When I first thought about the word's meaning in Spanish I thought perhaps the audience is supposed to notice a correlation between the character and the idea of God or a god. Not sure if that would suggest that the character, Dios, is to be seen as a god figure among the other characters in the cast. Then again, his character does have a large amount of influence and power at Ohtori, so maybe that fits. Yet I feel this can only be a portion behind the reason that the character's name is connected to the Spanish word for god.

No no no, like Decrescent Daytripper said, I do not think it has to do anything with making him more "brown". I do not even think it was deliberately chosen to be Spanish. In this case, I think it has more to do with Ikuhara's interest in classicism. Dios is, in fact, the genitive pronunciation of Zeus in the Greek language. Also, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyeus for the etymological history. I realize it is a bit esoteric to the lay viewer, but that is just the way Ikuhara rolls. Keep in mind, that Anthy's name is Greek too!

This is probably an opinion that some might contest, but as a moderate speaker of Japanese, I think there is also a case to be made for Dios being the "shortened" version of Dioscuri. Διόσκουροι --> Διόσ. See? The contraction of words is a very common practice in Japanese, and let's keep in mind that Anthy's name is not sounded out entirely from her Greek origin of Anthea. (Neither is it transliterated in a way to suggest it is Greek...) The same thing could be happening here with Dios. And I don't think I'm pulling this out of my ass. The "Dioscuri" is referenced in Utena a few times, but perhaps it is not picked up on by an English speaker. But even if it is too esoteric for the lay viewer, it is certainly not a term that is unknown to Ikuhara. We see evidence of this in the duel song in Episode 28: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-HkednwxBw&t=19m2s

"Dios Croix" should actually be translated as "Dioscuri" here.

Castor and Pollux are also referenced elsewhere in the series too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LPJJ6Qt3vU&t=9m10s
I want to say there was one other reference to Castor and Pollux, but I can't seem to find it at the moment...

Last edited by barafubuki (06-06-2016 08:48:25 AM)

Oh I'm aware of the etymology of my own language Ikuhara plays with so many different ethnic background for Anthy (it was Ikuhara's choice to make her dress red, as it is traditional for brides in India), but I'm wondering if the word choice was made before or after Ikuhara started intervening. Saito's cultural influences on the series are obviously french, but "dios" is used for an ambiguously brown god, drifting away from the french theme of the rest of the show. Anthy and Akio are really an ethnic cocktail and it's something I enjoy from them, and I was wondering if drifting from french to spanish (usually associated as a "brown-er" europe) could also go along in the same line.

barafubuki wrote:

If you do see other connections outside of Indian and Greek, do enlighten me. It was just something I had not seen at all.

The word "Dios" (in case it came from Spanish and not from Greek), adrift from the french theme of the rest of the show.

Dios is Spanish. The name makes sense since Akio really was looked up as everyone's prince when he was young. So he was technically a "god" and someone people looked up to. Once adulthood tainted him, he changed his name along with his image.

Yes, Dios is Spanish...but my only issue with accepting that interpretation means accepting a Christian mythology (which I don't see that much of) in comparison to all the Greek references (which I see quite a bit) throughout the entire show. We also don't have (as far as I can tell) any other names in Spanish...but we do have Greek names! Dios is also quite common (by various spellings) in several other languages. It also happens to be the name for Zeus in Greek.

I think there is a very strong case for Dios as Zeus. First, there is a ton of etymological evidence to support this. You see evidence of this in words like Dioscuri (lit. Zeus's boys) and Aetos Dios (Eagle of Zeus). And if we look back far enough, we even see origins for this deity in Proto-Indo-European cultures.

I think Dios as "Zeus" makes sense when we look at it also from the perspective that Anthy is Anthea (an epithet for Hera meaning "Flower") and Utena is Calyx, (the literal support for the flower).

Hera is known as a jealous deity who was always upset with her husband's philandering. He was notorious for raping Leda as a Swan and Europa as a Cow and Ganymede as an Eagle and Hera as a Peacock, and it didn't even end there! (He was really pretty awlful.) You could say that the Prince persona under which he rapes Utena was also an illusion. Anyways, all this running around and raping everything he saw caused Hera all sorts of anguish, so she resorted to TORTURING her rivals. https://mythmuses.wordpress.com/2010/09 … h-of-hera/ This feels very much like Anthy. Oh and did I mention that Zeus and Hera were SIBLINGS!?

If I had access to OED, (which I don't at the moment since I'm not in school) I'd post up more etymological sources from there, but here are some alternatives:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?ter … in_frame=0
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%94%CE%B9%CF%8C%CF%82

‌‌dyeu-
To shine (and in many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Zero-grades *dyu‑ and *diw‑.
Derivatives include Tuesday, divine, jovial, Jupiter, diary, dismal, journey, and psychedelic.
Basic form *dyeu‑, Jove, the name of the god of the bright sky, head of the Indo-European pantheon.
Jove, jovial; apojove, perijove, Sangiovese, from Latin Iovis, Jupiter, or Iov‑, stem of Iuppiter, Jupiter.
July, from Latin Iūlius, "descended from Jupiter" (name of a Roman gens), from derivative *iou-il‑.
Vocative compound *dyeu-pəter, "O father Jove" (*pəter‑, father; see pəter-). Jupiter, from Latin Iuppiter, Iūpiter, head of the Roman pantheon.
Dione, Zeus; dianthus, Dioscuri, from Greek Zeus (genitive Dios), Zeus.
Noun *deiwos, god, formed by e-insertion to the zero-grade *diw‑ and suffixation of (accented) -o‑.
Tiu, Tuesday, from Old English Tīw (genitive Tīwes), god of war and sky;
Tyr, from Old Norse Tȳr, sky god. Both a and b from Germanic *Tīwaz.
deism, deity, joss; adieu, adios, deific, deus ex machina, from Latin deus, god.
diva, divine, from Latin dīvus, divine, god.
Dis, Dives, from Latin dīves, rich (< "fortunate, blessed, divine").
Suffixed zero-grade form *diw-yo‑, heavenly. Diana, from Latin Diāna, moon goddess.
deva, Devi; deodar, Devanagari, from Sanskrit devaḥ, god, and deva‑, divine.
Asmodeus, from Avestan daēuua‑, spirit, demon.
Variant *dyē‑ (< *dyeə‑) dial, diary, diet2, dismal, diurnal, journal, journey; adjourn, ajouré, circadian, meridian, postmeridian, quotidian, sojourn, from Latin diēs, day.
Variant *deiə‑. psychedelic, adelgid, from Greek dēlos (< *deyalos), clear.
[Pokorny 1. dei‑ 183.]

I guess you can interpret it however you want, but I'm pretty convinced this was Ikuhara+staff's intention.

Last edited by barafubuki (06-07-2016 11:35:15 AM)