keyofnik: YOU DONE MESSED UP NOW Okay so what’s really interesting to me — at least from this “it just happened two seconds ago” perspective — is how it paints Saturn. Or Saturn’s Avatar Soul. Or potentially all Avatar Souls? Hm. Getting ahead of myself. I was talking quite a bit at the end of S about how it seemed to me that of all the Senshi, Saturn was a separate entity who just happened to be sharing Hotaru’s body. Each of the other girls ARE their Senshi, but Hotaru seemed really quite immaterial in her own life, which always struck me as terribly sad. Even at the end, while it WAS Hotaru who pushed out Mistress Nine, it was really the only action she was ever allowed to take in regards to her life, and within seconds it was overrun by Saturn emerging. I’ve been wondering how Hotaru would be her rebirthed form — as she should, in most ways, be completely different as her life experiences won’t at all parallel what she originally lived through. That’s obviously still a question to be answered, this moment tells us nothing about that. But it DOES tell us that Saturn is there. And she’s watching. And she’s completely willing and able to act without Hotaru. You could of course argue that this is just an instinctive reaction, and there’s a lot to be said for that. We’ve already seen that Baby Hotaru is no ordinary baby, however. and what makes that true is Saturn. That, plus what we already saw of Saturn’s behaviour in S, and I believe that Hotaru herself actually has very little to do with what’s happening here. It raises interesting questions about the Avatar Souls though, which I hadn’t yet decided on for myself. Such as, are they always present? Was Ami, for example, born with the Mercury Avatar Soul already within her? If no, at what point did it come to her? Where is the line between the presence and the potential? Was Mercury technically reborn repeatedly throughout the centuries, only dormant, waiting for the presence of the Serenity line to awaken? If the Avatar Soul is always present, do they ALL have a kind of self-defense mechanism like this? Does whatever magic is at work take steps to protect them until they can assume control themselves? Or is everything just simply fucked up and different because it’s Saturn? I could see that, as well, since in my view, Saturn is always the same and isn’t meant to be properly born like this. Usagi’s fucked up the whole Saturn situation, and so it’s kind of playing things by ear right now. (This is handy, since it means we’re free to draw conclusions about Saturn that don’t have to apply to anyone but her.) No answers yet, but it’s pretty exciting to have a whole bunch of new questions.
