Remilia Scarlet

Remilia Scarlet is a character from the Touhou Project games.

Remilia is a vampire and the owner and head of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, the mistress of Sakuya Izayoi, Hong Meiling and the fairy maids. She's also the older sister (and guardian) of Flandre Scarlet.

In the Unlikely Heroes Chronicles fics, Remilia is a member of the Unlikely Heroes.

Appearance
In Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Immaterial and Missing Power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody's official art, Remilia has red eyes, short light-blue hair and a light-pink mob cap with a red ribbon decorated with white stripes. She wears a light-pink dress with a red ribbon on both sleeves (is seen with red trimmings in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil), a large red ribbon behind her waist with white stripes and a necklace featuring a Caduceus-like centerpiece. She also has a pair of large black bat-like wings on her back with a wingspan wider than her height. In Imperishable Night, she is seen without the necklace.

Her height is "short" and is of a child not having reached the age of 10.

Personality
While she tries to cultivate the image of a mysterious and frightening vampire aristocrat, Remilia is as childish as her appearance suggests. However, she is surprisingly polite. Her long lifetime has only served to make her prone to boredom and as a result she prizes anything she finds novel. In Silent Sinner in Blue she allows herself to be manipulated by Yukari Yakumo, simply because the alternative would have been boring. The other residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion spend much of their time catering to Remilia's odd whims (including numerous parties), though she does make an effort to appreciate and respect their patience.

Remilia is respected by most youkai of Gensokyou and so she's said to have a charismatic personality. However, in reality this is only because of the fear they have for her kind. While she can act in an overblown and grandiose fashion, she usually only does it during incidents or for important matters. Otherwise, she tends to exhibit childish behaviour. She enjoys novel things and isn't above playing along in silly games or allowing herself to be manipulated if it means staving off boredom.

Her behaviour may be due to the fact she actually has the wisdom of a 500 year old being with the personality of a bratty child. Yet, it remains to be said that she has an overflowing and charming personality that even makes most fairies stick around as employees despite their freedom to leave at any time.

Abilities
As a vampire, Remilia has tremendous physical abilities (superhuman strength and speed) and magical power. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, vampires have the strength of oni and the speed of tengu, that allow them to uproot a thousand-year-old tree single-handedly and to run through the Human Village in a flash. While the true extent of these capabilities is unknown, Remilia's profile in Immaterial and Missing Power describes her as being "faster than the eye can follow, and strong enough to crush boulders", and in Silent Sinner in Blue she claimed that she was able to fly around the Moon (or at least around its "fantastic" version) in an extremely short period of time. Vampires also have the ability to summon and manipulate a great number of devils with a single shout, and to turn into a swarm of bats or even mist to escape or dodge an attack. Additionally, as long as their head remains intact they can regrow the entire body in just one night. Because vampires possess all of these capabilities, they are among one of the strongest species in Gensokyou.

Like most vampires, Remilia has the power of shape-shifting at her disposal and can change into a bat. However, unlike most vampires, her wings remain visible even when she is in human form, making it impossible to pass herself off completely as a human.

Because she has the ability to summon and manipulate devils, it would be natural for her employing them in great numbers. However, the Scarlet Devil Mansion currently only has one little devil, usually seen around the library of the mansion, in employment. It remains a mystery as to why so many fairy maids are employed instead.

Vampires like Remilia are also agelessly immortal, as they forfeit growth and maturity in exchange for eternal life. In the current world view of Gensokyou, there isn't detailed information concerning this ability nor an instance where Remilia clearly used it. Thus, what this ability actually entails is quite uncertain. If the power is as potent as it suggests, then for any enemies that she confronts, she should be able to change fate to her advantage so that she would always win. However, since Remilia does sometimes lose, this does not seem to be the case. This could just because of the spell card rules however, similar to how Reimu Hakurei is not allowed to easily win any battle by using her ability to float out of reality (before Marisa Kirisame came out with Fantasy Nature, which has a time limit and thus is not completely unbeatable). It is unclear whether Remilia manipulates it intentionally or if she can only change the fate of things around her without being aware of doing so. Thus, there exist speculation as to whether she truly can use it. The best representation of this ability would be in several of her spell cards where she uses red chains that chase the enemy (chains are commonly associated with destiny).
 * Manipulation of Fate

According to Hieda no Akyuu in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it seems to be that those in her vicinity will be followed by bad fortune. This may be a "use" of her ability similar to Hina Kagiyama's ability to spread curses and misfortune by merely being close to someone. However, this is not an effect that can be quantified. Akyuu also states that Remilia can bring great changes in one's daily life with nothing more than a word but as mentioned before, it is still something that can't be measurable. As such, no one can know when or if she's actually doing it. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, according to her little sister Flandre Scarlet, the true nature of the ability may simply be to know what happens in the future. However, Flandre also said that it's just that "she [Remilia] just likes to talk that way" and thus may just be an act of pretence.

Trivia

 * Due to "The Young Descendant of Tepes", the title of the prelude theme to the final boss stage of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, she has been sometimes linked to Count Dracula's lineage. This is because Dracula's full name is Vlad Ţepeş Dracul. However, ZUN denied that she is related to the Dracul family, although in character, Remilia herself asserts that she is a descendant of Ţepeş. Some fandom state that she is lying however.


 * Like most vampires, Remilia has the power of shapeshifting at her disposal and can change into a bat. However, unlike most vampires, her wings remain visible even when she is in human form, making it impossible to pass herself off completely as a human.


 * In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Remilia stated that when she arrived in Gensokyo, she killed all the other vampires that habited there, but later, it was revealed that Remilia lied to Hidea no Akyu in some facts. So this maybe a lie.


 * Remilia is not only Sakuya's master but the one who gave Sakuya her name (according to Perfect Memento). Considering Sakuya's murky past and the unlikelihood of a human becoming a vampire's servant, the leading theory is that Sakuya was once a vampire hunter, and Remilia earned Sakuya's servitude by besting her in combat.


 * According to Gensokyo's timeline, Remilia was born in the year 1502, making her, as well as her sister and Toyosatomimi no Miko, three of very few characters whose birth dates are actually known.