Thanks for posting. Even translating it, I'm not sure I understood all the context. If someone feels they can make smoother sense of it, I invite suggestions.
Chado's Orin says much about the different morality between Youkai and human, from a human PoV this Orin is rather...monstrous, but objectively, she's just doing her job, which is evil from a human standpoint, it's not like she actually caused the death of any human (They would have died anyway)
His depiction is definitely one of the better ones. While people may dislike how she doesn't care for the wishes of the dying, her only concern in life is competing against shinigami for the possession of bodies and souls. I like how this contrasts the freedom, individuality, and choice that humans enjoy to the certainty of youkai, who live within their station and perform their role or cease to exist.
Still, I'd like to understand how fellow "vengeful spirits" turned on each other. I felt that this wasn't explained (but sometimes, I think this comic is awesome this way - very dark)
nothingsjim said: Chado's Orin says much about the different morality between Youkai and human, from a human PoV this Orin is rather...monstrous, but objectively, she's just doing her job, which is evil from a human standpoint, it's not like she actually caused the death of any human (They would have died anyway)
And as "inhuman" as she may seem, she still honored the first victim's request, as seen in post #983972.
I don't see how she honored the request. Possesed!Marisa simply picked it up, and then exorcised Marisa awoke with it. She (Orin) just left it on the ground, in fact.
Byakugan01 said: I don't see how she honored the request. Possesed!Marisa simply picked it up, and then exorcised Marisa awoke with it. She (Orin) just left it on the ground, in fact.
Ah, that's right, she did pick it up. Well, never mind, then.
Is it really her fault if she's not doing a human's dying wish? would you go out to do something for a stranger? is it wrong to refuse? besides the more souls that end up hating her, the stronger her spell card with her kamakazi zombie fairies.
This depiction kinda reminded me of post #840377. Like Komachi, Orin has duties regarding the dead, and they both have their coping mechanisms: Rin made herself cold and callous towards humans, so she won't be pained by what she has to do, while Komachi slacks off to blow off the steam. That said, I find the reaction depicted in the image equally appropriate: Rin only carries off the corpses, but Komachi ferries the souls across the Sanzu river, whose breadth changes with the virtue of the soul in question. All the while, she gets to listen. I imagine this part similar to the harpies of His Dark Materials: they guide you to your next life in exchange for telling them stories, just like how Komachi takes you to meet the Enma, and you pass the time by telling her about your life. Thus, her job is emotionally more demanding, but safer. However, Rin is plagued by the vengeful spirits because the corpses she steals never get a decent burial, and the soul remains anchored by this in the world, it cannot pass onto the next life or the afterlife. She knows this, and had to develop some sort of defense against the emotional stress her task would cause otherwise. This defense is the attitude we see here: humans are below her, just 'animals' that will eventually become her targets after dying. Hence, she feels no obligation to honor either man's last wish, and should not feel anything, because if she surrendered and felt compassion, she'd likely be crippled by the trauma the realization would cause.
I fail to see how anyone could see this Rin as anything but evil. Both her victims specifically requested that she bring them back to the Human Village. In other words, they both believed they could have survived with medical treatment, and, looking at their respective wounds I can believe it too. She specifically saved them just to stand there and wait for them to die, then carry off their corpses. Not only did she allow them to die where she could have saved them, but she even killed off her fellow youkai to steal their prey.
She even mentioned in story that she collects tons of corpses each day. That's impossible or Gensokyo would have no humans left (there is simply not that many humans to begin with, even if the Human Village has the size and population of a small city) so she must also pull the same stunt with other youkai (ie - kill them or finding them when they are wounded and preventing them from being healed so she can collect their corpses).
Then there is the part of the kasha's legend that states that anybody whose corpse she carries off goes to hell. The number of vengeful spirits haunting her suggest this is very much true. To put it simply, her function is to carry off potentially innocent souls to Hell and prevent them from properly passing on. You can argue its her function all you want, but by that same logic you could argue demons are not evil because its their nature to tempt human souls into damnation... an argument that is patently absurd. Even if her intent itself is not malicious, her very nature is "evil" as is her function. At least it is the way she is portrayed here anyway.
Video game canon Gensokyo (I say video game canon because the various manga paint a very different picture of the place) is a crapsack world where our heroines are selfish brats and even if they took their job seriously they could never hope to turn back the tide of darkness that is humanity's lot in Gensokyo (they are kept there to maintain the existence of youkai who prey on them).
It depends on the perspective of the person. what you see is evil, others see it as, "just a youkai being a youkai, no big deal".
Plus canon isn't a black and white, as you said. Pretty much almost everyone in gensoukyo has a gray morality, even the heroines. They are not there to 'save humanity' as they never claimed to do, they just make sure to keep Gensoukyo in balance, whether thats their intention or not.
Byakugan01 said: I don't see how she honored the request. Possesed!Marisa simply picked it up, and then exorcised Marisa awoke with it. She (Orin) just left it on the ground, in fact.
Well, its technically a 'yes and no', it is true that her purpose does not involve her to honour the first victim wish ,but that does not mean that she won't do the simple thing of letting OTHERs honour the wish for her (Orin). Marisa found the bag not because Orin dropped on the floor, she took it while still being possessed : post #981612 , and the fact that Orin never 'destroy' the bag shows that she rather let Marisa do it even though she did not literally put 'send to Human Village' on the bag
Chado did a work in a recent Yuuka anthology ("Kazami Yuuka's Sunflower Field Story" by Tohonifun) involving Kazami Yuuka raising a cat who she decided to breed to become stronger than youkai after being told to raise it by the Yama. This was to teach her the value of life. It DID indeed become a life she valued, but it was destroyed by humans believing that it would one day turn against them even though the cat had helped the villagers and (by Yuuka's demand of it) would only attack the strong.
Yuuka tracked down the ashes of the cat the villagers had burned and marked a resting place with its grave labeled with the name Yuuka was going to give the cat that day. It said "Rin's Grave". Perhaps it was sent to hell... I'll be honest, of all the internet, I fell in love with that awesome cat in the story.
Alley...
oomph.Thumpf'Cause you met up with youkai from Hell.Not gonna help you.
