Author Topic: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating  (Read 196507 times)

Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #360 on: May 20, 2016, 07:40:57 PM »
They are separate beings by any common definition you could come up with. By which I mean they're physically distinct, can be in different places at the same time, and seem to have different minds, etc. In fact, because of the way mindreading works, you could even say that Koishi is more distinct from Satori than literally anyone else Satori interacts with. You would have to come up with an entirely new definition of "separate being" for that question to even be worth asking.

I suppose what you're getting at though is a more metaphysical "are they actually two halves of the same whole?" I presume this is derived from their designs being intentionally inverted copies of each other, and Koishi representing the Id while Satori maybe represents the Superego. While I'm sure you could take that somewhere metaphorically, I don't think it works for out for two major reasons: a) If they're supposed to represent the Freudian aspects of the psyche, they'd need a third sister to represent the Ego, not to mention that of the two only Koishi uses an explicit Freudian theme in the first place, b) Koishi has a specific history where she wasn't always Satori's opposite. She used to be a normal satori with normal mindreading powers, and only obtained her control over over the unconscious by accident while trying to turn off her powers. I think this sort of history would be odd if they were intended to reflect multiple sides of the same person: what kind of metaphor would it be if both sides started out the same, and both complete individuals, only to have one of them change later? It's not like Koishi split off from Satori at the same moment she closed her third eye. Having two people grow in different directions works great as a narrative foil (which they definitely are to each other), but not so much for being the same person.

Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #361 on: June 01, 2016, 03:52:20 AM »
Has yuyuko ever shown any regret for almost killing all of gensokyo? I think she gave spring back to gensokyo. but for all we know she only did that because reimu and co said so.

i am having an crisis of faith (so to speak) over my love for yuyuko right now, btw.
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #362 on: June 01, 2016, 04:32:27 AM »
Well, that's the nature of an incident, isn't it?  Something threatening, but resolvable via spell card rules. 

That said, Yuyuko probably didn't intend to keep Gensokyo's spring permanently.  She just wanted to find out who was under the Saigyou Ayakashi.  What would have happened after the tree bloomed would have doomed all life, but that's not a thing she knew at the time.  If she now knows and regrets her action, it's never officially said.  But in the story for Extra, one of the people who wants the border to the Netherworld resealed is Yuyuko herself.  Granted, this never ends up happening, but I'd take it as a positive sign.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 04:34:39 AM by Sophilia »
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #363 on: June 01, 2016, 04:34:54 AM »
That said, Yuyuko probably didn't intend to keep Gensokyo's spring permanently. 
Source?
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #364 on: June 01, 2016, 04:40:20 AM »
I'm not too sure where you get the idea that the Spring Snow Incident could have killed all of Gensokyo?

Yuyuko really just started the whole deal out of curiosity. When they got her to stop she got bored of it and gave up.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #365 on: June 01, 2016, 04:49:10 AM »
Crops. if it keep on going, all of gensokyos crops would have not been able to grow and that way no humans would be able to eat, then the youkai would eat the humans and then disappear from existence because they need humans to exist.

Also i am disappointed in Yuyuko because i always assumed that all of Yuyuko's seemly naive attitude was just her pretending to be dumb so that people would lower their guard around her. And while that is true in a way it seems that Yuyuko really is that dumb sometimes. Also her interactions with Ran and Sukia make her seem like more of an asshole than the fandom lets on.
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #366 on: June 01, 2016, 04:51:13 AM »
Source?

In Reimu's route, she asks Yuyuko to give it back, and Yuyuko says to wait a little until after the tree has bloomed.

I'm not too sure where you get the idea that the Spring Snow Incident could have killed all of Gensokyo?

Yuyuko really just started the whole deal out of curiosity. When they got her to stop she got bored of it and gave up.

The incident itself wouldn't have done it, true.  If the Ayakashi was fully unsealed, that would have been quite a bit more threatening.

Crops. if it keep on going, all of gensokyos crops would have not been able to grow and that way no humans would be able to eat, then the youkai would eat the humans and then disappear from existence because they need humans to exist.

Also i am disappointed in Yuyuko because i always assumed that all of Yuyuko's seemly naive attitude was just her pretending to be dumb so that people would lower their guard around her. And while that is true in a way it seems that Yuyuko really is that dumb sometimes. Also her interactions with Ran and Sukia make her seem like more of an asshole than the fandom lets on.

She's smart, but no one in Touhou is omniscient.  She simply didn't know what was up with that tree.  As for the crops, like I said, it was probably meant to be a temporary thing.  It did mess with the harvest a bit, though, iirc.  And yeah, she can be a bit of a jackass at times.  Her SWR story comes to mind on that one.  But who in this series doesn't have jerk moments?
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 05:05:29 AM by Sophilia »
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #367 on: June 01, 2016, 05:11:11 AM »
In Reimu's route, she asks Yuyuko to give it back, and Yuyuko says to wait a little until after the tree has bloomed.

Well, i guess Yuyuko isn't that selfish then. But she is a bit dumb for not realizing that stealing the spring would cause consequences.

Edit: but then again, yuyuko spread snow everywhere in SWR for no real reason. that was selfish as hell.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 05:17:02 AM by the old guy »
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #368 on: June 01, 2016, 05:30:07 AM »
Crops. if it keep on going, all of gensokyos crops would have not been able to grow and that way no humans would be able to eat,
That's not really something considered in the setting since the human village didn't even exist much as a thing back then, but sure that'd probably be a point if this were FS. That being said, it isn't like she consumed the spring, she was gathering it to put in one place to have the tree fully bloom. The spring never disappeared, nor did she plan on just keeping it forever, so while the situation did last a long time it wasn't exactly critical.

Quote
then the youkai would eat the humans and then disappear from existence because they need humans to exist.
why would the youkai eat the humans that makes no sense

Also i am disappointed in Yuyuko because i always assumed that all of Yuyuko's seemly naive attitude was just her pretending to be dumb so that people would lower their guard around her. And while that is true in a way it seems that Yuyuko really is that dumb sometimes.
She's an airhead. Part of her character is that it isn't always obvious when she catches onto something and when she doesn't. Her part in SDV is pretty much maximum airhead so that Yukari forces herself to explain things.

Also her interactions with Ran and Sukia make her seem like more of an asshole than the fandom lets on.
welcome to gensokyo enjoy your stay, basically


The incident itself wouldn't have done it, true.  If the Ayakashi was fully unsealed, that would have been quite a bit more threatening
Not even, really. If the Saigyou Ayakashi could revive, it would still just be a youkai tree stuck in the Netherworld, where there are already only dead things anyways.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 05:31:48 AM by Drake »

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #369 on: June 01, 2016, 06:49:22 AM »
welcome to gensokyo enjoy your stay, basically
[/quote]
Doesn't justify her bad behavior when there are plenty of people in gensokyo who are not as nearly as selfish as her.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 07:59:04 AM by the old guy »
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #370 on: June 01, 2016, 07:55:25 AM »
Well, it consumes souls, and it's in the place where all the souls go.  At least to me, that's definitely a worrying thing.
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #371 on: June 01, 2016, 03:51:02 PM »
Yuyuko doesn't care if anyone dies anyway. Why would she care, given that from her perspective death isn't bad at all? She talks about inviting people to the Netherworld for the flower viewing party, and of course that's a euphemism for killing them. While perhaps boss banter shouldn't be taken all that seriously (Reimu murdered Sakuya!), there's really nothing to indicate that she would care one way or another if everyone died.

If you can't handle selfish and/or evil characters hanging out without karmic punishment, you'll probably spend your entire duration in the fandom discovering new horrible things that various characters have done. For the record, Yukari is implied to import homeless people to feed the youkai, and Ran talks about Chen as if she's an object.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 03:52:42 PM by Clarste »

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #372 on: June 01, 2016, 03:55:40 PM »
In fairness, Chen is objectively annoying.

But yeah, Gensokyo is pretty much the Grand Kingdom of Jerkfaces. As with people in the outside world, you have to take the bad with the good, even amongst those we hold dear.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #373 on: June 01, 2016, 04:42:42 PM »
Well, it consumes souls, and it's in the place where all the souls go.  At least to me, that's definitely a worrying thing.

Uh... No and no. Saigyou Ayakashi just charms nearby people to death, and only certain kind of souls go to Netherworld.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #374 on: June 01, 2016, 08:02:23 PM »
According to the lore, after death, souls are sent to the Netherworld as ghosts to await judgment from the Yama.  And everyone eventually gets judged, barring those special cases that can't die in the first place.  So I'd say "the place where all the souls go" is pretty accurate.
As for the other?  If it can only feed on the living, that is great!  But I think it would depend on which character of "soul" they were using when referring to its ability.  If it is the one more equivalent to life force, yeah, you're right.  If it is the other one, that is a more traditional "soul" and becomes a ghost?  That's some bad juju.
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #375 on: June 01, 2016, 08:09:02 PM »
The fandom does love to gloss over how callous most characters are/can be, and to ignore how youkai pretty much have to be jerks to survive. It's kinda understandable that someone new to the series who got introduced to it from fandom would find the canon characterizations a little jarring.

Uh... No and no. Saigyou Ayakashi just charms nearby people to death
To be fair, the wiki does says it drains souls from people, though it doesn't provide a source for that. It's not Yuyuko's PCB profile, at least.

According to the lore, after death, souls are sent to the Netherworld as ghosts to await judgment from the Yama.  And everyone eventually gets judged, barring those special cases that can't die in the first place.  So I'd say "the place where all the souls go" is pretty accurate.
You're a bit confused; souls awaiting judgement go to Higan, after crossing the Sanzu River in the shinigami's boat. The Netherworld is a possible final destination for a soul; the ones that were neither too terrible to go to Hell nor deemed worthy of going to Heaven. As Akyuu says in PMiSS:

Quote from: Akyuu: Netherworld
After death, humans pass through the Road of Liminality, cross over the Sanzu River, and receive the Yama's judgment. Depending on the severity of their crimes, they are sent to Hell, to the Netherworld, to Heaven, etc.

Quote from: Akyuu: Higan
All people do [in Higan] is await the Enma's judgement. [...] It's okay if you are sent to the Netherworld, but if you descend into Hell you'll temporarily leave the circle of transmigration and won't be able to once again enjoy the sights of cherry blossoms and the taste of sake.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2016, 03:45:46 AM by Sagus »
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #376 on: June 01, 2016, 08:36:51 PM »
To be fair, the wiki does says it drains souls from people, though it doesn't provide a source for that. It's not Yuyuko's PCB profile, at least.
The closest thing i could find was

"Everyone always seemed to be bent out of shape about that youkai cherry tree, and nothing else. Surely, it had drained the spirit from too many human lives."

in Yukari's PCB profile.

Edit: there's also something about "absorbing their blood" (which i'm not sure it's just another way to say it killed them, not literally absorbing fluids :V) in Yuyuko's PMiSS article.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 08:44:33 PM by PK »

Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #377 on: June 01, 2016, 09:49:55 PM »
Edit: there's also something about "absorbing their blood" (which i'm not sure it's just another way to say it killed them, not literally absorbing fluids :V) in Yuyuko's PMiSS article.

Cherry blossoms absorbing blood of people who are buried beneath them is a bit of classic Japanese folklore. Supposedly that's why their petals are pink: from the blood they've soaked up. That line is an allusion to that phenomenon, which the Japanese audience would definitely already know.

Anyway, the moral is that you should never cite the wiki for facts.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #378 on: June 02, 2016, 04:41:33 AM »
ok I did some work on the wiki article and those other minor mentions


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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #379 on: June 03, 2016, 07:15:14 PM »
Where do Forbidden Scrollery vol. 5 and 6 start and end? The wiki seem to have lost track of it.

Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #380 on: June 04, 2016, 12:02:33 AM »
Where do Forbidden Scrollery vol. 5 and 6 start and end? The wiki seem to have lost track of it.

Volume 5 begins with chapter 30, and volume 6 with 38.

Edit: Fixed the wiki, although I didn't bother adding the book details.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 12:09:00 AM by Clarste »

Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #381 on: June 06, 2016, 02:43:22 PM »
Are celestials considered pure by Lunarian standards? Is there a physical difference between celestials and lunarians? (And by physical, I mean looking only at their body's state, not how they reached that state)
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #382 on: June 06, 2016, 08:24:36 PM »
I would assume celestials are pure, for the same reason ghosts are pure. The afterlife is pure because things neither live nor die there.

As for the composition of their bodies, it's been implied several times that Lunarians are simply gods, but not the same kind of god that lives on Earth. The "higher class of god" and also the amatsukami, the heavenly gods. Whereas celestials are simply enlightened humans.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #383 on: June 07, 2016, 05:20:20 AM »
Is there any reason why the protagonists let Byakuren live even though she sides with Youkai? Also, since Akyuu states that Youkai are enemies of humanity, would that make Byakuren her enemy? If so, I wonder why she hasn't done anything about it.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2016, 09:24:20 AM by Kageshirou »

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #384 on: June 07, 2016, 10:42:07 AM »
The entire point of the spell card rules is to be non-lethal, so that both humans and youkai can survive.  Gensokyo, after all, was created to be a place where youkai would live on, rejecting the disbelief of the outside world.  But to do so, they need people to believe in them and their power.  Thus, incidents, and spell card rules.

Akyuu, though knowledgeable about youkai and the way Gensokyo works, is not a combatant.  In fact, her writing of Gensokyo Chronicle and related works is part of an established balance, to keep the regular humans in line, and keep belief in youkai strong.  Whether it is a deliberate scheme, or just a result of her personal belief, her statement serves the purpose of Gensokyo.  The antagonism between human and youkai is literally what youkai need to exist, as long as the humans do not get too strong, or the youkai do not do something really stupid.  But that's what Keine is for...on both ends.
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #385 on: June 07, 2016, 11:08:09 AM »
Also, it's questionable how accurate Akyuu really is. The books are very specifically written from her point of view, which adds some uncertainty to what is fact, what is Akyuu having bad information, and what is Akyuu's own grudges. I suspect this is to let ZUN have some wiggle room/plausible deniability. (And we get an out if headcanons are rustled a little too much).

I like to joke she's a Suetonius fangirl as a result of it.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #386 on: June 07, 2016, 11:39:42 AM »
Does the hakurei barrei separate gensokyo from the environmental changes in the outside world? Is GLOBAL WARMING a thing in gensokyo? Will wakasagihime have an unbalanced diet in the years to come? Is cirno in actual mortal danger?
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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #387 on: June 07, 2016, 12:18:10 PM »
It's explicitly said in WaHH that the barrier lets in natural things like water and sunlight, so environmental changes likely affect Gensokyo. If there's a significant environmental event in the future it's somewhat likely ZUN will at least make a passing mention.

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #388 on: June 07, 2016, 04:54:46 PM »
Is there any kind of moral lessons behind Touhou stories? Or it is just that "Gensokyo is not a playground for you to put your typically uninspired OCs in and make a bad harem fanfiction out of it."

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Re: Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating
« Reply #389 on: June 07, 2016, 05:40:27 PM »
Is there any kind of moral lessons behind Touhou stories? Or it is just that "Gensokyo is not a playground for you to put your typically uninspired OCs in and make a bad harem fanfiction out of it."

More like "all's well as long as it ends in a tea party with lots of booze".