I always thought that the dragon imagery was to emphasize her Chinese-ness, not to necessarily imply that she was a dragon herself. This is the most comprehensive post I've seen on this theory though.This pretty much sums up what I was going to say.
Right or wrong, that would strike a major blow to the balance of Gensokyo.Which is exactly why I believe it isn't true. EoSD has been out for a while now, and after all this time, after all the stuff she's gone through (and for that matter, the junk we've seen of her go through), why would ZUN suddenly reveal her to be the Dragon of all things?
Honestly, I believe that, if Meiling truly was a Dragon she woudn't even exist now being ZUN would most likely save a character THAT powerful up until the last Touhou game or whatever. That said, she also wouldn't be a Stage 3 boss either...I mean really...a DRAGON...a Stage 3 boss?
That's all well and good, but the argument doesn't work. Yuugi springs to mind instantly. If that was the case, how do you justify an oni being a stage 3 boss then? It doesn't matter what stage position they are; in fact, I'm sure I've seen ZUN say that himself at some point. Plus, for all we know, Meiling could be holding back because of the spell card rules themselves. Or, maybe she is just pretending to be some what lazy and seeing how everyone does in Gensokyo for reasons not known to us.
Don't use power levels as an argument to either theory please.
That being said, I hope she is just so that remi owns even more =p.
Meiling is a panda.And not just any Panda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X21mJh6j9i4)
I really didn't see that as a power levels remark. It's just a simple acknowledgement that the things the Dragon has to do and the things that Hong Meiling has to do would result in some, uh, scheduling conflicts.
in Japanese martial arts
Doesn't her first name mean "Rainbow Dragon"? Or something like that? I think that would make it obvious that Meiling is totally a dragon. Just like Satori, whose first name is also the name of her species.
Doesn't her first name mean "Rainbow Dragon"? Or something like that? I think that would make it obvious that Meiling is totally a dragon. Just like Satori, whose first name is also the name of her species.That's...not exactly a good reason to assume she's actually a dragon, you know...
But this theory will fall the moment ZUN tells her species.
I wanna have ZUN logged on here and tell us the truth =D
I always thought that the dragon imagery was to emphasize her Chinese-ness, not to necessarily imply that she was a dragon herself.
Bad news, aniki. (http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Hong_Meiling)
Well, Satori is a satori, so I'm gonna stand on saying that Hong is a hong.
Even stories specifically from Meiling's perspective (12.3) display her to be a moron, that's not an act.
Meiling is canonically stupid dude, that's an instance of the fanon getting it right :V
Maybe ZUN considers dragons to be a kind of youkai.
In EoSD, she tries to flee from Reimu, but since she runs back to the gate she just winds up leading Reimu there. She also forgets who Marisa is, minutes after seeing her. In EoSD she was dumber than Cirno until fanon turned it around.
She is not (completely) incompetent but she certainly isn't smart.
She also forgets who Marisa is, minutes after seeing her.
Meiling: Ah, thanks back there.
Marisa: It's been a while.
Meiling: ...Hey, wait a minute, when did we become acquaintances~
Marisa: Just now?
Meiling: Oh yeah, I ran into some weirdo then.
To make it as simple as possible:
Meiling is a youkai -> dragons are not youkai -> Meiling is not a dragon.
Also, dragons are youkai. They're in Perfect Memento's Encyclopedia, after all. The whole point of Perfect Memento is to document youkai...
There, now you can end this ludicrous semantic head-bashing over this one word, and continue with the groundless "But what if ..." speculations.
First off, youkai is a widely general topic. It's like saying "mammal" or "fish".
Look at any other youkai in the entire canon of Touhou who are an identifiable type of youkai. What is their race listed as? Werehakutaku, karakasa, tsurube-otoshi and so on.
Now look at Hong Meiling's race. It's just "youkai". Not "dragon" or "Dragon". Youkai. Period.
My point is is that it is meaningless to focus on this word "youkai" because it tells us literally nothing about Hong Meiling. What we do know, however, is that anyone else in the canon who IS a specific type of youkai is listed as such. Hong is not. Beating the "youkai" drum proves absolutely nothing about her dragon-ness.
My point is is that it is meaningless to focus on this word "youkai" because it tells us literally nothing about Hong Meiling. What we do know, however, is that anyone else in the canon who IS a specific type of youkai is listed as such. Hong is not. Beating the "youkai" drum proves absolutely nothing about her dragon-ness.
Uh..I think you're missing the point of this topic. It's just a fun debate.
"Debate" implies that there's some kind of factual evidence you can hold up for scrutiny. What I was doing was clarifying a semantics issue with the word "youkai" and how it is used canonically. As Tiamat says, anything that cannot be classified and is not human is called "youkai". Hong Meiling is classified as "youkai". This means that no one, not even Hong herself, believes her to be a dragon.
In other words, using her classification as "youkai" as evidence for her being a dragon/the Dragon is off-base, as she's just as likely to be any other type of youkai in Gensokyo.
I don't see how using basic logic should get in your way of having fun.
*facepalm* It's just speculation. Geez....it's not the logic that's getting in the way, it's your disavowal. As was stated, there could exist unidentifiable species of youkai. Maybe it hasn't been confirmed. Maybe Meiling doesn't want to reveal such a fact. Who knows? No one knows. Various evidence goes for it and against it, so who's to say?
OR MAYBE ZUN himself (!!) Doesn't realize Meiling is a dragon!
>.>
That's funny, because I've been seeing "youkai = maybe a dragon!" being used for the past page or so here. If you want a debate, is not part of a debate people who disagree with you? Or is this the "let's all agree Hong is a dragon" thread? If so, I'll be happy to stay out of it. But if it really is a debate, as you say, well, expect people to disagree and don't take it so bad.
That's funny, because I've been seeing "youkai = maybe a dragon!" being used for the past page or so here.
You need to go back and re-read the previous page and this one more closely, then. It's not "youkai = maybe a dragon!". It's some OTHER person saying "youkai = definately NOT a dragon" and people countering with "youkai = doesn't necessarily mean NOT a dragon"
The definition of a youkai would fit into what a dragon is: a magical being.
Also, dragons are youkai. They're in Perfect Memento's Encyclopedia, after all. The whole point of Perfect Memento is to document youkai...
youkai is a widely general topic. It's like saying "mammal" or "fish". Also, this is the main bearing of the topic, speculating on the "dragon-ness", so to speak, of Meiling.
....at this point, I'm not even sure what on earth your actual point is, anymore. You seem to be disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, now.
Oh, OK. Why didn't you say so? Here, let me explain it another way:
I am classified as a human being. Policemen are also human beings. Does this mean I'm a policeman? No, not really. We need more evidence. Me being a human being doesn't tell us anything about my state of policeness. My species, in other words, is not evidence one way or the other of my being a policeman.
Hope that helps!
Now that is simply not true - this argument was being made, as I've already shown, in the form of "well, she's a youkai, so that doesn't mean she's NOT a dragon!" Saying that "youkai = doesn't necessarily mean NOT a dragon" is irrelevant to the subject of Hong's dragon-ness. That's the point. Her being a youkai tells us nothing. It has no bearing whatsoever on the subject at hand, and it needed pointing out.
You corrected Stuffman on the subject of youkai, and congratulations for that and all, but the argument that "youkai = doesn't necessarily mean NOT a dragon" says absolutely nothing. I thought that pointing this out might be helpful, and that people wouldn't get all pouty and defensive, and might actually want to have a discussion. Silly me.
You're both right. Tiamat argued one thing, Ammy started on that thing and then moved onto something else with Savory, which coincided with what Tiamat was saying. And then somehow both of you decided you were still arguing against each other and you've pretty much been throwing around words because you both think you're actually arguing some point. You're agreeing. The label "Youkai" means nothing. Her being a youkai has nothing to do with her possibly being a dragon as Ammy said, but being a youkai does not go against her being a dragon, as Tiamat said. The end.
I always thought that the term "youkai" was used by humans in Gensokyo for any human-like species that exists. Those classified as just simply "Youkai" are undetermined in terms of their actual species, while others like Night Sparrow or Karakasa or Satori are all still considered "Youkai", but with a determinate species that they fall under/relate to.
Meiling is a red panda. Discuss.
Chinese Girl
Hong Meiling
Ability: Control of Chi
Stage 3 boss. A Chinese-looking youkai.
Her clothing is colorful and somewhat traditional. She is the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and prevents intruders from beyond the lake from reaching the mansion. She is by no means a special character, but she is the first character that has something to do with the main story. Even if that something happens to be merely mentioning the Mistress.
She is by no means a special character
Apart from ZUN directly saying that she's not a dragon...
There you go. Word of God. Apart from ZUN directly saying that she's not a dragon, I'm not sure how much clearer it can possibly get that Meiling is an ordinary, run-of-the-mill youkai. In fact, she likely would have been a throwaway character like many of the early touhou girls if we fans didn't decide that we wub her very much, so I strongly doubt that she's being set up for such an important revelation (at an unbelievably slow pace, at that).
the plot of Touhou
That's it. From this point on, canon doesn't make any difference. Let's just have fun speculating.
Um. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the point in that. I could say Reimu and Marisa are the same person, and disregarding canon entirely, that would be perfectly fine. In my opinion, speculating is really only fun when you take canon and put some thought into coming up with theories that have a base in the evidence given. Like, for example, why Sakuya and Eirin seemed to know each other in Imperishable Night. Maybe Sakuya is a Lunarian? But ZUN has directly stated that she's human. So maybe Eirin made the Luna Dial and gave it to Sakuya for whatever reason? Well, there isn't any evidence to contradict that theory, so it's viable.
Otherwise I'll just say "Yukari is Azathoth" and nobody could say I'm wrong because canon is completely disregarded.
Also, why do you find it not fun that people are debating? Where is the fun of everyone agreeing with each other? I don't know how many speculation threads you've seen, but good ones generate a lively discussion, with agreement and disagreement. It comes with the turf, and I think it's kinda weird to imply that people disagreeing with a fan theory are ruining the fun.Different people think differently.
I think what Squid means is that the fun of speculations, for him, comes from trying to fold a theory into canon instead of pulling it out of thin air.
...does Touhou actually have any sort of grand, overarching plot aside from "incidents happen and get solved?"
Is there anyone here who's a native speaker of Japanese? I'm not going to put much weight into "Hong Meiling is by no means a special character" until I've actually made certain what the CONTEXT of that line is in the original Japanese. "not a special character" can mean something completely different in its native language compared to what an English speaker reading a second-hand translation might be interpreting it as. For all we know, maybe ZUN just simply meant that she wasn't particularly important to EoSD's plot itself (something that the rest of the sentence "but she is the first one that mentions the mistress" seems to imply), not that she wouldn't have a bigger role in the future. It's not wise to try to read into it too much until we know for sure what the actual context of the sentence is in the original Japanese.
Also, why do you find it not fun that people are debating? Where is the fun of everyone agreeing with each other? I don't know how many speculation threads you've seen, but good ones generate a lively discussion, with agreement and disagreement. It comes with the turf, and I think it's kinda weird to imply that people disagreeing with a fan theory are ruining the fun.
I'm not saying debating isn't fun. It's just that it looks like things are turning into "NO! YOU'RE WRONG!" as far as the said debating goes. Nothing wrong with a fun deliberation in general.
I'm really not reading it that way, but alright.
What mainly bothers me with this thread is that people imply there is more than one dragon, despite the fact the Perfect Memento article only refers to the Dragon. Singular, not plural. All other race articles refer to their race in plural. It's even called the highest order of god, not gods, in Perfect Memento. It pretty much sounds like the article is talking about a single being, not several.
It's funny that you would say we shouldn't read too much into the game creator himself saying this character "is by no means a special character", but that we can read into his absolute silence on her "bigger role" to possibly mean that she is, in fact, special.
Once again, you insist on taking things out of context and claiming that people said something when they never did.
Where in this thread did ANYONE ever say that ZUN's "absolute silence on her "bigger role" possibly meant that she is, in fact, special?" Stop pretending that people said something just so you can prove you're right while this make-believe straw person who doesn't actually exist is wrong.
Is there anyone here who's a native speaker of Japanese? I'm not going to put much weight into "Hong Meiling is by no means a special character" until I've actually made certain what the CONTEXT of that line is in the original Japanese. "not a special character" can mean something completely different in its native language compared to what an English speaker reading a second-hand translation might be interpreting it as. For all we know, maybe ZUN just simply meant that she wasn't particularly important to EoSD's plot itself (something that the rest of the sentence "but she is the first one that mentions the mistress" seems to imply), not that she wouldn't have a bigger role in the future. It's not wise to try to read into it too much until we know for sure what the actual context of the sentence is in the original Japanese.