Princess Tutu

Episode 23-24

Irish author Emma Donoghue (who is perhaps best known for her novel Room) subtitled her collection of fairy tale retellings “old tales in new skins.” That specifically refers to the fact that Kissing the Witch reframes many well-known tale types so that the princesses end up with the villainesses (and if you're up for some queer fairy tales, definitely pick this up), but it's a phrase worth considering in the greater context of fairy tale mashups and retellings. Because that's what many a writer or teller does when they seize on a folktale to form the basis of their work: they repaint the old tale so that it has a new covering. It's certainly what Drosselmeyer has been struggling to keep from happening as he tries to keep Gold Crown Town under his spell, and we can even see the pressure to keep the old stories from “corrupting” at play in Fakir's efforts to rewrite Mytho's life in order to save him.

But the thing is, there aren't any versions of stories that are any more “real” than others – for hundreds, if not thousands, of years the works we know as fairy tales have been evolving, rewritten and recounted in endless variations. And even if some stories and characters seem sacrosanct – which is part of Fakir's issue with Mytho – there are plenty of minor characters whose role could change the entire outcome of the plot. That's where Tutu comes in, and why Fakir can write about her when he can't compose about anyone else: Tutu's role in the official story ended in episode thirteen.

Or did it? In the original The Prince and the Raven Drosselmeyer wrote that Princess Tutu vanished into a speck of light after confessing her love to the prince, which he interprets as “she died.” But when Duck transforms, there's a great burst of light, no matter if she's becoming or unbecoming Tutu. Mightn't that mean that rather than dying, Tutu simply returns to being a bird? It might explain why those outside the narrative see her as a giant swan; Tutu was always a magical girl and never really fully human. But that doesn't mean that she can't become someone or something else if someone else becomes the Author of her Story.

That's an idea that's been lurking in the background ever since Fakir learned his true role in all of this, and it's also at the heart of a variety of fairy tale mashups. Into the Woods, originally performed in 1987, is perhaps the best known of these, but a better example in this case is the French children's musical Émilie Jolie (translated as “Pretty Emily”). Phillipe Chatel's story follows a little girl named Émilie Jolie as she and the narrator take a trip through her picture book, meeting a variety of characters whose problems Émilie is able to resolve by rearranging the pages or simply acceding to their wishes, such as when she pets the hedgehog, who no one else will touch because he's prickly. But the most relevant part for our purposes is when she meets the Witch. In her song, the Witch first details how she lives with ghosts and has nails “as long as winter,” before turning wistful and saying how she's waiting for Prince Charming to come and save her from herself, to give her someone besides herself to love. She doesn't want to be the Witch at all; it's just the role forced upon her.

This is almost exactly the same place that Rue is in, right down to having had the role of Princess Kraehe forced upon her. The Raven, we learn, kidnapped her when she was a baby and raised her as his own, but even that could not fully take away her true role as the prince's love: Rue and Mytho met when she was little, and it was her kiss that awoke him when he first arrived in Gold Crown Town. Now, as the Raven's curse takes hold and Mytho transforms into a raven (calling to mind both The Brothers Who Were Turned Into Birds and Beauty and the Beast), Rue is so certain that she's the Witch that she can't see that she's actually Beauty – and that means that she can't save Mytho because she doesn't recognize her own worth.

Of all of the tricks Drosselmeyer has played on the unsuspecting folk of Gold Crown Town, this is undeniably the worst. In his pursuit of tragedy he has changed the Princess Savior to the Wicked Witch, and torn between the roles, Rue is unable to move forward. Fakir as a budding author is starting to break free of his former part, and the bond that he and Duck share allows him to partake of her strength. And she is strong, as we see when Drosselmeyer tries to make her his marionette but can only control her body; her mind and heart are her own. And because her role in the original tale is done, she is more free than she realizes to help the book-true hero and heroine. Similarly, The Steadfast Tin Soldier ends when the Soldier is reduced to just his heart, and so UZURA's continued presence as Edel's heart allows her to move without the constraints of Story.

It won't be easy, but oftentimes the rewrites and retellings can bring something more to the table if the writers and tellers can manage it. From Alexander Pushkin's 1820 literary fairy tale Ruslan and Ludmilla, a Sleeping Beauty variant to Émilie Jolie finding a prince for the witch in 1979 to Emma Donoghue letting the Little Mermaid keep her voice by eschewing the prince for a different love, there's plenty of precedent for things working out as Princess Tutu moves into its final two episodes.

But then again, happy endings are largely a modern American habit, and Duck and Fakir aren't the prince and princess of this story. Are they doomed to be like Oscar Wilde's Happy Prince, giving away all that they are for someone else's happy ending?

Turn the page, and we'll find out.

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Princess Tutu is currently streaming on HiDive.