Miscellaneous Questions Thread 3 - Ask Question, Receive Answer

[Sagus]

Just because it isn't mentioned anywhere doesn't mean it cannot be that way.

No, but it means that assuming otherwise is taking extra steps based on pretty much nothing.

Was the fact that Eirin drank the Hourai Elixir mentioned in any of her profiles? No.

It was mentioned in a IN ending. Miko once being male? Never mentioned anywhere outside Sanae's confusion. And again, she's from the outside, where Shoutoku is considered myth. The bill having his face, as C.Angel said, means nothing; Shoutoku is currently thought as male in the outside world, therefore it's obvious that the bill would have a man's face.

Besides, waving SoPM around as an evidence that Akyuu doesn't mention anything about the matter is just as doubtful. I mean, it's Akyuu...

I shouldn't bother with this "it's Akyuu, she's unreliable!" argument again, but... every single time she's wrong about something, it's glaringly obvious: Eirin and Kaguya are from the moon, Sakuya's past is just a bunch of theories, Mokou isn't the descendant of ninjas, Heaven's true reason for not allowing people in is their own selfshiness, etc. In other words, all the things that she get wrong are things that she has absolutely no way of really knowing (the only people that know the guys from Eientei are lunarians are the playable characters, and I don't think Mokou and Sakuya are too keen on discussing their past, for example). So, unless there's blatant evidence on her being wrong, there is no reason at all to consider her unreliable.

Furthermore, Shoutoku, in Touhou, is a historical figure, even though she's considered a legend nowadays. Akyuu is a historian. Are you really saying that she wouldn't even know the gender of that very famous emperor? Her first incarnation, all but stated to have been Hieda no Are, is from the 7/8th century. Shoutoku lived in the 5/6th century. Unless her gender was already lost merely one century after her "death", there's no way the person that wrote Japan's first historical record wouldn't know it. And since she has her ancestors memories, she'd remember that.

And while I am well aware that the girls like Kasen, Suika and Yuugi are based off on male legendary figures, Prince Shotoku cannot be absolutely dismissed as a figure of legends and not a historical person. The evidence provided is not enough to dismiss a theory completely, just as there isn't enough evidence to support it.

As C.Angel said, Shoutoku IS dismissed as a figure of legends in the Touhou universe. Which is basically what he is in our world as well. Also, bear in mind that, as far as we know, the legends of the outside world are the same as ours, so Ibaraki-douji, Shunten-doji and Hoshiguma-doji are probably thought as male too, which we know for sure isn't the case (unless they also changed genders).

The evidence you have, in-universe, is a bill that supposedly has the face of the dude, and a school textbook. Both from contemporany Japan (the yen note with Shoutoku was printed in 1957), that doesn't even believe Shoutoku existed. Add the fact that there is no good explanation as to why Shoutoku would even want to change his gender, and I hope you can understand why I find it very difficult to think of this as a valid theory.

I mean, if you want to believe that, it's fine. It's not explicitly contradicted in-universe. All I'm saying is that, at the same time, there is 0 canon evidence to support it at all, so I personally think it's overthinking it to claim that she was once male. It just raises too many questions that don't really need to be raised.

[Tengukami]

I love it when people use Real World "evidence" to contradict something canonically true in Gensokyo.

Miko-in-Gensokyo is all girl, period. This is a non-controversy.

[Fonzi]

I love it when people use Real World "evidence" to contradict something canonically true in Gensokyo.

Miko-in-Gensokyo is all girl, period. This is a non-controversy.

And I "love it" when people confuse "implied in canon" with "confirmed in canon". Just like you are now.

No, but it means that assuming otherwise is taking extra steps based on pretty much nothing.

I never said that Miko being male was canon. It's a theory, just as it is a theory that she might have always been female. I am not trying to prove that Miko has been male once upon a time. My only point in this argument is that you are presenting a theory as if it was a 100% undeniable fact. It is IMPLIED, yes, but that's about it.

It was mentioned in a IN ending.

Yes, but I said Eirin's PROFILE, not her IN's ending. Besides, it's only for one specific team. HM may be far from the last game where we see Miko, and who are we to declare that ZUN might not ever bring any "surprsies" in her future profiles/endings? So yes, I dare say it is still controversary.

[Sagus]

I personally don't think it's a controversy at all, but as I said,

if you want to believe that, it's fine. It's not explicitly contradicted in-universe.

[Tengukami]

Fonz, the thing is, Miko is female in Gensokyo. Your theory is based on stuff not in Gensokyo. So while you can bang on this drum all day if you want, without evidence from Gensokyo of Miko's maleness, it's empty speculation and unhelpful as an  answer.

[Tengukami]

I'll add that some of us have been thru this a million times with Wriggle and the "female fireflies don't fly" thing. Having unprovable theories is fun. Trying to force them in a Q&A thread, not so much.

[Fonzi]

Fonz, the thing is, Miko is female in Gensokyo. Your theory is based on stuff not in Gensokyo. So while you can bang on this drum all day if you want, without evidence from Gensokyo of Miko's maleness, it's empty speculation and unhelpful as an  answer.

You must have skipped this part then.

I never said that Miko being male was canon. It's a theory, just as it is a theory that she might have always been female. I am not trying to prove that Miko has been male once upon a time. My only point in this argument is that you are presenting a theory as if it was a 100% undeniable fact. It is IMPLIED, yes, but that's about it.

It's not MY theory. It's a theory that's been floating around Touhou fandom since TD.  i'm not vindicating or trying to deny neither. I just have this knee-jerk urge tot call out people when they present something as canon when it's just so vague. Miko is female in Touhou, that hasn't escaped me and frankly I'm comfortable whith both theories.

[Tengukami]

And I think it'd make a fine topic for its own thread.

[Drake]

There should be literally zero controversy.

The whole point of having Miko be female is to point at the very fact that the outside world is becoming skeptical of Prince Shotoku's existence. This is not an issue of "ZUN letting us think what we want"; Sagus is covering this well enough, but is missing that all of this is done very much on purpose. All of Sanae's interactions with Miko are very directly about the fact that Sanae, in the outside world, learned that Prince Shotoku was male from textbooks and having his face on the 10000 yen note. However, the outside world becoming skeptical of Shotoku's existence is why she ended up in Gensokyo; as something that "didn't exist" moving to the place where things that "don't exist" go to "exist". From Miko and party's point of view, she was always female, because she was female in "reality". The fact is that every instance of Shotoku's existence being recorded in history is considered flawed. This includes, very specifically, the recollection that Shotoku was male. As evidenced by Miko's entrance into Gensokyo, the history is wrong. Sanae's confusion is there to highlight the discrepancy between history and "reality". That's the joke. ZUN writes Shotoku as actually female to drill home the fact that the recorded history of Shotoku is starting to be considered a fabrication. This whole literary dynamic is essentially one of the main reasons Miko/Shotoku is even a character to begin with.

[Fonzi]

I dunno, Drake, her arrival, or should I say revival in Gensokyo comes almost too conveniently just after Byakuren sets up temple right on top of her mausoleum. If your point was valid, it'd mean that the outside world stopped believing in Shotoku's existence just recently, which I don't see as much plausible. Sure, ZUN could be playing with that fact, but no matter what canon fact you point at, they are still too insufficient to silence the opposing theory for good.

[Sagus]

Actually, going by her profile, Miko was inside Gensokyo before Byakuren built her temple ("Since there weren't any temples in Gensokyo at that time (...)"); in fact, the whole reason Byakuren chose that spot was because she sensed something sealed down there, IIRC. Miko revived soon after because, as her profile says ("Would Miko let herself be held back by a Buddhist monk once more? Or would she fight that monk?"), she would not allow a buddhist to foil her again.

If I'm not mistaken, in one ending she says that she has known Reimu since before she was even born (no clue on how that works), which would mean that she entered Gensokyo quite a while ago. Why she didn't choose to awaken before? I dunno, but her profile says that "she prepared for her resurrection to proceed whenever she felt it was necessary", so maybe she simply wasn't in a hurry. Then a bunch of buddhists installed themselves on her roof and she got annoyed enough to get out of bed.

[Drake]

I dunno, Drake, her arrival, or should I say revival in Gensokyo comes almost too conveniently just after Byakuren sets up temple right on top of her mausoleum.

This is actually addressed in SoPM and somewhat during 10D. Byakuren landing her temple on the mausoleum in order to keep the seal in check, was the direct cause of her awakening and the seal being broken, as Byakuren wasn't strong enough to keep up the seal, possibly because it wasn't very well-made to begin with. EDIT: Oh, misread. Yeah, she was in Gensokyo for a long while before her revival.

If your point was valid, it'd mean that the outside world stopped believing in Shotoku's existence just recently, which I don't see as much plausible.

We haven't stopped believing in his existence, first of all, even though yes it's a recent thing. This is just the reason why ZUN decided to write about it. Miko was "dead" long, long before historians started questioning Shotoku's existence. The period in which Miko transferred into Gensokyo was the period in which the actual history of her existence was lost and confused. The "actual" Miko was forgotten in the stead of Shotoku, who was written to be more of a godlike figure, even. Miko herself (the actual Shotoku) being forgotten would have happened a long time ago.

Sure, ZUN could be playing with that fact, but no matter what canon fact you point at, they are still too insufficient to silence the opposing theory for good.

That's not how theories and speculation work. There is no need to "silence" the opposing theory. That's like saying after making measurements of the earth's circumference through many different ways we still need photographic evidence to "silence" the flat earthers for good because the evidence we have against it and for another theory is insufficient. To ignore this very, very clear device is to ignore what's actually happening in Japan, ignore the way ZUN always writes and how he plays with stuff like this all the time, and instead replace the explanation that actually explains everything, including the very confusion that's the subject of conversation, with "yeah but he was a guy in real life so there!". It isn't even comparable.

[Fonzi]

To ignore this very, very clear device is to ignore what's actually happening in Japan, ignore the way ZUN always writes and how he plays with stuff like this all the time, and instead replace the explanation that actually explains everything, including the very confusion that's the subject of conversation, with "yeah but he was a guy in real life so there!". It isn't even comparable.

Those are all just assumptions, hardly a clear undeniable evidence. Saying things like "but you know how ZUN always writes" is not going to mean much here. I will say it again, it's a plausible theory, but still only a theory. You have nothing at all to confirm your point or deny mine and your comparisons to unbelieving flat-earthers amuse me. What if the history of Miko's past was also forgotten in Gensokyo and now, witout any records of her past life, everyone readily accepts that the girl with headphones has always been a girl? And what if ZUN is keeping this little fact to himself just to make the fans speculate. I mean you know

the way ZUN always writes and how he plays with stuff like this all the time

.

[Clarste]

Word of God in her profile calls her a girl, even in her past. That's about as solid as it gets. Anything else is wild speculation without basis.

[Sagus]

What bugs me about this whole thing is that you insist on saying that both "theories" have the same weight, when they simply don't.

Saying that Miko was once a male requires you to explain a ton of things: why does her profile always refers to her as female if she was once a he, why it doesn't mention the gender change, why nowhere in canon it's mentioned that she changed genders, why doesn't anyone else comments on it, why would she even change sex in the first place, etc etc etc.

On the other hand, Miko having always be female brings no issues at all; the discrepancy between how she's perceived in the outside world and who she really is is already explained by the fact that she became a mythological figure, which, as Drake said, ended up eclipsing her true history.

[Tengukami]

I think there's also a weird false equivalence going on between the Miko-as-male "theory" and canonical evidence. They just don't have the same level of credibility.

What I like about the Q&A thread is they deal with questions often not immediately answerable in the official material. So people take different approaches to arriving at an answer, which I think often leads to this thread's characteristic of going into fan theories. That's a desirable result for coming up with fan theories, but then we're moving away from trying to arrive at as close to a canonical answer as we can, and towards other possible answers; i.e., fan theory. I think there's an important distinction there, between the two, not least of all in terms of levels of credibility. It's good to have in mind that the various and sundry possible answers we can come up with aren't exactly on a level playing field.

[Drake]

Those are all just assumptions, hardly a clear undeniable evidence. Saying things like "but you know how ZUN always writes" is not going to mean much here. I will say it again, it's a plausible theory, but still only a theory. You have nothing at all to confirm your point or deny mine and your comparisons to unbelieving flat-earthers amuse me. What if the history of Miko's past was also forgotten in Gensokyo and now, witout any records of her past life, everyone readily accepts that the girl with headphones has always been a girl? And what if ZUN is keeping this little fact to himself just to make the fans speculate.

They really aren't assumptions. I'm guessing you're either not aware what I mean by "how ZUN always writes", or you're not aware of what's basically ZUN's whole setup of Gensokyo and the Touhou universe, and general aversion to not outright explaining literally everything to the audience. You're trying to compare "what-if"s you make up out of nowhere with what is very, very clearly the reason and motivation for its inclusion at all; the comparison to a flat earth is completely apt. You couldn't possibly even get closer to saying that Shotoku was "really" a woman besides doing something incredibly dumb like having Sanae go OH WELL I GUESS MY HISTORY BOOKS WERE WRONG AFTER ALL HA HA HA. Even for ZUN, what he gives us is almost as explicit as you can get. Why and how ZUN writes the things he does often explains a great deal more than the very actions of the characters (which are very very often deliberately shrouded), so I'm really confused what you could possibly mean by having "sufficient" evidence.

"What if the history of Miko's past was also forgotten in Gensokyo" isn't even a coherent reply. That isn't how Gensokyo works both in history and in how its residents are characterized. It's just throwing out nonsense pretending as if it holds as an objection. When you start saying things like "no matter what canon fact you point at", you have completely destroyed your own argument, since not only is there canon fact to support it, but its support goes beyond what's mentioned in canon.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Oh, looks like we hit 1000 posts. Hold on to your seats while a new thread is made, please!