While it's possible that ZUN had these stories written in advance of PCB's release, what strikes me as more likely is that the game came out first and that these little references to those spellcards were snuck into the texts later on as a hint of sorts.
That's wholly possible. I know I've done that before when writing stories, and I know many other authors have, too. The end result, if pulled off by a sufficiently advanced writer, can be the same though (IE, under the hand of a sufficiently skilled writer with a little luck added in, writing a later story that you've managed to fit into past stories has the same effect as writing a story while planning future stories in advance)
Many of the spell cards that have to do with boundaries probably fall under this category. Boundary between Light and Darkness is a "no brainer" spell card for a boundary youkai that ZUN could have easily just have thrown in and then later on made references to it in future stories. "Life and Death" is almost mandatory since that's the best way to make your boundary character seem really bad ass. "Xanadu of Straight and Curve" is a bit more suspect (since a boundary theme of something like that isn't the first thing I personally think about when creating a character who can manipulate boundaries) but still possible.
"Butterfly in the Zen Garden", though... I suspect that spell card was made with Yukari's origins in mind. Then again, that shouldn't be surprising. ZUN may or may not have planned out Maribel's stories in advance, but it's hard to imagine that he didn't have an origin in mind for Yukari herself in advance. The majority of authors don't say to themselves, "Hey, I'm going to introduce this really important character who's deeply connected to the very history of my world! But... I'll figure out what her origin should be, later."
I'm not so sure I can agree with some of your more speculative arguments though. Stuff like Maribel being sent back into a parallel timeline by Sakuya/Kaguya/Eirin does strike me as being a little farfetched and probably a little over-elaborate in a narrative sense given what I've read of ZUN's stuff (not to mention it'd be impossible to figure out without Wild Mass Guessing).
That part is mostly wild mass guessing, for sure, as I've stated. The main reason I posted it instead of just... I dunno, posted it as a fanfic or something is because of several other assumptions going around, which may or may not be true. Basically, it was to give a possible explanation as to how Eirin would know Yukari is a butterfly, as well as how Yukari would know that Kaguya could manipulate parallel timelines. Both of those, however, are assumptions in and of themselves, as there still isn't 100% confirmation that Eirin's "Butterfly Catching Web" spell card refers to Yukari (although I'm pretty sure it does, mainly because Sakuya used the same analogy of being a spider catching a butterfly, too), and it also assumes that EVERYTHING that begins with "it is said" in Perfect Memento was stated by Yukari (with the exception of one statement that Akyu disclaims was stated by Rinnosuke), of which there is a decent chance that's false (so far, I can say that at least half of them fall under the "Most likely said by Yukari" category and none really fall under the "Yukari could not have said that" category. Unfortunately, the remaining 50% kinda falls under either the "Who cares if Yukari said that?" category or the "WTF could that mean if Yukari said that?" category. The parallel timeline quote being one of the latter)
I don't see Yukari as having a God Complex either, she is a selfish character but when it comes down to it she is doing what she can to preserve Gensokyo's balance. Everything she's done, from banishing the evil youkai and spirits beneath the earth to devising the spell card rules (haven't read your thread on the spellcard rules, Tiamat, but as you said Yukari is obviously their true author)
Maybe "God Complex" might also be too strong a word. I tend to go overboard with with stressing things. It might be at least a bit of a mild God Complex, though, considering how much Yukari tends to toy with people in general (running around using humans and Ran as little thought exercises, for example)
The problem though is that sometimes, the way Yukari stresses things, you might as well not have any free will at all. I suppose this is where her statement, "You can not have freedom without rules" in CiLR (paraphrased) comes from. The thing is, such a rationalization like that could be used to rationalize anything. What if Yukari really is wrong? What if the youkai really DO have a choice in their life? I suspect ZUN himself might be asking those questions, because in UFO, for example, you have a whole bunch of youkai who just want to live equally among humans to the point where they end up starting a temple WITHIN the human village (which, to me, seems like it's going to procure one hell of a residence tax considering that according to Yukari, humans are supposed to FEAR youkai, not live alongside them, and youkai are supposed to terrorize humans, not host a temple in their village), and then you have Kogasa in the same game, who fully knows that the reason for her existance (which agrees with Yukari) is to terrorize humans (surprise them, in her case, although she fondly remembers the days when humans were terrorized as her, too). Several of Kogasa's battles end with the poor youkai umbrella sobbing about her failure with quotes like "My reason to live as a youkai..." and "Just what are we youkai, anyways?" Like I've mentioned before, I find it interesting that the character ZUN used to cry about a youkai's reason for existing is a purple umbrella...
Of course, in Yukari's view, a residence tax wouldn't be enough in this case. Yukari specifically states that rabbit can't live as a human no matter how hard she tries. It'll be interesting to see if Byakuren's temple, if it really is against the laws of Gensokyo, ends up weakening the boundary, or if in fact it's just Yukari's own delusions (if Yukari ends up being wrong) that youkai and humans must be forced to live out those roles
I could be wrong. It is, after all, just a character interpretation. Such things are impossible to confirm without direct word from the author, even more so than everything else we're discussing in this thread. It's just that sometimes Yukari's idea that humans and youkai MUST fulfill their roles just really comes off as a bit TOO controlling/oppressing to me. Well, mainly this dialogue exchange in Imperishable Night, which contrasts heavily against UFO, IMHO.
Yukari: See, pull out the guts of the human here. It's a trial. Of her guts.
Mokou: Aaaah, I won't die, but that's scary...
Reimu: Why would I do such a Youkai-like thing?
Yukari: Well, if you eat an immortal's guts, you might gain eternal youth.
Reimu: But... to cease being human... I'd rather not.
Mokou: That's too cruel. Are you saying I'm not human?
Reimu: Human.... is she?
I don't know.
There are too many philosophers around anyway.
The difference between containers of souls doesn't matter much these days...
Yukari: But the Hakurei Shrine's mission is youkai-crushing... Isn't that discrimination?
Reimu: Okay, so I take that back. Youkai must still be crushed by humans.
It is my destiny.
I will continue to crush Youkai.
Yukari: Absolutely correct.
(End of Extra Stage dialogue)
Well, since I've made those God Complex statement comments, I did look around a bit more, and eventually realized that Sikieki agrees with Yukari's viewpoint, too. But there is at least one character who snaps at Shiki in a win quote, "What right do you have to judge people?" (paraphrased) too.
Anyways, it's probably not a completely full blown god complex (Yukari would be too obvious if it was. It'd be hard for her to manipulate under a psychosis like that), but Yukari's head is still really REALLY high up in the clouds. I'm not sure I can think of a single moment where she's ever questioned herself (whereas even someone as cavalier as Reimu has done so at least twice. That above IN Extra dialogue, and when she wonders if she's the bad guy in Silent Sinner)
Regarding the spell card rules: I did post a more detailed synopsis, but I guess the most basic nutshell of it is it was written by a youkai (Akyu states it was written on youkai paper), it was written by a female (Akyu states the rules were chosen to appeal to women), it was written by someone who could be seen as an authority in Gensokyo or at least thinks they're an authority in Gensokyo (nothing states that, but who else would write such a thing?), and it was probably written by someone with knowledge of vampire contracts (Akyu says it was a youkai contract. She didn't specifically state it was a vampire contract, though, so we can't 100% say, but "youkai contract" and the nature of the rules does heavily imply it, I think)
Logic would also state that it was written by someone who was willing to fight under handicapped rules (since spell card rules allow anyone to win regardless of true powwer. The rules specifically state you must yield once all your spell cards are beaten/finished, even if you could have continued on). Oh, and we know they were written by someone who loves beauty and thought.
Yukari pretty much fits all these traits completely. I don't need to explain why for most of them, although there might be a few that I do.
For the self-handicap part, Perfect Memento states in Yukari's section that she will make allowances for those weaker than her when she fights.
For the beauty part, Yukari states in SSiB that her revenge will be beautiful, and she states to Tenshi, "You shall leave the earth beautifully yet cruelly". Yukari is also known for wearing extravagant clothes. Perfect Memento specifically points out Yukari's extravagant clothes.
For the thought part, Yukari often does things the hard way specifically so she can see thoughts. For example, in Flower Blooming Vagrant, she could have just asked Yuyuko about it (or so she thought. Turns out Yuyuko forgot, too, but Yukari didn't know that) but instead went to ask the humans specifically because she wanted to see how their thoughts turned out. In CiLR, she plays thought exercises with Ran. And, of course, if Yukari really is Maribel, then we have Maribel in Changeability of Strange Dream saying that she thinks subjective thought is the most powerful force of all, which is why she had to run for her life in her dream even though it was just a dream.
Really, out of the characters we know about, Yukari's the only decent candidate for the most part. Although I do have to admit that Yuka's Perfect Memento conflict section seems almost purposefully written by ZUN to indicate she had a hand in writing the spell card rules, too (It talks about how Yuka establishes rules for duels and her duels are beautiful). It's possible that ZUN was (ab)using Yuka's section to explain how Yukari would come up with a concept too (since Yuka's section indicates that duels with rules are a trait of long-lived youkai in general, not just Yuka), or maybe Yuka co-wrote the rules with Yukari. Of course, I could be completely off the mark and maybe Yuka wrote up the rules entirely by herself, but I'm not sure why she'd do that.
In PoFV, several dialogues imply that Yuka is basically Youkai Reimu (some characters directly state they look alike, and Shiki accuses Yuka of attacking too many things besides just humans, while she accuses Reimu of attacking too many other things besides just youkai). Given that "the shrine maiden" (presumably Reimu... I hope) is the one who got to approve the final draft of the spell card rules, ZUN might have been making some other sort of Yuka to Reimu reference here, too. I suppose if I thought about it some more, maybe I could figure out exactly what, but it seems a bit complicated for the amount of time and energy I have on hand right now.
(side note: If I'm wrong and Yukari does have a God Complex, and is conspiring something evil at the end of SWR (well, she's definitely conpsiring SOMETHING), then it definitely has something to do with her comment to Reisen during her scenario: "I won't let you invesitage my shrine." -- makes you wonder just what she means when she calls the Hakurei Shrine 'her' shrine, doesn't it?)
Well, regardless of whether it can be classified as a god complex or not, I don't think Yukari would be planning something EVIL per say. At least, not without her own rationalization for why it has to be done. Yukari really is a "the ends justify the means" type of person. She's fully ready to admit she does "bad" things (Sakuya's dialogue with her in IaMP when you play as Sakuya, for example), but so far every single case we've seen of her actions have been for (what she believes to be) Gensokyo's greater need (or probably for it).
If Yukari is plotting something with the shrine (and she almost certainly is. You can't really get more obvious than that dialogue with Reissen), then even if it's something as crazy as ascending to godhood, I'm sure Yukari has her own justification for it. The more interesting question, then, would be if her justification is actually "right".
-Originally, with MoF I thought ZUN was setting up a conflict of sorts between Kanako/Sanae and Yukari/Reimu (modernization of Gensokyo vs the old ways). SA seemed to confirm my beliefs, but now that Th12.3 is out I'm not so sure anymore. Yukari seems to be reasonably happy and at ease, judging from the various victory quotes that have been translated. If she was truly concerned about the mountain gods recent behavior, I don't think she would be behaving as though Gensokyo has just entered a new era of peace. However, Reimu, with her sense of intuition, notes: "Don't you think it's peaceful lately? Feels like the calm before the storm." Hmm.
Maybe. Again, it's all interpretations and speculations. These are the 12.3 win quotes that led me to believe what I do, tho.
Reimu to Yukari: Don't you think it's peaceful lately? Feels like the calm before the storm. (as you've pointed out)
Yukari to Suika: Oni are quite impressive, and quite popular.
Have you perhaps gathered more faith than the clumsy gods?
Yukari to Suwako: There are many selfish ones among the gods.
I wonder if they don't notice because they are the receivers of faith.
(the above two quotes are to show Yukari's dislike of the newcomers from MoF. However, Yukari is VERY nice to Sanae in her win quote to Sanae, though, asking her "How is it? Getting used to this place?". But that's not surprising. Sanae is a good girl. Er... I mean, Sanae is fully ready to be the human that Yukari wants humans to be, since she goes about exterminating youkai like a human should. That and if Yukari is Maribel, I'm sure Yukari sees a bit of nostalgia in this girl from the outside world enjoying her life in wonderful Gensokyo.)
Yukari to Utsuho: Solar power is already not kind to the youkai.
However, your power goes too far, to the extent of evil.
Suwako to Sanae: Train more and more!
Until you're so strong that those below the mountain are afraid of you!
(if a fight does break out, interestingly enough, Suwako's shrine has natural defenses against Yukari. Suwako's win quote to Yukari is "Oh my, our shrine really doesn't have any cracks you can slip through.", and SSiB does indeed confirm that her shrine is filled with that special Lunarian string which could bind even Yukari)
(again, I should note that Suwako herself, just like Yukari, appears to be doing everything for her own justifications of what's right for Gensokyo. ZUN's world is one where characters aren't 100% evil, but instead are more shades of grey leaning towards the good side. Not including the "Obviously good" characters, of course, who are... well, "obviously good".)
There's also this quote from Kanako's profile in MoF:
"However, the knowledge Kanako held of Gensokyo was limited.
She didn't know that among the youkai of Gensokyo, there existed a number of powers. Nevertheless, she collected the faith of the mountain youkai, and attained great divine virtue. She did not realize that this meant that the power of the mountain youkai, in other words the tengu and the kappa, were becoming too great.
With that, there was the fear that the power balance of tranquil Gensokyo would collapse.
Kanako thought that to keep Gensokyo's balance, she must now acquire the faith of the youkai and humans beneath the mountain.
To achieve that, she must utilize the Hakurei Shrine else things won't proceed smoothly. Much remained before she would be able to regain the same amount of faith she'd had in the outside world."
(I interpret "the fear that the power balance of tranquil Gensokyo would collapse" means "the fear that peace will end")
And this quote from Hatate in Double Spoiler about Kanako:
"Looks like she's the new god of the mountain, huh? She's so obviously trying
to use the tengu's power. 'Course, the Great Tengu trying to use the power of faith is
kind of obvious and pathetic, as well. Everyone should have a more playful spirit!"
(tangent speculation: I wonder just how ambitious Tenma is. Is he collecting power just so he'll never have to be conquered by the oni again? Or is he trying to become so powerful that all of Gensokyo will kneel before him, just like he was forced to do to the oni long ago? Or something else?)
One particularly interesting thing about the power struggle is that while the higher-up authority characters (Yukari, Suwako, Kanako, Tenma, probably Tewi... yes, Tewi) seem to be VERY serious about it, most of the other characters really just want to have fun or peace.
For example, from the Tengu side, you have Sawako and Kanako with their schemes, as well as Tenma who's also using them to gather power on the one hand. But on the other, Hatate says Tenma should lighten up and have fun, Aya just wants to write news and is actually very good friends with Suika (her Bohemian Archive article and their win quotes to each other, and Aya does things like try to hide Suika from the other Tengu in MoF. Suika reveals in a win quote that she has yet to drop on by and say hi to the rest of the moutain tengu...), and Sanae seems outright opposed to any suspicious thing Suwako might be doing. It's hard to imagine any of those three agreeing to a war that's too serious... or would be in Aya's case, except Aya specifically states in MoF that she's obligated to follow orders even if she doesn't like them. I suspect that if things ever get too serious, we'll end up with poor Aya (and Hatate, or...?) having to fight for Tenma despite not wanting to.
I'd be kinda surprised if Touhou got THAT dark though, because it's... well, Touhou. Then again...
-Leaving aside whatever similarities may or may not exist between Yukari/Ran and Suwako/Kanako, the parallels between Yukari/Reimu and Toyohime/Yorihime I thought were extremely obvious. Yukari and Toyohime both manipulate boundaries (I'm impressed someone else noticed Toyohime has this ability!) and Yorihime and Reimu who are less powerful both have the power to summon gods. Basically Toyohime and Yorihime are the Lunar Yukari/Reimu. And Toyohime and Yukari can't be the same person, most of all if Maribel and Yukari are the same person, because Toyohime obtained her power over boundaries after talking with Eirin. Read this passage from CLiR Chapter 3:
Yea, we did mention the parallels between Yukari and Toyohime earlier in this thread. They are certainly many. In the end, unfortunately, I didn't have the time to look into Toyohime to really figure out if ZUN was just being symbollic, or if there was something more, and I wasn't even sure if all the necessary information existed yet (since CiLR has yet to be fully translated. Chapter 6 did come out recently and is quite interesting. I'll have to look into it deeper if I ever find the time, but my time is short these days :| Thanks again to the translators, though!)
I didn't spot that part that explains (...kinda) how she got her border powers, though. That's interesting. Sadly a bit vague though. IE, was it the revelation from Eirin's teachings that allowed her to develop it? Did she still have to have it in her bloodline before the revelation could fully unseal her powers? (and if the latter, then she could very well have been blood related to Maribel's clan or... whatever epileptic tree you can come up with)
I wonder if the remaining CiLR chapters will shed more light on that.
Thanks though for pointing out the confirmation that spiriting away can make one travel through time, too. Wow, I didn't spot that either. That's... yea, that's some nice further credence, there :O
Yeah, I'd say that one of these explanations is more likely. The idea I got from SSiB was that Yukari was invading the moon for the same reason she did the first time, which was to pilfer the lunar sage's treasure. This is implied a couple of times in the story towards the end, and Yuyuko seems like she might be alluding to it as early as Chapter 4 (certainly, Yuyuko knew all about the first lunar invasion and did not need any prompting from Yukari to know why Yukari was going there a second time, this should say it all really).
Perhaps. As I've stated, Yukari's reason for invading the moon in order to restrain the youkai was just what I personally believed. The main issue of contention that Shadow Bringer brought up was that Yukari's reason caused a contradiction with the mystery youkai's reason. However, now that shadowbringer has brought up other alternative reasons that Yukari might have invaded the moon, there is no longer a contradiction. So... yay!
Still, my own interpretation of Yuyuko knowing Yukari's plans is that Yuyuko simply realized that Yukari works by lying to others, and thus had to keep the lie going. That's how Yukari's first moon invasion worked, after all (we don't know the reason why Yukari invaded the moon, but it's pretty safe to say that the reason she gave the youkai was a lie, considering that in SSiB she's lying AGAIN about it being about an infinite energy source)
Also, there are at least two other very important things you need to consider when coming up with Yukari's motive:
1) Assuming Yukari's story to Ran was not made up and that the mystery youkai in it is Yukari, Yukari already knew before the first invasion of the moon that they had no chance to win. Yukari specifically states the mystery youkai (Yukari) realized at the end of the story that the residents of earth could never defeat the moon. Given that this is generally indicated to be Yukari's first trip to the moon, it thus shows that Yukari KNEW they had no chance when she invaded the moon 1,000 years ago. Therefore, whatever her motive for invading the moon is, it obviously took into consideration the idea that the youkai were guaranteed to lose.
2) Why is there a 1,000 year gap in between Yukari's first invasion and this second one? Asking this question is important because it can be used to debunk several speculations. The idea that Yukari tried the first time in order to get a residence tax for Kaguya/Eirin, for example. If she really did invade the moon 1,000 years ago to get a tax for them, why did she wait so long to try to get it again? Personally, I believe that Yukari only decided to invade the moon today for the tax because Eirin and Kaguya have stopped hiding and now are actual residents of Gensokyo (as opposed to hidden people in frozen eternity that no one ever interacts with). Thus, I personally believe her trip to the moon 1,000 years ago must have been for a DIFFERENT reason than that.
-Rather than Suwako being a human turned goddess, it's more likely that she is a youkai turned goddess, or rather that the native gods were basically youkai. Read through the win quotes in Th12.3 and you will see that this is one of the major things ZUN is alluding to
Marisa states that Suwako is a youkai in Grimoire of Marisa, too. We can pretty much confirm that "native gods" (the term used by Marisa and elsewhere for Suwako) are youkai for the most part.
Of course, the subject came up when asking about if Suwako was ever human and how Sanae descended from her. What I'm interested in, then is if youkai have the ability to breed. I imagine Magicians probably do (since they're so similar to humans), but have no idea about the others. ...actually, I don't even know exactly what type of youkai Suwako would be (of course, she could have possibly just been born as the type of youkai known as a "god")
We know that vampires "reproduce" by converting humans into vampires. Or at least, that's implied in Remilia's Perfect Memento section (with Remilia being unable to produce more vampires because she's a light eater)
Rinnosuke is a half-youkai, but I'm not sure if it's stated anywhere that that's due to his breeding. We do know that it's possible for a human to be converted into a half-youkai (Akyu brings it up in Remilia's section), so it's possible that's what happened to Rinnosuke. However, for some reason, I was under the impression he was born as a half-youkai. Not sure why I'm under that impression though (IE, maybe it really was stated somewhere that he was, but I just forgot where)
Interestingly enough, if Suwako really was originally human, but then became a youkai, but then became a god, that would make the Yukari Suwako parallels even more obvious...
-Tiamat's explanation for why Keine's history-devouring powers do not work on Yukari is interesting, and may very well be true, but I had considered another possibility. First of all, Keine's powers are not as immense as they seem to be at first (we're talking about regular Keine here, not ex-Keine). She does not have the ability to alter the past. Rather, all she can do is change the history of a given thing. History is not the same thing as Reality, history is just human's perception of the past which may or may not be correct, and can never be true in an absolute sense. ZUN (through Rinnosuke) talks about his views on history in one of the CoLA chapters. Therefore, Keine's power is just an illusion. Yukari is able to see through this illusion. Now whether this is because Yukari knows Gensokyo's true history or if it's just because she's a high ranking youkai I don't know. It may be that other long-lived or powerful youkai can see through her illusion as well.
Perfect Memento states that History is Reality. That's where I got my explanation from. However, Akyu isn't a 100% reliable source, but then again, neither is Rinnosuke. That's ZUN for ya. Argh...
