KuroKari wrote:

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.

That is actually a really good idea. You can see purifying as a form of healing perhaps. Help the people get over the tragedy or whatever it was they went through to cause the freeze so society can "function" more or less. But does this "purifying" only heal? I was just re-watching the last fight of SM against SG and one thing I noticed was the big theme on Hope, so does puriyfing just increase a person's hope or does it heal? Or does it do both?

I want to bring up something here!

The dome around Crystal Tokyo is probably for protection for NQS's family and friends. If you think about it back in the Silver Millennium Queen Serenity had no protection around the moon (to my knowledge) which cost them their lives. The dome stops any evil foe is trying to attack the city. Or at least it should judging by the Black Moon attacks.

I like to think the whole world was return to normal after NQS saved the planet and purified it. To me she is a dictator because she united the world and became its single ruler. She has all absolute power and by detention that's a dictator. You don't have to be oppressive to be consider a dictator. Usagi wouldn't hurt a fly, but she is keeping freewill from people from not allowing people to decide what government they want to live under. Maybe she has representatives that people can vote for the region they live in.  But still people aren't getting a choice. 

To me purify means she is getting rid of all evil thoughts and healing physical wounds and diseases. I like to think that everyone on the planet has extended life (not just in Crystal Tokyo) Even though people will die of old age I personally would not want to live over 1000 years. Especially if I was like Chibiusa and was stuck in a child's body for 900 years. She can't be the only one who stopped growing.


I just find Crystal Tokyo to be majorly flaw and I am not a big fan of Utopias. They are boring as hell and they can never exist. Humans are flawed creatures and they will always be.

Yamichan16 wrote:

To me purify means she is getting rid of all evil thoughts and healing physical wounds and diseases. I like to think that everyone on the planet has extended life (not just in Crystal Tokyo) Even though people will die of old age I personally would not want to live over 1000 years. Especially if I was like Chibiusa and was stuck in a child's body for 900 years. She can't be the only one who stopped growing.

See, this is the thing. You cannot have good without evil, evil without good. If you take away evil, how much free will actually remains? People no longer are able to make the choice, oh, do I kill that person or not? Do I rob the store or not? Although I like the idea of healing physical wounds and diseases though. I just dislike the idea of getting ride of all evil thoughts, plus I don't think it's possible. Ying and Yang, one cannot exist without the other.

Addelyn wrote:

See, this is the thing. You cannot have good without evil, evil without good. If you take away evil, how much free will actually remains? People no longer are able to make the choice, oh, do I kill that person or not? Do I rob the store or not? Although I like the idea of healing physical wounds and diseases though. I just dislike the idea of getting ride of all evil thoughts, plus I don't think it's possible. Ying and Yang, one cannot exist without the other.

Yeah, I agree. As much as people would like to strive for world peace, humanity as a whole would prefer freedom of choice over a peaceful "utopia". 

Which I think would be a great prerequisite to the Black Moon Clan. They believed they lost their freedom, they rebelled and were expelled to Nemesis, causing them to become pawns of Death Phantom.

magic713 wrote:

Addelyn wrote:

See, this is the thing. You cannot have good without evil, evil without good. If you take away evil, how much free will actually remains? People no longer are able to make the choice, oh, do I kill that person or not? Do I rob the store or not? Although I like the idea of healing physical wounds and diseases though. I just dislike the idea of getting ride of all evil thoughts, plus I don't think it's possible. Ying and Yang, one cannot exist without the other.

Yeah, I agree. As much as people would like to strive for world peace, humanity as a whole would prefer freedom of choice over a peaceful "utopia". 

Which I think would be a great prerequisite to the Black Moon Clan. They believed they lost their freedom, they rebelled and were expelled to Nemesis, causing them to become pawns of Death Phantom.

Were they given a choice in the matter or did Usagi just decide Ok, this is how it should be? Granted, she probably did it coming from a good place, but we know historically that just because you have good intentions, doesn't mean what you are doing is right. What kind of choice did these people have? 

I would like to think that Usagi gave people a choice, told them what would happen when she purifies them. I still think purification though just increases the light and hope in someone and decreases the evil in a person, along with the healing properties we've been mentioning the last few posts. Hope is also a choice and I don't think Usagi would take away that choice from people.

I don't think Usagi took away people's pain necessarily. As much as we would love to, you can't just take pain and loss and painful memories away from people, as it helps to define and shape us. And personally, I'd prefer to keep Usagi's magic away from the human mind and soul. I just don't think she'd be able to work her magic precisely enough so as not to lobotomize people.

As for inspiring hope, I'm suddenly reminded of Green Lantern. In that franchise, emotion can be condensed into power and light, to form the seven lights of the Emotional Spectrum. The blue light is the light of hope, the same as faith. And the Blue Lanterns that harness and shape this energy are chosen by their ability to inspire (and feel) great hope. And they can use their rings to help inspire hope in others.

Now that act comes off as genuine, because their power acts as a comfort, and their feelings of hope are sincere (trust me, the ring is intelligent enough to literally detect insincerity). It's like a hug that doesn't take away the tragedy, but comforts instead. It physically heals too. It extinguishes the flames of the red light of rage, settles the endless hunger of the orange light of avarice, and drains the power of yellow fear. But that's the relationship between hope and other emotions. It's not false emotional manipulation, it's honest comfort. I think Usagi could provide that without having to magically mess with people's heads. Their bodies, sure, but not their heads.

And of course, there's the Indigo Tribe, who harness the indigo light of Compassion. Of course, with the Spectrum, the farther you are away from the center (green willpower), the more sway the light can have on the user. The Indigos are all sociopaths, people without a conscience. They feel no empathy at all. But having the ring placed on them makes them feel empathy, as long as the ring turned on and on them. It wasn't a way to redeem them, just a means of imprisoning the worst of the worst and harnessing the indigo light for a coming battle.

But to be fair, the Indigo ring has surpassed expectations. Long-time exposure to its power seem to have made the effect permanent. When their rings went offline, their leader, the first of them all, felt so sad for the crimes she'd committed that she cried, and her feelings were strong enough to make her ring spark, not an easy feat.

Am I making sense or am I rambling?

Phantom53 wrote:

I don't think Usagi took away people's pain necessarily. As much as we would love to, you can't just take pain and loss and painful memories away from people, as it helps to define and shape us. And personally, I'd prefer to keep Usagi's magic away from the human mind and soul. I just don't think she'd be able to work her magic precisely enough so as not to lobotomize people.

As for inspiring hope, I'm suddenly reminded of Green Lantern. In that franchise, emotion can be condensed into power and light, to form the seven lights of the Emotional Spectrum. The blue light is the light of hope, the same as faith. And the Blue Lanterns that harness and shape this energy are chosen by their ability to inspire (and feel) great hope. And they can use their rings to help inspire hope in others.

Now that act comes off as genuine, because their power acts as a comfort, and their feelings of hope are sincere (trust me, the ring is intelligent enough to literally detect insincerity). It's like a hug that doesn't take away the tragedy, but comforts instead. It physically heals too. It extinguishes the flames of the red light of rage, settles the endless hunger of the orange light of avarice, and drains the power of yellow fear. But that's the relationship between hope and other emotions. It's not false emotional manipulation, it's honest comfort. I think Usagi could provide that without having to magically mess with people's heads. Their bodies, sure, but not their heads.

And of course, there's the Indigo Tribe, who harness the indigo light of Compassion. Of course, with the Spectrum, the farther you are away from the center (green willpower), the more sway the light can have on the user. The Indigos are all sociopaths, people without a conscience. They feel no empathy at all. But having the ring placed on them makes them feel empathy, as long as the ring turned on and on them. It wasn't a way to redeem them, just a means of imprisoning the worst of the worst and harnessing the indigo light for a coming battle.

But to be fair, the Indigo ring has surpassed expectations. Long-time exposure to its power seem to have made the effect permanent. When their rings went offline, their leader, the first of them all, felt so sad for the crimes she'd committed that she cried, and her feelings were strong enough to make her ring spark, not an easy feat.

Am I making sense or am I rambling?

I think we're talking more about physical pain than emotional pain, but I do understand your point. Even with physical pain, someone who was in an accident lets say shark attack (Ok, so I totally have sharks on the brain lately, I so want a shark tank!!), it becomes part of who they are, as they were able to survive it and move on with their life. 

Really eh? The Indigo Tribe was a bunch of sociopaths. I've recently gotten into comic books and GL (with Hal being my favourite GL) is one of my favourite series. I didn't know about that, that's pretty cool. 

Yep, you are totally making sense. I do like the part about the hug. What about her "purifying", going off your hug, is a way to help people heal themselves from emotional trauma? It gives them the hope and will power to be able to do it themselves, thus keeping in tack free will?

Good to see another fan. Yeah, the Indigos are all murdering psychos without those rings. They were just captured and had the ring forced on them. That came out in the New 52 I believe. One of the few things I liked from that.

And taking ideas from GL, inspiring hope in others comforts them and gives them strength to carry on. Hope and will feed off each other after all, in the GL comics, and when you think about it, real life. Of course I think Usagi could inspire hope in other people just by being who she is not just with her magic. Right?

Phantom53 wrote:

And taking ideas from GL, inspiring hope in others comforts them and gives them strength to carry on. Hope and will feed off each other after all, in the GL comics, and when you think about it, real life. Of course I think Usagi could inspire hope in other people just by being who she is not just with her magic. Right?

Usagi's willpower was always stronger when her hope was at its strongest, I think it was what was able to help her "evolve" into her next senshi form. She most likely just wanted people to have good lives where no one ever gets hurt.

As you said about inspiring hope, that's exactly what I thought it was the meaning of "purify" in this case. 
As it was said in the anime(and discussed in a topic here), Usagi is the most pure of all sailors. She inspired hope and brought life to the lives of all other senshi. They were all so lonely. Her personality made Uranus and Neptune bow to her and accept her as their princess. 
That said, I believe that her ability to inspire hope, peace and bring out the best of everyone she connects with is something that in the future with all her power she could probably have done in a world-scale. That would still leave everyone with their free will, but only looking everything with a positive view. But I cannot see Usagi actually doing that. 
I never tought about it before but now I also think. What could have lead to this? I wonder.
Oh well.

I think that by purifying, it meant ridding the body of any negativity whether a physical ailment or deep depression and things like that. 

In the manga, there were vampires and ghosts as well. Perhaps it also meant a wold cleansing of lurking evil and dark forces that are on the planet to help keep people safe.

In the manga it is also stated, if I recall correctly, that not everyone had been gifted with long lives. So that hints at their being a choice. Those that choose to be cleansed were touched by the crystals power and gifted with long lives and those that declined were able to live like normal humans.

In Chibiusa's picture diary she says you can eat all the sweets you want and not gain weight and there is no such things as cavities and perhaps that's like all illnesses. The body is probably strengthened and no longer decays like it normally would. Long lives, less disease and healthier stronger bodies. Perhaps an advancement on humankind, a way of quickening evolution. Though they sound a lot like elves lol...

But it seems when it came to purifying people it was a choice and not a command.

Neo Queen Serenity is only Queen because of marriage to the Earth's rightful ruler, Endymion. In the manga if I remember correctly, there was no tragedy for them to ascend the throne. They simply took it when Serenity was 22 after she had given birth.

In the anime, there was a great tragedy that Usagi had to defeat with the Crystal and in turn ended up becoming Queen and being responsible for the world. I think it was a great freeze but I'm not too sure I don't honestly remember.

However, they still had free will. Human's remained human's but healthier and happier but people still fought and got on each others nerves and negative things still happened. 

If Serenity had cleansed the entire earth and people of all negativity, then the Death Phantom would have never been able to influence Chibiusa after all, those were her real feelings. She did feel lonely and not good enough and wanted more, but those are normal feelings to have and ok despite being negative, it's evil power, supernatural darkness that can take normal negativity and twist it into something dark and wicked.  And I think it's only those truly bad things that wee purified.

But like everything, good and evil will always co-exist so despite ridding evil once it does not mean evil will never come back again.

So I agree, it seems like the purifying was simply a reset. Like a cleanse or better yet a detox however it's not a permanent fix and it seems to have been not forced on everyone.