Remilia Scarlet

Remilia Scarlet (レミリア・スカーレット Remiria Sukāretto) is the main antagonist of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. She's 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. Remilia's past prior to her arrival at Gensokyo is unclear, but her name, appearance, house, and clothing imply she is European in origin, and she has been stated to have come from "the west". She has been the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion for about 500 years. She claims to be a descendant of one of the world's most notorious vampires: Count Vlad Ţepeş Dracul. However, unknown to the people of Gensokyo, this is a complete lie. Later on, it was finally confirmed in Strange Creators of Outer World 2 that Remilia was indeed that vampire in the Vampire Incident. Personality While she tries to cultivate the image of a mysterious and frightening vampire aristocrat, 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, frequently indulging her own childish whims in order to create entertainment for herself. 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 Gensokyo 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 behavior. 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 behavior may be due to the fact she actually has the wisdom of a 500 year old being with the whims and patience of someone who has yet to fully mature. 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

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 tremendous physical abilities and magical power, 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 Gensokyo.

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 immortal, as they forfeit growth and maturity in exchange for eternal life.

Manipulation of Fate In the current world view of Gensokyo, there isn't detailed information concerning this ability nor an instance where Remilia clearly used it. Consequently, 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 be 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 Innate Dream, 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 being used would be in several of her spell cards where she uses red chains that chase the enemy (chains are commonly associated with destiny).

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 pretense.