Comments on post #3731065

@Ashenhawk on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-05-11T16:57:39-04:00

Consider it this way, the one that "creates/erases" history (Keine) just wrote down "And so, there was never another case of smallpox in Gensokyo again". With Yukari silently in the background, it was probably made reality for all we know.

@Nepped_cadia on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-02-24T20:33:51-05:00

Valentine322 said:

From BAiJR? What Suika broke then was the reflection of the moon - a false moon - and then putting them back together; the true moon itself remains untouched. It's no different than breaking a mirror and reassembling them without any cracks.
It also happened silently in the middle of the night and in a short period of time, Aya noticing that was nothing short of miracle.

Considering Aya's not only a journalist bu also a Tengu, which were former Oni subordinates, not that much of a miracle

@Valentine322 on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-14T07:23:11-05:00

Steak said:

Yukari lead a youkai invasion of the moon just to teach the youkai what a bad idea that is. Inversely, when Suika revealed herself in Gensokyo, she put on a display of wiping the moon out of existence...that no one apparently noticed.

From BAiJR? What Suika broke then was the reflection of the moon - a false moon - and then putting them back together; the true moon itself remains untouched. It's no different than breaking a mirror and reassembling them without any cracks.
It also happened silently in the middle of the night and in a short period of time, Aya noticing that was nothing short of miracle.

@Steak on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-14T04:13:52-05:00

Yukari lead a youkai invasion of the moon just to teach the youkai what a bad idea that is. Inversely, when Suika revealed herself in Gensokyo, she put on a display of wiping the moon out of existence...that no one apparently noticed.

@Levander on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-14T03:29:13-05:00

Worth noting that Yukari's whole spiel is an extended computer metaphor. Now that the smallpox god has been analyzed and exterminated, she has been registered in Gensokyo's bug and/or malware database, allowing it to counter similar problems in the future. You could say that this was a vaccination for Gensokyo as a whole... a kind of hardcore, high-risk vaccination, but still. (I don't recommend vaccinating your computer by downloading viruses, but unlike us, Yukari doesn't have the benefit of some faraway company doing the analysis for her.) Something like Remilia or Yuyuko's incidents were also theoretically population-threatening - take away an agrarian society's sunlight and see what happens - and Yukari was even directly involved in causing the latter, but both there and here it can perhaps be assumed she would've ensured it didn't get to that point.

I mean, it is kinda vague and confusing, but I'm inclined to try and make sense of stuff like that, ha. But if Yukari's confident that smallpox girl won't cause any more trouble or can simply be stopped again (just find her and bonk her on the head), putting some fear of god into the villagers is entirely in her interests. If they can be taught that diseases are god-sent plagues that Eirin's fancy-schmancy science can keep at bay but only the Hakurei shrine maiden can stop, that just helps cement Gensokyo's power balance further.

Big thing about Gensokyo is that it exists to house people like smallpox girl, so Yukari's first choice is to integrate rather than eliminate them whenever possible.

@Valentine322 on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-14T01:44:25-05:00

Archas said:

That makes sense as far as official canon goes. It's not really satisfactory for this fanwork, though, because as far as I'm concerned, a smallpox epidemic caused essentially for no reason goes beyond a mere incident and transgresses into murder spree territory. I guess the artist didn't really think about it, or meant for the story to be generally lighthearted. Oh well.

Thanks for the explanation. :)

Look at it from another perspective: causing the epidemic is the reason. The culprit is a smallpox god, bringing about the disease is her raison d'etre. There was no malicious intent because that's what she is and that's what she does. No different than the Yorigami that siphons a person's wealth or Satori who reads a person's mind. Except for the fact that it could kill, but what can you do.

Could it have happened again? Sure. But Yukari speaks of rejecting what has been stored in Gensokyo's "memories", so she certainly has something up her sleeves and in her gaps. The last panel in this page supports this, I'd say, by showing the disease "leaving" the Human Village.
Besides, as far as preventative measures go, the shrine maiden's beatdown has been quite effective for the last 17 games or so. You don't see Yuyuko trying to steal spring again, right.

@Archas on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-13T23:41:08-05:00

Tetsamaru said:

Reimu never kills any of the youkai that cause "Incidents". Incidents are a way for the Youkai to cause trouble without seriously harming humans. There is a delicate balance between Humans and Youkai that must be maintained. That's what Reimu truely defends.

Reimu HAS killed before, but not in the games, in the manga and novels is where she has killed. She kills Humans that turn into Youkai, or Youkai that "dont cause incidents".

There is a huge difference in someone like Suika "making everyone party all the time" and some Youkai that wants to go on a Murder spree.

And if a human decides they want to turn to Youkai for whatever reason, thats a definite nono, Reimu will go killing mode for that.

That makes sense as far as official canon goes. It's not really satisfactory for this fanwork, though, because as far as I'm concerned, a smallpox epidemic caused essentially for no reason goes beyond a mere incident and transgresses into murder spree territory. I guess the artist didn't really think about it, or meant for the story to be generally lighthearted. Oh well.

Thanks for the explanation. :)

@Tetsamaru on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-13T01:50:36-05:00

Archas said:

Something I never understood about the Touhou games is what exactly it means to "exterminate" youkai the way Reimu does. I suppose, as with all fanworks, it's up to interpretation what she does and how she does it, but in this particular novel it's clear that she doesn't simply kill her targets. How, then, is extermination done, and to what extent is it an effective punishment or deterrent against future misdeeds?

The smallpox goddess appeared to have malicious intent, with a power that posed a clear and present danger to the continued existence of the nexus of human society in Gensokyo; the epidemic could have devastated its population or even wiped it out entirely (as real-life examples of the disease would indicate). But Reimu's extermination attempt involves beating her up a bit and then dragging her to Yukari as a trophy.

Why? In a world as ostensibly dangerous as Gensokyo, what assurance would Reimu, or anyone else, have to ensure that the smallpox goddess would behave in the future? Many of the villagers are now inoculated against the disease (assuming Eirin's vaccine is equally or more potent than the real-life variant), but many are not, and a glorified scolding from the shrine maiden would not effectively deter someone with the goal of spreading it again. The only decisive measure is to prevent the culprit from acting again, and the easiest way to do that is to kill them. Yet Reimu clearly does not.

So then, what does it mean for Reimu to exterminate something or someone? It's unclear to me, both in this fanwork and in the games themselves, how it works.

Reimu never kills any of the youkai that cause "Incidents". Incidents are a way for the Youkai to cause trouble without seriously harming humans. There is a delicate balance between Humans and Youkai that must be maintained. That's what Reimu truely defends.

Reimu HAS killed before, but not in the games, in the manga and novels is where she has killed. She kills Humans that turn into Youkai, or Youkai that "dont cause incidents".

There is a huge difference in someone like Suika "making everyone party all the time" and some Youkai that wants to go on a Murder spree.

And if a human decides they want to turn to Youkai for whatever reason, thats a definite nono, Reimu will go killing mode for that.

@Archas on post #3731065 (yakumo yukari and kamishirasawa keine (touhou) drawn by ichiba_youichi)

2020-01-13T01:25:51-05:00

Something I never understood about the Touhou games is what exactly it means to "exterminate" youkai the way Reimu does. I suppose, as with all fanworks, it's up to interpretation what she does and how she does it, but in this particular novel it's clear that she doesn't simply kill her targets. How, then, is extermination done, and to what extent is it an effective punishment or deterrent against future misdeeds?

The smallpox goddess appeared to have malicious intent, with a power that posed a clear and present danger to the continued existence of the nexus of human society in Gensokyo; the epidemic could have devastated its population or even wiped it out entirely (as real-life examples of the disease would indicate). But Reimu's extermination attempt involves beating her up a bit and then dragging her to Yukari as a trophy.

Why? In a world as ostensibly dangerous as Gensokyo, what assurance would Reimu, or anyone else, have to ensure that the smallpox goddess would behave in the future? Many of the villagers are now inoculated against the disease (assuming Eirin's vaccine is equally or more potent than the real-life variant), but many are not, and a glorified scolding from the shrine maiden would not effectively deter someone with the goal of spreading it again. The only decisive measure is to prevent the culprit from acting again, and the easiest way to do that is to kill them. Yet Reimu clearly does not.

So then, what does it mean for Reimu to exterminate something or someone? It's unclear to me, both in this fanwork and in the games themselves, how it works.