I’m @yurious-george, amateur ballerina, ex-operatic soprano, and hobby folklorist. I’ve been a fan of Princess Tutu since the mid 2010s, and found it endlessly fascinating in its breadth of knowledge. Here, I intend provide resources to further research, official materials, and preserve fandom history, for the edification of new fans and preservation of information.
This blog is primarily research-focused, but I will occasionally post my own analysis. Queue is running on one post per day, if I fill it.
Essays on the back burner:
Clothing symbolism in Princess Tutu (& how it pertains to Mytho specifically, aka why he’s not wearing pants)
Drosselmeyer, the Tales of Hoffmann, and the Sandman: Hoffman and a history of the Drosselmeyer character across media
Two Sigfrieds and a Swan King: Wagner’s operas and King Ludwig II of Bavaria
The Nutcracker & Swan Lake: how the two Tchaikovsky ballets influence the role of every major character in Princess Tutu
A role that doesn’t fit: how rue is forced into the role of seductress, and the deconstruction of the whore/Madonna complex
Beginner's guide to ballet: a dictionary of ballet steps, positions, and mime
Asks help me focus my ideas, so if you’d like to read any one of them, shoot me a message.
Tag List:
a: ____ - artist
b: ____ - ballet
ch: ___ - character
o: ____ - opera
m: ___ - music
f: ____ - fairytale/folklore
l: ____ - location
ep: 0x0 - episode, by season and number
e: ____ - event (usually anniversaries)
misc: _ - miscellaneous
misc tags:
fandom - fandom-specific history
meta - analysis focused on other works and how they intersect with princess tutu
Analysis - analysis of princess tutu without using external media as reference,
official material
development notes
costuming
discussion
reference - masterlists & style guides
Affiliates:
@princesstutumeta: more focused on collecting tumblr posts discussing Princess Tutu rather than research, but a great resource.
The She-Bear is from the same Unnatural Love family of stories as Allerleirauh (All-Kinds-of-Fur, Thousandfurs), Donkeyskin, and Little Catskin. Her widowed father, the king, vows to marry only a woman as beautiful as his late wife and is dissatisfied with all women... except his daughter, who resembles his late wife the most. She flees with the help of an old woman, who allows her to turn into a bear. A sickly prince does eventually fall in love with her, as a bear, and her true form is revealed when his kiss makes her drop the wooden piece from her mouth. When they learn her story, the queen rewards her and approves of their marriage.
The She-Bear in the scene above is likely still fleeing from her mad king father, at the point where she meets Edel, so she must feel alone in the world, having intentionally made herself look frightening and difficult to love as a bear, and feels she was never loved given how twisted her father's affections became... poor thing. But she has a happy ending she'll find eventually.
Are you going to do the 3rd and 4th part of the Raven’s blood analysis? I’m writing a Roleswap fic and it’s really helping me understand it better and how it would affect certain characters.
Not anytime soon, I don't think! My special interest is waning (and you may be referring to a friend's analysis, since I don't remember making that post.) I can give a quick rundown, though:
The raven's blood primarily affects how the a character conceptualizes "love," and makes them controlling and fearful around a loved one leaving them. They also act stereotypically evil for kicks.
It's a popular theory for people watching PT for the first time to think Fakir is the Raven, because of his controlling and closed-off nature; if he was affected by the Raven's blood, he'd probably just be the same. Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine Ahiru being affected by it at all, because she's so "pure" about it. She might flip-flop between wanting to let her affection go and trying to control them.
I may eventually revisit and finish this series of posts, but it may not be on Tumblr when I do so. I've been feeling a general sense of malaise about Tumblr in general - I'm still obsessed with Princess Tutu, but when it comes to doing fandom through this site lately I feel like a rat in a skinner box repeatedly pressing a button to get pellets and only getting electric shocks. The rewards (talking to people, sharing analysis and theories, having fun) are low, and the psychic damage is like wading through a poison swamp in a videogame. This isn't the website it was when I was in college and I was having fun brainstorming theory posts with strangers, even as the site was already also an OCD saw trap.
If Cohost hadn't shut down, I likely would have continued it there. If I do come back to this post series, I may instead continue it on Dreamwidth, Ao3, or a fansite hosted somewhere like Neocities or Nekoweb.
This is a link to the draft of part 3 that i never finished. If people want me to publish this as-is, or can suggest a good way to conclude it, let me know.
Are you going to do the 3rd and 4th part of the Raven’s blood analysis? I’m writing a Roleswap fic and it’s really helping me understand it better and how it would affect certain characters.
Not anytime soon, I don't think! My special interest is waning (and you may be referring to a friend's analysis, since I don't remember making that post.) I can give a quick rundown, though:
The raven's blood primarily affects how the a character conceptualizes "love," and makes them controlling and fearful around a loved one leaving them. They also act stereotypically evil for kicks.
It's a popular theory for people watching PT for the first time to think Fakir is the Raven, because of his controlling and closed-off nature; if he was affected by the Raven's blood, he'd probably just be the same. Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine Ahiru being affected by it at all, because she's so "pure" about it. She might flip-flop between wanting to let her affection go and trying to control them.
Fakir's theme (Beethoven's Coriolan Overture) always struck me as funny because it stands apart from the other character's themes. Mytho has the delicate Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Rue the somber Gymnopedie No 1, Duck the cheerful Nutcracker Oveture etc... while Fakir's theme is well... LOUD.
It characterizes his most aggressive moments, mainly playing in scenes where he antagonizes Mytho and Duck.
This always sat a little weird with me as it is a very surface-level character theme for such a complex character. In contrast, Rue's theme tells us something about her motivations under the Kraehe persona. Fakir's on the other hand tells us that he's mean and aggressive... something any viewer who's gotten to a scene where the song plays already knows.
On one of my rewatches, though, I noticed that he has another song that functions as a sort of secondary theme: an excerpt from Scheherazade.
This song plays most notably throughout most of episode 12, while he is bonding with Duck. It shows up a few times later in season 2, mainly in scenes concerning Fakir's struggle to write. As such, I view it as a complementary theme to the Coriolan Overture.
Listening to the song, it feels much more in line with Fakir we've come to know him. The song can be a little delicate and a little sad with gentle wind solos that lead into loud, grand orchestral sections. The repetitiveness, tempo, and use of dramatic brass and strings give these louder sections a gallant, almost desperate tone. It's super fitting that this is the song that plays throughout the episode where we get the best sense of Fakir's natural personality when he isn't putting on the cold persona.
I don't really have a deeper analysis here I just think it's really fun that as his character develops he gets an additional theme. If you think about it the music in Tutu functions as a sort of jukebox musical--the world and characters are built around the songs. Once we start to get to know who Fakir really is, the music that represents him changes to reflect him better.
This is good, but I'd also like to point out that Fakir has another theme connected to him: Lohengrin's leitmotif from Wagner's opera of the same name. It plays during Fakir's season 1 finale showdown with Princess Kraehe's crow minions, when he is in the role of the Knight just like Lohengrin.
Likewise, the part of Scheherazade that's connected to Fakir is specifically the violin leitmotif that represents Scheherazade herself, the storyteller in the framing device of the 1001 Arabian Nights.
It's also interesting to note that Fakir is the only one of the main four who doesn't get a theme composed by Tchaikovsky. (To the best of my recollection anyway since I'm surely overdue for a rewatch. Duck and Mytho have themes from The Nutcracker, and Rue is first introduced with a song from Swan Lake.)
I stumbled upon this ballet mime guide the other day. It’s really neat. When I first started watching ballet, I really struggled to understand anything the dancers were “saying”. This would’ve been helpful back then.
Realistically, the blood does things because it's convenient to the plot of the anime, and no deeper thought needs to be put in than that. However, while it does explain inconsistencies in its writing, it's boring and not fun to my pattern-seeking brain. I like to piece together coherent internal logic to stuff in fiction, even if I know the authors themselves didn't think that hard about it. It's fun to me!
At the same time, Princess Tutu's meta-fictional conceit does give us some wiggle room to borrow the Doylist understanding and smuggle it back into a Watsonian explanation. So...
In-universe, I think, the purpose of the Raven’s Blood can be understood as a plot device to easily convert a separate “character” and their body into a narrative extension of the Raven; that this is why Drosselmeyer would write it into the logic of his story. Bored of a character you introduced previously and want to heighten the stakes? They're a toadie of the Raven now. And when we go a level down in fictionality...
To the Raven, other living things exist to be exploited. The only use you can have, beyond being a meal, is being a pawn who can get it what it wants – and what it wants is to consume. Like some ancient castle-bound vampire or wicked dragon, its power and intelligence are ultimately in service of a simple predatory desire. If you are neither edible nor manipulable, you are simply a nuisance.
Diseases and parasites will manipulate pain and pleasure, fear and love, the body and the brain. But while a real disease or parasite’s goal in psychological and physiological manipulation is to reproduce, to turn the infected into a means by which to spread itself to new hosts... the Raven's curse is uninterested in this. What matters, to the Raven, is that the cursed becomes a minion and a pawn, who can bring its prey closer to its own mouth.
Part 1: Lay All Your Love On Me
Did you know rabies induces spasms of fear and hallucinations in its victims, to get them to bite? That the characteristic fear of water is caused by the virus tightening its victims throats if they even think of drinking, all to the end of preventing the miserable animal from washing away its contagion-rich saliva? It presses levers and pushes buttons of abject misery on the control panel of the animal, on its quest to get what it wants.
One symptom of the Raven’s blood illustrated by Mytho’s progression that fascinates me is pain. This is not simply a magic juice that makes you evil; it is a sickness.
Let’s look at the the scene in episode 19, where Kraehe dances a pas-de-deux with (a clearly pained, unwilling, and unhappy) Mytho to try and convince him to “give in” to the Raven’s Blood and become her prince. She succeeds, causing Mytho to become possessed by Raven!Mytho, who immediately retaliates that he’s owed her love as a prince and that she should love him more, and him alone. (Strange, as Kraehe/Rue has never once indicated that she has any romantic feelings towards anyone else at all…)
What’s odd is what happens immediately after this point. Mytho’s eyes widen, as if what he’s just said has triggered some kind of… realization. We then see him tremble and close his eyes as they shift from pink to gold and back, indicating – as always – either a struggle between Raven!Mytho and “the Real Mytho,”or a struggle by Mytho against the Raven’s blood influence. (It often seems the show isn’t entirely sure whether to treat Raven!Mytho is a corrupted mental state and therefore part of Mytho, or as an intrusive raven persona possessing an agency-less Mytho’s body against his will.)
Mytho, once again under the blood’s control, pushes Kraehe away and stumbles off, clutching himself in a self-hug as he mutters about not having enough love. The crows rejoice as Kraehe looks on sadly.
This is clearly, from context, not just about Raven!Mytho needing to acquire love for sacrifices, because demanding more love from Kraehe would not accomplish that goal. He feels like he needs love, exclusively directed at him, from as many sources as possible. Viscerally, like a hunger or an addiction. And it hurts. The audience is invited to share Rue’s concern and sadness at this pitiful sight.
(This narrative choice *gets* at me a little, because we are not normally meant to sympathize with Raven!Mytho. By and large, he is treated as an unambiguously evil Other that has usurped the “real” Mytho’s body and identity. Yet here, he elicits pity. The monster in the prince is pitiful.)
Here’s the same body language earlier, in episode 15, as Raven!Mytho meets Pique to sacrifice her:
Saying he needs her love immediately reads as an act of manipulation: “only you can give me what I need” as emotional priming for the ritual phrase that will turn her into a willing sacrifice. It also reads as simply a statement that he needs her for the purpose of the sacrifice. (It is, of course, able to be said openly because Pique does not have the context to know this, and accordingly run the fuck away.)
But going back after episode 19, this moment (and several others, on a rewatch) feels a little... re-contextualized. All the above is still true, yes. But it also seems that Raven’s Blood Mytho really does feel like he needs other people’s love, on a visceral, gnawing level.
And the Raven eats love.
'I'm in control of the situation', Raven!Mytho said, sweating, "I'm not getting owned,"
If a real parasite did this - if, say, there was some animal that rewired its victims brains in such a way that they could only feel relief from pain when taking steps towards feeding it or its young - it would be internet famous for its insidiousness. Can't you imagine? There'd be a Bogleech.com article and everything.
As Mytho’s condition progresses towards its final stage from episode 21 onwards, we see these feelings explicitly infect the psyche of Mytho further, shown physically trembling as he describes his disorientation and confusion:
By the end of episode 23, Mytho's... condition has run its full course. Yet the pain continues, and it only gets more obvious that these are spasms of literal, physical pain. In episode 24, Mytho shudders in pain as he screams, clutches his chest, does some agitated fouettés, bows over in pain again, and then jumps out the door as he begs for somebody, anybody to dance with him.
We also get confirmation that the physical pain is accompanied by emotional pain, such as intensified feelings of loneliness:
(And, judging from other scenes, as well as Rue's behavior, intensified jealousy too.)
But Mytho cannot get anyone to dance with him, in this state.
(Saying the Raven "awakened" him, in episode 19 - did he mean the suite of demonic powers that the Raven's Blood has granted him? Did he mean the uncharacteristic charisma, eloquence, and manipulative cunning that burned in him like a fever while under its power? Those boons were all just to make it easier for him to seduce prey to feed the Raven. He loses them all once he's outlived that purpose.)
(No need for the infected slowly lure prey in with a silvered tongue and honeyed charms when they have a big strong beak to peck hearts out of chest, after all.)
He is no longer useful as a lure for prey.
His only remaining use to the Raven is as food himself.
Part 2: Coming Soon
(In its own post on account of the image limit.)
For now, though, our conclusions:
1. Mytho's life is terrible. It is known.
2. Rue probably suffers from magically and emotionally induced chronic pain!!! and has her entire life!!!
Thanks for coming to my Lecture. See you next time for Part 2.
Realistically, the blood does things because it's convenient to the plot of the anime, and no deeper thought needs to be put in than that. However, while it does explain inconsistencies in its writing, it's boring and not fun to my pattern-seeking brain. I like to piece together coherent internal logic to stuff in fiction, even if I know the authors themselves didn't think that hard about it. It's fun to me!
At the same time, Princess Tutu's meta-fictional conceit does give us some wiggle room to borrow the Doylist understanding and smuggle it back into a Watsonian explanation. So...
In-universe, I think, the purpose of the Raven’s Blood can be understood as a plot device to easily convert a separate “character” and their body into a narrative extension of the Raven; that this is why Drosselmeyer would write it into the logic of his story. Bored of a character you introduced previously and want to heighten the stakes? They're a toadie of the Raven now. And when we go a level down in fictionality...
To the Raven, other living things exist to be exploited. The only use you can have, beyond being a meal, is being a pawn who can get it what it wants – and what it wants is to consume. Like some ancient castle-bound vampire or wicked dragon, its power and intelligence are ultimately in service of a simple predatory desire. If you are neither edible nor manipulable, you are simply a nuisance.
Diseases and parasites will manipulate pain and pleasure, fear and love, the body and the brain. But while a real disease or parasite’s goal in psychological and physiological manipulation is to reproduce, to turn the infected into a means by which to spread itself to new hosts... the Raven's curse is uninterested in this. What matters, to the Raven, is that the cursed becomes a minion and a pawn, who can bring its prey closer to its own mouth.
Part 1: Lay All Your Love On Me
Part 2: Serving Your Heart On A Platter
I’m sure you’ve heard of a sickness that feeds predators their prey. Toxoplasmosis, for example makes male rats as horny and lovesick over the smell of cat urine as they are at the scent of female rats, switching the pathways of fear and desire, to lure them into being devoured. The pathways between the two run parallel, you see. For the infected, every cat becomes a succubus, a siren, a beautiful creature calling its prey to their willing doom. And, if the parasite gets what it wants, this is how the rat dies.
Why am I talking about this? Because Mytho starts talking about feeding himself to birds literally the day that his symptoms start presenting, in episode 14.
It’s true he’s saying this while antagonizing Fakir, so one could also brush it off as him just Saying Shit to make his roommate as uncomfortable as possible. But also – we know what the Raven wants, in the end.
For most of season 2, however, Raven!Mytho doesn’t continue to talk about feeding himself to crows. He’s mostly focused on seducing sacrifices, manipulating public opinion, having meltdowns about not being loved enough, and being petty to Fakir and Kraehe. His sense of self-preservation (in as much as Mytho has ever had one, cough) seems genuinely intact for episodes 15 through 21. If Mytho is feeling weirdly giggly about getting eaten during that timespan, he’s doing an awfully good job of hiding it.
And then Mytho starts molting into a crow monster at the end of episode 21, and the rat toxoplasmosis symptoms kicks back in.
(We're not told what he's smiling about here in episode 22, but the next episode, episode 23, makes it obvious:)
This does seem likely to be a Mytho-specific symptom; Rue shows no sign of this. The Raven has been particularly invested in eating Mytho’s heart for a long time, after all; Mytho’s job as the Raven’s doordash delivery guy was always going to be temporary even if he hadn’t beeninterrupted every time. It’s entirely possible that other people could end up with this “symptom” too, but we never see it.
The fact that Raven!Mytho proceeds to acts so strangely cuddly after telling Kraehe she’s an ugly fuck (but also that he needs her love) feels somehow related to this enthusiasm for getting eaten by crows. His voice delivery in the Japanese audio for the heart/lips/blood line sounds… …I hate to say this.
It sounds like he thinks a crow girl ripping out his heart and touching it onto her mouth is really hot.
(Yea, of course she's shaped like an uggo human (and he's in the process of moulting into a majestic raven and he's sosososo excited for that) - but hey, she's technically a crow as far as he knows, and she has black feathers....)
(And while regular!Mytho seems negative to neutral about that in season 1, Raven!Mytho only ever complimented Kraehe for having crow-like qualities.)
Anyways! In Mytho's final state under the Raven's Blood, he immediately obeys the Raven's orders to be devoured, completely ignoring Rue and Tutu's pleas.
...You know, until the Fairytale Confession of Love, because this is a magical curse and it is a fairytale.
Part 3 and Part 4 are not ready yet but are in the works. See you soon.
Two Sigfrieds and a Swan King: Wagner’s operas and King Ludwig II of Bavaria
This is a rambling infodump copy-pasted from tumblr dms to discord to this post. I have no sources except my beautiful mind; however, for further and more coherent reading, I suggest this essay: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324758225_A_Performance_between_Wood_and_the_World_Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria's_Queer_Swans
-king ludwig ii, also known as mad king ludwig, adored swans and wagner's art.
-he was a very peaceful man with just absolutely no interest in kinging at all. he just wanted to design castles, and his pechant for riding around the countryside and being generous/kind with common folk on the ride made him very popular, like a fairy-tale prince
-wagner is a major source of inspiration to his most famous castle, known as the swan castle. many sets and designs in princess tutu are based on this castle
-lohengrin is the knight of the swan, and the protagonist of wagner's opera lohengrin. this was ludwig's favorite opera, and you may recall fakir's "lohengrin sword" in episode 10
-another major wagnerian protagonist is sigfried, which is also the name of the prince in tchakovsky's swan lake; mytho's real name is a reference to both
-sigfried's funeral march is a recurring motif for raven mytho (and the concept of the raven as a whole in s1), and that is from wagner's opera as well
-king ludwig was queer and rejected all women in his life, perusing only men. swans - often associated with tragic romance - seemed to be a form of queer escapism, similarly to tchaikovsky's ballet.
-tchaikovsky was also attracted solely to men, and his 'swan lake' is generally accepted as an expression of not being able to have a 'happy ending' as a gay man.
-we could also say something about mytho's genderqueerness here, such as how he often dances the female parts early on in s1, and his relationship with fakir and femio
ultimately, i think mytho takes some inspiration from the irl figure of king ludwig, not just fairy-tale characters (though that is the vast majority.)
No, Mytho, you've got it all wrong: crows say "caw, caw". Ravens says "Nevermore".
(I've been waiting almost two dozen episodes to make this joke, let me have this.)
On an ornithological side note, karasu (烏) can mean either crow OR raven, but the official English translation seems to use "crow" for the small fry and "raven" for the big bad. The naturalist in me wishes they had just stuck with the former term for everything, but at least they're consistent about it.
Excellent point! I guess the answer is that Drosselmeyer couldn't be bothered to be ornithologically accurate in his fairy tale and put an eldritch raven in charge of a murder of crows. That explains a lot, actually.
In much of Europe, including Germany, there are actually two species of crows: Corvus corone, and Corvus cornix. The former is solid black, as you'd expect a crow to be; the latter has magpie-like markings, albiet in grey instead of black. In English, they're called "Carrion Crows" and "Hooded Crows," respectively.
In German, the grey-splotched crows are called Nebelkrähe, or "Mist Crows." The solid black species is called Rabenkrähe, or "Raven Crows".
In German, the general term for members of the corvid family (including colorful ones like jays, so broader than the Japanese word Karasu) is Rabenvögel, or "Raven Birds."
Also, Ravens are bigger and more solitary than crows, so it makes a vague sort of sense to make a singular Raven the singular ruler of a mob of crows. I mean, in the Hans Christian Andersen story 'The Snow Queen,' the whole rationale for the snow queen's existence is "in Danish tiny snowflakes are called "snow bees," ergo snow bees must have a queen like regular bees, and that queen is the Snow Queen, who is a queen in the literal human woman sense." Folk taxonomy and child-logic rein supreme, not literal accuracy to the real world.
Wait, so Charon's smithy is against the city walls? Somehow I missed that earlier. Once again, I really wish I had a map of how all the locations fit together.
Y'all, I just realized that in the opening credits, Princess Tutu is dancing Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in A LITERAL EXHIBITION and I completely missed it until now.
i started working on this post months ago but I'm finishing it now. Basically I thought it would be really funny to try to describe all the different "types" of crow/raven in the show and their properties, because you see some interesting trends, as well as curious exceptions, and also I just love the raven aesthetic and think it's fun.
The crows in The Prince and The Raven, in Princess Tutu, are vampires.
ok like. They’re not called vampires, they have their own distinct lore and imagery and the majority of them were never human and they lack all the tropes that are used to convey “this is A Vampire.“
but like. symbolically. in terms of like, narrative role.
