Utena, Akio, and Anthy attend a play put on by the Shadow Play Girls about the Tale of the Rose. Then Utena has a dream that shows what really happened to her when she met first met her Prince.
"The Rose Signet" provides examples of:
- Broken Tears: Utena was horrified when she saw Anthy's eternal agony.
- Children Are Innocent: As a child, Utena saw Anthy's suffering and her only thought afterwards was "I need to do something to help this poor girl."
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Dios's rampant desire to save people gradually destroyed his health, leaving his sister to cover for him at the cost of her being stabbed by the world's hatred and Dios losing his faith in humanity.
- Entitled Bastard: The people of the world basically exploited Dios's altruism and demanded he continue to rescue their daughters with no regard to what it was doing to him.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: In-Universe. "The Tale of the Rose" portrays the Rose Prince as the victim of an evil witch who turned out to be his little sister. In the play, she became bitter because she's the only girl her brother couldn't turn into a princess, so she locked him up as a witch. The play fails to mention that Anthy "sealed" her brother away because he was at the brink of death from yielding to the demands of an uncaring society.
- Humans Are Bastards: Dios and Anthy were implied to be godlike beings who tried to use their powers in service of the world. Human society, however, took Dios's heroics for granted and began demanding he save their children (daughters especially) and were more willing to take up weaponry to get him and then stab Anthy for supposedly sealing him away instead of protecting their children themselves.
- Lazy Bum: The society that demanded Dios be a savior and called Anthy a witch was motivated by someone else saving their daughters instead of trying to do it themselves or teach their daughters to rescue themselves.
- The Scapegoat: Anthy tried to protect her brother by stating she locked him away so no one could find him, and the people of the world responded by directing all of their hatred at her for stealing their savior.
- School Play: The drama club play that Utena, Anthy and Akio go see is a student production done on the cheap, with characteristic bits like the title card drawn on a chalkboard. Akio specifically draws attention to its amateurish qualities and the inaccuracy of its story. And he would know, since it's his story.
- Show Within a Show: "The Tale of the Rose" is a play put on by the school drama club (really the Shadow Girls) with Utena, Akio, and Anthy as the audience. It is a highly skewed version of Akio and Anthy's backstory and how the Duels came to be; Anthy's facial expression doesn't change once as they watch it.
