Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. Be very glad that they don't.
Author's note: Gosh, how long has it been since my last Princess Tutu fanfic? Too long, in my opinion. So, to fix that I decided to write up a little drabble about Princess Tutu herself from her creator Drosselmeyer's point of view. It's an odd little idea but I hope it's enjoyable to read. Please remember to leave feedback, as it's very much appreciated.
Princess Tutu, Drosselmeyer decides, is his favorite character out of all the numerous ones he's ever written for.
Logically, he should despise her for all the trouble she caused, making his struggles for creating the greatest tragedy in the world all the more difficult. But he also found that he felt grateful to her for the exact same reason. The suffering she endured in her efforts to help the prince had helped give Drosselmeyer a greater misunderstanding about the more enigmatic aspects of writing tragedies. This unexpected development had taught him that there were three very important factors to writing a tragedy that would give it the impact he desired.
The first development to be made to get the tragedy moving along is setting it off with a cruel disaster or misunderstanding, which is something Drosselmeyer has certainly perfected. He personally finds this to be the most exciting part of the story to develop. Too exciting, his mind reprimands him on many an occasion, his unfinished tragedy a good reminder to control his indulgence. After all, his abnormal obsession for tragedies was the reason why Princess Tutu had been necessary to develop in the first place
The second necessary requirement is trickier for Drosselmeyer, because it needs a certain subject he detests writing or reading about: hope. Though it didn't seem like much at first glance, it has proved to be a formidable foe time and time again his storytelling endeavors. Being a lover of tragedies, it was only natural that Drosselmeyer preferred to avoid resorting to using it as often as humanely possible. For as long as he could remember back to, Drosselmeyer always found it easier to get invested in the characters when they suffering because in his eyes that's when they were most human.
He soon grew to be incredibly fascinated by the tragedy genre, to the point where that was all that he wanted to read. Thus, what had started out as a simple controversial interest in literature matured into a deadly obsession that would be responsible for many future casualties. While it left him at a great disadvantage as a result it also gave him ample opportunity to give his greatest masterpiece The Prince and The Raven the grand finale it deserved. And that is precisely where Princess Tutu came into the picture.
Her whole existence had thrown everything he had planned out of balance, prompting him to react by giving her the only punishment he saw fit, by writing out the cruelest ending for her that he could fathom at the time, being destined to suffer an unrequited love. For as soon as she were to confess her love for the prince in the story, she would instantaneously vanish in a brilliant flash of light, never to return again. At first, he had naively assumed, this was the last he'd ever have to see of this character ever again.
Oh, how wrong he was.
Unsatisfied with the alterations Princess Tutu had made in his original vision, he decided to rewrite the story, giving it a different direction that should surely be able to stand on its own without her. But much to his dismay, she had somehow managed to sneak into the story anyways, against his will completely, this time with a different story, although Drosselmeyer could easily recognize her. Her dedication to her friends which would never waver even if they showed no appreciation for her, her amount of compassion towards the suffering of others and worst of all, her endless supply of hope that shine light on even the darkest of situations.
It was as if no matter what changes he added, this beacon of light was always there, serving as a nightlight for the characters in the story, chasing away their monsters before they could be consumed by them, holding their hand protectively as she helps lead them away from their despair. And while doing all this, Princess Tutu had the nerve to not be so easily prone to suffering as the rest of the character cast. It got so out of control that Drosselmeyer had to resort to confiding his struggles to his creative consultant, Edel.
Edel, like Princess Tutu, had been one of the most significant characters he'd ever created in his career as a freelance writer. But she did not deserve the same contempt that Princess Tutu did, for at least she actually obeyed when it became necessary for her to help his stories move along. While he generally appreciated the advice she gave, he wasn't sure how to feel about the advice she had given him for this problem. To this day, he had never quite fully grasped what she had been trying to tell him.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Until you realize this, the outcome of this phenomenon that troubles you can never be altered."
Drosselmeyer, in hopes of appeasing his confusion, bitterly came to a solution that he found most distasteful but important to divulge into if he wanted his brilliant story to have any chances of surviving through this haitus, by developing Tutu until he discovered her purpose. It wasn't until it was too late when Drosselmeyer fully realized the true potential she could add to the story and worked hard to give her a meaningful role in the story. Unfortunately, all of that effort had come to a complete halt, when the people who suffered from the aftermath of his tragic tales and had revolted against him.
Two severed hands, twenty six unplanned plot twists and one bittersweet happily ever after later, Drosselmeyer finally realized the last part of a tragedy that any experienced storyteller of his caliber should know.
An unfinished ending was exactly what this story had needed all along. And it frustrated him a little to know that he had taken such a long time to understand this since he could've avoided all this mess alot sooner. What he should've been focusing on the entire time he was writing The Prince and The Raven was the ending. And that was something that Princess Tutu had helped greatly with. So really, he couldn't help but feel incredibly grateful to her. Ah, she was a truly tragic piece of art, an unfinished tale eternally wandering an abyss of unrealized dreams.
Even more tragic was the fact that she would never be able to find a happy conclusion for that was how she was written. She had served her purpose of moving the story along and now it no longer needed her. But that's all fine, Drosselmeyer agrees. A plot device isn't meant to do anything else other than the role they're given. Besides, in the great scheme of things, that's all Princess Tutu ever really was.
The End