Personal Rambling (on Princess Tutu)
Ghost Knight story in the anime is definitely a perfect fit for Fakir, as the dance in the lake is so sad, beautiful, cruel and tragic. (Their last dance together as humans). Fakir definitely did not want to let go of Ahiru, as the ending of the story/letting go of the pendant means Ahiru in duck form. But for the sake of the Prince and people of the city, he had to. He was not just convincing Ahiru but also himself. And in doing so he himself sacrificed his lover, just like in the story of ghost knight when the knight has to sacrifice/kill his lover for the king and the country. The look he gave to Ahiru in that scene was of a man who loved the other very much but couldn't be with her. Both of them were looking at each other like that. The things both of them couldn't tell each other was conveyed through their eyes to the other. Both of them knew that afterwards they wont be able to be together the way, they wanted to be.😢😭😣
And Ahiru was definitely head over heels in love with Fakir. She had chosen him a long time ago. She could not give up the pendant when Mytho asked, but she was ready to sacrifice herself/ let go of the pendant after talking with Fakir. And before that, she was in despair and ready to disappear/end her life as she was not able to let go of the pendant (thanks to Drosselmeyer). Even Drosselmeyer knew that Ahiru's feelings were changing as he has to remind her purpose in the story and that she was only meant to love the Prince not anyone else, when she was imprisoned in the different dimension.
Fakir not only give her the will to live but also make her strong enough by quelling her worries/making promises, to make the decision of sacrificing(by giving the last heart shard to Mytho) herself.
This scene is also parallel to when Ahiru helped others when they were in despair because of heart shards with her dance, but when she was in trouble, the dance with Fakir helped her in which he was leading. She also get to do pas de deux as Ahiru and not as Princess Tutu with her lover as she always wanted throughout the series.
There shouldn't be any doubt as to who loved who or who was meant for whom. The show did a damn good job without spelling out everything (which can be very difficult at times). They don't have to say words of love to each other to make the viewers understand. As there was so much parallel between Fakir and Ahiru and Mytho and Rue. Rue was the one who get to save Mytho in the end, and Mytho was the one who save/rescue Rue, as in Prince and Princess trope.
Similarly Ahiru saved/rescue Fakir many times as well as Fakir saved/rescue Ahiru many times. As this is the job of the Prince, to save their Princess in fairy tales and vice versa.
Whenever Ahiru is in trouble she always goes to Fakir. (Later in the series it looked like she just wants to be around Fakir, that's why she goes to him). (Mytho did not save/or come to rescue Ahiru when she was in trouble, it was always Fakir). And by time we reach the last episode Fakir and Ahiru are practically moaning each other's name. The visualization of the show also left no stone unturned to show this.
(I admit, it would have been nice to see a kiss or confession between them, but i think not being able to do so, gives even more tragic vibes to them. As the show clearly made it visible for the viewers, who loved who. And both of them also knew each others feeling without saying the words out loud as it was visible in the dance under the lake, their expressions told everything. And I think, if they showed any outward sign of affection to each other, both of them wouldn't have been be able to go on with their resolves which they made seconds ago. So they made it an unspoken rule between them, to abstain from showing any outward sign of affection towards each other. It must have been really hard[hurt] for them).
As I found this series after ff7 remake, saving each other part reminded me of Cloud saying about Aerith: "she saved me, I saved her, she saved me again and so on", that's what Fakir and Ahiru were also doing in the whole series.
The first time Fakir saved Ahiru was when she took up the offer of Rue to give up her life to safe Mytho, as the story suggested, but Fakir intervened and told her not to give up and live, and second time was also in the same episode, when Ahiru was losing the battle to Rue and losing Mytho as well, she again thought of telling her feelings while thinking that Mytho did ask about them, and to disappear forever to win the battle and Mytho, but then she remembered Fakir's words and again decided against it, from here you can sense that this dance has become not purely for Mytho but has the feelings of Fakir also involved in it.
When Fakir was sucked in by the oak tree Ahiru was practically groveling and crying for his return just like Rue did for Mytho later in the series, when he became a raven.
Then there was Ahiru saving/rescuing Fakir from the bookmen and in return she was imprisoned by Drosselmeyer and then came my most favorite scene of the story, the rescue of Ahiru by Fakir.
After the teleportation in a different place, the first thing she did was to call out Fakir's name. When Drosselmeyer visited Ahiru here, he had to remind Ahiru her purpose and that she was supposed to love only the Prince but now she has changed.
And when both Ahiru and Fakir started of at the same time, Ahiru resolving her self about her feelings and Fakir have to stop time from going backwards, even though they were in two different places/possibly dimensions, apart from each other, not knowing where the other person is, what the other person is doing or thinking, but they were still in sync, they were thinking about the other one at the same time, and I loved the part where for the first time Fakir said that he and Ahiru will work together as opposed to before when he didn't trust her, always pushed her away, and only Ahiru wanted to work together. When they said "together" in sync, that's when he heard her voice. And of course the famous line he wrote to summon her. 😍😘😗😙😚
(Special mention in this scene is that even though at this time Ahiru was thinking all about saving Mytho but even with all the intervention from Drosselmeyer she did not forget about Fakir but thought of saving Mytho with him and of course Fakir also said this for the first time. In short with all the manipulation from Drosselmeyer Ahiru was still thinking of Fakir).
When Ahiru get to know about the Fakir's power, she always used the word that Fakir will write the story for his most important person in regards to Mytho. And guess what he did write the story about his most important person, and that was Ahiru😊😄😁 (as he couldn't write a word for Mytho).
In the last battle with the raven Fakir and Ahiru took the most damage both emotionally and physically. When Ahiru was going to give the pendant back to Mytho, it reminded me of the walk Harry Potter took to sacrifice himself and he also couldn't do it alone so he called his dead parents and their friends back from the dead. Just as Ahiru couldn't do it without Fakir's company and support. Even then it takes a lot of courage to do something like that. And Fakir has to practically put her (the one he cared and loved so deeply) in harm's way himself as he was the one writing the story. He has to watch her getting hurt and tortured by the crows. There was multiple times he wanted to abandon the story and save Ahiru from the crows. At that time the only thing which kept him going was Ahiru's will and his friend stopping him from doing it. And when the raven was defeated and you see all four of them together, Fakir and Ahiru looked the most battered after the battle, emotionally worn out, as if their heart were ripped to pieces in the battle to save everyone.😢😭😣😓
Fakir also always wanted to protect everyone. He felt that he was the one always being protected but in the end he did protect everyone dear to him.
On the matter of Ahiru asking Fakir to give up his sword, she definitely didn't think he was bad or useless as knight, heck he even had pretty good skills with sword. It was just in ghost knight story she saw how dangerous it would be for Fakir to continue as this, she just wanted Fakir to be save, to not get hurt, (to not die) and Fakir chose this option not because Ahiru said it or wanted it, it was also his will to protect everyone and he realized he could not do it with his sword alone so he chose the other power he had even if was too traumatizing for him.
There are 4 main characters in Princess Tutu, two humans, a duck and a story book Prince. In the human cast one was a knight and the other was a villain raven's daughter, who was brainwashed from a very young age, deprived of love and wanted to be loved, what raven did to her was very cruel.
I like the fact the change started to come from a human knight who wanted to fight his fate first, the knight character's showed all fragility and vulnerability of humans.
Ahiru was an innocent animal with pure feelings for a Prince who was lonely and in pain. But she was starting to get influenced by the human knight's struggle and feelings and the knight also started to get influenced by the duck's innocence and willingness to help the Prince.
The Prince who was a character of a story book was the only one who was following the story, and thus there was no dramatic change in his character. He was the only one who was true to his character. The other human who was brainwashed into believing that she was raven's daughter by the raven also played the part of the story of "the Prince and the raven" until she realized she was human.
Then she also defied what was written for her, as she refused to be be raven's daughter any further and acted in her human feelings. She changed the moment she realized she was human. I like this element in Princess Tutu which shows the will power of human beings.
On the subject of Rue and Mytho, in the end when Mytho turned into a crow and was going to give his heart to raven both Ahiru and Rue were there. But Rue was desperate to save the Prince, you can clearly see that as opposed to Ahiru, there is also no doubt that Ahiru also wanted to save the Prince, same as Fakir, her feelings to save him were genuine but at that time her heart already belonged to someone else.
The two people who were fated to die in the story, a knight to die in vain without protecting anyone, and a princess to vanish after confessing her love to Prince, survived.
In the end both Fakir and Ahiru changed each other. His will to live, to fight his fate, also gave courage and will to Ahiru as well, she also started to think that it's not okay for her to just disappear in thin air, as he wanted her to live. Fakir's determination and courage also made Ahiru move forward, especially in the cave lake. She herself said Fakir always made her strong. And she changed his way of protecting Mytho which was before very abusive and wrong. That was in part because of his own fear of what were the implications of going with the path Ahiru chose. But as he saw Ahiru was unwavering in her conviction to save Mytho in her way and Mytho also wanted that, so instead he started to prepare himself to fight his doomed fate.
This is such a beautiful, unique, classic love story. I love this anime to bits. I could go on writing essay about it and still have a lot to say about this story. (Mytho and Rue relationship is a whole other topic to get into which I have barely touched and I also love them).
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