When girls cannot be princesses, they become witches.

In fairytales, girls tend (though there are exceptions) to be one of two things-princesses or witches. The princesses are beautiful, kind, and gracious, while the witches are either ugly or beautiful in a cold, proud way, cruel, and heartless. These are the two choices presented to Anthy, but since the prince is her brother, she can never be a princess (according to the story), so she must be a witch… or must she?

Fairytales tend to be about beautiful, young princesses who are some how oppressed by the power (or will) of a witch. The princess is an innocent, while greed, power lust, or jealousy motivates the witch. A prince (who will be the true love of the princess) must come to her rescue by either slaying the witch or breaking her enchantment. The girl lacks the power to rescue herself, though she usually has a beautiful voice with which she attracts the prince who will rescue her. The prince and princess overcome the challenges set by the witch and live happily ever after.

There is very little gray in these simple black and white adventures. The princess and prince represent good while the witch and her minions represent evil. In the story told by the Shadow Girls, Anthy is evil-motivated by jealousy and the desire to prevent her brother from making girls princesses. She is willing to seal away the light of the prince in order to have him only for herself. The princesses are innocent girls who now have no one to save them. This is the characterization--his light versus her darkness.

Although it is usually the prince and the witch that do battle, the stories are really about the contrast between the princess and the witch. The princess represents the feminine virtues while the witch represents the feminine vices. The princess represents beauty (with modesty), honesty, optimism, generosity, obedience, selflessness, and innocence. The witch represents pride, deviousness, cynicism, greed, independence, selfishness, and the dark aspects of magic. It isn't just a question of general good and evil, but also a matter of feminine good and evil. The ultimatum of the story is this-a girl can not simply be a "good guy" or "bad guy", but she must also conform to a feminine stereotype.

Utena represents another option-that of a girl becoming, not a princess or witch, but a prince. She seeks virtues that are not stereotypically feminine, while remaining a woman. She will rescue the princesses, stand against injustice, help those who are suffering, but she never seeks to be a boy. Her attempt to achieve this has mixed results and she ends up admitting that she has only been playing prince to Anthy's fake princess.

Does that mean that a girl can only be a princess or a witch? No. There is another option-she can escape the simplistic fairytale roles and grow up. The princess, the princes, the witches, all exist relative to each other, but a real person must exist on her own without other people defining her. These fun childhood games become dangerous as they are taken into adulthood. For example, Akio destroys lives in his game playing, although they were, in varying degrees, willing players. Anthy leaves the fairytale world of Ohtori to find Utena, but in the processes she will find her adult self, independent of stereotypical definitions.

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