The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Yeah. I just went and read a bunch of her lines and I'm still not really getting the masochism vibe from her. I guess I'm not perverted enough?

edited 4th Mar '10 10:11:11 PM by Zudak

Eh, I'd say that the whole 'throwing the fights' things really does makes masochism a viable explanation for Tenshi's actions. Probably not what ZUN was going for, but there's not much else that'd explain it.

As I said, she's playing final boss. The final bosses lose, so she loses. She doesn't actually care about anything she's doing, she just wants to be the final boss of an "incident".

That makes sense to me.

I never saw the masochism as anything but a joke. Of course she just goads people into fighting her because she wants to fight, or rather, be fought.

I bet nobody ever read this part anyway.

Uh... *raises hand*

Anyway, back on topic: Tenshi. Let us discuss her. Peaches are possibly my favorite fruit. *steals Tenshi's hat*

edited 4th Mar '10 11:07:19 PM by Zudak

Makes me wonder how she'd get along with Toyohime. Celestials are pure, right?

Did somebody say PEACHES?!

zudak if you were reading it then why did you never remind me to update it .__.

I'm too irresponsible for stuff like this! Agh!

... I'd gladly consider the relationship between the two, but I don't know about Toyohime and given the Scrappiness of her and her sister I'm not sure if I want to find out.

Also, the above was literally the only time I've seen Tenshi in fanart in anything but a(n extended) "masochist" joke. Come on, guys, work your memories~ There's gotta be more out there!

Eh!? Plenty of Tenshi fanart that doesn't involve masochism:

• Cute Tenshi
• Fighting Yukari
• Cosplaying
• At school
• Looking cool
• Stealing Flan's schtick
• Relaxing
• Angry
• Bored
• Fishing
• Pretty
• Distracted
• Momo momo kyun~
• The she gets Waste Sign'd
• Taking some time off
• Tsundere
• Badass
• I don't think I'd be willing to carry that sword
• Can't possibly be good
• Jerkass
• Iku is having fun
• The hands-on approach
• That sword...
• Another incident?

Well, there's not many memes surrounding Tenshi except the peaches and the masochism. There's not a lot to work with...

I like how she's portrayed in Touhou Tag Dream with a lot of money but no idea what things are worth.

And once again Hylarn delivers with an epic image dump!

Oh, I had another thought about Parsee! I hope it's okay even though we stopped talking about her way back. My theory is that she is a Tsukumogami. I suppose this leads to similar theories about her as were brought up about Kogasa, that the bridge is the real youkai and she's its spirit or some kind of projection.

edited 5th Mar '10 10:25:29 PM by Zudak

Well her jealousy was sparked by the bridge being abandoned when people stopped traveling to the underworld.

I suppose that would explain why she doesn't just leave now that she's not taking care of the bridge. But it contradicts that part-Tengu WMG I just wrote.

It was thinking about your WMG about her origins that reminded me of my own, Hylarn.

edited 5th Mar '10 10:34:45 PM by Zudak

Another side of Tenshi's brattiness comes from being lonely. She's jealous of people who have friends, and will be a nuisance so people will take notice of her. Sadly, Iku has been too patient with her, so she's become a grade-A pain-in-the-neck.

Post more of the Touhou manzai skits

You'd be better off asking about that in the main Touhou thread. This thread is for discussion/interpretation of the characters.

edited 7th Mar '10 8:08:12 PM by Zudak

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Kaguya Houraisan

Traits:

• arrogant
• helpless, dependent <=> powerful, graceful
  • hikkikomori
• quirky and airheaded

Relationships/Shipping:

• Eirin (who is extremely devoted despite being more powerful and even bossed around in some interpretations)
• Mokou (eternal rival/victim and perpretrator of horrid murders,... potential lover?)

Write-up:
Kaguya-hime, princess of Eientei, lady of the many interpretations. She is often portrayed as a shut-in who never leaves the house, and consequently as a big nerd and pitiful NEET since she does rarely leave the house, and is also often portrayed as fully dependent on her friend Eirin to get by, since Eirin is considered much more powerful and is the one who actually does most of the things in the house.

However, Kaguya's origin suggests a far more refined picture, being based on the ancient fairy tale of "Kaguya-hime", which is almost perfectly retold in her in-game backstory.

Yet again, at least one other source has her as a perhaps lovable calm ditz◊.

Where do these portrayals come from? A certain deal of arrogance can be expected of someone who imposes impossible requests on suitors in order to rebuke them. She rarely leaves the house or does much work, but that is also what is expected of someone of her rank. She is shown as helpless... despite being powerful enough to be a final stage boss, being even with extra boss Mokou.

Can a common thread be found?

I continue to feel horribly guilty about being so inactive. I'm finding it very hard to concentrate on this recently, and I'm sorry.

Kaguya is the new subject because there's been some vivid discussion starting here. In addition to this, hey, Zudak, Lemurian! For your birthday(s), you get to decide who the next character(s) is gonna be! Oh boy.

Aaand I've gotta go already... let's hope I remembered to bring my notes for the previously discussed characters so it'll be easier to finally finish up some more profiles!

edited 4th Jul '10 6:32:57 AM by Fawriel

As I've said, the portrayal of Kaguya as utterly dependent on Eirin in fanworks really just bugs me, because nothing in Imperishable Night even suggests this. She's willful, strong, and... kind of arrogant, actually. She refers to the Hourai Elixir as "The medicine made by my power" and warns Eirin not to fail again if you take the Final A path. Heck, Eirin's final spell in the Final A path actually seems to require Kaguya's help, not the other way around.

I can understand Kaguya letting Eirin do stuff for her (in a sort of Sakuya/Remilia kind of way), and Eirin holding back out of respect for Kaguya, but I really do not like Kaguya being portrayed as helpless and dependent on Eirin. She is anything but.

So, there's basically two canon versions of Kaguya: IN and everything else. IN has her as an arrogant bitch that tortures Mokou for the lulz. Everything else has her as calm and generally willing to let others take care of the situation.

I can't really say much for fanon; I don't care for her and tend not to read stories in which she figures heavily. The ones I have seen tend to have her as a stereotypical otaku.

Next is Aya because of Double Spoiler?

Ah, see, I haven't seen the other stuff. I'll take a look at that.

If she's refined, it's in a Deadly Decadent Court sense. She is a person who committed a crime worthy of the death sentence simply because she was bored. After she was exiled to Earth, she started toying with people's lives who were after her otherworldly beauty. The retelling of the Kaguya-hime fairy tale doesn't give her bonus refinement points, since it's more like a Grimmification that paints her as a horrible and selfish person who never considers the well being of others. She even takes advantage of Eirin's guilt.

She's the kind of person who knows that she's better than people and acts like it, even if she isn't, really. She treats sentient youkai as pets. She takes it as a given that people will listen to her orders. She demands respect without respecting anyone. At best, she's a sheltered girl who doesn't understand hardship, except in the trivial sense that the earth is "filthy" compared to the moon. Which kind of makes it worse. I'm thinking "let them eat cake" here.

The idea that she's a NEET is humorous, but doesn't really make much sense given that her power is basically stasis. She can prevent change, and is resistant to change. Eientei is the House of Eternity, and that's not just a fancy title. Things don't change there. It's been the same daily life for thousands of years, which presumably doesn't include video games. Given that she's very bored and actually likes new things to happen, it's possible that she can't control her power very well and it's a form of Cursed with Awesome. Only by getting beaten up by Reimu and gang has her life begun to change (again), but I can't see it as particularly rapid. Just having new people in her world is a pretty big change already.

She's strong, in the sense that she is a magically superior being from a royal lineage, but not excessively so. Saying that she's even with Mokou isn't saying much since Mokou dies every spellcard. Immortality is Mokou's primary claim to Extra Boss status, Power Level-wise, and Kaguya is presumably around the same level. More importantly though, she doesn't feel like she needs to do things, because that's what servants are for. She's not lazy, she's just "refined" in that particular sense where she can't imagine dirtying herself with tasks that are below her station. She doesn't even consider doing things on her own if she can get someone else to, and Eirin's loyal enough to cater to her whims.

edited 9th Mar '10 1:05:11 PM by Clarste

She stopped locking Eientei after the events of IN, actually. Apparently she was doing it out of fear of retribution from the moon.

Her narration in CiLR suggests that she doesn't really care about her status or purity. She came off as someone that's been taken care of all of her life and doesn't realize what it's like to do work, at least to me.

edited 9th Mar '10 1:13:32 PM by Hylarn

I never said she cared about it, just that she took what it gave her for granted. So even if she doesn't care it's still an important part of who she is.

Edit: Although, yes, I forgot the details for why she was stopping change before IN.

edited 9th Mar '10 1:28:27 PM by Clarste

So, there's basically two canon versions of Kaguya: IN and everything else. IN has her as an arrogant bitch that tortures Mokou for the lulz. Everything else has her as calm and generally willing to let others take care of the situation.

Incidentally, I don't see how these are contradictory.