Now that it's been a while (years!) since finishing i must ask: what are ur thoughts on how rgu ended for utena and anthy? / what happened, if they found each other, if finding each other was really such a good idea
This is a really interesting question when I actually sit down and think about it, because out of all the things I thought about the ending, “How I felt about where Anthy and Utena end up” at least in relation to each other, wasn’t really a huge part of it! And maybe that’s silly of me, it certainly could be, but my thoughts were more, and have been more, on “what do I think this all means in relation to what the narrative is trying to say”
BUt if I do think about it, I think I’m happier with it than not. I LOVE that we don’t know if Anthy ever finds her! I would have found it far less satisfying, I think, if Utena’s sacrifice would have somehow “broken the spell” and allowed them to leave together, and allowed for a truly shiny shiny 1200% happy ending, instead of the ending we got that is bittersweet, that is complicated, that focuses more on Anthy’s leaving than it really does whatever ends up happening to Utena.
Do human beings named Doc, who are me, think that they ever find each other?
I like it better if they don’t. Who knows if Utena is even alive in the world, somewhere, or if in the way that Anthy had to “die” for the prince, Utena had to “die” for her, or maybe even very literally die. Maybe all that great nobility can ever be is but for a moment, because to be truly noble is to sacrifice, and there is no way to constantly do that and not grow full of resentment, to twist yourself. But I like the idea that Anthy goes through her life very Rose Dewitt-Bukater, thinking always of Utena and what she learned from her, but never finding her. Holding that story in her heart, as impossible as it is, and always loving Utena, but also in a fashion moving on FROM her.
Because I think it would be so easy to, being what brought them together, forge YET ANOTHER unhealthy relationship from that. Relationships formed over a fire of trauma aren’t usually the healthiest. I could see it becoming something ugly, and I don’t want that, I want it to be what it was for a moment in time, and I want it to have significantly changed Anthy, and made her a better and stronger person, I don’t want them to be codependent, I think, in my heart, they deserve better than that.
So I guess that’s my answer. They don’t find each other. They do better. They remember, and they love, but they find THEMSELVES, instead.
