Okay so I will go over how star seeds work and why they're so special. To start, in the manga the sailor starlights explain that sailor crystal make a sailor guradian who they are. Sailor Crystals are basically more powerful and special star seeds that give one power and designates them as guardian of a planet. Galaxia's plan was stealing sailor crystals and destroying planets, all for the purpose to reach Earth to Usagi's Silver Crystal, stated to be the most powerful of them all. All living things have star seeds, come in all shapes and sizes and even different names.
Normal Star Seeds
This is a normal star seed, all living things have them. In the Star Seed Hierarchy, it is the most basic one at the bottom.
Then you have the Sailor Crystals, special star seeds that make a sailor guardian who they are and give them powers. Chibiusa's Sailor Crystal is a pink rose which makes hers stand out.
Golden Crystal
Next is the Golden Crystal, some theories say it's supposed to be as powerful as the silver crystal though we only see it in action in the Dream arc but special because it's Earth's crystal.
Sapphire Crystal
Now we have the Sapphire Crystal, Sailor Galaxia's sailor crystal and the crystal of destruction. This is what gives Galaxia her immense power, and is near the top in the hierarchy.
Silver Crystal
Finally we have the Silver Crystal, Usagi's star seed, the plot McGuffin of the series, and the most powerful star seed/sailor crystal in the manga. Top of the hierarchy above all others.
The only other seeds and crystals are the Cosmos Seed and Crystal and the Chaos Seed and Crystal, the Cosmos Crystal was the Silver Crystal bringing all the sailor crystals in the galaxy together and becoming one, upgrading and creating the Cosmos Crystal. The Chaos Crystal come from Chaos, shocking I know. While we never see these seeds or crystals, they are the most powerful in the series.
And that should be the hierarchy of star seeds and sailor crystals. So to sum up, or TL;DR:
Silver Crystal/Cosmos Crystal/Cosmos Seed
Chaos Crystal/Chaos Seed
Sapphire Crystal
Golden Crystal
Sailor Crystals
Star Seeds
Also here's a video by Sailor Silver Rabbit that explains what star seeds are.
Star Seeds are probably one of the parts of SM that get the most interest and questions for people who haven't experienced this series as it's not a concept most people know. I think this blog does a very good job at expressing Star Seeds from a powerscaling standpoint but there's significant more one could say in terms of what they represent and their place in their series.
ReplyDeleteStar Seeds are first introduced as an idea in Act 49 where Queen Serenity tells the young Princess Serenity that we all have a star in our heart that overcomes the darkness in our mind. Star Seeds are an expression of who someone is, their identity. This can be seen by the fact that Sailor Senshi have two Star Seeds, a human star seed (or whatever species the Sailor Senshi happens to come from) which is temporal and Galaxia compares to invisible specks of dust in Act 52, and their eternal indestructible Star Seeds, the Sailor Crystals. It can also be seen in how Chibi-Moon inherited the Silver Crystal but was unable to use its power or transform until she transformed it into the Pink Moon Crystal representing finally coming out of her mother's shadow and finding her own identity.
I don't think I would agree that there we should consider the Star Seeds as a hierarchy. While that might be true in a vs-sense as some produce more power than others and Sailor Crystals are indestructible in comparison to normal Star Seeds, it's against the thematic point of the Star Arcs. This is how Galaxia thinks of star seeds: irrelevant human ones, sailor crystal are the only star seeds a Sailor Senshi should care about, and her Sailor Crystal makes normal Sailor Crystals trash by comparison. Galaxia's worldview is one where the eternal and metaphysical, that with power, are all that are important. In contrast, Usagi asserts that the temporal and physical ARE important, in fact that her mundane life and the ties she made to her friends are the real source of her power. The final arc's theme-ing is fundamentally about the dichotomy that we are at all times physical and metaphysical, eternal and temporal, and that through love these parts of ourselves are reconciled together. It's also reflected in the first arc and to some extent the third's themes. If you mean they're in a hierarchy solely in a powerscaling sense, that's fine but Usagi denies Galaxia's notion that eternal and indestructible nature of the Sailor Crystals have confer onto them more value than normal Star Seeds.
Some other points about Star Seeds:
1: They seem to have wills. The Silver Crystal at times acts automatically to do things like protect Usagi. It possibly had to do with Chibiusa's lack of growth as when she first transformed and changed the Silver Crystal of the Future into her own Pink Moon Crystal is when she began to physically age. Similarly when Sailor Saturn was required to fight the Dead Moon, Hotaru began to age very rapidly. A theory I've had for a long time is that the Mythological Gods that the series alludes to here and there are actually the Sailor Crystals. Minako is stated to be the Goddess Venus and an incarnation of her several times and she could also be said to be an incarnation of her Sailor Crystal. The only conflicting evidence I can think of for this is Queen Serenity was apparently the Goddess Selene on Earth and she's not a Sailor Crystal.
2: Star Seeds are kind of physical things. In response to the Galaxia vs Beerus Death Battle, a few people asked me if it made sense for someone to grab a Star Seed. When they're inside someone, they're definitely not physical. They are the internal star of someone's heart, the thing that makes them who they are. However when removed they "crystalize" according to Yaten in Act 54, allowing for things such as Kenji Tsukino, a normal human, to put the Silver Crystal on a pendant in Act 10.
Delete3: There is an inherent link between a Star Seed and the psychological state of the person associated with it. When Usagi's heart is in turmoil the Silver Crystal's power which had gone inside Prince Endymion shakes him in Act 12 and as mentioned Chibi-Moon transformed the Silver Moon Crystal into the Pink Moon Crystal with her psychological development
I look forward to seeing more blogs from you :)
This is definitely more on the vs debate side of looking at star seeds, this blog would be very different if I looked at them from Usagi's point of view.
DeleteAs far as them being sentient, unless I missed something, the silver crystal is the only one I remember being sentient, but you bring up good points.
That's an interesting perspective, I hadn't considered the Silver Crystal might be the only Sailor Crystal that has a will. Personally I don't think that's most likely because I think a major point of the final arc is that the stars within people are similar in nature. I'd support it with the fact that the Saturn Crystal seems to stop Hotaru from aging which I think makes more sense if it's aware of what's happening. But I can see that perspective that it's a unique feature of the Silver Crystal.
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