Mikage Souji / Prof. Nemuro (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

[sarahtheboring]

Title: Frozen Time
Author: sarahtheboring
Spoilers: Up to ep 23, definitely; in comparison, spoilers up to the end of the series (though only in the last section of the essay). Only deals with the series, not movie- or mangaverse.
Email: climbingaswefall@yahoo.com
Personal site: It's in complete disrepair. All I can plug are my journal, my AMVs, and some

Comments

[sarahtheboring]

When Nemuro burns down the building, the 100 boys are celebrating because he just "opened the way to the dueling arena." It's never explained what that means, though. It seems to make sense, until you learn that the arena is an illusion. Then it's like, wait, so how coudl he have opened the way to it? Well, by makign it appear, that is, by buildign the machine that projects the illusion.

*facepalm* Oh, right. Oh, that's awesome. ...and that much more ironic/tragic that Mikage's life was ruled by illusion.

Of course, the whole thing fails in a lot of ways to make logical sense. If the arena is an illusion, then isn't the gate at the end an illusion? And the coffin? And all of it? So what really happens?

I always run into these problems when trying to say "what really happened" because it all breaks down somewhere on a rational level. But it works so very perfectly on an artistic and emotional level.

I've always considered this what I keep calling a glass-staircase ending, because I can't think of a better name for it. (the phrase comes from Video Girl Ai, because its example is particularly bizarre and egregious.) It's an artistic/metaphorical representation of something that has essentially already happened. I don't think any of it really happened, literally speaking. (Which would kind of explain the gate becoming the coffin with no explanation.) But the important part - getting Anthy out of that idea she's bound to that she is nothing but the Rose Bride - is already happening, and reaches its turning point immediately afterward.

...actually that's kind of how things go in this series, come to think of it - all the "real" development happens in the characters' minds and out in the school, but the duels encapsulate their stories. (Everyone has to deliver a monologue while dueling. It's a rule. 'Cause none of it is really about defeating Utena.)

(rambling endlessly about symbolism! sniffle!)

I am sorely tempted to attempt one on Saionji; he's so difficult to see clearly as a character, and so universally hated because of it. But I should read the rest of the manga before attempting that.

[ciaan]

I like Saionji, for all that I'm angry at him for making me like him. I didn't like him until after I wrote fic with him in it.

Yeah, sigh, who needs logic? It's emotions and art, and it's not about the events, it's about the feelings, and those all make sense.