Utena tiny meta interpretation of the day
The woman engaged Miki and Kozue's father isn't actually Anthy.
It's the projection trick where everything that goes wrong is blamed on Anthy. Everyone projects onto her what they want her to be - Miki, Mikage, etc. But she's also automatically blamed for everything the speaker hates - Kozue, Kanae, Nanami. By the way, she's generally hated for diverting the attention of someone the hater would want for themselves. So far it's been mostly romantic attentions, or at least attentions with a romantic subtext. But as this proves, it doesn't have to be.
Symbolically it makes sense, because the father's new wife would be the stepmother. In fairytales, stepmothers are often evil witches. Who's the witch? Anthy.
Miki might hate his new stepmother without knowing her, because he's the one with an idealized vision of his family, and a new woman in his father's life (that his father wants him to call "mother" from the start) ruins the idea of a perfect nuclear family that I think he's clinging to. Miki and Kozue's mother, after all, is still alive, and perhaps Miki entertained fancies of his parents getting back together and returning to them (see Miki's yearning for an idealized past). However unconsciously, Miki is casting his stepmother in the role of the evil witch who is diverting his father's attention from his mother - who has bewitched him.
I don't think Miki is picturing his stepmother as looking like Anthy. (Though it might be an interesting layer to his issues) I think the snapshot at the end of the phonecall is meant for us, the audience.
Factual evidence supporting that theory, I have only this: it never comes up again. Akio marrying into the Ohtori family comes up several times, but Anthy being engaged to Miki and Kozue's father doesn't. What greater purpose of Akio's would such an engagement serve?
This entry was originally posted at http://runespoor.dreamwidth.org/129877.html. There are
comments there.
It's the projection trick where everything that goes wrong is blamed on Anthy. Everyone projects onto her what they want her to be - Miki, Mikage, etc. But she's also automatically blamed for everything the speaker hates - Kozue, Kanae, Nanami. By the way, she's generally hated for diverting the attention of someone the hater would want for themselves. So far it's been mostly romantic attentions, or at least attentions with a romantic subtext. But as this proves, it doesn't have to be.
Symbolically it makes sense, because the father's new wife would be the stepmother. In fairytales, stepmothers are often evil witches. Who's the witch? Anthy.
Miki might hate his new stepmother without knowing her, because he's the one with an idealized vision of his family, and a new woman in his father's life (that his father wants him to call "mother" from the start) ruins the idea of a perfect nuclear family that I think he's clinging to. Miki and Kozue's mother, after all, is still alive, and perhaps Miki entertained fancies of his parents getting back together and returning to them (see Miki's yearning for an idealized past). However unconsciously, Miki is casting his stepmother in the role of the evil witch who is diverting his father's attention from his mother - who has bewitched him.
I don't think Miki is picturing his stepmother as looking like Anthy. (Though it might be an interesting layer to his issues) I think the snapshot at the end of the phonecall is meant for us, the audience.
Factual evidence supporting that theory, I have only this: it never comes up again. Akio marrying into the Ohtori family comes up several times, but Anthy being engaged to Miki and Kozue's father doesn't. What greater purpose of Akio's would such an engagement serve?
This entry was originally posted at http://runespoor.dreamwidth.org/129877.html. There are
comments there.