Sakuyafan22
Elegant Dungeon Crawling Artist
This was something I had been thinking about lately and was originally going to be a theory until I realized something would debunk it in heartbeat. So this will be a fun little 'what if?' instead.
If I remember right, Gensokyo's creation was explained or could be discerned in official media.
A small pocket of medieval Japan with a barrier around it to ensure the traditional fantasies remained preserved.
But what if that had simply been the backstory for Yukari's painting?
For those that don't know, in Dark Souls 2 and 3 the player can explore painted worlds; zones that exist inside a painting.
Think of it like that one quest in Oblivion where the player was whisked inside a painting to find a magic paint brush.
The concept had grown in Dark Souls 3 to the point that it became a plot point in the final DLC.
To present my point plainly, what if the painted world at the end of said DLC wasn't the only painted world created to escape the end of the world.
What if Yukari, Okina and Kasen were survivors that sought an escape of their own?
I think it makes sense since the European styled setting we see isn't the only historically inspired country in the world of Dark Souls.
We do know that there is a Japan-esque country, although there's little information on it.
So what if --if the time traveling theories are true-- Maribel, now Yukari, sought to preserve the aspects of her own country and their fantasies by creating her own painted world?
To create a painted world was a long and arduous task, so she enlisted the help of Kasen and Okina to make that world a reality.
But to create a painted world required dark souls, the manifestation of the undead curse.
How are they able to collect it, especially if they aren't undead?
First off, we have to remember that all three sages are youkai, apparitions that cause or react to evil and impurity.
They don't need to be undead to harness dark souls.
Second, the sages either have committed evil in the past or have done evil in the name of the greater good.
Kasen had done much evil in her life before becoming a monk. Such darkness--dark sign or no--would create a wellspring of pigment for the painting.
Yukari, who had done both good and evil depending on her designs, rarely attacked humans. That doesn't extend to the undead, who are little more than husks carrying the dark sign.
She wouldn't hesitate extracting dark souls from even the sentient undead if meant her fantasy could be realized.
Okina is called a god of secrets, but it's never mentioned what secrets she's privy too.
I imagine she'd know about some pretty brutal ways about extracting dark souls.
As for the painted world itself, what sort of painting would it be?
The answer to that is simple. Art often reflects the artist. It's depiction of the subject, the style of the artist, the emotional tone and the color or lack thereof offers a window of what the artist sees.
Yukari would paint an idealistic Gensokyo with the brutal livelihood of her home country. A fantasy grounded in reality.
So great was this painting that not even Yukari could finish it herself.
It would take all three sages to paint in the same style on a massive canvas with only the darkness of their own evil and that of humanity as their pigment.
And so Gensokyo was created, a fantasy to escape a dying world.
I hope you all found this entertaining to read.
If I remember right, Gensokyo's creation was explained or could be discerned in official media.
A small pocket of medieval Japan with a barrier around it to ensure the traditional fantasies remained preserved.
But what if that had simply been the backstory for Yukari's painting?
For those that don't know, in Dark Souls 2 and 3 the player can explore painted worlds; zones that exist inside a painting.
Think of it like that one quest in Oblivion where the player was whisked inside a painting to find a magic paint brush.
The concept had grown in Dark Souls 3 to the point that it became a plot point in the final DLC.
To present my point plainly, what if the painted world at the end of said DLC wasn't the only painted world created to escape the end of the world.
What if Yukari, Okina and Kasen were survivors that sought an escape of their own?
I think it makes sense since the European styled setting we see isn't the only historically inspired country in the world of Dark Souls.
We do know that there is a Japan-esque country, although there's little information on it.
So what if --if the time traveling theories are true-- Maribel, now Yukari, sought to preserve the aspects of her own country and their fantasies by creating her own painted world?
To create a painted world was a long and arduous task, so she enlisted the help of Kasen and Okina to make that world a reality.
But to create a painted world required dark souls, the manifestation of the undead curse.
How are they able to collect it, especially if they aren't undead?
First off, we have to remember that all three sages are youkai, apparitions that cause or react to evil and impurity.
They don't need to be undead to harness dark souls.
Second, the sages either have committed evil in the past or have done evil in the name of the greater good.
Kasen had done much evil in her life before becoming a monk. Such darkness--dark sign or no--would create a wellspring of pigment for the painting.
Yukari, who had done both good and evil depending on her designs, rarely attacked humans. That doesn't extend to the undead, who are little more than husks carrying the dark sign.
She wouldn't hesitate extracting dark souls from even the sentient undead if meant her fantasy could be realized.
Okina is called a god of secrets, but it's never mentioned what secrets she's privy too.
I imagine she'd know about some pretty brutal ways about extracting dark souls.
As for the painted world itself, what sort of painting would it be?
The answer to that is simple. Art often reflects the artist. It's depiction of the subject, the style of the artist, the emotional tone and the color or lack thereof offers a window of what the artist sees.
Yukari would paint an idealistic Gensokyo with the brutal livelihood of her home country. A fantasy grounded in reality.
So great was this painting that not even Yukari could finish it herself.
It would take all three sages to paint in the same style on a massive canvas with only the darkness of their own evil and that of humanity as their pigment.
And so Gensokyo was created, a fantasy to escape a dying world.
I hope you all found this entertaining to read.