Hi. I am still waiting for your answer to your previous question about what kind of power the Shitennou have and if they have to transform in order to get their powers. Always amazed by your ideas and analysis. Hope you liked my idea about the Shitennou's power and trasformation. :-)
Oh, yes. RL essay writing meant this completely slipped my mind. :P
I said I would provide you with my penny’s worth on this question, so here it is.
There is no doubt that the Shitennou have powers to begin with. Given that Metalia feeds off power, she and Beryl would have never bothered to take the four Shitennou in the first place. If they were just normal men charged with the protection of their Master then it would have made more sense for Beryl to leave the Shitennou alone to try and regain their memories, find Mamoru and then ultimately lead her to the Senshi, the Princess and the Silver Crystal. That she opted instead to kidnap, brainwash and maybe even kill the physical human bodies to remake new ones around the Shitennou Stones, if their powers were not valuable.
As guardians to Endymion, we came presume that they had the powers to protect him. People can sometimes be a little reluctant to allow male characters to have powers in their own right simply because it potentially puts the Shitennou on par with the Senshi and “only girls can be Senshi” according to Naoko Takeuchi.
Having said that, the Shitennou were conceived before Naoko had really thought of any Pretty Guardians beyond the bounds of Jupiter and may very well have thought of them a genuine, male-variations of the Senshi.
Note that she named them after the Four Heavenly Kings who rule the Cardinal Directions (i.e. North, East, South and West). While the Shitennou do not match any of the Hindu/Buddhist versions of the Heavenly Kings exactly, the loose connections are there. Naoko does this chiefly by setting the boys up in certain continents: Zoisite is Europe (North), Jadeite is East Asia (East), Kunzite is the Middle East (South, sorta) and Nephrite is the Americas (West). We do not know the location of Elysion but it is possible Endymion is the Taishakuten (Centre), the God of the Four Kings themselves (Note that Tamonten, the King in the North, is the leader of the other three with them acting as vassels - showing again that the connection is loose as, obviously Kunzite is the leader of our boys.)
From this we can perhaps infer that the Four Heavenly Kings combined as the Collective Guardians of Planet Earth. Think about the better known of the two unicode planetary symbols for Earth, the “Cross of Odin” or Sun Cross:
In Sailor Moon, the Earth and Sun are consolidated into one power on Earth so this symbol is the best fit for Earth rather than the Gaia symbol (♁), which would suit a single senshi better. Presented in the traditional Earth symbol is a condensed representation the equator and a meridian, creating a cross that represents the four “corners of Earth” - dare I say, cardinal directions? - with a centre point. From this, I have always deduced that together the five men are the “Pretty Guardian of Life and Hope, Sailor Earth” … or are the combined Earth Guardian.
Thus, they naturally can be expected to have special powers like that of a Senshi (though different from being a Pretty Guardian).
While under Beryl’s command they have a connection to ice attacks that can be associated with D-point. Nonetheless each of the boys also have powers unique specifically to them that the others do not seem to replicate (at least, not with the same methods).
Here they are in a nutshell:
- Jadeite uses clay to create complex “Youma”.- Nephrite uses the power of shadows.- Zoisite relies completely on psychic powers, chiefly hypnosis and reflecting others attacks back on them.- Kunzite appears to use energy manipulation overall, focusing it into powerfully focused blasts.
There incidences where the powers overlap but ultimately what is listed above is still overall a dominion of the Shitennou as none of them seem to share exactly the same abilities.
Even though they all have psychic powers to an extent none of them come close to pulling off what Zoisite shows he can do with his. Jadeite knocks out Rei and a couple of children with his mind while Nephrite knocks out Matoki, some other blokes and Makoto in a similar manner. In comparison, Zoisite is able to command the whole city to follow his orders by creating hypnotic trances via television, radio and music, and maintain it.
It is also true that Nephrite’s shadows and Jadeite’s clay creatures serve the same function. However they are very different when looked at in detail. Jadeite’s creations are more complex and act independently from him, allowing him to give them orders and watch from a distance. The one time he decides not to do this, very likely through the influence of Neph and Zoi, it costs him his life. Nephrite on the other hand makes a point of his shadows being an extension of himself, able to do damage to others while being virtually impossible to hit physically. In this incidence he is in complete control at all times and thus they do not have minds on their own - they are literal shadows.
Going on from this, Jadeite doesn’t seem to be able to possess other living creatures with his power. His Clay creatures either replace a living person or act as people on their own. Nephrite, however, uses his shadows to possess other living people as with Princess D and Matoki. They lose autonomy and become his shadows. It is easy to argue that this is like what Zoisite does with the city but their methods are very different. Zoisite is clearly using his mind to control others whereas Nephrite’s powers have a distinctly magical, shadowy power. Nephrite creates monsters out of living things, Zoisite uses auto-suggestion to make them obey.
Kunzite is in Naoko Takeuchi’s own words the most power. This appears to be in the sense of destructive, magical clout. His powers are relatively unique as he is able to knock out the power in Tokyo with the wave of a hand. Powers being ramped up by Metalia aside, that the other Shitennou do not seem to have this ability suggests Kunzite’s powers lie in pure energy manipulation. Some might argue this is similar to Zoisite’s ability to bounce the Senshi’s attacks back at them but I disagree: one re-channels energy, the other simply bounces attacks back at enemies. Kunzite does have the ability to create a force field to protect himself, which is more similar to what Zoisite does (and to a lesser extent Nephrite’s shadows seem impervious to physical attacks). However Kunzite’s force field is more of an expression of his power: that puny attacks will not take him out. Zoisite and Nephrite both ultimately are killed by the Senshi simply by getting stabbed in the back (literally) or stupidly goading the Senshi on respectfully,
The boys generally do not rely on their physical fighting abilities much. In the Silver Millennium they appear to have carried swords, though, so this must have been a part of their abilities. It could also be that the swords were used for magic also but we have no evidence of this.
Of the four, Jadeite avoids confrontation and physical violence almost completely, which is not surprising considering his use of Youma. Surprisingly, Zoisite - the one often characterised by the fandom as physically weakest of the guys - is the only one to physically restrain a Senshi with intent to kill her if necessary. Compare to Jadeite when Rei lunged at him; he could have struck or pushed her away but instead holds her back with his arm, telling her to stop and opting to use an inoffensive magical attack to try and restrain her rather than threaten her with harm. Zoisite’s use of physicality is not brutish though but a strategic move. He only attacks Sailor Moon once she thinks she has won, and cleverly sidelines her during a Moon Twilight in one of the best tongue-in-cheek “villain not taking your crap” moment Naoko could have slipped into her manga (Crystal replicated this scene brilliantly too and the 90′s anime has a great variation of this with Tuxedo Mask.) So, Zoisite might be willing to use physical strength - but not at his own risk.
Kunzite is completely above physicality it seems as hardly anyone can get close enough to him for it to matter. Nephrite also - often characterised as the bruiser of the group - also avoids physicality. However we can safely assume they are stronger than normal humans.
Transformations or “Poofing” into Uniform
So, the Shitennou have powers to wield. However the question remains: are they magical deities than need to transform or extraordinary humans who can command their powers on cue?
First, let’s look at the character who is the closest likeness to the Shitennou we have: Tuxedo Kamen. Mamoru Chiba, while relatively weak magically, does of course have natural psychic abilities he can access whenever he needs to. This lends wait to what I said before about the Shitennou and their psychic abilities. They maybe have all had some form of psychomancy, astral projection and healing powers. They all lament on their state of being in Dream, stating that they cannot help Mamoru any more (in healing him), indicating that were they still alive, they could have healed him or at least stabilised his condition.
Again, this leads us to Zoisite: we’ll use him as a case in point. His abilities seem very strongly based on psychic phenomena - so, if he had to transform in order to access it, would he be able to use any level of those powers in day to day life as a civilian? With Mamoru, he eventually gains the ability to “poof” into his tuxedo whenever he needs it rather than having to put it on. The divide between Kamen/Civilian comes down to having a disguise and being able to use “Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber”. In Zoisite’s case, I would call the divide at his general psychic ability and his ability to summon his force fields and reflective barriers, or more power mind-based attacks.
Thus we can conclude that transformation is the divide between Special and Magical powers; if the Shitennou had incantations to chant in order to summon their powers, e.g. instead of just willing his shadows into being, Nephrite had to say a spell to get it to happen, then transformation is a must.
If Mamoru can transform into Tuxedo Kamen and use a spell to summon powers, it stands to reason the boys would be similar. They would have some access to the powers outside of their uniforms but would have most control over them while in uniform. Basically, they should be treated as I said at the beginning - as the collective Guardians of Earth with Mamoru.
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