Well first, lemme ask this: what do you think it means exactly when it says NQS 'purified' humans that live in Crystal Tokyo? Cleansed them of evil?

Second, excluding people like the Black Moon Clan that decided to jump ship on this 'purification' process, could NSQ truly 'purify' everyone? If we are going on 'purification' meaning 'cleansed of evil/darkness' what have you, is this truly a possible feat?

Good cannot exist without evil and vice versa. It was also stated that Chaos, the root form of evil lives inside everyone and will always exist as long as stars are born.

So, what do you guys think?

(remember to keep it civil and friendly ^^)

Sometimes I wonder how significant of a personality difference there is between Neo-Queen Serenity and Usagi. Would either feel comfortable forcing a purification on the entire population (of the world or Crystal Tokyo, not sure)? Obviously the purification process was not complete or the Black Moon Clan wouldn't exist. I'm sure some people, if given the option, wouldn't want to be purified voluntarily.

So then, would that make NQS wrong for doing such a thing?

Maybe the people who couldn't be purified was due for being too evil?

I'm just going to say that no human being is completely good or pure because deep within us we are all rooted in sin if you carry that belief. Usagi and Queen Serenity are both mortal and are able to die and to me purifying everyone from evil is taking away their right to choose. Some hold morality very highly such as myself while others could care less. I don't believe there would be a completely perfect flawless human being even Usagi because she isn't a deity after all and is very capable of dying.

So then yes, NQS is wrong for even attempting to purify everyone?

I always thought that "purify" was code word for "extending lifespan." Plus, even if she can purify everyone, I think it would be much like how the Ayakashi Sisters were purified. They weren't perfect, but they had the capacity to love.

You also have to remember that there were would still be a hierarchy and the world would become one giant monarchy. They are called a King and Queen after all.

I agree with whitemoon. There's no way you can truly purify someone. Humans are filled with impurities that well make us human. ^^

thewhitemoonfamily wrote:

I always thought that "purify" was code word for "extending lifespan." Plus, even if she can purify everyone, I think it would be much like how the Ayakashi Sisters were purified. They weren't perfect, but they had the capacity to love.

Don't humans already have the capacity to love though? Just because villains may be evil doesn't mean they cannot love.

Moon Kaleido Scope wrote:

thewhitemoonfamily wrote:

I always thought that "purify" was code word for "extending lifespan." Plus, even if she can purify everyone, I think it would be much like how the Ayakashi Sisters were purified. They weren't perfect, but they had the capacity to love.

Don't humans already have the capacity to love though? Just because villains may be evil doesn't mean they cannot love.

Well I wasn't really referring to humans. I was referring to villains only when when it comes to love. And I have to disagree with love that villains experience. Every single villain I've seen in Sailor Moon doesn't love. Why else would villains lead an evil life? Maybe love drove them to the point of being evil, but once they become fully corrupted, they don't love. I mean, that's how I see it.

And humans can be purified when it comes to love. It may not be the love that everyone associates with. A human could be purified to the point where they regain the love of a hobby or they learn to love themselves, or even just become happier about their outlook on life.

That's not true o_o villains can love. Zoicite and Kunzite loved each other. Beryl loved Endymion/Mamoru. Fiore loved Mamoru. Ali and Ann loved each other. They just had bad intentions. And though I haven't rewatched R in forever, I see that Sapphir and Petz were once involved with each other and whatnot. That's all love. They just were on the side of bad rather than good.

Do you mean then you see the purification process as turning them good, then? That's what started this topic; whether or not NSQ can truly fully purify a person ^^ and whether or not she was wrong to even try.

Moon Kaleido Scope wrote:

That's not true o_o villains can love. Zoicite and Kunzite loved each other. Beryl loved Endymion/Mamoru. Fiore loved Mamoru. Ali and Ann loved each other. They just had bad intentions. And though I haven't rewatched R in forever, I see that Sapphir and Petz were once involved with each other and whatnot. That's all love. They just were on the side of bad rather than good.

Do you mean then you see the purification process as turning them good, then? That's what started this topic; whether or not NSQ can truly fully purify a person ^^ and whether or not she was wrong to even try.

I didn't mean that a villain doesn't love at all. Their love may have been real before they became full-blown villains, but they after that they were driven only by their evil. Beryl loved Endymion BEFORE she was corrupted by her jealousy. Fiore loved Mamoru, but then was driven by evil only to be a flower's puppet. Petz always complained about men and wanted to make everyone hate each other just because she forgot what love really feels like. Kunzite and Zoicite.....that's a whole different story. I honestly didn't think they truly loved each other but that's for a different topic. xD

As for the purification process, I meant that all people were able to receive hope, rather than thrive in hopeless thoughts. That could mean a host of things, like to be happy, or to be able to breathe easy without the constant worry of crime or disease.

And I think it was a good thing. I mean some tend to think that NQS was horrible for doing that. Why? If the state of the world is grave, like they described, then why not try to render the world? Refresh it, so to speak? I think it's a beautiful thing that the Queen did. And isn't that how she became Queen in the first place?

I like the idea of her refreshing the world ^^ I'd have to agree with you there. I don't think she would be able to fully rid the world of evilness/darkness/wickedness/etc.

Same! That's how the Black Moon Clan originates basically. I mean, in every single story, whenever someone wants to create a utopia, it ironically becomes dystopian as soon as you can say disaster.

Sadly, I think someone down the line, people will start to think, hey maybe I'm sick of being pure....and they will make Crystal Tokyo into a horrid place. But I mean, it can be rendered....hopefully.

Yeah... So whatever good intentions NQS wouldn't ever stay "realized" because it's impossible. Humans, at their core as Anjyu mentioned, are rooted with sin or wickedness.

Humans suck XD

I can't take this whole idea of 'purification' seriously. How is this even supposed to look? 

If Usagi decided to purify Beryl? Beryl supposedly became evil because of jealousy. If Usagi took that jealousy away would that really be a good thing? Beryl's jealousy is rooted in love. If Usagi took away her jealousy, her love would disappear also. 

Even if Usagi managed to miraculously 'purify' Beryl, what does purification even mean? Does that suddenly make Beryl pure? Is her soul free from the taint of her sins as well as her jealousy? Can Usagi just wash away the wrongs that Beryl commited? And if so, is it right? 

Beryl thought she was right (even if her mind was being manipulated by Metallia, but just ignore that part). What gives Usagi the right to 'purify' her/anyone? To take their free will away? To erase the part she sees as 'evil'?

To me purifying sounds like brainwashing. So, yes, I think she is wrong to do so.

Well, if she could or did purify people, I'd see why the Black Moon Clan might have rebelled. It's not that I'd support them, but I feel many people would go against being purified if they felt it meant they lost their ability to choose to be good or evil. If that's the case, I could see why people would choose to rebel, preferring war and free-will, over peace (which could be viewed as forced submission).

I don't think she could, or rather, she shouldn't. This subject is IMO one of the weakest elements of SM's plot and one of the reasons I don't like the idea of Crystal Tokyo. As people have asked before, what does "purify" even mean in that context? It's so poorly defined.

It very well could mean removing evil from the hearts of humans. It could mean removing negativity. But that's not a good thing. As sad as it is, the fact of the matter is that humans, and all living things, are not perfect. We humans define ourselves partly by our flaws. We are capable of good and evil. We feel a range of emotions, good and bad. 

I am reminded of a couple of SM fanfics I've read. One was The Undeserving. It really takes a jab at the idea, asking things like "Without sadness, what is happiness? Without struggle, how do we appreciate our rewards?" Negativity helps up appreciate the good things. A little bit of selfishness makes us appreciate when others are selfless.

The other fanfic was Moon Senshi: Children of Destiny. It takes purification to mean "the removal of negative emotions", and shows how it essentially amounts to lobotomy. Without negative emotions, there are no likes or dislikes. Love is cheapened. And without negative emotions, which one might constitute "evil", music is empty, art is pointless, and writing is bland. Michiru would hate it.

What about a world without anger? Anger can be bad, but also good. If you saw someone bashing a kid into the sidewalk, you would be wrong NOT to be angry. Anger shows what we care about. And besides, no matter what Usagi did, evil still existed. The Black Moon Clan found evil magic.

If you want to get rid of evil and pain, it needs to be done across everything. You can't just rid it on a single planet. So no, Usagi couldn't purify people, and shouldn't. If purify just meant removing a possessing influence and return them to regular humans (with flaws) that would be fine. But it wasn't. The people were recovering from an ecological disaster.

Phantom, I do have to agree with what you are saying. 

I also think that good cannot exist without evil, and vice versa. Evil and good will never be completely destroyed. I don't think Neo Queen Serenity, or Sailor Moon or anyone really is able to ever completely purify someone. I think what ends up happening is that the evil becomes very small and with so much goodness surrounding it, it does not have a chance to really expand unless a person in some way is weak. I'm kind of borrowing from Legend of Korra and Supernatural and a few other thing I've read but I think it does work.

Addelyn wrote:

Phantom, I do have to agree with what you are saying. 

I also think that good cannot exist without evil, and vice versa. Evil and good will never be completely destroyed. I don't think Neo Queen Serenity, or Sailor Moon or anyone really is able to ever completely purify someone. I think what ends up happening is that the evil becomes very small and with so much goodness surrounding it, it does not have a chance to really expand unless a person in some way is weak. I'm kind of borrowing from Legend of Korra and Supernatural and a few other thing I've read but I think it does work.

I see what you are saying but I still don't like the way they use "purify" when referring to people who are presumably not possessed by dark magic. It's just... really bad and clumsy. I'd rather just blot the word out completely.

I do get why they are using the word purify, it does mean to remove, but one can never remove evil completely so it seems she "removes" as much of the evil as she can. I don't think it refers to dark magic when it talks about purifying. I think it just refers to anything bad, anything evil. 

At the same time, if you remove evil from a person, then aren't you really taking away their free will? They don't get to make those kind of decisions any long.

Exactly. By removing all negativity you rip apart someone's personality. It's like a lobotomy, and when you think about it, it's not that different from killing someone. It DOES rob them of their free will. Which is why I hate the idea, since that's one very valid interpretation, and it would be a very awful thing for these characters to do, even unintentionally.

I mean I admit I never read the part of the translated manga that mentioned this, but none of the story I read on the wiki and the like ever helped to eliminate the possibility.

And don't get me wrong. I try to be an optimist and want to believe people have good intentions, and that the characters would be smart enough not to do something like that, but when I read that, I just think it was an idea that got put in there without a lot of thought, you know?

I think it was put there with thought that or it just honestly got lost in translation. I think NQS meant to make the world a good place, where no one gets hurt. I think she had good intentions but if we think about it, does that really just make her a dictator?

A world where no one gets hurt, or rather, a perfect place or utopia, is impossible. After all, the meaning of utopia in Greek is "no place". And the existence of the Black Moon already proves that. But speaking of dictator, it does make you wonder about what sort of horrible disaster happened that the remaining people of Earth would agree to unite under a monarchy (which most of our societies no longer trust). And not just that, but a monarchy under someone they don't really know, and who may or may not have the ability to properly rule a nation.

And besides, a real utopia is terrible for a story because it would, by definition, be boring.

I have always wondered what events happened to cause NQS to do what she did. Maybe this honestly was the better of the two evils. Also, we don't know what's going on in the REST of the world, only Crystal Tokyo. Maybe outside of CT, the place is horrible, deadly, savage place. I may be dating myself a bit with this reference but think Land Before Time, but more specifically the Great Valley vs. the rest of the world. In the Great Valley things are peaceful. There are no predators running around, the dinosaurs have enough food and water to eat Kind of like a peaceful utopia. Outside of the Great Valley, there is a huge drought. There are predators every where and severe lack of food and water and who knows what other kind of dangers.  

Maybe living under the rule of NQS was the best choice these people had.

That does seem like a more interesting interpretation, not the cheeriest of course, but definitely more interesting. And in that case you could twist the use of the word "purify" to simply mean she rid them of disease. Especially if, say, the area outside of Crystal Tokyo was overrun with diseases and the like and she just got rid of whatever plague(s) they were suffering from or something. Definitely better than the vague idea that seems to have been given.

I believe this is cannon in the manga, from what I've read on wiki sites since I haven't read the manga yet myself, but I think NQS did put people into a sleep state for a long time, so Chibiusa is a heck of a lot older than she is. Also, by the looks of CT that we've seen, it kind of looks like it's in a dome structure. Kind of like lets keep the bad stuff out.

Maybe by purifying people, Neo-Queen Serenity clears their minds of bad influences so they can reflect on their decisions better. They can still go back to doing bad things if they choose to, but they get a mental and emotional fresh start. Or maybe the world before Crystal Tokyo was overrun with evil energy that needed to be removed, and it can potentially make a comeback if people do morally terrible acts and cause chaos.

I tend to have a hard time believing that it could be anything on the level of monstrous when the anime already gives us an idea of what purification actually looks like. It's not like the Ayakashi sisters suddenly lose the ability to bicker and argue or other such normal things that people do.

On that note, consider the following- going by the anime, the people who survived to even see the rise of Crystal Tokyo were people who had just gone though what was effectively the end of the world. The entire old civilization of man had been completely and utterly destroyed by the great freeze. Most people have a hard enough time even coping with the normal kinds of loss intrinsic to the human condition, and for something like this to happen, on that scale, to everyone would result in a whole lot of seriously messed-up people, through no fault of their own, and one can't build a new world out of severely, deeply traumatized people. My thought on the matter would be that the purification was a way of the healing the deep wounds caused by the death of the old world, so that people could once again have hope for the new. I'm not exactly sure on the details, as I just came up with the idea five minutes ago, but there it is.