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Contemplations/Scarlet Devil Mansion

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Scarlet Devil Mansion

The Scarlet Devil Mansion is a place of great mystery, and is a breeding ground of many theories brought up by the fans. Any conjectures you may have that also have at least have a foundation in Canon may be posted here, otherwise, use the talk page

Endless Fairy Maids

Given the assumption that SDM was in Gensokyo from slightly before the Sealing, we can assume that any ordinary human Maids the SDM previously employed either died of old age or left before the SDM came here. Again assume that Sakuya was with them at this early time. Could it be that the Scarlet vampires wanted to recreate the atmosphere of having an array of Maid servants, thus didn't care what ability the fairies were when they 'recruited' them to be the next generation of Scarlet Maids?

  • Perfect Memento page would describe the fairy maids as "The fairy maids are mostly useless" and "Cleaning their own shirts and making their own food is about the best they can do." and in Bohemian Archive, the want ad states they receive no salary. The maids receive free food,uniforms, and do nothing but pick up after themselves and occasionally dying at the hands of an intruder then it makes one wonder just what are they good for. Just the food alone must be a huge expense for Remilia, who isn't exactly known for her generosity. Perhaps Remilia is really just paying to have company? Or it could be Akyuu was exaggerating in Perfect Memento.
  • Of course, the Scarlet Devil Mansion probably has trouble recruiting anyone else. Humans hate and fear the Scarlet Devil too much to work for her, and youkai see maid work as below them; it's rare enough for them to hold any job at all, as Meiling does. While Sakuya can (and does) do all the work herself, Remilia still wanted an army of servants, and thus decided to employ a lot of useless fairies merely for the sake of appearances.

Scarlet Devil Mansion's Migration to Gensokyo

Just when was the SDM moved to Gensokyo?

  • Aya's article implies it wasn't very recent, and further theorizes that it marked the end of Vampires & Maids in the outer world. When did Maids go out of fashion in France? At a guess, it could date back to when the French Revolution got rid of aristocracy (Napoleon's time) so SDM moved to Gensokyo before the
  • Assuming Sakuya was already working under Remilia when the SDM moved. The Great Library could then have been tailor sized when Patchouli came to live with them, expanding as she wrote more books. Also, Sakuya isn't the only Maid in Gensokyo (Mugetsu and Yumeko), yet they're all dressed like French Maids. I would assume that the SDM brought the French Maid fashion into Gensokyo and it became popular enough that even a Goddess (Shinki) would model her strongest creation as a Maid.
  • This would probably require Sakuya to be well over 100 years old, so gets into theories about her being 1. something other than human or 2. older than she claims as a result of time manipulation.
  • Maribel Hearn in Changeability of Strange Dream saw the mansion on her dream-visit to Gensokyo, and apparently somewhere in Perfect Memento it's mentioned that her visit was hundreds of years prior to the present day (due to some sort of time slippage.)

Origins of the Scarlets

Remilia Scarlet

Scarlet sisters, Remilia and Flandre, could be French in origin.

Some suggestions have been brought forward to support this:

  • They live in a European style house.
  • All of their fairies wear French maid uniforms.
  • In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense hints that Scarlet Devil Mansion was may have not originated located in Gensokyo- The quote, "Later, the Scarlet Devil Mansion relocated to within Gensokyo," suggests that it may be in the same way that the Prismriver mansion wasn't originally inside Gensokyo. The same page also says Sakuya is not originally from Gensokyo.

On a different page of Perfect Memento in Strict Sense also gives an ambiguous quote, "She was called the Scarlet Devil before coming to Gensokyo." referring of course, to Remilia.

  • The name of Remilia's theme song, "Septette for a Dead Princess", is based on a French song Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess)
  • Remilia has stated she's descended from Vlad Tepes, who was Romanian but could be a vampiric line of descent (i.e. one of Vlad's progeny bit her) rather then a physical one, though.
    • ZUN wrote that nobody could be sure whether she was lying or not with that statement. ZUN then directly refutes it himself (see Remilia's page). But the vampiric line of descent could still fit in with his statement.
  • Coincidentally, New Orleans (which has a heavy French influence) is also known as the "vampire capital of the world."

Patchouli Knowledge

  • Patchouli is the name of a plant or oil that is used in many fragrances in Europe, and also burnt to mask the smell of burnt hemp. France is well known for making many aromas. It is also known to be a aphrodisiac.
The Great Library of Patchouli

The theme song for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Stage 4 (set in this library) is "Voile, the magic library". Many doujin call the library itself "Voile".

Patchouli may have been given that name when she was born compared to Remilia giving her that name when they first met? She's about 100 years old and thus was born after the Sealing. It is unusual for a 'young' Youkai have an extremely non-Japanese name?

  • Perfect Memento stated "it's unknown when exactly she settled down in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but judging by the size of the library it must have been a considerable amount of time ago" and her second profile states she's "a witch who has settled down in the Scarlet Devil Mansion." So just because she's been alive around (or over) 100 years and has been reading that whole time, it doesn't mean she's been living at Scarlet Devil Mansion during that entire time? Maybe it's only 50 years or less that she's been there?
  • In her first profile it's said that "because of the asthma she was born with, she often cannot recite the spells." If Patchouli was "born" then does that mean she has (or had) a family, or that maybe she originated as a human before becoming a "magician?"

Flandre Scarlet

The term: "de Flandre" is a French term that means "of Flanders" which is a region part of Belgium. Some tiny associations have been made to French or Spanish.

Many people have wondered just why Flandre is kept locked in the basement.

Here are a few suggestions as to why...

  • It's been suggested that maybe she did something in the past or maybe Remilia is just afraid of her, since Flandre is much more powerful. Based on the article in Perfect Memento which says "They went on a rampage when they first appeared in Gensokyo, lost against powerful youkai, and a settlement was reached as they finally made a contract" and "The details of this contract are that the youkai will offer them humans from which to feed; in return, the vampires will not attack humans living in Gensokyo"
  • It could be possible that Flandre is assumed to be insane and is locked up as a way of insuring that she doesn't break the contract by going on a rampage.
  • Her destructive power may be what keeps her inside because she may destroy something or someone important.

Sakuya

Sakuya is probably one of the most enigmatic of all characters. As such, there are many

Sakuya:Just who is she?

  • In Perfect Memento it's written that Sakuya "...claims to be in her late teens, but this is unlikely judging by her refined manner and the level of her abilities. Rather, she seems to be a human who has been living for hundreds of years." This also supports the theory that Sakuya may possibly be a Lunarian that some fans have suggested.
  • However, Perfect Memento lists Eirin and Kaguya under the human section of the encyclopedia. From the text Akyuu is clearly aware that they come from the moon, and yet considers Lunarians to be human.
Reason why Eirin was surprised at seeing Sakuya

In Imperishable Night's omake.txt, it is only Eirin that we never really know about. The below are conjectures.

  • It was a time when I was doing something to the degree of playing with words (ZUN's saying)
  • Since she bears Konoha-Sakuya-bime's (木花咲耶姫) first name. Princess Konoha-Sakuya is a god of Eirin's past origins. For a moment, her name showed up in Cage in Lunatic Runagate. Note: it was the god that showed up in front of Mokou and Iwakasa on Mt. Fuji. Since one usually calls her Princess Sakuya ("Sakuya-hime"), Iwakasa and the rest also called her that. Also called Lady Sengen ("Sengen-sama"). Originally a god of water for calming down fire. Having beauty and empherality, she lived in the crater of Mt. Fuji. In great antiquity, Mt. Fuji and Yatsugatake were compared in height, and since Yatsugatake was higher, and since she would not allow a beautiful mountain higher than hers, she smashed Yatsugatake and made it shorter. It is said that Youkai Mountain was the original form of Yatsugatake before it was smashed (this inference is not something that ZUN himself has denied... but he did say that Cage in Lunatic Runagate was a hint). However, it is a publicly known fact that Sakuya Izayoi was a name given by Remilia, so the precondition for this theory is already not satisfied.
  • There is also a theory calling for a blood relationship with Princess Konoha-Sakuya. Fundamentally where it comes from is Cage in Lunatic Runagate, of Omoikane's nephew, of a relation between the wife of the child and the wife of the grandchild.
  • As for why it can be said that Sakuya is based off of Princess Konoha-Sakuya, in the legend of Princess Konoha-Sakuya, there are the "one-night pregnancy" and "delivery in the middle of the flames," that one can see this as Princess Sakuya speeding up (manipulating) time.
  • Lunarian Sakuya Theory
  • Among fans, this is something that has normally become a popular subject of heated discussion, and there are several opinions.
  • Resemblence between Kaguya's and Sakuya's abilities
  • It can be seen that Kaguya's "Ability to the extent of manipulating eternity and the instant" and Sakuya's "Ability to the extent of manipulating time" have a resemblence.
  • Compared to how Kaguya can manipulate time locally (manipulation of eternity = slow down, manipulation of the instant = speed up), as opposed to how Sakuya can manipulates time in a broader sense, the ability itself seems to be something that would come from a relative of Kaguya. And due to this, Sakuya would then seem to be a lunarian. Or a descendent. Of course, it can also conceive of it as an accidental coincidence.
  • Her ability is, as it were, an ability to manipulate "complete stop = eternity" and "speedup to the utmost limit = instant," and Hieda no Akyuu also concluded that it is an "ability to manipulate time" (refer to the page for Kaguya).
  • A possible familial relation
  • While this is mainly in fanon, one possible backing is that Eirin and Sakuya both have silver hair, although Youmu has it as well...
  • On a related note, ZUN did make a hint, saying that "if I talk about the relation between these two, then the games would all be reduced to one, so I left it out." How this will be portrayed in future works (games, print works) is uncertain.
Red Eyes

In Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and possibly Immaterial and Missing Power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody's spell cards, there are parts when her eyes become red. In the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, it may possibly be the scarlet mist incident, but it was inferred that those were to manipulate the eyes of insanity. In Imperishable Night, at the scene where Remilia worried that Sakuya might become insane at the time Kaguya cast the light of the true full moon, even when Sakuya looked at the true full moon there did not seem to be any abnormality caused by the full moon. The true full moon grants magic power to youkai and dirties the mind/spirit of humans. In short, there are no species, other than lunarians, that are not influenced by the mysterious power of the moon. Although the leader rabbit Reisen Udongein Inaba possesses red eyes for the sake of her ability to the extent of manipulating insanity, regarding Reisen, if the Wakatsuki Sisters who have received combat training, were the instructors who taught this ability to manipulate insanity, then for the lunarians to manipulate the eyes of insanity itself would be a characteristic ability, then the question as to why Sakuya possesses red eyes would not cease. Despite that, Reimu passed through the series fine... in fact, weren't all the humans other than Youmu calmly composed?

Reimu also questions her humanity in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and people of Gensokyo speculate what she may be, from a Lunarian to a homunculus. However, Sakuya insists and refers to herself as human extremely often. Perfect Memento states her ability to control time is an ability that humans may possess. Sakuya does not seem to react abnormally (showing prior recognition and familiarity, for example) regarding either people from the Moon or the Moon itself in any official work, be it victory quotes, print works, endings, or boss dialogues, nor does any 'alien' in regards to Sakuya (Watatsuki no Yorihime doesn't show any recognition of her, for example). Even Eirin's profile may be referring to another aspect of Sakuya. In her ending in Imperishable Night, when the idea of getting a successor for Sakuya comes up, it'd be a normal human that would succeed Sakuya, and the idea is only trashed because training up a new human for the position would be too much effort. ZUN has referred to her as human, as do several of her profiles (that the question of Sakuya's humanity continued to come up in-story means this isn't necessarily definitive proof). She has a spell card called "Lunar Dial" and "Luna Clock", that may be connected with Kaguya's statement, that magic originated from lunarians, and possibly there can be the lunarian magic that stops time, but nothing particularly odd about it is noted in The Grimoire of Marisa.

Vampire Hunter Theory

This was referred to in the contents of Hieda no Akyuu's Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. On a related note, Akyuu relates Sakuya to someone several hundred hears ago. It did seem like she did have a guess as to what Sakuya's ability was like. (Perhaps it would seem that Akyuu sees Sakuya as having an existence outside of human. This would, of course, have an indirect relation to the lunarian Sakuya theory.) However, it is known that Sakuya joined the Scarlet Devil Mansion before it moved to Gensokyo. Below is a plausible explanation for Sakuya originally being a vampire hunter.

  • Possession of silver knives
  • Silver is a metal that has the exorcism and evil-crushing ability of destroying youkai and demons. On this point, Akyuu conceived that Sakuya was originally a vampire hunter, due to this strong physical evidence.
  • Silver is one of the prime weaknesses of a vampire.
  • Why does she work for Remilia Scarlet?

It could also be possible that Remilia manipulated fate. However, another possibility is that maybe she is acting as a treacherous insider, so when she sees an opening...

Did Sakuya perform a Jack-the-Ripper-like act?

As is well known, Sakuya's spell cards names are all mostly things like Illusion Sign "Killer Doll" etc. that are dangerous and disturbing without limit. Moreover, in the preparing of tea and cake for Flandre Scarlet humans are normally eaten, and since Sakuya does most of the cooking for the Scarlet Devil Mansion, one can perceive this as Remilia Scarlet having employed a Sakuya who has become accustomed to murdering people. There do seem to be things that are surely related to a character modeled off of Jack the Ripper.

Her cut-in image in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil when she cast a Spell Card has a knife of some kind attached above her left knee. This is probably a depiction from which one could guess that Sakuya is left-handed. The wounds from Jack the Ripper's victims are from the left hand. There is no official statement about Sakuya's handedness so far. Although comparatively ridiculous, there does exist an explanation for why the unidentified Jack the Ripper might be female.