Princess Mononoke Is More Important Than Ever

To search for evil with eyes unclouded. To me, this line is both the essence of Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke and the most profound takeaway that I had from the film. I think the movie's most obvious message is the stuff about how we treat nature and how we should better live in harmony with it. But I have no interest in talking about that. Not because it's not relevant or important, but because I think everybody has talked about that to death already. In this video, I want to talk to you about another message entirely, one that I had missed until recently. The ability to see with eyes unclouded by hate, or more specifically, to learn to see the goodness in others even when it seems like they're not on your side. I doubt when Hayao Miyazaki made Princess Mononoke in 1997 that he could have predicted the age of social media, tribalism, and political turmoil that we find ourselves in in the 2020s. But the film explores all these ideas in the complex, subtle yet pointed, and sometimes inscrutable way that all Ghibli films explore their themes. Watching and re-watching the film today, I was surprised by how the struggles of the protagonist Ashitaka act as an incredible parallel for the journey we all have to navigate in the modern age. And it gave me a lot to reflect on how we can do it. To learn to navigate a divided world with eyes unclouded. Now don't get me wrong, this is not going to be a video essay that's just an allegory for centrism, or that both sides to any issue are bad and that we should sit on the fence. I think to read the film that way would be wrong, and we'll talk about how the real message is so much more profound and relatable than that. In fact, there is lessons in here about class warfare, dehumanization, and how even in a bleak world, we must find the value in life. Stuff that hit me so much harder than when I watched the film when I was younger. So let's take a look at Studio Ghibli's Mononoke Hime, a film whose English translated title of Princess Mononoke is in of itself a misunderstanding of what the film is trying to say. Because I think there's a lot we can learn from its characters, even today, about what it means to navigate a broken world at war with itself. The context of this quote, to see with eyes unclouded, comes from fairly early on in the film. Ashitaka, who has just reluctantly killed the boar god turned demon that was threatening his village, finds himself cursed, and the village's oracle tells him that this curse will likely kill him, but there is a chance that it could be a cure if he travels far to the west, where the boar and the source of the curse came from. It is during this section that she tells him that on his journey, he must search for evil with eyes unclouded. The reason I think this line is so important is that it sets up the theme for the entire rest of the film, at least in terms of what Ashitaka's approach and philosophy is. Throughout the movie, people will constantly try to pull Ashitaka to one side or the other, and they will frequently question his allegiance. Multiple times, a character asks out loud towards Ashitaka, whose side are you on? And time and time again, he defies that categorization. He helps one faction, then the other, and no one can quite figure him out. This is why, for some people, I think it's easy to read this as a metaphor for essentially a both-sides approach to life. Both sides are bad, therefore I won't pick a side. But again, I think it's a lot more interesting than that. It's not that Ashitaka just refuses to pick sides, he refuses to see sides in the first place. To me, that is the prescient message of the film that is so applicable to a society that seems so divided today in the age of social media. We'll explore this idea at length later in the video. Rather than get too abstract too quickly, let's first talk through some key scenes in the film, and then I'll explain how I interpret them. The first important scene for me, at least in terms of Ashitaka's philosophy, comes when he arrives at the Ironworks and he meets Lady Eboshi. At this point in the film, he's just saved two residents of the Ironworks from certain death and carries them all the way back here in a pseudo-mystical journey to the Dear God's Woods. I think pretty quickly on arriving at the Ironworks, Ashitaka realizes that the thing he's searching for is here. He's looking for the source of the Iron Musket Pellet that came from the body of the Boar God who cursed him, and he hopes that finding the source, and dealing with it in some way, might lift the curse that plagues him. He talks to Lady Eboshi, the matriarch who runs the Ironworks, and explains why he's here. She asks him, if you find the source of this pellet, what will you do? And it is here that Ashitaka repeats that central quote that I spoke about earlier, and in doing so, sets up the philosophy he will adhere to in the entire film. He tells her that, I will see with eyes unclouded and decide. Hearing this, Lady Eboshi laughs, and guides Ashitaka to her inner sanctum, sharing with him what she says is her greatest secret. She shows him the place where she's having guns and weaponry made, and here she confesses that it was she that shot the pellet that corrupted the Boar God. And it is at this point that we get the first of many moral dilemmas for Ashitaka, and where we can start to paint a really fascinating picture of what we can learn from the film. Initially we see that Ashitaka is full of rage, and he wants to condemn Lady Eboshi. This is such a beautiful and complex moment, the kind that appears so often in Ghibli films, because there are so many reasons and emotions at play here for our protagonist. Firstly, I think the very way Lady Eboshi lives ticks off Ashitaka. He is a member of the Emishi tribe, in fact not just a member, but the prince. The Emishi live in harmony with their environment and do their best to respect nature. When the Boar God appears outside the village, Ashitaka's first instinct is to simply try and reason with it. He begs the Boar God to quell its rage and calm down, to leave the village in peace, for they mean him no harm. But when it's clear that the God is about to attack and kill some of the girls from the village, including Ashitaka's sister, only then, as a last resort, does he strike and take down the Boar. But even after this, the Oracle of the village arrives and treats the Boar God with respect, doing a little ritual and telling him that they will erect a monument in his honor here, because they bear him no ill will and they hope he will do the same for them. So I think on a philosophical level, Ashitaka finds Eboshi's way of life to be abhorrent. Not only does she confess to killing the Boar Spirit, but she very casually tells the tale of how she burned down half the forest and took over this area to mass produce her iron with which she seeks to take over the country. This is the complete opposite of the way the Emishi live. But there is more than that. There is also a personal grievance here from Ashitaka, because it is Eboshi's actions that directly led to him being cursed. And you can see a vindictive anger in him here, where maybe he just wants revenge for giving him this curse that might well kill him. And finally of course, there is the actual curse. Ashitaka's arm bubbles and boils to life, threatening to act on its own to draw his blade and strike down Eboshi. The curse itself is demanding retribution. She asks him, your right hand wants to kill me? And then, must it kill us all to find peace? But Ashitaka resists. He holds down his arm because he doesn't want to be this kind of person. And this is when the idea of seeing with eyes unclouded will really manifest. During this tense confrontation, one of the other people in the room speaks up. Because this inner sanctuary of Eboshi's is home to a few dozen outcasts who suffer from leprosy, and who are the ones who design and make Eboshi's weapons. One of them speaks up, and he says a beautiful line. Young man, he says, I too am cursed. I understand your rage and grief. The leper relates to Ashitaka, and he tells him that while his anger is justified, he should not see Lady Eboshi as an evil person. He tells Ashitaka about how Lady Eboshi is the only person who ever saw the lepers as people, and treated them with respect. Tending to them, and washing and bandaging them herself, while others shunned them. And then he says a line that really hits home for me, and is another theme that we will investigate in the last section of this video. He says, life is suffering and pain. The world and its people are cursed. But still, we wish to live. Hearing all this, both Ashitaka and we the audience are reminded that people are not just one thing. They are not straightforwardly evil, or straightforwardly good. They are complex creatures. For all her greed, destruction, and lack of sanctity with the natural world, Lady Eboshi is also kind, gentle, and empathetic. She looks after not only the lepers, but in the first scene that we meet her, she is considerate towards the villagers too. She knows them all by name, apologizes for the harm that comes to them, and is thankful that they are okay when she sees that Ashitaka has carried them back. After this scene with the lepers, Ashitaka walks around the rest of the settlement, and he sees the women working in the forge, even helping them with their work. He talks to them, and they tell him about how Lady Eboshi treats them. Earlier, when Ashitaka is talking to the men in the tavern, we learn that anytime Lady Eboshi encounters a woman who is being enslaved, she frees them, and gives them work in the ironworks. While a few of the men express that the women here are a bit spoiled, Ashitaka replies that a good village has happy women. What he means by that, I think whether consciously or subconsciously, is that a good place is one where even the most marginalized and endangered people are happy and protected. And so, to confirm this for himself, Ashitaka later asks the ladies at the forge, is life hard here? And they tell him that it is, but it's far better than life anywhere else. They do have to work long days, but they are well looked after, and the men here behave themselves. It is through these encounters that Ashitaka learns something really important, something that is central to the idea of seeing with eyes unclouded. He learns that even a place that can produce evil, in the form of weapons and destruction, can also be a place that produces so much goodness. The ironworks are both a weapons factory that desecrates its environment, but also an egalitarian utopia where everyone is able to live with happiness and respect, no matter their background, gender, or disability. If Ashitaka was more straightforward, if this was a different film with a different message, he might just have come in, killed Lady Eboshi, and acted the vengeance that his curse demands. An eye for an eye. But seeing with eyes unclouded means recognizing both the good and the evil in something, without preconceived bias. Even if he doesn't agree with how Eboshi lives her life and runs the ironworks, he can't deny that she has made something valuable and worth protecting. As I mentioned in the intro, I think this is the most profound message of the film. There is always more to a situation than meets the eye, and we can only see that when we put aside our hate. I think we can confirm this by looking at another quote that actually comes directly from the film's maker, Hayao Miyazaki, who is quoted as saying the following. You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two. Now, problematically, I was not able to find the direct source of this quote. Lots of websites attribute this as a quote from Miyazaki, but don't cite where he actually said it. But if we trust that this is a real quote, I think it does resonate a lot with Ashitaka's approach in the film. This philosophy of seeing good in evil and evil in that which is good, I think speaks to a cultural difference too. It is very much in line with Shintoism and Buddhist beliefs, which I think can feel a bit foreign or mystic to many in the West, where individual action and oppositional factions are a lot more common, as I've spoken about in previous videos. But regardless, I think it's an idea that is equally relevant today in a world that seems so thoroughly divided on so many fronts. Being able to see the value in things that, on the surface, don't seem to be on your side, is something so vital and important for us to do. But I also think both we and the film can go much deeper. Because I don't think any of this means that we should arbitrarily stay in the middle of any dispute, or that there isn't a right or a wrong that we should adhere to. It's actually about making sure we find the right, by looking for it with unbiased or unclouded eyes. And the real profound insight that I felt from watching the film and thinking a lot about it, is that actually, there are no sides, both in the movie and in our lives. And even when there are sides, it's people being pushed to fight each other for misguided reasons. It's parties who actually have a shared goal and are not realizing it. I think Ashitaka is the only person in the film who realizes this, at least until the end. And to illustrate what I mean and elaborate on that further, let's pick up where we left off in the film. Because not long after the conversations Ashitaka has with Eboshi, the Ironworks is under attack by none other than San, the Mononoke Hime of the title. San breaks into the Ironworks, makes her way to where Eboshi is and risks her life to try and kill her. Eboshi, in turn, tries to shoot down San with guns and it culminates in the two having a sort of intense street knife fight. Once again, what's fascinating is that both sides of this confrontation are justified in their beliefs and Eboshi even acknowledges it. When San is stood on the roof, Eboshi calls out to her and says, You seek vengeance for your tribe? Well, there are some here who seek vengeance for their husbands killed by your wolves. This sets up another theme in the film, the idea of a cycle of hatred. It's a vicious cycle where one grievance justifies another and then another in return till no one can remember where it started. But both sides feel aggrieved and justified in their pursuit of vengeance. San and her wolves killed the loved ones of the people in the Ironworks. But those people burned the forest and killed other spirit gods. But those gods were stopping the villagers from getting natural resources they needed and so on and so forth. The buck can always be passed one further step back, but the end result is the destruction of both sides. And we can see that literally as San and Eboshi fight to the death, both ready to die in the pursuit of destroying the other. Ashitaka, however, is the only one capable of seeing that this cycle of hatred will never end like this. He yells at San first and then Eboshi and her people to stop the fighting. But when it's clear that no one will listen, he is forced to physically step in. This is where you can see the curse flare up and manifest because the curse is born from rage and hatred and it's fueled by the resentment and malice that all the people present are holding for one another. Ashitaka physically walks in between Eboshi and San, telling them there is a demon inside you and her. Then he turns to everyone else and tells them to look at the bitterness and hatred that curses him. What he's trying to explain to everyone is that this demon is there within all of us, whether literally as in his case or metaphorically as in the case of San and Eboshi. The demon is the hatred and resentment. It is the anger and the malice that we all hold. And he desperately implores everyone that they shouldn't give in to it. What he wants is for people to strive to see things with unclouded eyes, to see that nature and humans can live in harmony. But unfortunately for Ashitaka and for everyone in the film, the message falls on deaf ears. Eboshi and San don't listen and Ashitaka is forced to physically subdue them. As he tries to carry San out, one of the ladies at the ironworks draws her weapon on him. She threatens to shoot Ashitaka and her justification is so interesting because she simply says, you hurt Lady Eboshi. And in return comes this look. Oh, this brilliant look. I feel like I've never seen disappointment better shown on screen without a word being said than this. Ashitaka simply looks back at this woman with eyes that just kind of speak for him, as if to say, you still don't get it? Despite everything I'm telling you and showing you, you're still going to say that? Because saying, you hurt Lady Eboshi, so thoroughly misses the point of what Ashitaka was trying to illustrate. Yes, he hurt Lady Eboshi, but that is the point. There's always a step back. He could turn and say, well, I only hurt Lady Eboshi because she was going to hurt San. And then Eboshi would say, well, I was only going to hurt San because she was going to hurt me. And so on and so forth. The cycle of hatred, it can never be broken by more hatred, more anger, more vengeance, cannot stop the destruction. Only a genuine attempt to look beyond it, to forgive where possible and make amends where it's not. That is the only way anyone here can move past it. But this lady refuses to see it. While she doesn't try to shoot Ashitaka, her gun accidentally goes off and hits him directly in the back. This, of course, will kick off a different section of the film where Ashitaka will now spend his time in the forest with San. But before we talk about her, I want to reiterate something that I spoke about earlier. I don't think the message of the film is that Ashitaka is not picking a side. That's certainly not the message of what I'm saying. What I think is profound about what Ashitaka does is that he's the only one who sees that there are no sides. Because as everyone realizes at the end of the film, the humans in the forest can live in harmony. Ashitaka's Emishi tribe is proof of this. These sides can work together. They're just so blinded by their rage that they can't see that. The Deer God, who is central to the film, is the perfect representation of this idea. There can be a balance and harmony between seemingly oppositional forces. Because he is both life and death. And yet so many characters don't see that. The boars, for example, are angry at the Deer God because they think the Deer God is only supposed to protect the forest. When San brings the injured Ashitaka to him, the Deer God heals him, but didn't heal Nago, the boar that eventually became the cursed demon. Which upsets the boar tribe. To them, the Deer God should be picking sides. He's supposed to be about life and protection for the forest. So why did he not help one of them? And then goes and helps a human. Meanwhile, the humans only see the Deer God as the source of death and danger. In fact, I think one of the most profound illustrations of this comes right at the end of the film from a very small, easily missed line. After a dramatic climax where the Deer God is shot and killed by Eboshi, he then transforms into a vengeful version of the Night Walker and nearly destroys the entire forest in pursuit of his head. Finally, when his head is given back by Ashitaka and San, he collapses into the water, bringing with him a wave of healing and regrowth, before seemingly dying. It is at this point that Koroku, one of the villagers, says aloud, I didn't know the Deer God makes the flowers bloom. To me, this represents the fundamental misunderstanding of the humans in the Ironworks. You can see this misinformation, you can see it as propaganda, or you can see it as simple ignorance. But they don't actually understand what the Deer God or the forest does. We'll talk about specifically Eboshi later, but as a whole, the people of the Ironworks seem to have this mistaken belief the forest is only a place of danger to them. What they don't realize is that the Deer God is life, as much as it is death. It is not one side. It is not either or. It is both. This is what Ashitaka sees and understands throughout the film and what we can all learn from. On the flip side, San doesn't understand this either. Because she says that even restored, these are not the Deer God's woods. The Deer God is dead. Once again, it is Ashitaka who is the only one able to see the truth and he says that the Deer God cannot ever die because he is both life and death. And that in this act of regrowth, he's telling us all to live. This is another theme we will explore in the final section of this video about the value of life itself. But before we talk about that, let's elaborate more about San's behavior and attitude. Because like almost every other human in the film, she too is unable to let go of her hatred in order to see the truth in front of her. One of the central questions about San in the film is who and what is she? There's ambiguity about her identity itself but also, is she human? Wolf? Or something else entirely? Again, she views herself as part of a binary. A wolf fighting against humans. But others also view her binarily. When Lady Eboshi first describes San, she says that she is a girl whose soul the wolves stole. And she thinks that if she destroys the forest, it will break their hold on San and she'll go back to being a normal human. This is probably a good point to talk about the title of the film that I promised I'd explain. Because the original title of the film in Japanese is Mononoke Hime which actually translates to Monster Princess. This is actually the title that the residents of the ironworks give her. So what it speaks to is how they view both her and the spirits. Monsters. Now whether she is the princess of the monsters, a monstrosity of a princess, or a princess belonging to the monsters, it is the pejorative term they attach to her. The English translated title of Princess Mononoke actually misses a subtle but important part of this description because Princess Mononoke just sounds like a name. Like that's what this character is called. But she is San. She has a name. It's just that the people of the ironworks either never got a chance to learn it or never bothered to. And their referral to her and the spirits as monsters says more about their approach than her reality. In fact, it's interesting that when they first encounter Ashitaka, they fear he might be a monster too. In this scene as Ashitaka is carrying Koroku and the other villager he's rescued back to the ironworks, these guys sitting by the river see them approaching. And one of them says the phrase Now Mononoke means monster as we've discussed and the ka indicates a question. So he could be asking if it's a monster in general that's approaching or he could be worried that Mononoke-hime is approaching. Either way, it represents his paranoia. Anything coming from the woods is a monster to him. Even though it's three people, two of whom are his own friends. All of this is to say that the villagers have a one-dimensional view of San and she has a one-dimensional view of herself. San refuses to accept herself as a human and in fact her stance at the end of the film is telling in how she refuses to grow as a character over the course of the film. One of Ghibli's rare prominent female characters to do so. After the deer god's head has been returned and order is somewhat restored, San turns to Ashitaka and says I love you Ashitaka, but I cannot forgive the human race. And so the two come to an agreement. Ashitaka will help the people of the ironworks rebuild a better home, something we'll talk about soon, while San will remain in the forest with the wolves and the two can meet whenever they want. Now of course what San is saying is equal parts understandable, but equal parts ridiculous. It is understandable that she's unhappy with what the people of the ironworks, particularly Lady Eboshi did, in terms of killing the deer god, or at least his corporeal body. But San is also being a massive hypocrite. Firstly she says she cannot forgive the human race, but of course she doesn't include Ashitaka in that. She loves him, and she's able to separate him from the idea of humanity. But even more hypocritically, she's excluding herself from this distinction too. She's giving herself a benefit of the doubt that she refuses to extend to any of the ironworks residents. She recognizes that she and Ashitaka might be human beings that are able to live respectfully and harmoniously with the forest, but she paints the rest of the entire human race with one brush, condemning them as essentially evil and incapable of behaving well. This again really spoke to me as a line of thinking that so many people still use today. To tarnish entire groups of people as dangerous and irredeemable, whether that's immigrants or trans people or whoever, is so fundamentally wrong. Especially when that characteristic is innate, not based on the evidence of their behavior. Like being human, for example. The vast majority of the people of the ironworks are just trying to live their lives and doing what they're told. You can argue that Eboshi is the villain that San views all of humanity to be, and we'll talk about her soon, I promise. But you can't say the same for the rest of everyone else. They're no more at fault for what happened than a random boar from the forest is. And yet in her stubbornness and petulance, San refuses to see that nuance. Now you might argue that she doesn't view herself as human, but I think clearly on some level she knows she is. If she didn't, she wouldn't be in love with Ashitaka. She wouldn't react the way she does when he calls her beautiful. Everyone, even the forest spirits, know that she is human. They just accept her regardless. Right after the scene where Ashitaka carries her out of the ironworks, one of the monkey spirits says, Wolf girl not care, wolf girl human, when talking to San, which angers one of her wolf brothers, and he threatens to bite the monkey's head off. This shows us that everyone here is aware of the reality of what San is. Her brothers are sensitive because they don't want her to feel different to them, but she is. Moro acknowledges this too when she's talking about San with Ashitaka. Ashitaka demands that San be freed because she is human, to which Moro barks back that she is neither human nor wolf, and calls her my poor ugly lovely daughter. Moro in fact holds a similar style of thinking to San, in that she too sees things as oppositional. Moro dismissively asks, will you join San and fight the humans? And Ashitaka replies that no, that will only breed more hatred, which goes back to this idea of the cycle of hatred that we spoke about earlier, which Ashitaka is right in asserting cannot be broken with more hatred. Then when Ashitaka asks her, can't the humans in the forest live in peace? Moro replies that nowhere is safe as long as humans are around. Again, she doesn't believe this about San or even Ashitaka, but spouts it as fact regardless, showing how she, like San, refuses to accept complexity rather than binaries. And here there's also a fascinating parallel with what she says about San's relationship with the forest, with what Eboshi said. Moro says that San is now tied to the forest, and that if the forest dies, San will die too. This is the actual opposite of what Eboshi says if you remember, who claims that destroying the forest will actually liberate San. Ultimately, maybe they are both right and wrong. Because if the forest dies, maybe Mononoke Hime, the child of the wolves, will die, but perhaps San the human will be freed. Either way, the fact that they both make this claim confidently shows how they are not viewing things with unclouded eyes, but rather through their biased lenses. As it happens, the forest isn't destroyed, it's saved, and San chooses to forsake humanity, displaying an inability to view the world with the nuanced and unclouded eyes that Ashitaka has been doing and asking for others to do too. Funnily enough, there is one woman who he does get through to by the end of the film, Lady Eboshi. After San's declaration that she cannot forgive humans, we then shortly cut to Lady Eboshi, talking to her people. She remarks that she can't believe she was carried to safety by a wolf of all things. Then she says that the people of the ironworks will start over, but that we will build a good village here. Suggesting that she wants to build a better home this time. To me, I think that's a pretty clear indicator from her, especially in light of those two lines coming back to back, that Eboshi has seen that she can, in fact, live in harmony with the forest. That the wolves are not an evil force, they're just living creatures trying to protect what they hold precious. And that she can build a version of the ironworks that doesn't desecrate or seek to destroy the forest. This is also why I think Ashitaka chooses to stay, because he also believes that it can be done, that the humans can rebuild in a way that resembles how his Emishi clan live, in harmony with the world around them. Now, as for Eboshi, there is another theme I want to talk about. One that is definitely not explicit in the film, but stood out to me as a great metaphor for how the world works today. And that is, the lies of the 1%, screwing over the rest of the 99. As I've mentioned earlier in the video, Ashitaka is keen to emphasize that there are no sides to the situation, and everyone can live harmoniously. But on the occasions that there are sides, it's the wrong people being pit against each other. And perhaps the biggest example of this, is Lady Eboshi. Now don't get me wrong, Eboshi is not a victim or some innocent damsel in distress. Quite the opposite. She's shown to be ruthless, cold when needed, and deeply ambitious. She half-jokingly, half-seriously, declares her desire to rule the entire country. But as we've discussed, she's a nuanced character who is kind, gentle, and noble at times as well. Her beef with the forest spirits though, is largely based on misinformation and ignorance, like I mentioned earlier. Where she seems to believe that not only is the Deer God a threat and a source of death, but also that killing the forest will restore San back to her human self. At one point, she even posits that the blood of the Deer God is set to cure any illness, and she could use it to cure the lepers that she houses of their condition. The people of the Ironworks don't realize that the Deer God also brings life, and provides the resources that they're using. And the person seeking to exploit this ignorance is the character of Jiko. The reason I want to talk about the 1% and the 99% in this section is because Jiko is very directly the voice and the will of the Emperor in Princess Mononoke. In this scene, he comes to Eboshi and shows her a letter from the Emperor that demands that she kill the Deer God and bring his head to him. Eboshi is initially reluctant, and feels like the iron production is going well enough. But Jiko softly threatens her that all the men they've supplied her with weren't just sent to get iron. And you can see his expression change from serious, to the fake innocent that he pretends to be as he adds, or at least that's what his majesty would say. All of this is a reminder that not only can he take Eboshi's resources away, but he can use those very men against her. But funnily enough, one sentence later, when Eboshi questions if the Emperor believes that the Deer God's head will give him immortality, Jiko claims, oh, I don't know what the Emperor thinks. This is of course a direct contradiction to what he just said, and it reveals Jiko's true nature and purpose. He's here to get what he wants, one way or the other. It's clear that Jiko is a substitute for the Emperor, acting as a force of coercion that makes the central conflict arise in the film. And we can see that coercion not just from the verbal and financial threats, but also, before this scene, Jiko has a horde of goons that he brings with him. He tells them to hide and wait for him, which is to imply that if Eboshi didn't willingly agree to kill the Deer God, he'd make her do it by force. And Eboshi understands this, because right after agreeing to kill the Deer God, she tells Jiko that he can summon that shady bunch hidden under the cliff. And Jiko simply laughs with this fake innocent expression again, and says, oh, you saw them, did you? What all of this shows us is that Eboshi is aware of the threat that Jiko brings with him. For her own part, she's currently fighting a war with a human, the nobleman Lord Asano, who's trying to steal the ironworks from her. Not only is this guy a wealthy, powerful samurai, but he's also a bit of a scumbag because we learn through dialogue that he tried to conquer this area himself and was driven back by the Boers. But now that Eboshi has managed to conquer it, he's demanding that she give him half, again, under the threat of violence. So if taking the wealth from someone else's labor without doing anything of your own isn't a Marxist allegory, I don't know what is. It's all subplot, so none of the following is discussed explicitly, but it feels pretty clear to me that Eboshi is essentially caught in a tough political sandwich. On the one hand, she has a wealthy, established noble trying to forcibly take her business, and it's not a stretch to say that this guy likely has the emperor's favor, whereas the upstart woman in Eboshi probably doesn't. On the other side, she has Jiko requesting, but really demanding as we've seen, that she go to kill the dear god in the emperor's name. And of course, the minute she goes off to do so and leaves the ironworks relatively unguarded, Lord Asano attacks with his army. You have to wonder, where would he have gotten this information from, that the ironworks are currently unguarded? I think it's almost certain that Jiko is pulling the strings on this, getting everything he and by extension the emperor wants. Which is the dear god's death, the appeasement of one of his nobles, and the removal of an ambitious rogue element in Eboshi. Jiko in fact, actually directly tells Eboshi, there is no time to fight men, just give Asano all the ironworks. Fulfill your promise to the emperor. So it's pretty clear that he doesn't care what happens to her, and later when they're in the forest, one of his scouts asks if they really even need Eboshi, and Jiko declares quietly, that when it comes to hunting a god, they should let her do the dirty work. So all this is to say that, while Eboshi is herself ambitious and dangerous, it's clear that she's being manipulated and coerced by a higher authority, who arbitrarily creates the conflict between the ironworks and the dear god for his own ends. In fact, everything in the film is basically a consequence of Jiko's actions. First, in the town when he first meets Ashitaka, he is the one who convinces everyone that the little gold pellet that Ashitaka gives the woman in exchange for rice is super valuable. But he does so in such a loud and obvious way that it inevitably draws the attention of everyone around, including these people who want to rob Ashitaka. And then conveniently, Jiko is there again, to warn Ashitaka and run away with him. Was this all part of his plan? Possibly. He then tells Ashitaka to go to the ironworks and the dear god's forest to find the answers he's looking for. Again, to me at least, the class parallel is pretty clear. Despite him being an envoy of the emperor, Jiko manages to convince everyone in this little village that this humble traveler from a remote tribe is somehow super wealthy, and turns them against him while hiding his own power and status. Constantly, both here and later, he's pitting people against each other to mask his own ends. And if we continue down the idea that he's essentially a substitute for the emperor, then this is a pretty clear and I'd argue astute metaphor for a class struggle and the way in which the truly wealthy and powerful manipulate others into fighting for relative scraps while they get what they want. Once Jiko reaches the ironworks himself, he specifically asks about Ashitaka and if Eboshi has seen him, presumably because he wants to use Ashitaka again, to which Eboshi replies that he came and went already. And then finally, and perhaps most tellingly, there is this line he says when the hunt for the dear god is taking place. Ashitaka, having seen the ironworks was already under attack, goes to find Eboshi. He finds the men from the ironworks who describe the horrors of what's just happened, including how they were used as human shields. Jiko and his crew had planted bombs and grenades underneath where the men of the ironworks were told to hold the line. And when the boars approached, the bombs were set off and all lives were lost, human and animal. Jiko's plan clearly did not care about collateral damage. But Ashitaka again, refusing to see sides, rescues one of San's wolf brothers from underneath the pile of boar corpses and even convinces the men of the ironworks to help him do so. I think it's really telling that when we see this first instance of the animals and the people of the ironworks working together, it's Jiko's guards who try to stop them. Again, trying to keep the two sides divided. But when they attack Ashitaka, it's the men of the ironworks who revolt and fight back, as they realize that the wolves are not their enemies. Rise up against your greedy overlords, comrades! The men then work together to free the wolf, and the wolf in turn also doesn't show any hostility towards the workers once it's freed, and instead proceeds to guide Ashitaka to where San is. On the way, Ashitaka stops in front of Eboshi and tells her what's happening, that the ironworks are under attack and that she should abandon her hunt for the dear god. You can see Jiko's nervous expression here, as if he's worried that he'll actually convince Eboshi to stop doing his dirty work for him. She replies, you want me to kill samurai instead of the dear god? To which Ashitaka says, no, can't the forest and the ironworks live in peace? And it's at this point that Jiko says a really telling line. He says, whose side is he on? This is a pretty clear distillation of the point I've been building to. Here is Ashitaka saying that the forest and the people can live in harmony. Once again, it's not that he's not picking sides, he refuses to see sides. And here is Jiko in return telling him, hey, whose side are you on? Trying to insist that there are in fact two binary factions that must try and destroy each other. But we know he's wrong. We've just seen Ashitaka unite the two sides in a unified goal without hostility or conflict. But no matter what he claims, Jiko doesn't care about what happens to the people of the ironworks. And even the men realize that when Ashitaka comes to find them. And they say, they're willing to sacrifice us all. They're using Lady Eboshi. Now, thankfully, Eboshi has an inherent distrust of men, which she explicitly states to the ladies of the ironworks. She says she's more afraid of men than monsters and tells them to be on their guard while she's away. And so Toki and the others are able to fend off the attack on the ironworks. Of course, her and the other ladies' distrust of men is valid in the context of what they've been through. But I also think it doubles as a mistrust of hierarchy. Because Eboshi doesn't distrust Ashitaka, who she very quickly asks to join her cause after first meeting him. Nor does she distrust her right-hand man. But she does distrust Lord Asano and Jiko, men with power and authority. The 1% who are recklessly willing to sacrifice lives to get whatever they want. This is illustrated in another really poignant line that Jiko says right to the end of the film. Here, he's fleeing with the dear god's head. Even while watching the entire forest and ironworks be destroyed, by the way. Which, really clear metaphor here, guys. San and Ashitaka stop him and tell him to give the head back. To which he says something that completely illustrates his worldview. He says, The thirst to possess heaven and earth is what makes us human. This is so interesting because it's demonstrably untrue. Here is Jiko, standing in front of two humans who clearly do not share this instinct of his. And yet he declares so confidently that what he was doing was in fact human nature. Again, to me, this just speaks to Jiko's inherently manipulative nature where he's trying to convince everyone that they should all behave like him. But Ashitaka and San refuse, and they begrudgingly do get through to Jiko, getting him to give up the head, which they then take and return to the dear god. All of this is to say that this is just another part of Princess Mononoke that struck me as so relevant when watching it now. In a time where the wealth divide between the richest and the poorest in society has only grown in most of the western world for the last 50 plus years, the theme of the powerful minority manipulating the majority could not be more profound. The tactics of misinformation, misdirection and coercion, blaming a vulnerable group for problems they didn't cause, these are all things that are probably even more true now than they were when the film released in 1997. But while this is a rather bleak worldview, and indeed it's a pretty brutal life depicted in Princess Mononoke, there's also a subtle optimism that permeates the film. And that's the last thing I want to talk to you about, because I think it's another thing we could really do with hearing in the modern day, that life may be hard, but it's worth living. I've already spoken so far about the idea of seeing with eyes unclouded, about not seeing ourselves or others as one-dimensional or as binary opposites, and of resisting the manipulations of the elite and powerful. But there is one other recurring message that appears throughout Princess Mononoke, and that is the idea that the world is a cold, bitter place, but the value of life is still sacrosanct. And as long as we're alive, we can make the world a better place. There is lots of ambient misery depicted throughout Princess Mononoke. The Emishi tribe are dying out and now forced to give up their prince, samurai and natural disasters are destroying villages, the forest gods are dying out and getting weaker, and even the people of the ironworks live difficult lives. All of this while an out-of-touch emperor focuses on trying to find immortality. But there are also times when the bleak state of the world is made verbally explicit. It first comes from Jiko, when he's sitting down to talk with Ashitaka for the first time. Remarking on the men who were potentially looking to rob Ashitaka, he says that it wasn't always like this, but that hearts have grown cold throughout the land. He says that the area around here was a fine village once, but whether it was a flood or a landslide, it was destroyed, and now the land, presumably referring to the country as a whole, teems with bitter ghosts, dead from war, sick or starved, and fallen where they stood. A curse, you say? The world is a curse. If you remember from earlier in the video, this actually echoes what the leper will say later in the ironworks, that life is suffering in pain, the world and its people are cursed, but we still wish to live. But notice that what the leper says, and what Jiko says as well, end with slight optimism. The world may be a curse, but we still want to live as human beings. And Jiko has a similar philosophy when he tells Ashitaka that everyone dies, some now, some later, but the trick is to avoid the jaws of death, or so his master used to say. At this point, Ashitaka laments that, I shouldn't have gotten into that fight, I killed two men. Referring to the fact that as he was riding here, he encountered a samurai raid on a village, and when they attacked him, he was forced to defend himself and kill the two men in the process. Ashitaka feels guilt for this act, but Jiko tells him, This is a reminder of course of the pragmatic worldview that the film espouses, that life and death are very closely related. And indeed in this instance, Ashitaka's actions bring both death and life simultaneously, much like what the dear god does. This little optimistic spin on things does seem to get through to Ashitaka, and what we see for most of the rest of the film, is that he spreads a rather hopeful message to everyone else that he meets. And that's simply, to live. Live, just for the act of living, and the value all life has. But also, because through living, you can make the world a better place, and also express your gratitude to those who have sacrificed to get you here. Ashitaka does this both through his actions, and his words. In his actions, he's basically as much of a pacifist as you could realistically be in the film. At every occasion before he enters a physical conflict, he beseeches the life in front of him to stop, to not fight. First he does it with the curse for Nago, imploring him to quell his rage multiple times, before he's finally forced to strike when the demon is about to attack other people. With the aforementioned samurai who were attacking Jiko and the others, Ashitaka again yells at them to let him pass. It's only when they refuse and attack him, does he fight back. The same again happens twice more at the climax of the film. First he's riding towards the ironworks when Lord Asano's invading samurai spot him. He again implores them to let him pass, but they start firing on him regardless. Then a short while later, they send riders to chase after him, and again Ashitaka implores them to put down their arms. When it's clear that they won't, he shoots down one of the men, but still lets the other one escape. So time and time again, Ashitaka avoids taking life or even attempting to do so, unless he absolutely has to. And in the verbal message he gives to others, he implores them to live. When he carries San out of the ironworks after her fight with Eboshi, she questions why he helped her. He says, I didn't want you to die. To which San replies, I'm not afraid to die if it will drive away the humans. This is another area where the two of them are philosophically polar opposites. And San shows an immaturity of attitude that speaks to someone who hasn't really gotten the chance to mature and develop as a person. Repeatedly, San seems happy to throw her life away for seemingly nothing. She does this later as well when she charges in with the boars at the climax of the film to attack Chico and Eboshi's encampment, even though she admits it will be certain death. But Ashitaka is always trying to get her to stop thinking like this. Even as San draws his blade against him and threatens to kill Ashitaka, he simply replies, live, before rizzing her up by telling her that she's beautiful, which completely throws her off guard, partly because I think it reminds her of her humanity. I'll have to remember this tactic if an attractive woman ever points a sword at my throat. At the end of the film, when the dear god has seemingly died, San says that all is lost because the dear god is dead. To which Ashitaka replies that the dear god cannot die, for he is both life and death, and that through this final act, he is telling us to live. Again, this is a really optimistic message in a world that's so full of pain and misery, as we've discussed. Live, because you're alive. Live because you can do something with that life. Because giving up is not just illogical, but flies in the face of all of those who are dead, who no doubt would have loved a chance to live longer themselves. And that's what Ashitaka's plan is at the end of the film. San just retreats back into the woods, which is a great metaphor for how she hasn't grown at all throughout the film. She just goes back to being the exact same person in the same location as before. Ashitaka, by comparison, decides to live in the ironworks to help them make a more ethical society. He could just as easily go back to the Emishi tribe, now that his curse is lifted, and return to the life he lived before. But that goes against his message. Live, because you can still make this cruel world a better place. And that's what he plans to do in this new location. Indeed, I think the wisest characters in the film share this message. Again, towards the end of the film, Koroku, the ironworks villager who Ashitaka saved, watches the fire envelop the ironworks, and he says, once the forest starts to burn, it's all over. To which his wife Toki replies, no it isn't. We're still alive. Again, like San, Koroku is too concerned with the temporary and the physical. If we lose this material thing, we lose it all. What is the point of life without it? But Toki and Ashitaka are there to act as reminders to them, and us the audience, that, hey, you're still alive, aren't you? So nothing is lost. Because within you, there's an infinite potential to make and create more things worth living for. And that's the note I'd like to end this video on, because I do believe that it's a really valuable lesson for us to carry on into our lives amongst the many relevant contemporary messages that I felt the film brings even today. The world is a bleak place, in our real lives too sometimes. We're living through an era where it feels like social progress is going backwards, more and more people are being made to suffer through exploitation, and more than anything, people's empathy just seems to be fading. The passive cruelty and vindictiveness of so many has been so starkly on display, but even when it seems like all is lost, it isn't. Because we are alive, and with that life, we owe it to those who've lost theirs to keep going. And with this life comes endless possibilities of things we can do to change the darkness around us, to keep striving to make the world a better place for all of us to live in. And I hope by making this video and reaching out to you, I've helped do so in some small, tiny way. If you've made it all the way to the end of this video, then please listen to just one more thing. Easily the hardest part of making video essays like this one is the copyright issues. I won't go into too many details so as to not bore you, but media analysis like this is covered by a law called Fair Use, which allows the use of copyrighted content for the purpose of transformative analysis. However, big media companies love to abuse the power they have and make false copyright claims on videos like mine, because, well, they can, and there's no punishment for them. What this means is that my videos are always at the risk of being flagged, temporarily taken down, or the copyright holder can take all the revenue from the video for themselves. All of this is to say that I would really, really appreciate it if you would consider becoming my patron and supporting this content directly. The Soak is now my full-time job, and it's very stressful to rely primarily on YouTube revenue as I currently do, because that's always liable to be cut from or taken away entirely. Copyright strikes can hit at any time, literally years later, and three strikes result in the termination of a YouTube channel if I don't contest the strike and win, which thankfully I've managed every time so far. But my latest video, for example, had to go down for two weeks while I fought a copyright battle with Studio Ghibli, and all that time it was taken down for meant it got killed in the algorithm, as you can see here. Not only does Patreon help me feel more comfortable making video essays, but I'm also able to provide my patrons with access to the videos even if and when they do get taken down, and also give early access before the rest of the public. If you've made it all the way here, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you at least somewhat enjoyed this video, so I hope I might have earned some of your support, and if you'd prefer to use a one-time donation, then the link to my PayPal is in the video description as well. Anyways, that's it for the financial plug. I want to thank you so much for watching the video all the way through, and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to all my current patrons, and do let me know in the comments what you'd like to see me cover next, and I hope I'll see you very soon for another video. Have a great day.