The New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium!

The world is an illusion, doncha know? The only true world is Hokkai, technically.

Re: Yukari's view of Heaven

It makes sense for her to not like the place. She's functionally the ruling deity of ground level Gensokyo (and all the so-called 'impurities' therein) and most ruling deities are covetous, envious or contemptuous of other lands.

Dammit Faw. I'm still recovering from haredressers.

I suppose the problem with Bhava-Agra is that it's too perfect. To an outsider's perspective, everything is just so squeaky-clean and everyone gets along and my god it's dull. There's no conflict, and thus no real urgency for anything to get done. Which might well be the point.

That's the ideal state for Shinto and Buddhism after all. No problems also means no reason to do anything.

Actual pleasure is a distraction from the peaceful nothing you could be experiencing.

(EDIT: I just realized we could argue that the enlightened Celestials have also been distracted by the wine and peaches when they should be striving to ascend even that)

edited 9th Jul '11 4:04:55 PM by Recon5

The Stoics believed this as well. They called it apatheia. The Epicureans had a similar state called ataraxia. And now you know.

EDIT: The word 'apathy' is derived from 'apatheia', but means something completely different. Similarly, don't confuse ataraxia with ataxia. TRIVIA~

edited 9th Jul '11 4:30:00 PM by asterism

Man now I can see why Tenshi is such a huge prick. Enlightened ones must be boring as fuck.

Because that's what Hokkai means. It's the "true world" that you see when you're enlightened.

Eh... that's where it gets complicated. You'd be better off discussing the whole thing with a real Buddhist.

Simply put, desires are the heaviest bonds around. To be free of all desires (i.e. to lack them) is to be truly free. Problem: They're also the only reason that anything exists, at least in Buddhist cosmology.

So, full enlightenment means letting go of all desires, whereupon everything disappears for you. I could argue that partial enlightenment means that only some things disappear- preferably the things you really want to be free of and which are holding you back, but the remainder would still be a burden in some way or another.

Then again, since ZUN uses Buddhist/Shinto cosmology as an influence his entire metaverse is basically one big prison with everyone stuck on some part of the wheel or another.

edited 9th Jul '11 4:38:08 PM by Recon5

How can someone be 'partially' enlightened? It doesn't seem like something that has got a middle ground.

Enlightenment is more of a path than a binary state.

Letting go of some desires or concerns and not others, perhaps. Again, the 'partial' thing is my own extrapolation.

edited 9th Jul '11 4:44:30 PM by Recon5

But if you have any worldly desires left, then you're not enlightened, and you have to have another go at life (Proceed Directly to GO, Collect $200?).

When you die, you end your current attempt at purging yourself and you start out with a fresh set of desires (maybe different from your old ones depending on what world you end up in) unless you manage to recover knowledge or memories from your previous life.

edited 9th Jul '11 4:49:42 PM by Recon5

While I think it's safe to say I am not a Celestial, but then again I have no proof, I can see why they wouldn't want more people.

If we were to hypothetically push the Hinanawi's off Bhava-Agra, what would we have left?

A bunch of Enlightned beings. Actually, 100% Enlightened beings. 99% sure of that fact.

It's a matter of whether they refuse to help others become Enlightned or if they simply cannot, and everyone there deserves to be there, that brings Yukari's statements into question.

edited 9th Jul '11 5:16:20 PM by Horselesshorseman

That's true in any case, I suppose. You can't teach people to become enlightened if they can't grasp what you're saying.

Well, Yukari is certainly one to resent that kind of thing. She has a grudge against the mooninites too. I have to question those who take her word to be representative of how we're supposed to feel though. Isn't she supposed to be the youkai among youkai? What's the world coming to, when we sympathize with youkai more than our own success stories?

The mooninites certainly don't view normal humans with benevolence. And like Yukari supposes of the Celestials, the Lunarians don't want to share. They have sabotaged the US space program at least once. And if I hear that they were responsible for Apollo 1 as well, I shall be cross.*

The Lunarians are a success story that tries to knock down anyone else attempting success. I don't know if the Celestials are similar. The fact that they come down to spread wisdom shows that they possibly do want to help people at some level.

Also, we didn't mention one of the awesome things about Tenshi. She just up and ceded a parcel of her parent's land to an oni. It is a shame that we'll never see their reaction to that.

edited 9th Jul '11 5:47:56 PM by Bocaj

I'm betting somewhere between "mild inconvenience" and "oh well"

"Mom, dad, I just gave away a piece of our land..."

"Oh well."

"...to an oni."

"This is an outrage!"

That's our Tenshi! -canned laughter-

x18 Maybe they'd be just as... not happy, really, but you get the idea, with stale bread and water.

Eldest Daughter; the hilarious antics of Tenshi Hinanawi, and the beleaguered heavenly messenger who gets dragged along for the ride!

edited 9th Jul '11 6:31:33 PM by Pulse

So... I can still post write-ups for Chen and Tenshi right? I'm too addicted to civ 5 to make them now but I will post them... in the future. Anyway, semi-serious 4DLULZ write-up for Lunar Capital since you guys discussed it a bit:

That's No Moon

In the beginning, a shuttle containing mechanized life forms crashed into the moon. With them was an object of powerful energy called the Cosmic Cube. They intended to use it to power a weapon they were to build in the moon that had power enough to annihilate planets. However, as they were about to be finished, the heavens split open and then they witnessed a great war between what looked like winged beings. Unfortunately, the mechanized life forms were caught between the war and they were all destroyed as one of the winged beings unleashed a burning radiance that destroyed everything in its path. In the future, the explosion mellowed down and became a yellow star. Then another winged being but this time, shrouded with light unleashed a brighter, one can say “purer” light that engulfed everything. The opposing winged beings were struck down and fell into a burning pit. Others, however, fell on the moon creating craters. Their bodies rotted and the energy within them as well as the bright light from the winged being seeped into the Cosmic Cube. Millions of years later from then but thousands of years ago from our time, beings that were to be known as Lunarians stumbled upon the moon and the Cosmic Cube. With its power, they built a highly advanced city called the Lunar Capital, however, deep within; these beings continue to build a powerful weapon left unfinished millions of years ago.

edited 9th Jul '11 6:33:02 PM by TheChubbyDestroyer

Oh, there are definitely arguments to be made against the Lunarians and their artificial way of unlife, but the Celestials are pretty much... Buddhism. They're just sort of a natural consequence of assuming that Buddhist teachings and cosmology are literally true. Frankly, I think disparaging them would be something of a touchy subject, Tenshi aside.