They are all that they were, but they are also aspects of something else. It’s an act of purification, of cleansing, a way to infuse past events and personages with a dual meaning. The transformation of 3D douchebag shit into 2D bishoujo gold is thus accomplished in one alchemical feat. This potent liquid is then mixed with what we all know is the true purpose of the omniverse: pretty girls. It takes history, that bloody, unfair, ugly, awful, most likely rather smelly block of four-dimensional earthly space-time and distils it into a few drops of acausal essence.
But its stupidity is an exalting, beautifying one. Okay, with that out of my system: This game is pretty darn stupid, no doubt. With bodhisattvic altruism, the divinely inspired creators of this glorious affirmation of salvation have channeled truths their Malkuthic minds can never fully grasp. But to us wizards, to those of us who have gazed long into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune and gained from them knowledge of planes and universes beyond the walls of mundane perception, it becomes clear that the “game” is nothing less than a work of profound spiritual revelation, a (moderately) interactive mandala peopled with valkyries and yidams that offers a glimpse of the hypercalligynic beauty of Ultimate Reality.
To the layman, this auspicious metatome might appear to be little more than a fanservice-laden visual novel strategy game. And in Pure Land Buddhism, perfect enlightenment and insight into the true nature of the cosmos can be attained in Sukhavati, the buddha-field of the Amitabha Buddha, by the grace of his goodness alone. The various Gnostic religions instead point to the Pleroma as the super-realest of realities, and say that the world of matter is an inferior creation of the demiurge Ialdabaoth. Different Tantric sects proclaim Shiva, or Shakti, or the yab-yum fuck-hug of the two, to be the source of all existence and the veil of maya confusing our dumb mortal senses. Many schools of Hinduism believe the Brahman to be the ultimate reality, though the exact nature of the Brahman remains disputed. Hyperuranion, the Platonic realm of Forms, contains the perfect archetypes the shadows of which make up the phenomenal world. In countless religions one finds the idea, expressing a seemingly universal human desire, that the world we perceive is ultimately less real than another, better reality.