Tenjou Utena: True Self/Philosopher's Stone
"Victor of the Duel"

"I wanted only to try to live in accordance with the promptings that came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?" -- "Demian", Hermann Hesse

Tarot Card: The Fool
Duel Rose: White
Quote: "Hey.. if you're suffering, no matter what the cause is, talk to me, and I'll be there for you."
Name Meaning: Holy Grail(?); the cup that supports the flower

Utena, child of Apocalypse who holds the keys to the power of Revolution. Around her everything turns, but the Revolution was never meant for her. Catalyst, unsettler, challenger, fool, she knows none of what she does for its true significance, yet her actions ultimately affect many. She is the ideal instead of the reality, the philosopher's stone. And like that legendary dream of the alchemists, she transforms those she encounters from lesser elements into purest gold...

Her Story

"Once upon a time, there was a princess grieving over the deaths of her mother and father. Before her appeared a prince, traveling on a white horse. His appearance was noble and his smile was gentle; he enveloped the princess in his scent of roses and kissed away her tears. To her, he spoke, "My little one alone and grieving, please don't lose your strength and nobility as you grow up. As a reminder of this day we've met, please keep this."

He placed a large silver ring on the small child's finger, tenderly like a lover. She looked up toward him and asked in her innocence, "Will we meet again?" He answered, "This ring will lead you to me."

She grew into a fine young woman, and wondered, was the prince's ring meant to be a sign of engagement? It was all right to think this, but as she was caught up in the overwhelming adoration of her prince, she decided to become one herself! To save others as she herself was saved... but was it really the best idea?"

The goal of becoming a prince for others has shaped Utena's life ever since. She lives innocently, desiring to right what she feels is wrong. It's no mistake that her rose of duelling is the white rose of the tarotic Fool, for she is many ways a child still.

Utena's basically a normal girl, subject to all a teenager's normal emotions, and she has a remarkable ability to forgive and tolerate even those who annoy or abuse her. She has a few quirks: she dislikes dresses, and stubbornly refuses to wear the Ootori school uniform, preferring her own black-jacket-and-red-shorts uniform. If she has a serious flaw, it would be her naivete, as she can unwittingly walk into traps set by those who are more worldly and wily than herself, like Akio or Touga.

The game of "revolutionizing the world" has little meaning to her, as do the constant duels which she seems to find by turns annoying, confusing, or just pointless. Yet she dutifully answers each challenge given with her full strength and courage- AND because she knows she can be expelled from Ootori if she doesn't! At first she claims she's not actually doing it for Himemiya's sake, but rather for Chuchu's... however, this may well be an instance of Japanese 'indirect' conversation, and Utena and Anshi both know perfectly well what she really means. This 'indirect conversation' is a hallmark of the Utena and Himemiya dynamic that appears several more times in the series during particularly important conversations.

Utena's main motive for Duelling is, ostensibly, to protect her friendship with Himemiya, and to try and free the Bride of the Rose from having to be anyone's servant. There is, of course, a major paradox in that she is more than willing to use Anshi to fight for Anshi's sake... and this goes unnoticed by Utena for quite a long time, until almost literally the very end. Some fans have implied Utena actively chooses to ignore the paradox, but I believe that she simply wasn't mature enough to see it at first. A veiled but deeply important secondary reason for Utena's duelling is that she, wanting to be a Prince, needs a Princess to protect; her ego depends on both filling that role and having someone to play the role FOR.

Thus it is that Utena is particularly devastated when she loses Himemiya to Touga; she is shocked and hurt to discover that the Rose Bride seemingly has no desires other than those of whomever 'possesses' her at the time. Just as she was beginning to warm into the role of being Anshi's Prince, beginning to identify herself with the self-aggrandizing illusion of being the all-powerful Victor of the Duel (and thus losing her true identity in the process) her emotional footing is kicked out from under her.

This is actually one of the most crucial moments of Utena's development. For a time, her secret dream crushed, Utena flirts with returning to 'normal' gender behavior; she wears the girl's uniform, she sits dully and passively, even allowing Touga to toy with her in the presence of Wakaba (and note that Wakaba, following Utena's former example, instantly rises to the defense- much as a Prince might...) Wakaba rejects this 'new' Utena as 'uncool' and demands to have the 'original' Utena returned to her.

Utena does in fact have a mild streak of depressiveness; when defeated or handed a serious setback, she tends to become withdrawn, introverted, and occasionally even collapses into fetal positions, hiding in bed with her face buried in her arms, or curled up on the floor next to the couch. While this is probably excusable as normal teenage-angst behavior, it flies in the face of her outward 'go gettem', always-cheerful boyish energy, and reveals that the pain of her past is still not all that far from the surface of her soul. Even from early on, we see that Utena, at the core, wants just as much to be a Princess as a Prince... Like Saionji, she craves love and attention directed toward her. Ironically by being less than herself, she is shunned by those that once followed her eagerly.

Finally shocked out of her self-defeating complacency by Wakaba's truly heroic efforts to reach her (and note that Wakaba, much like Saionji, actually flies into a rage and slaps Utena when she feels her message isn't getting across...) Utena regains her presence of mind and the memory of her true goal. As she reasserts her will, she realizes she doesn't want to be a "Victor"; she just wants to be Anshi's friend. Her friendship is now important enough to her that she will fight for it, even if she can't be the 'ideal Prince' that she wants to be. In that sense she fights, and in that sense she wins, defeating Touga and becoming her true self once again.

Through the Black Rose duels Utena fights, and she denies much; denies admitting that she's anything like the willfully blind Mikage who scapegoats others and clings to self-protective illusions rather than face his own guilt and complicity for past sins; she grows so angry when the similarities between them is brought to her attention that she lashes out with the only genuinely violent behavior she shows in the course of the series.

But she stumbles again, much more severely, as Akio enters her life. Akio's influence on Utena is powerful and stems from his ability to fulfill needs young and immature Utena barely knows she has. At first he approaches her as a friend, a confidante and a teacher- he dispenses sage wisdom and adult advice in an unthreatening manner; he becomes someone she can ask any question of, who always has time for her. In effect, Utena comes to think of Akio as a substitute parent; a particularly dangerous arrangement for she who has spent most of her life without a true father figure. Even outside the TV series, in the manga Utena is raised by her aunt, another woman, and is therefore particularly ill equipped to defend herself against this tactic.

Perhaps it's utterly inevitable that Utena's internal fantasy of the 'perfectly perfect prince' and the constant personal attention from Akio would combine to produce a powerful crush. So powerful is Utena's crush on Akio that she even begins to harbor guilty, unwieldy feelings of jealousy toward Akio's fiancee Kanae. So powerful is Utena's crush that she can't really seem to control her feelings at all, and she walks a terrible line between her wanting and her knowing that she can't have. So powerful is her crush that she all but forgets everything about her original desires to be Himemiya's friend.

Akio tempts and seduces Utena away from Himemiya and the prince... destroying and remaking her into a woman... and she comes perilously close to losing her soul to him as well. But Utena's dreams are haunted by an increasingly persistent memory, barely understood, all but forgotten; a memory of being small and following a Prince through velvet darkness to see someone suffering in unbearable torment. Of begging the Prince to save that suffering someone, and being told that he can't... whereupon small Utena vows that if he can't save the suffering one, she will...

As she spends more and more time with Akio, Utena becomes a little more of a Princess each day, and those that love her look on in dull despair... But there does come a final realization, a crucial moment just before the end of everything. On a ledgetop, crying, finally Utena sees and understands all that she's done, and all that she's failed to do. And once more she rises to the challenge. In the end, her near-forgotten promise to save that suffering someone- to be Himemiya's friend- saves Utena too... even though it ultimately costs her all that she is.

In the end, Utena's fate is unclear. Was she destroyed by the Million Swords of Hate? Did she survive? Was she transmuted into something greater? Did she become the new Prince of Roses?

It's certainly a mystery, isn't it?