#I DONT WORK TODAY SO I WONT BE LATE DUE TO UTENA ANALYSIS AGAIN!

[rosetower]

Going back to what I was talking about in my previous post about Juri's perception of Shiori, I feel like the fact that Juri unconditionally loves Shiori really puts everything into a different perspective, too.

Because since Shiori and Juri have known each other since they were kids, and since Juri understands how Shiori suffers and what she does that makes herself suffer as well, the way that Juri needs "a miracle" so that "[that person] can understand how I really feel" goes beyond just Juri's lesbian loving of Shiori.

It's also about the pain of loving someone who does not love herself at all and doesn't see the value in herself.

Anyone who has suffered enough to be in that place of constant self-sabotage and desperate seeking of control will understand how hollow the self feels even when someone says they love you. Some describe it as having an "emotional black hole". So to really truly understand that people love you, truly, it can feel like it requires "a miracle".

Juri is a realist, but has the heart of a romantic; and so she rejects miracles; but at the same time, she desperately needs a miracle so that she can make Shiori understand how she feels about her -- to understand that Juri has seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and still loves her, and still cares about her.

So in that way she so clearly parallels Utena, who, at the time of their first duel, isn't even aware of what she's paralleling because Utena does not have that desire to Save someone yet. Juri mocks Utena's prince-demeanor, knowing that it's not enough to save someone. Yet, because the duels are pre-determined by Akio, Juri loses the duel to the "miracle" that occurs. The reason why Juri gasps in agony as she loses the necklace and the frame shatters isn't just because she loves Shiori as a woman, it's because in the context of the duel, it's like the world itself is saying that she's wrong for focusing so much on Shiori in the first place. The world -> being Akio's world, as all the duels are predetermined by Akio, rejecting Juri desiring the power of miracles for the sake of allowing a clearly abused person to recognize her own self worth. It works well within Akio's desired narrative, and the rejection of the concept of the female prince. It's Anthy's blank yet contemplative stare as she looks upwards at the sky as it begins to rain. It's Utena's asking why Juri surrenders, unable to understand what the world was telling Juri in this moment. Juri truly lost the moment that necklace was shattered, accident or not.

Juri's love for Shiori clearly runs deeper than surface level, we are shown that time after time; especially after she remarks to Ruka in the End of the World scene in Akio's car that she doesn't need her feelings to be known, but rather, that she wants to simply release Shiori from Ruka as she knows Ruka is manipulating Shiori. Juri falls short of realizing that Ruka is trying to have Juri gain that power of miracles because Ruka himself is in love with Juri; Juri seems to be aware that there isn't a lot she can do for Shiori in her current state as she's already tried to reach out to her once. Juri already believes at this point she cannot save Shiori, she knows that and yet she agrees to the duel because she wants somehow to keep Ruka away from tormenting Shiori as a piece to get to Juri... in this complicated 3-way love-manipulation situation of course. Juri gains nothing no matter what. Suppose she won, gained the Rose Bride, made it to the castle that holds eternity? Then what? We all know the futility of it because we saw what happened to Utena even despite her greatest efforts. I think Juri is aware that the rest of the game is based in illusions and that even "the power to revolutionize" is more or less just the turning of a wheel, rather than a total upheaval.

I think people tend to stop at Shiori's self-centeredness and not realize that the self-loathing she possesses is immense and obvious. No human being who has ever acted like Shiori does came from an environment of comfort and reassurance. Juri knows this, she sees this, she desires to be there for Shiori, she desires for Shiori to know that she's worth loving, she wants Shiori to know this so that she can see Shiori truly flourish as a human being. But the world rejects Juri's desires; not just because she is in the "incorrect" role of a female prince, but because the world rejects giving abused people agency. This world is in Akio's palm. Akio's power lays in his control of those he abuses and stripping them of their agency through his system, his turning-of-the-wheel revolutions. Juri's desire is a true revolution, much like the way Utena thinks of revolution, and that's why at the end Akio/Dios doesn't drop the sword directly down from the sky to tear her rose, but tears the necklace from her neck and shatters it.

(and that's when Juri remembers Shiori, sitting all alone.)