Power of the ladies: How do they work?

[GuardianTempest]

I'm not sure if this fits here, but how does the eastern-westerns-style magician-thing work? Does the western ones use an artifact while the eastern ones use the elements?

[ToyoRai]

I'm not sure if this fits here, but how does the eastern-westerns-style magician-thing work? Does the western ones use an artifact while the eastern ones use the elements?

There is eastern-western magician split in Touhou? I though the split was either you are born as Magician or you train yourself to become one and become an youkai once you have trained enough.

I really don't get why Skeibanki has the power to detach her head from her body, even though she is classified as rokurobuki. Those who don't know, rokurobuki is an youkai who look like human but has elastic neck. If she was nukekubi, her power would make sense, as nukekubi are youkais who's head can detach fromt heir bodies and then fly around looking for human flesh to consume upon.

[GuardianTempest]

There is eastern-western magician split in Touhou? I though the split was either you are born as Magician or you train yourself to become one and become an youkai once you have trained enough.

Sorry about that, I read that in the wiki and I thought I could use some elaboration. It's just a split in terms of aesthetics, I think, or maybe in methods?

[Malyszeq]

As for Koishi/Kokoro power's similarities I think that Koishi rather affects actions and thoughts taht people subcoonsciously take. For example she might make you do things you wouldn't consciously do, but can't affect your behaviour per se. Kokoro on the other hand... we do not know actually anything about her (at least until there is a reliable tarnsaltion of her profile, abilities and dialogues) but manipulating emotions may make you feel happy, sad, scared, angry, but it will not affect your decisions.

Also am i the only one who thinks that (from waht we know) Kokoro has probably one of the most tragic backstories in the lore, aside from maybe Parsee? I mean, someone who is able to feel everything but hope. Like a living victim of a dementor from HP series. And she went insane from it...

[_cf]

As for Yuugi, until ZUN explains her ability better I'll keep believing that Yuugi can interfere with supernatural power itself, including the one the other touhous need to do their magic.

[Drake]

As for Yuugi, until ZUN explains her ability better I'll keep believing that Yuugi can interfere with supernatural power itself, including the one the other touhous need to do their magic.

"Until you can prove me wrong on something that will likely never be elaborated on I'll believe what I want to believe based on absolutely no evidence but a total misconception that was totally just pointed out on the first page"

yeah ok bud have fun

manipulating emotions may make you feel happy, sad, scared, angry, but it will not affect your decisions

Doesn't make much sense. Manipulating somebody's emotions is bound to affect their decision-making in a huge way.

[ToyoRai]

I was thinking a little bit how each character boss battles go and I came to thinking that what if the strenght of charactyer's powers determent how much they can use in danmaku battle. Lets take Rumia, Sakuya and Remilia into the cutting board. Rumia's powers are really weak, so she can use them freely during danmaku battle. Sakuya's time stopping ability only lasts for a brief period, and it is possible she can use it longer outside of danmaku battle. Remilia's fate control is banned from battle. The more powerful their powers are, the less they can use them. Of course, the spellcard rule doesn't affect all characters in a bad way. Sekibanki, for example, is actually really good in danmaku battle as her ability to detach her head allows her to fire danmaku from her head and the body.

[Starxsword]

As for Yuugi, until ZUN explains her ability better I'll keep believing that Yuugi can interfere with supernatural power itself, including the one the other touhous need to do their magic.

That is not what her ability says, so why would you believe this? Why infer something that does not exist? This is akin to saying Cirno can manipulate fire.

Sekibanki, for example, is actually really good in danmaku battle as her ability to detach her head allows her to fire danmaku from her head and the body.

I think it has more to do with how easy it is to incorporate in a spell card battle. For example, Remilia's fate manipulation would be almost impossible to incorporate in a spell card battle, so she has no reason to use it. Yukari's, on the other hand, isn't that difficult, so you see her using it in spell card duels.
Yuyuko and Kogasa are pretty much the same way, their abilities are really hard to incorporate in a spell card duel, so you don't see them use it. In Yuyuko's case, it just works, there are no gestures, nothing. Kogasa, well she just surprises you, can't really do that in a spell card duel.

[ToyoRai]

That is not what her ability says, so why would you believe this? Why infer something that does not exist? This is akin to saying Cirno can manipulate fire.

Yeah, we can only create powers if characters lack any.
...What, did you think this thread point was to say 100% canon?

On spellcards, maybe I am overanalyzing stuff. I dunno. Though I wasn't really thinking about gameplay and how their powers would actually seen in it. And does Yukari use her powers in her spellcards? Note, I am not counting fighting games as I think the Spellcard Rule is slightly lifted from them to allow character to use their powers more freely. For example, the rule of "Attacks relying on physical strength are not to be repeated" seems to be ignored in fighting games.

[Drake]

I was thinking a little bit how each character boss battles go and I came to thinking that what if the strenght of charactyer's powers determent how much they can use in danmaku battle.

I don't think there's a real limit on how influential a character's power can be on their spell cards. The point of Spell Card duels is that they're supposed to be beautiful, not merely that you wipe the opponent out. Usually it just so happens that the more powerful youkai have less easily-representable abilities, but since it's all danmaku anyways, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, we can only create powers if characters lack any.
...What, did you think this thread point was to say 100% canon?

Well, the thread's "point" as far as I'm aware is to discuss how the characters' powers work, as you've laid out. We don't have to be talking about things in "this is true"/"this isn't", but when we already have canonical information about their abilities, it seems a bit ridiculous to make stuff up that doesn't fit. I mean sure you can decide to continue saying Yuugi's ability really is to "manipulate the supernatural" whatever that means, you'll just be wrong for the same reason saying Sanae's ability is to breathe fire. As long as it's clear when we're talking about idle speculation and when we're talking about actual information on the subject, there's nothing wrong with talking about ambiguous abilities.

For example, I wonder how Renko's "ability" works when she isn't on the Earth. Her geolocation thing is sort-of-implied to just be intelligence, but I mean when her and Maribel traveled to the Torifune, they were basically in space. If there were any windows, Renko could have seen the stars in the sky, and so theoretically be able to find their location if her ability could go to that length.

[_cf]

"Until you can prove me wrong on something that will likely never be elaborated on I'll believe what I want to believe based on absolutely no evidence but a total misconception that was totally just pointed out on the first page"

yeah ok bud have fun

Because doing/being everything Confucius never talked about is terribly clear, yes.

Given the way ZUN thinks, my current bet is that he wanted Yuugi's power to be really awesome, to go with his basic idea for Yuugi (awesome onee-san), but couldn't be arsed to think on something specific. So he wrote her ability in an even more enigmatic way, and left it at that.

[ToyoRai]

@Drake I guess I would say that expanding on character's powers in some respect is fine (as in, try to explain stuff what ain't stated) and making powers to characters who don't have any is fine too. However, making own powers to characters who already have some is no-no. I don't want to discourage fanon straight out, but keeping canon in mind is a good idea.

On Renko's powers, I think doing something like that can make it complicated her to accurately use her powers. It is stated that she can only tell the current time in Japanese Standard Time. So if she was in Europe for example, if she wanted to tell the current time, she had to do some calculation. Her being in space probably doesn't help, especially since she can only see the current location by the Moon.

[Drake]

Given the way ZUN thinks, my current bet is that he wanted Yuugi's power to be really awesome, to go with his basic idea for Yuugi (awesome onee-san), but couldn't be arsed to think on something specific. So he wrote her ability in an even more enigmatic way, and left it at that.

"Really awesome"? Couldn't be arsed to think of something? Having a complicated reference to Confucius is somehow not specific? This is utterly not ZUN; it sounds more like how fans will look at the series' surface level and go "oh that ZUN what a silly drunkard".

Yes, the point of the ability is to be enigmatic. Yuugi doesn't need an ability to do anything, in a way similar to Yuuka, which is likely the reason for the strangeness. The problem is when you continue going with a misconception after it was pointed out that it is completely a misconception. To take steps further than "well this is deliberately confusing, guess it sort of ends there" is dishonest. Even if you wanted to take "supernatural" out of that, to say she manipulates it is plain false. Like I said, I'm not preventing you from waving your interpretation around, just don't go around acting as if it's valid.

I think it's hilariously and appropriately meta that it's "unclear" what exactly her ability allows Yuugi to do, since the ability itself is a metaphor for things that cannot be explained. We can see Yuugi's title is the spoken-of kai-ryoku-ran-shin, her name is literally part of kai-ryoku-ran-shin, we can say she possesses/wields kai-ryoku-ran-shin, and her ability itself being unexplainable is part of what kai-ryoku-ran-shin represents. It's this glorious mishmash of deliberate obfuscation, and tbh I'm more satisfied with her ability than most other more concrete ones.

Toyo: It's basically tongue-in-cheek. Renko says that she can only get the time in JST, and not UTC, even though it's just subtraction as Maribel points out. Yet she can calculate her position on the earth based on the moon and the time based on the stars, which you'd think is unbelievably more difficult. But yeah, that's basically why it's interesting.

[SeasideCharizard]

For the sake of stopping this argument quicker since it somehow angers me the more I read it:
I will go ahead and point out that Yuugi does seem to actively use a power related to her ability in some of her spell cards (the brute force unrelated ones), although as stated before, what it actually does is unknown since the spell cards themselves, which so far I've found to be Oni Sign "Dreadful Raging Waves" and Big Four Arcanum "Knock Out in Three Steps", are noted in respectively Double Spoiler and The Grimoire of Marisa to work by a power or technique that can't be understood.

Therefore, it might be best to think of Yuugi's ability as exactly how it's translated plus the metaphor, "having unexplainable phenomena". She does not manipulate them, especially since unexplainable phenomena in this case are seriously unexplainable by all means, but she appears to use them and as they are unexplainable even by Gensokyo's standards, she can (presumably) not use magic, control youkai, etc. This would mean "wields" is also correct. Again, "manipulates" or "power to the extent of" would not be correct in translation or for the actual ability, so the definition of Yuugi's ability is probably more precise than we think it is.

EDIT: Actually, for obvious reasons plus Yuugi does summon spirits in some of her nonspells, "anomalies, strength, disorder, and spirits" in and of itself would probably make sense.

[Imosa]

I will just throw a tidbit about Yuugi in. I recall Suika saying that Yuugi was physically stronger but magically weaker then her. I think that came up in one of the print works. I don't see how you might compare the two, and you'd have to keep in mind that Yuugi is an Oni so we're talking Oni weak magic.

[Starxsword]

Yes, that was mentioned in Symposium of Post Mysticism.

On spellcards, maybe I am overanalyzing stuff. I dunno. Though I wasn't really thinking about gameplay and how their powers would actually seen in it. And does Yukari use her powers in her spellcards? Note, I am not counting fighting games as I think the Spellcard Rule is slightly lifted from them to allow character to use their powers more freely. For example, the rule of "Attacks relying on physical strength are not to be repeated" seems to be ignored in fighting games.

Yes, she uses her ability in spell card duels. Pretty much all of her spell cards are boundary magic. Here are a list of a few of her spell cards:
Barrier "Curse of Dreams and Reality"
Barrier "Balance of Motion and Stillness"
Barrier "Mesh of Light and Darkness"
Evil Spirits "Xanadu of Straight and Curve"

If you want more reference on how that is her using her ability, please refer to this. Marisa describes what her spell cards are like.

[Imosa]

Here's a thought that goes back to the original post. I don't think Remilia can actually manipulate fate. Its important to remember that all these powers are self reported and Remilia, being famously full of herself, would happily stretch the truth on her abilities.

[Starxsword]

There are several references in which imply she could indeed manipulate fate.
For one, the comet landing on the Scarlet Devil Mansion just so coincidentally happens for Flandre to destroy it.
The second, Sakuya was able to open up, because of the Scarlet Mist incident. It was suggested by Akyuu that this is Remilia's fate manipulation in action.
Other suggestions include:

It is not sure whether or not she is using her ability to manipulate fate consciously, but it is said misfortune will befall those who are merely in her vicinity, and she can cause great change in the state of the daily lives of others with but a word.
For example, becoming more likely to encounter rare things (*2).

And the part about how the reporter's fate was supposedly changed from "die like an animal" to something else.

Considering how hard it is to even detect such manipulation, there is really no way to know. This ability is kind of like Yuyuko's ability, it isn't obvious and there isn't really any way to know if the user has done it or not.

[ShiroiMahotsukai]

If Yuyuko uses her you can see the effects clearly. Someone dies. I tend to think of Remilia's ability in the same way as Kogasa's: sure something happens but it doesn't always happen the way you'd think it would. Kogasa suprising the player for example. Who knows what tiny little things would have been just that little bit different if Remillia hadn't been around.

Speaking of Kogasa though, what does her power do? I mean could she pass through walls if it would be suprising? Or is she limited to just shouting boo?

[ToyoRai]

Speaking of Kogasa though, what does her power do? I mean could she pass through walls if it would be suprising? Or is she limited to just shouting boo?

It is pretty much implied that Kogasa's "ability" isn't even an ability, just a thing she is assorted with so much. Considering that she's karakasa obake, I think giving her "ability" would be seen as act of trying to give her some sort of purpose.

[Zoriri]

I have a theory about Miko's powers, not her ability to listen to ten people at once, but her powers as a shikaisen. As a shikaisen, she can change her form into preety much whatever she wants, and she chose a more "modern" look. Since it's speculated that she and Prince Shoutoku (a male) are the same person, could Prince Shoutoku have decided to take the form of a women for the heck of it?

[Sagus]

Shoutoku is simply female in the touhouverse. Her profile always refers to her as female, even in her backstory, nobody comments on her having been male once (one would think that Futo or Seiga would refer to her as "him" before her awakening if she was male, for instance), and the only place that says that Shoutoku was male in-universe is Sanae's school book, which's... a school book. I remember cuc once making a good explanation for this (that I terribly misinterpreted at the time); if I recall it right, the whole deal with Miko is basically ZUN's way of commenting on how unreliable history can be (there are scholars that doubt Shoutoku's very existence; if even that is uncertain, how can we even know his true gender for sure?)

[monhan]

Shoutoku is simply female in the touhouverse. Her profile always refers to her as female, even in her backstory, nobody comments on her having been male once (one would think that Futo or Seiga would refer to her as "him" before her awakening if she was male, for instance), and the only place that says that Shoutoku was male in-universe is Sanae's school book, which's... a school book. I remember cuc once making a good explanation for this (that I terribly misinterpreted at the time); if I recall it right, the whole deal with Miko is basically ZUN's way of commenting on how unreliable history can be (there are scholars that doubt Shoutoku's very existence; if even that is uncertain, how can we even know his true gender for sure?)

It's the same way Type Moon justifies Saber and other heroes. Their history is so vague so why not make them a woman?
However, there's this one doujin that I read where Miko was a man and got turned to a woman through some Taoist ritual. I don't know whether this kind of ritual really exist or not,  so I guess it might be possible.

There's something that's always been bugging me. How many of them actually uses their ability outside what it should do logically?
Reimu is the obvious one. Who will ever thought that it can make her "fly" out of reality? How does that work?

[Sagus]

I find it highly doubtful that such a ritual exists, but who knows. Regardless of that, there's still 0 canon info pointing at her having changed her biological sex.

If abilities really are self-stated, then the characters being capable of doing more with them than their wording imply can be simply explained as the character giving an improper or very vague description of their power (see: Futo calling her mish-mash of shinto and taoist magic "Feng Shui").

[Starxsword]

Who will ever thought that it can make her "fly" out of reality? How does that work?

I don't believe it works that way. She is able to remove herself from reality when she uses Musou Tensei (Fantasy Heaven), yeah. However, it may not be related to her ability to fly at all. Just like how she can summon gods, which is unrelated to her ability to fly.

She is very good at using barriers, so, what she can do would be similar to what Yukari can do. She can warp space, by create a barrier between two zones, like in Fantasy Seal -Blink-. Or create a barrier between reality and herself, which is what I'm guessing Fantasy Heaven does.

If abilities really are self-stated, then the characters being capable of doing more with them than their wording imply can be simply explained as the character giving an improper or very vague description of their power (see: Futo calling her mish-mash of shinto and taoist magic "Feng Shui").

Yes, it would mean that. And the opposite is also true, they cannot do what they stated, like how Kogasa doesn't really have the power to surprise. Or how it is misleading, like in Seiga's case, where she doesn't really pass through walls, but she uses her pin to open a door and goes through it.

For the most part though, they can likely do their stated ability, if in a roundabout way. Otherwise, I don't see why they would mention it. This applies to Kogasa and Seiga too.

[ToyoRai]

I don't believe it works that way. She is able to remove herself from reality when she uses Musou Tensei (Fantasy Heaven), yeah. However, it may not be related to her ability to fly at all. Just like how she can summon gods, which is unrelated to her ability to fly.

"With Reimu's ability to float, she floats from everything in reality and becomes invincible."
-Imperishable Night's description of Fantasy Nature

Her ability to warp around would also be result of this ability. Her "Barrier" spells in IN would be Yukari givng Reimu a hand. So unless her ability to fly is JUST that, she might have the worst listed ability of them all, as EVERY ONE can fly anyway.

Onto a question, do you people think Meiling uses her chi manipulation in danmaku battles? Or is she stuck using really weak spellcards? Or does she try to combine both of them? Reason why I ask this is because I do wonder how much of character's abilities we actually see. For example, Yorihime ignored Spellcard rule back in SSiB and we all know how that turned out to our heroines.

[Starxsword]

"With Reimu's ability to float, she floats from everything in reality and becomes invincible."
-Imperishable Night's description of Fantasy Nature

Yes, lots of people use this quote. Are you aware the that word "float" only appears once in the Japanese text?

Her ability to warp around would also be result of this ability. Her "Barrier" spells in IN would be Yukari givng Reimu a hand. So unless her ability to fly is JUST that, she might have the worst listed ability of them all, as EVERY ONE can fly anyway.

She ALWAYS had barrier spells. In Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, she uses Evil Sealing Circle. She also has Dream Sign ~ Duplex Barrier, among other barrier type spells.
And there are some more interesting spell card names, like "Lurking Boundary Spirits and the Mysterious Shrine Maiden". If the wiki is correct, this is her spell card name. This is her final spell card in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.

And yes, her ability to Fly may just be that, ability to Fly. She didn't used to know how to Fly back in the PC 98 days. Kind of like Youmu's ability of Swordsmanship or Marisa's ability of Magic. Their abilities are also just that.

Onto a question, do you people think Meiling uses her chi manipulation in danmaku battles?

It seems like she does. She isn't the only person who can use chi, Suika can too and likely much better at it than Meiling.

For example, Yorihime ignored Spellcard rule back in SSiB and we all know how that turned out to our heroines.

The heroines (mainly Remilia and Reimu) weren't giving their all against Yorihime, so the result was obvious. Yorihime is the hero in this story, she is defending against people trying to invade her land. Reimu specifically says that they were the bad guys, so they aren't supposed to win.

[ToyoRai]

@Starxsword
First of all, Reimu acts as an youkai exterminator. As such, spells like Fantasy Seal -Blink- and Evil Sealing Circle sound like exterminator techniques before they were adapted into spellcards. Heck, Marisa points out that Fantasy Heaven was originally something what Reimu would just do before it was made into a Spellcard.

Speaking of which, where Marisa is said to use magic, she specialises in Light- and Heat-magic, like how Byakuren specialises in spells what buff her up. And really, if Youmu can act as an gardener with just using swords, she must be so skilled with them, its pratically and ability

On Yorihime and her using her powers, the question is not "who is holding back" but "who isn't holding back". For example, where Reimu isn't that skillful on summoning gods, she still can do that (I think she did summon atleast one tu curse one of her ofudas in SSiB). Heck, Suwako can control multiple cursed gods, though she mainly only channels their powers. Yorihime just summons any god she likes (like the freaking Amaterasu) sounds something which would be toned down, if not banned from Spellcard battles

[Sagus]

You know, considering that bathing into Amaterasu's light didn't instantly turn Remilia into ashes, I'm going to assume that it was actually danmaku that was used; it just that it was such a ridiculously dense attack that it looked like daylight.

Otherwise, it'd mean that Remilia is so powerful that she can receive direct sunlight of the highest divine level and survive with only some small bruises. Which is a scary thought.

[Starxsword]

First of all, Reimu acts as an youkai exterminator. As such, spells like Fantasy Seal -Blink- and Evil Sealing Circle sound like exterminator techniques before they were adapted into spellcards. Heck, Marisa points out that Fantasy Heaven was originally something what Reimu would just do before it was made into a Spellcard.

That doesn't matter though. The point is that she knows how to use barrier magic. Which makes more sense when you talk about Fantasy Heaven. How do you float away from reality? Well, would it not make sense to create a boundary between reality and dreams/fantasy and float away from reality?

On Yorihime and her using her powers, the question is not "who is holding back" but "who isn't holding back". For example, where Reimu isn't that skillful on summoning gods, she still can do that (I think she did summon atleast one tu curse one of her ofudas in SSiB). Heck, Suwako can control multiple cursed gods, though she mainly only channels their powers. Yorihime just summons any god she likes (like the freaking Amaterasu) sounds something which would be toned down, if not banned from Spellcard battles

Considering that Kanako needed Reimu's help in summoning gods, I would say that Reimu is pretty good at it, compared to Kanako, Suwako or Sanae. That said, summoning gods isn't the only thing Reimu can do.

You mean the Amaterasu that did so little damage to Remilia? And I believe that summon is pretty high up on the chart of gods to summon.

As for it being banned from Spell card battles, maybe. I guess it would depend on the opponent. You aren't supposed to go all out on spell card duels and you aren't supposed to use overwhelming force or something like that.

Suika received a complaint from Marisa concerning the latter.