Theory: Konngara is the Previous Hakurei Shrine Maiden, or Reimu's Mother

[Phantasmal]

Konngara from Touhou 1: HRtP, could actually be more important than we thought.
First of all, let's get rid of some doubts and spawn a couple thinking possibilities:
- She isn't a Youkai. Nowhere does it ever say so. She is only labeled as a "being,"
- In her official sprite, she shares a lot of similarities to Reimu, with her clothes, her (current) hair, and her cup in her hand. Reimu is often seen holding a cup of sake, so that's where I got that from. Also, I've seen many (unofficial, but made me think further) images of Konngara with purple hair. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember no others from the PC-98 era with purple hair other than those two. She also holds a sword, a melee weapon in her hand. Just like Reimu with her gohei. She even has the red ribbon. Here's her wiki page: http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Konngara. She looks almost like a mid-life Reimu!

She also shares a weakness to physical-attacks from the Yin-Yang Orbs, something Reimu shares with her. (Yeah, every boss does there.)
But with every boss being weak to the orbs, let me connect two of them to Reimu.
Mima is a vengeful spirit that haunts the Hakurei Shrine.
Kikuri and Elis share the theme "Magic Mirror," which later evolves into Reimu's theme.

Now I want to pull stuff out of her theme song.
First of all, her theme is "Swordsman from a Distant Star."

Obviously, this most likely has no connection to Reimu, but maybe the Hakurei Shrine.
But as someone pointed out once to me, the "best" part of her theme, I don't know how to perfectly explain this, but where the notes change and the beat changes to a 123, 123, 12345-67, like sound, that part, sounds like the beginning of UFO's stage 1 theme, at the end of spring.
Honestly, if you choose to ignore a part of this, let it be this bit. ^

One last thought: Konngara is currently in Hell. Not Former Hell, but the current Gensokyo(an?) Hell. She must have done something horrible for this, to be so deep in Hell. Reimu must have "awoken," in a sense, to take her rightful spot as the new Hakurei Shrine maiden.

I'd love to see more canon information on Konngara and the Hakurei God/Shrine arise, so I can try to stick it together.

[Kilgamayan]

Konngara is canonically Reimu's mom.

Source: Himiko

EDIT: Also, this thread is being moved to TARC, where it belongs.

EDIT 2: Okay, the move will happen when I get home.

[Phantasmal]

Konngara is canonically Reimu's mom.

Can you like me to the source?

[Sect]

Can you like me to the source?

Start here, continue on to the rest.

[Kilgamayan]

Can you like me to the source?

Source: Himiko

[Phantasmal]

Well uh, how does this prove that it's canon?

[TresserT]

I think you're looking too much into it. While I firmly believe that PC-98 is as canon as any windows game, ZUN hadn't really decided where the series was going by then. Maybe at one point in time Konngara was intended to be important. But since ZUN didn't expand on it at the time we'll probably never know and we'll probably never get any more information on her.

[the old guy]

As someone who's opinion on PC-98 is "Meh", i think most of the characters in PC-98 where thrown in without a thought, and Zun made them have some mystery to them, but not because he had any actual ideas for them, but because he thought it would make them cool and/or because he didn't give a shit back then.
So in other words PC-98 was the era when Zun was young and didn't know what he was doing, IMHO.
So i doubt Zun had any real intentions for Konngara.

This is sort of off topic, but yeah, as you can see i am kind of bias against the PC-98 games. I mean, IMO the characters just aren't as interesting (In fact, almost all of their designs were used for later characters, also while almost all Windows Era Touhou characters have at least SOME character traits, almost all of the PC-98 have none.), the art looks too much like an old Sailor Moon cartoon, and the game play......i haven't played the PC-98 games so i don't know how good it is in comparison to the windows games (More of a fan of the characters and music anyways), but its probably not as good. The music is still good, however.

(That said, i do like Mima, Shinki, And Meira, but really mainly because of some of the characters traits given to them by the fandom, like Shinki being Alice's mom, which is more interesting than her canon personalty, which is none. And i like Meira only because her dialog is the only time lesbianism is referenced in Touhou, yes i am shameless.)

[Damien]

Isn;t Kongara a Youkai? more specifically, an Oni?

Cause according to this writing, she gain of title "-douji", which is common among the Onis. Besides that, this Oni with the other one (Hachidai-douji) choose the path of redemption by becoming a disciple of Fudo Myoou, one of the fiercest Buddhist Wisdom King.

[Tengukami]

While I firmly believe that PC-98 is as canon as any windows game, ZUN hadn't really decided where the series was going by then. Maybe at one point in time Konngara was intended to be important. But since ZUN didn't expand on it at the time we'll probably never know and we'll probably never get any more information on her.

Pretty much this. It's neat to find similarities between characters that could indicate a relationship where canonically none exists, but like Tres says, at this point in Touhou's development ZUN didn't have the series mapped out at all, really. So Konngara being Reimu's mom is, yeah, pretty unlikely.

However, this does raise a question about Reimu's parentage. As far as I can see, there's scant information on where Reimu even came from. The wiki mentions Chapter 25 of WaHH, wherein she says "you'd think things like daylight and parents would be around forever". I don't know the context of this remark, myself, but it sounds pretty bitter. And of course, Reimu's lineage has spawned all kinds of origin stories in the world of fan fiction. But how Reimu came to be (apart from us knowing she is human, and was therefore most likely brought into existence the traditional way for humans) seems like one of those mysteries ZUN would rather keep to himself.

[Maiden Synnae ミ☆]

i think most of the characters in PC-98 where thrown in without a thought, and Zun made them have some mystery to them, but not because he had any actual ideas for them, but because he thought it would make them cool and/or because he didn't give a shit back then.
So in other words PC-98 was the era when Zun was young and didn't know what he was doing, IMHO.
So i doubt Zun had any real intentions for Konngara.

Exactly my thoughts as well. I don't really like to associate PC-98 with Windows because back then things weren't nearly as fleshed out/concise as they are nowadays. Besides, Let's not forget that HRtP was merely a school project by ZUN.

Most of the PC-98 characters weren't intended to be plot significant, they were just random bosses doing the main function of a boss: get in the way of the player and serve as a challenging obstacle.

That said, I do like some of the PC-98 character designs. I think Konngara and Sariel looks cool, as well as a few others. There are also some characters with interesting traits, like Ellen being a "tabula-rasa", Rika being the only character to fight in a tank, and Rikako being a scientist wearing a cool labcoat. Some characters are also important (at least for that era) such as Mima being Marisa's master and Shinki being the creator of Makai. But that's pretty much it.

[Drake]

However, this does raise a question about Reimu's parentage. As far as I can see, there's scant information on where Reimu even came from. The wiki mentions Chapter 25 of WaHH, wherein she says "you'd think things like daylight and parents would be around forever". I don't know the context of this remark, myself, but it sounds pretty bitter. And of course, Reimu's lineage has spawned all kinds of origin stories in the world of fan fiction. But how Reimu came to be (apart from us knowing she is human, and was therefore most likely brought into existence the traditional way for humans) seems like one of those mysteries ZUN would rather keep to himself.

I figured this might be mentioned at some point. Unfortunately, this was a case where there was a bit of hasty translation. The text is actually a modified haiku, the original being いつまでも / あると思うな / 親と金 (lit. "Don't think they'll always be around: parents and money"). The context is that it's getting dark and Reimu changes it to "parents and daylight". The haiku is just generally about the transient nature of things, so the line has zero significance towards Reimu's parents. The thing is that the haiku reference was never acknowledged at first (the current version does), and how it was translated made it sound like a really poignant comment on her parents and people have run away with it a bit.

[Tengukami]

Ah rats. Neat haiku though.

Welp, guess that leaves "Reimu was born of a mother and a father, who for whatever reason are either not around, or are never mentioned."

[Phantasmal]

I guess Konngara is a strange topic.
I mean, so far, it's the closest thing we have to a relative of Reimu's, but now it just seems unlikely.
The best guess of the worst! Or it it the other way around?

I really want to know about Reimu's backstory, though. ;-;
Marisa's too. I mean, who was her mother? Her father is a canon character who's alive, but, hasn't really "appeared."

[the old guy]

Welp, guess that leaves "Reimu was born of a mother and a father, who for whatever reason are either not around, or are never mentioned."

I think they died.  :]
Horribly in fact! :3.

[aUsernameIsFineToo]

I think they died.  :]
Horribly in fact! :3.

Some food for thought. POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD.

[Sssgth]

the traditional way for humans

How is babby formed?

[superkawaii☆pandora-chan♥]

How is babby formed?

They are made from unreal black thing then go through Yukari's gap  :3

[OtakuGray]

Well, what if Reimu's parent's aren't alive anymore/shown in canon because they aren't in Gensokyo?

[Phantasmal]

Well, what if Reimu's parent's aren't alive anymore/shown in canon because they aren't in Gensokyo?

Whoa. That could actually maybe be true.

MARIBEL X RENKO = REIMU CONFIRMED. (jk)

[OtakuGray]

If we assume that the Hakurei family are all Shrine Maidens or at least manage the Hakurei shrine, then that could mean that ZUN is Reimu's father(which kind of makes sense). That would mean that whoever the Mother is, she lives in the outside world at the Hakurei Shrine with ZUN.

To add to this, ZUN has been quoted saying, "Reimu holds a special place in my heart." or something to that effect.

It's also possible that Reimu had no parents, was an outcast and an orphan, and was forgotten about, so she ended up in Gensokyo. The fact that she is a shrine maiden means she already had a strong connection to "other-worldly" forces, so it kind of makes sense. I think ZUN wanted the MC of the games to be a shrine maiden because it seemed like a forgotten role in Japanese society. He also really likes shrines and shrine maiden, so there is that as well.  :3

[Helepolis]

I think we'll never even remotely get close to speculations on Reimu's whereabouts because there is absolutely nothing available. It cannot even become a Dark Tewi. Unlike Marisa where there is multiple confirmation she has parents, at least a father.

Also we're unsure how Gensoukyo exactly was involved in the PC98 Era. Not to mention Reimu also changed looks like Marisa.