Current Events > i want to like Shogun

(+) Yeah! (+)

but i dunno, 8 episodes in and i'm basically only still watching it because i don't like leaving things unfinished and because Mariko is incredibly gorgeous. i am really not into the whole big emphasis on all the rituals and etiquette and societal expectations and stuff. it wasn't really like that in history, was it? seems kinda overblown or flanderized or whatever. like, it makes me think of Worf and his whole hyper-focus on being a "proper" Klingon and doing all the things he's been taught Klingons are supposed to do, but then you get some exposure to actual Klingons and you realize that they mostly don't give a shit about all that, lol. and all the instances of seppuku and of people wanting to die and wanting to commit seppuku. i can't imagine that that was actually ever as widespread as a lot of popular media makes it out to be. a civilization wouldn't be able to survive if a large portion of its citizens were so eager to off themselves over the slightest of faux pas. it's ridiculous and ngl, kind of uncomfortable to sit through. i don't like thinking about that kind of thing.

I've been waiting to binge it, so I haven't watched it yet, but a lot of the people that I know and channels I follow have been super positive about it, and I've liked what little I've seen.

If you're unfamiliar - this is a "remake" based on another series, that was based on a book, which was supposed to be historically accurate, more or less.

Japan now, and especially back then - is VERY DIFFERENT to what a lot of us expect as normal shit, in Western countries.

Most of the samurai rituals and Bushido stuff is post Sengoku. Basically once samurai were bureaucrats they had to start coming up with stuff to help justify their existence as a higher class in a peaceful country.

Shogun though is fiction loosely based on real history, so this sort of thing is pretty whatever. Ghosts of Tsushima also inserted a lot of Bushido and other ahistorical stuff even farther into the past and people still largely liked it.

nekrodev posted...

I've been waiting to binge it, so I haven't watched it yet, but a lot of the people that I know and channels I follow have been super positive about it, and I've liked what little I've seen.

If you're unfamiliar - this is a "remake" based on another series, that was based on a book, which was supposed to be historically accurate, more or less.

Japan now, and especially back then - is VERY DIFFERENT to what a lot of us expect as normal shit, in Western countries.

yeah, everyone i've seen talking about it have been super positive about it too. makes me think i'm missing something. i dunno. i guess it's just not for me.

i am aware that it is based on a book. real huge tome too, apparently. and that there has been a prior adaptation. i don't really think that makes any difference on my opinion of it though.

ssjevot posted...

Most of the samurai rituals and Bushido stuff is post Sengoku. Basically once samurai were bureaucrats they had to start coming up with stuff to help justify their existence as a higher class in a peaceful country.

Shogun though is fiction loosely based on real history, so this sort of thing is pretty whatever. Ghosts of Tsushima also inserted a lot of Bushido and other ahistorical stuff even farther into the past and people still largely liked it.

Ghost of Tsushima does look pretty cool. i heard it is going to finally be coming to PC soon. i might get it eventually. my bar for historical accuracy is much lower in videogames than in movies and TV shows.

DoesntMatter posted...

it wasn't really like that in history, was it?

It was. Like, Japanese history during samurai eras is full of people just fucking killing themselves at the drop of a hat.

DoesntMatter posted...

yeah, everyone i've seen talking about it have been super positive about it too. makes me think i'm missing something. i dunno. i guess it's just not for me.

i am aware that it is based on a book. real huge tome too, apparently. and that there has been a prior adaptation. i don't really think that makes any difference on my opinion of it though.

It just seemed like maybe you were having an major issue understanding that they valued like, a concept of "honor" and shit, WELL ABOVE THEIR OWN, or ANYONE ELSES' lives. It is a very weird concept to think about as, like, a modern American or something. It's like trying to rationalize the type of 9/11 suicide bomber type shit.

Guide posted...

It was. Like, Japanese history during samurai eras is full of people just fucking killing themselves at the drop of a hat.

No it wasn't. Actually the movie Seppuku (called Harakiri in the West) is a pretty good movie about how much of a joke the entire thing was for the most part. There was basically a problem with poor samurai threatening to commit seppuku (but not actually intending to) in order to get more money from their lord. It also shows how little honor factored into the real world. It's just a movie, but in general if you move outside romanticised samurai fiction you see a lot of stuff like that. The entire trilogy of samurai movies by Yoji Yamada is also a nice realistic portrayal of samurai "honor".

ssjevot posted...

No it wasn't. Actually the movie Seppuku (called Harakiri in the West) is a pretty good movie about how much of a joke the entire thing was for the most part. There was basically a problem with poor samurai threatening to commit seppuku (but not actually intending to) in order to get more money from their lord. It also shows how little honor factored into the real world. It's just a movie, but in general if you move outside romanticised samurai fiction you see a lot of stuff like that. The entire trilogy of samurai movies by Yoji Yamada is also a nice realistic portrayal of samurai "honor".

bro, they were straight up killing themselves for no reason well on through the 1900s.

DoesntMatter posted...

but i dunno, 8 episodes in and i'm basically only still watching it because i don't like leaving things unfinished and because Mariko is incredibly gorgeous. i am really not into the whole big emphasis on all the rituals and etiquette and societal expectations and stuff. it wasn't really like that in history, was it? seems kinda overblown or flanderized or whatever. like, it makes me think of Worf and his whole hyper-focus on being a "proper" Klingon and doing all the things he's been taught Klingons are supposed to do, but then you get some exposure to actual Klingons and you realize that they mostly don't give a shit about all that, lol. and all the instances of seppuku and of people wanting to die and wanting to commit seppuku. i can't imagine that that was actually ever as widespread as a lot of popular media makes it out to be. a civilization wouldn't be able to survive if a large portion of its citizens were so eager to off themselves over the slightest of faux pas. it's ridiculous and ngl, kind of uncomfortable to sit through. i don't like thinking about that kind of thing.

Any extremely hierarchical society is going to be full of ritual and social expectations. Go read about some of the wild ass shit that went on in the Chinese Imperial Court.

nekrodev posted...

It just seemed like maybe you were having an major issue understanding that they valued like, a concept of "honor" and shit, WELL ABOVE THEIR OWN, or ANYONE ELSES' lives. It is a very weird concept to think about as, like, a modern American or something. It's like trying to rationalize the type of 9/11 suicide bomber type shit.

no i understand it, but i just don't find the exploration of it here particularly compelling

ssjevot posted...

No it wasn't. Actually the movie Seppuku (called Harakiri in the West) is a pretty good movie about how much of a joke the entire thing was for the most part. There was basically a problem with poor samurai threatening to commit seppuku (but not actually intending to) in order to get more money from their lord. It also shows how little honor factored into the real world. It's just a movie, but in general if you move outside romanticised samurai fiction you see a lot of stuff like that. The entire trilogy of samurai movies by Yoji Yamada is also a nice realistic portrayal of samurai "honor".

nekrodev posted...

bro, they were straight up killing themselves for no reason well on through the 1900s.

seems we have two contradictory claims about the historical veracity of popular media depictions of seppuku. but one has a couple citations, while the other is basically "just trust me bro" soooooooo

ScazarMeltex posted...

Any extremely hierarchical society is going to be full of ritual and social expectations. Go read about some of the wild ass shit that went on in the Chinese Imperial Court.

i'm always down to read about wild ass shit that nobles throughout history got up to. give me a teaser.

ssjevot posted...

No it wasn't. Actually the movie Seppuku (called Harakiri in the West) is a pretty good movie about how much of a joke the entire thing was for the most part. There was basically a problem with poor samurai threatening to commit seppuku (but not actually intending to) in order to get more money from their lord. It also shows how little honor factored into the real world. It's just a movie, but in general if you move outside romanticised samurai fiction you see a lot of stuff like that. The entire trilogy of samurai movies by Yoji Yamada is also a nice realistic portrayal of samurai "honor".

I like that movie, even if a bit of it feels like emotional blackmail with just how fucking unlucky that family is. But you're saying honor mattered little, which isn't conflicting with my statement about how suicie was common. Hell, the plot of that movie only works because of how common seppuku wass. Honor and bushido are overblown concepts and rarely actually adhered to by what were increasingly useless nobles, but the extremely hierarchical and bureaucratic culture is what enforced such practices.

DoesntMatter posted...

i'm always down to read about wild ass shit that nobles throughout history got up to. give me a teaser.

The entire Forbidden City essentially ran on the labor of Eunuchs, for one.

One of my favorites is about Zhengde. Zenghde became emperor when he was 13 years old, and he wasnt quite done with the days of childhood. He still liked to make believe, and because he was the emperor, everyone else had to go along with it.
He would force his ministers to dress up as merchants so that he could pretend he was a commoner visiting their shops. This, under Emperor Zhengde, was an imperial duty. Anyone who would not play make-believe with him was removed from their post.
He built a 200-room building called the Leopard Quarter next to the imperial zoo. He and his friends would spend their time there drinking and hunting the animals in the zoo, pretending they were in the jungles chasing wild game.
Zhengde also told his people that he had an identical double named General Zhu Shou. He would give orders for them to pass on to Zhu Shou. Then he would change his clothes and come back out, now forcing everyone to call him Zhu Shou. His men would have to tell him his own orders, and he would pretend to be surprised.
For an imaginary person, Zhu Shou was actually a pretty capable general. Zhengde stayed in power until he turned 29. In the end, though, the liquor got him. Drunk out his mind, he fell out of a boat. The cold water left him with an illness that ended his life.

DoesntMatter posted...

seems we have two contradictory claims about the historical veracity of popular media depictions of seppuku. but one has a couple citations, while the other is basically "just trust me bro" soooooooo

I'm not talking about seppuku, i'm talking about kamikaze - and just, generally, the Japanese philosophy on individual life - which is they did not value it AT ALL

DoesntMatter posted...

seems we have two contradictory claims about the historical veracity of popular media depictions of seppuku. but one has a couple citations, while the other is basically "just trust me bro" soooooooo

I live in Japan. Westerners largely base their idea of Japan off extreme versions of reality. So seppuku is super common and samurai care about honor more than anything etc. But when you actually read about historical figures it's very few that are caring much about honor and you just get a few noteworthy instances of seppuku (and then those get heavily dramatized and played up in fiction, such as the 47 ronin). You also have some very pro-samurai revisionists like Kurosawa who made great movies that were very popular in the West, but it's important to understand they were revisionist. They don't reflect the reality of what most samurai were like.

You don't have to go back in time to see this though. This board constantly goes on about how much Japanese work and commit suicide. If you point out the US works more hours on average and has a higher suicide rate they either ignore you or claim the OECD (or whatever other source) data is fake and their stereotype is a better source.

ScazarMeltex posted...

The entire Forbidden City essentially ran on the labor of Eunuchs, for one.

One of my favorites is about Zhengde. Zenghde became emperor when he was 13 years old, and he wasnt quite done with the days of childhood. He still liked to make believe, and because he was the emperor, everyone else had to go along with it.
He would force his ministers to dress up as merchants so that he could pretend he was a commoner visiting their shops. This, under Emperor Zhengde, was an imperial duty. Anyone who would not play make-believe with him was removed from their post.
He built a 200-room building called the Leopard Quarter next to the imperial zoo. He and his friends would spend their time there drinking and hunting the animals in the zoo, pretending they were in the jungles chasing wild game.
Zhengde also told his people that he had an identical double named General Zhu Shou. He would give orders for them to pass on to Zhu Shou. Then he would change his clothes and come back out, now forcing everyone to call him Zhu Shou. His men would have to tell him his own orders, and he would pretend to be surprised.
For an imaginary person, Zhu Shou was actually a pretty capable general. Zhengde stayed in power until he turned 29. In the end, though, the liquor got him. Drunk out his mind, he fell out of a boat. The cold water left him with an illness that ended his life.

damn, crazy stuff. lol what a dumbass.

nekrodev posted...

bro, they were straight up killing themselves for no reason well on through the 1900s.

I remember hearing that most historical seppukus were just an execution disguised as ritual suicide. The samurai only pushed their blade into their abdomen enough to make the lightest of flesh wounds to show that they were going to disembowel themselves, but then the "assistant" steps in and beheads them.

Bushido was literally invented in the 20th century in order to propagandize the rise of Imperialist Japan, and was retconned back to falsely cover the samurai era.

Good read about this:

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/

Shogun is a great book and Clavell is a really entertaining writer, but he went through hell in a Japanese POW camp in WW2, and bought into a lot of the romantic bullshit about bushido that was common in that time. His books about China are way less romanticized.

BB_mofo posted...

I remember hearing that most historical seppukus were just an execution disguised as ritual suicide. The samurai only pushed their blade into their abdomen enough to make the lightest of flesh wounds to show that they were going to disembowel themselves, but then the "assistant" steps in and beheads them.

That mostly fell on who was the second, the guy who beheaded them.

Seppuku was essentially the Japanese version of the Roman General falling on his sword. You fucked up in such a spectacular way that the only way out was death. Because disembowling is such a fucking horrific way to die and most people can't finish the process you have your second, or kaishakunin, who watches you. Usually you would insert the blade and pull, far enough that the process is irreversible and you'll die regardless, and only then does the second make his Kaishaku cut, removing the head and ending the suffering.

Now as to how often it went that way? Who knows, there isn't a ton of documentation on it. Usually you would name someone who you were close to to be your second, so they would want your suffering to end as quick as possible. If you had someone who hated you though it could go very badly and be dragged out.

I tend to side with ssjevot on this though, the notion that these guys were all running around killing themselves all the time is fictional. Did it happen? Sure.

I train a couple of different Koryu (pre Meiji Restoration martial arts) schools of Iai. Mugai-Ryu and Muso Jikkiden Eishen-Ryu and it was common enough that the Kaishaku cut is in the curriculum of Eishen-Ryu.

There are also versions of it in the lines of Toyama Ryu, which is the post Meiji Era school of swordsmanship taught to Japanese officers when they started carrying katanas again. There are several versions, but only for the act of Kaishaku, the others are for executing prisoners.

ScazarMeltex posted...

. If you had someone who hated you though it could go very badly and be dragged out.

Also important to say that it takes skill to lop off a head with one strike. So the suffering could sometimes be prolonged due to the skill (or lack thereof) of the second.

sfcalimari posted...

Bushido was literally invented in the 20th century in order to propagandize the rise of Imperialist Japan, and was retconned back to falsely cover the samurai era.

Good read about this:

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/

Very interesting