Game Logic, Canon and Common Sense

[EPICI]

A place to discuss how stuff could work in the Touhou universe with different variants of the canon, including game logic.

So I'll start it off with some generic interesting stuff.

You might think the game logic matches pretty well with the canon. Really though, there are some major discrepancies.
So what if the canon matched the games?

Hit Detection
In real life, everybody's hit areas match their bodies exactly. In the games though, all characters are either playable or enemies.
Playable characters get a tiny hitbox, while enemies get a very large one.
On the other hand, playable characters go down in one hit and enemies can have tons of health, many lives and split health bars.
This makes sense so far from a logical standpoint. But in some games (ex. Imperishable Night) some characters are both playable and enemies, technically in the same timeline!
There is a resolution to this though.

Attack and Defend
So in general, the player is always the attacker, and the enemy is always the defender.
The player uses a standard shot and bombs, while the enemy uses spellcards.
Now the definition is solid enough that any character in any timeline can be classified, but loose enough that a character can be both at two different points in time.
In some cases though, the enemy instigates something and comes to the player, rather than the other way around, yet the roles don't reverse.
What's stopping the player from using their last word spellcard at any time, or the enemy from constantly spamming undodgeable aimed barrages?

It's All Just A Game
Of course it is, that's why you're playing it. But that's not what I was referring to.
Every single incident that needed resolving, every story, is just one big game.
A certain character or group is assigned as the player, and some other group gets assigned as the enemies, told to encounter the player at a certain time and place and attack them with a certain strength.
If we assume this then Yuyuko can be both the final boss of PCB and a stage 1 boss in TD.
Every character is very powerful, but they are only allowed to use a certain fraction of their power, depending on how far the player is in the story and what difficulty the player is playing on.
Each difficulty can be assumed to have its own timeline, with a different cap for difficulty of spellcards that can get approved.
But at the end of the day, aren't the incidents still real?

Everything is Scripted
It could get boring in Gensokyo, it's very sparsely populated, and there's practically no economy or communication. Imagine living there for your whole life never seeing the outside world.
Every now and then, a bunch of these characters would get together and plan a sort of game, everything agreed on beforehand. Then, one or more of the characters assigned to do so would cause what we would refer to as an incident, acting as a motive and threat for whoever is assigned as the player.
All the encounters, all the fights, maybe even all the conversations would be scripted and planned out beforehand.
The player never really gets surprised, they only act like they do.
And then there's Sakuya working the pause menu, Aya making sure you have a replay, and of course ZUN Nitori being the head director.
The endings we see are set up, and we can't see anything outside of it. These characters are only playing a game for your entertainment.
And even if the player loses, the bad ending is only what gets broadcasted. There's no way hacker Reimu would let an incident actually occur intentionally.
If anybody ever actually tried to cause an incident, there would be a real war, and no game.

Respawn and Retry
What's really happening?
For a later theory.

All Spellcards are Tested
Nothing can surprise Reimu. After all, if she doesn't approve, you're not allowed to use it.
For a later theory.

Gensokyo's Rules
Gensokyo isn't bound by common sense or standard science. It has its own rules.
For a later theory.

Who's Playing My Theme Song?
Not the Prismriver sisters, that's for sure.
For a later theory.

Shot Types Don't Matter
Bullets and knives are no more lethal than butterflies.
For a later theory.

Please share any and all of your ideas in this thread! When I have time I'll probably come back and post a more specific theory. The blank ones above aren't blank, feel free to elaborate on or counter anything I said.

[Mеа]

On the matter of the 'small hitbox', it could be the case that since we can see that being hit by a million knives or nuclear suns doesn't kill you due to the play-nature of spellcards, the spellcard battle ends when one gets hit 'fatally' through the heart area. Ie: getting hit by something that would have been fatal in a non-play battle, in a typical sports sort of way of handling of the things

[PK]

All Spellcards are Tested
Nothing can surprise Reimu. After all, if she doesn't approve, you're not allowed to use it.
For a later theory.

What?

[~Shin Kuroi~]

All Spellcards are Tested
Nothing can surprise Reimu. After all, if she doesn't approve, you're not allowed to use it.
For a later theory.

??

[Hope ♦ Metal]

What?

Well the article about Spell cards on the wiki says:

[Spell cards] are described as pieces of paper bearing the descriptions of their respective spells, along with the possible approval of the shrine maiden.

But the only thing said in the description of the Spell card rules in PMiSS is that the duelists have to agree on the specifics beforehand. However in the actual games it doesn't seem to be the same: the number of spell cards a boss has is preset, but we don't actually see the boss negotiating on the terms of the battle (because that would not be as interesting as smack talking), so that supports the "Everything is scripted" theory.

But, unless this has been retconned, Reimu doesn't actually always win in one try as said in her PMiSS profile:

The game ends once a victor is decided, although the shrine maiden likes to have rematches until she wins.

There's other interesting things about this like the actual rules being written on a youkai contract (is it for humans to make pacts with youkai or something?) so Reimu might not even be the one to have come up with them alone. I guess since the rules are meant to let youkai and humans have battles without either side dying or something. Also there's people like Rinnosuke who don't use Spell cards. I guess they have no reasons for fighting.

On the matter of the 'small hitbox', it could be the case that since we can see that being hit by a million knives or nuclear suns doesn't kill you due to the play-nature of spellcards, the spellcard battle ends when one gets hit 'fatally' through the heart area. Ie: getting hit by something that would have been fatal in a non-play battle, in a typical sports sort of way of handling of the things

But then who is counting all the grazing? And why are they absent in MoF? Clearly it is one of the bosses in there.

[PK]

Well the article about Spell cards on the wiki says:

I wonder if it was a misiterpretation of
For more specific details on the duel process, discuss with the shrine maiden later.
(from the draft in PMiSS)?
I can't find anything about needing the shrine maiden's approval.
Besides, Reimu would need to know everyone in Gensokyo, to know each of their spells, and to have a huge amount of time to see and then approve all of the spells. Which is clearly impossible.
As for the number of spells used not being said in the dialogues, it might simply be that they show the physical spell cards by holding them in their hands.

If you need some actual gameplay/canon discrepancy that i think could be avoided (somehow), the rules also say you can't repeat an attack, yet the players only get a single SC to use in the game and can spam them to no-sell bosses.

[EPICI]

Well the article about Spell cards on the wiki says:
But the only thing said in the description of the Spell card rules in PMiSS is that the duelists have to agree on the specifics beforehand. However in the actual games it doesn't seem to be the same: the number of spell cards a boss has is preset, but we don't actually see the boss negotiating on the terms of the battle (because that would not be as interesting as smack talking), so that supports the "Everything is scripted" theory.

But, unless this has been retconned, Reimu doesn't actually always win in one try as said in her PMiSS profile:
There's other interesting things about this like the actual rules being written on a youkai contract (is it for humans to make pacts with youkai or something?) so Reimu might not even be the one to have come up with them alone. I guess since the rules are meant to let youkai and humans have battles without either side dying or something. Also there's people like Rinnosuke who don't use Spell cards. I guess they have no reasons for fighting.
But then who is counting all the grazing? And why are they absent in MoF? Clearly it is one of the bosses in there.

Good points.
All the bullets are probably mechanical, and just given some special looks to be a bit less menacing and more fun. There's probably detectors under the player's clothes to track grazing, maybe the bullets have radio wave emitters or something. Anyways think of it like laser tag (or some equivalent game). You're shooting each other with something completely harmless, and you wear a vest which tracks your hits, and after a certain number you are eliminated. Given that the residents of Gensokyo also have very advanced magic I wouldn't be surprised if they found a simpler way to have a digital play-fight.
Also supports the "shot types don't matter" theory. As for how rain, light and some other stuff can trigger the hit system while being pretty legitimate, there's probably a good explanation for that too. Maybe some kind of invisibility.

I wonder if it was a misiterpretation of
For more specific details on the duel process, discuss with the shrine maiden later.
(from the draft in PMiSS)?
I can't find anything about needing the shrine maiden's approval.
Besides, Reimu would need to know everyone in Gensokyo, to know each of their spells, and to have a huge amount of time to see and then approve all of the spells. Which is clearly impossible.
As for the number of spells used not being said in the dialogues, it might simply be that they show the physical spell cards by holding them in their hands.

If you need some actual gameplay/canon discrepancy that i think could be avoided (somehow), the rules also say you can't repeat an attack, yet the players only get a single SC to use in the game and can spam them to no-sell bosses.

Beta testers are Reimu clones. Or maybe some of the other characters are helping to test.

Let's do a more in-depth analysis of the translation on the Touhou wiki.

*Spell cards are techniques specially-named by the individual, and they must be declared upon use.
Not much we can do with this other than say that the spellcards don't necessarily describe their function. So Marisa probably can't reach escape velocity, Youmu can't hit 200 Yojana in one slash, Reisen can't break your brain, Alice never travelled around the world, Patchouli can't get the philosopher's stone, Yukari isn't literally messing with borders/boundaries, Koishi didn't cause any paradoxes¹, etc.

*The number of each party's spell cards must be determined in advance of a duel.
We never see this number mentioned in dialogue or anywhere else. The player characters never mention this, so it's pretty good proof that the player and player's character(s) are separate entities.
Also, this statement can be perfectly valid if we assume each difficulty to be in its own timeline. Still though, last words are sort of a cheat.

*The first party to have all of their spell cards beaten must admit defeat.
So if you lose all your bombs you lose? Also no last words allowed, it's basically cheating by these rules. An obvious discrepancy, therefore supporting the theory².

*The victor is entitled only to what was agreed upon before the duel. If they're not interested in what their opponent has to offer, they can refuse a duel.
Reimu could very easily just pass up any duel and skip to the final boss. However, she chooses to always fight, putting up with a lot of crap.
One interpretation is that by agreeing to the duel Reimu is implying she approves the spellcards, given the previous rules. If the player is not Reimu, it could be a helper.
Another theory is that spellcard capture is literal (trading spellcards?), meaning you take their spellcards once you beat them. Reimu might have lost in the past, so anyone could convince Reimu to duel if they offered a bomb drop. That's why you might see some early bosses dropping bombs upon defeat, someone strong could have taken one of Reimu's fantasy seals and had it passed down through many losses to someone like Cirno.

*Winners should generally allow losers a rematch.
[2] So a loser must admit defeat... but they can always get a rematch. I guess the other discrepancy is resolved, or else rematches aren't being offered and instead everybody's a cheater.

*Always prepare for the unexpected.
It doesn't implicitly say that Reimu or another playable character would be surprised, so it's logic that's easy to get around in court. It's also a lame excuse for RNG based spellcards.

[1] Koishi's wiki page One of her spellcards is called "Philosophy of a Hated Person". However, Koishi cannot be remembered, and as such cannot be hated by anyone else. She sealed away her own conscious so she can't hate anyone else either. If nobody can be hated by Koishi or vice versa and spellcard names must be accurate, this spellcard cannot exist.
Maybe this is a mistranslation? Or a joke that only makes sense in Japanese?

[Clarste]

Don't read the wiki pages for factual information. It's filled with nonsense, misinterpretations, and speculation. Seriously, just... don't. If you want to know about the characters, read their official profiles, the actual PMiSS/SoPM/BAiJR articles being cited, or their in-game dialog.

Edit: Regarding Koishi's spellcard, it's pretty freaking blatant that she sealed away her consciousness because she was hated. Which kind of makes her entire existence right now the "Philosophy of a Hate Person" by default: she wouldn't have made herself like this if she wasn't hated.

[EPICI]

Well, I haven't done enough research to properly counter that. Maybe some other time. For now I'll assume you're right because you have a valid point.

Anyways, new theory!
Sakuya's Time Gradient
Why I call it a time gradient rather than simply time manipulation is kinda obvious. If you freeze time, you'll be stuck too so time can never unfreeze. Also not having a gradient messes with lots of physics, especially relativity.
So basically with her generic knife placement attack she creates a slow bubble around the player, and throws knives into int while slowly expanding the bubble, before resetting back to normal to allow the knives to fly at full speed.
Why would I think that the bubble doesn't include the player?
From the player's perspective, if the player were also slowed, their perception would be affected too and therefore the long and tedious knife placement would appear to happen in an instant.
In EoSD, the knife manipulation frame takes about a second. If you're playing as Reimu, you could just say maybe the all powerful shrine maiden has partial immunity or has her own local time gradient. But Marisa can do this too, and she clearly doesn't have any immunity powers.
Okay, let's assume first that Sakuya is just creating a time gradient.
In Maid Secret Skill "Killing Doll" and some others Sakuya goes and changes the direction of the knives. Ignoring the fact that this is clearly physically impossible and that she doesn't have the time to repaint them a different colour, this requires insane accuracy. If Sakuya can really manipulate the time gradient with that much accuracy, Yukari might as well be able to gap away every single raindrop individually in a storm, and Sanae use her miracle powers to manipulate quark superpositions (it's a miracle if she builds a quantum computer, save that one for another theory, or not, your choice).
So what's an alternative solution? The bullets are fake. The knives are just some tiny remote controlled flying machines with some plastic or something else on top, similar to Reisen's bullets or Utsuho's mini-suns, although those are a bit more fancy.
What about the player though? Why can't they move when Sakuya supposedly pauses time?
Sakuya's just calling a time out and ordering the knives to freeze, and the player is not allowed to move. By the same logic, when the player pauses, they are simply calling a time out, and during that time the enemies are not allowed to move. In fact, in both cases, neither duelist moves.
What about Sakuya appearing to teleport? Well there's no hard evidence there's a static camera. Someone, presumably Aya, is following the player and filming. I wouldn't be surprised if Sakuya told Aya to stop filming for a few seconds to help sell it.

So I'd say this is a pretty solid theory.
Next time, probably one of these two:
Yukari's Gap Parenting - child objects follow parent objects' motion. I'm almost certain Yukari's gaps are all parented to other objects.
Reisen's Insanity Manipulation - probably also fake, have to do more research to be sure though.

[Hannibal_Kills]

If you want to know about the characters, read their official profiles, the actual PMiSS/SoPM/BAiJR articles being cited, or their in-game dialog.

Which is also available in the wiki itself I suppose?

What's stopping the player from using their last word spellcard at any time, or the enemy from constantly spamming undodgeable aimed barrages?

I am very sure it was for gameplay's sake. Much like as unlogically killing a hell lot of enemies in Call of Duty to add more intensity in the level.

In my speculation, a true Danmaku combat would have both duelers need to fire and dodge much like dogfighting in fighter planes, or more accurately helicopter-to-helicopter combat. This is just the game of what really happened as it might as well been a hell lot messier.

[EPICI]

What if the Great Hakurei Barrier is the 4th wall?

[PK]

Which is also available in the wiki itself I suppose?

Yes, just about everything of the official stuff is also present in the wiki. The official profiles are at the bottom of characters' pages.

[andykhang]

What if the Great Hakurei Barrier is the 4th wall?

...Eeeexcept it not, since it's canon that the other side is the outside world.

[Hope ♦ Metal]

...Eeeexcept it not, since it's canon that the other side is the outside world.

Well we're in the outside world, are we not?

[andykhang]

^The outside world in-verse. So at least we didn't see our Gensokyo yet.

[EPICI]

Reisen's Actual Abilities
And since I don't want to have someone else say this later, I'll say this now, I am assuming for this theory that the events in the games are real, unlike in some of my other theories.
So we're told Reisen can induce hallucinations and therefore make you "go insane" but what are her actual powers?
For this I'll be looking only at her Stage 5 boss fight in Imperishable Night.
Reisen appears to be able to make bullets disappear. If we are viewing from the player's perspective, the player's character should remember the locations of the bullets. This is portrayed as the bullets becoming translucent. So far, so good.
Then there's Spread Sign "Invisible Full Moon" in which the bullets become completely invisible, even if only temporarily. Remember though, the player should remember the location and therefore we should see them being translucent.
So from this we infer Reisen can wipe your short term memory.
But wait, there's a hole here. Even if the bullets are invisible, they should still be able to hit you.
The bullets could have been moved in the Z direction, but the games have never been 3D, so scrap that.
What I believe is happening is the entire boss fight is one continued hallucination.
When the player bombs, they actually do use a bomb. Reisen could be just sitting back and relaxing during the entire boss fight.
As for tracking lives lost, Reisen could easily decrement the counter. But to see the player being hit she would need to be able to see her own hallucination. Probably not as in she is also affected, more like she can view them if she chooses to.
The short term memory wipe isn't any less true, because hallucinated bullets would be remembered just like real ones.
In that spell and her last word though, the visible bullets alternate between the fast rings and the large lines. Would this mean she has that precise control? Not at all.
There's no rules to say you can't have repeated or stacked hallucinations. The red eyes animation would imply she is constantly re-adding and modifying the hallucination.
We can say for sure hallucinations can be at least as complex as her danmaku patterns. Sure, they aren't particularly complex, but most Touhou patterns are simple when you break them down, just hard to dodge. Yukari's last spell/last word (Yukari's Arcanum "Danmaku Bounded Field" and its last word counterpart) creates a pretty complex pattern using simple rules. The thing is that Reisen needs to emulate her danmaku patterns with the brain equivalent, and she's always pixel perfect.

[PapilLionesskort]

Reisen's abilities are rather concretely stated to be manipulation of wavelengths, including sound- and brainwaves. Her meddling with the latter is what allows her to induce hallucinations and insanity.