The first time I watched this video, I really didn't like it. It seemed to use a lot of tropes that I don't like: Lots of men who exist just to do Ayu's bidding and, especially, Ayu deifying herself. Plus, I found the scene where she is being pulled off of the chair really scary. The atmosphere of the song didn't seem to fit with the music video *at all*, and I kind of wondered where her head had been at when she made the video.

HOWEVER, then I watched it a second time, and have a completely different view of it. It seems to me to be a portrayal of how women are viewed by patriarchal cultures, and how damaging that portrayal is to women (and men). In patriarchal cultures, women seem to be separated into two groups: virgins or *****s, "good" women or "bad" women. When "good" women do something that isn't the epitome of femininity, they are punished severely, and men see women in general as dolls or flowers they can do anything with. The "good" women are whom I primarily see this video as being about.

Patriarchal cultures put "good" women, women who are the epitome of their notions of femininity, on a sort of a pedestal. They lift them up as fragile flowers or porcelain dolls, praising their beauty like they're a group of demi-goddesses. This view of femininity has a very, very dark side to it, and I'll talk about two reasons why here. One, flowers and porcelain dolls are good for nothing other than looking beautiful; without beauty, these things are worthless. Or, let's say the flower has medicinal properties; to exploit those properties, one must crush the flower, destroying its beauty. So, in these cultures, women can either be independent and contribute to society in a fulfilling way (the "bad" woman), or beautiful and vapid (the "good" woman), not both (in the 1800s, when a woman was sick, doctors prescribed the rest cure, which meant that their husbands shut them in a room, forced them to be fully dependent on others, and forbade them from any sort of intellectual stimulation. Intelligence was not natural in a woman).
Two, in these cultures, consent is nonexistent. Men believe that they can do anything they want to with, and to, women, no matter the woman's feelings or thoughts on the situation. In fact, her thoughts don't matter at all. Any pain or fear or anguish she's feeling doesn't matter at all. She's just a beautiful doll meant to give pleasure to men.

In these cultures, the female form is used as a symbol time and time again. Look at ancient Greece. That society was incredibly misogynistic (Zeus forced Hera to marry him, and Pandora, the first woman, was made as a punishment. Agamemnon, one of the great heroes of the Illiad, forced his wife to marry him after killing her father and first husband, and then sacrificed his daughter so he could sail to Troy.), and yet the Greek pantheon includes Athena, the goddess of war, and Artemis, the virgin goddess of the moon and of the hunt. But these two goddesses were merely symbols; they were never connected with real women, and it is the same in every patriarchal culture. Women are never viewed as having thoughts or experiences worth caring about, and the punishment for a woman overstepping her bounds is severe.

That's what I believe this video is about. The men are prime specimens of masculinity; they all look like they were sculpted by Michelangelo. Their lives are lives of grittiness and sweat, fighting and feats of strength, as they continue to fight and train and prepare for the next battle. They are living their lives, and living them well.

Ayu is there with them, leading them at one point. However, Ayu is different. The first time you see her with the men, her mouth is covered. She is there to see and be seen, but has no voice. She has to wait until one of the men takes off her face-covering and gives her a voice. Other than that, the men only stare at her; they don't interact with her. She does a few little dances that are delicate (a "typical" feminine trait), and mainly show off her beauty.

Speaking of beauty, Ayu is impeccably, immaculately beautiful here. However, nothing she is wearing has any practical value in the environment she is in. The clothes look like they are difficult to move in, and that hairband would just get in the way). Plus, she is in heels. You can't fight in heels (check out this article on the symbolism of high heels. I think it fits very well with the PV http://loosegarments.com/2011/04/21/...-helplessness/). The gold part of her bodice looks sort of like a champion belt, but that's all it is, an imitation. As she is, she can never reach the level these fighters have reached; to do so, she would have to break boundaries they would try to stop her from breaking. She is nothing more than a flower, a doll, a statue, "leading" them but not respected or truly valued by them as a complete human being, as an equal.

The next scenes, when Ayu is on the throne, show both the lie and the truth of the way patriarchal cultures put women on pedestals. In the sunset, she is glorious in her beauty, and the men stand around her, valiant protectors. However, night falls, and the truth comes out (kind of like how, in horror, all of the monsters come out after dark). She is a thing to them, and when they want something from her, they take it.

This next part is really chilling (possible trigger-warning for sexual assault survivors): Ayu doesn't get back onto her throne on her own; the men drag her down, and then the scene changes to Ayu and Timmy, and then, when it changes back, the men are pushing Ayu back to the top. Then she dies. I think the implication is all to clear.

I think the scenes of Timmy and Ayu are her psychological state as she lives the life of a woman on a pedestal, and I think Timmy's primary purpose is to egg her on, to tell her that she shouldn't change her circumstances, despite how much those circumstances are destroying her. During the sunset throne scenes, he is worshiping her, encouraging her in her life as a flower and, at the end, he seems really surprised at what happened, like he had no idea what the natural consequences of that sort of culture were. He never looks horrified at what she is going through (until the end), as if he sees her role as necessary, and that she just needs to get out her emotions and then do what she's supposed to. I'm not 100% sure on this, because I don't know what he is chanting to her, but this is my take on it so far.