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nine-gear crow posted:That was the reason her dad married her off to some poo poo tier son of a poo poo tier minor lord sworn to a guy he knew would come out the other end of the assassination unscathed, specifically to protect her from having to also face the punishment for his crime like the rest of his family had to. So that's why Mariko's in this weird half state between being an extremely well respected and beloved vassal to a well respected lord AND a pariah that everyone whispers about and walks on eggshells around. Inconsistent stuff like this always muddies the waters when a show tries to present a "very different culture with very different values". I still can't understand why her father would arrange things this way. He didn't protect her, he gave her 20 years of abject misery where she annually begs for permission to die. He must have known she would feel that way, since every person in Japan (except himself I guess) has the same high opinion of suicide, but he subjected his daughter to this life anyways, and then everyone claims it was out of love and a desire to protect her. Either present suicide as a controversial, complex topic that people of Japan have different opinions on, or if you want to present it as a universally revered act, then, you know, have everyone actually revere it.
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May 1, 2024 04:25
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counterfeitsaint posted:Inconsistent stuff like this always muddies the waters when a show tries to present a "very different culture with very different values". i mean even with that i think he'd rather have her kill herself as a political statement instead of being made to kill her himself pointlessly
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May 1, 2024 04:32
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Jamwad Hilder posted:This is a good post, thank you, my point was meant to be more from a historical perspective. I originally brought up the incident as an example of an earlier discussion point, that one common criticism from the domestic Japanese audience is that the violence is overdone for the time period. The way I see it is that, from a narrative perspective and within the story the show/book is telling, the events as they unfold make sense. From a historical perspective, seppuku was not nearly as common as the book/show makes it out to be (as you referred to, it's a bit romanticized to some extent), and this instance is not something that someone would be required to commit seppuku over. Right, and I totally respect looking at the show from a realist perspective, that's 100% part of its appeal. My thinking was more to say that I don't view its realism as "realism," per se, but more that fantastic form of real that helped Game of Thrones appeal to so many people, or got people into the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies (just as two off-the-cuff examples). It's Imitation Realism and it exists to make events feel especially grounded and therefore intensify our empathetic connection to the political, sociological and ideological conflicts our characters experience in tandem with their personal conflicts. The breaks from REAL Reality don't bother me in those types of stories so long as they have utility within the story and they don't compromise the world's internal logic. As an example of the later, since the thread brought up Blue Eye Samurai, the biggest point where that show lost me (aside from some of the stuff during the ending) was the big mid-season climax because the amount of damage the protagonist took attacking the keep was so cartoonish it pushed me past the brink on my suspension of disbelief. That happening had utility within the story's themes, but it went so far past the limits the story had set for itself in previous content that it had me rolling my eyes and sucked me out of the narrative Anyway those breaks from reality almost always create an opening for fine content creators like that Reddit Guy to teach me more things about actual history, so that's nice. 
Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 06:19 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 06:14
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counterfeitsaint posted:Inconsistent stuff like this always muddies the waters when a show tries to present a "very different culture with very different values". I mean, he still acted with limited information. Not everyone is Toranaga with the ability to perfectly gauge how everyone will act years down the line. Perhaps he hoped that Buntaro wouldn't be as much of a shitter and could offer Mariko something to live for. Maybe he thought her friendship with Ochiba could help her through. Maybe he had the idea that in the end his act of regicide wouldn't be thought of quite as poorly as it turned out to be. Or maybe he was just a desperate man in an impossible situation who deluded himself into thinking there's a way to safe his daughters life despite what he's about to do. As it happens, the change to Fuji's eventual fate supports this. She works as an example that even in a circumstance considered very shameful, there is an alternative to suicide that is considered acceptable to both society as well as those affected.
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May 1, 2024 10:36
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The post on the previous page about ordered suicide was insightful, thanks. I wasn't sure if this show was based on history or if it was mythology, and I wasn't sure how culturally correct/accurate it was. My thought process on top ranking generals and advisors being ordered to commit suicide for the smallest things made no sense, was incredibly shortsighted, and in western media it's what the Bad Guys do. It also didn't make any sense to me why buntaro didn't commit suicide on the pier when given everything the show showed me everyone else would have committed suicide when they realized they had lost. See: the people boiler ready to kill himself rather than drown. My conclusion was that buntaro was a double agent and "survived" (read: let live). E: So is the show "over?" I read the plot summary of the book on Wikipedia and the show seems to have covered everything discussed in the summary. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 12:41 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 12:34
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Boris Galerkin posted:The post on the previous page about ordered suicide was insightful, thanks. I wasn't sure if this show was based on history or if it was mythology, and I wasn't sure how culturally correct/accurate it was. My thought process on top ranking generals and advisors being ordered to commit suicide for the smallest things made no sense, was incredibly shortsighted, and in western media it's what the Bad Guys do. Yeah, the adaptation of the book is complete. The book ends with a Toranaga internal monologue that basically matches what he was saying to Yabushige just before killing him.
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May 1, 2024 12:49
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Was there a single shot with actual sunlight in this series? One of the tells that it's very obviously shot in British Columbia is that it's always raining, drizzling or just cloudy.
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May 1, 2024 13:29
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SolarFire2 posted:Was there a single shot with actual sunlight in this series? One of the tells that it's very obviously shot in British Columbia is that it's always raining, drizzling or just cloudy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eERRO_IyNsg
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May 1, 2024 16:31
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Boris Galerkin posted:It also didn't make any sense to me why buntaro didn't commit suicide on the pier when given everything the show showed me everyone else would have committed suicide when they realized they had lost. See: the people boiler ready to kill himself rather than drown. My conclusion was that buntaro was a double agent and "survived" (read: let live). He was ready to, but was ordered not to. Buntaro is frequently presented as the outward ideal of a samurai. Approaching war the same way as the tea ceremony, as an art to be perfected. His relationship and abuse of Mariko is meant to juxtapose that ideal with the reality. That someone that spends their life as a child spring of aggression doesn't have an off switch.
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May 1, 2024 16:50
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Perestroika posted:I mean, he still acted with limited information. Not everyone is Toranaga with the ability to perfectly gauge how everyone will act years down the line. Perhaps he hoped that Buntaro wouldn't be as much of a shitter and could offer Mariko something to live for. Maybe he thought her friendship with Ochiba could help her through. Maybe he had the idea that in the end his act of regicide wouldn't be thought of quite as poorly as it turned out to be. Or maybe he was just a desperate man in an impossible situation who deluded himself into thinking there's a way to safe his daughters life despite what he's about to do.
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May 1, 2024 17:53
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I thought Mariko's father killed the Taiko, who was the one who killed the Nobunaga analog and took his place? That he was the one the regents were taking about when they said "Lets not pretend the Taiko was not a horrible person". Or is the Taiko meant to be Nobunaga? Also I can totally understand a father loving one of his children so much that he doesn't want them to die, and doing everything to prevent that, even going against cultural norms. Maybe Mariko's father would hope she would understand what he did and not desire to die constantly. Like he could save one person he loved so he did it. I don't think they say what other members of her family there were, but I assume that she had siblings, the boys would be expected to go to their deaths with honour, and probably any sisters would be too young to marry? I dunno, they don't get in it enough to really speculate beyond the most basic thoughts.
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May 1, 2024 19:39
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twistedmentat posted:I thought Mariko's father killed the Taiko, who was the one who killed the Nobunaga analog and took his place? That he was the one the regents were taking about when they said "Lets not pretend the Taiko was not a horrible person". No, the Taiko was a different guy who seized power after the assassination, and eventually died of old age, remember? There that flashback of him talking to Toranaga early on in the show.
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May 1, 2024 20:04
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twistedmentat posted:I thought Mariko's father killed the Taiko, who was the one who killed the Nobunaga analog and took his place? That he was the one the regents were taking about when they said "Lets not pretend the Taiko was not a horrible person". The Taiko was the interim leader between Nobunaga and Tokugawa/Toranaga. Mariko's dad killed Nobunaga at, it's implied, either the behest or the consent of the Taiko because basically everyone in the aristocracy was fed up with Nobunaga's bullshit and took it upon himself to become the fall guy. So there was much preformative wailing and gnashing of teeth over it but everyone was all secretly like "Oh, thank god!  "
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May 1, 2024 20:06
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I don't think there is much to suggest the Taiko had anything to do with killing Gorunda/Nobunaga. In real life, I am pretty sure he did not and was pissed.
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May 1, 2024 20:16
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Ehhh I don't know about that. The Taiko (Hideyoshi) was married to Ochiba, who is Kuroda/Nobunaga's daughter in the show (niece IRL), although they married later so that could have been for legitimacy. It's not out of the realm of possibility I guess, but Hideyoshi/the Taiko owed his station in life to Kuroda, since he's the one who raised him up to become a powerful warlord by recognizing his talents despite being from a lower class background. In real life he was incredibly pissed about it and famously concluded a major war he was fighting against the Mori clan and force-marched his army back to central Japan in order to defeat Akechi.
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May 1, 2024 20:19
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Are these characters having two different names the result of different transliteration at the time or did the author just make up fictional names for historical people for some reason? If it's the latter why? If someone were to write a book set in Rome around 80 BCE they wouldn't call the main character Justin instead of Julius.
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May 1, 2024 21:11
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I think someone mentioned upthread that Clavell didn’t run his manuscript by anyone familiar with stuff. So for example the name “Yabu” wouldn’t have been a name at that time, the poster said. Hence why, for this new version, they changed it to “Yabushige”
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May 1, 2024 21:18
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Boris Galerkin posted:Are these characters having two different names the result of different transliteration at the time or did the author just make up fictional names for historical people for some reason? Julius Ceaser doesn't have direct descendants still in positions of power. The Tokugawa family are still pretty influential in modern Japanese politics and were still royalty until after WWII when all non-Emperor positions were abolished. You can even see their hands in certain 'adjustments' made to Torunaga in the show. Since the early 2000s, they've run a full court PR push about how the Edo era was "an age of enlightenment, where all benefitted." And subsidized government programs to add such to school curriculums. Hiroyuki Sanada has even given several interviews talking about Ieyasu being a man of peace but needed to be a hard man making hard decisions.
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May 1, 2024 21:36
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Boris Galerkin posted:Are these characters having two different names the result of different transliteration at the time or did the author just make up fictional names for historical people for some reason? His characters are all based on actual people, but he changed the names so he could tell the story he wanted to about those real historical events without having to be completely faithful to history. Some people are aged up/down, people are related in different ways than they were in real life, people are in places they wouldn't have been, people die who did not historically, etc. The story still follows the broad strokes of what actually happened, but it's mostly fiction. I guess he thought it was easier to just give them different names than have to deal with any criticisms that might come up related to historical accuracy by using the real person as a character
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May 1, 2024 21:37
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