Questions Haruka, Michiru, and Hotaru's Family Unit (SPOILERS)

[lordyellowtail]

(Not sure if I'm supposed to tag this myself or how to tag it. Are there guidelines somewhere?)

Happy New Year, everyone! This is my first post here, and I finally decided to ask something that's been confusing me for quite a while. I've tried looking it up on the Sailor Moon wiki, but the answers I get are vague.

From what I understand, at least in the anime baby Hotaru is left with her father at the end of S (Season 4). But at some point she's the adopted daughter of Haruka and Michiru. From what I understand, Pluto brings her to them ... at some point. And then we get the adorable little family we all coo over in turns.

So, why does Pluto take baby Hotaru from her father, who's obviously happy to be reunited with her when we last see him. I'm left with the vague impression Pluto kidnaps her...

Second question, which I'm gonna put under a cut because it's extremely spoiler-y for Stars.

When they're pulling their insane fake Heel Face Turn in Stars to get close to Galaxia so they can attempt to assassinate her, Uranus and Neptune kill Pluto, and, more horrifyingly, Saturn. I've not seen this season, but I have to ask given the sheer amount of fun fans have with the Haruka-papa/Michiru-mama/Hotaru family unit: do they EVER show any remorse for doing this? It's one thing to believe they'd freely kill her in S. But by Stars she's apparently effectively their child. So they murder their child to facilitate an undercover mission that arguably is motivated by their own hubris, as they are completely wrong and arrogant in their assumption they can kill Galaxia where presumably dozens/hundreds of other Senshi *teams* failed. It's difficult to believe in the genuineness of Haruka and Michiru's attachment to Hotaru after that. If they showed remorse at some point and are shown weighing their daughter against the fate of the universe/world and making a terribly difficult choice, that's one thing, but I don't believe they are. It's too easy to believe they go back to viewing her as expendable like they did in S, that's hard to stomach after they allow themselves to become her parents. ... In all honestly, as much as I love Haruka and Michiru and their relationship, most of the time I can't stand the way Uranus and Neptune treat the other Senshi, and this doesn't help.

Comments

[erinptah]

In the manga, Professor Tomoe dies at the end of the S arc, so Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna chose to raise her directly from there. Most of the cute Outers!family stuff is coming from their manga interactions. (The manga, in turn, doesn't have the face-heel-turn bluff plan at all.) The anime had Hotaru reunited with her father, so the out-of-universe explanation is that the writers had to do something to bring the plot closer to what the manga was giving them.

In-universe, Hotaru starts rapidly growing up and developing Saturn-powers right after Setsuna picks her up. It would make sense if it flat-out wasn't safe to leave her with an ordinary human caretaker -- even if her father was in top physical shape, and he isn't, he's still recovering from extensive injuries. (He was heavily bandaged, in a sling, and in a wheelchair at the end of S.)

And that's not the kind of thing you can arrange through legal channels. "Your Honor, we ask you to rule that this parent is an unfit caretaker, on the grounds that he isn't prepared for this infant to morph into a teenage magical warrior of destruction over the course of a week."

It's a shame we never get anything more about Hotaru and her father after that, but Stars is really low on Outers interaction in general. I don't think there's anything wrong with assuming it happened.


As for the final-battle stuff: My impression has always been that Pluto and Saturn were in on the plan. Anyone pretending to join Galaxia would have to do something really dramatic to make it convincing. Killing your teammates fits the bill.

IMO Setsuna and Hotaru have enough of that Outers mindset to agree this level of self-sacrifice is necessary...but wouldn't be convincing if they were actually playing the "ice-cold ruthless traitor" roles. Haruka and Michiru can steel themselves long enough to bluff their way through it.

Also relevant: Hotaru has aged up to 14-15 at this point, in mind as well as body. She's as old as the Inners were when they first decided to die protecting Usagi. Haruka and Michiru themselves are only 17-18! It's ridiculously young by real-world standards, but you gotta be able to look at them through the lens of Magical Action Anime Teenager standards, too.

[lordyellowtail]

Thanks for the explanation. I had a feeling the answer would lie somewhere in me getting manga and anime canon conflated. I've only ever watched the anime, but there are parts of its canon I really, really want to dump in favor of the manga version. As harsh as it sounds, killing off Baby!Hotaru's dad is one of the things I prefer; it neatly avoids the whole issue of Haruka and Michiru needing to swipe Hotaru from her father in the first place. I'm right there with you that it's for the best; the poor man is not equipped to deal with a baby, let alone a rapidly growing Senshi of Destruction. Pragmatically and strategically it's the best option.

Though it occurs to me it would actually be VERY easy to make Hotaru's adoption look properly legal on paper without killing her father. It's explicitly kidnapping and rather horrifying in its implications, but if Chibiusa is still around, she presumably still has access to Luna-P, which can _hypnotize_ people: like judges and child services people and Hotaru's dad. Between that and Mercury's supercomputer and intellect presumably making her the world's greatest hacker if she wants/needs to be (because I sit around and think of the mundane implications of their powers), manipulating the courts to get the desire they want would be within the realm of possibility.

That assumes you can get Ami and Usagi on board with such a morally questionable (kidnapping!) scheme. I actually don't think it would be that hard--if Professor Tomoe was actually a negligent/bad parent in any way before he got possessed by evil. Usagi is at her most dangerous in the later seasons, in many instances, when Chibiusa is in danger. I could see that bleeding over to getting Hotaru out of a bad situation if they had genuine reason to believe she wasn't safe.

This assumes you go with the Outers' MO, which tends to be about a subtle as a steamroller. Once the situation is clear (that Hotaru does not need to be raised by her father because of rapid aging/apocalypse powers/etc.) I can actually imagine Sailor Moon calmly talking him into giving her up for her own good using the Power of Compassion and Moon Kingdom Big Soulful Blue Eyes. And then Usagi gives the baby to Uranus and Neptune, knowing they're kind of insane and will flatten anything that would threaten Hotaru. (Because Usagi's maturing and learning to use others' crazy to her advantage. :P)

I actually like the second scenario better because I can imagine Neptune and Uranus and Pluto's reactions to Usagi essentially talking someone into giving up their kid without any sort of coercion as being pretty hilarious. As in, "how did that even just happen?"

(Usagi would gladly take the baby because anyone who could be talked into giving up their kid, even by a superhero, doesn't need to be raising her. Usagi's a ditz, not an idiot, and I totally believe she can run a Secret Test of Character if she wants to.)

In all seriousness, it's just so much easier to kill Professor Tomoe, and it removes "acquiring Hotaru" from the long list of morally questionable/almost sociopathic/what-the-hell-hero things Uranus and Neptune do during the series. :P

I agree that we're probably supposed to infer that Hotaru and Setsuna were in on the plan in Stars. But the fact is there's no solid proof of that and given their behavior in Sailor Moon S it's entirely too easy to believe Saturn and Pluto WEREN'T in on it. Uranus and Neptune were completely ready to kill Saturn before, and weren't playing double agent, then. It's an ambiguity that unnecessarily clouds Uranus and Neptune's morality even more.

It's more palatable if you assume, since Professor Tomoe's alive, anime Haruka and Michiru never adopt Hotaru. They still kill her, which under the circumstances was pointless and horrible and arguably unforgivably arrogant *at best,* but that's leagues away from deliberately murdering your daughter, which is where my brain was sending up the black flag, because *no, that is not okay.*

I have no idea why the anime cooked up the whole face-heel-turn subplot. It's completely unnecessary and pointless and makes Haruka and Michiru seem *deranged.* Why do they even think it would work? Galaxia has killed Senshi throughout the galaxy at this point. Two trying to stab her in the back by pretending to join her has probably already been tried before, more than once. Senshi are dropping like flies, and they kill two themselves and lessen their Princess' protection that much more.

I have the sinking suspicion the anime-writers just wanted to up the Usagi-torture even more than the manga. Her heartbreaking reactions to losing Mamoru and Chibiusa are gut-wrenching to watch. Adding in the Outers "betrayal" was just unnecessary and cruel. :P