With only three episodes remaining, the time for cryptic allusions and shrouded metaphor is largely behind us. Princess Tutu’s latest opening monologue emphasizes that clearly, as we are greeted by the image of a grave scattered with pages, and a pendulum swinging in the background. The narrator tells us, “once upon a time, there was a man who died. The story the man wrote was about a happy prince who loved everyone and was loved by everyone. The people fought, each wanting him to love them and them alone, and an evil raven pecked at their loving hearts one after another. The more the prince loved them and tried to save them, the more the people’s love just fed the raven. In the end, the raven thought ‘I’d like to try eating the prince’s heart, the most delicious one of all.’”
Though the story being told is overtly centered on the raven, the imagery that opens this tale all points to Drosselmeyer – the grave, the pages, the tolling clock. Drosselmeyer has long been associated with clockwork, from the gears he traps people in to comment on their stories, to the strange world from which he views the drama, to even the show’s regular eyecatches, where he emerges from a grandfather clock. Given storytelling is traditionally framed as an act of freedom and creative expression, it’s an interesting choice to have Drosselmeyer’s powers always depicted as a giant clock that he’s only tending to. It’s a more scientific, mechanical sort of image than you might expect, seemingly limited in its creative reach, and also something Drosselmeyer only manages, doesn’t create.
That framing actually does work as a reflection of the nature of storytelling, though. Stories are more like clocks than you’d think; just as a disparate collection of scenes and characters isn’t a story, so too is a scattered pile of gears not a clock. It is only through the addition of structure through which we create meaning, and while you’re actively working on a story, it can feel more like you’re being pulled by the needs of that story than that you are actively forging your own path. The fact that Ahiru and Fakir have demonstrated so much agency naturally supports this view of storytellers; Drosselmeyer can stack the deck and guide them with incomplete truths, but ultimately, true-feeling stories demand the characters choose their own paths. Drosselmeyer’s clockwork motif is thus a reflection of both his clear power and also the limits of that power. He may have built this clock at one point, but it now exists beyond him, and he cannot dictate its course any longer.
But while Drosselmeyer embodies the spirit of a selfish, greedy author, the raven stands as his necessary foil – a selfish, greedy audience. As this monologue emphasizes, the raven covets the earnest passion of honest lovers, which is perhaps one of the most valuable “resources” you can extract from a narrative. The raven is ravenous; as story after story takes place around him, he acts just like the townsfolk in the monologue, stealing all their emotions just for himself. Just as the people claimed sole ownership of the prince, he claims sole ownership of their feelings in turn, demanding they contribute to his own illustrious self-image.
Greedy audiences don’t let stories exist for everyone – they must claim them as their own. They do not learn from stories, applying lessons from the perspectives contained therein to enrich their own lives. They say “this is me” or “this is mine,” clutching tightly to the warm embers of emotional truth, forcefully grafting their own perspective onto the stories they’ve claimed. They suffer through a great and tragic contradiction, as their simultaneous quest for connection and validation leads them to story after story, only to smother them and ultimately find their own feelings staring back at them. They live in the lives of others, and thus are never satisfied, always hungry.
While Drosselmeyer and the Raven each stand as creator and audience at their worst, their heirs are working to break free of these legacies, and approach each of their roles with greater honesty and empathy. The episode proper opens with Fakir embracing that spirit, as he asks Autor the question at the heart of the clockwork imagery – does his power truly shape reality, or is he simply capable of channeling and transcribing the events that were always destined to happen? Is he this story’s master, or its sad, doomed Cassandra?
The only answer Fakir receives is the unsatisfying “your own strength will determine that,” but to be fair, this is not Fakir’s episode. Instead, we run with Ahiru as she races across the town for one last time, seeking a way to restore Mytho’s heart without simultaneously freeing the raven. Crossing streets and alleys we’ve traveled for long episodes now, her flight feels like a welcome reminder of what she’s fighting for. Though the clocktower town is both an illusion and a prison, it’s also warm and beautiful, a sanctuary well worth protecting.
Ahiru’s searching is ultimately rewarded when she finds Rue, who leads her back to the “prince.” With the raven’s blood continuing to change his nature, Mytho is at this point not even human at all – he stands as an awkwardly clothed humanoid bird, pathetically propositioning Rue for a dance. His current nature reflects the truth of this episode’s opening monologue – the raven is hungry for love, but his “love” leaves no room for the selfhood of the people he covets. He instead incorporates these loves into himself, making all that he touches no more than a reflection of his own feelings. Like a reader who only sees their own beliefs validated by all they consume, the raven’s obsession is a selfish, smothering love, the fulfillment of Mytho’s “discard all else, and love only me.”
But Rue is not her father, and seeing Mytho this way brings her nothing but pain. Collapsing in her shabby hideaway, she cries that “my love has only made you into this. I have no right to love you.” Rue feels responsible for Mytho’s condition, but in truth, she herself was tricked and transformed in just the same way. As a child, Rue was stolen by the raven, who taught her to worship his image and reflect his truth. She was always a victim, and always the bait intended to ultimately snare Mytho. As the cruel fullness of Rue’s despair strikes, the scene shifts to reveal she is now dancing alone, embodying the sad endpoint of loving a story so greedily that you make it a part of yourself. To connect with and love a story is a precious thing, but if you’re only seeking your own reflection, you will find no companionship in fiction.
Having spent her whole life being conditioned to obey her father’s will, even Rue’s rebellion is tempered by her fear of his power. Rue tells Ahiru of the raven’s plan for revival, and begs her not to finish restoring his heart. Her selfhood has been painted over in her father’s colors, and even as she acknowledges she no longer wants to support him, she can’t imagine a future where he’s actually defeated. Rue is thus a living embodiment of a story that has been abused by its audience, her own truth only glimmering faintly through the trauma of her father’s influence.
But stories and characters cannot help but outgrow their bounds, as Uzura soon shows. Catching Ahiru alone, she draws her friend close to her breast, and through its beating Ahiru speaks to Edel once more. Ever the spoiler, Edel reveals one last secret – that the final heart shard is actually Ahiru’s pendant, and that restoring Mytho’s heart will necessarily involve returning permanently to her duck form. And upon learning this sad fact, Uzura breaks down in tears. The daughter of an intended tool who herself broke free of her master, Uzura embodies all that is great and true about fiction, her compassionate tears standing as a stark counter to Rue’s hopeless sorrow. In the end, Mytho’s fate rests in Ahiru’s hands: “whether or not the duck gives the shard back to the prince depends on her own heart.”
By tying the prince’s ultimate reawakening to Ahiru sacrificing her humanity, Ahiru can thus become both the physical and thematic antidote to the raven’s poison. While the raven gave Mytho his blood in order to transform him into his own image, Ahiru is willing to give up her pendant at great personal cost, in order to let him become his true self. Rather than Mytho, it is Ahiru who is transformed by the process, and stripped bare. In the end, the raven represents a fundamental question as to how we choose to engage with art. Do we leave our ego and need for validation aside, and open ourselves up to new perspectives or experiences? Or do we reshape these works in our own image, demanding art embody nothing more than our own sense of self?
The consequences of that selfishness are clear in this episode’s finale, as Ahiru returns to the monstrous Mytho. Having had nearly all of his selfhood stolen, Mytho begs desperately for a dance, admitting that only while dancing can he forget the pain of this metamorphosis. Taking Rue’s hand, Ahiru urges her to “believe in the prince,” and at last summons the gate shards. Mytho’s lost emotions materialize, and collectively tell Ahiru that before she returns the final shard, the raven’s curse must be lifted. But before they can even begin to plan such a task, the ground quakes, the towers crack, and a vast shadow rises. The raven has awoken.
Rue tries to hold Mytho back from the raven, but he flees from her grasp, flying headlong towards his hated foe. Princess Tutu attempts to stop him as well, but her efforts are futile, and Mytho surges onward. He is stopped only when Rue at last breaks down, and admits her most fundamental truth: “I don’t need the raven’s blood. I was happiest when I was Rue!” Though she was assigned to Mytho by her father, the feelings she developed for him are all her own. She was happy as Rue, and loved Mytho for who he was, not what he could offer. Like Ahiru, Rue at last finds her voice in a selfless love – she is willing to throw away everything for the prince, not to control him, but to let him be himself. And in the face of this selfless love, Mytho’s own selfhood is restored.
Rue pays for her selflessness dearly, as the raven steals her away in place of the lost Mytho. But the raven cannot undo Rue’s heroic act, nor compel her to continue flattering his ego. Stories and characters are stronger than we think; we can interpret them how we will, but their fundamental nature is to be generous, and embody a humanity that reflects all of us in part, but none of us in full. The raven sought to redefine Rue, and through doing so underestimated her own strength and vitality. He may have captured her, but her spirit is free.
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