So, let's have our first debate... and let's keep it civil.

Is evil ever truly vanquished? I remember hearing once (on Charmed I think) that when you kill a big source of evil (for example, Queen Beryl) you leave a vacuum where all evil starts collecting until something can fill that vacuum. Usually that's something MORE evil than the thing before it. So the evil is stronger than what came before. But even though Sailor Moon destroy's Chaos at the end of Stars... is Chaos really dead?

I find it hard to believe that Chaos has really been destroyed since the Death Phantom and the Black Moon family come from the future to wreak havoc on the past. If we take all continuities into consideration (Anime, Manga, Musicals, and video games) then I have to say that Chaos didnt really die when Sailor Moon "killed it" at the end of Stars, she simply did something similar to what Buffy did at the end of the final season. She combatted Chaos, won, and dispersed it amongst the galaxies in such a way that it would take decades (possibly 1000 years?) before it could reform itself and try again.

What do you think?

Well, if you use that philosophy paradox thing, then sure. Sailor Moon never really vanquishes evil, and Crystal Tokyo isnt really peaceful. How can there be peace without war?

If "evil" in her universe were to ever be vanquished. I imagine the Star Seeds would dissolve from unuse (like a muscle atrophy), or rupture from no release. I imagine most of the impulse to vanquish "evil" comes from the need for release of the Star energy.

Energy itself is power. Without expression, power is just lost potential.

"Good" without "Evil" is nothing but plain old existence.

Though I also think that if an entirely "good" universe would eventually wane in some areas, causing a fluctuation or corruption bring about more "evil".

If you are looking at this from a Sailor Moon perspective, at the end of the Stars anime, Sailor Moon does not destroy chaos. What she does is get it out of Galaxia's body and spreads it out across the universe.

This is a translated direct quote from episode 200. Source: http://www.usagi.org/doi/smoon/episodes/ss200.html

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Sailor Moon grabbed Galaxia's hand, and Chaos left Galaxia's body.

Galaxia turned back into the real Galaxia, with long gold and red hair. Both Galaxia and Sailor Moon were nude, and floating in the sky.

Galaxia: Thank you Sailor Moon. Your light lit up this galaxy.

Galaxia: I wonder if Chaos disappeared.
Moon: I think it went back to the place it belongs.
Galaxia: Where it belongs?
Moon: In the hearts of everyone.
Galaxia: Then again..
Moon: Let's believe in the people of this world. It's all right. The light of hope is in everyone's hearts.

This is one of the quotes from Sailor Moon that touched me the most. I agree with this on good days (lol, i'll explain what i mean). To me, human beings have the potential to do good, be good, and have good intentions. The problem with "evil" is that its not really black or white. Its many shades of grey. That's why there are so many laws to protect us from what is considered "bad". But you know, someone does something bad, like stealing, but they are doing it to feed their starving family? Does that make them evil? No. Misguided, yes.

This is the thing. A lot of people we would think as "evil", say like dictators like Hitler who killed so many people, etc. etc., did not think they were evil. In fact, they thought they were doing what was good for their country. However, people in power I like to think end up being so twisted they do whatever they can to stay in power. To them it's not "evil", because they are twisted to not see it that way. Most of Americans think we did good by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. Some people think it was an evil act. Some people see it as neither and just see it as a necessity to war in order to end it.

Then there are the people who do cruel, horrible things like torture an innocent for no reason. Things like animal cruelty cases, child abuse cases. Are those people evil? Maybe they are just messed up in the head and need help?

Now, I am no religious person by any means, but I swear there are times where I think some sort of "devil" or just "evil" energy must exist because of the horrible things that people do to each other and to animals. Especially to animals. I constantly read horrible news stories of atrocious cruel acts against dogs, cats, etc. I don't understand how someone could possibly do that to an innocent being. Sometimes to me, those people are just evil. I don't even want to go into the acts of inhumanity against other human beings across the world. North Korea has people in concentration camps. Some countries commit genital mutilation on their women, for religious purposes. Is this "evil"? I dunno. I think its wrong. And horrible. And very much on the borderline of evil. But most of us base what is good and bad on teachings of Christian religion. So does it make us wrong to not see things the way another culture will see it?

I'm presenting more questions than answers, but thats because I don't really have the answers. I just know what I believe to be wrong or right.

Btw, I don't think I really explained what i meant by good days. On good days, i feel like people are inherently good on bad days, i hate everyone and think the human race is a horrible disgusting atrocity. Thats usually after seeing how customers treat employees in hourly wage jobs (food, retail, etc.) and when i see too many articles on animal abuse.

There have been several periods of peace in the series, only to be broken by a new battle. This is the nature of the universe; there will always be light and darkness, peace and war, happiness and sadness, hope and despair existing side by side until the end of time. There will always be new wars, new battles to be fought even eons years in the future.

This is a FANTASTIC debate, guys!

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Not to mention that, if the Princess was indeed born from the Cauldron itself, her powers were almost unlimited, making her extremely important. Then the 4 Inner Senshi would come to play that very important role: Guardians of the Princess, to protect that power that one day will bring peace and balance to the entire Universe.

Jaknel posted that in the Queen Serenity Theory thread and it got me thinking about this. What if it's not that Usagi/Sailor Moon/Neo Queen Serenity destroyed Chaos by expelling it from Galaxia, what if it's that she is the greatest force of good to be born in the universe because of Queen Serenity's actions? As such, she offers the only real force that can hold it's own against Chaos. From here, she'll give birth to Rini, who grows into her mother's equal. They all have guardians, cause holding off Chaos is more than a one woman job, but that's also why they all stay alive for a thousand years at a time.

As it states in the end of the Stars Arc, Sailor Moon was given two choices, to kill Chaos there, but this Chaos will only be born farther into the future, to come back and gain revenge as Darkness will never leave if the Light still shines, so in turn she will kill everyone, including herself. Or she is given the choice to cleanse the Cauldron which would again repeat the cycle and she is able to create the future for her friends.

But all in all, it was stated, "Darkness cannot live without Light, and Light cannot live without Darkness" So if there is Light, Darkness will always come back to counter it.

Even though the Dark Moon Arc was played in earlier SM doesn't mean it will actually happen in the future, since there was many time and space disturbances between then and where the Manga and Anime ended. Which has been said to distrupt the future.

I agree with cosmos. The quote at the end of sailor moon, as well as life experiences, proves that it doesn't exist as something by itself, but rather exists in people. it's proven that even a utopia can fall without some sort of balance. take the book, the giver for example. but to keep this short, I don't think evil is ever gone. it can be cured, but not all of it.

Wow this is a really great debate!

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I'm taking philosophy right now, and one quotes we looked at was by Socrates. He said "No One Knowingly Does Evil". I bring this quote up because I like what Sailor Cosmos, Siren and Sailor Venus are saying, and I want to compare it to PGSM.

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PGSM I think has the best example of good and evil living together. Look at Princess Serenity, the silver crystal is supposed to give her the strongest power in the universe to help defeat evil, like Metallia. By default that would make her power good right, but what happens? She becomes jealous and these bad thoughts, in my mind, poison the crystal, slowly making it an evil power.

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Princess Serenity though doesn't see what she's doing (making those youma appear). She doesn't know this is bad because she blinded by her own wants. The same thing happens to Mercury. They both act evil but they aren’t fully aware of what their actions, until after when they look back. And if you agree with that you also then cannot say Queen Beryl was evil.

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Like Sailor Moon says "evil belongs in the hearts of everyone" meaning people. Evil and good have to both exist, together at the same time, and I think when you find the balance between them is when you get peace. Once Sailor Moon was able to gain control of her emotions (well the residual emotions of the princess) she was able to fully use the crystal. Which then resulted in peace because evil (Metallia) was defeated.

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If we go back to the beginning it was said that chaos was evil, and Sailor Moon (or at least the Silver Crystal) is good. But is that really true? What if Sailor Moon (or the Crystal) is only good because it can’t be evil, since chaos already took that spot. Is there really a difference between good and evil? I’m changing the question of the debate now though… I think..

You are changing the question, but I dont think it's off topic so I'll allow it.

Let me preface this example by saying that I am bringing this up simply to be an example. It is by no means my view of right and wrong, good and evil. It is simply an example of view points. This conversation will stay on topic of Good and Evil in Sailor Moon, or I will lock it and that will be the end of that.

Take for example the war in Iraq right now. To (most) Americans, this was a good thing because there was no democracy, these people were suffering under a tyrannical dictator and were generally unhappy. To us, starting a war to free the people was seen as a "good" action.

However take into account the people who retaliated against the U.S. They see their actions as good because they are defending their way of life. We came in out of left field spouting things about freedom and democracy, and these people looked at us going "WTF?" They saw us as evil.

Yes, I've simplified the ENTIRE conflict, and that's how it will stay. It's simply my examples of viewpoints. I think good and evil rely solely on the viewer. To Usagi and most of us, the "bad guys" are "bad" because of how they portray Serenity and Endymion and the entire Silver Millennium. However, if we took a different approach and saw why Wiseman, for example was resistant to the Crystal Tokyo way of life, we might see him as a good character and be more sympathetic.

I have another great example of a sympathetic "villain" and good/evil dichotomies... but it really relies on you guys being familiar with the show The 4400 (or me taking some time to explain it).

Yeah ok I'll try to stay on track better.

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Here's on another thing I was thinking though about evil being defeated. I say that it can't be defeated, because if you do it will defeat Sailor Moon at the same time. Like when it all first starts Sailor Moon is pretty weak and so are the bad guys. As her power grows so does the bad guys powers grow to match hers. This makes it seem that evil is dependent on the good. To stop evil you would have to stop it at it's source which is the Crystal. Which I think is what happens in the manga, when Eternal Sailor Moon goes into the Cauldron, and she melts with Chaos. Even then all that energy just got recycled through the Cauldron, and it all started again. So no evil can't be defeated, not even by Sailor Moon because she needs it to exist.

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Even as Neo-Queen Serenity, she would evil to exist in the people she rules. If it didn't their would be no need for a ruler, to guide the people because they would all be good.

I prefer to think of it the way I once heard in a TV show (though I really forget what it was. Charmed, I think?)

By Sailor Moon defeating Queen Beryl/Metallia she created a power vacuum of evil. It left a large whole on the side of evil, so something bigger (aka more powerful) came along to fill that void. But then Sailor Moon had to grow stronger to match this evil. When she wiped that out, another bigger evil came along. Each time she destroyed an evil, a bigger evil came along that required her to get more powerful. And so this cycle would continue indefinitely until they manage to reset themselves (aka, melding the Cauldron).

I also like to think about both as energy, it can neither be created nor destoried, but it can be stored. And both can be stored and used at different times within different situations, as both of the "energies" are within everyone.

bump it

I highly doubt it. Not only is it seen that crystal tokyo deals with its own struggles (black moon) but it's even told in the last chapter of the manga by guardian cosmos I think that good cannot exist without evil and that chaos will never truly vanish. Considering how much of a powerhouse the silver crystal is, I highly doubt there will ever NOT be a group that wants to get their hands on it.

If this is about the manga, I thought it was stated that because Sailor Moon chose to preserve the Galaxy Cauldron, new life can continue, but Chaos can return again in the future in some form. 

I do believe evil itself can never truely die. It is eternal as good is. The day evil dies is the day all life ends.

I'm going to take my thoughts on this mainly from the anime.
When Chaos was defeated, after Galaxia asked her where it went, Usagi said that bits of it went into everyone. Which meant that good and evil balanced each other out in most people.
I believe that evil was never really vanquished, and that everyone has the potential to be evil. Sailor Moon only stopped the cycle of chaos from wreaking havoc on the galaxy.