Flandre Scarlet

"I've been in the basement. For about 495 years."

- Flandre Scarlet

Flandre Scarlet is the younger sister of Remilia Scarlet and the "dirty little secret" of Scarlet Devil Mansion in Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Because of her unstable personality and incredible destructive power she lives in the basement of the mansion. She's immune to holy objects and has incredible physical strength; her sister has ordered her not to leave the mansion for nearly 500 years. She knows little about the world outside because of her leaving the mansion rarely, and, until the heroines arrived during the Extra Stage of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, she has had no substantive contact with any humans other than Sakuya.

Appearance
She has red eyes and short blonde hair, which is tied into a single ponytail on her left side. Wears a red skirt and vest, with a pink shirt underneath. Also wears a pink mob cap with a red ribbon attached. Her wings appear to be made of iron and prism shards. She carries a matching metal wand with her, which is apparently the mythical Lævateinn. Arranged from her back to the tip of her wings her 8 crystals are presented as follows: Light Blue, Blue, Purple, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Light Green and Light Blue again. Has longer hair than Remilia.

Personality
Flandre is rather nice and quiet, but somewhat insane (her official profile describes her as "kind of nuts"). This in combination with her immense power leads the residents of the mansion to typically keep her inside. Despite this, she is usually docile and doesn't try to get out by force, even though with her power she probably could. Therefore it's probable that she is a shut-in of her own will. She is said to respect her older sister a lot.

Flandre is incapable of feeding herself like most vampires, because due to being locked in the mansion she doesn't know how to properly subdue a human to drink their blood. When she tries to attack a human, she vaporizes them completely, leaving no blood left to drink. She depends on Sakuya to feed her.

Power
Flandre Scarlet is possibly one of the most powerful beings in Gensokyo. In addition to the massive physical and magical strength of a vampire, she possesses the ability to destroy anything by finding and crushing its "eye" in the palm of her hand. The "eye" is a sort of center of tension present in anything. The limits of this ability are unknown. It is known that once she destroyed a meteor that would have crashed into the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

Flandre has other miscellaneous powers she uses in spellcard combat:

Flandre can turn into a bat to avoid dangerous attacks, like bombing. Interestingly, her bat form's wings are normal, rather than the crystal wings she normally has.

While it is a matter of course, she has the destructive power of oni and the nimbleness of tengu, as well as a vampires bodily and regenerative ability. She somehow exceeds even her older sister Remilia Scarlet.

Relationships

 * Remilia Scarlet (Older sister, Mistress)
 * Patchouli Knowledge (Friend)
 * Sakuya Izayoi (Chief maid)
 * Hong Meiling (Gatekeeper)
 * Koakuma (Unknown)
 * Marisa Kirisame (Known)
 * Reimu Hakurei (Known)

Fan culture

 * Flandre's personality is the subject of a lot of controversy among fans. Depictions of her vary from a tragic figure unjustly imprisoned by a jealous and insensitive sister, to an unstoppable juggernaut of death and carnage that obliterates everything in her way. Usually she is portrayed as a playful little girl with a sinister side, as her playmates always risk of getting broken.
 * There is some speculation regarding why her wings are the way they are. She may have lost her original wings, She may have fashioned her artificial wings by herself and attached them, or she may even be born without them.
 * Some consider the crystals on her wings to be the source or the seals of her power.
 * Flandre is often depicted as bipolar, one personality being very childish, and playful, the other brutally murderous and sadistic.
 * Flandre has some similarities with other extra bosses:
 * Koishi Komeiji: The most popular ones, they both have greater powers than their sisters, both are younger sisters, and both own a mansion.
 * Nue Houjuu: Nue's theme, "Heian Alien", have similar tones from Flandre's theme, "U.N. Owen Was Her?".
 * Fujiwara No Mokou: The name "Mokou" means "Scarlet Sister", but has no connection to Flandre. Another reason why it's similar is because Fujiwara no Mokou is immortal, and has a little to fear on Flandre's destructive power.
 * Suwako Moriya: Similarities are low, because Suwako's spellcard, Native God "Red Frogs of Houei 4", is similar to Flandre's spellcard, Taboo "Four of a Kind", as they both involve multiplying themselves.


 * In fan works, Flandre Scarlet can be portrayed as a very good professional artist for unknown reasons. One reason is due to being locked away and have got nothing better to do.
 * Some fan art of Flandre Scarlet can be crossed over with Marx from Kirby Super Star due to both of them having similar wings, and Yoshikage Kira and Killer Queen from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure due to having the similar power to destroy anything.
 * Some people nickname her "Flan-chan Ufufu (フランちゃんうふふ)" due to her sinister laugh "ufufu", others shorten her name to "Flan (フラン)".

Quotes
"Flandre Scarlet: I have a play toy over here...

Reimu Hakurei: What do you want to play?

Flandre Scarlet: The danmaku game."

- Flandre Scarlet to Reimu Hakurei before the boss battle. "Flandre Scarlet: Will you play with me? Marisa Kirisame: What's it worth to ya?

Flandre Scarlet: One Coin. Marisa Kirisame: One coin? You can't even buy a life with that.

Flandre Scarlet: I meant you can't use a continue!"

- Flandre Scarlet to Marisa Kirisame before the boss battle "Don't go thinking you won with that, there's still more to come!"

- Flandre Scarlet after being defeated by Reimu Hakurei "Flandre Scarlet: This can't be true, I can't believe I actually lost...

Marisa Kirisame: Yeah, it might be less true than you think.I'm gonna go home for the day.

Flandre Scarlet: Yes, I'm satsified, but in the end I'll be all alone again."

- Flandre Scarlet after being defeated by Marisa Kirisame.

Trivia

 * A silhouette of Flandre occupies the front of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's jewel case.
 * Assuming her birth year by calculating backwards in the Gensokyo Timeline, she's supposed to be born around 1508 A.D. But the "canon-ness" of this assumption is unknown.
 * Her boss theme ("U.N. Owen was her?") and her second-to-last spell card ("Secret Barrage - And Then There Will Be None?") are references to Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None. It's more speculative but still worth noting that the science-fiction genre saw Philip K. Dick write a novel called "Counter-Clock World" in 1967 and Frederik Pohl write "The Gold at the Starbow's End" in 1972.
 * Her sword/wand Laevateinn is, or shares its name with, the sword/wand of Loki, Norse god of Mischief and Chaos. (Her sister Remilia, in turn, uses Gugnir, the mythical spear of the Norse god Odin).
 * Her quote,"that means, you can't use a continue!", breaks the fourth wall by noting that the player cannot use a continue at Extra Mode.
 * On one end of the Lævateinn that Flandre is seen holding in Shoot the Bullet is very different compared to the Lævateinn that Flandre is seen holding in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
 * Flandre's wings have an unusual appearance which bears almost no resemblance to a vampire's typical bat-like wings (or even organic matter).
 * The "crystals" on her wings look somewhat similar to the crystals shown on Patchouli Knowledge's spell card, Fire Water Wood Metal Earth Sign "Philosopher's Stone" (Five Elements Sign "Philosopher's Stone").
 * Strangely, if one uses a bomb against her during one of her spellcards in the Extra stage of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, she's shown to have normal wings in bat form.
 * In Chapter 9 of Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth, Reisen Udongein Inaba and Tewi Inaba get lost in the Scarlet Devil Mansion and end up being chased by what looks to be the silhouette of Flandre.
 * Her theme song, U.N. Owen Was Her? has gained tremendous popularity through a remix of it using sounds from Japanese McDonalds commercials called McRolled. Most Western fans of Touhou Project first learn about the games through the McRolled videos. Since McRoll is more popular than the original tune, many trolls will try to enrage Touhou fans with the saying "ZUN stole from McRoll".
 * A remix of her theme uploaded on Youtube under the incorrect name of "John Stump - Death Waltz" gave the theme even more popularity and led to even more confusion, many people now believing "Death Waltz" is the correct name of the theme (or that "U.N. Owen Was Her?" was based on "Death Waltz"). In addition, the remix has become infamous for the utter impossibility for anything other than a computer to play it, so another popular upload of the same remix simply labels it as "the hardest song of all time".