Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Touhou Addict Recovery Center => Topic started by: H4xolotl on October 09, 2016, 06:36:36 AM

Title: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: H4xolotl on October 09, 2016, 06:36:36 AM
Dolls in Pseudo Paradise (DiPP) (https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Dolls_in_Pseudo_Paradise) is one of ZUN's official music CDs.  All of ZUN's CDs have stories included in the song descriptions. The music CD stories are canon, but occur at times outside the main game series. Renko & Maribel's story occurs in the near future (Sumirenko is the 1st president of the Sealing club in the present). DiPP's story probably occurs in the near past.

DiPP's story (https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Dolls_in_Pseudo_Paradise/Story) is possibly the darkest ZUN story so far; even darker than when Reimu killed the Fortune-teller in Forbidden Scrollery. It's about 8 humans who are spirited into Gensokyo, with 7 of them being murdered by the survivor who'd turned into a Youkai. It is told from the point of view of each person before they die, with interludes from the narrator/survivor. Here's a summary;

Quote
The Narrator explains how her group of 8 thieves enter Gensokyo through a little hole in a peach tree. The narrator "right away stopped being human" (became a Youkai)

#8 is curious, runs into a forest & is beheaded

#7 wakes up early, goes for a walk, gets caught in a freak storm and is murdered in the rain

#6 is bored at a party, goes for a walk & is beheaded

The Narrator (one of the remaining 5) is so scared (admits to being cowardly) she tries to suicide by hanging, but fails because the rope mysteriously broke. She rejoins the group & "tries being human once more", confirming the narrator is a Youkai

The remaining 5 are caught in a trap of pure darkness. #5 gives up escaping and is killed. The other 4 escape

The remaining 4 (including the narrator) find an enchanted house in the forest that creates its own food supplies

#4 is poisoned by coffee & dies

#3 hides the body, suspects #2 & #1 (The narrator is either #1 or #2), and does everything to keep himself alive; from cooking his own food to staying awake. He is somehow CRUCIFIED to a tree despite clearly sitting at the kitchen table.

The Narrator reveals she has been cooking all the food. She also reveals she wanted to "fix her life" but ended up with the bunch of thieves.

#2 eats poisoned eggs & ham & dies.

#1 is the Narrator. She has amnesia, is in denial that she killed everyone. She hangs herself again but survives as since she's a Youkai

In the epilogue the Shrine Maiden sees the beautiful blonde survivor/narrator "leaving Gensokyo" & recognises her as the "only woman" who was with the 8 thieves.



There are many connections that suggest it is Alice;


[/list]
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Sophilia on October 09, 2016, 09:16:59 AM
I've seen this theory a few other places, and it generally holds up pretty well, though it's not got the direct proof to it that stuff like the Mary idea has.  Though there are a few points that don't seem to add up in your version of it.

7 - What Alice's doing in her article isn't technically voodoo.  It does use straw dolls and lays a curse on the victim, but it doesn't manipulate them and cause synchronous wounds like the common perception of voodoo does.  That said, this doesn't stop her from knowing voodoo...
11 - You'd think that if the survivor had a grudge to kill all these thieves, that she *wouldn't* prefer to hang around Marisa.
17 - Pretty sure this is just Rumia eating one of the thieves.

Also I was surprised you didn't bring up the final line, where the shrine maiden notices that the woman's appearance has changed.  That's usually pointed out as an indication of the difference between PC-98 Alice and Windows Alice.

I'm kind of on the fence on this theory myself, since I prefer to think of a Gensokyo-native Alice, who became a magician through training, not by simply going through a portal.  But there are definitely some good points to it.
I offer this as a synthesis of both our ideas:  The survivor tried to hang herself twice.  Both times, she lived afterwards.  These may be symbolic deaths, not literal ones; to become a full youkai magician, one has to learn two spells.  One to live without eating, and one to live without breathing.  So symbolically, she'd be "breaking her neck" both times.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: aListers on October 09, 2016, 12:18:45 PM
Yeah, I actually believe this theory - too many things add up. While I'm not going to start pointing fingers and lose respect for Alice because of it, I did have a bit of a panic after finding out about it. That is a reason for taking those dream pills though - that makes a lot of sense. The dream pills always confused me a bit.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: TresserT on October 09, 2016, 09:21:42 PM
It's not got the direct proof to it that stuff like the Mary idea has.

Sorry to derail the thread, but I've never heard of that theory. Could you explain it or link me to somewhere I could learn more about it?
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Lollipop on October 09, 2016, 09:27:47 PM
wow, that is a dark plotline. I'm sad now  :(
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: the old guy on October 09, 2016, 10:26:57 PM
Sorry to derail the thread, but I've never heard of that theory. Could you explain it or link me to somewhere I could learn more about it?
Here (https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,5755.0.html).
Note that it was made before Trojan Green Asteroid, Neo-traditionalism of Japan, Dr. Latency's Freak Report, Dateless Bar "Old Adam", ULIL and any of Yukari's recent appearances, so it isn't complete.

While I'm not going to start pointing fingers and lose respect for Alice because of it, I did have a bit of a panic after finding out about it. T

If it helps, its very clear that the mystery girl/Alice holds regret for what she did.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: TresserT on October 10, 2016, 01:10:38 AM
Ah, I misunderstood. I thought they meant Merry being the mysterious girl in DiPP. Nevermind.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Mеа on October 10, 2016, 01:34:27 AM
Huh, this is the first time I've read the DiPP story, really interesting. I had reservations on jumping to DiPP killer->Alice so I decided to jot down a few notes on the story's mystery. And, as a testament to ZUN's early fascination with Agatha Christie mysteries, there's a lot of inconsistencies and weird points that I'm trying to wrap my head around. Will probably post my own thoughts after I get a theory I can at least somewhat see through.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Mеа on October 10, 2016, 06:35:03 AM
e: did someone say wall of text?

After spending several hours going through various scenarios, I finally somehow managed to scribble out from my head one that makes sense, in a way.
Leaving aside whether it was Alice or not, I'll just go ahead and try and deduce who was the killer from just the story.

As I mentioned before, there are more than a couple odd points throughout the story. I'll go ahead and list them below:

So there are a lot of confusing points, but there are a couple that we can be assured of: there is one girl among the 8 honest men, and this one girl is the one that was left alive at the end somehow, and leaves Gensokyo. Also, we can be reasonably sure that story01 is true since there isn't much we can gain from it being false. So this much we know: that #8 was killed by the real Pierrot.

What do I mean by the 'real Pierrot'? The way the story makes the most sense to me is to realize that there are two killers in the story, the actual Pierrot who killed #8 in the beginning, and a second killer who later pretends to be the Pierrot. What led me to this conclusion were a couple consistent details. Firstly, all the deaths can be largely isolated into two categories: death by decapitation, and all other deaths. In all the stories were the Pierrot specifically was mentioned as the killer and the way of death was also specifically mentioned, it was described that the victim was beheaded by the Pierrot. In all the other stories, the Pierrot is not mentioned and the cause of death was something different.

That being the case, we can be sure that #8 --the curious one-- and #6 --the youngest one-- were killed by the real Pierrot, by decapitation. So what about #7? This is one of the biggest weird points of DiPP, and is contained within the stories 02 and 03. Story02 is narrated by #2, the early-riser, and only says that he was enthralled by the red-white shrine maiden dancing over the lake and comes to his senses when it started to rain. Story03 continues, or at least seems to continue, around where story02 left off. But this latter story is narrated by the beautiful one and is the only story where the narrator refers to themselves as ボク (boku) instead of 僕 (boku). Considering that this narrator, #7, calls themselves the "most beautiful one", we can say with some confidence that this is probably the single girl out of the group. The different way of referring to herself, ボク, seems to reflect this.

However, I think this is a red herring. I think the use of ボク over 僕 indicates that this is still the early-riser narrating. Despite having used ボク to seemingly refer to herself, the narration immediately continues to say that she would no longer be able to return to where "we" (僕ら--Note the return of 僕) are. There are a couple more conspicuous points that support this. First, story03 is the only story that seems to be a direct continuation of the previous story, story02 narrated by the early-riser. Second, though the Pierrot shows up, it is the only instance where a single individual encounters the Pierrot and does not get beheaded. Even more, it doesn't even mention how she died, only that she "was captured" by the Pierrot, who then disappeared into the storm.

With that said, let me say that this is probably the fake Pierrot narrating over #7's, the beautiful one's, place, faking their actions at the time. If you haven't guessed already, this means I'm suspecting #2, the early-riser, as the fake Pierrot, the one who started the narration the story before, story02. But with this comes up the question, why? Why would #2 murder #7, and go along murdering even more of his comrades afterwards? The answer I came up with is actually pretty simple, he was saving his own skin. With a kill-or-be-killed mentality. He must have witnessed a Pierrot-like silhouette enticing and then killing #8. Somehow, he manages to deduce that the killer must be within the circle of the 8 honest men. The figure must have been pretty feminine or something since he kills or drowns or whatever #7 first. To cover up his actions, he lies in his narration and then lies again in the next story-narration, narrating in the place of no longer present #7.

(Next is story05, narrated by #1, the cowardly one. He mentions that he no longer has any reason to live after his loved one disappeared. If we assume that he's referring to #7, then this would both seem to support that #7 is the lone female and that her disappearing somehow did actually happen. ie: that she's not in the group anymore.)

So when #6, the youngest one, is beheaded soon after, #7 panics. Didn't he kill the killer? He decides the drug the group or something and then relocates them somewhere further away, somewhere dark. This is story06. He is probably also the one in the group that mentions that they got captured by a "mysterious Pierrot". This description, "mysterious Pierrot", is the exactly same one used in the first story where #8 is killed, further supporting the idea that the early-riser must have caught a glimpse of the Pierrot somehow when they were killing #8, the first victim.
The early-riser's plan was probably to evoke some kind of reaction out of the rest of the group to see if he could determine the Pierrot. He probably didn't get quite what he wanted, but when they escaped save for one, #5 the wise one, and no one died for some time afterwards, he must have gone back and killed #5. To support this, #5 wasn't killed by being beheaded, but rather by being stabbed in the back or something. Shortly before #5 dies, he has an epiphany that 'the Pierrot' was among them, among the five that were captured. He probably deduced this when #5 mentioned they were captured by the Pierrot, or something similar. This is the second red herring of the story. "The Pierrot is within the remaining four!" is too obvious, not to mention it falls apart when approaching the last stories with this mentality.
To think about it rationally, why would someone in the group just arbitrarily bring up the detail that they were captured by the Pierrot? No one knows anything about any Pierrot since the only ones who witnessed such a figure all were decapitated immediately after (or disappeared, in the case of #7). Only #2, who caught a glimpse of the Pierrot and is actively trying to kill it and trying to evoke a reaction from the real Pierrot by pretending to be the Pierrot by claiming that they were captured by it, would be able to make such an offhand remark, which #5 deduces that he is the Pierrot from. If only half-correctly though, since he's not the 'real' one. To take his deduction at face-value, that the real Pierrot is in the group (and that there isn't a fake one) would greatly complicate things and lead to a lot of questionable inconsistencies and seemingly whimsical actions taken by a supposed 'infiltrated real Pierrot'. Only by having a fake Pierrot would things be consistent and sensible.

A short narration interlude indicates that the group had fallen to half their numbers. This is significant since it doesn't allow for there to be an uncounted 'liar' in the descending count of honest men. As in, like, there are 4 honest men left, but one liar! kind of thing.

Story09 continues with the group after having escaped back into the building in the forest. There #4, the mature one, drinks his usual afternoon coffee, but it has been poisoned with the love potion. He "falls in love" with the Pierrot and dies in sleep. This is another strange point in the story. The love potion is also mentioned in the other DiPP story, where someone buys the love potion in secret from some shop. Since it causes the person who drank the potion is fall in love with the Pierrot, we can assume that it was the Pierrot who bought the potion and slipped it into #4's coffee. In other words, #4 was killed by the Pierrot.

The poisoned dead body is discovered by #3, the wary one, and he chooses to hide this fact from the remaining two. From this previous story on, we have an actual timeline of sorts. Let's call this the second-to-last day, and #4 has already been poisoned to death in the afternoon by drinking coffee. #3 discovers #4's body in the latter's room some time after in the day. Since #3 was the one to hand out the coffee to the others, he rules out suicide and immediately suspects one of the other remaining two as the culprit behind the murders. Shortly before he dies, he sees the face of his murderer and he sees the face of the one he suspected. This is a significant detail, since it means that either #1 or #2 was the one who probably killed #3. Since we determined that #2 is the fake Pierrot, we can expect that this is the face #3 saw before his death. How #2 managed to get #3 nailed to a tree from his room is one of the strange points, but if we ignore the curiosity for know and just acknowledge that his death was not by decapitation, we can be sure that it was at the very least not the real Pierrot. And hence, #2.

There is an interlude here. The narrator of the interlude is addressing someone, calling him too "spineless". This is probably the narrator addressing #1, the cowardly one. The interlude narrator then prepares breakfast for the next day during the night. There's a bit more, but let's move on for now.

The second to last story ends in #2's death. The early-riser realizes on the morning of the last day that the breakfast he just ate must have been drugged. He is dumbfounded that the truth managed to elude him until he and only #1 were left alive, and swears that he should have killed him back when the latter went mad. These last thoughts of #2 are where most of my thoughts of his motives for murder were. He says that it must have all been his, #1's, plan all along. He is likely thinking about #1 based on the 'back when he went mad' part, probably referring to when #1 turned into a youkai after trying to hang himself the first time and returned trying to pretend to be a human. But more than that, he was likely the first one to rise this, or even every, morning. Yet, he mentions that he and #1 are the only ones still alive. How does he know that #3 and #4 are dead? The rooms were locked from the inside. #4 was poisoned in his room, and #3 chose to hide the fact before dying during the night. The only way he would know that only he and #1 are still alive is if he killed #3 after discovering #4's dead body. Since #2's motive for killing stems from self-preservation, he must have heavily suspected #3 for hiding the truth about #4's death and killed him later in the night. Hence, #2 knows that there are only him and one other left. Yet, here he is, having been drugged from his breakfast, and so his mind bends towards #1, now determined that it was #1 all along, that #1 must be the real Pierrot. Before he dies, he sees a vision of the shrine maiden from back in story02. Which makes sense, both this story and story02 are narrated by the "early-riser". However, this is a hallucination, this shrine maiden he's seeing has blonde hair. And who do we know has blonde hair? Why of course, the girl! #7, described by Reimu as both beautiful and having blonde hair, both descriptions that match #7. Significantly, the hallucinations both refers to stories 02 and 03, which is the ones that he lies about, bringing back attention to those. The Pierrot being described as "beautiful" also points to #7 being the Pierrot.

Lastly, #1 wakes up with a terrible migraine, having been assaulted by drowsiness after the last night's supper. He sees a poisoned body (#4), a body nailed to a tree (#3), and a decapitated body. This can only be #2's body. Though the previous story doesn't mention it, this is the only one left. Since it was decapitated, we can determine that he was visited by the Pierrot before his death and decapitated. This is supported by the latter having hallucinated a blonde girl before his death, which we know is #7. #7 is the Pierrot, we've come this far and finally established that. Though in actuality it was a bit simpler than that. The killer must be the survivor, and Reimu sees the only survivor who is a girl. The girl is the survivor and is the killer, pretty simple, no?
#1 who doesn't know any of this suspects that #4 must have killed the other two and drugged himself to death. This makes sense. It would be difficult to nail yourself to a tree or decapitate yourself (especially if the head isn't around, though we don't know that). #1 doesn't know that #4 was the first to die of the last #4 in the building because #3 hid the fact from him. And so, having been left all alone, he hangs himself.

Now that all that is done, let's go back to the interlude. The narrator of the interlude addresses one of their comrades, calling them "spineless". If we assume that this is referring to #1, the cowardly one, then it supports the idea that this narrator, is the Pierrot and #7. Since the breakfast that the interlude narrator prepares is eaten by #2 the next morning, it can't possibly be #2, there's no reason to drug himself. Especially after going as far as killing to stay alive for so long. And seeing his boiling suspicions towards #1, the only other one left alive, when finding out that his food was drugged, we can be sure it wasn't #2. There is the possibly that it could be a split consciousness of #1 addressing himself, that makes things more complicated than simple and doesn't explain anything. Also, this is be only other mentioning of another of their comrades, if off-hand. The first would be #1's mentioning of the one he loved disappearing (#7). If this is #7 addressing #1, then this would complete the circle, not to mention the "spineless" description matches. Also, the description of track 11 UN Owen Was Her? says something along the lines of how easy it would be for a criminal with imagination to have a noose around someone's neck, like an activity before breakfast. And in actuality, #1 doesn't eat breakfast on the last day and hangs himself. Lo, a noose around the neck before breakfast. Thus, it wouldn't quite make sense for this narrator to be #1. Furthermore, the descriptions for the other tracks include the narrator buying the aforementioned love potion, and also uses the pronoun 私 (watashi--though, interestingly, before switching immediately to 僕 boku when beheading a doll, remarking that the rain seems to have stopped. Another reference to the events of stories 02 and 03, perhaps).

e: guess I forgot to mention that #1 becoming a youkai was also probably a red herring. The one who became a youkai immediately upon entering gensokyo is probably #7, which also explains how she survived #2 killing her or whatever he did to off her. The interlude, which I think is mistranslated in one part, suggests she wanted to return to being a thief, experiencing the wealth and activity of the city life. This matches up with how they were moving around as "honest men" for two years, which the prologue narrator describes as having been very boring.


tldr; the Pierrot is #7, the girl. To save his skin, #2 'kills' her and pretends to be the Pierrot to try and figure out who the real Pierrot is among the remaining members as the murders continue. He dies in the end, beheaded by #7, the real Pierrot.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Tiamat on October 10, 2016, 12:47:28 PM
I've been spouting this theory for a while but no one ever comments on it whatsoever (be it yay or nay) when I bring it up (like, at all). I figured either everyone already agreed or everyone already disagreed.  Or no one cared.

Some other possible things I've noticed:

One of Alice's losing poses in the fighting games is her hanging her doll (and "Hanged Dolls" is one of her spell cards)

Story takes place in a Western House in the Forest.  That is exactly how Alice's house is described (in either IaMP or PMiSS.  I forget which).  Marisa's house is never described as "Western".

Marisa specifically notes that Alice's referencing of foreign places ss very odd and out of place in Grimoire of Marisa, which in my opinion implies it's meant to indicate something important about Alice (in this case, a reference to her foreign party in DiPP and her being from the outside world)


And IMHO the most blatant, Akyu says "Alice looks like a doll, herself" in PMiSS.  Given that the story is called "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise",  that's almost like ZUN saying it might as well be called "Alice  in Gensokyo".

(offtopic:  which when I put it that way makes me think of those various dark takes on the Alice in Wonderland story, come to think about it)



Sorry to derail the thread, but I've never heard of that theory. Could you explain it or link me to somewhere I could learn more about it?

Maribel's wiki article has a big section on it ("Possibly Relevant Facts to the Relationship Between Maribel & Yukari") that I've written in "non-speculation" mode, as the wiki disallows speculation.  It basically lists all the facts and no speculation (far as I've tried) regarding Yukari and Maribel (though I've passed on some things that were of more questionable relevance due to the whole "not allowed to speculate" rule there).

There's enough there (which means there's enough in the Touhou series, IMHO) that anyone should be able to read between the lines, I think.  As well as several facts which, in my opinion, disprove other Maribel Yukari theories (such as how "Yukari is dreaming as Maribel when she's in the outside world and vice-versa" gets disproven by how Maribel herself, not Yukari, has visiited Gensokyo on several occassions)

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Maribel_Hearn
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: TresserT on October 10, 2016, 01:46:41 PM
Like I said, I misunderstood. I thought that when they said "the Mary idea" they were talking about Mary being the girl in DiPP. I've heard about Mary being Yukari.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Lebon14 on October 15, 2016, 11:44:08 PM
Very interesting. Since DiPP seems like the kind of the story I hate (I hate horror), I won't be reading it. However, with the great summaries above, it's like I read it.

On the theory itself, I believe it as much as I believe that Kasen is an Oni. It just all make sense.
Title: Re: [Wall of Text] Theory; Alice was the serial killer of "Dolls in Pseudo Paradise"
Post by: Mеа on October 16, 2016, 03:15:01 AM
It might seem sensible on the surface, but it seems a lot more like wishful speculation because one or two bits of info seems to line up.
Personally I hate listing points in numbers, but to push my own theory/deduction thing:
2. The survivor of DiPP isn't the cowardly one
5. The western house in DiPP had at least 4 different guest rooms. It's entirely possible that it was big enough to accommodate all 8 of the thieves. No depiction of her house shows it bigger than for one occupant, her.
7. It doesn't really matter that the guy wasn't in the dining room but in his room, but the one who nailed the guy to the tree wasn't the survivor.
8. The survivor isn't the one who tried to commit suicide. Heck, he succeeds the second time.
14. well it's more similar to And Then There Were None if anything. In A Murder Is Announced, if I remember correctly only like 2-3 people die, one of them being Miss Alice Murgatroyd.

Seems pretty shaky by this point.