Shogun (2024) Episode IX
Catch up on Shogun:
Well well well, so it finally happened! My wife and I have been waiting for when the romance would begin in this new adaptation and I guess the answer was: as late as possible.
I can’t say if this is more or less faithful to the novel, but I do think it’s a weakness in the storytelling. In the 1980 adaptation, this was an integral part of the story, and I think for a very good reason.
In many ways, the real story of Shogun is one of cultural transformation. Even before Blackthorne arrives, we have the Portuguese in Japan trying to rewrite and reshape the rules of their society. But our three main characters are all, in their way, chafing against Japanese culture.
Blackthorne: He came as a stranger but through observation and curiosity, he adapts to his new conditions. He begins to learn the language and even finds an affection and affinity for the culture. He meets setbacks that remind him how foreign he is, yet when he encounters his own people once more, he finds them newly foreign to him. And so he finds himself as something new: neither European nor Japanese but a man caught in between.
Mariko: She is bound to a man who despises her, who she hates. She has found the Christian God yet seeks a samurai’s death. She meets this barbarian and finds love for him. Her heart, long broken and withered, she believed there would never be a healing for her. And so she, too, finds herself caught between worlds of tradition, warring with one another. Her new faith demands she give up some amount of her Japaneseness. Her Japaneseness demands she defy her new God’s laws. And there, amidst it all, is Blackthorne begging her to defy both.
Toranaga: He wants to change Japan. He wants an end to the pointless deaths but he also wants peace. He wants neither the warring period he lives in nor the one the Christians promise him. He wants his own peace. A Japanese peace. And so he will break the political backbone of Japan to get it.
The love story has little to nothing to do with Toranaga so I’ll shift her solely to Mariko and Blackthorne.
But do you see the ways their individual journeys demand a binding agent, a grounding factor?
I’ve known many people who have lived in countries where they didn’t speak the native language. One of the best ways to learn a new language, if you ever find yourself wanting to, is to begin a relationship with a native speaker of that language while you’re in that country. I mean, don’t be a weirdo who seeks specifically that just for your own linguistic development, but it’s simply true that your affection for a person of a language and culture will scaffold your ability to learn. There are many other factors involved, of course, but spending time with someone of another language and culture—especially if you love them—will pull you deeper into that culture because your love for them as an individual will sort of transpose itself upon the language and culture as well.
There’s nothing scientific about it.
This is part of the tragedy of Mariko’s death for Blackthorne, honestly.
His story and her story are better served by them being in love. More than that, the breaking transgression of taboos and the breaking of norms is integral to their character development. Blackthorne turning his back on his entire life makes more sense when he is in love and in a loving romance with Mariko.
Mariko becoming more confident and certain of her own path makes more sense when we see her as transgressing Japanese and Christian norms by having an affair, especially one with a foreign barbarian. She is shrugging off her past, her society, her faith, and forging her own way.
In this new adaptation, we’re given the shape and texture of their romance in brief looks, in almost touches, and, finally, in a night of passion after he agrees to chop her head off.
And so those without knowledge of the series may not question this trajectory, but I felt that they didn’t really do enough to establish the romance or even Mariko’s attraction and affection for Blackthorne.
And while this plays into a concept established in the show of the eightfold fence, the way the Japanese guard their heart from everyone. And so this muted love may scorch in a certain manner, but I do think it’s weaker for the following reasons:
The show makes it as clear as possible that Mariko hates her husband, and so betraying him means nothing to her
Blackthorne is lonely and alone in a hostile, foreign world
With this in mind and shoved towards the viewer, this romance seems more like one of desperation rather than one of love and passion.
Neither character is swept away by love. No one is swept even off their feet!
And maybe that’s enough for you. For everyone.
But seeing what it could have been from the 1980 adaptation leaves me a bit unfulfilled.
I think it also weakens Mariko’s sacrifice that ends the episode.
She has longed for death for nearly twenty years.
In this way, she’s finally escaping.
Rather than Blackthorne giving her a new reason to want to live, a reason for life, he becomes a mere witness to her choosing death and rejecting life.
So why is the romance so muted and underdeveloped in this adaptation?
Well, it’s possible that this is truer to the novel. I suspect this is not the case, but I won’t know until I read it, I guess.
Assuming that the romance is more fleshed out and fully formed in the novel, I imagine the reason we’re given so much less romance comes down to a few reasons:
They wanted Mariko to be a more independent woman who don’t need no man
Big serious Prestige TV Dramas don’t need no romance
Fearing the omnipresent claims of White Savior Narrative, they wanted to sideline Blackthorne further from the core of the narrative
There may be other reasons, but I do find it interesting that a TV miniseries from 1980 was sexier, racier, and more emotionally resonant than one made in 2024 where they’re allowed to show nudity and say fuck.
But, as many have pointed out, popular culture is becoming increasingly sexless and romance has begun to shrink from mainstream stories. Whether it’s Frozen or even action movies, which once seemed to always include some sort of love interest. We no longer have romantic comedies and romantic movies have mostly been relegated to Lifetime quality movies and TV shows that your ageing aunt still watches.
Meanwhile, romance as a fiction genre continues to boom.
But for whatever reason, our visual mediums have given up on showing us romances. One of my favorite filmmakers, Wong Kar Wai, spent a career making gorgeous romances but he hasn’t made a movie in over a decade, though I spent quite a lot of time writing about them last year.
And so while this Shogun adaptation is the highest budget, the most sumptuous, with lots of craft and attention to detail, it began to leave me a bit cold during last episode and that continues into this penultimate episode.
The quality of the show is still very high. Anyone can see that. But I’ve felt a sort of stagnation over the last two hours and a sort of neutered approach to emotion and relationships. And it makes me ask about what this story is.
Toranaga is playing a deep and brutal and cold game of political calculus which will lead to the deaths of thousands as his war wages across the countryside or falls wholly onto Osaka castle.
There was hope in this episode that perhaps Ochiba and Mariko’s relationship would lead to some resonance, yet it closed off rather abruptly, leaving us only with a recognition of a relationship rather than feeling the relationship vibrate and thrum through us.
And this is sort of the issue with every relationship in the show.
Who is Blackthorne connected to?
Mariko, of course, but does he have any bond with Toranaga or Yabushige? Even his antagonistic rivalry with Father Alvito and Rodrigues from the 1980 adaptation is largely lost in this adaptation.
In a sense, as things stand now, we probably could have removed Blackthorne from this show to no real difference. Which is…curious.
Again, I understand everyone in Hollywood and beyond is afraid of being accused of telling a White Savior Story in case the cultural writers addicted to twitter convince enough filthy peasants to ignore a commercial product with a budget in the tens of millions or more, but they’ve so successfully sidelined Blackthorne from anything and anyone that actually matters to the story that I’m left wondering about these choices.
And, for the record, I think understanding the 1980 adaptation as a White Savior Story is a profound misunderstanding bordering on illiteracy. And not just because this is based on real life history of real life people.
As it is, the shape of this narrative remains obscure. Which is interesting and strange, since I’ve already watched an adaptation of this story. But there, in the 1980 version, I felt that everything worked in concert to tell a beautiful and resonant story about people. This adaptation seems to be more interested in telling a story about Japan, which isn’t a bad direction to take.
But I wonder how much this is really coming through. Too, I think a narrative always works better when it remains focused on the people.
In some ways, this adaptation really becomes Mariko’s story. She’s the main character here. And, in theory, I like this shift. But, again, I think removing the romance from her narrative, from her story of transformation and growth, makes her story weaker and more opaque. Her motivation in this adaptation is instead about her father and gaining vengeance against those who killed him.
But it remains obscure to me who exactly this vengeance is against. Not Ishido or Ochiba, at least not directly. Ochiba was too young to have anything to do with her father and I don’t think Ishido was old enough or powerful enough, at that time, to have had much say in anything.
And maybe this is me being a big ol dummy and just not understanding which enemy Mariko is pointed towards, who Toranaga sends her to fight, but without ever stating it clearly or giving her some face to face meeting with her antagonist, it all feels difficult to grasp.
At least for me.
And so when she dies in this episode, it does feel surprising as it’s meant to, but it doesn’t feel tragic the way it did in the 1980 adaptation. There was a cruel boldness in experiencing her death through Blackthorne’s eyes and heart. Especially because we understood in that adaptation how much Mariko wanted life.
I’m curious how this final episode will land. I remain hopeful because I do think the first half of this adaptation was a tremendous achievement. In some ways, the choices made improved upon the previous adaptation. But I do fear that they’ve been staggering for a few hours and may now stumble here at the very end.
Thankfully, we only have to wait for about 48 more hours.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.
Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers
Broken Katana - Sequel to Iron Wolf.
Libertatia; or, The Onion King - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse, The Blood Dancers, and Sleeping Giants
Noir: A Love Story - An oral history of a doomed romance.
House of Ghosts - Standalone sequel to Libertatia; or, the Onion King