Been thinking about Fumiko and the horsemen devils for a bit and like.
Pestilence isn't a horseman of the apocalypse. Its a weird mistake, an error in interpretation that got picked up along the way where conquest is a much better fit. But in popular culture, pestilence has taken root. Whenever we talk about the academically, historically correct horsemen, someone will bring up pestilence. It will always be there when the concept is brought up, quietly lingering : "what about pestilence ?" "Why is conquest there instead of pestilence ?" Wasnt it originally pestilence ?" and so on and so forth.
By any normal metric, this should not matter. The horsemen of the apocalypse are a fairly well-defined concept and pestilence as an interpretation is mostly written out by any academic worth their salt.
But fears do not care about little things like academical interpretation. Fears worm their way in, evolve and spread. And pestilence has been a horseman in popular culture for over a century.
Pestilence can mean many things, it can mean the rotting bodies in the wake of a battle, the disease-ridden rats scurrying out of sight. It can mean the cancerous cells of a tumor, rapidly spreading. It can mean an epidemic swiping through the population. It can mean a common cold, ebola, tuberculosis, AIDS , the black plague. It can mean a disease finding its way from host to host through what should be an intimate act of love and trust, it can mean an added insult to the ultimate violation of a victim, or maybe their last revenge. It can mean a horseman of the apocalypse, an erroneous idea worming its way from host to host, from book to comic to film to cartoon to dissertation to random stupid essay on tumblr at 5am. It can mean a virus, forever changing, never stopping, never dying, always learning, always evolving to spread itself further, to live yet another day.
It can mean Fumiko Mifune, who will never truly die, who will never truly lose, who will continue to spread, and to live yet another day.
She might not truly be a horseman, if one is to pore over the old dusty original texts, but in the hearts of the world, it matters little.
Pestilence will spread and spread and Fumiko Mifune will ride her white horse, ever spreading, ever inching further to the end of the world.
