Editor’s word: This publish incorporates spoilers for the ending of “Shōgun.”
And so, with one last view of Lord Toranaga standing alone on the fringe of the world, FX’s “Shōgun” involves a poignant, if abrupt finish. Viewers who anticipated the old-school Japanese epic to finish with an enormous battle or different large-scale set piece could have been disillusioned, however after spending ten episodes watching Toranaga mastermind his means by way of a seventeenth century sport of thrones, the charged willpower in his gaze is dynamic sufficient by itself.
The ending of “Shōgun” focuses on the knowledge of Japan’s future, revealing the present’s true narrative as a closely orchestrated actuality whereby Toranaga has already received. However what precisely does his victory imply?
In probably the most literal sense of the phrase, it means nothing. Toranaga is a fictional character created by James Clavell to symbolize the historic shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and subsequently by no means actually existed. Similar goes for Mariko, Blackthorne, and the remainder of the characters from Clavell’s bestselling novel. However being literal is boring. Here’s what occurs after the occasions of “Shōgun,” based mostly on the equal occasions in Japanese historical past.
No, wait, return. “Shōgun” actually simply ends there?
Yep. The ebook ending is equally as abrupt, if it makes you’re feeling any higher. As an alternative of displaying the decisive battle that secured Toranaga’s victory and ascension to the shogunate (based mostly on this historic Battle of Sekigahara), the long run shogun merely describes the long run as he has designed it and states that to be shogun was merely his destiny, or karma.
James Clavell did write extra books in his so-called “Asian Saga,” however none of them proceed the story of John Blackthorne in Japan — the one different ebook set in Japan takes place in the course of the 1800s and whereas it does function a descendent of Toranaga as a personality, there’s no actual continuity between the person tales.
What occurred to the true John Blackthorne?
One of many funnier reveals in Toranaga’s ending speech is the reality behind his curiosity in John Blackthorne. Regardless of being a co-protagonist within the sequence, just about nothing Blackthorne did mattered. Toranaga used him as a two-legged distraction, a crimson cape he waved round on the charging bull of Lord Ishida’s ambitions, and the whole lot Blackthorne wished over the course of the present — to reunite together with his crew and sail in opposition to the Portuguese — couldn’t matter much less to Toranaga. He does, nevertheless, predict that Blackthorne won’t ever return to England and can assist him construct a legendary fleet, which is nearly precisely what occurred to Blackthorne’s historic counterpart William Adams.
William Adams lived the remainder of his life in Japan, advising Lord Tokugawa and facilitating commerce between the Protestant nations and Japan. He ended up constructing two ships for the shogun, however they didn’t quantity to the highly effective naval pressure Toranaga describes. Adams married a Japanese girl and had two extra kids along with these he left behind in England. He was given a small fiefdom and ultimately a home in Tokugawa’s budding metropolis of Edo — to today, the road the place he lived bears the title Anjin-dori, or Pilot Road.
How did Mariko actually die?
Of all of the issues James Clavell didn’t must make up, a distinguished, Christian, and multilingual Japanese noblewoman who died by suicide in a fiery explosion to protest the holding of hostages in Osaka Citadel is probably probably the most particular. The “actual” Mariko was Woman Hosokawa, who famously disobeyed the orders of Lord Ishida (Ishido’s historic counterpart) to go away her property and are available to Osaka to affix the hostages he was holding within the fort as insurance coverage in opposition to Lord Tokugawa’s vassals getting any concepts about overthrowing him.
As an alternative of going with Ishida, Woman Hosokawa laced her chambers with gunpowder, ordered a servant to stab her within the chest, and blew up her complete home. The response to her sacrifice was just like that proven in “Shogun.” Completely shamed and dealing with mutiny, Ishida let the Osaka hostages go, leaving him susceptible to the following part of Tokugawa’s plans.
The most important and most spectacular distinction between Woman Hosokawa’s demise and Mariko’s is that Woman Hosokawa was not working with or for Lord Tokugawa on the time. Her actions had been solely her personal, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that the ripple results of her defiance modified the course of Japanese and world historical past without end.
What’s the significance of the Tokugawa shogunate?
It might take no less than one in every of not many school stage programs in Japanese historical past to completely clarify how the Tokugawa shogunate modified Japan, however within the spirit of brevity and holding issues related to “Shōgun,” listed here are some cliffnotes:
The Tokugawa shogunate unified most of Japan below the navy rule of the Tokugawa clan. It restructured Japanese society to have all noble homes as a part of a hierarchy below the shogun, eliminating the potential of battle between clans. Their most lasting impression was the muse of Edo, the capital metropolis that will in the future develop into Tokyo, and a trademark of Tokugawa energy was the apply of sankin-kotai — a system that saved the higher class financially humble by requiring them to maneuver between their very own estates and a compulsory residence in Edo each different yr. Sankin-kotai was remarkably efficient as a result of transferring completely sucked even again then.
The story of “Shōgun” incorporates a variety of foreshadowing concerning the development and significance of Edo. When Toranaga negotiates his escape from Osaka with the Portuguese Jesuits blocking the harbor, he guarantees them a cathedral in Edo as a part of his discount. Tokugawa did permit the Franciscan order to construct a church in Edo, however the shogunate later banned Christianity in Japan and violently expelled all monks and missionaries from the nation.
There’s additionally the matter of the safety for intercourse employees Toranaga guarantees to create in Edo on the request of Gin, the proprietor of Ajiro’s teahouse. This traditionally grew to become Yoshiwara, the world-famous pleasure district of Edo, the place the “willow world” Gin describes in Episode 7 bloomed as a acknowledged industrial district of the town.
“Studying from Shōgun” is on the market in PDF kind right here. Different sources used on this article embrace “A Temporary Historical past of Japanese Civilization”