The New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium!

Both those things are probably true, but I'm not convinced that the person who did the naming thought about it in any more depth than that.

edited 31st Jul '11 7:21:12 AM by SuperDimensionman

The Staff of Destruction and the Destined Spear match their powers too well though.

edited 31st Jul '11 7:31:51 AM by Clarste

'Finally, I returned to see what the vampire herself could do. If I publish these pictures, no one will have a reason to be scared. It's not like I was.' (Aya Shameimaru)

'I know all about you. You're always so selfish at the feasts. Or, maybe you're just selfish all the time?' (Suika Ibuki)

'The deep fog strips away people's eyesight and all their mobility. That can only mean death.' (Patchouli Knowledge)

Heart of Stone

They do. I wouldn't be surprised either way. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody did that on purpose, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it were just a happy coincidence. A pair of western European vampire-children don't seem like the natural place to draw parallels to Nordic mythology.

edited 31st Jul '11 7:45:01 AM by SuperDimensionman

Aya's not the type to lie about things like that. If she says she wasn't scared, she wasn't scared. She admits whenever a spellcard scares her in STB. She just happens to one of the stronger characters in the 'verse so very little scares her.

That pothole was for comedy purposes. Say things like 'I met a vampire and TOTALLY wasn't scared of her', and people will be suspicious.

Heart of Stone

I don't understand how misusing a trope could possibly be considered comedy, but okay.

edited 31st Jul '11 8:05:02 AM by Clarste

OK, I'm going to review my thoughts on Remilia here. I might be preparing for a writeup later, though I have nothing planned yet. (With Meiling and the SDM writeups, I had the basic idea of what I was doing about a day or so in advance, although the writeups themselves were mostly on the spot)

Remilia is a selfish and vain vampire who, despite said selfishness and vanity, doesn't do anything actually evil. (In fact, the few things she does do are extremely selfish or for selfish reasons, but not actually causing anyone real harm that I know of) Perhaps because she already sees herself as on top of the world, and thus has no need to "conquer" anything? (Unless you count going to the moon as attempting to "conquer")

Her spear is apparently the mythical lance wielded by Odin. It might be just to have theme naming with Flandre's lance thing. How vampires from western Europe (or so we speculate, based on naming) could end up with Norse divine weapons is beyond me. It could mean something, it could just be rule of cool.

She apparently has every vampire weakness except crosses. To make up for cross-immunity, she also has all the oni weaknesses as well. How she manages to do anything is beyond me, but apparently she pulls it off, with (attempted) elegance and grace even. (Eastern Gensoukyou residences are not keen to Western vampire weaknesses?)

She can apparently manipulate fate, but we never see it actually used, only implied. (which raises a question, why didn't she just fatehax it so that she was destined to never be defeated during Eo SD? Remilia doesn't seem the type to care about fair play)

She is apparently friends with Patchy, but the exact nature is unknown to me. She is at least friendly towards Meiling, but, again, exact nature unknown. She trusts and relies on Sakuya, but I think it's more "Master and Servant" than "Friends". Flandre is her sister. Exact details beyond that are clouded.

She has next to no backstory. She is the head of House Scarlet, she comes from Europe (maybe), she lies about Dracula heritage, and she wants to go outside. That's it. (Then again, Touhou doesn't have the deepest of plots, no offense.)

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Clarste, please stop being so aggressive towards me. It's not exactly nice to have someone snap at you all the time.

It has been theorised that Remilia doesn't fatehax her battles because cheating would be admitting that she cannot win using her own strength and has to resort to gamebreaking magic, which would be inconceiveable for someone of her ego.

edited 31st Jul '11 8:59:04 AM by asterism

Heart of Stone

All I said was that I didn't get it even after explanation, and "but okay".

All I was saying was that the conclusion I drew from Aya's statement was that she was intimidated by Remilia's attack. Since Remilia is a vampire, a more-or-less standard spook, it seemed like Aya was referencing kids who get scared by said spooks and then attempt to cover up the fact. She may not have been scared, but merely making a cheerful tongue-in-cheek comment.

Heart of Stone

That makes sense. One of the problems with having a big ego is that you refuse to use your trump cards, either because a.you greatly underestimate the opponent and feel you don't need them, or b.want to prove how great you are by beating them without it (especially if they think that is all you have/all you are good for). I think Remilia's case is a mixture of both. (She underestimates Reimu/Marisa*

, and she also wants to prove that she can fight off the persons who beat Sakuya without fatehax)

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Indeed she was. At no point was she using the Suspiciously Specific Denial trope though, which implies that she's a) explicitly lying and b) lying very badly. Which is why I commented.

edited 31st Jul '11 9:09:22 AM by Clarste

Whatever. If it bothers you that much, if you literally cannot live with its existance, then I'll remove the pot hole.

But only if you ask nicely.

ON TOPIC: Remilia doesn't really need fate warping to win her battles, seeing as how she's strong, fast, and ridiculously skilled with blood magic.

Someone earlier asked about 'Red the Nightless Castle'. It's rather awkward wording, huh? Unless it's a literary reference of some kind, I think it just refers to the SDM.

edited 31st Jul '11 9:18:23 AM by asterism

Heart of Stone

It bothered me enough to make a post about it, but that's about it. I thought you had an incorrect impression of Aya, so I felt like blabbering about her in the interest of being enlightening and/or hearing myself speak. After that I said "okay" to the idea that you have a different sense of humor than me and then you got defensive.

I only got defensive because I felt you were being unnecessarily aggressive.

Heart of Stone

Thought: Maybe we read too much into Remilia's designation of Patchouli as a 'special guest'. Flandre's a regular guest because, well, she's her sister. Sakuya and Meiling are the maid and the guard respectively, essential parts to a fancy manor. Patchouli doesn't really have a purpose in the mansion (besides that causing/solving incidents thing, but that should wait until Patchy's own discussion), but her presence allows Remi to say "...and I have this huge library of magical books in the basement. Pretty cool, huh?" So, she's just a guest.

you'll then have a grave in the clouds where you won't lie too cramped

There's dialogue in IN that hints that Patchouli is Flandre's tutor. And P's also the miniboss in F's stage, and they both live in the basement, and in the backstory for the extra stage I think P casts a rain spell to keep F from escaping.

Heart of Stone

...How the hell did I forget about the blood magic? Blood is amazing!

So yeah. She is strong, fast, and can blast you with blood magic. She can also fatehax, but surely a mere miko/magician*

wouldn't be strong enough to warrant that? I mean, sure, they beat Sakuya, but Remilia is tougher than she is, and her blood magic can do so much more than what Sakuya does with her timehax, yes? Also, Gungnir.

I can see Remilia having Patchy (and her books) over only so that she can brag about her great and large library.

edited 31st Jul '11 9:29:27 AM by Otherarrow

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... I see you're talking about... other spears? What is this i dont even. I thought there was only one named spear in mythology.

Nope.

I think Flandre's spear thing is named after a monster really.

But yeah, mythology has tons of spears. Gungnir, Lance of Longinus, Gae Bolg...uhh...That spear that Athena has, Poseidon's Trident....I don't know them all. Sorry.

ON TOPIC: Blood is amazing!

edited 31st Jul '11 9:38:56 AM by Otherarrow

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^^^^^ Interesting.

In the old English tradition, Patchy would probably be called Governess then.

^ Do you know from...experience?

edited 31st Jul '11 9:39:32 AM by yarrunmace

you'll then have a grave in the clouds where you won't lie too cramped

well, Gungnir was the only named one I knew. (there are some unnamed ones o ntehre, at least one of which I do know of)

Then again, Gungnir is the only one of them I have seen in more modern fiction...

Marisa said so in her book! And she probably wasn't lying this time. (...why did ZUN think it was a good idea to have one of the infobooks be written in the POV of the lying liar who lies?)

ON TOPIC: So yeah. Remilia. She uses blood magic. Blood is amazing!

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