Descended into the human world, guides and governs this world of chaos. So, can we say they came from above? Then it means they were sent by an amatsukami?
Soh comes from heaven as she runs across the bridge connecting heaven and earth.
Soh is not only associated with mirrors but with sunlight.
The ability to control time can be said is the ability to control the sun, as time is dictated by the movement of the sun. This is made obvious in how time passes in game, by the reflection of the sun in water. Sun in a mirror.
Her purifying power is referred to as 'the radiance of the sun' as is resulting in a deeper darkness. And it says that the rising sun purifies the land.
(Could it be referring to how purifying results in Yoshiro's defilement?)
Yoshiro has a sun motifs on her wrist jewelry and there's a sun behind her.
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| Sun behind her. |
A focus on her wrist with the sun motif when she summons Soh.
Another thing to mention here is when Soh loses all her health, her physical form shatters like a mirror.
Back to the 'darkness' caused by purification...
I've said before I believe the Maiden absorbs the defilement from the previous cycle through the spirit stone, causing the defilement to become worse over time.
But...the myth of Amaterasu is that she was born when Izanagi's impurity in his left eye was purified.
When Soh purifies Cursed Soh...there's brilliant white light.
So, we can say there's a similarity here?
The fragments inside Cursed Soh look like the same images we see when Soh strikes with her katana. Or the image we first see when she's summoned.
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| see the bits of red? |
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| fragments belonging to Soh |
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| the fragments are pieces of this |
The fragments are from this mandala kaleidoscope. (I keep using mandala!!)
The Mountain Goddess's powers are associated with pink.
The orbs are pink. Soh and Yohsiro's purification powers are pink. Pink is purification powers in general.
Soh's power in the true ending is a pure, white light.
Soh can wear both the Amaterasu costumes and the Cursed Soh costumes.
A sun goddess exists in Kunitsu-Gami.
I mentioned purifying eventually results in the defilement of the one doing the purifying. But this may have been my own interpretation as originally it was that impurities gather in still bodies of water, like the Cathedral of the Deep which had pools that became infested, and the lake in Kunitsu-Gami.
(The idea of the corruption corrupting the thing meant to purify it is also an idea...)
But the Mountain Goddess was already defiled, which is why the Maiden was needed. But how can channeling a defiled goddess result in purification? Why help the villagers at all?
Are there two goddesses actually being spoken of?
Who is this forgotten goddess?
The villager's ancestors are enshrined as mountain gods but they are not the same kind of god as the Mountain Goddess.
What if they prayed to the Mountain Goddess but a different one? Rather a goddess in general?
Could it be that Cursed Soh is Amaterasu who has become cursed herself through all these cycles by purifying the mountain?
What if the very first Soh was Amaterasu, posing as her own messenger? We know Amaterasu dressed 'as a man' once to meet a threat. The Goddess we see in the beginning...looks very Amaterasu.
Or maybe the Mountain Goddess is not a kunitsukami...? And she's just a goddess but is called the Mountain Goddess...? And kunitsukami is meant to refer to the ancestral gods?
I am awaiting Ten's post on plaques...and in the mean time, my mind is trying to put everything together.