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What's so fascinating about Toranaga's plan to employ Mariko as Crimson Sky is that it was all there right from the beginning.

When Toranaga first arrives in Osaka the regents demand that he release Ochiba, the mother of the Heir, from where she is being held in Edo. Nothing scares Toranaga quite like Ochiba (no doubt why he held her in the first place), and he knows that once she is able to return to Osaka, she's going to do everything she can to destroy him.

Enter Mariko.

Mariko is perfectly placed: she shares a history with Ochiba, a girlhood bond that grew distant due to time and circumstance, but she is completely loyal to Toranaga, willing, in fact, to die for him and his cause. If the time comes for him to have to negotiate with Ochiba — or he has some need to soften her desire for vengeance — Mariko will serve as the crucial middle ground.

Once he realizes Ochiba will soon be free to move against him, Toranaga summons Mariko, requesting that she serve as a translator to the foreign barbarian. But even more important than her role as a translator, Toranaga wants to bring her closer and cement her place in his inner circle of followers. (As a woman, she is easily overlooked, not being a general or a vassal with an army of retainers, but her importance might be even more vital.) He reminds her of his great admiration for her father and acknowledges that for many years she has been robbed of her purpose. What if he could give it back to her? Like Mariko, we assume that her purpose is to serve as a translator, but Toranaga knows it is far larger: to play her part against the regents and serve as a bridge to Ochiba, when the time comes.

Toranaga is a falconer. He knows the value of caring for a bird, feeding it by hand, having it learn to trust you until it sees you as its only master. And as Toranaga describes his falcon, Lady of Steel, he could also be describing his plan for Mariko: “Conceals herself against the sun. Conserving energy, waiting for her moment.”

[demondarakna]

As much as I'd like Shōgun to return to the dynamic pacing that characterized the first part of the show (have we really spent the last four episodes in Ajiro?), slowing the action down has allowed for some fascinating explorations of character and theme.

One that featured heavily in this week's episode (as well as in the previous one) is the idea of myth-making and story.

Toranaga, of course, is the center of one such myth. The “boy warlord,” he won his first battle at age twelve and then served as second to his defeated enemy, taking off his head with one blow. This is the story that Saeki Nobutatsu tells at dinner, a tale that delights his young, impressionable nephew. Nagakato, who wants to prove himself to his father, takes such story as truth and wants to emulate him by riding off to battle, where he will likely be killed, but as a glorious end that will be told and retold. (“Will we die with blood on our swords?” he asks, which is the only honorable way to die.)

Lady Ochiba is surrounded by her own legends. Whereas Toranaga's exploits are the stuff of dinner party entertainment, she literally watches her own life be made into drama. The play performed at the Noh theater depicts her courtship by the Taikō, a courteous affair where her character does not speak, an frozen mask covering any expression she might make. (“Dear Lady Ochiba,” the fictionalized Taikō tells her, “if we have a son, prestige will spread in every direction...”)

(Mariko is also haunted by a story, that of her father's actions against Kuroda. But unlike Toranaga and Ochiba, she has no desire to disillusion herself. In her mind, her father died a hero, the man he killed a tyrant, and for fourteen years she has suffered by not being able to fulfill her duty to him by joining him in death.)

But what Shōgun is also trying to tell us is that life is nothing like the myth. A glorious death, the honor of one's family, the prestige of bearing the Taikō's only son, these require far more of us that we can ever imagine, pain and horror laced through every act.

The true story is one we never want to tell. It is being drugged and assaulted on a nightly basis by your consort and his wife, all in the hopes that you will give them a child. It is hacking at the bloody neck of your defeated enemy, until the ninth blow finally severs his head. It is attempting to kill your uncle in the darkened garden of a tea house, only to slip on a wet stone and dash your brains against the rocks, not a single drop of blood on your sword.

[demondarakna]

toranaga out here playing 4d chess and laying the groundwork to build the brothel next to the catholic church. even in the midst of an impending war and possible surrender he remains a comedic genius.

[demondarakna]

If it keeps you from killing yourself it's not stupid. This applies to anything btw.

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shakespeare wasn't lying that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow can creep in this petty pace from day to day

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Do you ever think about Doggerland?

Like how fucked up is it that it’s just….. gone.

I tend to forget about it and then when I remember it again I’m like “Oh yeah! There’s like an entire country sized stretch of land that’s just fucking GONE.

well…. “gone”….

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artwork by 계를

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I told u idiot 🐈😺

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[demondarakna]

Do y’all ever think about how absolutely bananas Lake Baikal is? It’s the world’s largest lake by volume. It’s the world’s deepest lake. It’s the world’s oldest lake. It contains nearly a quarter of the planet’s surface freshwater. It’s a rift lake, caused by the earth’s crust literally coming apart at the seams. It would be deeper than the Mariana Trench except the bottom is covered in a sediment layer that is miles deep. There are trains that have sunk to the bottom because Russia tried to build a railroad over the ice. The entire lake surface freezes for half the year. The lake is a focal point of multiple indigenous cultures. The lake has its own species of seal, which is the only exclusively freshwater pinniped in the world. There are unique ice formations formed by convection from the depths of the lake. There are 330 inflowing rivers.

I dunno, Lake Baikal sure is a thing.

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Why you gotta warn me 8y too late?

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One of my players has a character: "They said she could never be pretty so she focused on her studies, they said she couldn't be a proper villager so she moved to live in the forest to have peace, they say she couldn't be a witch, so she became a wizard."

Character focused purely on spite and I love her.