Miscellaneous Questions 7 - To Misc or not to Misc

[andykhang]

Is there an explanation for her child-like look on CoLA?  Or is that simply the artist taking creative liberties?

A bit late, but IIRC, it was winter at that time, and she take that form to hibernate and conserve her energy.

[Drake]

That is complete speculation. She sleeps in the winter for reasons unknown. As I said, she looks childlike on the cover simply because that's how Genji Asai decided to draw her. Every other girl looks essentially the same.

[Helepolis]

Long in the past in one of the previous misc I had asked about Nitori's necklace which holds a key, but it was not answered afaik. So hereby another attempt.

Does anybody know what that key is?

[PK]

Probably her bag's key? At least one of her portraits shows the back of her backpack having a key hole. The other portraits show the key itself tied to the bag's straps and keeping them tighter rather than as a necklace, although that's probably irrilevant.
The hole is much bigger than the key, though, so maybe it isn't that. Do kappa have something to do with keys and locks?

[andykhang]

TBH, it's not like Kappa have anything to do with crafting, either. (...except perhap the medicine thing...and the shirikodama thing (probably just hemorrhoids though)). Anyway, I questioned this in the main thread already, but here goes:

In IN (or is it?), it's implied that the reason nobody could complete her impossible task, is because she have them already. That beg the question though: ...How, exactly, does she obtained it in the first place? It's not like she got them after they gone into Gensokyo (plus the item wouldn't even get inside). It's also not part of her treasures while she's on the Moon (since these thing are Earth-based), and it's not like she would be special enough to gather help from the Moon for this. That mean, either she collect them herself (meaning Kaguya is a badass), or someone else, who's not part of the Moon (since,remember,Eirin couldn't risk going down there herself,or deploying the bunny ( though that could still doable, but that would be one heck of a stealth ops) to help her with trivial stuff like that), could do this feat ( meaning someone else is a badass)
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[TrueShadow]

TBH, it's not like Kappa have anything to do with crafting, either. 

Wat

Kappa is all about crafting. They build the Tengu's cameras and the Moriya shrine ropeway. , among other things. Or just look at Nitori's moves in the fighting games, they all include tools she's crafted.

[Sagus]

Perhaps Kaguya's impossible objects are more like manifestations of her requests instead of being the objects themselves, created with magic so that she could use them as danmaku.

Or maybe they are fakes.

Wat

Kappa is all about crafting. They build the Tengu's cameras and the Moriya shrine ropeway. , among other things. Or just look at Nitori's moves in the fighting games, they all include tools she's crafted.

They were reffering to the mythological kappa, not the touhou kappa.

[PK]

Marisa says in GoM that Kaguya always uses a lot of special items in her spells, never her power. She's jealous about some of them but not about others, too.

Edit: also ZUN's comments on her IN spells seem to talk about actual items.

[TresserT]

The tree of hourai is explained as a special type of Lunarian tree IIRC. It blooms when it comes in contact with large amounts of impurity. Her branch is just a branch from that.

For the fire rat's robe, in the original legend the suitor who was tasked with finding it was tricked. Someone gave him a shining robe which they claimed was made from the fire rat's fur, but when he gave it to Kaguya she threw it in a fire and it sizzled up. The suitor was ashamed and exiled himself. (Though in the version I read, Kaguya was actually impressed by his hard work and honesty and would have married him, but never got the chance because he ran off). In other words, the prince gave up so we don't know if it was truly impossible.

Something similar happened with the Buddha's bowl- the suitor lied and brought her an ordinary bowl without even looking.

The swallow's shell was a problem because swallows don't have shells (they're talking like turtle shells, not egg shells), but if it existed it would be an incredibly mundane and easy to obtain item. Given how touhou plays with the ideas of "exists" and "doesn't exist", it shouldn't actually be that hard to get in the touhouverse.

The only truly badass thing is the scale from the dragon's neck, as in legend pulling the scale off of a dragon's neck will make otherwise peaceful ones go berserk.

All that said, there are two things I'd like to point out. 1) Kaguya is a Lunarian. She's a rather weak one, but she still is one. Lunarians are confirmed to be ridiculously op. We already know she's a badass. Dragons are also said to be ridiculously op so I don't know where she falls in relation to them, but it's possible that she really is just so amazing that she pulled off all the requests herself.

2) The hourai branch means something different in touhou than it did in the original legend. In the legend, there was a mythical island called hourai (think Atlantis) that had magical trees. In touhou, the hourai branch is a branch from a tree that's fairly easy to obtain on the moon. Since the hourai branch is the only object that has a fleshed out history, it's possible that the other objects have similar alternate interpretations.

[the old guy]

Sorry for not explaining what I meant earlier, Andy. But my point was that none of the tasks were impossible. They were just really really hard.

But tracer already explained what I meant. So it doesn't really matter now. But I'd like to point out that she's friends with the SHINTO GOD OF KNOWLEDGE. Getting the treasures wouldn't be that hard.

[Shizzo]

As I mentioned in the other thread too, even if some of the impossible requests might be ridiculously hard and dangerous, let's all take a moment to remember too that Kaguya is immortal.    Sure pulling a dragon's scale might make them go berserk, but then so what?  What would it do, kill her? 

And of course, her friendship with Eirin definitely also helps even more.

[Clarste]

The tasks were impossible because Kaguya already had the items in questions. They would have to steal them from her to get them.

Edit: Speaking of the Touhou version. Also not canon.

[Helepolis]

Probably her bag's key? At least one of her portraits shows the back of her backpack having a key hole. The other portraits show the key itself tied to the bag's straps and keeping them tighter rather than as a necklace, although that's probably irrilevant.
The hole is much bigger than the key, though, so maybe it isn't that. Do kappa have something to do with keys and locks?

That is kind of the thing. No matter how I look at it, the Key remains a mysterious thing which she only seem to carry. I cannot remember other Kappas in official drawn work carry a key like that.

[Prime32]

They were reffering to the mythological kappa, not the touhou kappa.

IIRC, the kappa in Ryuunosuke Akutagawa's book had invented shirikodama-powered replicators.

[andykhang]

About the impossible request:
1. She's a badass, that we know. But she isn't what we would called a warrior princess. And even if she is, asking the suitor to defeat her in mortal combat would have been much more expedient than convolutively collect those thing, to then asking the suitor again to collect those thing. Heck, even Eirin would have suggested secretly poisoning them than this (though, arguably, the evident for the later case would have been easier to hide...). The only way that would work,IMO, is that she like to collect thing as a hobby, see the suitor, then do the whole request thing.
2.And even if she personally collect them, it's not like all of them need strength. The Buddha bowl for example: where could you even find that, and isn't the requirement to obtain it would be to either get approval from the fucking Buddha in some way, or steal it beneath whoever is guarding it? (...though the later option is more doable). The same with the shell:she wouldn't suggest it in the first place, if the thing aren't ridiculously hard to find, even if they exist (possibly in a form of an elusive youkai). That's not to mention about some item like the single tree floor that she would need help to carry, or the red eye of aya.

Edit:...Forgot that she could carry the damn floorboard herself, if her spellcard is any indication.

[Hello Purvis]

You ought to consider both who she is and when she was doing her thing. Does Kaguya really strike you as a "Punch 'em in the face" type? No, of course not, she's a traditional Heian noblewoman, and she's the type to fight her battles in a more subtle social sense because that's whats proper. And coming from an advanced and theoretically peaceful civilization (let's set aside rabbit soldiers and go with what they want to believe they are for now), she's almost certainly going to prize a more social solution. And what's an easy way to do that that doesn't involve dealing with suitors any longer than needs be? Send them on a snipe hunt.

It's an elegant solution that results in minimal social boat rocking and also ensures she doesn't have to worry about things going wrong. At least until the family pulling the Emperor's strings and filling most of the high positions in government stopped writing poetry in the imperial capital long enough to get involved.

[andykhang]

Again, I already said that she isn't the warrior type in the first place. What I ask is, of all the option, why chose the most convoluted one, in which she collected them herself so that then she could ask them to collect that for her (remember, it's said that the impossible request remain impossible, is because she already have them)? Even accounting for the norm at that times, it isn't rare for a case of "double poisoning" by a mysterious "third party", but miraculously, the princess survive. It would make her famous for being a disaster princess too, which would ensure that she would be left alone forever. It's not like either Eirin or even Kaguya herself is full of mercy. Again, all that I could think of is that this is pretty much just an add-on to her collecting hobby.

Edit:...sorry, this whole thing have become a mess. I guess the answer that "Kaguya is a badass" is good enough for now, as any further (like how she collect them), is pushing even more speculation onto a speculation.( ...I personally like the "Mission:Lunatic" stealth ops idea though)

[Sagus]

I don't think there has to be much of a reason beyond "she dealt with them this way because she wanted to deal with them this way". Kaguya is pretty whimsical.

[andykhang]

That would be fine, though that doesn't explain how does she get it in the first place. Well, these kind of thing would have fallen into fanfic idea, so hope that someone do it somedays.

[Sagus]

Maybe they were all stuff that she owned back when she was a lunarian princess, and she brought them with her when she was exiled. The hourai branch is canonically from the moon, so I don't see why the other ones couldn't be as well.

[andykhang]

Because the other thing is strictly Earth-based, like the fire rat robe....I mean, how the hell would you even bring it on the moon, not to mention making it in there, considering the Lunarian strict "NO IMPURE" code.

[Sagus]

Not really? They are all mythological treasures that were held by or made from legendary figures. Honestly, they feel like exactly the kind of treasures the lunarians would have.

And besides, since the hourai branch went from "branch of a tree that only blooms every three thousand years" to "branch of a tree commonly found on the moon and used as a radar to detect impurity", I don't see why the other treasures couldn't also have different origins. Like, maybe the lunarians invented the fire rat robe and just named it after the mythological creature.

[andykhang]

It would be more likely that human would named it like that rather than the lunarian though. And mythological creature or not, doesn't they have to...you know, kill the goddamn thing first?

[Sagus]

Gonna have to agree to disagree on that, don't really see why the names are more human-like than lunarian. Also, not really, since the origin for it I suggested would simply be a lunarian invention, not the actual pelt of the fire rat. It'd just have been named after it.

Anyway, this is a bit too speculative for this thread so I'm gonna drop this train of thought. Canon-wise, we just don't know how Kaguya got any of the treasures outside the hourai branch.

[Hello Purvis]

There never were impossible treasures to begin with! They are a Fujiwara conspiracy designed to misdirect from their failures! Wake up, sheeple!

[the old guy]

Why do people say that ZUN "rebooted" Mamizou's character?
She was fleshed out. Not rebooted. Adding more to a character that doesn't contradict said characters previous appearances is just fleshing her out. Are people just butthurt that ZUN likes using her? The SDM never get this hate.

[shockdude]

Is Sumireko still in high school? It's been 2 years.
Have there been hints as to what she'll be doing after she graduates?

[PurpleXCompleX]

Is Sumireko still in high school?

She should be. According to Curiosities of Lotus Asia Chapter 29: An Expert on the Occult, Sumireko still sleeps during her lessons in school.

"I was woken up earlier since it was time for lunch, but now my afternoon classes have started, I came back."

[Clarste]

Technically that doesn't mean she isn't sleeping through college.

[Drake]

Sumireko is currently in the last year of high school, in the second semester. I'm pretty eager to see if this is talked about at all in CoLA at the end of the month.