-yet today I want to share what I think is one of the most sublime tropes of female character writing I’ve come across in recent years; that is the trope of the Rose Bride as the title of this thread suggested.

I want to first give a warning that I will be discussing matters such as: sexual abuse, pedophilia, incest, child abuse, rape, mutilation, sex, sexual assault, body dysmorphia and so on. If these topics are triggering to you I suggest not reading this analysis.

This thread will contain spoilers for every series in the image displayed in the opening post. Part 1: Rosaceae To find roots of the Rose Bride we needn't glance further than the series that quintet the term 1997’s legendary Revolutionary Girl Utena. The term Rose Bride's first-

-introduced to us through Anthy and her role in the duels of the student council. Anthy’s the Rose Bride each of the duelists tries to win, the condition is if they can win and keep Anthy they can reach eternity.

The Rose Bride in this humble beginning posits herself as something alluring in feminine, she is the prize which will grant you eternal happiness. That’s why she is called the Bride, a promise of marriage and happiness, and rose to symbolize her enchanting femininity and beauty.

Anthy acts her part, she embodies the traditional gender roles, she is subservient, docile, quiet and doesn’t have any thoughts or emotions of her own. She is the ideal of the perfect traditional womanhood, who exists only to serve.

Anthy endures the abuse at the behest of other women who envy her desirability without uttering a complaint. She accepts being thought of as a prize with no humanity and in some cases it seems to Utena and the audience she doesn’t mind this state of existence.

So from all of this one could say, so that’s it? The rose bride is just a traditional woman? However it’s important analyze what Anthy later says about term Rose Bride. In episode 34 it is revealed to us what kind of life Anthy’s been subjugated to.

When Akio and her were kids Anthy in order to protect her big brother from the crowed that wanted him each for themselves, sacrificed herself as a witch that cursed the rose prince. The villagers impaled Anthy and from then on she had been branded as the Rose Bride or as a witch.

The pain of Anty’s sacrifice was unknown to anyone but Utena, who vowed to become a Prince in order to save her. Anthy shunned for doing the right thing is branded as the villain who took away the prince, she is vilified in the worst possible way any woman could be, as a witch.

It should be clear the witch and the Rose Bride are almost synonymous, I say almost cause the Rose Bride is always a vilified witch but a witch doesn’t necessarily embody all the traits of the rose bride. Besides Anthy being vilified she'd been sexually abused by Akio.

The treatment Nanami shows Anthy for being important to Touga because of the duels, is mirrored by Utena who seems very hurt Anthy is “having sex” with Akio whom Utena likes.

The Rose Bride an alluring feminine ideal inspires envy in other women often times but she herself is envious too. Anthy envies her brother, she envies those around Utena for having Utena’s full attention and affection, whilst Utena doesn’t remember her promise to save Anthy.

There is a pain on both ends between these two young women, Utena feels betrayed by Anthy because she “loves” Akio and Anthy feels betrayed by Utena for not remembering her promise.

In scene between them where this unaddressed pain lingers in the air Anthy says the most important line for this analysis “In the end all girls are rose brides.” What does Anthy mean by this?

The core of Anthy’s sentiment here’s that all girls’re taught to project this alluring feminine image of a perfect bride that will bring eternal happiness to anyone who should want them, but the rose even in the full bloom of its beauty still has thorns.

Those thorns are what is beneath the veil of the Rose Bride-the female suffering and the pain that comes from being a woman in this world. Through Anthy we see that pain, that she was vilified as a child for protecting her brother, that said brother sexually abused her.

How that resentment led Anthy to latch onto Utena’s promise, and how non knew of Anthy’s pain let alone of the hatred that was harboring in her soul. Malice she indulged in by doing Akio’s bidding in the duels, betraying Utena, swindling people etc.

Thorns she must keep underneath the veil, to remain appealing but that exist non the less. Thorns that are born from the years of suffering she has endured. And when people come in contact with them, they usually blame the Rose Bride for her own suffering.

As we have seen through Utena feeling betrayed by Anthy upon learning the nature of her relationship with Akio, Nanami’s disgust towards her. Anthy is the evil witch that cursed the prince she can never be the perfect fairytale princess because she is “tainted by her evil deeds”.

Anthy’s suffering brought her to the point where she would, like any human being, feel resentment towards the world and everyone who’s abandoned her to this fate. Yet it’s exactly that resentment that earns her the title of the Rose Bride.

The pain that “taints her” is what earns her the title Rose Bride- a bad, venomous, malicious woman. Female suffering’s a problem not because what’s been done to Anthy but because Anthy isn’t being a victim in a way people expect her to be.

And Anthy to an extend embraces the role of the villainess in the show, the way she pretended to be Mamiya, and how she kept Utena in the dark, suggests she herself realized nobody is ever going to understand the depth of her sorrow and rage so she might as well play her part.

This of course almost drives her to suicide which Utena saves her from, Anthy’s guilt and simultaneous act as a villain is a reoccurring motif in the characters I’ll talk about today, but the guilt of the rose bride is nothing compared to the guilt of the Prince.

The Prince is how I chose to name the man in the relationship, we shall examine our first Prince and establish the characteristics with the help of Utena Tenjou, which is odd cause she is our only woman among the Princes.

Nevertheless, woman or no, Utena did build the stage upon which the likes of Shirou, Shiki and Akira will perform on. Utena Tenjou in this courtship with Anthy sets the pattern that I’ll further examine as male guilt and insecurity in one’s masculinity.

When Utena was a little girl and her family died, Akio showed her Anthy’s eternal suffering. This motivated our young protagonist to jump out her gender role and become a Prince that will save the Rose Bride.

Utena forgets this and goes on believing she destined to meet her prince who saved her on the day of her family’s death. Utena struggles with fulfilling her ideal- to become a Prince like the one who saved her.

Utena struggles to juggle her “desire” to be a girl Akio loves and to fulfill her ideal. This is the first motif and that is the struggle of masculine ideal. Utena isn’t sure how to fulfill herself as a Prince and Akio takes advantage of that by grooming her.

By forgetting her promise to Anthy, the ideal becomes harder to fulfill naturally because only Anthy can lead to ideal’s fulfillment. This causes Anthy obvious pain because Utena abandoned her promise,