TWs: discussion of abuse (especially COCSA) and incest, plus spoilers for the whole of RGU
I have seen various opinions presented on what happened in Anthy and Akio's childhood, and how this intersects with the story told by A-ko and B-ko, and at some point, I was met with something that really shocked me. In a video analysis of Utena, it was argued that what lay under the metaphor of Anthy stealing Dios away and keeping him "for herself" was that Anthy had sexually abused of Dios. Not only that, but a number of people in the comments supported this idea, and mentioned it being a pretty common interpretation of the scene. Now, I can see why one may form that opinion, considering we know Dios became Akio through some form of corruption, and the main corrupting force in RGU has always been the patriarchy, frequently through the tool of sexual assault. Furthermore, the Shadow Girls' play can be read as hinting at Anthy being jealous of the princesses, a role she could never have because she was the prince's sister, and the flashback scene itself sometimes seems to show Anthy with little to no clothing (to be fair, I think that may just be the angle but ok).
That said, I dont think Anthy "saved" Dios through COCSA.
Firstly, let us look at the flashback scene. Considering we are given the Shadow Girls' play's retelling before it to better interpret it, it is only fair to assume that the flashback is supposed to be a more accurate account of what really went down. We can never be sure, of course, this is RGU we're talking about, but I believe we are supposed to see the flashback as more truthful.
Now, I don't believe Anthy was blameless because she was the younger sibling (also to be fair I don't think she originally was, perhaps her age got stuck earlier because of the dynamic established) or because she was the female sibling, but because intimacy between children, especially siblings, is that hard to define.
Frequently, COCSA happens because of external influence. The child that involves their peer in sexual acts is usually one who has been physically assaulted themselves, or has been repeatedly exposed to other parties having sex, directly or through pornography.
From what we may assume given the living arrangements of the siblings, it is I believe likely that the one who most interacted with the outside world was Dios, and the only way the two could be exposed to the type of trauma that normally leads to children abusing their peers would be Dios' contact with the princesses and the adults surrounding them. We see this often: two children, not related, a boy and a girl, interact, and immediately the adults around them insinuate that they must have some sort of romantic interest in one another. These are the same adults who will go on to denounce child molesters, but they see nothing wrong in what is generally teasing, because they do no see children as capable of sexual relationships, and do not believe abuse within a solely romantic context may be an actual problem. This is not to say that children generally have an understanding of sexuality that may disprove the above thinking pattern, but when a child is repeatedly exposed to that line of thinking, it is not impossible to believe that they may develop a deeper though warped perception of relationships, and be introduced to patriarchy as a natural thing. Also, this leads all parties involved to be completely blind to the possibility of COCSA.
Now, imagine Dios. He is a prince. A prince. Whose role is to save princesses, in a world in which every other story is about a princess who is saved by a prince and, as a result, marries said man. He says it himself, for his services he was promised a kiss. I have no knowledge whatsoever of japanese so I do not know who is implied to have promised said kiss, thought two are the possibilities: the princess herself (probably through mediation because if she's in danger it's more difficult for her to communicate with the prince) promised she would kiss the prince upon being saved, or the adults surrounding the princess promised she would kiss the prince as a reward for her safety. Regardless of which it is, it is a pattern that repeats itself constantly, both because of the nature of the type of storytelling that surrounds fairytales, and because it must have been a common occurrence. It is likely that Dios came into contact with various princesses, and across time some of them, or their parents for them, promised Dios he would get a kiss out of it. He was thus exposed to patriarchy even more than his role as a girl-saver already had.
It is not unlikely that Dios was, at some point, exposed to the concept of sex. He had already been exposed to what kisses were, what is one step more? What then? What if it was made as a passing comment, what if he accidentally caught sight of it, what if people asked him for whatever reason to have sex with the princesses he saved, what if someone else forced sex upon him. What if?
Let us consider pre-witch Anthy. She is powerful as well, but the crowd doesn't seem to recognise her. The crowd specifically asks her "who are you?", showing the people around her really don't know who this girl is, perhaps they don't even realise that she is Dios' sister. Perhaps, Anthy has always lived in the shed, just as she always lives in the rose garden later. Perhaps the people around her did not even know she was also capable of magic. At that point, we may assume she did not have much of a social presence. If that is the case, we may assume she did not have too much contact with the outside world.
At that point, what is most likely? The solitary girl walks into town one day and is exposed to sex, or the people around her seek her out, and that is how it happens? Or the prince who wanders the world, meets people from all paths of life and is the embodiment of patriarchy, is the one being exposed to sex? Both are possible, though considering the type of story that RGU is and how blunt it is with certain elements, I find it difficult to believe that Anthy would have had the conditions around her to lead her to be the one who introduces sex in their dynamic.
That is not however to say that I believe what is implied in that scene is that Dios was the one to assault Anthy. He was laying on a bed half dead, the only thing he managed to do was be in pain, try to get up an fail, call Anthy's name. I don't believe he even had the strength to do something like that.
Then, if no sexual acts were carried out in that shed, what did happen?
As I said before, intimacy between children is hard to define. One of the reasons why early sibling incest is that horrifying to the majority of cultures is exactly because it's is difficult to notice when a line has been crossed, and thus difficult to intervene or prevent it.
When Anthy locked her brother up, saying she would "keep him for herself", I don't think she herself thought it with a sexual connotation. All we see of pre-swords Anthy is someone who cares for her brother's safety, and every time she complains about his role as prince, she says so relating to the threat it is to his life. I don't think Anthy was jealous of the princesses because she wanted to be one, she was irate because to save them, she would have to lose her brother.
That being said, Anthy locks Dios up, and as he lays there half dead, she... sleeps on him? I believe that is one of the main reasons why people think she assaulted Dios. And now is the time to go back to intimacy between children siblings! Now, let us establish some things.
It's true that we can never trust the ages of characters in RGU, because some of them have been that age for hundreds of years, but I believe that while Dios is more nebulous of a figure (as we see for example when Akio "saves" baby Utena, at that point yeah it wasn't totally Dios but he was definitely older that the Dios in the origins flashback) Anthy appears the same in the two flashbacks we see, both in the orgins and in the saving of baby Utena. We know Utena to be seven (?) at that point, and considering that they look fairly similar and that they end up being the same age in the main timeline, I am inclined to believe Anthy was the same age when Dios died, and honestly, I'm starting to think they were twins, originally (Dios in flashbacks alternatively looks the same age as Anthy or Tsuwabuki, so it may be). Current Anthy is younger only because she is stuck, by the swords and by Akio. Considering the above, Dios may have been between seven and ten.
Now that we have established them as both being children, not preteens, not teens, but children, I will make a disclaimer: my knowledge of both japanese and south-asian culture is very limited, so the inferences I will make come from my experience as southern european. I am however convinced I won't be too far off, considering RGU was produced in the 90s, when globalisation had already commenced, and because, though perhaps delusional, Touga and Nanami say it themselves: when they were younger, physical contact between the two of them was never seen as weird. In my experience at least, nudity or affection between siblings (of which at least one is male, let's remember women are generally not seen as a sexual threat in these cases) starts being seen as weird between 10 and 12. Small children bathe together without issue, they share a room and frequently also a bed without issue, hell, when you're that young people don't question you sleeping with your parents, and normally these are adults. At this point, being Anthy seven, we can at least consider the possibility that there truly was nothing sexual about her sleeping close to her brother, especially considering he was dying of exhaustion, and she was the only person present who could notice and do something about it. Before the swords, Anthy's main goal is always to keep Dios safe. Anthy never mentions anything about wanting to be Dios' princess. What she does mentions is why he has to go around and save other when that comes as a detriment to him. In my view that is being weary of his health, not indication of sexual desire.
At this point then, why does she lay on him? From that moment of the scene, Dios seems to be unconscious, probably from exhaustion. We may assume he did not die, because he is later shown regaining his senses, but it may also be that Dios did temporarily die, and the one who woke up right before Anthy was pierced by the swords of humanity was already a small Akio. two roads open up before us, then: the first, Anthy killed "Dios". She lay on him, waiting by his side for him to die, wishing for him not to do so alone. She waits, and the exhaustion we see on her face is the result of her performing some form of magic that, in due time, would bring her brother back. The cost, of course, is that to save her brother from the dangers of being a prince, he must no longer be one, and the only way that can happen is if he becomes someone else, Akio. She revived him, and he, by design, "came back wrong". The other possibility is that she simply waited for him to pass out from exhaustion, not wishing for him to do so alone, and once he was asleep she felt comfortable leaving him behind and facing the crowd outside. The one who woke up before the swords was still Dios, but was to become Akio as soon as he opened the door. Because they essentially killed his sister, and because there is nothing he can do about it. I will come back to this later.
Now, Anthy. When she walks out of the shed, we have the last bit of evidence of what she may have done to Dios. She say she has made it so that he will no longer be the prince the crowd craves, which may imply that she became the twisted version of a princess: as the play says, when there is only one prince, and the prince's sister wishes to become a princess as well, the closer she can get is to become a witch, and that is exactly what the crowd calls her. Yet, the crowd doesn't really seem to acknowledge that she is his sister, so it may be that they name her a witch because of the effect of her actions, not because the witch is a role that can only be occupied by the sister of a prince. However, she never calls herself a witch, differently from what we see in the play. She simply says that she has locked her brother up, and that is in fact enough for him to no longer be a prince, because there is no girl for him to save. Because he cannot be a prince for his own sister.
To me, there is no reason for Anthy to have assaulted Dios. not only that, but it would make much more sense if the dynamic we see today is the product not of Anthy "corrupting" Dios, and then him taking the upper hand on her once he realises what has happened. What I do believe is that the patriarchal mindset that transformed Dios into Akio, this only after Anthy has "saved" him, came from Dios' experiences.
When Akio/Dios wakes up, and finds his sister is trapped in torture forever, he tries. He is a prince, she is a girl, he must be able to save his sister, no?
I believe, the very first time, when they realise that Anthy can exist on different planes, and in one of them she is illusionarily free, Dios/Akio tries to save her. But her realises he can't do that, because she is his sister, and so he must find another method. Akio/Dios assaults Anthy because he wants to save her, though he cant. The only people he can save are princesses, and he has been taught that the other thing connected to being a princess, aside from being saved, is kissing the prince. Because the kiss came as a consequence of the saving of the princess, then perhaps he thinks it may work the other way around. If he makes Anthy his princess though a kiss, then he may be able to save her. Kissing Anthy is something he can do without issue, it is a simple act, much more than opening the Rose Gate, especially if it means saving his sister. So he tries. And he fails. He tries again. The result is the same. At some point Akio must have come to the conclusion that perhaps a kiss was not enough, and sex was the answer. He assaulted Anthy. It didn't work. He tried again. The result is the same. Despair turns to anger, not only at the circumstances, but also at Anthy, for being impossible to save.
Only after some time did Dios fully become the despicable man we know now. If the ghost of Dios still somewhat exists and has compassion for Anthy, it must mean that at some point, his intention was to free Anthy for her own sake. But Akio does not want to take the swords of humanity on himself. He does not want for his sister to be free. Somewhere along the lines, it became less about become the kind of prince that could save her sister, and more about going back to the power he had when he was everyone else's prince.
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