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Patchouli Knowledge

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"Patchouli" redirects here. For the Suguri-inspired fangame, see Patchouli (Game).
パチュリー・ノーレッジ
Patchouli Knowledge
(♫)
Patchouli Knowledge
Patchouli Knowledge in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody
The Unmoving Great Library
More Character Titles
Nickname Pache (パチェ)
Species Magician (Witch)
Abilities Manipulation of fire, water, wood, metal, earth, sun, and moon
Age About 100 years
Occupation Intellectual, librarian, teacher, and scholar.
Location Scarlet Devil Mansion
Music Themes
Show Music Themes
Appearances
Official Games
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Print Works
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Patchouli Knowledge (パチュリー・ノーレッジ Pachuri Norejji) is a witch and resident of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She's friends with the mistress of the house, Remilia Scarlet, and acts as resident librarian. She's known as a highly capable, experienced, and studious magician, usually found researching the countless tomes within the house library. But her great abilities are offset by her poor health, caused by long-time reclusivity and asthma. Although featured as a boss in just one game, she is a playable character in three others, and is seen or referenced in many story points throughout the series.

Contents

General Information

Personality

She doesn't have a very proactive personality, but rather always walks her own path. However, she is always interested where knowledge is concerned and will proactively go and try to acquire it. She does everything by the book, but still makes a lot of mistakes. She is also described as very dark and taciturn. Dark does not mean "evil", it just means she likes to keep to herself and does not interact well with others. Taciturn means she is silent in expression and manner.

Abilities

Ability: Manipulation of fire, water, wood, metal, earth, sun, and moon

Patchouli is able to handle the five phases (commonly called Wu Xing, sometimes known as the five elements) with the addition of the sun and moon elements. The order of elements she uses follows the days of the week on a Japanese calendar. Due to this, she is known as the "one-week girl".[1]

Element Weekday Description
Fire (火) Tuesday (火曜日) Change and movement. Fire assists earth and inhibits metal. Fire's ashes pile up to create earth, but it melts metal.
Water (水) Wednesday (水曜日) Silence and purification. Water assists wood and inhibits fire. Water nourishes wood, but it quenches fire.
Wood (木) Thursday (木曜日) Life and awakening. Wood assists fire and inhibits earth. Wood feeds fire, but it absorbs away water and nutrients from the earth.
Metal (金) Friday (金曜日) Wealth and abundance. Metal assists water and inhibits wood. Metal gives forth water (by condensation), but it tears up the roots of trees.
Earth (土) Saturday (土曜日) Foundation and immobility. Earth assists metal and inhibits water. Earth contains metal, but it absorbs water.
Sun (日) Sunday (日曜日) Activity and offense.
Moon (月) Monday (月曜日) Passivity and defense.

In the Japanese language, the weekdays were named after the classical planets, which in turn were named after the Wu Xing phases (e.g. Mercury, water star), plus the Sun and Moon as heavenly bodies. As the ordering is based off of the planetary hours, there is no direct relationship between the weekdays and Wu Xing.

Elemental magic (属性魔法) (also spiritual magic (精霊魔法)) borrows the powers of spirits that exist in nature.[2] Through this, she is able to receive great output from a small input. Since the Wu Xing elements interact with each other, she can combine them and multiply their power, but this runs the risk of weakening the overall effect unless the elements are precisely controlled. When she confronts enemies that likewise use spiritual magic, then the interactions of Wu Xing would imply that she can somehow effectively use her own magic and somehow inhibit the opponent's magic.

Since the Wu Xing elements could be said to exist in living things, she touched upon them for characters who showed up in Immaterial and Missing Power. For example, Marisa Kirisame is associated with the element "water" according to Patchouli.[3] Given Marisa's last name (Kirisame, meaning "drizzle"), her black clothing, her lack of yang (due to living in the Forest of Magic), and her "Cold Inferno" shot in Mountain of Faith, this makes sense.

She uses spell cards that combine multiple elements. In addition to using combinations with good compatibility such as Earth & Metal Sign "Emerald Megalith", she also uses combinations with poor compatibility such as Water & Fire Sign "Phlogistic Rain". Sun and moon are not within Wu Xing, but they are classically opposite to each other, and these two have been combined with each other in Sun & Moon Sign "Royal Diamond Ring". In Shoot the Bullet, she devised new experimental magic that combined elements with poor compatibility. With a large diversity of element combinations, she can do many things, such as increasing her power or covering her weaknesses.[4] As of now, among the Wu Xing, the only combination that has not appeared is wood & earth.

While she is capable of using advanced magic with great power, her poor health, asthma, and anemia limits her ability to use it. During the Scarlet Mist Incident, she described herself as being "so anemic (she couldn't) finish reciting the spells" and her condition limited her to using two-element spells. On another day, her asthma wasn't as bad and she felt better, so she was able to cast three advanced spells in a row: a sun, a moon, and a five-element spell.[5]

Fitting her magic to the same attributes as the days of the week is her secret hobby, but nobody has realized this.[6] Thanks to this, she does not mistake the day of the week, but oddly enough she does not have a good sense of the date.

Other than spell cards, she is able to use a revolving laser that focuses on herself as her regular danmaku.

Patchouli using the "five elements" makes her an "Eastern style Western magician", an antithesis existence to Marisa Kirisame : "Western style Eastern magician".

Character Basis

Name

Her first name, "Patchouli", is a name of a plant of the Lamiaceae family, or the essential oil or perfume that could be made from it (originally from Tamil language). Her last name, "Knowledge", appears to be a reference to her amount of knowledge, though few other characters seem to have such literal surnames.

In order to sound more natural as a name, the katakana used do not exactly match that used for "patchouli" nor "knowledge", being spelled パチーレッジ ("Pa-chu-ri-i No-ledge") rather than パチリ・ーレッジ ("Pa-cho-ri Naw-ledge").

Her nickname is パチェ or "Pache" (pronounced "pa-chae"), the official nickname that Remilia Scarlet uses for her.

Design

  • Her hair and eyes are purple, and has many ribbons tied to her hair and other body parts. She wears pajama-like clothing and a night-cap which are, according to ZUN, her daily wear.
  • (Touhou 7.5 and 10.5, alternate outfit) Her outfit is mostly lavender while her hair is a darker shade of violet.
  • Apparently, her dress looks like it has stripes of purple and violet. But according to ZUN, it is in fact not a stripe. This was confirmed in a talk of him and Twilight Frontier. In this talk it says that even though they had acknowledged it by a material handed by ZUN, she ended up having a striped pattern in Immaterial and Missing Power for some reason. A conversation quoted from the talk: ZUN "Patchouli doesn't have any stripes." TF staff "Everybody thinks Patchouli has stripes except ZUN-san."[7]

Story

Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil

In Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Patchouli attempted to stop the player from going further into the Scarlet Devil Mansion. In the extra stage, she tried again, and used much more powerful magic, partly because she "felt better that day".

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Immaterial and Missing Power

In Immaterial and Missing Power, Patchouli went outside of the Scarlet Devil Mansion to investigate the recent strange events. In other characters' scenarios she's visited by several of them thinking that she, of all people, must've known what the strange mist was. Getting a straight answer from her was anything but easy.

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Patchouli decided to find what cause of the weather disaster was.

Subterranean Animism

In Subterranean Animism, Patchouli noticed abnormalities underground, and had Marisa go investigate with the help of Yukari preparing Marisa's options.

Touhou Hisoutensoku

Relationships

Remilia Scarlet

Patchouli Knowledge is Remilia's old friend[8]. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, they called each other "Remi" (レミィ) and "Pache" (パチェ). The two have been depicted having tea and casual conversation together in Silent Sinner in Blue and Oriental Sacred Place, where Patchouli offhandedly commented that they're both creatures of the night. As stated in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Patchouli's role at the mansion is to solve problems and to cause them. Patchouli will often volunteer her services when she sees Remilia in need of them.[9][10]

Patchouli is unlikely to be formally employed by Remilia. Sakuya Izayoi referred to Patchouli as "The Mistress’s magician friend" while talking to Rinnosuke about her[11], as opposed to any sort of employee title.

Flandre Scarlet

Not much is known about the relationship between Patchouli and Flandre. All that is certain is that Patchouli is aware of Flandre's existence and the need to keep her confined to the mansion, as Remilia noted Patchouli was probably causing a rainstorm around the mansion to keep Flandre from getting out.

Sakuya Izayoi

The head maid of Scarlet Devil Mansion is occasionally seen serving Patchouli. Patchouli tends to be rather snarky and condescending with her, but seems to appreciate her, as she always remembers to thank Sakuya for tea or for completion of other jobs.

Hong Meiling

Hong Meiling is a fellow resident of Scarlet Devil Mansion who acts as the gate guard. Patchouli tends to be rather snarky and condescending with her as well.

Koakuma

Koakuma is an employee of Scarlet Devil Mansion seen working in the library.

Marisa Kirisame

Marisa is a thief who steals books from the library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She states that she is only borrowing but Patchouli reacts by telling Marisa in Oriental Sacred Place that she has no intention to lend Marisa books in a rather serious tone.[12]

Marisa copied Patchouli's regular danmaku attack and named it Love Sign "Non-directional Laser".

Spell Cards

Additional Information

Patchouli's different color palettes from Touhou Hisoutensoku. The 2nd one corresponds to her second color palette in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, while the 3rd one corresponds to her Immaterial and Missing Power palette.
  • Patchouli often refers to the science and technology of the outside world as magic. This is actually not ignorance, but more due to her personal beliefs, as she tells Marisa Kirisame in her Touhou Hisoutensoku victory quote that science and magic are the same.
  • In Immaterial and Missing Power, Patchouli refers to intruders/thieves (e.g., Marisa Kirisame) as "rats" and guards (e.g., Sakuya Izayoi and Hong Meiling) as "cats". She rates the catness/effectiveness of a guard on a scale of 1 to 96, because that's the highest number under 100 that is divisible by both 2 and 3. After defeating Sakuya in Immaterial and Missing Power, she gave her a rating of 24. As for Hong Meiling, Patchouli compares that cat to a sieve in her Immaterial and Missing Power victory quote.
  • Patchouli's Non-Directional Laser was ripped off and later used by Marisa as her normal B-type bomb in Perfect Cherry Blossom, and as a spell card in Imperishable Night and other games.
  • The crescent on Patchouli's hat could be the crescent in the Sanskrit "Hum", part of the Mantra "Om mani padme hum". In Buddhism, it stands for knowledge and purity and is associated with the color white—all the 7 colors combined.
  • She has waterproof books that Marisa finds interest in reading in the bath.
  • As of Double Spoiler, Patchouli has had appearances in 9 of the 13 Windows games (counting Touhou Hisoutensoku as a standalone). This makes her the third most featured character, behind Reimu Hakurei and Marisa.
    • Due to most of these appearances being in endings, a typical fan isn't aware of this normally.
  • In Touhou Hisoutensoku, one of Patchouli's alternate colors resembles Hina Kagiyama's outfit.
  • The books in Patchouli's spell card, Fire Water Wood Metal Earth Sign "Philosopher's Stone", are arranged in a similar way to the Five Magic Stones.
  • It is suggested in Immaterial and Missing Power that Patchouli drinks coffee occasionally when she is studying, unlike the other resident of Scarlet Devil Mansion who almost always drink tea.

Fandom

  • After being defeated in Marisa's scenario in IaMP, she utters "mukyu~". Since then, fan works have often depicted her using this sound as a sign of surprise or pouting.
  • Along with "One-week Girl", she's also referred to as the "One-week Wizard" or the "Wizard of the Week" due to her elemental magics coinciding with the days of the week on a Japanese calendar.
  • Multiple nicknames are used for Patchouli. Her canon nickname パチェ ("Pache") is commonly used in fandom. Non-canon nicknames used include パチュ or "Pachu", a less common name shortened from パチュリー ("Pachurii~"), and "Patchy", used mainly by Western fans.
  • Patchouli has been rumored to be the inspiration for the character Yue Ayase from the manga Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Like Patchouli, Yue is a short, quiet girl with long purple hair, an unexcitable personality, an affinity for books and magic. She is also known to dress in a witch outfit similar to Marisa's.
  • In other fan comics, Patchouli is considered a hikikomori due to her apparent habit of spending all her time in one room (the library) and rarely ever stepping outside. She would only have to keep this up for 6 months to meet the time span given in the definition, and she's been living like that for the past 100 years.
  • She is infamous for having a "Variable figure" as she could very well have any kind of figure under her robes, from stick-thin to outright fat. Barring any remark from ZUN, it's unlikely that fans will make up their minds on this matter. Her lifestyle and health are often factors in the possible figures.
  • June 9th is considered her day due to how the kanji for the date combines to make "mukyuu".
  • The book held by the Patchouli figurine Kourindou ver. by Griffon Enterprises features a heptagram with corresponding days of the week and their elements, as well as the introductory text of this very article.[13][14]

Official Profiles

Official Sources

References

  1. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil omake.txt
  2. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense/Patchouli Knowledge: "Elemental magic borrows on the power of fairies and spirits to result in an output greatly exceeding the small input."
  3. Immaterial and Missing Power/Story/Patchouli's Script
  4. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense/Patchouli Knowledge: "Moreover, her variations are extraordinarily abundant. She can combine fire and wood to increase her power, or combine fire and earth to cover her weaknesses, and much more."
  5. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: "I'm so anemic I can't finish reciting the spells...", "Today, my asthma isn't so bad and I'm feeling pretty good. I'll show you my best magic!"
  6. Immaterial and Missing Power Shanghai Alice Correspondence
  7. パチュリー・ノーレッジ 【ピクシブ百科事典】 her article on pixiv Encyclopedia.
  8. Relationship flowcharts in Silent Sinner in Blue say Patchouli is an "old friend" of Remilia's
  9. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Extra Story: Patchouli caused a localised rainstorm to keep Flandre confined to the mansion.
  10. Imperishable Night Ending 3: Patchouli helps Remilia in planning a trip to the moon.
  11. Curiosities of Lotus Asia Chapter 18. "The Mistress’s magician friend said ‘I have enough of the ingredients,"
  12. Oriental Sacred Place Chapter 15
  13. Picture of Patchouli's book
  14. Patchouli Knowledge 6 January 2012: "Patchouli Knowledge is a very smart, asthmatic magician from the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Although she has only been a boss in one game, and playable character in three others, she is still a very popular character, showing up in many endings and is referenced quite often..."