>>47570097I agree with Cyrus representing an extreme form of Buddhism, but I don't think associating Cynthia with Taoism is the correct interpretation.
Taoism is a Chinese religion that shares many common themes with other Asian religions and Japanese religion has in turn been influenced by Taoism, but in Japanese history the most relevant religious opposition is the conflict between the native faith (Shinto) and the importation of Buddhism.
The word Cyrus uses in Japanese for spirit is actually 心/kokoro/heart. The same for most other instances in the Sinnoh games.
To put things roughly, in Shintoism kokoro is the seat of emotion, the thing that connects
man, nature, the divine and everything. It is the means by which man can connect to his kami-like nature and is therefore of the utmost importance.
But the traditional Japanese understanding of kokoro was challenged by Chinese definitions and the Buddhist ideal of 無心/mushin (heartlessness, a state of clarity) as
opposed to 有心/ushin (literally having a heart, being deluded).
The contradiction should be obvious.
The ideological war caused by the Soga clan's promotion of Buddhism in Japan against their pro-Shinto rivals is so fundamental to Japanese history that it's taught in Japanese schools, and that's where I think the idea for the conflict between Cynthia and Cyrus came from.
Japanese sources (especially on Shinto) are a fucking nightmare to find in English but the best explanation I could find was some art student's thesis on poetry:
https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0096388Alongside some other neat info in between the haiku, according to this source in ancient Japan the kokoro might have been thought of as a literal cord located in a person's abdomen.
Something like a chain, if you would.
Funny that the Red Chain is crafted from the Lake Trio, who are identified in Sinnoh myth as representing the spirit/kokoro.
Stay wild, theory man.
