>>48078447
Sorry for the late reply.
>I'm curious what the references to the Bible were?
Hourai is and Hourai is not was supposed to evoke God's answer to Moses about His name. This was the most obvious one, but the line that starts with fire that burns cold is supposed to be a comparison between Hourai and love (invoking the theme of the thread), and so the first line is a reference to the Song of Songs. The second line about end of the beginning was also supposed to be a reference to Jesus and the Kingdom of God, but I'm unsure if it worked; I thought about the Alpha and the Omega and eschatology, and a bit of my own interpretation of our life as our end times before the new life. So the end of the beginning. I'm really not good with words so maybe it didn't translate as well as I wanted to.
>Would you mind elaboratign on that.
It's mainly something I thought after reading Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. You know, given that he's directly referenced in two Touhou characters and the name of this book is referenced in a track in HRtP and the full name of MS, I figured it was probably an important book for ZUN's worldbuilding. It is a fine book, but the most interesting chapter is the last; in it, Lafcadio starts describing Hourai, its preciousness and how winds "from the West" are threatening its survival. The similarities between Hourai as an isolated island that preserved the feeling of magic that had been lost in the outside world is basically the same setting as early Windows Gensokyo. All the comments about rejection of change, everything is there. Maybe I'm dumb, but for me it's clear that Lafcadio's Hourai symbolises Japan, and thus ZUN's Gensokyo is also supposed to be a mirror to Japan of some sort; it exists in a continuum between Lafcadio's Hourai and the complete openness of modern Japan.
Rather than construct Gensokyo as a paradise where all change is negative, ZUN makes it a point to show how conserving your traditions is really adapting to modernity and change while not accepting it without care. Between modern Japan that fully embraced change and a static Hourai, Gensokyo exists, negotiating its existence by trying to carefully accept positive change while shunning direct contact with the source of said change. That's why new ideas are easily accepted and even encouraged by people like Yukari; because they have a barrier that can keep the equilibrium and stop any undesired influence from intruding. What I think ZUN wants to show is that even such carefulness is in the end useless; change will always come and things will return to nothing.
Anyway, so for me Hourai is the ideal of how Gensokyo sees itself; a paradise that needs to be protected from the evil winds of change from outside. That contrasts with actual practice where Gensokyo still needs to deal with and adapt to all possible kinds of change that happen in the outside; the amount of paper goes down in the outside, making it go up in Gensokyo. This is change, and yet it is not rejected nor celebrated, but it is accepted as part of being conservative.
Maybe I'm wrong. Feel free to disagree and add your thoughts here. I just think that the stuff that ZUN references is fascinating. Unfortunately some of it is really difficult to find, but Kwaidan should definitely be a recommended reading for anyone that wants to think about lore and worldview in Touhou.

Welcome to the land of Hourai

You may now choose your nameless wife.

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