Princess Tutu Exposed Analysing Rue/ Krahe's and Mytho's Relationship
Ages of Characters: Rue (15 years old) Mytho: Immortal (physical appearance of a 15 year old boy)
Similar to Revolutionary Girl Utena, Tutu uses a fairytale as a motif ,however it is inspired by ballet. The overall story is loosely inspired by Swan Lake.
This is seen in the three main characters:
Ahiru/ Duck/ Princess Tutu (Odette)
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Rue/ Princess Krahe/ Odile
Rue/ Krahe
Other archetypes in the in universe story titled The Prince and The Raven includes
- The Knight (Fakir)
- Princess (Princess Tutu)
- The Villian (the titular Raven).
The story focuses on following or defying fate and destiny that is asigned to a ficticious character. There is an interweaving plot where the town the characters inhabit is cursed by the fairytale the characters originate from due to a suppernatural force the main characters must enact their fates forever if they like it or not.
PRIOR to this Analysis I will discuss the hypersexualization of Rue.
The dynamic of the series in the romance department is Mytho, (Archie), Tutu (Betty) and Rue (Veronica).
Note: Veronica is in high school but her age is not stated. From her first appearance she is depicted as prettier, seductive and alluring. This is seen in her manerisms as well as her various outfits through out the series that were either form fitting or skimpy.
On this cover Veronica is wearing eyeshadow and red lipstick compared to Betty who wears pink lipstick.
Rue is placed into the skimpy ballet outfit in her Princess form or wears sexualised outfits outside of the show. I saw this screenshot on reddit and nearly barfed because RUE IS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.
Despite me finding some possible refferences for her Princess outfit, it should not be this low cut for a child.
The Evil is Sexy trope has been written in stories for generations reserved for villians/ femme fatales/ seductresees or the Skimpy Villians.
Another example of this trope being seen is the Modest Heroes trope is used to have a contrast between the protagonist and antagonist.
The problem is that Rue is a minor and should not be wearing this. Coupled with her flirtacious behaviour and longing of Mytho as Krahe she is made to be more alluring than Tutu however this characterization is squick. This subconciously tells girls that if you want a guy to notice you, that you need to use your body/ flirting to get a guy which can put them in dangerous situations for manipulators/ predators/ older men.
Back to the topic:
The relationship between Rue and Mytho will be examined:
Rue is introduced as a cold, manipulative girl that only wants Mytho. She tells him lies, tries to get him away from Ahiru (due to knowing she has a crush on him) not only because she is his girlfriend also she can keep him emotionless and they can stay together.
Mytho has lost his heart shards after shattering it in the story so the Raven could not harm him. He ended up feeling no emotions as a result of thks act.
Ahiru's mission in the story (as Pincess Tutu) is to restore Mythos heart and as a result he he gains more emotions.
At first he is facinated by Tutu's grace and kindness and as he felt more emotions over the course of the series, he longs for Princess Tutu, a saviour like figure to restore his humanity.
Rue has an alternate form named Princess Krahe that is a princess and the ‘daughter’ of the main villian the Raven. (Until the reveal which I will not spoil)
She is also Princess Tutus rival for Mytho's affections and tries to stop her from retreiving the Heart Shards.
Due to Princess Tutu helping Mytho, this enrages Krahe, she often taunted Tutu as they encountered each other and tried to only make Mytho hers as well as prevent him from retreiving his heart shards to no avail.
When she notices this method of heart shard= emotions, she had an idea and dips his heart shard in raven blood to ensure that he is hers forever.
Corrupted Mytho acts like a creep by the way. I guess being brainwashed means ignoring ladies personal space and boundaries. Reminds me of Endou from Sailor Moon Manga and Crystal.
When this poisioned heart shard enters Mytho, the heart shard corrupts him over time to be only loyal to Rue but over time he becomes vindictive, cruel and self serving with his own agenda as he starts to become more raven like and drains other students at the school's energy.
Corrupted! Mytho
He gets purified when Rue confesses to him and fully restored to normal when Tutu gave up her pendant (actually his heart shard as a transformation trinket) to him. He regains his true form as the prince.
We can see through out the series Rue only wanted Mytho for herself and to agree with whatever she says. This is manipulation NOT LOVE.
Her behaviour towards him in the present day is handwaved that she was abused by her (foster!) dad and she longed for Mytho because he showed her kindness after he protected her from being attacked by ravens when SHE WAS A CHILD.
He was still in the form of a teen but immortal. Then she 'falls in love with him' after this event.
NO That is grooming and the Raven manipulates these confused feelings of Rue to twist them into her becoming a cruel and manipulative person over time especially when it came to blocking Mytho from regaining his true self.
This dynamic goes beyond a preocious crush because she grows up to only seek the comfort of Mytho's memory of him protecting her and trying to gethis attention. Keep in mind, technically Mytho has lived for a long time and she was chasing after an older person.
I do not think she ‘fell in love with him’ as the series tries to protray, | believe unknowingly she was groomed and her craving for attention due to being emotionally abused and kidnapped from her real parents and raised by the Raven, she has a lot of trauma whichgoes unresolved and it manifested in chasing Mytho for him to notice her.
After Mytho's predicament as the Prince lost his emotions and she as Princess Krahe notices that. her ‘father’ manipulates her into trying to get the prince to love her. The Raven, her father figure is using her trauma, abandonment issues and misguided feelings to use for his ulterior motives.
With this in mind, after Mytho's predicament (him being emotionless) she invested in making Mytho her 'boyfriend' and was manipulating him to like her not of his free will. When Mytho gets Corrupted! Rue's ‘father’ manipulates her further into doing what he wants by saying that in this state of her body he will never love her because she is disgusting and in order for Mytho to love her, she needs to do whatever the Raven says. (Her dad is only using her so he can revive himself and end the world).
One time Krahe even breaks his heart AGAIN when he starts forming too much of HIS own personality so he can be emotionless and she can manipulate him into loving her just like their dynamic in the start of the series.
All he was at that point was an empty husk, when she does not get what she wants, she becomes furious that he does not love her like before.
The questions about this relationship I ask are:
- Was that really true love they experienced?
- Was Rue putting ideas in his head and making it seem like he loved her because she was putting ideas into his head?
We see many red flags in their ‘relationship’ and when Corrupted! Mytho was around her, he became very hostile and demening to her (why she shattered his heart again). The kicker is that her confessing her love purified him.
That should not have been the case because their relationship is toxic and became even more so when he was corrupted.
This is not an ideal relationship to have in your life which is why when Prince! Seigfred/ Mytho and her get together, it is inadvertedly telling viewers that:
‘it is okay to stay with a toxic person once they have history with you'.
Both of them were codependent on each other and Mytho was emotionally abused by Rue/ Krahe and vice versa when he was corrupted.
The only solution for them in my opinion was that they could have gone their seperate ways and maybe Mytho still would have been purified since the transformation trinket finished off the cleansing of his corruption. Rue could have been interested in someone else that was closer to her age interested in someone else that was and she can have a life outside of her (foster) father or the fairytale destiny.*
Mytho used to have feelings for Tutu (they got together in the Manga) but at the end of the series chooses Rue due to her being there for him the whole time?
He choose her because Rue was his princess all along? I was shocked at this ending because YES i understand Tutu was not real, a fantasy but after we saw how cruel Rue/ Krahe treated Mytho (especially in season 1) why should he be in a relationship with her? That is stockholm syndrome. A clear sign that those two were trauma bonded to each other and it was not built on equal footing (due to age gap and unequal power dynamic due to Mytho being helpless and Rue manipulating him for most of the show)
Tutu risked everything her form as a duck, the risk of dying/ vanishing into light if she confesses her feelings for him, getting taunted by Rue as Ahiru due to her ballet skills and trying to stop the Raven from resurecting itself into the real world. She helped to stop this by sacrificing her ideal form of Princes Tutu (due to her transformation trinket being the last heart shard) to save HIS life and the world after dancing as a duck and inspiring the raven turned characters to have hope and not be overcome by despair.
Despite Ahiru moving on to Fakir (that will be explored in part 2), it still shows that Ahiru deserved better, despite everything she did, it was not acknowledged much in the end but at least Mytho was restored, at the expense of her suffering.
Also Ahiru becomes friends with Rue which I fibd troubling because Rue was mean to her and seeing how she acted towards Mytho, I do not like that they became friends. Yes she is traumatized, yes she does things due to trauma and feat of abandonment but it does not erase her prior actions that were harmful to Mytho and Ahiru. This is spreading the wrong message about befriending toxic people who in reality never change. This dynamic left a bad taste in my mouth (along with the Mytho x Rue pairing).
Overall the messages of this series tells the audience that it is okay to stay with someone despite the way they treated you was unkind/ manipulative. (In terms of Rue and Mytho)l, keep fighting for someones attention even if the person does not acknowledge your efforts (Mytho and Tutu) Promotes p*** and grooming (Rue meeting him as a child and Mytho as an older teen in the flashback) and (Tutu and Mytho again) , if you like a guy, you have to do everything for him and put his needs above your own, at the expense of your personal struggles. (Through out the series Ahiru is struggling because if she confesses her feelings Tutu will disappear hence her death and the greater scope villian often wanting to manipulate her to SEE HER SUFFER due to him being the aurthor of the tale and has an amount of control over the characters fates and his desire was to write a tragedy.) She puts on a brave face and focuses on fighting her fate to save Mytho no matter what and avoid her fate. That is a lot to carry mentally for a 14 year old (despite that being her human form it still counts because mentally she is 14).
If it was not for her wanting to save Mytho, the story will not have progressed.Once again the suffering of a young girl is used to push the plot forward.
Just like reality young girls and wonen are conditioned to be matyrs in order for others to flourish and sacrifice their needs to be met at the expense of herself. With works like this re- enforces this toxic belief , it hurts young girls due to conditioning them to be in relationships with people that will take them for granted. It also emcourages girls to build a boy up and just like in real life after all Ahiru done (as a placeholder) she is left behind for the girl Mytho wanted, at the end series/ goal.
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