| D. D. Drosselmeyer | |
|---|---|
 "All children who love stories, come gather 'round." | |
| Name | D. D. Drosselmeyer |
| Kanji | ドロッセルマイヤー |
| Rōmaji | Dorosserumaiyā |
| Characteristics | |
| Age | Unknown |
| Gender | Male |
| Eyes | Orange |
| Hair | White |
| Professional Status | |
| Occupation | Storyteller |
| Personal Status | |
| Status | Deceased |
| Relatives | Fakir (descendant) |
| First Appearance | |
| Anime Debut | Akt 1 - The Duck and the Prince |
| Voices | |
| Japanese Voice | Noboru Mitani |
D. D. Drosselmeyer is the main antagonist of the anime. Introduced as a mysterious otherworldly figure, he is eventually revealed as the author of the story that is inflicting tragedy on the people of Gold Crown Town.
Appearance[]
Drosselmeyer is an elderly man with a short three-pronged beard and long white hair. He has wide, large eyes and is almost always seen with a grin on his face.
He wears very eccentric clothing, including a hat with large multicolored plumes, a long green tunic with dangling sleeves, brown tights and boots, and a maroon cape with a design of a green lizard on the back. He is often seen holding a pocketwatch.
Personality[]
At first, he appears to be mostly on Ahiru's side, trying to encourage her to continue in her task to recover Mytho's lost heart, even when things become difficult for her. But he has a sadistic streak that's obvious from the start, and it soon becomes clear that the sort of story Drosselmeyer finds entertaining likely won't be as happy as the characters might want.
In the series, Drosselmeyer takes a mostly passive role (or at least seems to), commenting on the action and giving Ahiru, and occasionally other characters, little pushes in the directions he'd like to see the story go.
Thanks to being a writer and storyteller in the series, Drosselmeyer is often very genre savvy, particularly when it comes to fairy tales. He takes great delight in telling the other characters what they should be doing per their "roles" in the story, and will sometimes even scold the characters for subverting their roles and trying to do something beyond what's expected of them. However, even when things seem to be going against what he'd wanted, after a brief moment of frustration he chippers back up as long as the twist is at least entertaining.
This is, perhaps, the part of Drosselmeyer that is most chilling—although his "characters" are real people trapped in a story, he's fine with anything happening to them, as long as the story is entertaining. While this is a perfectly reasonable reaction towards fictional characters, the sociopathic personality needed to treat real people this way along with the near-godlike power to actually make it happen makes Drosselmeyer far more of a villain than even the Raven.
He is all for tragedy and finds anything idealistic and hopeful in a story to be "boring". At one point, he tries to get Ahiru to stop putting Mytho's best interests before her own and be more selfish about her love because a selfless heroine isn't of his liking.
In spite of this, he is not a hypocrite. At the end of the series, realizing he is not the true author of the story after all, he accepts his fate as a character in someone else's story with good humor.
History[]
Years before the opening of the series, Drosselmeyer was a profitable writer until the townspeople began to fear his ability to warp reality with his writing. He was working on his masterpiece, The Prince and the Raven, when the Book Men arrived, cutting off his hands to stop him from using his powers. With his dying breath, Drosselmeyer wrote in his own blood, managing to bring the writing machine into existence and allowing him to continue writing even after his passing.
His death left his story unfinished and the two titular characters trapped in an endless battle. However, his machine allowed him to keep influencing the tale, forcing Mytho to shatter his heart and creating a world where reality and fairy tale intermingle. Seeing the opportunity to orchestrate a tragedy, he offers the pendant to Duck that allows her to become both a girl and Princess Tutu, setting his plan in motion.
Drosselmeyer generally prefers to stay outside of the story, remaining in an alternate dimension where he can watch the narrative unfold. He often employs his puppet Edel to keep the story moving, using her as a mentor in his stead. In Akt 7, he uses a grandfather clock to enter Gold Crown Town, attempting unsuccessfully to stop Duck from abandoning her role as Princess Tutu.
Princess Tutu gets the opportunity to meet Drosselmeyer in his own world when he captures her at the end of Akt 22. While she is in his dimension, he controls her like one of his puppets, having a tea party with her where he espouses her tragic role and tries to push her back into becoming a speck of light. He seems mostly unaware that Duck's feelings on Mytho have changed and that a genuine connection has formed between herself and Fakir instead. When Uzura manages to rewind the narrative from within, Drosselmeyer is shocked that someone else is controlling his story.
Now aware that Fakir has the same abilities as him, Drosselmeyer makes another direct appearance in Akt 25, freezing time and controlling Fakir. He forces him to write about Duck's suffering in the Lake of Despair in an attempt to break their spirits. His influence is only broken when Fakir stabs himself through the hand, sending him back to his own dimension. After this, Drosselmeyer only watches on as his characters persevere through the final battle, much to his dismay.
However, once his writing machine is destroyed and the day is won, Drosselmeyer basically shrugs it off, and goes with Uzura to find a new story.
Trivia[]
- Drosselmeyer is named after a character (the uncle) in The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which was adapted into a ballet by Tchaikovsky.
- He is the author of the Ghost Knight story (Akt 18), and Ein Wunderlich Mann (Akt 20).
- Though he is never seen at this time, he remarks that Fakir looks much like him when he was his age.
Gallery[]
