[Theory] Maribel CANNOT be Yukari, she is actually her descendant

[Espadas]

Ok i'm pretty sure there must be some big flaw in my reasoning because it's impossible no one ever thought about this, so you will have to play Devil's Advocate and show me the holes in my theory...

Facts (as expressed in the Touhouwiki, PMiSS and other works):

- Maribel begin visiting Gensokyo in her dreams, and realize it's a different "world".
COROLLARY = Gensokyo already exists as a separate "world" before Maribel begin her adventures

- Maribel's stated initial ability is to "see boundaries", allowing her to see and visit different "worlds" in her dreams (it'll later develop into a stronger version)

- Maribel has travelled back in time to an older Gensokyo during her dreams at least once

- Yukari is acknowledged as the first to motion for the creation of the Great Hakurei Barrier and playing a big part in its actual creation.


When Maribel begin her dream travels the Great Hakurei Barrier must be already in place, else with her ability she wouldn't be able to visit it, because it would not be an actual supernatural place, just a normal isolated mountain.
If the Barrier is already in place, that means a Yukari Yakumo already exists as the "youkai of boundaries".

The theory that Yukari is Maribel that at some point is stuck back in time and later change her name to Yukari doesn't work because of this:
Yukari's existance depends upon Maribel's eventual time travel to older Gensokyo, but Maribel's time travel to older Gensokyo can happen only if Yukari already existed and created the Barrier.

This is a Predestination paradox, and as such, IMPOSSIBLE.

The only possible alternative explanation i can think of that would allow the Yukari=Maribel theory is that present Yukari is a Maribel that didn't merely travel back in time, but also jumped in from a different dimension, hereby allowing the existence of both at the same time independently from each other but that is a reaaaally big ass pull and would open a gigantic can of worms....

My personal theory is that Maribel is a DESCENDANT of Yukari, caused by the latter "fooling around" in the Outside world in the past in a totally different way from the usual meaning  :3

Points in favor of my theory:

- Gensokyo ALREADY HAVE a confirmed Descendant/Ancestor pair coming from the Outside world: Sanae/Suwako

- Maribel comes from a lineage of people that could see boundaries since old times. It's far more likely that the lineage began from a single person that already possessed this ability, opposed to a random person suddenly developing a supernatural power because reasons

- Maribel looks like Yukari, and have a watered down version of her main ability.... just like a descendant might have less pronounced characteristics of an ancestor


What do you think ?

[achicken]

The theory that Yukari is Maribel that at some point is stuck back in time and later change her name to Yukari doesn't work because of this:
Yukari's existance depends upon Maribel's eventual time travel to older Gensokyo, but Maribel's time travel to older Gensokyo can happen only if Yukari already existed and created the Barrier.

This is a Predestination paradox, and as such, IMPOSSIBLE.

A predestination paradox will be possible so far as we consider time travel to be real.

One way fiction tends to handle this is "immutability of history", also known as a "stable time loop"; in the case of this scenario Maribel is destined to become Yukari so she can at one point take herself back to Gensokyo's past, *no matter what Maribel OR Yukari does*. In such stories history itself resists a time traveller's attempt to change it, OR forces the individuals to be involved in certain events. This tends to assume that reality is sentient and will do whatever it takes to ensure its own integrity. The trick to this sort of storytelling is that sometimes reality fails to correct itself...

The other common way is the branching timelines scenario, where the Yukari that caused Maribel to have her timeslip, is from a parallel timeline/alternate dimension where Maribel discovered how to Gap (And heck, I think Yukari wouldn't mind fooling around in something that ISN'T her primary timeline especially if her alter-self isn't powerful enough to dissuade herself). This completely makes predestination and grandfather irrelevant because the two similar beings might as well be 2 different people, not even remotely related to each other by the same dimensional blood.

I do like and subscribe to the idea that Maribel is Yukari's descendent and may one day get portal powers like she does tho.

Edit: I don't actually think that Yukari had anything to do with Maribel's timeslip. Maribel is perfectly capable of doing this sort of thing *on her own*. While she has less control of it in earlier CDs (most of the time, she dreams of Gensokyo, and only during that particular historical note was it physical), by the time of Trojan Green Asteroid she seems to be boom tubing across space at will, and is able to take Renko along! That's how they ended up on the Torifune, mind...

[Tengukami]

I look forward to what Tiamat has to say about this.

[achicken]

Well TBH, Hearn and Yakumo is plausible as far as it occured *very nearly* the same as it does in our world.

The Buzz Aldrin of the Touhou universe fought a war with the Lunarians, so I wouldn't put it past AU Lafcadio Hearn to have inadvertently married into a youkai family, and this family itself gave him the ideas for his famous tales. Note that Lafcadio doesn't have to marry Yukari for this scenario to be plausible, but it does require the Yakumo family to be more extended than what we see.

[FLASH]

A predestination paradox will be possible so far as we consider time travel to be real.

Pretty much this.
the truth is that as soon as time travel gets involved, everything becomes possible (or impossible, depending on mindset  :3 ) if you start thinking too Hard about it...

that's why it's even a Semi-Meme that any amateur and pro Sci-Fi writers alike should always avoid it like the plague  it NEVER ends up making sense no matter what.
the best attitude for this is in my opinion whould be: "You can't let yourself be held back by common sense in Gensokyo, right!?" -Sanae


The way i understand it is (again, that's my own opinion based only on my reflections, so you can ignore it completely if you don't like it):

*Yukari is essentially a paradox of herself, "Something" that was created from maribel, but is now also an independent existence of her own:
The paradox being that they are the same person, but are at the same time independent from each other.
That is, at one point Maribel messed up, or went too far with her powers, or discovered some big secret about the boundaries and reality that no one was ever supposed to find.... whatever, you can imagine what you want, but Something happened which led to the creation of Yukari... and at that point, once yukari started to exists of her own this one time, she is no longer dependent on Maribel in any way. it's kinda like Maribel split in 2 if you want: one part becoming Yukari, the other remaining Maribel... each with their own individual past, present and future. are they aware of each other's existence? that we don't know.
But nothing you do to Maribel now, even preventing her from ever Devleoping her Boundary abilities, or even Killing her, or even Killing her parents so that she is never born, will prevent Yukari from existing. the opposite is also true: Maribel won't be affected in any way by whatever happens to Yukari.

[Espadas]

I look forward to what Tiamat has to say about this

That was a very well done piece of analysis, and if it wasn't for the paradox problem i speak about below i too would say ZUN was aiming for that.

A predestination paradox will be possible so far as we consider time travel to be real.

 :objection!:

I forgot an important detail.... this isn't a "normal" Predestination paradox, it's actually a Bootstrap paradox (a "subtype" of the predestination). The main difference is that it's not only that 2 events are each other's cause, but that something or someone are literally each other's cause of existence.

In our situation, if we work under the assumption that Yukari is Maribel stuck back in time, Yukari literally exists only because Maribel time travelled. But if Maribel time travelled, then there was a Yukari who created the Barrier.... but if a Yukari created the Barrier, that Yukari must be a Maribel that travelled back in time, and so on....

Basically Maribel/Yukari would have NO origin in time, since the loop goes on indefinitely.

To quote Wikipedia page on the Bootstrap Paradox : "Whether or not a scenario described in this paradox would actually be possible, even if time travel itself were possible, is not presently known."

So yeah, modern scientist, even allowing time travel, still haven't found a possible solution to this kind of paradox!

Maybe FLASH got the right idea, a supernatural accident splitting Maribel in 2 might explain it (i'm too tired right now to try and work out if this would overcome the bootstrap paradox without creating another )

[Suspicious person]

What if there were two parallel worlds and only one timeline instead ? Here's my modest take on Maribel's Yukarisation : (a bit far fetched but, hey, theory)

Let's say, in a "world 1", there's no Yukari, no Gensokyo, but "a" "Maribel 1" ; and a "world 2" that's in the exact same situation as "world 1" : no Yukari yet and no Gensokyo yet where there will be a "Maribel 2" (see where I'm going ?)

Now then : from "world 1"'s present, "Maribel 1" enters "world 2" (regardless of her circumstances) in a period that you'd compare to the past of "world 1" : at this point in time, the person that we'll call "Maribel 2" (from "world 2") isn't born yet : "Maribel 1"'ll become Yukari in this "world 2" (regardless of her circumstances) : the person called Yukari / "Maribel 1" is not "Maribel 2" here.

Now then : we have now have a world that have Yukari who'll create Gensokyo, and Maribel who'll dream about Gensokyo : what I'm trying to say is that this "world 2" would be the universe in which the various events in Touhou takes place (be it backstory, events that happens inside or outside Gensokyo...) and that Yukari was a Maribel, and that the Maribel of "world 2" is the Maribel (raaaah, so many Maribels...) would be the Maribel that dreams of Gensoko and take part in all these music CD related  stories :

This way, "world 1" is utterly irrelevant : strictly speaking, "Maribel 1" simply disappeared from there... there won't be any stable time loop nor some sort of fated occurences whatsoever, just another person who entered suddenly into the history of another world ("world 2") and took part in ow the events over there unfolded : it's only one, simple, continuous timeline for "Maribel 1" / Yukari.

Now then, back into "world 1" : there's no Gensokyo, but if we apply touhou logic, Youkai could have existed there in the past but got forgotten away and simply disappeared (similar to the outside world youkai mentionned in SoPM), and the history and folklore would still be the same as our own, regardless of whether there was a Gensokyo or not : for example, there'd still be books featuring fantastic creatures such as tanuki, onis, and the like : repeating it again, the existence or absence of Gensokyo wouldn't have anything to do with the existence of these stories. So, from this viewpoint, there would still be / have been exorcists, priests and the like, or say... whole clans of people with some sort of spiritual power. See where I am coming ? In this "world 1", "Maribel 1"'s abilities would be inherited from such clan.

Now, on to world 2 : let's say Yukari creates Gensokyo : what kind of impact would this have on history as a whole, and / or affect the various folklore ? Think of it this way : "world 1"'s setting'll be the same as in reality (as in real life) : the stories and folklore that inspired and bring birth to youkai'll be in "world 1" : as these folkloric youkai still exists in "world 2", there was no important impact on how the various events that happened changed : inicidentally, in "world 2", there's still mention of the fall of the wall of Berlin, the fall of the USSR (in forbidden scrollery) : that said, Yukari appearing in "world 2" didn't change the world as whole : compared to "world 1", Yukari's arrival only added Gensokyo and maybe create an history for Gensoky only... and nothing else.

Now then, on to what I believe is the most important (lol) part of my personnal take on this whole Yukari - Maribel relationship. For this, consider "Maribel 2" as the cannon Maribel :

The events that happens in the Music CDs and the evolution of Maribel do hold a lot of hints that might indicate that Maribel ("Maribel 2", hey) could become Yukari, BUT, and here comes the state of the art, captain obvious level, the Maribel in cannon works is not Yukari yet(?) : which means!!!!!! that Maribel is not Yukari, just because. The development in the music CDs hints that Maribel is going towards some sort of transformation, but nothing says she become a new, wholesome, on her own. Maribel travels to various points in "world 2"'s timeline here, but didn't become "a" Yukari yet, so I'll stop here before being too irrealistic.
(Re: Maribel = Maribel, so she is not Yukari hee)

I'd say the flaws in my theory would be the seemingly lacking real motivation from Yukari / "Maribel 1"... and the lack of contact between Yukari and Maribel ("Maribel 2"), but Yukari may very well simly ignore Maribel. Actually, Yuyuko secretly observing them might be indicate that she might be on to something...

Now then, on to your theory :

My personal theory is that Maribel is a DESCENDANT of Yukari, caused by the latter "fooling around" in the Outside world in the past in a totally different way from the usual meaning  :3

I'll be a little greedy here and drag this into my own theory for a bit : remember what I said about the clan from which "Maribel 1" might've come from, somewhere in the walls of text up there ? Well, if we go from what I've said, then Maribel would still be born regardless of what happens, provided that her bloodline doesn't get wiped out : there would be no problem whatsoever, Maribel'll still be a descendant from a clan with some spiritual power : the cannon settings are still respected and Yukari's dignity is saved : personnaly, I think there's no problem with Yukari being Maribel's ancestor, but until it's said so in the official materials, it'll be very suspicious. I highly believe Yukari fanboys would strongly disagree with that theory too.



Anyway, long thing short, my take on this Yukari - Maribel is that Maribel is indeed not Yukari, but Yukari is another Maribel from somewhere else.
By Jove, 'twas so long winded... I'm gonna take a breather and relax my poor fingers... anyway, whaddya think  :3 _{don't chew on me too hard pweaze...}

[Sagus]

I think this is way too much overthinking. Stable time loops are literally everywhere in media that deals with time travel, I don't see why it couldn't be the case here too.

Like, Touhou is an universe where belief literally defines reality; applying real life theories about what's possible or not regarding time travel here doesn't make much sense.

[Suspicious person]

I think this is way too much overthinking. Stable time loops are literally everywhere in media that deals with time travel, I don't see why it couldn't be the case here too.

Like, Touhou is an universe where belief literally defines reality; applying real life theories about what's possible or not regarding time travel here doesn't make much sense.

lol I guess that was too much

Anyway, If we take the stable time loop into account, we might actually end up with the "Which came first ? The Maribel or the Yukari ?" which would go on, and on. As a human, Maribel had to be born in one way or another ; and as a youkai, Yukari does not seems quite in line with notions that would scare humans back in thousand years ago to give birth to her, there have to be some way where either one of them or both exists without being too paradoxical

As for Touhou, its in-universe reality is slightly based on our own : the real life scientific theories still come into play, except it allows those that are supposed to be impossible (ie : cold fusion) to happen too, besides, since the various time related theories in various media and fiction has yet to be given practical use IRL, won't they stand on the same level as the theories that would work in the touhouverse ?

[Sagus]

I really can't understand where the problem here is. It happens all the time in media involving time travel. I could just point at the mess that is Dr Who, for one, or that episode in Futurama where Fry turned out to be his own grandfather due to time travelling shennaningans. Or to the You Already Changed the Past trope, really.

[TresserT]

 I don't think it's as complicated as you're making it to be. You have to remember that touhou isn't made by a physics major and it's target audience isn't physics majors. It's made by a drunk guy who's into mythology. While the "stable time loop" might not fully solve a bootsrap paradox, I think it's sufficient for ZUN's purposes.

[Suspicious person]

Hm, dunno, more than focusing on the timeline thingy, I was kinda more focused on them being either separate individuals or the same here

[Sagus]

I'm pretty much 100% sure they're the same thing. There are so many parallells between them, it's harder to explain how, in-universe, they CAN'T be the same person than the other way around. After all the numerous hints, it wouldn't make much sense (from a story-telling perspective) for them to be different people.

I mean, nothing's in stone until it's actually revealed, but I find the alternative highly unlikely.

[achicken]

I forgot an important detail.... this isn't a "normal" Predestination paradox, it's actually a Bootstrap paradox (a "subtype" of the predestination). The main difference is that it's not only that 2 events are each other's cause, but that something or someone are literally each other's cause of existence.

Nope, the only reason why scientists have no solution to the bootstrap paradox is that none of them have time travelled, and thus haven't experienced the bootstrap paradox. :3

I already addressed the bootstrap paradox using it as an example for the stable time loop. Once again it will assume reality is somewhat sentient and will try to preserve its own integrity.

Theoretical physics today seems to be moving towards the multiverse theory (my second example) tho; w.r.t time travel having a multiverse (which can be created by branching timelines) literally makes all paradoxes moot.

[Drake]

literally each other's cause of existence.

This is a poor assumption to make though. Maribel's powers manifest from basically nothing. The only reason you seem to have for this is that the place that Maribel had traveled to must have been put up with the help of Yukari "later", but this is just a conventional timeloop deal, nothing special about it. You're only looking at it in one direction: a Yukari that helped create the Hakurei Barrier would have previously traveled from the future, being a Maribel whose powers developed naturally. There's a very obvious beginning.

More importantly though,

When Maribel begin her dream travels the Great Hakurei Barrier must be already in place, else with her ability she wouldn't be able to visit it, because it would not be an actual supernatural place, just a normal isolated mountain.

This is completely untrue. Gensokyo didn't just pop into existence when the Barrier was erected; youkai were already living there in spades, and is half the reason the Barrier was put there to begin with. The message dropped was found in the Bamboo Forest, which we know existed long before the Barrier, and was said to be "several hundred years ago", which is trivially placed before 1885 (even if you meant the boundary of illusion and reality, it can still be well within that period). Moreover the assertion that Maribel can only visit supernatural places is pretty much unfounded. The Torifune story is set in reality, and yet it's made completely ambiguous as to whether or not the Torifune satellite Maribel traveled to was illusionary or not; in fact it was made out to be completely real.

[Starxsword]

There are so many parallells between them, it's harder to explain how, in-universe, they CAN'T be the same person than the other way around. After all the numerous hints, it wouldn't make much sense (from a story-telling perspective) for them to be different people.

Because of the fact that they are 2 existing characters, it is easy to understand why they can't be the same person.
There are many other characters with references to mythical characters (Suika, Kasen, Kogasa, etc.), but unlike those characters, Maribel is an existing Touhou character.
That said, I believe they must have some relationship with each other, just not that they are each other.

[Espadas]

More importantly though,This is completely untrue. Gensokyo didn't just pop into existence when the Barrier was erected; youkai were already living there in spades, and is half the reason the Barrier was put there to begin with. The message dropped was found in the Bamboo Forest, which we know existed long before the Barrier, and was said to be "several hundred years ago", which is trivially placed before 1885 (even if you meant the boundary of illusion and reality, it can still be well within that period). Moreover the assertion that Maribel can only visit supernatural places is pretty much unfounded. The Torifune story is set in reality, and yet it's made completely ambiguous as to whether or not the Torifune satellite Maribel traveled to was illusionary or not; in fact it was made out to be completely real.

I know that the land later known as Gensokyo was already populated by youkai before the barrier, what i meant is that judging by how Maribel's ability is explained and what she did with it, it seems to allow her to visit "supernatural" or "different" worlds, isolated by the "normal" world (can't find a better word).

If the barrier wasn't in place then Gensokyo would have been a "normal" place exactly like the countryside of France, Argentina etc.... assuming that Maribel can dream travel to any kind of place is either exaggerating her powers, or a truly incredible chain of coincidences that she dream travelled only to "special" places.

This is a poor assumption to make though. Maribel's powers manifest from basically nothing. The only reason you seem to have for this is that the place that Maribel had traveled to must have been put up with the help of Yukari "later", but this is just a conventional timeloop deal, nothing special about it. You're only looking at it in one direction: a Yukari that helped create the Hakurei Barrier would have previously traveled from the future, being a Maribel whose powers developed naturally. There's a very obvious beginning.

1) I'm not sure what you meant but Yukari helping creating the barrier is a CANON FACT, it's not my assumption. As such, if Maribel travelled to Gensokyo then Yukari MUST already be active (unless one of the 2 comes from a different dimension like some have theorized in this thread)

I already addressed the bootstrap paradox using it as an example for the stable time loop. Once again it will assume reality is somewhat sentient and will try to preserve its own integrity.

Theoretical physics today seems to be moving towards the multiverse theory (my second example) tho; w.r.t time travel having a multiverse (which can be created by branching timelines) literally makes all paradoxes moot.

This is the part where i disagree with you: as far as we know right now even a stable closed time loop should be impossible in this situation, because of 2 problems:

a) not even reality itself can solve/preserve the onthological question: who came first, Yukari or Maribel?, because there is nothing to "preserve", it's not a "physical" dilemma (nothing was destroyed or changed by the time travel), but a "logical" one

b) the stable time loop conclusion is that the 2 items/beings don't have a beginning in history because they are part of an infinite loop. Not to be Captain Obvious but Maribel DOES have a clear beginning in history....

Of course, like you said, if we assume the presence of multiple dimensions then all the problems are solved 

This is the crux of my objection: until someone can solve the bootstrap paradox (and since as you said no one have experienced time travel, for now no one can), you can use the stable time loop all you want, it will always be a logical impossibility/plot hole.

Like Sagus said, stable time loops are very common in fiction, but EVERY - SINGLE - ONE - OF - THEM are logical plot hole, unless caused by dimension travel.

Nothing prevent ZUN to use it (it's the beauty of fiction after all) but that would be a minor crack in the Touhou-verse, and since i'm a sucker for the details it would disappoint me  :V

Everything else aside, Touhou really bring out some interesting/deep discussions for something created by a drunk programmer 

EDIT: I forgot a very big point in favor of my theory that Maribel is a descendant of Yukari!
ZUN IS A TROLL.  :V
Since the mayority of the fanbase think Maribel = Yukari, it wouldn't surprise me if i ended up being correct (i still meet people trying to cope with Canon-Momiji )

[achicken]

a) not even reality itself can solve/preserve the onthological question: who came first, Yukari or Maribel?, because there is nothing to "preserve", it's not a "physical" dilemma (nothing was destroyed or changed by the time travel), but a "logical" one

b) the stable time loop conclusion is that the 2 items/beings don't have a beginning in history because they are part of an infinite loop. Not to be Captain Obvious but Maribel DOES have a clear beginning in history....

Of course, like you said, if we assume the presence of multiple dimensions then all the problems are solved 

The stable time loop isn't "infinite" on its own; Once Yukari sends her grown up child, herself, back to sire herself - or at least teaches the child how to gap properly, she can do whatever she wants afterwards, as she is no longer directly tied to the predestination.

The sole exception is crippling or killing her younger self, before her younger self does what she did. If she does it after, that's another loop entirely, the order of events is still safe.

The predestination and bootstrap paradox isn't because of "infinite loops", its more like because there is *no proper starting point*.

For a infinite loop you need to look at another concept, an alternative interpretation of reincarnation. An infinite loop is only possible if you are able to reincarnate as your own father (nothing in the mythology of Buddhism says this isn't possible mind!), so over 2 generations you sire yourself, ad infinitum. Unlike in the stable time loop, there is no exit. As far as spirituality is concerned however, it is perfectly acceptable. :3

You know, you can actually avoid this discussion entirely by assuming these things:
1. Yukari isn't the direct ancestor of Maribel. This MUST be true otherwise the rest of the discussion is moot. 1.5k years of generation gap is enough to ensure this, and it still allows Yukari to be a Great-x-arbitraryGreat GrandMother.

2. Maribel is either:
> an offshoot of the Yakumo family (and she MUST be related to a Yakumo somehow, or Yukari will never be involved at all), who either
>> have ancestors whp retook the name Hearn from a possible ancestor, who must be a Hearn (Lafcadio himself?) OR
>> have ancestors who married a Hearn, who may or may not have descended from Lafcadio's line, but this ancestry must start from a Yakumo. 

3. Maribel must have some Youkai blood in her ancestry, by virtue of Yukari being a Youkai. She doesn't need to be born half-Youkai, She just needs to be like Alice or Kosuzu- who started off Human and awakened later.

The most important thing to note here is that Yukari, for all her portalling, isn't ever potrayed to have time travel capabilities outside of fanwork.

It is also highly possible that Maribel may have awakened to her powers out of nowhere (since her sole time travel stint is totally off the wall from Yukari's gap ability). From what we know of Maribel's future version of our world tho, its a world of high SCIENCE, where even the modern day Moriya Gods don't really have a place for; spontaneous awakening isn't likely. Comparatively, Renko's ability is more plausible for the "self developed" category, you just need good spatial awareness to do something like "tell the correct time in the correct coord in Japan, anytime".

[Drake]

I know that the land later known as Gensokyo was already populated by youkai before the barrier, what i meant is that judging by how Maribel's ability is explained and what she did with it, it seems to allow her to visit "supernatural" or "different" worlds, isolated by the "normal" world (can't find a better word).

If the barrier wasn't in place then Gensokyo would have been a "normal" place exactly like the countryside of France, Argentina etc.... assuming that Maribel can dream travel to any kind of place is either exaggerating her powers, or a truly incredible chain of coincidences that she dream travelled only to "special" places.

Firstly, it's only your assumption that Maribel's abilities are constrained to only visit "supernatural" places. I gave the example of the Torifune pod, which is entirely made up but is obviously made out to be a real thing in the future. Because it's made up and in the future, it's left to the reader to decide whether or not Maribel visited the "real" Torifune, or some illusionary version of it. As such, you can't discount that Maribel doesn't travel to "real places" as a matter-of-fact (we already know Yukari can do so anyways, even if Maribel's abilities aren't fully developed). And even if you argued that Torifune was illusionary due to the presence of youkai, since she also encountered youkai when in the Bamboo Forest, you can't simultaneously argue that she traveled somewhere real. Your argument is inconsistent either way you try to spin it.

1) I'm not sure what you meant but Yukari helping creating the barrier is a CANON FACT, it's not my assumption. As such, if Maribel travelled to Gensokyo then Yukari MUST already be active (unless one of the 2 comes from a different dimension like some have theorized in this thread)

You misunderstood. Of course Yukari helped create the Barrier, I even said so in my post. I'm saying that it's easily possible that Maribel traveled to a time before Yukari had formed the boundary of reality and illusion around Gensokyo, which dissolves your main point.

Regardless, the whole paradox thing doesn't apply the way you seem to think it does. Even supposing Maribel visits back to a time where a future version of herself (that also traveled back in time) made some stuff happen, and Maribel experiences it: big whoop. That's exactly what multiple instances of time travel would do. It isn't even as if Maribel visiting that past causes her future self to go back in time, or that Maribel is her own descendant, which would more resemble a paradox. Anything Yukari does that Maribel would experience is exactly what she would later do, that's all. It does necessitate that a future Maribel would go back in time to influence stuff and that's predetermined, but that's just fine because we're already assuming that she does anyways.



She's born normally and her powers develop on their own. There isn't even a loop anywhere, never mind the predestination or bootstrap paradoxes. There are no causes of anything going on here. The only remotely strange thing is time travel itself.

[Espadas]

*explanation and image by Drake*

Ok, i understand a bit better what you meant. AND I FINALLY FOUND THE HOLE IN MY THEORY THANKS TO YOU 

I never said the Torifune visited by Maribel was an illusion, i merely said it was "supernatural" and somehow "isolated" by the Outside World. The basis for this comes from this:

from Trojan Green Asteroid, right after Renko and Maribel dream-travel together:
"Renko and Merry were 380,000 km away from the Earth's surface, inside the satellite TORIFUNE.
...Well, in a dream, of course.
Every time they find a way to the other side of the boundary, they can't help but go adventuring."

Based on this line i assumed that Torifune (and every other place Maribel travel to) is on the opposite site of some kind of boundary, implying that Maribel can travel with her power ONLY to places protected/isolated by a boundary or something similar.

But even if my assumption was proven right or wrong, HERE is where i completely missed the simplest solution  :fail: : nothing stops Maribel from making that final time travel AFTER she reached "Yukari" levels of power  :colonveeplusalpha:

So yes, Maribel CAN indeed travel back in time and become Yukari. Tiamat, you can stop foaming at the mouth and put down the pitchfork!

P.S. although this doesn't negate my theory of Maribel being a descendant instead of a past self, and i fully expect ZUN to troll the fanbase hard and prove me right *duck to avoid flying bricks*  :V

[the old guy]

So yes, Maribel CAN indeed travel back in time and become Yukari. Tiamat, you can stop foaming at the mouth and put down the pitchfork!

I don't think he(?)'s aware this thread even exists. (S?)He hasn't been posting here much lately, anyways.

[Tiamat]

I was at a wedding this weekend so I didn't check the forums very thoroughly. I actually read these forums every day. It's just rare for me to have much to say. Guess I'm a lurker or something.

Seems like Drake covered everything I could say about the matter anyways, besides some small things.  Guess I'll place what I can think of here, though most of them aren't really relevant anyways (Drake already covered anything really relevant I think)

The main issue is that the theory relies on several assumptions  (at least the part that tries to PROVE something. In this case, "Maribel CANNOT be Yukari".  Theories aren't supposed to be confirmed, I've come to realize that when hard-set definitives like "CANNOT" get thrown in there, the standards change).  There's no proof whatsoever that Yukari is the one that gave Maribel's family their powers in the first place.  it's not stated where they came from.  We also don't know if Maribel's family had their powers before Yukari existed (1,200 years ago) or after.  All we know is they've had these powers since "long ago".

Maybe Yukari did give Maribel's family their powers. Or maybe she didn't and they got it on their own. Maybe the family had its powers before Yukari existed.  Or maybe they didn't.

Long story short, the theory is possible, but unconfirmed.  An unconfirmed thing can't prove or disprove anything else until it's proven/confirmed in the first place.

Even if there IS a paradox in this case, that wouldn't mean Maribel's lineage got their powers from Yukari.  Whether or not Maribel could be Yukari (due to whether or not it's ruled to be impossible via paradox or whatever else) would neither confirm nor deny whether or not Maribel's lineage got their powers from Yukari. Those are two separate possibilities that are neither mutually exclusive nor mutually inclusive.



Likewise, as pointed out, we can't confirm or deny how paradoxes work in the Touhou canon.  ZUN never stated.  The only confirmed things we have are:

Time travel is possible (stated in CiLR).

Maribel can time travel (shown by the paper she left behind "hundreds of years ago").

And the timeline (and its events within) in Drake's image.

Does a paradox make something impossible? Or not?  We don't know.



That said, I really can't repeat this enough, but ZUN already was asked "What was Yukari and Maribel's relationship?" and replied "There was a man named Lafcadio Hearn."  IMHO, given that Lafcadio Hearn never had any descendants named Yakumo as far as anyone knows, I'd say that "Word of ZUN" rejects the idea of Yukari being Maribel's descendant or creator or whatever, myself (if anything, it's rather clear that it was Lafcadio Hearn that created Koizumi Yakumo, I'd think).  The best place to start with any idea of what Yukari and Maribel's relationship could actually be should come from "How does it equate to Lafcadio Hearn?", as ZUN explicitly stated that's what it was (and specifically that.  ZUN did NOT say "Well, there was a man named Lafcadio Hearn, but Maribel and Yukari's relationship is a reverse version of that.", etc.  I'd like to think he would have if that was the case).  If you can't answer that question, odds are pretty good the theory is wrong. Maybe not necessarily DEFINATELY wrong, but I wouldn't bet on it, myself.

Of course, ZUN could have been lying through his teeth when he said that or purposefully leaving out a ton of detail that would completely change the context but... them's the breaks, I suppose.  I can't really think of any times he's ever did something like that, but it's not like we have a large sample size of "ZUN confirmations" to go off of.

[achicken]

That said, I really can't repeat this enough, but ZUN already was asked "What was Yukari and Maribel's relationship?" and replied "There was a man named Lafcadio Hearn."  IMHO, given that Lafcadio Hearn never had any descendants named Yakumo as far as anyone knows, I'd say that "Word of ZUN" rejects the idea of Yukari being Maribel's descendant or creator or whatever, myself (if anything, it's rather clear that it was Lafcadio Hearn that created Koizumi Yakumo, I'd think). 

Historically, Our world's Patrick Lafcadio Hearn married a Koizumi Setsu, thereby gaining the Koizumi surname by virtue of "marrying upwards" (he married into a Samurai household). Yakumo is the name he adopted after marrying, no idea whether the family gave it to him or not.

Yukari Yakumo (if that is her real name) doesn't have Koizumi as a surname AND predated this wedding in-universe.

"Well, there was a man named Lafcadio Hearn, but Maribel and Yukari's relationship is a reverse version of that."

I still wonder why it came out as "reverse version" instead of "totally unrelated" tho, aside from ZUN trolling. Contextually taken it can mean things like "someone from Japan married overseas into the Hearn family", among other things.

[Leon゠Helsing]

Of course, ZUN could have been lying through his teeth when he said that or purposefully leaving out a ton of detail that would completely change the context but... them's the breaks, I suppose.  I can't really think of any times he's ever did something like that, but it's not like we have a large sample size of "ZUN confirmations" to go off of.

Do remember that ZUN's friends with Ryukishi07. :V

[Tiamat]

Historically, Our world's Patrick Lafcadio Hearn married a Koizumi Setsu, thereby gaining the Koizumi surname by virtue of "marrying upwards" (he married into a Samurai household). Yakumo is the name he adopted after marrying, no idea whether the family gave it to him or not.

Yukari Yakumo (if that is her real name) doesn't have Koizumi as a surname AND predated this wedding in-universe.

Well, we already can infer that Yakumo and Hearn is a reference to the man, Lafcadio Hearn/Koizumi Yakumo, whether or not ZUN chose Yakumo instead of Koizumi to be Yukari's surname, so I'm not particularly sure what's so important about that.  Well, I guess maybe there could be some hidden symbolism in ZUN deciding to have Yukari's surname be Yakumo instead of Koizumi.   I suppose if ZUN wanted to secretly say "Maribel and Yukari's relationship is Lafcadio Hearn's relationship to Koizumi Yakumo, but in reverse", having Yukari take Yakumo as the surname instead of Koizumi as the surname could be one way of doing that.  Of course, that's just one possibility. It's also possible ZUN chose Yakumo as Yukari's surname instead of Koizumi as a play on how Lafcadio Hearn wrote his name as Koizumi Yakumo after the change (IE, Lafcadio Hearn himself didn't keep consistancy regarding whether the surname comes first or after).

Regardless, even if it is "Hearn and Koizumi's relationship, but in reverse", then "Yukari changed her name to Maribel Hearn" would be a closer fit than "Yukari had/created descendants leading up to Maribel Hearn." Sure, if we're shooting for a reversal of the "Hearn to Yakumo" relationship where "Yakumo created Hearn", "Yukari had/created descendants leading up to Maribel Hearn." could technically fit if you're really really stretching it, but there's so many other theories that are much closer than that which don't require such arm twisting and free interpretation of "Yakumo created Hearn" that I wouldn't bet on the farther one.

As an aside, Yukari Yakumo isn't her real name (well, "probably" isn't, according to Rinnosuke in CoLA.  She's also mentioned in PMiSS as "a youkai that appears to be her", which also could indicate that her name wasn't originally Yukari Yakumo).  One of the reasons why the "Lafcadio Hearn changed his name to Koizumi Yakumo. Maribel Hearn changed her name to Yukari Yakumo." parallel fits so well is because we already have an in-universe statement and evidence that Yukari Yakumo isn't her original name. Things like that and the fact that Maribel's powers are growing to become like Yukari's powers (rather than Yukari's powers growing to become like Maribel's) generally seem to imply the whole "Hearn becomes Yakumo" relationship more than the "Hearn's relationship to Yakumo, but in reverse" relationship (otherwise, it'd be Maribel with all the statements and such like "Maribel isn't her original name" instead).

As for Yukari predating the wedding, that's only from the timeline's perspective.  When time travel shenanigans are thrown in, whether or not Yukari predates the wedding doesn't prove or disprove anything.  For example, hypothetically, if Yukari really was Maribel after time-travelling to the past, then from her own perspective, she wouldn't have predated the wedding at all (just insert Lafcadio's wedding into Drake's image to get an idea of what I mean).

Although personally, I don't think Maribel is actually meant to have any significant ACTUAL relationship with Lafcadio Hearn in-story, but instead her relationship to Yukari is, out-of-story, meant to parallel Lafcadio Hearn's relationship to Koizumi Yakumo (and IMHO that's what ZUN meant with his answer to that question). In which case, whether or not Lafcadio's wedding predated Yukari or Maribel would be irrelevant.  Not that I have anything to prove or disprove that, but I imagine that's how it is considering that Lafcadio Hearn himself is never mentioned anywhere in any Touhou work.

Do remember that ZUN's friends with Ryukishi07. :V

ZUN's friends with lots of people.  So I don't really see those sorts of things as very good evidence for.... well, anything, really.

[grgspunk]

My personal theory is that Maribel is a DESCENDANT of Yukari, caused by the latter "fooling around" in the Outside world in the past in a totally different way from the usual meaning  :3

Yeah, this is what I've been thinking all along, so much that she might even possibly be Maribel's mother. It's a much simpler theory, and it's a nice counter to the widespread notion that Maribel is Yukari when she's asleep and Yukari is Maribel when she's asleep. It's impossible for Maribel to stay awake the whole time whenever Yukari is asleep, because Yukari practically hibernates during the winter time.

Spoiler:

inb4 Yukari is a slut when she's awake

[Tiamat]

I'd think that descendant, while still not as implied as "one and the same", would be more likely than mother.  Maribel comes from a long lineage of people who have had the ability to see, not manipulate, borders.  In light of this known information, while this doesn't completely 100% rule "mother" out if you're allowing for some particularly extravagant, convoluted, and/or redundant possibilities that haven't ever been hinted or mentioned at all anywhere* , it makes it rather less likely.

* (such as say, Yukari starting the lineage that would lead down to Maribel's line, time-warping to the very end of it, and marrying the guy right before Maribel. Besides convoluted, that'd be kinda redundant cause why would Maribel need two parents with border abilities?  Or Yukari originally being born in the future, being Maribel's mother, and having Maribel before Yukari time-warped back. Still redundant because that's a rather round-about way to have things be instead of just having Maribel herself (as Yukari or otherwise) be the one who time-warps back)