Opinion on Tsukino Usagi
Along with Makoto, Usagi is my least favorite Inner Senshi. I don't hate her—how do you even hate a 2-D anime character anyway? o_o—but it's just that I don't really connect with her or find her all that interesting, nor do I see her as a sympathetic character.
The reason I feel this way is mainly because Usagi is highly overrated. Good, so she's very kind and "pure-hearted" and loving, but aren't lots of people? Her biggest selling point can be summed up like this: "Sure, she may be an immature, annoying, underachieving lazy klutz, but even though she's a Thoroughly Average Jill at least she can save the day from monsters thanks to her Heart of Gold!" And yeah, that doesn't do it for me. Her character is written in a way that you're supposed to sympathize with her and that if you can't you must be some hard-hearted Negative Nancy, and I don't buy into that at all.
I stress that I don't hate Usagi, she's just not a character that strikes any sort of chord in me whatsoever due to the fact that I don't find her good character unique and that I find her extremely overrated.
Usagi and Her Sunsign
Usagi is a Cancer (Cancer - the Crab - fourth sign of the zodiac), and fits the description of the stereotypical Cancer perfectly: She's emotional, loving, romantic, giving, clingy, given to tears, sensitive, and interested in food. ^_^ Cancer is a water sign and its ruling planet is the Moon... so wow, surprise surprise, Usagi, a Cancer, is Sailor MOON. Who were the ad whizzers that came up with that one? xp Usagi's favorite precious stone, the pearl, is the stone associated with Cancer and the Moon. Cancer and the Moon are also associated with silver, which ties in with Usagi's possession of the ginzuishou (silver crystal).
It might also interest you to note that the Japanese (along with the Koreans and Chinese) use a specific symbol to represent each day of the week, and the symbol used to represent Monday is the kanji for "tsuki" ("moon"), the first character in Usagi's name. I mention this because the twelve zodiac signs each have a day they're associated with, and the sign of Cancer is associated with Monday (the name "Monday" in fact derives from "Moon Day").
Usagi's Mythology
Selene ("selene" is Greek for "moon") was the Greeks' first goddess of the moon and she is the daughter of two of the first twelve Titan gods: Hyperion and Thea. Just as her brother Helios (Greek for "sun") rides the chariot of the sun across the sky during the day and just as her sister Eos (Greek for "dawn") brings the dawn to herald the coming of Helios every morning, Selene rides the chariot of the moon across the sky at night. It's no coincidence that Takeuchi named Usagi Princess Selenity/Serenity in her past life on the Moon Kingdom.
Along with Helios and Eos, Selene is really a "concept deity" or an "abstract deity" in that she is really just a personification of the Moon itself, like in books or poems where things like fear and anger are represented as people (e.g. "Death knocked on my door and said he had an appointment in Samarrah"). Selene was later subsumed by Artemis, the more well-known Greek goddess of the moon, who had an actual personality instead of just being a representation of the moon.
(Incidentally, the Roman counterpart to Selene is Luna (the Latin word for "moon") and the Roman counterpart to Artemis is Diana, so the names for the three Moon Kingdom cats—Luna, Artemis, and Diana—and for Princess Serenity all originate from different names for the Moon Goddess.
The moon has three aspects represented by three different moon goddesses: Selene, the maternal, is considered the heavenlyaspect; Artemis, the maiden, is considered the "earthly" aspect who went among the people; and Hecate (an underworld goddess of the moon and witchcraft), the crone, is considered the "dying" or "dark" aspect of the moon. Here I only discuss Selene's mythology since she is the only one of the three who actually fits with Usagi's character in any way.
Selene only has one myth connected to her (the other two moon goddesses have much more), but it's important to Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon in that the myth is about Selene and Endymion... sound familiar? ^.^ According to the story, Selene was guiding her moon-chariot across the night sky when she looked down at the earth and saw a beautiful shepherd sleeping peacefully by his flocks (his name was Endymion). She fell in love with him immediately, and began to "visit" him in his dreams every night as he slept. o_o Selene was smart though, and knowing that Endymion was a mortal man, she asked Zeus to grant Endymion eternal life, eternal youth, and eternal sleep (O_O;;;) so that Selene could "visit" -_- him every night in his dreams. The wish was granted, and the myth says that Selene continues to see Endymion every night... and that Endymion sleeps with a perpetual smile on his face. *har har*
Obviously, the connection of this myth to Moon Princess Serenity and Earth Prince Endymion is quite clear. And by the way, Selene had FIFTY daughters as a consequence of her nightly "visits" with the sleeping Endymion. D: He must be able to perform well, even while sleeping! What if Mamoru was like that, can you imagine it? FIFTY Chibi-Usa's? o_o *dies*
Mythology Behind the Constellation Cancer
Heracles was carrying out the second of his twelve famous labors; this second labor was to kill the poisonous Hydra of Lernea. The Lernean Hydra was a serpent with nine heads (eight were mortal, and one was not), and when Heracles cut off one of the heads and left the stump, two more would grow out of the stump to replace it. Naturally Heracles could not defeat the monster by normal means, so he retreated and the next time he fought the Hydra he had his nephew and assistant Iolaus (some say Iolaus was also Heracles' lover :D) cauterize the stumps with a burning torch as Heracles cut the heads off. After all the heads had been cut off and the stumps all cauterized, Heracles buried the one immortal head and dipped his arrows in the poison of the Hydra. These poisoned arrows played a crucial role in many later myths, and the fact that the Hydra represents poison and it gets killed by cauterization shows this particular myth's possible connection to early medical practices, but at any rate, I'm digressing! :p So getting back on track:
Hera, queen of the gods, is famous for having a HUGE grudge against Heracles since Heracles was the result of an affair that Zeus (Hera's husband) had with the princess Alcmene. So to try and prevent Heracles from succeeding in defeating the Hydra, Hera sent a giant crab after him... but Heracles merely crunched that crabby under his big, stomping feet. o_o Even though the crab failed, Hera honored its sacrifice by placing it in the sky as the constellation Cancer—the Crab. |