A while back I saw this image from a stream Noelle Stevenson did and thought “Catra as a Rose Bride is fascinating to think about,” but I didn’t really dwell on it past that moment.
Then the show itself gave us this.
And I know I’m not the only one who saw it and thought of this.
For people who have never seen Utena, let me explain just what is so interesting about this.
Paralleling Adora and Utena is something of an obvious move. They are both sword-wielding young ladies with savior complexes and difficulty reading people. Paralleling Catra with Anthy is something that seems odd at first, but makes more sense the more you think about it.
The viewer’s first impression of Anthy could not be less like Catra. She is incredibly formal and soft-spoken. As the Rose Bride in the duelist competition, she is a passive object to be won. Nothing could be further from Catra’s usual aggressive attitude.
Now, one of the concepts Revolutionary Girl Utena critiques is the Madonna/whore dichotomy, though in keeping with the show’s fairy tale aesthetic, the words they use are “princess” and “witch”. You would think the Rose Bride, the young women in a fancy dress and prize to be won, would be a princess. You would be wrong.
The viewer discovers Anthy’s backstory in the form of a myth with some seed of truth. In the myth, Anthy and her bother, Akio, are basically minor gods. Once upon a time, Akio was The Prince, saving girls from peril and heartache, but he spread himself too thin until the day came that Anthy insisted that he rest. The people of the world who came seeking him and that she turned away saw this as her denying them the good The Prince would do for them. In that moment, she became The Witch, the monster to be destroyed. She became the target for all the hate of the world. Akio, still exhausted and without his sister’s protection, twisted into a manipulative bastard who kept Anthy, weakened by pain, under his thumb and began the dueling game as a way of finding someone who could unlock the Power to Revolutionize the World for Akio to take for himself. He also took to raping her on the regular.
When Utena was a child, she became suicidal after her parents’ death. She said she would only continue living if she saw something eternal. She saw something that day, but forgot what it was, only that it meant that she should become a prince. This is what she saw.
She saw Anthy’s eternal suffering at the Swords of Humanity’s Hatred. On a metaphysical level, this is what Anthy always is. This is the pain she lives with at all times under her placid exterior. A first time viewer may find Anthy unnerving from early on, but only with longer and/or more careful viewing does one see that Anthy is constantly using manipulation and passive-aggressive actions to hurt people. In her suffering, she wants to make others suffer too.
Utena became a prince because only a prince could save Anthy. A core tension in their relationship is that Utena wants to save Anthy, and Anthy desperately needs help, but Anthy also no longer knows what she would be without her pain. She is perversely comfortable in the pain she knows and frightened of what real love and freedom would be like. Then, in the end, she reaches out, and the world shifts.
That brings us back to Catra, the unloved child who decided, in her hurt, to make other people suffer as she suffered. The young woman who pushed away comfort in pursuit of other forms of satisfaction that she discovered were hollow. The person who found peace when she realized that she was allowed to ask for the kind of love she needed, and who, in asking for that love, caused the world to shift.
Catra as the Rose Bride really is perfect casting.
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