Meaningless Ramblings.

I haven’t seen this discussed often, but the tale of the Legendary Lovers from episode 40 seems to be a direct parallel to the story of Princess Serenity, Prince Endymion, and Queen Beryl.

The parallels are pretty obvious. The maiden of the Heavens is Princess Serenity and the youth is Prince Endymion; their names are even a reference to the Greek myth of Selene (the goddess and personification of the Moon) and Endymion (a handsome youth), a heavenly maiden and a youth of the land who fell in love.

The young girl who turned into a jealous monster is Beryl. The manga, as well as PGSM, portray Beryl in a noticeably more tragic light than in the anime. It’s revealed that Beryl was once a beautiful peasant girl who was in love with Endymion.

She appeared to be a servant in Endymion’s castle and, as a result, often stumbled upon him and Serenity during their secret trysts.

Her jealously of the Moon Princess burned her up inside; Beryl knew that she, a mere servant, could never compete with the beautiful and ethereal Princess of the Moon. Eventually, she became so jealous and enraged that she sold her soul to the sun demon, Queen Metallia.

Much like the girl from the myth, after her jealously overcomes her, Beryl turns into a monster; this is mostly reflected in her personality, thought process, etc, but her physical appearance becomes much more demented and inhuman as well.

Beryl’s hatred is directed towards Princess Serenity, whom she sees as the cause of all of her woes.

Her hatred grows to the extent that she actually kills Prince Endymion, the man she was obsessed with, in order to get to Serenity. When Endymion leaped in front of Serenity to protect her, Beryl attacked indiscriminately (much like the mythical monster attacked everyone indiscriminately in her jealous rage).

The jealous girl from the myth eventually gets redemption once the Senshi recognize the cause of her suffering. Sailor Moon uses the Ginzuishou to heal her, and, at long last, she is able to pass on peacefully. She even waves to Mamoru as she leaves (which I’ve always interpreted as yet another Beryl parallel).

Unfortunately, Beryl never gets the opportunity to atone, not that she’d take it, anyway. However, she does get something close to a resolution at the end of PGSM. Interestingly, in this medium, ultimately Beryl isn’t the true enemy. The cold-hearted and selfish Princess Serenity is. After Sailor Moon is forced to kill Endymion (as he had sealed Queen Metallia inside of himself and had been taken over), the Princess reemerges and takes over Usagi, stating that she is going to destroy the world because Endymion is no longer in it. Queen Beryl finally snaps and calls her out on her hypocrisy.

It’s easy to forget that, from Beryl’s perspective, Princess Serenity is the one who ruined everything. She could have anything and anyone she wanted, but she took Endymion, the one person Beryl wanted herself. Her hatred and jealousy of the Princess just kept growing and growing until it consumed her, turning her into a shell filled with nothing but hatred.

This line, said by Rei, ultimately applies to both jealousy-ridden women.