Author Topic: Canon and Consistency  (Read 10741 times)

Sophilia

  • Exposition Patchouli
  • Seeker of Truth
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #30 on: April 14, 2017, 03:29:05 AM »
If it were just her talking to other characters, I'd agree.  But we get a look at her thoughts when she's alone as well.  It fits with what she was saying at that time.
Life and death are without purpose.  Our attempts to give them one are quite presumptuous of us.  But in the end, we exist, and that is enough.

Current status: Dissuading deliberately choking for imagined fame.

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #31 on: April 16, 2017, 09:10:28 PM »
I want to amend my previous remarks on this subject, because I think IcedFairy deserves praise. If nothing else, his appraisal on the state of the fandom has inspired those invested in it to speak up, and seems to have pulled those on the fence about it into examining how they feel about things. So on that note, here's where I'm coming from with regards to canon and consistency: I think there is no ultimate, established Right or Wrong in all this.

It can simultaneously be true that in some cases, ZUN made deliberate choices to be inconsistent; in other cases, there were things he clearly overlooked; and in other cases still, there are either bad translations or misunderstandings. All of these things can be true simultaneously, and I think a big part of the frustration is seeing these things as mutually exclusive.

I will say, though, that if the western fandom has waned (and I'm honestly not sure about what the hard data on that is), some things are more understandable than others. Like, yes, Ten Desires was terrible. But I think ZUN has pretty much knocked it out of the park from TH14 onwards. And if we lost fans to Kancolle, honestly? Good riddance. The folks who marched on over to the ships and left Touhou behind were predominantly the kind of "fans" who'd refer to the Gensokyans as "lolis", and the less of those sorts the better. If anything I'm glad Kancolle served as a magnet for some of the less savory fans in our midst (though I make no illusions that a lot of them aren't still around).

In the final analysis I'm not overly concerned about the WTC losing numbers. I'm much more comfortable with a small but enthusiastic fanbase than a larger, disjointed and kinda patchwork fanbase. And again, I'm grateful IcedFairy has sparked something of a renewed discussion on the subject of Touhou canon, for all its strong points and flaws.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

Zelinko

  • The Wandering Mind
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #32 on: April 17, 2017, 07:27:13 AM »
Honestly for me outside the mangas and baku shaped point it's been a dark age ever since after Ten Desires (the last touhou game I had any fun with).   Every fighting game is just worse than the other and the mainline games are just sad.
Just hoping this doesn't become a decade long dark age like Gundam recently got out of...
Sumireko is just Wesley Crusher levels of plz go.

If it were just her talking to other characters, I'd agree.  But we get a look at her thoughts when she's alone as well.  It fits with what she was saying at that time.

The answer there is simple.  The actual answer is above her pay grade.   Not everyone needs to know about the Kishen killteams.  And you wouldn't want some loose lipped shinigami to spill the beans.  To her knowledge what she said is true.  Of course with the multi-year gap between SWR and WaHH's stuff she might have gotten a briefing about what's going to happen since it doesn't look any of the hermits in Gensokyo are all that long lived (or in a living state when it comes to the Taoists) out to get the death mark activated.
This Space For Rent

Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #33 on: April 17, 2017, 07:42:41 AM »
Honestly for me outside the mangas and baku shaped point it's been a dark age ever since after Ten Desires (the last touhou game I had any fun with).   Every fighting game is just worse than the other and the mainline games are just sad.
Just hoping this doesn't become a decade long dark age like Gundam recently got out of...
Literally everyone on this forum disagrees. Just to let you know.
My old avatars: Old ass turtle, Unzan - Second and Current Avatar by the talented Aoshi-shi

Zelinko

  • The Wandering Mind
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #34 on: April 17, 2017, 07:59:18 AM »
Literally everyone on this forum disagrees. Just to let you know.

That's nice.  Don't know why you wanted to flame me.

None of the games have had remote interest me storywise and gameplaywise they made me pretty much removed any enjoyment I had for such a long time.  So I'm stuck with fangames and TD while waiting for a fun game to come out.
This Space For Rent

Drake

  • *
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #35 on: April 17, 2017, 09:17:15 AM »
You already had your thread to whine about what you think of the series. Nobody has to put up with you entering threads and saying games are bad because of your ultra-poor justifications, especially when it isn't even relevant to the topic; maybe if you didn't go around just spouting your disagreeable opinions for no discernible reason, you wouldn't get criticized for it.

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

Zelinko

  • The Wandering Mind
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #36 on: April 17, 2017, 09:48:36 AM »
You already had your thread to whine about what you think of the series. Nobody has to put up with you entering threads and saying games are bad because of your ultra-poor justifications, especially when it isn't even relevant to the topic; maybe if you didn't go around just spouting your disagreeable opinions for no discernible reason, you wouldn't get criticized for it.

But I was responding and adding to Tengukami's post.  It's not random if it's adding responding to a section of another poster's post.  Unless you're refusing to look at context outside your apparent extreme dislike of me.
This Space For Rent

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #37 on: April 17, 2017, 11:07:20 AM »
But I was responding and adding to Tengukami's post.  It's not random if it's adding responding to a section of another poster's post.  Unless you're refusing to look at context outside your apparent extreme dislike of me.

Alright, let's pretend for a moment that you were responding to me.

My point was related to the state of Touhou fandom; not our personal preferences. So if we look at actual data from the 2017 popularity poll, we see that TH14 and TH15 are in the top ten ranked games in terms of popularity, in 6th and 8th place respectively, which is also where they ranked last year. Unsurprisingly, Ten Desires does rank much further down, in 13th. Even so, this game somehow managed to outrank TH14.3, the photog games and GFW.

So while your opinion of the games at TH13 onwards is noted (and apparently has been noted elsewhere), it's kind of irrelevant to the point I was making on the state of the fandom - that while TH13 was crap, ZUN has done much better since then, and it seems as though the fandom as a whole agrees.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2017, 11:27:40 AM by Tengukami »

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

Drake

  • *
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #38 on: April 17, 2017, 01:16:08 PM »
Unless you're refusing to look at context outside your apparent extreme dislike of me.
See, this is where a problem lies. It's understandable that you might take heavy-handed criticism to signify that the person "extremely dislikes you", but I do not dislike you just because I'm calling you out on the behaviour that's getting you that attention in the first place. I can separate a person's opinions, however poorly justified, from my personal convictions of their character. What I dislike is this exact passive-aggressive, dismissive, juvenile attitude that seems to permeate nearly every post you make that isn't entirely neutral. You've barely made any posts and yet seem to already have a knack for getting negative attention, and you don't seem to have the self-awareness to understand why, so you just blame it on other people.

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

Lebon14

  • 椛ちゃん、助けてぇぇぇぇぇ!
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #39 on: April 18, 2017, 10:57:46 PM »
Let me drop my 2?.

For the Reimu personally argument, there are no issue. For exemple, my brother will talk and act very differently he does with me or my dad than he does in public or my mom. This is the same for Reimu. That's it, that's all.

As for Aya and her wings, I just think she can "spawn" and "despawn" them at will.
As for Momiji ( <3 ), that's a real consistency issue. However, for the most I can see, from the sprite and the few official apparence, most of them show ears on her head. In my honnest opinion, it might be far-fetched but, I think she just can "pull down" her ears to her hair (see WaHH Chap. 38) and whenever she feel like it, she can just make them popup (OSP, AFiEU). Otherwise, it's a proper consistency issue because ZUN nevere really thought anything about her period.

Some are just ambiguous:
Quote from: Iced Fairy
Is Koishi's heart eye opening (SA) or shut so tight most people can't remember her (SoPM)?  Do Shinigami collect immortals (SWR) or do they not (WaHH)?  Is the dragon palace on the moon (SoPM) or is it definitely not (CiLR)?
I think for Koishi, ZUN just didn't think to further use her and was still undecided on stuff. For Shinigami and Dragon Palace, I think it's just a "people can be wrong thing", "can be both" or "neither" scenarios. It's like saying somebody told you that Person X does that but Person X tell you that he doesn't. "I think I'm right but I'm really am not".

As much as I'd like to "hear fixes" from ZUN, these things are just going to happen.

/kills thread by posting.

Zelinko

  • The Wandering Mind
Re: Canon and Consistency
« Reply #40 on: April 20, 2017, 12:21:42 AM »
Let me drop my 2?.

For the Reimu personally argument, there are no issue. For exemple, my brother will talk and act very differently he does with me or my dad than he does in public or my mom. This is the same for Reimu. That's it, that's all.

As for Aya and her wings, I just think she can "spawn" and "despawn" them at will.
As for Momiji ( <3 ), that's a real consistency issue. However, for the most I can see, from the sprite and the few official apparence, most of them show ears on her head. In my honnest opinion, it might be far-fetched but, I think she just can "pull down" her ears to her hair (see WaHH Chap. 38) and whenever she feel like it, she can just make them popup (OSP, AFiEU). Otherwise, it's a proper consistency issue because ZUN nevere really thought anything about her period.

Some are just ambiguous:I think for Koishi, ZUN just didn't think to further use her and was still undecided on stuff. For Shinigami and Dragon Palace, I think it's just a "people can be wrong thing", "can be both" or "neither" scenarios. It's like saying somebody told you that Person X does that but Person X tell you that he doesn't. "I think I'm right but I'm really am not".

As much as I'd like to "hear fixes" from ZUN, these things are just going to happen.

/kills thread by posting.

So standard canine ear geometry and mobility actions.  Usually we see them in the 'up'  or 'neutral' geometry.   The entire focused look we see in SOPM is the 'down' geometry. 

Admittedly I'm kinda basing this on the hyper-expressive ears of greyhounds, which in the 'down' configuration from Momiji's perspective can do that there.
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