#ride your stupid carousel while utena helps anthy to save herself

[local-lamppost]

Utena’s Caged Intelligence

Something of a continuation of this.

TL;DR Ohtori, like pretty much every school, was not designed for those with developing intelligence (like middle schoolers) to be able to grow and flourish.

So I’ve gone over a little bit of the initial curiosity of Utena and how that diminished, but I wanted to address some topics I might have missed because I mainly focused on Utena’s logic.

When I say logic, I mean her matter of fact/overtly blunt manner of problem solving. She forces her way through problems headstrong, making her solutions equate to the dumb joke stereotype. She sees things in a straight line in a world that is determined to pave only curved roads. Her logic makes her the biggest moron in a world of the illogical. This can actually be seen in Miki as well. Miki is an artist at heart, but doesn’t think he can express himself that way because of the “feminine” nature he’s been taught the language of art is. Miki tries to translate his artistic thoughts into logical dialog, and because of his inability to correlate his mind and voice it makes him one of the easiest characters to manipulate; he’ll mimic what those around him says-especially after an emotional moment-because that must be how a regular “logical” speaker would act.

Utena is similar to a degree, she’s just in no way self aware. Less frantic than Miki, but easier to condition once you can tug Utena’s logic away from her own and onto someone else’s (Akio’s).

Utena is not allowed to come to her own conclusions. Akio or Anthy or whatever student council member has been enlisted are all quick to put her in situations that derive her of exploring other options. It becomes that the best way to solve her problems is to go along with the duels (to the point that she challenges Touga to a duel purely for herself and her own issues, because that’s how problems are solved at Ohtori).

I think the best way to dumb this thought process down is to think that everyone is playing a game. Utena plays by the book and is a naturally very skilled player, others will have mind games or better items to try to gain an upper hand; but then there are players like Touga, Akio, and Anthy who have cheats enabled, but Utena is unable to realize this.

Lastly, the point that can slip people’s mind is that Utena is 14 and the people pulling the strings are all older than her/more experienced. Akio is in his twenties or thirties(not even counting that he might be a magical immortal deity), Touga is both an upper classmen but someone who appears to be living the most ‘adult’ lifestyle of all the underage duelists (the mindest for them is very much sex=maturity/power), and Anthy’s bread and butter is preparing sacrifices for her brother(as well as being a maybe immortal witch).

Her age is Utena’s greatest detriment in the game she’s playing. The only characters that get manipulated as much as she does are Miki and Nanami (Nanami especially) and they are the youngest of the duelists. Yet there are the scant few times it gives her strength, such as her duel with Wakaba (but even then, this duel gave Akio that firm line in the sand he would need to eliminate to further bring Utena under his control).

A school is supposed to be where you go to grow your logical intelligence, while being placed in an environment meant to grow your social intelligence. Ohtori, under Akio’s direction, does not comply to this standard: they value the independence of the students. Something that sounds good, until you remember that these are kids still in need of support, support Akio is glad to provide as he frames himself as the only truly mature and reliable presence in these children’s lives.