I thought about it, and after reading your opinions, I decided it was time to make a post about this thing.
Because of what I’m currently (and very slowly) writing, I developed quite the explanation about the mask rule of the Sanctuary, and I think now it’s about time to post it.
Let’s start from what the mask rule, canonically, is.
It started because no females were allowed to be a Saint, so the woman that wants to become one has to cover her face and renounce her gender. This led to the “kill or love” conundrum, because being seen by a man without the mask is terribly humiliating for the woman.
And this, as the one and only explanation, is not good.
What I did, and what I normally use now as a modernized explanation and as my personal interpretation, is the following. Keep in mind, this actually changes something from the canon, since it’s an interpretation.
The mask slowly became more of a tradition to be followed than something to be wear just in order to be able to fight. Renouncing their gender is not strictly necessary for women all the time, because times have changed, but female Saints still wear the mask for traditional purposes, other than by law.
It is still a law in the XX century, but girls are not forced anymore to wear masks during their training (opposite to the canon, where they do), and they have to adopt it only when becoming a Saint. If they join Athena’s regular army, they have no obligation to wear the mask, because they’re not Saints.
Now, my interpretation of the “kill or love” thing is this: if a woman willingly takes off the mask in front of a man, then it’s a declaration of love.
If a man (or even a woman, in this case) forcibly takes off the mask from the woman, she is entitled to kill.
If the female Saint loses the mask during a battle, she has no obligation to love or kill a person that sees her face, unless the mask gets deliberately knocked off her face or she willingly removes it. If a woman removes the mask in order to help another Saint (like Marin with Seiya during the Sanctuary Arc), there’s no consequence because it’s necessary.
Female Saints can freely remove their mask when among other women, even if a female Saint is in love with another woman. If she wants to confess her feelings, she can simply tell her.
Female Gold Saints, on the other hand, are something I see differently. Because they are Gold Saints, I can accept them not wearing a mask. I don’t want this to become the norm, but I can understand why a highest ranking warrior of Athena that’s also a woman might not want to wear the mask. Also, the Gold Saints are the closest Saints to Athena (after the Saintias, if you take them into the picture), so it could be reasonable for them to be exempt from wearing it. Or to wear a mask, like Sonia, that doesn’t cover the entire face.
There are still people that complain about it (Shaina, for example), but it’s not humiliating anymore for women to lose their mask, and the law still stands because of tradition, not oppression.
Keep in mind, for me renouncing the mask is not something that’s possible, because for me renouncing the mask means renouncing the position of Saint, since the woman would go against the law.
It’s not like we don’t have female Saints that don’t have to wear the mask. We have the Saintias, now, that are actually instructed NOT to wear the mask.
Because of this, I stand my ground.
The mask is mandatory as a Saint (by law), optional during training, not needed for the regular army (in which women are completely accepted in modern times)
This is why I get extremely pissed off at Yuzuriha not wearing the mask (I can understand Yato and Tenma, but not everyone else), and now at the entire Netflix series twice as much. And at the Eagle in Omega (I forgot her name, forgive my brain).
And this is why I get angry at people using the mask rule as an excuse for male characters to do whatever they want with women that lose their mask in front of them.
