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After 12 years, the Dolls in Pseudo Paradise story has been fully restored
cuc:
^ That was a typo, man.
--- Quote from: Tiamat on November 20, 2014, 03:35:29 PM ---Any idea what Mokou's spell card might be about (why it exists and/or the symbolism of it and the flavor text ZUN wrote for it) iif that's hypothetically the case?
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I think "honest man", like "hourai", "dolls", and a few other recurring images in the EoSD-PCB-IN trilogy, were just ideas floating about in his mind at the time. Despite both featuring "death of the honest men", the spell card is not deeply connected to the story.
For the spell card, the idea is likely "if you are honest and honorable, not cunning enough to figure out the trick, you die", nothing more. It might be better translated "Death of the Honest".
EDIT: Of course, unless the idea is "if you are honest and fight the laser head on, you live". Hmm, makes less sense.
Both the spell card comment and PoDD story's "Interlude" quotes a proverb: 正直者が馬鹿を見る, meaning (to quote an online dictionary) "honest people pull the short straw." I hesitate to translate it literally, because I don't think the proverb is supposed to make grammatical sense in modern Japanese...
--- Quote from: microfolk on November 20, 2014, 03:40:58 PM ---Maybe I'm terribly mistaken but didn't it refer to another person who's linked to Kaguya's story? I think I've read about it somewhere some time ago, and in any case the spell card name is "Honest man death", it's just one person who died.
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Re: "honest man": words have no plural form in Japanese.
Kaguya punished her dishonest suitors in Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Mokou's story has Iwakasa. Not sure which the spell card is about.
CyberAngel:
--- Quote from: cuc on November 20, 2014, 03:24:45 PM ---By the way, after this reread, I think "Death of the Honest Men" is a hoax, a fake mystery. It displays the surface trappings of a mystery puzzle, but its pieces can never be fitted into a complete picture. I used to see it as gothic nonsense; now I suspect it is fully intentional gothic nonsense told with a straight face.
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Yeah, it looks like it's just an in-universe scary story, considering that "nailing straw doll to a tree" act was confirmed to have no actual effect in SoPM. Besides, this whole story gives off a strong vibe of a certain Agatha Christie novel, and ZUN seems to be a fan of her works.
cuc:
I'm fine with looking for solution to the story, although I'd like to keep later canon off from the discussion (because they simply didn't exist when this story was written).
Before this discovery, it was generally thought that the beautiful one, the only woman of the gang, killed the other honest men. With the pierro confirmed to be one of them, the line from Track 10, "[the mature one] in love of the beautiful pierro, fell asleep happily" seems to support that. If so, the beautiful one being kidnapped by the pierro in Track 2 would be her lie. And the blonde "shrine maiden" in Track 11 is also the beautiful one.
But still, who is the person in the Interlude? It is generally agreed that the beautiful one was coerced by the other seven bandits. Who could be the one wishing they return to their bandit ways? How does his, and the cowardly one's actions fit into the timeline? How did he plan to lead his friends back to banditry?
The "you" in the Interlude is singular, but this seems insignificant.
microfolk:
--- Quote from: cuc on November 20, 2014, 03:48:02 PM ---Re: "honest man": words have no plural form in Japanese.
Kaguya punished her dishonest suitors in Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Mokou's story has Iwakasa. Not sure which the spell card is about.
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Oh I didn't know that about Japanese, and yeah I was talking about Iwakasa, next time I'll check my fact before blindly posting, I'm sorry. : P
I like both your interpretations though, I've never put much thought into the ties between a spellcard name and the actual mechanics of the attack itself, it's really fascinating~
cuc:
Looking at other people's discussion following the discovery, they think it's not a given that the beautiful one is unreliable, and the pierro/culprit may be a different person.
My test solution:
The "Interlude" takes place before they entered Gensokyo. One of them discovered some way to enter the paradise of Gensokyo. He decided somehow, they could return to banditry and live some sort of new lives after entering Gensokyo. His "finished a task" refers to opening the path to Gensokyo. He waited until the next day to show his friends this path.
Upon entering Gensokyo, somehow, perhaps due to her intense hatred, pain and remorse, the beautiful one was "no longer human", turning into a youkai by Gensokyo's magical atmosphere. Using her newfound power, she killed the six bandits who have tortured her for years, while the cowardly one killed himself. She was the only dishonest one, who lied when telling her part of the story.
Still, there's no particular sign that the beautiful one is lying in Track 2, other than the fact she survived. I don't find this solution much more illuminating than other solutions, other than the timing of the Interlude.
EDIT:
It does fit into what I perceive to be a major theme of Touhou post-2002: finding salvation (freedom) in eternal damnation (becoming a youkai).