The Theory Thread

[Sagus]

I can't deny this possibility either. However, I er... don't really see how that has anything to do with the symbolism of the Lafcadio Hearn Yakumo name thing.

Truthfully, since that's like, one of the few, if only, things where we have complete confirmation of an aspect of the relationship, any relationship between Maribel and Yukari really needs to start with the question, "How does this relate to Lafcadio Hearn?"

Well, it'd be the reverse of his situation; she was originally a Yakumo that later turned into a Hearn. If Yukari was born in Japan (or what would one day be Japan, depending on how old she is), it'd add another layer to this reversion, as she'd then "emigrate" (so to speak) to the West later in "life" (to be reborn as Maribel, who's confirmed to be non-asian IIRC).

It's a stretch, I'll admit.

[Tengukami]

I am so glad to see new life breathed into this theory.

[AnonymousPondScum]

And on the tail end of that theory, I theorize Yukari can travel time as well as space (albeit with substantial effort) and that she and Maribel form a closed time loop.

[Tiamat]

As an aside, on the subject of Yukari's age affecting her activity/energy, Yukari herself does grumble "I'm too old for this." while mountain climbing in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, for what it's worth, if I recall correctly. Contrary to all those "old hag" memes in the fandom, Yukari never lied "I'm still young!" anywhere in canon that I recall. Yuyuko did in A Flower Blooming Violet Every 60 Years, though. ("How rude! I'm still a perk young spirit!")

[Sagus]

I know it's in jest, but I never really liked the "old hag" joke; or, more specifically, how the character acts towards it. Youkai get stronger with age, being called ancient should be a compliment among them.

[shadowbringer]

Eirin's a lunarian, who generally don't age. Even youkai are stated to age, I believe (I forget where) but Lunarians generally don't due to lacking impurities (though they do have a teeeeny bit of impurity so maybe they age a liiiittle).

Eirin may (as well as may not) be from Earth, considering that (from what I've heard) in the legend of Tsukuyomi, he brought some people who he'd considered to be pure, to the moon along with himself, and Eirin was (stated to be) possibly around the Lunar Capital's foundation. But there's some mentions to Eirin's family line as well, saying that her family line is very intelligent, herself being even more than the average.
My theory (unrelated, though), since Eirin's name may actually be something else, it's possible be the Omohikane goddess in disguise (Injustice? Gods among us?)
(note, though, that I'm explicitely saying that it's a possibility, not that it's a fact, as there are other possibilities as well, for a start)

The thing about Maribel's relatives is we KNOW the gist of her family line (well, at least, we know what she knows, I admit).  Maribel specifically says that her ancestors have sought to be spirited away to another world and always had an interest in the occult.

maybe they stopped using their powers at some point (like some among the tanuki have disguised themselves as humans, and forgot that they're not humans, but then they lost the ability to untransform, due to lack of usage of their powers), and the later generations wish they could know what it was like to have access to such abilities and knowledge.

Spoiler:

Maybe such descendants who somehow know about Gensokyo wish that it would still exist.

#kappa
random thought: I wonder what would Yukari be like, if ZUN hasn't watched Spirited Away (or the movie itself didn't exist). Not that I'm willing to put effort into calculating that myself, since there's just too many possibilities to analyze.

Which means that she has grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, etc, all the way back to ancient times.

she doesn't need to be Yukari's direct descendant, if Yukari's abilities (or some of them) are partially from her family line.

(and Maribel is... well, basically repeating or attempting to repeat what Yukari already did, which is kinda... I dunno, lame if you ask me)

but that would imply Yukari's existance (and role) is focused into being Maribel's goal, which may not be the case (partially serving as Reimu's youkai partner/counterpart/foil, or just being born out of ZUN's inspiration -- like other characters -- rather than being made to fulfill a role -- for example, like Aya's case). The part where Maribel reaches the moon like Yukari did can be interpreted as a nice nostalgic generation xerox (rather than lame), as much as it can mean that it's how the to-become "Yukari" learned that she was capable of doing that trick.

some thoughts:
- the release dates for PCB's full version and Changeability of Strange Dream are quite close, it's possible that Yukari and Maribel are made to complement each other, but not necessarily be one and the same. It's also possible that Maribel was an afterthought, or someone who serves the purpose of story telling, together with Renko. Maybe Maribel wasn't meant to cause events that interfere with Gensokyo's timeline (serving as a cameo, a wandering passenger), like Yukari did (with sending youkai to the moon, for example).
- Maribel (possibly) met Mokou (when the latter already had her ability to control fire), so if Yukari's powers are explained as being old, there are quite some other peers who should be equally or more powerful (lol pwrlvls) such as Miko, Mokou and Tewi (and Hata). Kaguya and Eirin are said to be really powerful (contrary to what the spellcard system would make people think), Eirin being even more than Kaguya, so I haven't included them.
- if the maid Maribel met in a mansion was really Sakuya, before the mansion moved into Gensokyo, one could wonder who were the mansion's previous owners.. and if Sakuya has forgotten Yukari, if we go by the Maribelkari theory
- Sakuya's also another of those who uses an alias (like Eirin).
- Shinki can be interpreted as Satan, but she does seem to be inspired by ESP Ra De's final boss, mrs. Gara Ono (though both ESP Ra De -- and Armed Police Batrider -- were released in the same year, 1998, some patterns from APB (and Dodonpachi as well, from 1997) seem to have inspired some attacks in MS.

[Clarste]

Eirin may (as well as may not) be from Earth, considering that (from what I've heard) in the legend of Tsukuyomi, he brought some people who he'd considered to be pure, to the moon along with himself, and Eirin was (stated to be) possibly around the Lunar Capital's foundation. But there's some mentions to Eirin's family line as well, saying that her family line is very intelligent, herself being even more than the average.
My theory (unrelated, though), since Eirin's name may actually be something else, it's possible be the Omohikane goddess in disguise (Injustice? Gods among us?)
(note, though, that I'm explicitely saying that it's a possibility, not that it's a fact, as there are other possibilities as well, for a start)

Eirin was around for the founding of the Lunar capital, she's older than Tsukuyomi, and ZUN basically confirmed that she's a god in SoPM. A "higher god", not the sort of local riff-raff god we normally see in Gensokyo. Indeed, she is probably Omoikane, who is also known as Ya-gokoro-omoi-kane-no-mikoto. So, uh... I don't think she's hiding it. No more than Miko is hiding being Prince Shoutoku. She's just using a less well-known name because that just happens to be her name in this setting. I mean, have you ever seen her claim she wasn't a god? Her comments on her family tree in relation to the Watatsukis also seems to support this, I believe.

Anyway, Eirin is certainly the oldest character in the series, and that's kind of her thing. That has nothing to do with her time spent on the moon though: she was ancient before that. Setting up a colony on the moon was just something she did at one point during her long life. Based on estimates regarding the geological formation of Japan (which she apparently outdates by being older than one of the gods involved) she's at least around 25 million years old.

Yukari is often speculated to be super-ancient and awesome, but there's surprisingly little evidence of this. Gensokyo itself isn't really that old so being around during its earliest history isn't that impressive. Even random newcomers like Tojiko and Kokoro should be older than that, just by their placement in real history. Of course there's no upper limit to Yukari's age, but the minimum estimate isn't very high compared to many others.

[Sagus]

Rescuing cuc's post about Eirin's age, just to give context to the 25 million years old thing:

To delve into Eirin's age from canon info:

Eirin is older than Tsukuyomi (source? SSiB or CiLR?).

Tsukuyomi is a son of Izanagi. The three noble children, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susanoo, were born when Izanagi returned from his terrible quest to meet the dead Izanami, and cleansed himself. In other words, they were born quite some time after Izanagi and Izanami had created the islands of Japan.

According to Izanagi Object ~ Neo-traditionalism of Japan, Izanagi and Izanami created Japan 25 million years ago. So Eirin's age might be on a time scale comparable to that.

(If we consider the possibility that Eirin is Omoikane, according to some version of family tree of the gods, Omoikane is of the same generation as Izanagi and Izanami. Anyways, Omoikane is older than the three noble children.)

Eirin is confirmed to be older than Tsukuyomi in CiLR, btw

If we take this as accurate, she's older than humanity itself (our species is barely 400.000 years old).

You know, even discarding Eirin, Neo-Traditionalism basically outright states that Izanagi existed, and it was him that created Japan 25 million years ago. Doesn't this mean that gods pre-date humanity? How can we be their creators if they are older than us?

I have a theory that magic, youkai,gods, and the supernatural in general, aren't actually wholly dependant on human belief to exist. Basically, human belief only creates things because the lunarians gave humans this ability;  Kagura states in IN that they were the ones that gave Earth magic and created the youkai, for instance. Another possible clue for lunarians being really ancient is in CiLR, chapter 3, we have Toyohime staring at the ocean and think "as I watched the ocean, memories of the distant past sprang to my mind"; she then proceeds to talk about the era when life first left the oceans on Earth. This can be interpreted as she actually having the memories of seeing this event herself, which would make her literally hundreds of millions of years old. Alternatively, of course, she could be remembering someone else telling her about it. Or the translation is wrong in its wording.

Also, consider that the outside world still has a good number of supernatural things: Mamizou was the leader of a bunch of tanuki from the outside wrold, and only went to Gensokyo because she was called; Hobgoblins and Chupacabras exist in the outside (as seen in WaHH and FS, respectively); and of course, Maribel and Renko have their abilities (and Maribel's keep growing).

These remnants could be explained as humanity never really giving up on all of their supernatural beliefs, but this still leaves the "gods older than humanity" issue open; how does one create something that's older than itself?

[Clarste]

Well, you could try to make a distinction between "higher gods" and "lower gods" as ZUN does in the interview in SoPM. All the talk of gods being given names and forming identities from human belief was strictly about the 8 million. Does Amaterasu really to go around collecting faith?

[ShiroiMahotsukai]

Rescuing cuc's post about Eirin's age, just to give context to the 25 million years old thing:
Eirin is confirmed to be older than Tsukuyomi in CiLR, btw

If we take this as accurate, she's older than humanity itself (our species is barely 400.000 years old).

You know, even discarding Eirin, Neo-Traditionalism basically outright states that Izanagi existed, and it was him that created Japan 25 million years ago. Doesn't this mean that gods pre-date humanity? How can we be their creators if they are older than us?

I have a theory that magic, youkai and gods are not actually wholly dependant on human belief to exist. Basically, human belief only creates things because the lunarians gave humans this ability;  Kagura states in IN that they were the ones that gave Earth magic and created the youkai, for instance. Another possible clue for lunarians being really ancient is in CiLR, chapter 3, we have Toyohime staring at the ocean and think "as I watched the ocean, memories of the distant past sprang to my mind"; she then proceeds to talk about the era when life first left the oceans on Earth. This can be interpreted as she actually having the memories of seeing this event herself, which would make her literally hundreds of millions of years old. Alternatively, of course, she could be remembering someone else telling her about it. Or the translation is wrong in its wording.

Also, consider that the outside world still has a good number of supernatural things: Mamizou was the leader of a bunch of tanuki from the outside wrold, and only went to Gensokyo because she was called; Hobgoblins and Chupacabras exist in the outside (as seen in WaHH and FS, respectively); and of course, Maribel and Renko have their abilities (and Maribel's keep growing).

These remnants could be explained as humanity never really giving up on all of their supernatural beliefs, but this still leaves the "gods older than humanity" issue open; how does one create something that's older than itself?

I like the theory of humans not being directly responsible for things like Youkai and Gods. This is probably complelty unsupported but I believe that creatures exist, in a manner, from the moment the concept they are derived from begins to exist.

Yukari for example: I believe that she is exactly as old as the Universe. When nothing became something the first boundary was born, to mark that boundary a small spark of existance lit up. As more elements were formed this spark grew into a flame and carried on growing. The major breakthrough came when the universe gave birth to life. Life continually evolves unlike simple matter, so the existance that marks boundaries began to evolve too. It became as complex as it could and matched evolution of life. When creatures developed thought it too began to think and began to self-identify. As civilisations rose up it became more sophisticated. The more things that are, the more divisions and boundaries there so the more powerful it becomes. Eventually a being of pure symbolism it took the took the form of the most versatile species on the planet. Humans. And here we have the 'Yukari' that we know. A compilation of all the boundaries that the unierse has given birth to

Perhaps the physical forms of Youkai are linked to human kind but there essence is much older. Rumia for example, has had a basic existance since light appeared to make darkness distinct but hasn't been able to take physical form until a creature cabable of truly independent thought came about. It's not that great a theory but I like it.

[Drake]

Yeah, pretty sure Konngara isn't even an oni. Isn't she a Yaksha?

Actually, yeah. I was wrong there.

When the heck has that been stated?

Probably somewhere in HRtP's manual. I know it's been stated somewhere and that's what the wiki says -_('_')_-

Hi guys, see that thing in the wiki article that says "Citation needed"? That's important. Because it's vapid speculation based on literally one reference to Kongara-douji.

Re: Crosses and angel-like wings mean Christianity!
Not really. Even if the symbols were unique to one religion, using things as ubiquitously present as crosses and angel wings doesn't imply anything in particular.

[Tiamat]

I like the theory of humans not being directly responsible for things like Youkai and Gods. This is probably complelty unsupported but I believe that creatures exist, in a manner, from the moment the concept they are derived from begins to exist.

Yukari for example: I believe that she is exactly as old as the Universe. When nothing became something the first boundary was born, to mark that boundary a small spark of existance lit up. As more elements were formed this spark grew into a flame and carried on growing. The major breakthrough came when the universe gave birth to life. Life continually evolves unlike simple matter, so the existance that marks boundaries began to evolve too. It became as complex as it could and matched evolution of life. When creatures developed thought it too began to think and began to self-identify. As civilisations rose up it became more sophisticated. The more things that are, the more divisions and boundaries there so the more powerful it becomes. Eventually a being of pure symbolism it took the took the form of the most versatile species on the planet. Humans. And here we have the 'Yukari' that we know. A compilation of all the boundaries that the unierse has given birth to

Perhaps the physical forms of Youkai are linked to human kind but there essence is much older. Rumia for example, has had a basic existance since light appeared to make darkness distinct but hasn't been able to take physical form until a creature cabable of truly independent thought came about. It's not that great a theory but I like it.

Both Yukari and Kaguya say that youkai came from humans. Of course, you could always just assume they're both lying or something, I guess.

[ShiroiMahotsukai]

Oh I know that, that's what I mean when I say their physical shapes are tied to Human kind. That's the reason they became anything more than a concept. I think that Humans created Youkai out of those concepts that had been almost sentient for a very long time. Yukari wouldn't kow this because until humans evolved she was just a precence without thought or feeling. Nevertheless if it's directly contradicting canon somewhere, back to the drawing board.

[Tiamat]

Oh I know that, that's what I mean when I say their physical shapes are tied to Human kind. That's the reason they became anything more than a concept. I think that Humans created Youkai out of those concepts that had been almost sentient for a very long time. Yukari wouldn't kow this because until humans evolved she was just a precence without thought or feeling. Nevertheless if it's directly contradicting canon somewhere, back to the drawing board.

Ah, like the chaos gods and their demons in Warhammer 40k.  (which is what I planned to do if I ever write a fictional universe where WH40k and Touhou were both canon to it)

[ToyoRai]

My theory on Maribel and Yukari: Mariberl is an "alternate" version of Yukari. Like,t ehy are similar, but yet, not the same. Maybe the reason why they look so simular is because they are "bound" by the boundary, Heck, this ties with bit of a headcanon of mine where Yukari was actually a weak youkai before she gained access tot he power of the boundaries. It is no questioning that different worlds hold a differerent version of you, and this might not be no expection.

But really, is this thread going to turn into "Yukari = Maribel" thread 2.0 :V ?

[Tiamat]

My theory on Maribel and Yukari: Mariberl is an "alternate" version of Yukari. Like,t ehy are similar, but yet, not the same. Maybe the reason why they look so simular is because they are "bound" by the boundary, Heck, this ties with bit of a headcanon of mine where Yukari was actually a weak youkai before she gained access tot he power of the boundaries. It is no questioning that different worlds hold a differerent version of you, and this might not be no expection.

But really, is this thread going to turn into "Yukari = Maribel" thread 2.0 :V ?

I dunno. ZUN said not to think about it too much, so I figure I'll just stick to "Hearn changed his/her name to Yakumo" and try to refrain from arguing about anything too complex or esoteric. Some of these Maribel Yukari theories I'm not even sure where to begin to start cause they're hard to even understand in the first place.


EDIT: It'd actually be "Yukari = Maribel" thread 3.0.  I recall there was another huge 2.0 thread about it that also included whether or not Remilia was the vampire in the vampire incident.

[ToyoRai]

I dunno. ZUN said not to think about it too much, so I figure I'll just stick to "Hearn changed his/her name to Yakumo" and try to refrain from arguing about anything too complex or esoteric. Some of these Maribel Yukari theories I'm not even sure where to begin to start cause they're hard to even understand in the first place.

Yeah, says the guy who opened up and ENTIRE THREAD just to discuss about that theory. When ZUN said that, I think he ment " Ignore any and all relation with Maribel and Yukari, it is not worth thinking about in the long run".
And really guys, can we talk about any other theories besides this one? Thank you.

[Tiamat]

Yeah, says the guy who opened up and ENTIRE THREAD just to discuss about that theory.

That thread was made years before ZUN said that. Like I said, the thread is out of date.  However, had that thread been made AFTER ZUN said that, it would have saved me a loooooot of trouble.

Also, "try not to think about it" applies to the relationship itself. It doesn't necessarily apply to all the things that exist because of that relationship. For example, "Hearn changed his/her name to Yakumo" is a very simple relationship. Things like "Yukari is stated to not be her original name", on the other hand, is discussing things that exist because the relationship exists in the first place. In that case, you're not thinking too much about the relationship (which is a very simple relationship. "I changed my name."). You're thinking about potential consequences of it and how they come up in various canon sources.

When ZUN said that, I think he ment " Ignore any and all relation with Maribel and Yukari, it is not worth thinking about in the long run".

If he wanted us to fully ignore it, he wouldn't have stated Lafcadio Hearn in the first place.

This thread will continue to be Maribel Yukari 3.0 until everyone stops talking about it. I already declared my intent to not talk about it unless it was something basic enough. In this case, I am making this reply because it is an attack on my personage (and also technically more about how to interpret ZUN's statement than the relationship itself), but hey, if that extends the Maribel Yukari 3.0 lifespan and you dislike that, I don't mind.

[Tiamat]

EDIT: Ack, forgot this forum doesn't automatically append latter posts to previous ones. Ah well.

My theory on Maribel and Yukari: Mariberl is an "alternate" version of Yukari. Like,t ehy are similar, but yet, not the same. Maybe the reason why they look so simular is because they are "bound" by the boundary, Heck, this ties with bit of a headcanon of mine where Yukari was actually a weak youkai before she gained access tot he power of the boundaries. It is no questioning that different worlds hold a differerent version of you, and this might not be no expection.

But really, is this thread going to turn into "Yukari = Maribel" thread 2.0 :V ?

Actually, now I think I'll renege on my declaration and address this anyways.

First question:  How does your theory relate to Lafcadio Hearn?

[ToyoRai]

... Do you know what? Screw this, new theory (I don't even care about Maribel, especially with her "relation" to Yukari)!
Theory: Gensokyo does really act as a "zoo" with some of youkai species.
Reasoning: Think about how we have seen at least one of two youkais of certain species. Satoris have two, funayuurei only have one, so does nues ect. Where as some other have multiple ones like kappas, tengus and tanookis (well, the animal version). So where the more common youkais have multiple speciment seen in Gensokyo, some othe more rarer ones might only have one or two speciments.

[Drake]

It's more about it being much more beneficial for the universe having as many different character types, designs, powers, etc as possible. Writing in multiple instances of certain youkai is only really for establishing communities of those youkai. The kappa, tengu, oni etc all have their own societies written up, and that's basically why we have many of those youkai. When tengu were introduced in PoFV~MoF, we had just Aya and Momiji, who are different species, and reference to Daitengu. This doesn't make very many instances of tengu, but because they were all written as pieces of a tengu society on Youkai Mountain, there's instantly "more" tengu than if you only had those. Establishing this is why we get Hatate and more background tengu. The same works for Nitori and how the kappa were worked on in WaHH. MoF was largely about expanding Gensokyo and its societies on a large scale with minimal work.
ZUN has been slowly working on expanding some of the more well-known groups of youkai. Hermits, oni, and tanuki have all been slowly bumping up in population, and overall I think his writing of dialogue recently has been leaning in the direction where it implies that there are way more inhabitants than we know of.
But yeah in general introducing new types of youkai expands the base of characters we can possibly do stuff with more than introducing more of the same types of youkai.

EDIT: Yes, a nature reserve is literally more fitting, seeing as it's exactly what Gensokyo is for.

EDIT: It'd actually be "Yukari = Maribel" thread 3.0.  I recall there was another huge 2.0 thread about it that also included whether or not Remilia was the vampire in the vampire incident.

If anyone was wondering the answer to this is "yes"

[Sagus]

There's only one satori in Gensokyo, and she doesn't necessarily live there (like the Netherworld, Heaven, the Sanzu River and Higan, Former Hell is not actually part of Gensokyo; it's simply acessible through it).

Regardless, I think calling it a "nature reserve" would be more fitting :V

[AnonymousPondScum]

Either a nature reserve or a refugee camp, given that some of the youkai are clearly intelligent but likely would have been ostracized on the outside.

[ToyoRai]

Theory: Alice is the in-universe reason why PC-98 era was retconned.
Reasoning: PCB says that "she thinks it would be the end of the rope for her if she lost with full power". So waht would happen if this happened? Well, due the fact that only time we have seen Alice use her ture power is during the extra stage of MS, her defeat in there would somehow create a great purge what would wipe most of the youkais present during the PC-98 era or make them go away, erasing most of the memories of them during the way.

[Drake]

You'd have to get around problems like "why does Alice have the power to erase everything like that" and "if she is that powerful how on earth did Reimu defeat her" and "why would one of Shinki's creations be that powerful" and "if you don't think she was created by Shinki the same applies" and "how is she supposed to affect anything outside of Makai's boundary" and "that's a pretty crappy retcon method, possibly more lazy than time-travel retcons" and whatnot. I like how colorful that theory is but it's a bit outlandish.

[ToyoRai]

Do I look like a person who thinks theories hours to no end before posting a wall of text, only for some one to still just kick it? Yeah, I rather mae short ones so that it doesn't collapse on me that badly.

[Starxsword]

In fact, I've never seen the source that says Tewi is at least 1,300. As for the 'White Rabbit of Inaba'... I searched it, and it calls the tale the 'White Hare of Inaba', so, yeah, Tewi isn't a hare.

Tewi is assumed to be that. Lots of facts point to it.

Yuyuko did in A Flower Blooming Violet Every 60 Years, though. ("How rude! I'm still a perk young spirit!")

If we were to assumed she lost her memory, she would not be lying. But since she was human, it makes sense for her to lie. Assuming what she is saying is somehow not a pun or reference.

There's only one satori in Gensokyo, and she doesn't necessarily live there (like the Netherworld, Heaven, the Sanzu River and Higan, Former Hell is not actually part of Gensokyo; it's simply acessible through it).

There are at least 2 satoris in Gensokyo.

Theory: Alice is the in-universe reason why PC-98 era was retconned.

How do you explain Yuuka?

[ToyoRai]

How do you explain Yuuka?

Reimu, Marisa and Yuuka were hanging somewhere (Like in Hakurei Shrine) after defeating Shinki but Mima decided to go somewhere and met up with Alice, They fought, Alice lost, and the rest is erased history.

[Darkness1]

Didn't Reimu say (in one of ZUNs books) that her shrine was once taken over by an evil spirit? Devils recitation is quite interesting too, almost like Byakuren met Shinki there.

I like to think of it to be like with, say, Medicine. A character who almost never appears due to her being in a place not relevant to the story and ZUN probably likes to introduce new characters to the universe.

That's where the confusion appears about Mima, since she was a major character in the past and being the master/teacher of Marisa. It is also unknown where she would go after the events of mystic square.

[Tengukami]

And really guys, can we talk about any other theories besides this one? Thank you.

Just so everyone's clear here: this is, judging by the thread title, a thread for posting Touhou theories. People are welcome to discuss any theory for as long as they like, as short as they like, or ignore a theory altogether. If a particular theory doesn't interest you, you are free to ignore it, discuss any of the other theories made in this thread, or contribute one of your own. Telling other people what theory they ought or ought not discuss isn't maybe the best idea.

Do I look like a person who thinks theories hours to no end before posting a wall of text, only for some one to still just kick it? Yeah, I rather mae short ones so that it doesn't collapse on me that badly.

Picking apart holes in theories is part of the process of making them more sound. Ultimately, it helps make them stronger. I wouldn't take it as a bad thing to have a theory "collapse" per se.