No, I think the "grossly inferior creature" is how Akio sees people, especially children.

I'm a religious studies major, and this is what comes to mind (I have not read the whole thread!!)-

The ego's highest fantasy is to achieve ultimate power without sacrificing its sense of integrity or congruity (I refer here to Akio of course!).  The ego by nature is (apparently) solid, confined, defined, restricted.  This is the image of the coffin.  When we see Utena in her coffin as a child, that coffin is representative of a primordial fear of the outside world, of life on its own terms (why do we live if we're going to die, as she asks).  This is why Dios' "intervention" of helping Utena out of her coffin (if it can be called that, it's not shown and we don't know to what extent this was Utena's own willpower) is so potent/transformative (compare her terror in the coffin to her ease, confidence, brashness as an adolescent).  In the spiritual reading of Utena I don't think you can separate Utena's emergence from the coffin with her witnessing Anthy's suffering - the two are simultaneous and coterminous.  This is akin to the Buddha's realization of the first noble truth that life is suffering.  Why does this realization involve a step beyond the ego?  Because the universality of such an insight eclipses the smallness and self-concern of ego (as Utena jumps to devote herself to Anthy's cause as a child).  It logically necessitates a paradigm that is non-local, non-self-centered, aka Dios and altruism.  And this scares the s*** out of Akio.

When Akio realizes that the Rose Gate opens onto Anthy's coffin, he is experiencing something akin to Utena's simultaneous coffin-exit and her witnessing Anthy in her suffering.  He is being forced to see the nature of the world, which would ask him not only to abandon his fantasies of total ego-fulfillment, but to dismantle his ego, his identity as he believes it to be himself.  It is the mark of a sudden break out of ego that Anthy, once plagued by suffering and perceived limits of her behavior (her necessary reliance on Akio and rejection of Utena, for example), is abruptly capable not only of dropping these dogmas but pursuing a cause (finding Utena) with far greater friendliness and bravery than we have ever seen before.  Life is suffering, yes...but once we work past the ego's fear of seeing its own perversity and fragility, it (suffering and ego) vanishes like a soap bubble and the wider world awaits.

I think in the context, Anthy's sacrifice would be less related to the sacrifice itself and more related to the suffering of it which is the 'suffering of human nature' which in this context Utena saw (like it was for Siddhartha).  However, in my view, Anthy's sacrifice had much to do with her attachment to Dios and according to Buddhism, attachment is the cause of suffering and letting go is one step in salvation. 

Utena thus opens her coffin and from there, Anthy seeks to follow after Utena while letting go of the world she once knew (letting go of her world attachment?) and could metaphorically be seen as following the Eight-Fold path.

But I basically interpreted the post in the same way.

Going on, then Ohtori is the world.  Both Utena and Anthy find enlightenment and leave their attachment to it.  Akio has no intention of taking the path of enlightenment as he is more comfortable being attached to the world. After all, Akio has his fine luxuries.  Utena, too, had the opportunity to live that life as his princess but seeing the suffering she had not seen before, due to her naivety and her being sheltered [largely by Akio's delusions] from the truth of the Rose Bride's eternal suffering, caused her to personally sacrifice that life (much like how Siddhartha, the original Buddha, I believe, was sheltered from human suffering and lived an almost confined life in his palace, but when he ventured outside and saw the four sights of old age, death, and the like, he chose to give up his life and live in the jungle, imposing some harsh forms of asceticism on himself only to later find the true release from suffering, being the Eight-Fold path.).

The Buddhist Catechism wrote:

38. Q. Why had he not also seen them?

A. The Brâhmaṇa astrologers had foretold at his birth that he would one day resign his kingdom and become a Buddha, The King, his father, not wishing to lose an heir to his kingdom, had carefully prevented his seeing any sights that might suggest to him human misery and death. No one was allowed even to speak of such things to the Prince [Siddhartha/The to-be Buddha]. He was almost like a prisoner in his lovely palaces and flower gardens. They were surrounded by high walls, and inside, everything was made as beautiful as possible, so that he might not wish to go and see the sorrow and distress that are in the world.

39. Q. Was he so kind-hearted that the King feared he might really wish to leave everything for the world's sake?

A. Yes; he seems to have felt for all beings so strong a pity and love as that.

40. Q. And how did he expect to learn the cause of sorrow in the jungle?

p. 10

A. By removing far away from all that could prevent his thinking deeply of the causes of sorrow and the nature of man.

...And so the prince, Siddhartha, rode away into the darkness and to the jungle and that is how his journey begins.

And I'd say more but I guess I should split the thread or else post it in the religion/mythology thread. (or rather if anyone cares to discuss the points unrelated to Akio, further since my mind is suddenly blank).

But from the excerpt I took from here, one could potentially make a connection to Akio, the King, and as said as to how Akio is content to stay within his comfort zone in contrast to Utena who would rather know the truth of the world even if it hurts and make the sacrifice of sharing that sort of life with Akio because she sees the suffering that exists in reality.  Akio, of course, chooses fantasy and does not care to confront the realities of suffering.  And again this ties into the SKU themes of hating lies, uncovering the truth of the world (and how to deal with it...since Akio does know the truth but has no intentions of confronting it, I now realize), and choosing between a nice fairy tale or making the sacrifice in the face of harsh reality.

Last edited by spoon-san (07-28-2009 02:52:44 PM)

Erm... am I even allowed to necro a thread this old and contentious?

Anyways, it just so happens (i.e: not really, but I don't feel like tipping my hand that far) that I've been doing a re-read of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and I came across this little gem of a section:

A door had shut, the low door in the wall I had sought and found in Oxford; open it now and I should find no enchanted garden.

I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed.

I had left behind me--what?  Youth?  Adolescence?  Romance?  The conjuring stuff of these things, "the Young Magician's Compendium," that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place beside the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.

"I have left illusion behind," I said to myself.  "Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions--with the aid of my five senses."

I have since learned that there is no such world; but then, as the car turned out of the sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue.

(Yes, you can pat yourself on the back if you pick up the T. S. Eliot reference.)

I think that Akio consistently makes use of a false sense of both "reality" and "maturity," much like the propaganda strategy I've heard named "leveling" (but can't find a reference to online) where a the speaker builds up a first, false conceit and then breaks it down in order to make the conceit behind it seem more real or genuine.  It's like a car salesman saying, "Other car dealers will speak of their product in vague and glowing terms, but here at Shitty Car Store, we won't put you through any of that nonsense."  But in fact, reality, honesty, and maturity aren't the sorts of things that will exist by default if you just don't cover them up, and pretending to break down a wall of "fake" is really only an extra level of deceit.

Likewise, in a work like SKU, trying to determine what is real and what is fantasy isn't a simple matter.  Saying something like, "well, this was just an illusion," it's hard, if not impossible, not to play the same role as Akio, turning the projector off in order to fool Utena (and perhaps himself as well) into thinking that everything else is unassailably true.  What's more, it is absolutely true that none of it really happened, because this is a work of fiction.  Ohtori Academy does not exist.  You could not, if you were to travel to the physical location, visit it in a literal way, and what's more, even if you could, it wouldn't really be the set for SKU.

This would lead to a discussion of the difference between what is real and what is true, but I don't have my notes together on that, and would have to go running about the house looking for books and then running about books looking for references, and then trying very hard not to (badly) paraphrase long passages from Umberto Eco's Confessions of a Young Novelist.

I've been lingering, recently, on an interpretation of Anthy and Akio as a model of an abusive relationship, or perhaps what would be better described as "co-dependant misery."  It's possible that Akio really does want out (out of the relationship, out of the fake world, out of the position of power) just as much as Anthy... would, but that while Anthy isn't able to seize the possibility of release, Akio doesn't know how to: he wants to escape from the prison they've made for themselves, (and everyone else) but he isn't really able to accept that this means releasing Anthy from his control.  Hence, he tries to smash the Rose Gate open with a sword (and someone else's sword at that) when what it really needed to open was a tear, and simultaneously tells Anthy to take the Swords of Hate in his place.  And he never sees the contradiction in these actions.

Last edited by Kita-Ysabell (11-27-2012 08:49:10 PM)

Triplerock wrote:

    exactly does Akio stand to gain then, in terms of real world power, from manipulating a bunch of dysfunctional kids into dueling each other for a castle in the sky?.

I see reality-bending magic being real in SKU's universe - the magic/irrational-projection scenes exude symbolism, but they really have happened.

Akio needs the power and drive of an innocently noble heart sword (Utena's) to unlock Dio's sealed power (that which he lost after losing his innocence).  Dio's power, if the Rose Seal ep with the Dios history is to be believed, is really one that can create "miracles" and change things in the world.  Even having lost most of it, Akio still can manipulate time, sent out shadows, and create multiple realities within not just Ohtori campus, but Honou city (as could be seen by the framed but animated shadow girls  in Kiyruu Household, and the entire Honou area having unnaturally unmelting snow - with random objects regressing in time - in Nemuro Research Era), and perhaps also at distances further beyond (like on the highways of the outside world where he chatted with the shadow girls in his car with Utena right beside him, unaware; the outside church with the extra coffin and the Prince and Witch apparitions bewitching young Utena).  Imagine what Akio could do to the world at large if he is to regain the full power of Dios - affecting not just Japan, but the entire globe, with his "miraculous" powers could be no problem

Akio manipulates the "dysfunctonal kids" against innocent, noble Utena solely to train Utena's sword, making it stronger and stronger in nobility and determination.  He makes one fatal error in the sword "training"  however; in his eagerness to up Utena's sword's strength of nobility, he had it tested so badly that its "innocence" got cracked (as was hinted at by Utena's antagonistic-to-Anthy, borderline bitchy moment in ep 37 after being shown the incest).  As both innocence and nobility is required to unlock Dio's power, Utena's sword broke against the seal, useless for Akio's purpose. 

A lot of people sees Akio showing horror at Utena opening the Rose Gates as his being self-contradictory, as well as too chicken to face real revolution;  I see it somewhat differently.

1) Akio only wants the sheer, reality-bending power of Dios to make changes (really, impose) on the world that he want to make - he does not want to regain Dio's innocent nobility, and cannot care less if Anthy or the Students get personal, soul-freeing revolutions.  Utena being the one to actually open the gate bare-handed (instead of failing like he expects her to) could mean his chance at getting the power forever lost - he has every reason to be alarmed at that point in the story, it's not self-contradictory for him to react in horror like he does.

2) There's a difference between heating a pot of soup on a working stove, and lighting the stove on fire to heat the pot - the former gives you cooked soup, the latter gives you burned soup while also burning down your kitchen.  I think this applies to cooking/drawing up Dio's Power of Revolution as well - Utena's opening the gates with "hands" instead of "heart sword" opened Anthy's heart and allowing her to drop her obsession with Dios (soup cooked); yet it also resulted in the Swords of Hate that both Akio and Anthy fear rushing (and presumably hurting) the heroine (soup burned), with her existence erased off the school (soup burned), and the Duel Arena and Castle destroyed (kitchen burned; cannot again try cooking  up Power of Revolution without starting the Rose Code from scratch).

3) The uplifted ending clips of the S Council are results of Utena interacting with them all through the show, and have little to do with that singular Duel of Revolution.  The editing in ep 39 makes it seems like Anthy is referring to their improved relationship as what Akio "don't know what happened", but Anthy is simply referring to her own change of heart - that neither the present Akio nor the Dios of her memory can compare with Utena's appeal to her, thus she can now finally ditch him for good.

This is my take on Akio's ambitions, and what really has happened at the ending of ep 39.

Last edited by gorgeousshutin (11-29-2012 06:31:26 PM)