following archetypes and Good to having the altruistic generally associated with the Prince?