Malintrashadowmoon 2025 BDay gift 04/25/2025

Malintrashadowmoon 2025 BDay gift 04/25/2025
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Malintrashadowmoon-2025-BDay-gift-1187178030

IN AMENDMENT

Princess Mononoke: More Relevant Than Ever
froom The soak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUoLoNFidik

TRANSCRIPT

0:07 to search for evil with eyes unclouded to me this line is both the essence of 0:12 Studio jibles Princess monoke and the most profound takeaway that I had from the film I think the movie's most 0:18 obvious message is the stuff about how we treat nature and how we should better live in harmony with it but I have no 0:25 interest in talking about that not because it's not relevant or important but because I think everybody has talked 0:31 about that to death already in this video I want to talk to you about another message entirely one that I had 0:37 missed until recently the ability to see with eyes unclouded by hate or more 0:42 specifically to learn to see the goodness in others even when it seems like they're not on your side I doubt 0:48 when hay Miyazaki made princess monoke in 1997 that he could have predicted the age of social media tribalism and 0:55 political turmoil that we find ourselves in in the 2020s but the film explores all these ideas in the complex subtle 1:03 yet pointed and sometimes inscrutable way that all jibli films explore their themes watching and rewatching the film 1:10 today I was surprised by how the struggles of the protagonist Ashi taka act as an incredible parallel for the 1:15 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 1:22 navigate a divided world with eyes unclouded now don't get me wrong this is not going to be a video essay that's 1:28 just an allegory for Centric is M or that both sides any issue are bad and that we should sit on the fence I think 1:34 to read the film that way would be wrong and we'll talk about how the real message is so much more profound and 1:40 relatable than that in fact there's lessons in here about class Warfare dehumanization and how even in a bleak 1:47 world we must find the value in life stuff that hit me so much harder than 1:52 when I watched the film when I was younger so let's take a look at Studio ji's monoke Hime a film whose English 1:59 translated title of Princess monoke is in of itself a misunderstanding of what the film is trying to say because I 2:05 think there's a lot we can learn from its characters even today about what it means to navigate a broken world at more 2:12 with itself [Music] Part One: To See With Unclouded Eyes 2:26 [Music] the context of this quote to see with eyes unclouded comes from fairly early 2:34 on in the film ashitaka who has just reluctantly killed the bore God turn demon that was threatening his village 2:40 finds himself cursed and The Village's Oracle tells him that this curse will likely kill him but there is a chance 2:47 that there could be a cure if he travels far to the west where the boore and the source of the curse came from it is 2:54 during this section that she tells him that on his journey he must search for evil with eyes unclouded 3:00 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 3:06 in terms of what Ashi taka's approach and philosophy is throughout the movie people will constantly try to pull Ashi 3:13 taka to one side or the other and they will frequently question his Allegiance multiple times a character asks out loud 3:19 towards ashitaka whose side are you on and time and time again he defies that 3:25 categorization he helps one faction then the other and no one can quite figure him out this is why for some people I 3:31 think it's easy to read this as a metaphor for essentially a both sides approach to life both sides are bad 3:38 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 3:45 to pick sides he refuses to see sides in the first place to me that is the 3:50 precient message of the film that is so applicable to a society that seems so divided today in the age of social media 3:57 we'll explore this idea at length later in the video rather than get too abstract too quickly 4:02 let's first talk through some key scenes in the film then I'll explain how I interpret them the first important scene 4:08 for me at least in terms of ashitaka's philosophy comes when he arrives at the Iron Works and he meets lady eboshi at 4:15 this point in the film he's just saved two residents of the Iron Works from certain death and carries them all the 4:20 way back here in a pseudo mystical Journey to the dear God's Woods I think pretty quickly on arriving at the Iron 4:26 Works ashitaka realizes that the thing he's searching for is here he's looking for the source of the iron musket pellet 4:33 that came from the body of the bore God who cursed him and he hopes that finding the source and dealing with it in some 4:39 way might lift the curse that plagues him he talks to Lady eboshi The Matriarch who runs the Ironworks and 4:46 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 4:53 repeats that Central quote that I spoke about earlier and in doing so sets up the philosophy he will adhere to in the 5:00 entire film he tells her that I will see with eyes unclouded and decide hearing 5:06 this lady eosi laughs and guides ashitaka to her inner sanctum sharing with him what she says is her Greatest 5:12 Secret she shows him the place where she's having guns and weaponry made and here she confesses that it was she that 5:17 shot the pet that corrupted the Bor God and it is at this point that we get the first of many moral dilemmas for 5:23 ashitaka and where we can start to paint a really fascinating picture of what we can learn from the film in initially we 5:30 see that ashitaka is full of rage and he wants to condemn Lady eboshi this is such a beautiful and complex moment the 5:37 kind that appears so often in ji films because there's so many reasons and emotions at play here for our 5:42 protagonist firstly I think the very Way Lady abushi lives takes off ashitaka he 5:48 is a member of the Mishi tribe in fact not just a member but the prince the emishi live in harmony with their 5:54 environment and do their best to respect nature when the bore God Appears outside the village Ashi Taka first instinct is 6:00 to simply try and reason with it he begs the Bor God to quell its rage and calm down to leave the village in peace for 6:07 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 6:12 village including ashitaka's sister only then as a last resort does he strike and 6:17 take down the boar but even after this the Oracle of the village arrives and treats the boar god with respect doing a 6:24 little ritual and telling him that they will erect a monument in his honor here because they bear him no ill will and 6:29 they hope he will do the same for them so I think on a philosophical level ashitaka finds ibushi's way of life to 6:35 be abhorent not only does she confessed to killing the bore Spirit but she very casually tells the tale of how she 6:41 burned down half the forest and took over this area to mass-produce her iron with which she seeks to take over the 6:47 country this is the complete opposite of the way the emishi live but there's more than that there's also a personal 6:53 grievance here from ashitaka because it is eos's actions that directly led to him being cursed and you can see a 6:59 vindictive anger in him here where maybe he just wants revenge for giving him this curse that might well kill him and 7:06 finally of course there's the actual curse ashitaka's arm Bubbles and boils to life threatening to act on its own to 7:13 draw his blade and strike down neosi the curse itself is demanding retribution 7:19 she asks him your right hand wants to kill me and then must it kill us all to 7:24 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 7:31 the idea of seeing with eyes unclouded will really manifest during this tense confrontation one of the other people in 7:37 the room speaks up because this inner sanctuary of eois is home to a few dozen outcasts who suffer from leprosy and who 7:44 are the ones who design and make ibushi's weapons one of them speaks up and he says a beautiful line young man 7:51 he says I too am cursed I understand your rage and grief the leper relates to 7:56 ashitaka and he tells him that while his anger is just ified he should not see Lady eboshi as an evil person he tells 8:03 ashitaka about how lady eboshi is the only person who ever saw the lepers as people and treated them with respect 8:10 tending to them and washing and bandaging them herself While others shunn them and then he says a line that 8:16 really hits home for me and is another theme that we will investigate in the last section of this video he says life 8:22 is suffering and pain the world and its people are cursed but still we wish to 8:28 live hearing all this both ashitaka and we the audience are reminded that people are not just one thing they are not 8:34 straightforwardly evil or straightforwardly good they are complex creatures for all her greed destruction 8:41 and lack of sanctity for the natural world lady abushi is also kind gentle and empathetic she looks after not only 8:48 the lepers but in the first scene that we meet her she's considerate towards the villagers too she knows them all by 8:55 name apologizes for the harm that comes to them and is thankful that they are okay when she sees that ashitaka has 9:00 carried them back after this scene with the lepers ashitaka walks around the rest of the settlement and he sees the 9:06 women working in the Forge even helping them with their work he talks to them and they tell him about how Lady eosi 9:13 treats them earlier when ashitaka is talking to the men in the tavern we learn that anytime lady eosi encounters 9:18 a woman who is being enslaved she frees them and gives them work in the Iron Works while a few of the men Express 9:25 that the women here are a bit spoiled ashitaka replies that a good V has happy women what he means by that I think 9:32 whether consciously or subconsciously is that a good place is one where even the most marginalized and endangered people 9:38 are happy and protected and so to confirm this for himself Ashi taka later 9:43 asked the ladies of the forge is life hard here and they tell them that it is but it's far better than life anywhere 9:50 else they do have to work long days but they're well-looked after and the men here behave themselves it is through 9:56 these encounters that ashitaka learned something really important something that is Central to the idea of seeing 10:01 with eyes unclouded he learns that even a place that can produce evil in the form of weapons and destruction can also 10:07 be a place that produces so much goodness the Iron Works are both a weapons Factory that desecrates its 10:13 environment but also egalitarian Utopia where everyone is able to live with happiness and respect no matter their 10:19 background gender or disability if Ashi taka was more straightforward if this was a different film with a different 10:25 message he might just have come in killed lady eosi and acted the Vengeance that his curse demands an eye for an eye 10:33 but seeing with eyes unclouded means recognizing both the good and the evil in something without preconceived bias 10:40 even if he doesn't agree with how eboshi lives her life and runs the Iron Works he can't deny that she's made something 10:45 valuable and worth protecting as I mentioned in the intro I think this is the most profound message of the film 10:52 there is always more to a situation that meets the eye and we can only see that when we put aside our hate I think we 10:58 can confirm this by looking at another quote that actually comes directly from the film's maker hay Miyazaki who is 11:05 quoted as saying the following you must see with eyes unclouded by hate see the 11:10 good in that which is evil and the evil in that which is good pledge yourself to neither side but vow instead to preserve 11:17 the balance that exists between the two now problematically I was not able to find the direct source of this quote 11:24 lots of websites attribute this as a quote from Miyazaki but don't site where he actually said it but if we trust that 11:30 this is a real quote I think it does resonate a lot with ashitaka's approach in the film this philosophy of seeing 11:36 good and evil and evil in that which is good I think speaks to a cultural difference too it is very much in line 11:42 with Shintoism and Buddhist beliefs which I think can feel a bit foreign or Mystic to many in the west where 11:47 individual action and oppositional factions are a lot more common as I've spoken about in previous videos but 11:54 regardless I think it's an idea that is equally relevant today in a world that seems so thoroughly divided on so many 12:00 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 12:06 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 12:13 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 12:18 adhere to it's actually about making sure we find the right by looking for it with unbiased or unclouded eyes and the 12:26 real profound Insight that I felt from watching the film and thinking a lot about it is that actually there are no 12:32 sides both in the movie and in our lives and even when there are sides it's people being pushed to fight each other 12:38 for misguided reasons it's parties who actually have a shared goal and are not realizing it I think ashitaka is the 12:45 only person in the film who realizes this at least until the end and to illustrate what I mean and elaborate on 12:51 that further let's pick up where we left off in the film because not long after the conversations ashitaka has with 12:56 eboshi the Iron Works is under attack by none other than son the mon noime of 13:02 the title son breaks into the Iron Works makes her way to where eboshi is and risks her life to try and kill her eosi 13:09 in turn tries to shoot down son with guns and it culminates in the two having a sort of intense Street KN fight once 13:16 again what's fascinating is that both sides of this confrontation are justified in their beliefs and abushi 13:22 even acknowledges it when son is stood on the roof eosi calls out to her and says you seek Vengeance for your tribe 13:29 well there are some here who seek Vengeance for their husbands killed by your wolves this sets up another theme 13:34 in the film The idea of a cycle of hatred it's a vicious cycle where one grievance justifies another and then 13:40 another in return till no one can remember where it started but both sides feel grieved and justified in their 13:47 pursuit of Vengeance son and her wolves killed the loved ones of the people in the iron works but those people burned 13:52 the forest and killed other spirit gods but those gods were stopping the villagers from getting natural resources 13:58 they needed and so on and so forth the buck can always be passed one further step back but the end result is a 14:05 destruction of both sides and we can see that literally as s and neosi fight to 14:10 the death both ready to die in the pursuit of destroying the other ashitaka 14:15 however is the only one capable of seeing that this cycle of hatred will never end like this he yells at s first 14:22 and then eosi and her people to stop the fighting but when it's clear that no one will listen he is forced to physically 14:28 step this is where you can see the curse flare up and manifest because the curse 14:34 is born from Rage and hatred and it's fueled by the resentment and Malice that all the people present are holding for 14:40 one another ashitaka physically walks in between eboshi and Son telling them there is a demon inside you and her then 14:47 he turns to everyone else and tells them to look at the bitterness and hatred that curses him what he's trying to 14:53 explain to everyone is that this demon is there within all of us whether literally as in his case or 14:59 metaphorically as in the case of son and neosi the demon is the hatred and resentment it is the anger and the 15:06 malice that we all hold and he desperately implores everyone that they shouldn't give into it what he wants is 15:12 for people to strive to see things with unclouded eyes to see that nature and humans can live in harmony but 15:18 unfortunately for ashitaka and for everyone in the film The Message falls on deaf ears eosi and Son don't listen 15:25 and ashitaka is forced to physically subdue them as he tries to carry son out one of the ladies of the Iron Works 15:30 draws her weapon on him she threatens to shoot ashitaka and her justification is so interesting because she simply says 15:37 you hurt lady eosi and in return comes this look oh This brilliant look I feel 15:43 like I've never seen disappointment better shown on screen without a word being said than this ashitaka simply 15:49 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 15:55 everything I'm telling you and showing you you're still going to say that because saying you hurt lady abosi so 16:00 thoroughly misses the point of what ashitaka was trying to illustrate yes he hurt lady abushi but that is the point 16:07 that there's always a step back he could turn and say well I only hurt lady eboshi because she was going to hurt son 16:13 and then eosi would say well I was only going to hurt son because she was going to hurt me and so on and so forth the 16:19 cycle of hatred it can never be broken by more hatred more anger more Vengeance 16:25 cannot stop the destruction only a genuine attempt to look Beyond it to forgive where possible and make amends 16:31 where it's not that is the only way anyone here can move past it but this lady refuses to see it and while she 16:38 doesn't try to shoot ashitaka her gun accidentally goes off and hits him directly in the back this of course will 16:44 kick off a different section of the film where Ashi taka will now spend his time in the forest with son but before we 16:50 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 aside 16:57 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 17:02 who sees that there are no sides because as everyone realizes at the end of the film the humans in the forest can live 17:08 in harmony ashitaka's emishi tribe is proof of this these sides can work 17:14 together they're just so blinded by their rage that they can't see that the dear God who is Central to the film is 17:20 the perfect representation of this idea that there can be a balance and Harmony between seemingly oppositional forces 17:26 because he is both life and death and yet so many characters don't see that the bores for example are angry at 17:33 the dear God because they think the dear God is only supposed to protect the forest when son brings the injured 17:39 ashitaka to him the dear God heals him but didn't heal Nago the boore that eventually became the cursed demon which 17:46 upsets the boore tribe to them the dear God should be picking sides he's supposed to be about life and protection 17:52 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 17:59 dear God as the source of death and danger in fact I think one of the most profound illustrations of this comes 18:05 right at the end of the film from a very small easily missed line after a dramatic climax where their dear God is 18:11 shot and killed by aosi he then transforms into a vengeful version of the night walker and nearly destroys the 18:16 entire forest in pursuit of his head finally when his head is given back by ashitaka andan he collapses into the 18:23 water bringing with him a wave of healing and regrowth before seemingly dying it is that this point that koroku 18:30 one of the villagers says aloud I didn't know the dear God makes the flowers bloom to me this represents the 18:36 fundamental misunderstanding of the humans in the Ironworks you can see it as misinformation you can see it as 18:42 propaganda or you can see it as simple ignorance but they don't actually understand what the dear God or the 18:48 forest does we'll talk about specifically eboshi later but as a whole the people at the ironwork seem to have 18:54 this mistaken belief the forest is only a place of danger to them what they don't realize is that the dear God is 19:00 life as much as it is death it is not one side it is not either or it is both 19:07 this is what ashitaka sees and understands throughout the film and what we can all learn from on the flip side s 19:14 doesn't understand this either because she says that even restored these are not the dear God's Woods their dear God 19:20 is dead once again it is ashitaka who is the only one able to see the truth and he says that the dear God cannot ever 19:27 die because he is both life and death and that in this act of regrowth he's 19:32 telling us all to live this is another theme we will explore in the final section of this video about the value of 19:37 life itself but before we talk about that let's elaborate more about s's behavior and attitude because like 19:44 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 19:53 her one of the central questions about son in the film is who and what is she Part Two: Who Is Mononoke-Hime 19:59 there's ambiguity about her identity itself but also is she human wolf or 20:05 something else entirely again she views herself as part of a binary a wolf 20:10 fighting against humans but others also view her binarily when lady eosi first 20:15 describes son she says that she is a girl whose Soul the Wolves stole and she thinks that if she destroys the forest 20:22 it will break their hold on son and she'll go back to being a normal human this is probably a good point to talk 20:28 about the of the film that I promised I'd explain because the original title of the film in Japanese is monoke Hime 20:35 which actually translates to monster princess this is actually the title that the residents of the Iron Works give her 20:41 so what it speaks to is how they view both her and the spirits monsters now 20:47 whether she is the princess of the monsters a monstrosity of a princess or a princess belonging to the monsters it 20:53 is a pejorative term they attach to her the English translated title of princess monoke Ashley misses a subtle but 21:00 important part of this description because princess monoke just sounds like a name like that's what this character 21:05 is called but she is son she has a name it's just that the people of the Ironworks either never got a chance to 21:12 learn it or never bothered to and their referral to her and the spirits as monsters says more about their approach 21:19 than her reality in fact it's interesting that when they first encounter ashitaka they fear he might be 21:25 a monster too in this scene as ashitaka is carrying Koro Who and the other villager he's rescued back to the Iron 21:31 Works these guys sitting by the river see them approaching and one of them says the phrase Mona now monoke means 21:38 monster as we've discussed and the C indicates a question so he could be asking if it's a monster in general 21:45 that's approaching or you could be worried that monoke hee is approaching either way it represents his paranoia 21:52 anything coming from the woods is a monster to him even though it's three people two of whom are his own friends 21:58 all of this is to say that the villagers have a one-dimensional view of son and she has a one-dimensional view of 22:04 herself son refuses to accept herself as a human and in fact her stance at the end of the film is telling and how she 22:11 refuses to grow as a character over the course of the film one of jbl's rare prominent female characters to do so 22:17 after the dear God's head has been returned and order is somewhat restored son turns to Ashi taka and says I love 22:23 you ashitaka but I cannot forgive the human race and so the two come to an agreement that ashitaka will help the 22:29 people of the Iron Works rebuild a better home something we'll talk about soon while son will remain in the forest 22:34 with the Wolves and the two can meet whenever they want now of course what son is saying is equal parts 22:40 understandable but equal parts ridiculous it is understandable that she's unhappy with what the people of the Iron Works particularly lady eboshi 22:47 did in terms of killing the deer God or at least his corporeal body but son is 22:53 also being a massive hypocrite firstly she says she cannot forgive the human race but of course she doesn't include 22:59 ashitaka in that she loves him and she's able to separate him from the idea of humanity but even more hypocritically 23:06 she's excluding herself from this distinction too she's giving herself a benefit of the doubt that she refuses to 23:12 extend to any of the iron work's residents she recognizes that she and ashitaka might be human beings that are 23:18 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 23:25 essentially evil and incapable of Behaving well this again really spoke to me as a line of thinking that so many 23:31 people still use today to tarnish entire groups of people as dangerous and irredeemable whether that's immigrants 23:37 or trans people or whoever is so fundamentally wrong especially when that characteristic is innate not based on 23:43 the evidence of their behavior like being human for example the vast majority of the people of the Ironworks 23:49 are just trying to live their lives and doing what they're told you can argue that eosi is the villain that s views 23:55 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 24:00 else they're no more at fault for what happened than a random boar from the forest is and yet in her stubbornness 24:06 and petulance son refuses to see that Nuance now you might argue that she doesn't view herself as human but I 24:13 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 24:19 the way she does when he calls her beautiful everyone even the forest Spirits know that she is human they just 24:26 accept her regardless right after the scene where ashitaka carries her out of the Iron Works one of the monkey Spirits 24:31 says wolf girl not care wolf girl human when talking to S which anger one of her 24:37 Wolf brothers and he threatens to bite the monkey's head off this shows us that everyone here is aware of the reality of 24:43 what son is her brothers are sensitive because they don't want her to feel different to them but she is Morrow 24:50 acknowledges this too when she's talking about son with ashitaka ashitaka demands that son be freed because she is human 24:57 to which Morrow barks fact that she is neither human nor wolf and calls her my 25:02 poor ugly lovely daughter Maro in fact holds a similar style of thinking to s 25:07 in that she too sees things as oppositional Maro dismissively asks will you join s and fight the humans Nashi 25:15 taka replies that no that will only breed more hatred which goes back to this idea of the cycle of hatred that we 25:21 spoke about earlier which ashitaka is right in asserting cannot be broken with more hatred then when ashitaka asks her 25:28 can't the humans in the forest live in peace Mora replies that nowhere is safe as long as humans are around again she 25:35 doesn't believe this about son or even ashitaka but spous it as fact regardless 25:40 showing how she like son refuses to accept complexity rather than binaries 25:46 and here there's also a fascinating parallel with what she says about son's relationship with the forest with what 25:51 eosi said Morrow says that s is now tied to the forest and that if the forest 25:56 dies s will die too this is the actual opposite of what eashi says if you remember who claims 26:03 that destroying the forest will actually liberate son ultimately maybe they are both right and wrong because if the 26:09 forest dies maybe monoke Heime the child of the Wolves will die but perhaps s the 26:15 human will be freed either way the fact that they both make this claim confidently shows how they are not 26:21 viewing things with unclouded eyes but rather through their biased lenses as it happens the forest isn't destroyed it's 26:28 saved andan chooses to forsake Humanity displaying an inability to view the world with the nuance and unclouded eyes 26:35 that ashitaka has been doing and asking for others to do too funnily enough there is one woman who he does get 26:41 through to by the end of the film lady eosi after son's declaration that she cannot forgive humans we then shortly 26:48 cut to lady eosi talking to her people she remarks that she can't believe she was carried to safety by a wolf of all 26:55 things then she says that the people of the Iron Works will start over but that we will build a good Village here 27:02 suggesting that she wants to build a better home this time to me I think that's a pretty clear indicator from her 27:08 especially in light of those two lines coming back to back that eboshi has seen that she can in fact live in harmony 27:14 with the forest that the wolves are not an evil force they're just living creatures trying to protect what they 27:19 hold precious and that she can build a version of the Iron Works that doesn't desecrate or seek to destroy the forest 27:26 this is also why I think ashitaka chooses to stay because he also believes that it can be done that the humans can 27:32 rebuild in a way that resembles how his Mishi Clan live in harmony with the world around them now as for eosi there 27:39 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 27:45 metaphor for how the world works today and that is the lies of the 1% screwing 27:50 over the rest of the Part Three: The Lies of the 1 27:55 99 as I've mentioned earlier in the video ashitaka is Keen to emphasize that there are no sides to this situation and 28:02 everyone can live harmoniously but on the occasions that there are sides it's 28:07 the wrong people being pit against each other and perhaps the biggest example of this is lady eboshi now don't get me 28:14 wrong ibushi is not a victim or some innocent Damsel in Distress quite the opposite she's shown to be ruthless cold 28:21 when needed and deeply ambitious she half jokingly half seriously declares her desire to rule the entire our 28:28 country but as we've discussed she's a nuanced character who is kind gentle and 28:33 Noble at times as well her beef with the forest Spirits though is largely based on misinformation and ignorance like I 28:40 mentioned earlier where she seems to believe that not only is the dear God a threat and a source of death but also 28:45 that killing the forest will restore son back to her human self at one point she even posits that the blood of the dear 28:52 God is set to cure any illness and she could use it to cure the lepers that she houses of their condition 28:58 the people of the Iron Works don't realize that the dear God also brings life and provides the resources that 29:04 they're using and the person seeking to exploit this ignorance is the character of Goo the reason I want to talk about 29:10 the 1% and the 99% in this section is because goo is very directly the voice 29:16 and the will of the emperor in princess monoke in this scene he comes to eboshi 29:21 and shows her a letter from the emperor that demands that she kill the dear God and bring his head to him eboshi is 29:28 initially reluctant and feels like the iron production is going well enough but Joo softly threatens her that all the 29:34 men they've supplied her with weren't just sent to get iron and you can see his expression change from serious to 29:40 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 29:47 reminder that not only can he take ibushi's resources away but he can use those very men against her but funnily 29:54 enough one sentence later when eboshi questions of the emperor believes that the deer God's head will give him 29:59 immortality jico claims oh I don't know what the emperor thinks this is of course a direct contradiction to what he 30:06 just said and it reveals J's true nature and purpose he's here to get what he wants one way or the other it's clear 30:13 that jico is a substitute for the emperor acting as a force of coercion that makes the central conflict arise in 30:19 the film and we can see that coercion not just from the verbal and financial threats but also before this scene J has 30:26 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 30:33 willingly agree to kill the dear God he'd make her do it by force and eboshi 30:38 understands this because right after agreeing to kill the dear God she tells jico that he can summon that shady Bunch 30:44 hidden under the cliff and joico simply laughs with this fake innocent expression again and says oh you saw 30:50 them did you what all of this shows us is that eosi is aware of the threat that jico brings with him for her own part 30:57 she's ly fighting a war with a human the nobleman Lord asano who's trying to steal the Iron Works from her not only 31:04 is this guy a wealthy powerful Samurai but he's also a bit of a scumbag because we learned through dialogue that he 31:10 tried to conquer this area himself and was driven back by the Boors but now that eboshi has managed to conquer it 31:16 he's demanding that she give him half again under the threat of violence so if 31:21 taking the wealth from someone else's labor without doing anything of your own isn't a Marxist allegory I don't know 31:27 what is it's all subplot so none of the following is discussed explicitly but it feels pretty clear to me that eboshi is 31:33 essentially caught in a tough political sandwich on the one hand she has a wealthy established Noble trying to 31:39 forcibly take her business and it's not a stretch to say that this guy likely has the emperor's favor whereas the 31:45 upstart woman in neosi probably doesn't on the other side she has J requesting 31:50 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 31:57 she goes off to to do so and leaves the Iron Works relatively unguarded Lord oano attacks with his army you have to 32:03 wonder where would he have gotten this information from that the Iron Works are currently unguarded I think it's almost 32:09 certain that jico is pulling the strings on this getting everything he and by extension the emperor wants which is the 32:15 dear God's death the appeasement of one of his Nobles and the removal of an ambitious Rogue element in abosi J in 32:23 fact actually directly tells eboshi there is no time to fight men just give a all the Iron Works fulfill your 32:30 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 32:35 forest one of his Scouts asks if they really even need eosi and J declares quietly that when it comes to hunting a 32:42 god they should let her do the dirty work so all of this is to say that while eosi is herself ambitious and dangerous 32:49 it's clear that she's being manipulated and coerced by a higher authority who arbitrarily creates the conflict between 32:55 the Iron Works and the dear God for his own ends in fact everything in the film is basically a consequence of J's 33:01 actions first in the town when he first meets Ashi taka he is the one who convinces everyone that the little gold 33:07 pellet that ashitaka gives the woman in exchange for rice is super valuable but 33:12 he does so in such a loud and obvious way that it inevitably draws the attention of everyone around including 33:18 these people who want to Rob ashitaka and then conveniently jico is there again to war Nashi taka and run away 33:25 with him was this all part of his plan possibly he then tells ashitaka to go to 33:30 the Iron Works and the dear God's Forest to find the answers he's looking for again to me at least the class parallel 33:36 is pretty clear despite him being an Envoy of the emperor J manages to convince everyone in this little village 33:42 that this humble traveler from a remote tribe is somehow super wealthy and turns them against him while hiding his own 33:49 power and Status constantly both here and later he's peing people against each other to mask his own ends and if we 33:55 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 34:02 struggle and the way in which the truly wealthy and Powerful manipulate others into fighting for relative scraps while 34:07 they get what they want once Chico reaches the Iron Works himself he specifically asks about ashitaka and if 34:14 abosi has seen him presumably because he wants to use Ashi taka again to which aboshi replies that he came and went 34:20 already and I'm finally and perhaps most tellingly there's this line he says when the hunt for the dear God is taking 34:26 place ashitaka having seen the Iron Works is already under attack goes to find ioshi he finds the men from the 34:32 Iron Works who describe the horrors of what's just happened including how they were used as human Shields Joo and his 34:39 crew had planted bombs and grenades underneath where the men of the Iron Works were told to hold the line and 34:44 when the bores approached the bombs were set off and all lives were lost human 34:50 and animal J's plan clearly did not care about collateral damage but ashitaka 34:55 again refusing to see sides rescues one of son's Wolf brothers from underneath the pile of bore corpses and even 35:02 convinces the men of the Iron Works to help him do so I think it's really telling that when we see this first 35:07 instance of the animals and the people of the Iron Works working together it's J's guards who try to stop them again 35:14 trying to keep the two sides divided but when they attack ashitaka it's the men of the Iron Works who revolt and fight 35:21 back as they realize that the wolves are not their enemies rise up against your greedy overlords comrades the men then 35:27 work together to free the wolf and the Wolf in turn also doesn't show any hostility towards the workers once it's 35:33 freed and instead proceeds to guide ashitaka to where son is on the way ashitaka stops in front of eboshi and 35:40 tells her what's happening that the Iron Works under attack and that she should abandon her hunt for the dear God you 35:45 can see J's nervous expression here as if he's worried that he'll actually convince eboshi to stop doing his dirty 35:51 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 35:58 and the Iron Works live in peace and it's at this point that jico says a really telling line he says whose side 36:05 is he on this is a pretty clear distillation of the point I've been building to here is ashitaka saying that 36:10 the forest and the people can live in harmony once again it's not that he's not picking sides he refuses to see 36:17 sides and here is goo in return telling him hey whose side are you want trying 36:22 to insist that there are in fact two binary factions that must try and destroy each other 36:28 but we know he's wrong we've just seen ashitaka unite the two sides in a unified goal without hostility or 36:35 conflict but no matter what he claims J doesn't care about what happens to the people of the Ironworks and even the men 36:41 realize that when ashitaka comes to find them and they say they're willing to sacrifice us all they're using lady 36:47 eboshi now thankfully eosi has an inherit distrust of men which she explicitly States the ladies of the Iron 36:53 Works 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 37:00 and the others are able to fend off the attack on the Iron Works of course her and other lady's distrust of men is 37:06 valid in the context of what they've been through but I also think it doubles as a mistrust of hierarchy because eashi 37:12 doesn't distrust ashitaka who she very quickly asked to join her cause after first meeting him nor does she distrust 37:18 her right-hand man but she does distrust Lord asano and jico men with power and authority the 1% who are recklessly 37:26 willing to sacrifice lives to get whatever they want this is Illustrated in another really poignant line that 37:31 jico says right to the end of the film here he's fleeing with the dear God's head even while watching the entire 37:37 forest and Iron Works be destroyed by the way which really clear metaphor here guys San and ashitaka stop him and tell 37:43 him to give the head back to which he says something that completely illustrates his world view he says The 37:49 Thirst to possess Heaven and Earth is what makes us human this is so interesting because it's demonstrably 37:55 untrue here is goo standing in in front of two humans who clearly do not share this Instinct of his and yet he declares 38:01 so confidently that what he was doing was in fact human nature again to me 38:06 this just speaks to joo's inherently manipulative nature where he's trying to convince everyone that they should all behave like him but Ashi taka and son 38:13 refus and they begrudgingly do get through the chico getting him to give up the head which they then take and return 38:19 to the dear God all of this is to say that this is just another part of princess monoke that struck me as so 38:25 relevant when watching it now in a time where the wealth divide between the richest and the poorest in society has 38:30 only grown in most of the western world for the last 50 plus years the theme of the powerful minority manipulating the 38:35 majority could not be more profound the tactics of misinformation misdirection and coercion blaming a vulnerable group 38:43 for problems they didn't cause these are all things that are probably even more true now than they were when the film 38:48 released in 1997 but while this is a rather Bleak worldview and indeed it's a pretty 38:53 brutal life depicted in Princess monoke there's also subtle optimism that permeates the film and that's the last 38:59 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 39:05 it's worth [Music] living I've already spoken so far about Part Four: Life Is For Living 39:11 the idea of seeing with eyes unclouded about not seeing ourselves or others as one-dimensional or as binary opposites 39:18 and of resisting the manipulations of the elite and Powerful but there is one other recurring message that appears 39:24 throughout princess monoke and that is the idea that the world world is a cold bitter place but the value of life is 39:30 still sacran and as long as we're alive we can make the world a better place 39:36 there is lots of ambient misery depicted throughout princess monoke the emishi tribe are dying out and now forced to 39:42 give up their prince Samurai and natural disasters are destroying Villages the forest gods are dying out and getting 39:48 weaker and even the people of the Iron Works live difficult lives all of this while an outof of touch Emperor focuses 39:55 on trying to find immortality but there there are also times when The Bleak state of the world is made verbally 40:00 explicit it first comes from jico when he's sitting down to talk with ashitaka for the first time remarking on the men 40:06 who were potentially looking to Rob ashitaka he says that it wasn't always like this but that Hearts have grown 40:11 cold throughout the land he says that the area around here was a fine Village once but whether it was a flood or a 40:17 landslide it was destroyed and now the land presumbly referring to the country as a whole teams with bitter ghosts dead 40:24 from war sick or starved and Fallen where they stood a curse you say the 40:30 world is a curse if you remember from earlier in the video this actually Echoes what the leper will say later in 40:35 the Iron Works that life is suffering in pain the world and its people are cursed but we still wish to live but notice 40:42 that what the leper says and what Chico says as well end with slight optimism the world may be a curse but we still 40:49 want to live as human beings and Cho has a similar philosophy when he tells ashitaka that everyone dies some now 40:55 some later but the trick is to avoid the jaws of death or so his master used to say at this point ashitaka L man said I 41:03 shouldn't have gotten into that fight I killed two men referring to the fact that as he was riding here he 41:08 encountered a samurai raid on a village and when they attacked him he was forced to defend himself and kill the two men 41:14 in the process ashitaka feels guilt for this act but jico tells him hey you may have killed those guys but you helped me 41:21 and others escape this is a reminder of course of the pragmatic worldview that the film espouses that life and death 41:28 are very closely related and indeed in this instance ashitaka's actions bring both death and life simultaneously much 41:36 like what the dear God does this little optimistic spin on things does seem to get through to ashitaka and what we see 41:42 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 41:47 simply to live live just for the act of living and the value all life has but 41:53 also because through living you can make the world a better place and also express your gratitude to those who have 41:59 sacrificed to get you here ashitaka does this both through his actions and his words in his actions he's basically as 42:06 much of a pacifist as you could realistically be in the film at every occasion before he enters a physical 42:11 conflict he beseeches the life in front of him to stop to not fight first he does it with the curse for Nago 42:18 imploring him to quell his rage multiple times before he's finally forced to strike when the demon is about to attack 42:23 other people with the aformentioned samurai who were attacking G and the others ashitaka again yells at them to 42:30 let him pass it's only when they refuse and attack him does he fight back the same again happens twice more at the 42:36 climax of the film first he's riding towards the Iron Works when Lord aso's invading Samurai spot him he again 42:43 implores them to let him pass but they start firing on him regardless then a short while later they send Riders to 42:49 chase after him and again ashitaka implores them to put down their arms when it's clear that they won't he 42:55 shoots down one of the men but still lets the other one Escape so time and time again ashitaka avoids taking life 43:02 or even attempting to do so unless he absolutely has to and in the verbal message he gives to others he implores 43:09 them to live when he carries son out of the Iron Works after her fight with eosi she questions why he helped her he says 43:16 I didn't want you to die to which son replies I'm not afraid to die if it will drive away the humans this is another 43:23 area where the two of them are philosophically Polar Opposites and Son shows an image maturity of attitude that 43:28 speaks to someone who hasn't really gotten the chance to mature and develop as a person repeatedly son seems happy 43:34 to throw her life away for seemingly nothing she does this later as well when she charges in with a boes of the climax 43:40 of the film to attack Chico in eos's encampment even though she admits it will be certain death but Ashi taka is 43:46 always trying to get her to stop thinking like this even as son draws his blade against him and threatens to kill 43:51 ashitaka he simply replies live before Rising her up by telling her that she's 43:56 beautiful which completely throws her off guard partly because I think it reminds her of her Humanity I'll have to remember this 44:03 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 s says that all is lost 44:11 because the dear God is dead to which ashitaka replies that the dear God cannot die for he is both life and death 44:16 and that through this Final Act he is telling us to live again this is a really optimistic message in a world 44:23 that's so full of pain and misery as we've discussed live because you're Alive live because you can do something 44:29 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 44:35 would have loved a chance to live longer themselves and that's what ashitaka's plan is at the end of the film s just 44:40 Retreats back into the woods which is a great metaphor for how she hasn't grown at all throughout the film she just goes 44:46 back to being the exact same person in the same location as before Ashi taka by comparison decides to live in the Iron 44:52 Works to help them make a more ethical Society he could just as easily go back to the Mishi tribe now that his curse is 44:59 lifted and return to the life he lived before but that goes against his message live because you can still make this 45:05 cruel world a better place and that's what he plans to do in this new location indeed I think the wisest characters in 45:11 the film shared this message again towards the end of the film koroku The Iron Works villager who ashitaka saved 45:18 watches the fire envelop the Iron Works and he says once the four stars to burn it's all over to which his wife Toki 45:25 replies no it isn't we're still alive again like son koroku is too concerned 45:30 with the temporary and the physical if we lose this material thing we lose it all what is the point of life without it 45:37 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 45:44 so nothing is lost because within you there's an infinite potential to make and create more things worth living for 45:51 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 45:56 on into our lives amongst the many relevant contemporary messages that I felt the film brings even today the 46:02 world is a bleak place in our real lives too sometimes we're living through an era where it feels like social progress 46:08 is going backwards more and more people are being made to suffer through exploitation and more than anything 46:14 people's empathy just seems to be fading the passive cruelty and vindictiveness of so many has been so starkly on 46:20 display but even when it seems like all is lost it isn't because we are alive 46:26 and with that life life we owe it to those who've lost Theirs to keep going and with this life comes endless 46:32 possibilities of things we can do to change the darkness around us to keep striving to make the world a better 46:37 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 46:44 small tiny way if you've made it all the way to the end of this video then please listen to 46:50 just one more thing easily the hardest part of making video essays like this one is the copyright is issues I won't 46:57 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 47:04 allows the use of copyrighted content for the purpose of transformative analysis however big media companies 47:11 love to abuse the power they have and make false copyright claims on videos like mine because well they can and 47:18 there's no punishment for them what this means is that my videos are always at the risk of being flagged 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patrons with access to the videos even if and when they do get taken down and also give Early Access before the rest 48:18 of the public if youve made it all the way here I'm going to go out in the limb and say you at least somewhat enjoy this video so I hope I might have earned some 48:25 of your support and if you'd prefer to use a onetime donation and the link to my PayPal is in the video description as 48:30 well anyways that's it for the financial plug I want to thank you so much for watching the video all the way through 48:36 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 48:42 you very soon for another video have a great day