User blog:DeltaHorizon020/PE Proposal: Tamamo no Mae

Having recently browsing Yokai.com to do some research on you know who, I think I've got a rather...Interesting example to bring. Considered she is the utter inspiration of one of my favorite villains of all time and several girls that I considered best girl in my opinion. However, while yes, other incarnations may portray her as a good incarnate, this original incarnation however, is Pure Evil. And who is this incarnation that I want to talk about? Let's find out shall we.

What's The Work
Ah yes, now we are going to Japan for this one. Today I'm going to tell you several stories of Japanese Mythologies and it's creature. Some of you may know creatures like Onis, Yokais and so on. And you also have the epic story about the likes of Abe no Seimei, Oda Nobunaga, Ieyasu Tokugawa and so on. Today, we will focus on a Yokai who is I guess, one of the inspiration of a femme fatale villain from Fengshen Yanyi, Da Ji, and also inspirations for several fox girls to follow. I'll give you...Tamamo no Mae.

Who is She/What Has She Done
Now, the original Tamamo no Mae is interesting. Very very interesting. Despite it was stated in the folklore that she is the most intelligent and the most beautiful lady, it was revealed that she is one of the most evil Yokais, being the member of Three Terrible Yokai of Japan (At least what the original interpretation has to say). Why? Because it was soon revealed that she is an evil nine tailed fox spirit who delights in suffering of others.

Anyways, let's start with the beginnings shall we, Tamamo no Mae was originally a consort of the Shang Dynasty better known as Da Ji and perhaps this is why the Da Ji version of Fengshen Yanyi were heavily inspired by Tamamo no Mae herself. Anyways, during the Shang Dynasty, Tamamo no Mae herself was responsible of the Shang Dynasty's destruction due to her track records of causing pain and misery towards others using her manipulation powers towards the king to commit depraved acts such as performing horrific orgies at the castle gardens or at the very least, inventing several new forms of torture to execute several innocent people...Yeah. This resulted on Tamamo almost getting executed.

Notice when I say almost? Yes, Tamamo herself escaped from custody and fled to the Kingdom of India specifically Maghda Kingdom in 1046 BC, taking a name of Lady Kayo and become a consort of the Maghda Kingdom king known as King Kalmashapada or better known as Hanzoku in Japanese. Here? Tamamo herself is no better than she was in the Shang Dynasty as she has other track records by manipulate the king to devour his children, murdering innocent priests and at the very least, commit unspeakable horrors. And yes, for some reason because of the King converted himself to Buddhism or at the very least, ran out of resources to eat, she went back to China.

In China, Tamamo then changed her name to Bao Shi and then manipulate the king to overthrow his current wife, Queen Shen, and then Tamamo does some rinse and repeat again when it comes to committing atrocities which resulted on several of the king's closest nobles abandoned him and betrayed him and resulted on the king getting killed as a result. However, Tamamo escape yet again to Japan, hiding from the shadows until resurfacing again in 1090s.

During 1090s, Tamamo no Mae disguise herself as a human baby and was adopted by two innocent couple and was named as Mizukume. Due to her intelligence and beauty, this resulted on the Emperor getting attracted towards her and employed her as a servant in his court. After she hits 18 years old, a poetry and instrument recital was held in order to honor Mizukume. However, a storm fell upon the place which causes a temporary blackout and resulted on a light emanated from Mizukume's body. Thinking that she was a holy maiden in the previous life, she was given a new name, Tamamo no Mae, and then become the new consort of the Emperor as he took an interest with her.

However, after the emperor married Tamamo no Mae, it was soon revealed that the Emperor was hit by an unknown illness to the point several of the court physicians tried to find the root cause of the Emperor's illness which resulted on an onmyouji known as Abe no Yasunari was called. It was soon revealed that according to Abe, the Emperor was struck by a bad omen and Tamamo was the root cause of the Emperor's illness as she shorten his own life in order to become the ruler of Japan. The Emperor was reluctant to hear the onmyouji's words at first but they had no choice to test Tamamo by performing a ritual known as Taizan Fuku no Sai to confirm that she was not actually an evil person who plans to overtook the throne from the Emperor.

Initially, Tamamo was reluctant to perform the ritual, but had no choice due to the pressure from the ministers. As both Tamamo and Abe performed the ritual to test the former, she vanished which resulted on Abe's suspicions towards Tamamo getting confirmed and the court panicked. As Tamamo vanished, a word arrived that several innocent children and women vanished near the Nasuno no Shimotsuke province, heavily implying that Tamamo no Mae was the cause of it and as a result, the court people had no choice to destroy Tamamo once and for all for the greater good.

In order to prepare themselves to slay the evil nine tailed kitsune, the emperor summoned the best warriors across Japan and the most superb of them all were revealed to be Kazusanosuke and Miuranosuke and were accompanied by the 80.000 army to slay the evil kitsune. During their journey to capture Tamamo, they're having a hard time to capture her because on how she manages to outsmart them. This resulted on the two warriors practice harder in order to capture Tamamo's trail.

As they began to capture her, they managed to defeat her at last with Miuranosuke fired two arrows towards her and then followed by Kazusanosuke who decapitate her head with a sword. Despite this, her evil still continues as it was revealed that after she died, the Emperor died too which sparks a huge war due to heir issues. And if that wasn't bad enough, her spirit haunted a massive boulder which killed every living thing that touched it.

'''But then again, I guess you could argue that Tamamo's spirit still lives somewhere as she reincarnated herself as a beautiful woman who becomes one of the consort of the European King and demands a persecution of the Finnish Vikings due to how barbaric they were and resulted on the Viking try to fight against the evil fox spirit once and for all or at the very least, reincarnate herself as Heinrich Himmler's kid when he tried to run away from the America straight to hell and become one of the most evil being in the universe. Lel''' (The bolded part was a joke, please ignore this haha...Given my story and all :P)

Heinous Standard
For Japanese mythology herself? Yes, from what I heard, Shuten Douji is awful due to his rampage on Kyoto with him capturing several innocent noble virgins, drink their blood and eat their organs raw. But Tamamo? She has a lot of nasty rapsheet spanned across the centuries with her causing destruction of several empires and commit several nasty unspeakable acts. This was shockingly terrifying even for the Japanese mythology standard. And to think that Tamamo was a good girl but I was wrong. Speaking of which...

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
This part is where got tricky. According to the Yokai.com, the place where I did my research on Tamamo no Mae, it is stated that Miuranosuke received a dream about a beautiful young girl crying in front of him saying: “Tomorrow I will lose my life to you. Please save me.” This line heavily implied that Tamamo was the one who says it and I'll be honest with you that I thought this was Tamamo seeking redemption but no...It was revealed that this line alone is not mitigating because this line alone revealed that Tamamo was trying to save her own skin and refused to die and even when she died, she spitefully cursed the king to die which sparks a nasty war so yeah...

Anyways, this brings us to the elephant in the room as there's a redemption narrative for her soul. However, here's the thing, this was a mere addition from a pro-buddhist standpoint which was included during the 16th century and as a result, I don't count this as a canon. The original Tamamo however? Hoo boy...She's a nasty girl which made me intrigued after reading this story and to think this was also the template of other Kitsunes that follow including Da Ji from Fengshen Yanyi or at the very least, the main villain of the epic story that I want to wrote? Yeah...Things are getting a bit interesting to say right?

Final Verdict
Sure, I'm happy to include her in my list and I guess she marks her spot as one of my favorite mythological creatures of all time and the fact that she also inspired Da Ji and one of my favorite villains of all time, Dakki, from Houshin Engi also helps so yep.