you guys are posting too much
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The Yata could still be in hell without running a nuclear reactor. It's not like it has any incentive to power Gensokyo. "
Inconsistent. Why even bother having the Yatagarasu at this point if it was already in Former Hell but just didn't want to do anything.
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The reason why I considered that the Yata was in hell was because I expected Kanako to be as straight forward with Utsuho as possible, in an attempt not to confuse her with things like common metaphors. "
Kanako asked who the strongest hell raven was. Utsuho says it was her, Kanako gave her the power. The question wasn't important, it was more likely the dumbness of the statement that gave Kanako the OK, since she wanted someone pretty empty that would be easy to manipulate, so to speak.
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so I'm thinking the Yata did not want to do that. Kanako took more drastic measures and forced the Yata into Okuu."
no, baseless speculation, etc
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You're forgetting that gods aren't restricted to a single body"
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How Kanako managed to turn Okuu into a shrine to the Yatagarasu is a good question, but really, the enshrining of gods itself is unexplained; like, if I built a shrine and started workshipping Kanako there, would a portion of her spirit just appear there so she could manifest herself to me? Or it's necessary for the god itself to show up and leave a part of it there? And after it's enshrined, can it just choose to leave the shrine, or it only disappears if people stop workshipping it there?"
Yes, and I'll explain this below
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Okuu contains a portion of the Yata and the other portions are out gathering faith."
Why assume that they're out gathering faith?
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In addition, a portion of a god may be easier to contain then the entire god (I know a god can apparently split itself without lousing power, but that can't be all there is to it). "
Why assume this, and yes that's likely all there is to it, as below.
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However, containment is still containment and it does beg the question, why the Yata doesn't just pull out, assuming that's what it wants to do. "
Still don't see why it's necessary that its being kept against its will.
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I think the god has to choose to be enshrined."
why say it's being kept against its will and then say it chooses to be enshrined
The powerful shimenawa is made of "femtofibers" which is just a handwavy jargon excuse for "nothing can escape no matter what, therefore we can seal gods". There was a nice theory about the Moriya's gigantic shimenawa someone else had but I forgot what it was.
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I think of it as, the Yata needed a presence in hell, so something like a shrine, and it needed an operator for it's power, so something like Okuu"
More or less. Even if a god can split into several parts, most are probably too lazy to do the bulk of their work themselves, so they use priestesses and goshintai and whatnot as outlets.
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However, I would not say that the Yata doesn't do anything, it would still have to be taxed for the use of it's power."
It's a god. It does what it wants. Magic.
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Also I'm gonna ask the wiki about why the article says that Okuu ate the Yata. "
Because nearly every instance in dialogue of Utsuho obtaining said power says she ate it, drank it, consumed it, etc.
Thanks for posting that blurb Sagus, I was going to bring that up myself.
Gods can split into multiple parts because of how ZUN characterizes gods throughout the series, just as said in that blurb. Gods are written in a similar way as how the heuristics of religion works in the real world. A god is not exactly a being, it is an essence of sorts. It's the cause X that makes result Y happen, because that's how people
believe it happens. To that end, a god doesn't have to be anywhere specifically to cause whatever they're known for, it's just the attribution for that result. When ZUN writes that a god can split into parts, it is based on this principle and transformed into this characterization (and Suwako's quote is a brilliant example of demonstrating this is how he writes gods; personally I find it wonderful). A god splitting into multiple perfect copies of itself to be present in multiple places at once makes perfect sense like this. It's also the reason that I suggest that their power is not diminished whatsoever when they "split" or have many shrines or goshintai or anything otherwise using their power somehow. Their influence is not somehow split when many people attribute the god for things in different places, so that's how it would work as a characterization as well.
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Regarding the Hakurei Shrine, I'd wager it continues to work after breaking because the structure itself is not important."
The Hakurei Shrine that breaks isn't the actual shrine. It's said at least once, maybe twice, and not only does Yukari give no shits when it's destroyed by Tenshi, she later destroys it herself.
