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sailormoonlvr · 6 years

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by moonmistix

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sailormoonlvr · 6 years

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Sailor Saturn and the Death

I translated this from an italian article, which you can read by yourself here → https://www.animeclick.it/news/209-Sailor+Moon+Kotaro.

Sailor Saturn (Hotaru Tomoe).

Saturnus is the divinity of fertility and agriculture, linked to the god of time Cronus (Κρόνος Cronos).

This Sailor is named “Messiah of the Silence”, and because of that her powers seem connected to death, an element that should instead be proper of the god Pluto i.e. of Sailor Pluto (who, paradoxically, has time powers). Even her attacks, such as the “Silent Wall” and the “Death Reborn Revolution”, are linked to death and rebirth.

However, there is a solid link between Sailor Saturn and the god Saturn.

This is the myth of Saturn / Cronus:

Born from Uranus and Gea / Gaia (goddess of the earth), he emasculates his father who used to throw his children into Tartarus because he feared that one of them would dethrone him. The emasculation was accomplished by using a sickle created from the earth, a symbolic element that connects Saturn / Cronus to nature, agriculture and fertility, but not only, as we will see later.

Once adult however, the god was predicted to be dethroned by his own children, as it had happened to his father Uranus. To prevent this, Saturn / Crono devoured the children of his sister Rea as they were born. Only his last son Zeus, escaped the massacre, once he grew up, he dethroned his father and had his brothers revived (since they were vomited by Cronos), according to the prophecy.

From this we can see the duplicity of Saturn: god of fertility and agriculture, but also destructor, parricide, cannibal, murderer of his children. He creates and destroys, destroys and gives birth, marking the rhythm of human life and the succession of seasons and crops.

This duplicity is perfectly reflected in Sailor Saturn, who is both a warrior of destruction and rebirth and who, according to these characteristics, can destroy the world at once or use her immense power to save it. Moreover, during the course of the story Hotaru is born, dies, is reborn and changes age.

These are features, which are well suited for the warrior who draws her powers from the god of time.

It is no coincidence that Hotaru doesn’t have a mother, but has a tormented relationship with her father, like the one between Cronos and Uranus.

Hotaru’s father, Soichi Tomoe, exactly like the Cronus of the myth, is an oppressive father who prevents the child from growing up and keeps her to himself, obsessively, ending up killing her.

It characteristic of Saturn / Cronus to be represented with a sickle in the hand, with which he emasculate Uranus and which symbolizes the work of the earth.

It is not strange, therefore, that Sailor Saturn uses a scythe (much larger than one of the god) to perform her attacks.

The sickle has always been linked to death, according to a traditional iconography that wants the death represented as a skeleton with a scythe. See the famous “The Triumph of Death”, preserved in Palermo at Palazzo Abatellis, or the Arcanum XIII of the Tarot, also linked astrologically to the planet Saturn, since in ancient times this was the last planet visible to the human eye and therefore is associated to the end of the universe and the life itself.

The arcane XIII of the tarot, in addition to symbolizing death, also indicates rebirth, regeneration or positive change, and therefore fits perfectly with the characterization of Sailor Saturn.

Sailor Saturn’s castle is called the “Titan Castle” because Chronos is a Titan, according to Greek mythology.

What’s more, there is a curious parallelism between the Japanese pronunciation of “Saturn” (i.e. サターン Sataan) and “Satan”, which is intriguing, considering the negative nature of Sailor Saturn.

Further links between Sailor Saturn and death come from her name, Hotaru, i.e. “firefly”.

In Japanese tradition the fireflies is associated with 人魂 hitodama, the will-o’-the-wispes that symbolize the spirits of the dead, and are often found near graves and cemeteries.

Born on January 6 Hotaru is a Capricorn, which is a sign of earth and is governed by the planet Saturn, linked to the Sabbath (which, remember, in Japanese is called 土曜日 doyoubi, “day of the earth” , with the same ideogram 土 present in the Japanese name of the planet Saturn).

Those who are born under the sign of the Capricorn are introverted, closed, lonely, shady, pessimistic, willing to sacrifice, but have faith in friendship. This is exactly like Hotaru, who closed herself off and is devoted to a destiny of lonely sacrifices and immolations, but who opens herself at because of Chibiusa’s friendship.

Do you wanna know more?

- Sailor Pluto → https://polly-chan.tumblr.com/post/173463637961/sailor-pluto-and-the-time-i-translated-this-from;

- Sailor Uranus → https://polly-chan.tumblr.com/post/173478330031/sailor-uranus-the-queen-of-skies-i-translated;

- Sailor Neptune → https://polly-chan.tumblr.com/post/173511176471/sailor-neptune-the-queen-of-the-seas-i-translated.

Thanks for reading! I’m working on a special meta about the Outers, before starting the analysis about Sailor moon and the other Sailors! Stay tuned! ^^

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sailormoonlvr · 7 years

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