god loves the inland ocean

revolutionary girl utena having an explicit scene where utena grapples with and reconciles her desire to be (trans)masc amidst a patriarchal society which establishes manliness = power over women.... revolutionary girl utena ending with utena NOT rescuing anthy (the prince does not save the princess (there is no prince at all)) but instead having the latter CHOOSE to step away from akio, to step away from ohtori and it all - as a metaphor for how people can love you and push open your fourteen-year-old coffin and reach out for you and take a million swords for you, but how you as the victim must fundamentally pack your bags, say goodbye to your abuser, book the train ticket, and behold the stars once more. or whatever dante said

pisses me off to no end when people on reddit or whatever complain that the show wouldve been better off without the tuunbaq.....did we watch the same show? the tuunbaq is everything, it held everything together. the tuunbaq is the main transformative element of the terror. the tuunbaq elevates the text beyond mere historical fact and lets it say something about the expedition's broader context of imperialism. it hunted the british men who were trampling on its home as a mere stopover, a side casualty, to finding the northwest passage (for, you know, "trade with china" after britain beat china into submission after the imperialist opium war). silna couldnt complete a proper ritual with it because of the british men - just as british colonizers have historically intruded and disrupted the practice of indigenous culture. and in the end the tuunbaq dies, after all the injuries it's taken from the british over the course of 10 episodes and finally chokes to death on the worst of them. because there's no escaping the reality of colonial history, and there is especially no fantastical escape for the colonizer. there's no proper way for us to move forward otherwise.