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The star signs of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
In the beginning, there were alignments. Then there were Hogwarts Houses. And then there was BDE.
When it comes to judging your favorite characters, these are all very fine and worthy metrics, but isn’t it time we went back to the metrics that mattered? You know, the stars?
With their hands determinedly covering up the birthdates of your favorite characters, FANGRRLS Clare and Sara set out to assign star signs to all your faves, one franchise at a time.
This edition, we travel back to the '90s to talk about the Zodiac signs of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! *electric guitar riff*
Jason Lee Scott - Taurus
Clare: Okay, full disclosure regarding our cosmic communions: due to the beautiful bounty of genre fiction, we often have to self-select to get a number of folks between “eight” and “all of the astrological signs.” The problem with Power Rangers is that there are so many Power Rangers. Please believe me when I say that we discussed how best to winnow this list down at length, even just for Mighty Morphin, because what I had previously assumed was an elite fellowship is, in fact, an entire community. Amazing.
Anyway, I’m disclosing this because I feel like I don’t have much to say about Jason. Much like our crack at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we are dealing with characters who have one or two character traits, tops. This is no bad thing, it just presents a challenge.
Sara: We’re making personality cakes out of personality crumbs over here.
Clare: When we discuss teams like this, we often talk about the fact that the girl on the team’s main character trait appears to be “is traditionally feminine.” But I would like to use Jason to argue that there is a staff counterpart that is just “is traditionally a guy.”
Sara: I really love his look, though. A hoodie without sleeves that shows your belly button is some kind of fashion paradox and I’m here for it.
Clare: Jason is a nice young man. He loves his friends, mentors team nerd Billy, and is… nice. He does love martial arts, but, then again, everybody Jason knows loves martial arts, so that’s not really an identifying feature. He strikes me like a guy you meet in college who turns out to be an Eagle Scout and, like, an involved Eagle Scout.
Sara: He’s like, “Excellent! Friendship is totally cool! Most awesome!”
Clare: So far, we’ve only discussed Tauruses who are, to use the parlance of the series, radical, but sometimes, Tauruses can be boring. And that boring Taurus is Jason.
Sara: *skateboards sadly away in sleeveless red hoodie*
Zack Taylor - Sagittarius
Clare: Now Zack, Zack I like. He’s got spunk! He’s got verve! He’s actually confident in himself, like the secure kind of confidence your therapist tells you should work on.
Sara: His dance moves are incredible.
Clare: I also appreciate that he has, like, actual fears, and works to conquer them.
Sara: Thus concludes our presentation and knowledge of Zack. We feel like he's a Sagittarius because he's just randomly great at random stuff like breakdancing. He's chill about things but not like… Taurus chill, where you're so chill you spent the whole weekend in bed ordering pizzas. Sagittarius chill, where they're chill but also they might just take off at any moment.
Trini Kwan - Pisces
Sara: We return now to our Pisces of Genre segment in which Trini is included due to her low-key hippie vibes.
Clare: According to the interactive Mighty Morphin Power Rangers CD-ROM (this is what we had to use back in the day, kids! Trivia frisbees!), Trini’s favorite superhero is Wonder Woman. Clearly, Trini has the finest taste of all of the Power Rangers, even in the year of our Lord 1993.
Sara: The Year of Our Lord Zedd. Again, that's basically all we know about Trini, except she is into environmental activism and is later canonically queer therefore my favorite Power Ranger. Besides that, her Zord is extra amazing, although a true Pisces would have bedazzled it day one.
Kimberly Hart - Libra
Clare: Kimberly is such the quintessential nineties TV girl. Like, she’s brunette, athletic, bangs, great smile. I just look at her and I’m like, “I’m pretty sure my brother dated her in high school,” you know?
Sara: She’s kind of the bummer of the show because she just gets saved by Tommy all of the time, kind of like how Libras want everyone to save them from awkward social situations and making decisions.
Clare: According to the CD-ROM, Kimberly’s birthday is Valentine’s Day. This is both clearly wrong and clearly something a Libra would do. A Libra would lie to themselves, their parents, and the government about their birthday.
Sara: A Libra would 1000% say their birthday was Valentine's Day as a flirt and then when you ask them about it be like “omg why are you being so unfair to me?” and cry until you apologized to them for daring to believe they were an Aquarius.
Billy Cranston - Cancer
Clare: ... Look, y’all, I don’t know if this is some kind of weird self-loathing projection, but I hate Billy. I just do. I don’t trust a handsome man who wears overalls earnestly. I’m not talking overalls in like, a fun, punky Hackers kind of way, I’m talking, like, serving some Chucky vibes.
Sara: I mean, he looks like Chucky style-wise but he also looks like he's 35. At first, you see him and it's like, oh that's their Giles.
Clare: I think part of this comes from the fact that Billy is a Hollywood Nerd during one of the last times in our pop cultural imagination when nerd was a pejorative, so some part of my lizard brain is like “YOU’RE NOT EVEN A REAL WEIRDO, BILLIAM! YOU’RE JUST A JOCK IN NERD DRAG!”
Sara: You are Jason with a book. Which you carry around to look smart but have not read more than 10 pages of.
Clare: Nice Guy™. Why does he dress like a child? Is it fashion or arrested development? He’s MILHOUSE. I DON’T LIKE THAT.
Sara: I feel like he's fine but also I would absolutely refuse to hang out with him outside of the Power Rangers. Like, that's cool, you have a book and you like to be sad about your life. You do that on your own time though. I will say this, Billy did learn a lot through his boring friendship with Jason, so I have to give him some credit.
Tommy Oliver - Leo
Clare: So often, when Power Rangers is brought up, it is said that Tommy is the best Ranger, and you know what? We are here too, for all of time, confirm this. Tommy is the greatest Power Ranger of all time, and for that, we recognize him as the One Good Male Leo.
Sara: I have to question if he is actually the best. He's the one that just sails in at the end like “hi gang I've got this” then he shows off and leaves. That's great but it's not teamwork, so I don't see how he can be the greatest of a team he's barely on.
Clare: Jason wishes he was Tommy so bad.
Sara: Yet Jason is genuine in a way that Tommy never can be.
Clare: Tommy is the Tuxedo Mask of Power Rangers.
Sara: “But you haven’t done anything!”
Clare: My favorite factoid about Tommy is that the reason he was always off doing karate or punchin’ Putties was that his counterpart in Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger was stuck in a cave to preserve his delicate life force and only showed up when he needed to clean house for the others.
Sara: Typical Leo excuse.
Zordon - Capricorn
Clare: Question: Does Zordon have a personality? I spent some time in the ancient archives, A.K.A. several Power Rangers wiki sites, and… he’s… just this giant head in a jar. He’s just a wizard. He’s an off-brand Gandalf who isn’t even interesting in his off-brandness. Even Radagast was like “maybe I’m Gandalf, but disgusting?” That’s a valid, discernable brand! Make some choices, Zordon!
Sara: Mistakes work for having a personality, check. When he's dying he guilt trips the Rangers so hard to save him and truly it is Capricornian perfection.
Alpha 5 - Virgo
Sara: Not trying to be rude to the Virgos in my life but if Alpha 5 were my robot I would program him not to be yelling all of the time.
Clare: In direct opposition to Zordon, Alpha 5 has this entire wild backstory! He was built by a king and raised as his most beloved son! And then Zordon rolled up and was like “hey, do you need a job?” and Alpha 5 was like “sure?” and then all this garbage went down. Basically, he’s like a TA who got kidnapped. Poor little dude, no wonder he yells all the time.
Sara: Oh, great, now I’m supposed to feel bad. Well, I guess I do feel bad for Alpha 5. The level of stress that comes from mentoring teenagers is extreme.
Clare: But before we get too lovey on this weirdo, we do have to point out that he hates punks. I realize Bulk and Skull aren’t great representatives of our punk brethren, but he makes an anti-punk potion! That’s drastic!
Sara: To paraphrase my personal hero Punk Kimberly, Alpha 5 is a narc and a square.
Rita Repulsa - Leo
Clare: As a shrieking, cackling weirdo, I love Rita Repulsa. I love her headdress, I love her supremely Nickelodeon name, and I love her. No opportunity is too petty for Rita, and I respect that about her.
Sara: Like any Leo, she just needed a magical transformation to occur before she could be a good person. She does have a great sense of humor and the amount of gloating she does without actually accomplishing anything is both impressive and extremely Leo of her. I would say Rita is my favorite Leo so far.
Lord Zedd - Aries
Clare: Oh my God, I forgot Lord Zedd’s brain is… like… exposed.
Sara: It’s so sick. He looks like a Cenobite. I feel like Zedd is an Aries because he always yells and is kind of a rude jerk until he falls in love with Rita then he turns into moderate Uncle Zedd or whatever and probably lectures people about how to act all of the time.
Goldar - Scorpio
Sara: Aw! Kitten!
Clare: As a small child who loved ancient Egypt and cats, I loved Goldar. He’s a big ol’ blue hideous cat monster in a giant gold headdress, how could I not?
Sara: Cute little meow-meow.
Clare: Sara, can you elaborate on what a freaking nightmare a Leo, an Aries, and a Scorpio are all together?
Sara: I mean, it’s no wonder they make absolutely no progress because they’re too busy arguing with each other. Theoretically, in the moments when they’re all on the same side, this is a really intimidating trio, but those are three signs that will all try to seize control in various diametrically opposed ways until everything descends into chaos and at least two of them end up in a long-term relationship with one another while the third will be salty about it for life.
Bulk & Skull - Gemini
Clare: There are so many people on this list, I can feel myself… fading…
Sara: Only like 14 people, you’ll be fine. Besides, you can’t wrap it up before you call Bulk and Skull. They're in pretty much every episode of the show. Bulk and Skull is literally what is going on inside of every single Gemini ever. They cause endless chaos for no reason but in some weird way, they’re good. That’s 80% of Geminis right there.
