At 4:41 PM -0500 1/3/2004, Dfox22@aol.com wrote:
>Angus McSpon's "Sailor Moon 4200"
(http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/fanfic/sm4200/sm4200.html) also
touches on this theme, though only Serenity is deified. The others are
seen as her servants or allies. McSpon could probably explain it
better.
Actually, and I'm only forming an opinion here, based on Uranus'
(Suzue) thoughts during chapter 8, the Senshi seem to be revered
almost like saints, much like in Catholithism. The Outers less so,
perhaps; Suzue refers to the Outers as 'the Shadowed Senshi.'
I'm don't think that SM4200 really applies to the OP's question, as it's
set after the fall of a definitely utopian Crystal Tokyo. But there are
certainly hard questions to answer about the paradise that CT is made
out to be, as other writers have pointed out: does it represent absolute
perfection or absolute fascism? A question I handled in SM4200 by simply
avoiding it altogether. :)
As for the "deification" of Serenity ... in a world such as the various
SM series depict, frankly it's hard to imagine this _not_ happening. (It
would be interesting to speculate whether various of our own myths could
be much-altered versions of the fall of the Moon Kingdom. Could Athena
or Amaterasu be memories of Serenity? Has anybody written a 'fic about
this?) In SM4200, there's a cult that see Serenity as a goddess, and the
other senshi more or less as her "disciples" -- explicitly referred to as
saints once or twice.
The whole thing is more or less my reaction to the all-too-common plot
device of the religious character (often a priest) who loses faith, or
whose faith in the face of great evil isn't great enough. So in SM4200
I present an intelligent character who's an adherent of a religion which
is obviously (to the reader) nonsense ... and then make her utterly
steadfast and faithful to her beliefs, in the face of considerable
opposition. It's been rather fun to write...
Cheers,
Angus