Princess Tutu’s seventh episode begins with Mytho once again expressing how Ahiru’s actions have made him genuinely afraid of Princess Tutu. A stark profile shot illustrates how Tutu exists within Mytho’s world, an ominous figure with a menacing smile, pressing a heart shard upon him as he fearfully retreats. All stories are artifacts bound by their teller’s perspectives, and from Mytho’s perspective, Tutu is indeed a terrifying presence. Though Ahiru attempts to editorialize, desperate to assert the nobility of Princess Tutu, her words ultimately fade into a helpless quacking. Regardless of her feelings or actions, Ahiru rarely has the power to assert the definitive interpretation of her own narrative.
Ahiru ends up with plenty of time to sulk over Mytho’s predatory framing of her task. As we soon learn (courtesy of a gossipy chihuahua who I dearly hope will be a recurring character), Mytho hasn’t been to school for over a week now, ever since Princess Tutu last appeared before him. As usual, these early classroom scenes offer a nice mix of snappy comedy and visual invention, with this episode’s exaggerated expression work feeling even more flavorful than usual. It’d be easy for the idle school scenes to feel like an afterthought in a narrative with such lofty thematic pretensions, but for Ahiru’s battle as Princess Tutu to feel meaningful, the everyday life she’s fighting for must also feel meaningful. Through its easy banter and terrific bevy of expressions, this episode’s early material certainly accomplishes that.
After getting chewed out by her cat teacher, Ahiru confesses her trouble to her two friends: “I don’t know what I want to do.” The certainty of a clear narrative role can be stifling, but it’s also emotionally freeing in its own way; it frees one from the paralysis of choice, and the fear of unhappy consequence. Having realized her decision to become Princess Tutu actually is a choice, and that it may well come with terrible consequences, Ahiru can no longer feel confident in pursuing her own story’s goals. And so her friends suggest she visit the Why-why Bridge, a bridge where your uncertainty is met by a strange voice who keeps asking questions, and ultimately helps you sort out your own feelings.
After more alluring shots lead us through the village, Ahiru arrives to find Rue already standing at the bridge. Like during Ahiru and Fakir’s confrontation, Princess Tutu immediately dashes any fears of misunderstanding-based artificial drama, as Ahiru directly asks Rue whether she thinks Mytho would be better off with a heart. And in response, Rue offers an answer whose own ambiguity is far more rich and valuable: “whether he has a heart or not, I’ll continue to love him.”
Ahiru sees Rue as a beloved leader and romantic rival, so her immediate inclination is to see Rue’s words as a reflection of the depth of her love for Mytho. But Rue’s words don’t reveal anything about the depth of her love – they merely acknowledge that that love is unconditional. While her words could certainly mean “my love for Mytho is so strong it can withstand anything,” they could just as easily mean “Mytho’s personal qualities are irrelevant to me, because I am consigned to love him no matter what.” In that light, her phrasing implies both her own caged nature and her lack of feelings for Mytho. If Rue loved Mytho in any meaningful sense, she’d care about the fate of his emotions – instead, it seems she’s bitterly trapped in her own storybook frame, resigned to always love Mytho the object regardless of her own feelings.
Of course, having just lost faith in the righteousness of Tutu’s mission, Ahiru envies Rue for her certainty, and for the bare fact that as a real girl, she’s “allowed” to love Mytho. Ahiru’s consistent lamenting of what she’s not allowed because of her duck nature actually feels pretty fundamental to her role within this narrative. Because of her true nature, Ahiru possesses a built-in inferiority complex that naturally plays off this show’s focus on how characters are only able to play the narrative roles they’ve been assigned. In Ahiru’s case, she more than anyone is perpetually aware of the fact that anything a human could desire or pursue is allowed to her only conditionally, if her storyteller wills it.
Given all this pain and uncertainty, it’s not surprising that Ahiru now feels tempted to abandon being Princess Tutu altogether. And faced with this abrupt potential conclusion to his tale, Drosselmeyer at last seems genuinely surprised and upset by the events of Ahiru’s narrative. Exclaiming that “a character in a story would never say they’re going to end things at a spot like this!”, he leaps through his handy time passageway, and pops through to confront Ahiru directly.
The argument between Drosselmeyer is both an aesthetic wonder and a terrific illustration of the inherent conflict between narrative and human nature. Ahiru begins this scene by arriving at a real and meaningful insight: “I was foisting my own desires on Mytho, I know too little about Princess Tutu’s nature to continue acting so presumptuously, and I have no right to change him for my own reasons.” Of course, that’s far too sensible a realization to provoke satisfying melodrama, and so Drosselmeyer is forced to invent a reason to give her more certainty. Dashing haphazardly from shadow to shadow, Drosselmeyer’s omnipotence and inescapability are clear. His eyes and leering smile bouncing from building to shadow to tree seems to perfectly reflect how regardless of what may happen to an author, within their stories, their voice is still inescapable.
That said, Drosselmeyer confronting Ahiru means Ahiru also has a chance to confront Drosselmeyer, too. Drosselmeyer’s defense of his own narrative here mines some great comedy out of the distance between narrative choices as they justify themselves and the actual, authorial intent behind those choices. Drosselmeyer may have set up this narrative because it’s amusing, but Ahiru needs more motivation than “seeing you panic is funny to me.” But Drosselmeyer isn’t able to convince Ahiru his selfish wishes are anything but, and so Ahiru throws her precious gem into the waters below.
Meanwhile, Mytho’s burgeoning emotions are complicating his own feelings about Tutu. What he initially defined as fear, he can now parse as something different – something more complex, something he doesn’t have the knowledge to put a name on. And so he finds his own way to the Why-why bridge’s spirit, and ends up being interrogated by his own lost sense of curiosity. With Mytho being drawn into a raging whirlpool, Drosselmeyer earns his victory without changing Ahiru’s mind; she may not want Mytho to hate her, but she’ll reclaim her mantle if it’s necessary to save his life.
Confronted by both Mytho and his lost curiosity, Ahiru at last has a chance to actually explain her actions. She didn’t want Mytho to suffer, but she felt he’d ultimately be happier with his heart returned, and that there are many feelings worth coveting. Having gained emotional complexity and a sense of longing through Tutu’s efforts, Mytho can now at last see value in her actions. And so Mytho does Drosselmeyer’s work for him, actively requesting that Tutu restore his heart. Mytho’s fear of Tutu offered Ahiru one brief exit from Drosselmeyer’s narrative, but now that her crown prince has requested she continue, it seems her journey to the final page is assured.
Episode seven concludes by raising one more mystery, the nature of the raven from Drosselmeyer’s initial narrative. Given their black-and-red character designs and unexplained obsession with Mytho, it seemed clear from the beginning that Rue and Fakir were somehow linked to this raven, and this episode’s finale makes that link explicit. Rising from Rue’s side, the raven snatches Mytho’s heart shard and transforms into the black swan, counterpoint to Tutu’s white swan. Tutu and this mysterious new princess clash over Mytho, but it’s hard to escape a sense of fatalistic certainty about the course of their struggle. Princess Tutu may have won Mytho’s trust, but Drosselmeyer was the true winner this day; faced with losing the course of his narrative, he rallied with Mytho’s help to return Ahiru to her proper place. Ahiru and Rue may see themselves as rivals, but they’re both still bound by the same set of strings.
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Oh man, your assertion that “Mytho does Drosselmeyer’s work for him” set off a lot of thoughts for me. On one level, and the only one I thought through before, is that this is the 1st time the prince-in-distress has voiced a desire of his own, and thus gives him some much needed character progression. But you’re right, in this show, there are always more layers.
When you were writing “Proof of Life”, there must have been times when your characters wouldn’t do as you planned, or developed in unanticipated ways. Every author gets that. For Dross, the problem is compounded by the fact that he’s superimposed his stories over reality, as the 2nd ep’s opening monologue says.
I have a theory that Mytho, explicitly a storybook character created by Drosselmeyer, conforms more, will-he or null-he, to authorial intent than Ahiru, who might not be a real magical ballerina princess or a real girl, but is a real duck. And that core of reality means D can’t just enforce his will over hers. He has to persuade her, or have narrative engine Edel show up to reroute the story back to its “proper” track.
If those don’t work – and I can’t believe I didn’t put the pieces together before – he can have Mytho, who has already functioned multiple times as motivation for Ahiru, give her a reason to continue. And that makes the episode much sadder in hindsight. Even as the characters declare their own agency, they’re just dancing on Drosselmeyer’s strings.