By: Ian Andreas Miller
On the Pretty Soldier Sailormoon Mailing List one of the
members sent a very
interesting post that talked about the fuss over the
supposed Pluto and
Saturn "mix
up" that suggests that Sailorsaturn should have been
Sailorpluto and
Sailorpluto
should have been Sailorsaturn. Of course, being the
mythology, astronomy,
and
astrology buff I am, I didn't hesitate to respond to him.
He found my
response very
interesting and he said that it would be a good idea to
send some of what I
wrote to
the Amazoness Quartet so that they could put it up as a
"Lemures File." At
first I
didn't want to do this, but then he told me that he was
getting a bit tired
of the
myriad "Lemures" articles that deal so heavily with all the
imaginary
fighting and
closing of sites in the so-called "Sailormoon Community." I
agreed
whole-heartedly
and I refined much of what I said in my original post to
the list and
created this new
article about Sailorpluto and Sailorsaturn. In this
article, I shall do my
best to show
that Ms. Takeuchi didn't make a mistake with the themes of
her Sailorsaturn
and
Sailorpluto characters.
One of the first things he talked about in the post was how
the Roman Saturn
can be a bit different than the Greek Chronos. I
immediately noticed that he
made a
mistake in his claim, but the mistake is understandable. It
seemed that he
wasn't
quite familiar with the differences between the Greek word
"chronos" which
means
"time" and the father of Zeus "Cronus," a Greek deity.
These were originally
very
different terms and it wasn't until later on in Greek
history that some of
the
philosophers identified their Cronus with their word for
time, "chronos."
There is no
particular deity dedicated to the word "chronos," either.
These two words
are spelled
quite differently in the original Greek, too: "chi- rho-
omicron- nu-
omicron- sigma"
(chronos) versus "kappa- rho- omicron- nu- omicron- sigma"
(Cronus). The
name
Cronus, just to keep it clear, is also often rendered as
"Cronos" or even
"Kronos" in
English. The earliest of the Greek epic works made no
connection between the
two
words "chronos" and "Cronus." Homer, when mentioning
Cronus, usually does so
when he is stating one of Zeus' myriad epithets, "the
almighty son of
Cronus." We
would think that Hesiod, of all people, would have some
more about Cronus.
He does
and in fact he even shows Cronus to be an exceptionally
intelligent deity
who is
often called the "crafty counsellor." In Homer's Iliad and
Odyssey books,
and in
Hesiod's Works and Theogony books, Cronus is never said to
have any official
association with time. Later, by the Greco-Roman times, the
philosophers
tried to
find the original meaning of Cronus' name, but the fact is
that they were as
clueless
of what the name originally meant as we are. In fact, they
were a little
more
disadvantaged because they didn't have older written
material handy like we
do
today. It's always a good idea to remember that these
terms, "chronos" and
"Cronus" were originally separate ideas. I am going to use
this fact later
on when
trying to separate the themes for Sailorpluto and
Sailorsaturn.
As for Saturn, he was a completely different deity from the
Greek Cronus and
a composite deity at that. Saturn is basically a hybrid god
who the Romans
originally
borrowed from the Etruscans and fused into their own minor
agricultural god.
He was
a reaping and sowing god, and it wasn't until quite late in
Greek history
that he was
identified with the Greek Cronus. By that time,
unfortunately, Cronus was
associated
with the Greek word "chronos" and thus the Roman Saturn
became a god of time
and
farming. These two deities are completely different and
their histories are
very
different. Cronus was no doubt a product of Greek oral
tradition, with a
history of
perhaps hundreds and hundreds of years before the times of
the Greek epic
poets
Homer and Hesiod. Those who know a thing or two about
classical Greek
mythology
also know that the earliest stories of the Greek gods and
goddesses are by
these two
mysterious men. We don't know if they really lived, but we
do know that in
some
cases, they don't agree on what is "canon." Both men, for
example, tell of
two
different stories of how Aphrodite was born. Homer, who
lived earlier than
Hesiod,
tells that Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and the minor
goddess Dione.
Hesiod,
who lived not long after Homer, says that Aphrodite was the
product of
Ouranos'
severed genitals falling into the sea. Which one should we
believe? Both of
them!
The member of the mailing list also brought up astronomy
and how it relates
to the planet Saturn. He said that he used to have an
astronomy book that
not only
showed the respective planets, but also it pictured the
Roman deities who
owned the
same names as the planets in the solar system. The Saturn
section pictured
an
image of an elderly man in robes with a scythe or sickle in
one hand. The
description
below the image included terms like "agriculture", "death",
and "cyclical."
These
terms should sound familiar when a fan tries to imagine
Sailorsaturn and
Tomoe
Hotaru. In the Sailormoon manga, when Ms. Takeuchi mentions
the Silence
Glaive,
she converts the English words into the Katakana characters
"sairensu-gureibu." The
second word is "glaive" and not "grave" because "grave" is
spelled
"guraabu." Often,
she also writes in some Kanji and Kana that are related to
the English
words, but
these words don't exactly translate. For instance, she
associates the word
"glaive"
with the Kanji for "sickle," while she associates the two
Kanji characters
for
"reticence" ("chinmoku") with "silence." These smaller
Katakana characters
that
appear above the Kanji and Kana, which are technically
called Furigana, are
used to
clarify the meanings of the Kanji and Kana. An example of
this combination
of Kanji
and Kana can be found in Sailormoon manga volume nine, page
eighty-one in
the
right caption to the right of Sailorsaturn's head. This
reference to the
sickle brings to
mind the saturnine "agriculture" theme.
As a side note, it should be pointed out that Hotaru's
family name is very
often misinterpreted. The Kanji that are used have nothing
to do with death,
but in
fact it's more of the opposite. The "to" Kanji in the name,
which looks like
a cross
with a horizontal bar at its base means "soil," "dirt,"
"earth" (the
element), and
"ground." This same character is used when the Japanese
want to write their
word
for "Saturday," "doyoubi." The second character, the one
that has the
reading in this
case as "moe" means "to sprout" and "to bud." It also means
"to show
symptoms
of." Everybody knows that the word "hotaru" means "firefly"
or "glow fly,"
and so the
name Tomoe Hotaru can be interpreted as "the glow fly that
has sprouted from
soil."
There is another Kanji character that also has the reading
as "tomoe" and it
describes any kind of circular, comma- like character in
writing and
elsewhere. This
can be taken as an example of the "cyclical" reference to
the planet Saturn
if we
want to assume that Ms. Takeuchi intentionally made it so
that the Kanji in
Hotaru's
family name is a pun for this particular Kanji character.
This might also
partially
explain the meaning of the "revolution" reference in one of
Sailorsaturn's
manga
attacks.
As interesting as astronomy and mythology are, we fans of
Sailormoon must
be careful when we try to explain the themes of Sailorpluto
and
Sailorsaturn.
Astronomy is one of the ways to look at the Sailorsaturn
and Sailorpluto
"mix up,"
but if it's the only way used besides mythology, the
planets Saturn and
Pluto will
both confuse a person and throw him or her off quite badly.
Another way to
look at
the planets is in terms of astrology. Astrology is a lot
more than just the
Zodiac
signs and horoscopes, but the planets in the solar system
also play their
parts. The
sun and the moon are also considered planets, while Mars,
Venus, Mercury,
and
Jupiter are often called the "inner" planets. Uranus,
Neptune, and Pluto are
called
the "outer" or "transpersonal" planets, while Saturn is
called an
intermediary
between the "inner" and "outer" planets. Much has been
written about the
planet
Saturn, too. The British composer Gustav Holst said it best
when he
described
Saturn: "Saturn not only brings physical decay but also a
vision of
fulfillment." That
quote seems rather like a sort of a metaphysical "death and
rebirth." It's
interesting
how Sailorsaturn is called the soldier of "demolition and
nascence" in the
manga.
The Japanese word for "renascence," or rather "rebirth"
isn't even found in
Sailorsaturn's Japanese introduction phrase "hametsu to
tanjou no senshi,
seeraasataan" -- "Assailant of Demolition and Nascence,
Sailorsaturn."
With all this talk about Saturn, it might seem that we are
leaving poor
Pluto
out of the discussion. The member of the mailing list
unhappily said that
"Sailorpluto
can't be salvaged" and that she truly doesn't apply to her
deity. He went on
to say
that the only link she has with time is that she has the
"blood of Chronos"
in her in
the manga. The fact is that she is said in the manga to be
the daughter of
this deity.
He said that Ms. Takeuchi must have been aware of the
situation and the
Cronus,
Chronos, Pluto, and Saturn association problems. I
responded by saying that
Takeuchi had to been aware of the problems and she
demonstrates this in
several
cases. Pluto, I should point out first of all, is
associated with more than
death in
astrology. Astrology is most likely from where Sailorpluto
gets her "time"
and
"physics" traits. It should also be remembered that
Sailorpluto represents
more than
just "time" in the Sailormoon mythos. The fact is that one
of her most
common titles
in the Japanese writing is "soldier of space and time." She
is the one who
guards the
Door of Time-Space. In 1895 H. G. Wells wrote his novel
"The Time Machine"
and in
that book the main character asserts "there is no
difference between time
and any of
the three dimensions of space except that our consciousness
moves along it."
Albert Einstein, almost ten years later, introduced his famous Special
Theory of Relativity that stated that space is always related to time, and
that neither one can be separated. In the Sailormoon manga, when the name
"Chronos" is spelled out in her attack names, the Kanji characters that are
associated with the attacks are for the term "time-space" are always used,
so there can be no doubt in her meaning. Do we remember above where the
distinction is made between Cronus and chronos? If Takeuchi was trying to mean
"Cronus" she might have used some other Kanji to clarify her meaning. Since she
uses the Kanji characters for the two words "time" and "space" there is no doubt
that she means the Greek word for "time." So the names in the Sailormoon series
should be "Chronos," and "Chronos Typhoon" and so on, and without any reference
to the Greek deity Cronus. She was making a distinction between the Greek word
and the Greek deity. The Chronos deity that Sailorpluto and Chibiusa mention in
the anime and manga is the creation of Ms. Takeuchi, herself.
One of the reasons why Pluto is associated with death in
astrology is
because
astrology is borrowing some elements from Greco-Roman
mythology. Pluto, by
the
way, was originally a deity of wealth and since the jewels
that made him
wealthy
were from the underworld, I suppose that is how he became
the Roman form of
Hades. It should be remembered that, on the other hand, the
planet Saturn
has been
known to people for thousands and thousand of years and
eventually, in many
Western cultures, it was associated with the deities that
suggest death and
terror.
Poor Saturn got itself a nasty reputation over the years in
astrology. It's
quite
literally the "traditional planet of death," of all things.
In 1930, Pluto
was discovered
and since astrologers were trying to find some sort of
meaning of the
planet, they
used classical mythology for help. Pluto eventually usurped
some of Saturn's
themes! This may be one of the sources of confusion!
However, Pluto has been
found
to mean more than death and rebirth in astrology. In fact,
the planet also
suggests
change and transformation. Note that Sailorpluto, while
introducing herself
in Act 39
in the manga, says the words "I am the soldier of change,
and I carry the
protection
of the planet of time and space, Pluto." I have some things
that I managed
to type
up a while ago from an astrology book called "Cosmic
Connections" and I
think they
would be interesting to read. It deals with a lot of
astrology and I think
anybody can
see how, after reading these, Pluto and Saturn are related
to their
astrological
counterparts.
Saturn
Ominous Saturn is the most distant planet from Earth still
visible to the
naked eye. It is also the sixth planet from the Sun, and
astronomers once
believed it
was the Solar System's outermost planet; a cold, solitary
pariah in deep
space --
alone, but an awesome presence nonetheless. Saturn turns
out to be the
second-
largest planet, after Jupiter. Observations have revealed
that the planet is
circled by
more than twenty moons, but only eighteen have been
officially named.
The Greeks identified Saturn with Cronus, chief of the race
of giant gods
called Titans who ruled the Olympians. Fearful of a
prophecy that one of his
children
would dethrone him, the grisly Cronus ate each child after
its birth. But
his wife
Rhea saved the infant Zeus by offering Cronus a stone in
the baby's stead,
and Zeus
grew up to fulfill the augury. Cronus ended up as a bitter
outcast, who the
Greeks
portrayed as a stooped Father Time.
The Romans grafted Cronus onto an agriculture god they
inherited from the
Etruscans. The result was Saturn, a god of time and
farming. His festival,
the
Saturnalia, was held every December to celebrate the winter
solstice. In the
long
run, Saturn never entirely shed its ancient negative
associations. The word
"saturnine" means gloomy and taciturn. Still, astrology
finds the planet a
complex
and vital constricting force that stabilizes Jupiter's
expansive optimism.
Saturn may
indicate adversity, but often it is in the service of the
more realistic
perspective.
Astrology considers Saturn to be an intermediary between
the inner, personal
planets and the outer, "transpersonal" planets, those that
govern the wider
environment beyond the self and an individual's interaction
with it. As
regulator,
Saturn represents authority. Its position at birth is said
to determine the
relationship
between child and father. It also represents internal
authority, or
conscience and
self- control. Failure to heed the limitations they impose
is said to mean
possible
conflict with established social order.
Saturn's influence can inspire or devastate. In positive
circumstances, it
confers persistence and endurance, prudence, thrift, and
managerial skills.
Saturn's
strong presence in a birth chart may denote a person who is
fond of routine
and
possibly is destined for a career in the military,
government, business, or
religion. A
negative Saturn influence, however, warns of repression,
selfishness,
cruelty,
deviousness, and greed. Saturn's orbit around the Sun takes
twenty- nine and
a half
years. Its first full circle through a person's horoscope,
as one approaches
the age of
thirty, is thought by astrologers to signify a time of
change, an
opportunity for
reassessment and transformation.
Saturn rules Aquarius and Capricorn. It is also said to
govern the body's
aging process and such predations of time as rheumatism,
hardening of the
arteries,
degeneration of organs, loss of teeth, and ailments of the
gall bladder and
spleen.
Saturn's glyph, like Jupiter's incorporates the cross and
half circle. But
in Saturn's
case the cross is paramount, making matter ascendant over
mind and bringing
intangibles down to earth.
Pluto
Almost four billion miles from the Sun, Pluto is a dark,
chill sentinel in
dead
space; its orbit defining the outer planetary boundary of
the known solar
system.
From this distant outpost, the Sun appears not as a fiery
and life-giving
god, but
merely as one of the uncountable bright stars, cold and far
away.
Discovered in 1930, Pluto has been found to be the smallest
planet. It has a
very unstable atmosphere, and it seems that it shares it
with its small
satellite.
Charon is the name of the small satellite, and it's named
after the boatman
of Greek
myth who ferried dead souls across the river Sytx in Hades.
Pluto circles
the sun
once every 248 earth years, in an orbit so elliptical that
it sometimes cuts
inside
Neptune's path.
The Greeks called their version of Pluto Hades, whose name
means the
"unseen one." They called the realm of the dead, Hades'
underground kingdom,
Hades also. The three-headed dog Cerberus, who ate mortals
and ghosts who
tried
to escape, guarded Hades' gates. On a rare foray outside
his dark realm,
Hades fell
in love with the daughter of the earth goddess Demeter,
Persephone, and
carried her
off to be his wife. In her grief Demeter let the earth lie
fallow, thus
creating the
seasons of late fall and winter.
Although feared, Hades was also revered -- mostly for his
wealth: food grew
from his soil, and precious minerals glinted beneath it.
His statues were
sometimes
bedecked with jewels and produce.
As they have with Uranus and Neptune, modern astrologers
have struggled to
clarify the significance of Pluto. Since it is the
outermost transpersonal
planet, it is
believed to have broad and deep influence, heralding
drastic changes that
affect
entire populations. It also supposedly governs the most
profound, universal,
and yet
personal of human mysteries: death, rebirth, and
transformation.
Pluto has aspects that seem especially meaningful to the
twentieth century,
the era of nuclear threat -- and of the plutonium that
echoes the planet's
name.
Pluto, astrologers say, represents the power of such minute
matter as the
atom.
Befitting its satanic aspects, Pluto was discovered in an
era of economic
upheaval
and world war. But on a more hopeful note, the planet
represents evolution,
the
winnowing of the weak and outworn -- destruction as prelude
to building,
death
leading to rebirth. Astrologers also consider Pluto to be a
source of
revelation about
higher realities. They believe Pluto to be similar to
Jupiter in its call to
action in the
name of principle. Those born under Pluto's influence may
feel impelled to
root out
injustice. Pluto corresponds to useful dissatisfaction, the
sort that spurs
one toward
self-improvement. Those who heed its messages, say
astrologers, may benefit
by
learning from tragedies and pitfalls and by seeking new
beginnings.
But the planet's explosive power can be subverted. Those
who fail to
recognize and accept the negative aspects of their own
personalities, for
example,
tend to crusade against what they perceive as evil in other
while ignoring
their own
faults. In such cases, the crusades can have violent and
disastrous results.
At their
very worst, people with heavy Plutonian aspects in their
horoscopes can be
criminal
or sadistic, wholly without morals or scruples. The planet
figured
prominently in the
horoscopes of the depraved Roman emperor Caligula, as well
as Adolf Hitler
and
Joseph Stalin.
Pluto is co-ruler with Mars of Scorpio and Aries. It
influences the male and
female generative organs, the immune system, and
genetically related
diseases.
Several glyphs have been proposed for the new planet. The
most commonly
accepted one is the cross surmounted by the circle cupping
a full circle, to
depict
spirit being forged in the crucible of matter.
The astrological descriptions above for the two planets
Saturn and Pluto
should be enough to show that they very much pertain to the
themes of their
respective sailor soldier character in the Sailormoon
series. Though some
fans use
mythology and astronomy as reference for finding the themes
of these two
planets,
those aren’t the only sources. As it has been shown,
astrology also works
well. If
somebody would at least explain to people what the deal is
with Saturn and
Pluto,
the confusion would eventually be completely cleared up.
Comments on this article can be sent to: Ian Andreas Miller.
