A beautiful shot opens Princess Tutu’s eighteenth episode, as our latest fairy tale opens on an array of candles and swords, a shrine framed with the silhouetted town in the distance. The first words of our framing tale imply this will be a Fakir-focused episode, as we learn that “once upon a time, there was a knight.” Sworn to protect his kingdom, the knight “never faltered in his duty, no matter what it was. He did not even falter in taking the life of his lover. That was what he took pride in. But the knight could not do anything but carry out his duty, and even after his death, he still seeks a duty to carry out. They say the knight, who became a ghost and now haunts this world, holds in his hand the blood-stained sword that pierced his lover’s breast.”
The concept of “duty” has a very specific undertone in Princess Tutu, where so much of the drama centers on either embracing or attempting to escape your assigned role. Early on, both Ahiru and Fakir were happy to accept their assigned duties – Ahiru felt blessed to be able to take up the role of Princess Tutu, while Fakir took pride in protecting Mytho at all costs. Their duties conveyed honor and nobility; their roles were important and just ones, and gave them a sense of purpose and belonging in an unforgiving world. They weren’t just carrying out their duties out of fear of reprisal; they found value and identity in those roles, and embraced them willingly.
Time has complicated our heroes’ relationships with their “duties,” and their overarching sense of selves. Fakir was initially given strength by his certainty, and used that strength to defend Mytho from interlopers like Princess Tutu. But Fakir’s growing complexity as a person, and his evolving relationships with people like Ahiru, have stolen that certainty from him. Fulfilling a duty may not be easy, but there is still a comfort and clarity in having a specific duty at all. When we must judge our actions individually on their own merits and morality, as opposed to their efficacy in fulfilling some specific duty, we are forced to engage with confounding moral complexities and often contradictory personal values. There is great comfort in being a mortal avatar of some specific cause or duty; there is certainty and even safety in that, if only safety from our own invasive thoughts.
A shroud hangs over our academy town as we enter the episode proper, a heavy fog thick with rumor and menace. Students speak in hushed tones of the wandering knight, the actual character from the cold open’s story. This knight has been witnessed around town, and in the heavy mist, it is difficult to say what is real and what is myth. Fakir himself encounters this figure in a dream, crossing swords and ultimately stabbing the heart of this spectral warrior. And though he wakes in a cold sweat, there is almost a sense of longing in his release from this nightmare. As a fellow knight who has sworn to stab the heart of the person he loves, Fakir knows well the torment of a duty you cannot fulfill.
This is indeed a Fakir-focused episode, one that directly interrogates the flip side of all our heroes learning to break free of their narrative bonds. Though Ahiru has always possessed an ambiguous relationship with her narrative role, and Rue has often lamented her own, Fakir has generally found great strength in embracing the role of the heroic knight. But with the story having ended, Fakir now finds himself without any real sense of pride or purpose. And this sense of uselessness is soon encouraged by the poisoned Mytho, who greets him upon his return to school. Taking Fakir in a false embrace, Mytho whispers that “the knight’s role in the story is to be torn in two and die. But not only were you saved, you’ve got the nerve to still be alive. In the story, you’re no longer needed. Now you’ll just be forgotten.”
Mytho’s words highlight the fragility of building a life based on adherence to a single duty, as opposed to embracing the complexity of your own personal identity. It’s the same line of attack that various characters have consistently used to undercut Rue’s confidence and agency – in fact, in this very same episode, we get a sequence of Rue’s father chastising her for stepping outside of her role. Even though her attempt to steal a heart last episode was entirely for her father’s sake, it is not the duty she was assigned, and so she must be punished for it. Duties care not for context or intent – it is the same constancy that makes them so comforting that also makes them so limiting.
In contrast with Mytho’s attacks, Ahiru quickly offers an alternative: join the drama club, and assist some other students by playing the ghost knight himself in their production. Ahiru’s offhand “if you join clubs and stuff, it’ll be easier to come to school” probably isn’t intended as a keen philosophical thrust, but it serves that purpose all the same. By cultivating human connections and throwing down roots, we can foster a selfhood that stands outside of our assigned roles. The Knight Fakir may never have been intended to become close friends with the Princess Ahiru, but their friendship is now the strongest force in either of their lives. Duty is powerful, but it is not the only source of power.
Of course, telling Fakir to actually play the part of the doomed knight haunting his dreams isn’t necessarily the most efficient way to help him forget this whole self-worth issue. Reading over the script together, we gain more context for the prince’s story, learning that he killed his lover because she was a spy for an enemy kingdom. However, when his own kingdom made peace with that enemy, the knight “was exiled in wretched fashion, and from then on knew not whom to protect or whom to defeat. He died that way, and his soul continues to wander this world.” One of the troubles with duty is that you’re essentially just handing off the responsibility of morality to someone higher up the line – and when their circumstances or beliefs shift, your own righteousness can blow away like dust on the wind.
That reveal leads into a sequence of all three of our principle leads questioning their duties, starting with Ahiru once again asking “is searching for Mytho’s heart shards really all I can do for him?” When Mytho was an empty vessel slowly gaining texture through emotions, it was easy to believe Ahiru’s assigned duty and righteousness itself were aligned. Now that Mytho is trapped in some sort of poisonous sequel, her assignment no longer seems to correlate to the moral demands of the world she inhabits. It’s a credit to all Ahiru has experienced that this understanding doesn’t lead her to despair; she is more than her duty now, and is willing to interrogate her choices and embrace the moral consequences of her actions.
Our other heroes aren’t nearly so fortunate. Rue is in the worst position of all, consistently mocked by Mytho and strung along by her father. Telling him of her attempts to gain a heart, she is violently rebuked, and told that “there is no way you will ever be loved so much that someone would give their own life for you. If you were to get in the prince’s way again, you’ll lose even my love this time!” Rue is loved only insofar as she agrees to remain an instrument of her duty. And Fakir, having gone beyond his assigned role entirety, feels an unhappy kinship with the ghost knight. “Does he want me to give him a place to die?” he wonders, before adding “or does it mean he’ll prepare a place for me to die?”
Consumed by these dark thoughts, Fakir heads out in search of Ahiru as a heavy fog descends. And out on a mysterious wooded path, Ahiru runs across the ghost knight himself, in a sequence seemingly designed to echo the legend of the headless horseman. Ahiru narrowly escapes the knight, and learns in the process that he is bearing a heart shard of his own. After reuniting with Ahiru and learning of this fact, Fakir smiles for the first time this episode, happy to learn he still has some purpose. Preparing to cross swords with the knight, Fakir gives Ahiru a desperate command: “even if we end up dying on each other’s swords, just leave me be.” Stranded without a true duty and mocked by his own former charge, Fakir decides he would rather die with purpose than live without direction.
Fortunately, Ahiru leaps in to rescue both of them. Dancing away from the knight’s blows, she tells him that “no matter how many times you swing your sword, your heart won’t be satisfied.” Ahiru asks this ghost knight the same key questions she’s been grappling with herself: “what do you want? Will fulfilling this duty truly make you happy?” From the grim certainty of fulfilling a duty, Ahiru draws this knight upwards into true personhood, and makes him interrogate both his memories and his own sense of selfhood. And ultimately, this interrogation brings him peace – though casting aside his duty may make him regret some of his past actions, it is far better to live and die as a human with regrets than as an instrument of someone else’s will.
When the fog clears, the ghost knight has been sent on his way, and Mytho has recovered his own sense of pride. Our heroic bird lies forlorn on the forest floor, battered by the effort of bringing this knight to peace. Fakir rushes to Ahiru’s side, and holding her in his hands, laments “can’t my sword even protect her?” Crying and in pain, Fakir looks more vulnerable than he’s ever been – and more human as well. Though the journey has been long and arduous, Fakir has at last discovered something he cares about for his own sake, something he truly wishes to protect.
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