Our twenty-third episode opens with a cradle viewed through bars, and a story that speaks to all of Princess Tutu’s misbegotten heroes. “Once upon a time, there was a princess who was held captive. She was imprisoned in the demon king’s castle. And with her freedom taken from her, she had no choice to dance like a puppet to the tune set by the whims of the demon king. One day, a hero came to fight the demon king, seeking to save the princess. However, there was no way the hero could win against the demon king. The hero did not know, you see, that he himself was a puppet created by the demon king.”
It’s a familiar story, and even the imagery here plays on familiar motifs, as the final shot pulls back the frame to reveal the heroic puppet is standing inside of a gear. Those gears have become a clear symbol of Drosselmeyer’s manipulation, and echo a trick these openings have employed several times – visually retreating in order to reveal that the story we thought we were witnessing actually exists within a larger framework, without which we are incapable of meaningfully assessing the original narrative.
Such frameworks don’t only exist when the storyteller is actively trying to deceive the characters or audience, though. As I’ve emphasized throughout our journey, every story exists within another story, and assumes another, larger narrative, even if that narrative is only “the context in which the author wrote the story.” This is why it can be so difficult to engage with the media of another country, or another time period; the gears that surround such stories reflect a cultural context which is foreign to us, and without which, what could theoretically parse as a straightforward and self-contained narrative can seem incomplete or incoherent.
In terms of Tutu’s overarching thoughts on storytelling, “Drosselmeyer’s presence” is a symbol that could stand in for any number of unknown factors, encouraging us to look deeper, seek context, and never assume that a story’s choices are immutable facets of some perfect narrative truth. Every storytelling decision is an active choice, and every choice has meaning, whether they reflect an author’s personal perspective, what their own influences have taught them results in effective storytelling, or simply some assumed perspective of their country or era. And though we would like to believe that stories can be greater than us, and can stand alone as aesthetic objects unmarred by human influence, the truth is that acknowledging and embracing how stories reflect their makers ultimately brings us closer to the humanity within them. We will never truly know everything that inspired a given narrative, just as any author can never know what we bring to the experience, in order to create the alchemy that is experiencing a story. But it is only because stories reflect our human hearts that they can speak so truly, soar so high, and carry our own dreams along with them.
Of course, this opening monologue also maps very closely to Princess Tutu itself, as both Ahiru and Rue currently find themselves at the mercy of their own demon kings. Last episode concluded with a taunt by Drosselmeyer at Fakir’s hopes, and this opening monologue reiterates that taunt, implying through its cynicism and finality that the situation is hopeless. But as we’ve come to know, even these opening monologues aren’t an “objective assessment” of the narrative situation – they are just one perspective, and one which intentionally uses its formal position of authority to influence our opinions.
Things certainly do seem hopeless as the episode opens, though. The evocative backgrounds of Drosselmeyer’s clockwork world are alluring at first, but as marionettes drop from the ceiling and mock our heroine, the situation quickly turns horrifying. Princess Tutu has dabbled in horror sequences before, from the headless horseman episode to our heroes’ various journeys into the tunnels of the city, and it’s a dramatic mode that suits the production very well. Not only are Tutu’s episodes generally awash in shadows and mystery, but the narrative’s overarching trajectory, the promise of Tutu’s eventual annihilation, echoes a hopelessness common to classic horror. The idea that all of your actions are predetermined is horrifying enough on its own; realized through the jerking movements of puppets on strings, the terror of not controlling your own actions becomes viscerally clear.
Out in the world of the town, Fakir feels equally paralyzed by his inability to write. It’s hard to blame our poor knight for his writer’s block, though, given the directives he received from the opening narrator were all nonsense like “hear the voice which is voiceless” and “see the shape which is shapeless.” This is the sort of advice all writers give to answer annoying questions, when the real answer is “we sit there and think and try to write and it’s painful and it sucks.” And so Fakir finds himself at last truly embracing the authorial experience, as he spends this episode crouched in a ball in a graveyard, staring at a blank page and getting mad at himself.
Meanwhile, Rue is at last beginning to discover the limitations of the role she’s been assigned, and how distant her own feelings are from those of her father. Her growing consciousness presents itself through a critical feeling – doubt. First with her father, and then again with Mytho, she doubts the role of the raven’s daughter, and asks if following her father’s actions will really bring Mytho to her.
Rue’s situation reflects how one of the most imposing and consequential narrators in any of our lives is the person who raised us. Living under the wing of another, protected by their wisdom and warmed by their love, we naturally internalize a great deal of their frame for viewing the world, and sometimes never even challenge that frame. Even rebellions against parents often reflect how much we’ve internalized their views; rebelling against a specific perspective on morality still means acknowledging that morality, even if we don’t currently accept its validity, or want to make a point of our own agency.
But as both the raven king and Drosselmeyer demonstrate, those who are determined to enforce their worldview on their children are only ever interested in having their own feelings parroted back at them. In response to Rue’s questions, the raven scorns her with threats, and once again raises the specter of abandonment to control her. And in response to Ahiru’s plea for freedom, Drosselmeyer responds with the dismissive “that thinking is mistaken. Marionettes are at their most free when they are being manipulated by strings. You won’t be able to leave here until you accept that.”
Drosselmeyer’s tea party with Tutu forms the centerpiece of this episode, and leans heavily on both his world’s uniquely horrifying nature, and the thematic argument at the heart of their battle. After being forced to dance for his amusement, Ahiru finds herself seated at a long and imposing dinner table, with tea descending on a clockwork arm from the rafters. Even as she argues with Drosselmeyer, Ahiru’s arms rise and fall in a pantomime of tea-drinking, emphasizing how little control she truly has. Drosselmeyer may have the power to make his characters do anything, but when his choices don’t reflect their own feelings, the results are terrible and grotesque.
The fact that this is clearly a forced interrogation naturally undercuts Drosselmeyer’s plays at familiarity, but that’s never stopped him in the past. As Ahiru explains her position and how much she’s learned, Drosselmeyer listens with interest, and then dismisses her feelings entirely. If Ahiru has truly become a selfless person who cares for her friends above herself, that’s no good for Drosselmeyer – he wants ugly conflict, and ugly conflict demands characters with irreparable disagreements. And so he offers some friendly advice, proposing “why not pretend you never discovered the final heart shards? Then the prince will never leave you. You’re gonna have to start thinking on at least that level, if you want to get out of here.”
Drosselmeyer’s words are resoundingly callous as a baseline, but to frame it as “thinking on that level” feels like a revealing reflection of his base mindset. Selfish people frequently frame their choices as a result of intelligent deduction or necessary pragmatism. As they put it, people who are senselessly selfless just aren’t “thinking on their level,” and are simply failing to see the logical solution in an intellectual sense, rather than fundamentally disagreeing on a moral one. It is far easier to defend intelligence than callousness, and far harder to condemn kindness than naivety, and those with both callousness and intelligence are always ready to use both as a weapon against the truly selfless.
Fortunately, the winding course of Tutu’s narrative has given Ahiru beloved friends, a firm moral perspective, and the confidence to defend both of them. In response to this gaslighting by her literal creator, Ahiru fires back, stating that “my feelings belong to me. I am not a marionette!” And so all three of our heroes come to a key realization at once, as Ahiru defies Drosselmeyer, Rue learns the raven king was only ever her oppressor, and Fakir realizes that there is something he can write about: his great friend Ahiru.
Though Ahiru cannot write and Fakir cannot think of a story, together they form a conduit between worlds, as Ahiru’s feelings of wishing to return flow out through Fakir’s pen. After an episode that consistently emphasized the potential egotism and even solipsism of storytelling, Fakir at last succeeds by entirely letting go of his own ego, and letting his work be an outlet for Ahiru’s emotional truth. The gears begin their grand spinning once more, and Ahiru flees Drosselmeyer’s tomb, emerging back into Fakir’s arms. Though our heroes have been greatly misled by all their parents, their resilience and compassion demonstrate that we are greater than our framing, greater than our creators, greater than our homes. We are living beings, composed of a thousand influences, yet still capable of making our own choices, of growing and learning and coming to love each other. We reflect all the spiraling truths of our stories, but are far grander than any one tale could hope to be. Drosselmeyer may have created these heroes, but he was a fool to try and control them; no narrative frame could hope to set the limits of the human heart.
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