I cannot stop thinking about aro!Mytho it’s SUCH good concept.
The thing is, while I did come to appreciate his character more upon rewatch, I do think there was a huge missed opportunity in Princess Tutu by not really having him challenge the fate set out for him. There were elements and allusions to it (in him choosing Rue, the Raven’s daughter, as his princess, the hint that he might never be unaffected by the raven’s blood, and of course him stating he wants to ‘love Rue more than anyone else’, which. we’ll get to), but overall, he was what was expected of him and did what was expected of him when it was expected of him. And that makes sense, he’s the only character who actually did get created for the sake of Drosselmeyer’s story, but I still think the anime could’ve been more powerful if he, too, had chosen to defy the story.
The nature of ‘love’ in Princess Tutu is really interesting to me, in no large part because I’m aromantic. Personally, I felt like Princess Tutu, for the most part, didn’t separate romantic and platonic love. There were some exceptions, such as the fact that Rue and Mytho’s feelings for each other were obviously coded as romantic, but even then, it could get blurry. Rue was manipulated to believe only the Raven and Mytho could love her, but at no point is there a distinction drawn between the type of love they’d have for her.
You can also see this with how the show handles Ahiru’s crush on Mytho; while it starts off as romantic, it gradually changes to platonic. I’ve seen some people say that Ahiru stops loving Mytho, and I strongly disagree with that assessment. Until the very end, Ahiru is willing to go to the ends of the earth for Mytho, in what is pretty clearly framed as an act of love.
But while it’s implied the nature of her love has shifted, at no point does the show imply the intensity of her love has diminished. If anything, it has grown. In a similar way, Fakir and Ahiru’s love for each other is never explicitly framed or implied to be either romantic or platonic; you could make arguments for it, sure, but ultimately, it’s never made ‘canon’.
This is because, at the end of the day, it isn’t important. It doesn’t really matter whether the love you feel for someone else is platonic or romantic, and the show makes little effort to distinguish the two. The only time the show implies one is stronger than the other is when Mytho says he wishes to love Rue more than anyone else, which is something that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but even then, you could argue it’s less about romance, and more about giving Rue what she always wanted, and having Mytho defy his ‘loves everyone’ designation.
The amorphous nature of love in Princess Tutu is a large part of why I think the idea of an aromantic Mytho is so interesting. Prince Siegfried’s whole deal was being the ideal fairytale prince, who is loved by everyone and who loves everyone in return. In canon, he defied this expectation by loving Rue more than anyone else.
But to me, at least, this feels like less of a defiance, and more of an extension. Loving Rue in no way prohibits loving anyone else; this is a lesson Rue herself had to learn during the course of the show. I admit to being biased here because I really don’t like the implication that loving someone romantically is stronger than loving someone platonically, but I also simply don’t think this was that much of a subversion. If anything, it feels like a natural consequence of Mytho regaining his heart; it’s near impossible for someone to love everyone equally, after all.
None of this is bad, for the record. It works just fine within the context of the story, framing Mytho as a person rather than a flawless fairytale prince. But I think the idea of Mytho being aromantic would reinforce that personhood in a different way, and in addition, add some interesting questions about love to the show’s canon.
Recently within the aromantic community, there has been a bit of backlash to an idea that was - and still is - very prominent within the aro community: the importance of platonic love. Society, as a whole, positions love as an almost supernatural good, and claims it is what makes us human. As a result, aromantic people, who either cannot fall in love romantically or have unusual ways of doing so, felt the need to reinforce their humanity by pointing out that we can still feel platonic love. This has become a cornerstone of the community.
The backlash has come primarily from neurodivergent and traumatized aros, who can (for various reasons) feel disconnected from or uncomfortable with the concept of love in general. This is where the concept of ‘loveless aros’ stems from. The identity doesn’t necessarily mean that one doesn’t experience love (though many people do define it as such), but is primarily meant as a way to challenge the idea that love is what makes us human, and that platonic love is what gives aromantics their worth despite not being able to love romantically (or doing so in ways that aren’t ‘societally approved’). If love is what makes us human, why is it that there are humans who don’t feel it, or don’t want to feel it?
Princess Tutu is, in no large part, a show about love. Personally, as an aro with a complicated relationship to love, I think it does better than most shows about the subject. While I really do like and enjoy shows about the strength of love (specifically platonic love), I can’t help but feel alienated by them as they praise this idea of an all-important, universal, almost divine emotion that is the cause of all good on the planet. Because that is absolutely not my experience with the concept of love.
Princess Tutu does better than most shows not just because it puts platonic love and romantic love on equal footing, and in fact largely doesn’t sepearte the two, but also because it’s willing to show the negative effects that love can have. Toxic love is a huge part of the show, and while I don’t think all aspects of it were handled 100% brilliantly (Fakir should’ve at least apologized to Mytho for his behaviour in the first few episodes, for starters), I am impressed by how well it manages to examine the concept nonetheless. It’s part of the reason why Princess Tutu alienates me less than a lot of other shows with similar themes.
But it still frames love as something more important than all other emotions, in a way, the pinnacle of emotion. And I think it would be interesting to challenge that notion by making Mytho an aro, specifically, a loveless aro.
I do not necessarily mean that in the sense that he should not feel love (though I wouldn’t mind that either). I mean it in the sense of the fairytale prince, said to love everyone, rejecting that notion. Love has brought Mytho great things, sure, but also terrible things; it’s what lifted the Raven’s enchantment, but also what put the enchantment on him in the first place. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say it’s very possible that this left him with rather complicated emotions towards the concept of love.
What if he found himself incapable of loving Rue more than anyone, no matter how much he wanted to, because he does care deeply about her and feels like she deserves someone who gives her that kind of love? What if the prince who loves everyone grew resentful of the hurts he’d suffered in the name of love? What if it made him fearful of it, even? Who does that leave him as? If he’s not Prince Siegfried, the prince who loves everyone, who is he? Who is Mytho?
Of course, he’s still infinitely kind, and his first instinct is to help everyone in trouble, and he has no problem following that instinct through. But I think the notion of Prince Siegfried rejecting the idea of love, and instead valuing kindness above all else to be a fascinating one. I think it lends a lot of depth to both his character and the show’s themes of love.
So yeah loveless aro!Mytho is a GREAT concept actually.
