On Mon, 3 May 1999, Matthew Lewis wrote:

	I'm not going to say that we need evil to survive, I'm not
sure that that is true. I'm also not sure that we can eradicate
evil, and that perhaps the struggle to do so is more important
than the goal. I'm also not going to ask the question, "what is

I'd say myself that we cannot eradicate evil completely, but we have to
TRY.  One of the paradoxes of life.  New solutions simply open up new
problems.  If we don't strive, we won't accomplish anything, but if we do
strive, we simply find new problems to solve.  If we can accept that,
we'll do well.  What breaks many reformers in their old age is inability
to accept that they can't fix everything in their lifetime or a refusal to
recognize that by solving one problem, they may have created another.

	Besides, Dumond is not, to me at least, fighting for evil, but
instead fighting for choice, for freedom. He is fighting for the
right, or the ability, to _choose_ to be/do good, to decide for
one's self whether or not to do good or evil. He is not so much fighting
for the existence of evil as he is for the ability to make a very
basic choice. This Purification then, is the negation of this choice,
at least that is how it would seem to me.

Except that by examining how purification actually works in the manga,
it's not shown to be a negation of the ability to make moral choices,
assuming its a global version of what Sailor Moon does all the time to
people corrupted by dark spiritual energies.  

The choice to avoid purification  is closer to being infected with the
bubonic plague and being contagious, but refusing to accept treatment or
quarantine.  The dark spiritual energies are infectious and slowly devour
you over time; look at what happened to Beryl, the Black Moon Family,
Wiseman, Galaxia, etc.

I'd also argue from a Christian perspective that the ability to do evil is
not the definition of Freedom.  But that's another kettle of fish :)

	The Inquisition was an attempt to root out heresy in the Church. They
thought they were doing good, purging the Church and the world of evil
and heretics. The Holocaust? again, it was thought to be a good thing by
those who planned it. Funny, the things people will do in the name of
good and in the name of purity (I have argued before that purity is not
necessarily a good thing, nor always desirable).
	Do you see any similarities then between those two acts and the
alleged Purification? There are differences, though-- physical laws

Yes, in the Sailor Moon Universe, people can really be contaminated with
dark spiritual energy capable of destroying their free will, and turning
them into monsters who go on destructive rampages.  

Also importantly, the victims of the Holocaust and Inquisition and the
like didn't consent to be killed.  As shown in the anime, Serenity can't
purify you if you invited in the dark energies yourself unless you WANT to
be purified.  I find herding Jews at gunpoint into ovens to be quite
different from spiritual inoculation in motive and method.

and such which delineate how evil operates in Sailor Moon, mainly. But
do you see how this Purification, especially if reinterpretted into our
universe with its laws, could be considered an evil act? Yes, there

But we're not DEALING with our Universe.  The laws of nature are
different, and the way evil exists is different.  


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

"The candy beneath you is disgraceful."
--Don't ask.