Is Toranaga A Villian? || Shōgun Ending Explained
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- čas přidán 26. 04. 2024
- Yoshii Toranaga has played a grand chess match over the course of the series, committing heroic & questionable acts alike. But what exactly is Toranaga, the hero of the story, or just another villain??
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Meet the Real life Toranaga aka Tokugawa Ieyasu here
czcams.com/video/lGnEmlHODa4/video.htmlsi=8SNYKywlJ9HPP3ZL
You missed one of the most terrible things he did. He killed his own innocent villagers in the fake search for the spy who burned the ship. Watch the last episode again.
exactly
He is really a piece of shit lol, he killed his Friends,Family and Innocents for being shogun one day
Even Nagakado wouldn't do that, even if he could.
Looking in the hindsight, the main reasons Tokugawa Ieyasu are being viewed positively are because
- He created a 265 years of peaceful era of Edo period after the 148 years of Sengoku Jidai civil war. It’s not perfect and it had so many flaws but it’s still better than the one that came before.
- He founded Tokyo. If the capital of Japan right now was Osaka or anywhere else, people might judge him harder than they already have.
Also, I mean…you guys like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. Tokugawa is not so different from them.
i would exclude genghis there he was far worst than everyone else
I mean, those guys ain't so great either lmao
@@pfl95 tokugawa is more of a saint compared to those guys
Not a villian..... Only Human, and grand master strategist, did he mean for Nagakado or Hiromatsu to die, probably not, he just pivoted and used it to his advantage, Mariko was sent to expose and release the hostages, that she died in doing it was not his intent, again pivoting to take advantage of it
YES!! There is talk about how the characters evolved. Well perhaps.. Toranaga MIGHT have thought about being Shogun but realized what he was up against. As things evolved he gained more support and confidence. He realized that being Shogun was HIS destiny, just as others realized theirs.
I know best so if I have to sacrifice a few pawns to put myself on top, then so be it.
-Every Villain Ever
I mean…he ended the war and brought a new era of peace to the country. So he actually knows best.
He really created almost 3 centuries long peace in a time where there was civil war for 1.5 centuries. He saved thousands of life, for the price of few.
@@nont18411 I bet the villagers massacred for nothing were really glad... It's always morally problematic to sacrifice people for the greater good. Maybe he is bringing an era of peace, but he is also ordering people to suffer and die. And that makes him a villain.
~250 years of relative peace in a country is a pretty massive positive. We discuss "villains" and "hero's" but they're so rare as to be a myth. Tokugawa (Toranaga) is simply another person in a sea of other people that have to play a game crafted before they were born. Were he to do anything other than what he was doing, his entire line would have ended when he was a child. Yes he sacrifices allies like pawns, but they are pawns to be sacrificed. Yes he likely aimed towards the Shogunate his entire life, which was what his own ancestry duty compelled him to do, and when given the power he ushered in centuries of peace (feudal peace, so it was a moral mess) but peace nonetheless.
Not to mention both Mariko and Hiromatsu knew about his plan to sacrifice them and went on with it anyway.
I don't think he was the Villian. He was a man with a vision and a plan. He played a game of chess. Each person a piece he was willing to sacrifice for him to win. To become Shogun. His ultimate goal to bring peace to all of Japan. Ishido would not have done that. His ego was bigger than his brains. He never thought or planned too far ahead. Look at Ishidos approach to Mariko vs Ochiba. Ishido and Toranaga know that Ochiba and Mariko were tight friends. Toranaga knew Ishido was stupid enough to mess with Mariko in some way and that would hurt Ochiba enough to bring her to his side. If Ishido paid attention to their friendship and simply let his fiance best friend simply walk out of Osaka, he would be stronger for it with Ochiba. He doesn't think and we know what happens.
I do not think he is a vilian, but a clever survivor. He outwit his opponents with grace and deception.
i also dont think he is a villain but as someone very pragmatic however he isn't a moral paragon as well.
yes. obviously. the show did it's best to hide that until the very end. some people are still confused about this. loll. next question.
He really created almost 3 centuries long peace in a time where there was civil war for 1.5 centuries. He saved thousands of life, for the price of few seeing him as a villian is just deep lack of understanding of situation. You cannot fight brutality with anything else other than brutality.
Absolutely a villain. Once he burned down John’s ship, I immediately thought, “dude, you’re a prisoner for life.” Best show ever. My friend plays Mariko-Sama’s father. What are the chances.
Wow that's awesome! I can only imagine how fun it must've been to be apart of a production like this. Akechi was a very famous figure from real Japanese history. Great performance by Yutaka!
@@JeremyIceAndFire33 John's life had no meaning until that ship was burned. he was just a pirate. John became a legend because his ship was destroyed lol
@@wolfgangvonodio1097this is false, Blackthorne was already a Hatamoto at that point, not a pirate. And he certainly didn’t become a legend because of his ship burning, all that did was trap him there to serve Toranaga’s will.
well u also have to think about the fact that if he allowed blackthorne to go back to England he would just tell more english about japan and start colonizing it. It was one of the main reason why Japan for a time closed its borders to foreigners in general and they were proven to be right, europeans forcefully open the borders.
@@jmgonzales7701 perry was only able to do that because they isolated themselves and further fell behind technology wise. Meiji knew better and industrialized japan almost overnight.
Toranaga, probably used Mariko's father to get rid of his competition(Ochiba's father) and Mariko's father in one step. As pointed out by Ochiba. Tornaga, also likely started the war with the 5 regents by starting to consolidate his power. Who knows, if Toranga even suggested Mariko marry Buntaro, so he could use her anger/vengeance later. Tornaga, had fought with the Taiko in past to become Shogun and realized he was not strong enough yet. So he waited until Taiko died. Toranaga is definitely, a snake
But Buntaro being abusive wasn’t Toranaga’s fault though. It’s his own fault. Even Hiromatsu (his father) failed to prevent him from becoming like that.
@@nont18411 Tornaga, Hiromoto and even Mariko's father didn't like Buntaro. You could see it in this series. Tornaga, had a lot of pawns from the beginning. Tornaga didn't know who he needed, but was setting up for a future match.
Yes, he’s of course a villain. 100%
However, nobody could win a war just by being nice. Even Churchill, the hero who saved Britain from Nazis in ww2, is still a monster for committing genocide in India to support the British war effort.
Would you label Churchill to be a villain? I don’t think so.
And by the standard of that time of Sengoku Jidai, an era which betrayals, poverty, diseases, corruption, deaths and destruction were the norm, Tokugawa (Toranaga) couldn’t have done much better to pacify the war torn country.
You're totally misinformed about Churchill, who wasn't in the business of micro-managing Bengal socio-economic affairs. Yes, there were wartime constraints. But the main cause of the famine was caused by local mismanagement in food distribution. A view supported by Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize winning economist and expert of famine in India.
Would you label Churchill to be a villain? I bet the indians could
He's as utterly ruthless and borderline evil as anyone in the show. This story really has no heroes and it's part of what makes the series so great. He's as complex and contradictory as most notable historical figures, including the ones we admire.
I can imagine how traumatic it was for Toranaga to be sent away by his father to another clan as a child hostage. He was just merely a political chess piece moved around to ensure the survival of his clan, meanwhile his father got other sons 'just in case'. T grew up in a place where no one could be trusted, and one mistake could prove fatal. I bet that kind of extreme childhood motivated him to be the one who "studies the winds" or however he phrased it. So it doesn't surprise me, he's not a the best father to Nagakado either, because T was expendable to his own dad. Even his 'best friend' isn't an exception.
Perhaps his desire for position of Shogun is partly an expression of his indomitable deep need for total control and safety. "Never again will I be as helpless, unloved and unsafe!"
I would say, Toranaga is evil, if in term of D&D, he is lawful evil. This man can't be trusted, because everyone is expendable to his ambition. The mask he wears for the World to witness is quite unlike his 3rd heart. He appears only as a virtuous, just, dependable, charismatic and strong leader to get people to support and follow him. Yet he was probably the necessary evil to finally end that long and chaotic warring states period of Japan.
Aka Toranaga was raised by unresolved generational trauma
creating peace This cannot be done if your hands are completely clean.
They were product of their times. They were at the tale end of the warring states period and still had a very clan comes first mentality. Everyone wanted their clan to be powerful and successful. Toranaga was just the one that won.
Toronaga introduced 260 years of peace. That makes him a hero.
"Peace" through assasinations and war. Peace through isolation and banning of christianity, gunpowder and education.
A hero does not kill villagers just to manipulate someone with the aim of testing him.
Tokogawa (Toranaga) is able to overcome a 2 to 1 disadvantage at the Battle of Sekigahara in part because of his reputation as a brilliant but ruthless strategist vis-a-vis Ishida’s reputation as a bungling, unimaginative bureaucrat. The loyalist clans hesitate to finish Tokogawa off because they are sure he has something else up his sleeve. The problem with most movies on the subject is that they have to spend so much time establishing those reputations, through references to past battles and complex court machinations, that the audience loses interest before the thrilling battle itself. By basing season one on Clavell’s simplified mashup of Japanese history, the Shōgun creators have built a huge audience prepared for season two’s big budget Sekigahara episode.
Hiromatsu's death was by his own choice. He had already told the others that Toranaga was not going to surrender and he needed to convince them that Toranaga was serious about going to Kyoto. Similarly, Mariko didn't necessarily have to die to achieve Toranaga's plan. If she had left the castle the other hostages would know they could leave as well. Ishido's plan was to capture her, not kill her but Mariko could not let that happen, hence her decision to die. In reality, none of the feudal lords in Japan at the time were shining examples of benevolence and virtue in exactly the same way they weren't in Europe at the time. Toranaga, aka Togukawa, was a better strategist than his contemporaries.
He’s not a villain but he sure as heck ain’t the hero either.
Yes he is the villain. A guy born with power who just wants more and is willing to do anything to get it.
exactly
Seeing as how what he did unified Japan and brought an end to 100 years of civil strife I would say that he is very heroic. Yr looking at these very Jpanese concept's of duty and sacrifice through a western lens. Everyone that died for him gave their lives for him. So he could bring an end to all the war and death. They died for him because they believed in him and his dream. That is why John looks up at him and smiles at the final shot. He too finally understands his dream and chooses to fight and die for it too.
Lol to say Jeremy is looking at things through a western lens is incredibly inaccurate, especially when it only takes one look at the rest of his Shōgun content to realize he understands the history and culture better than most. And it’s not about wheather ppl were willing to die for Toranaga or not, it’s about the choices he made to achieve his goal, some of which were incredibly self serving and straight up villainous. And not to mention your applying the real world history of Tokugawa to the fictional version that is Toranaga. Two very different thing and Shōgun is a historical fiction after all.
Bringing peace by unifying Japan is no matter to Toranaga. That's purely incidental. His aim is to be Shogun, and only that. The peace is just an excuse to use to convince others to sacrifice themselves for him.
Great video and very thought provoking. I can see how some might characterize toranaga as a bit villainous. He did make some questionable decisions along the way.
In a world where being a villain is par for the course, your task is how to outwit the other villains, hence making yourself a greater villain.
He is certainly something of a puppet master.
Indeed. A master manipulator if nothing else.
Great take.
Villain, hero? Guess it depends on who you ask. Either way Toranaga becomes a dictator, a Shogun, whether he was a benevolent or a malevolent dictator.
One could argue that Caesar Augustus was a benevolent dictator, no doubt others of the time would disagree. But it is still true that Augustus 'found Rome a city of wood, and made it a city of marble.' There are a lot of examples I could use of those who were seen both as villains or heroes by people of their day, or by history.
So you're telling me if you play chess, you won't sacrifice any piece?
Tell me you can do that then you're more of a grandmaster.
Only villains play chess with human LIVES.
Chess is a game. Pieces does not die or suffer. People do.
he a necessary evil
Thank you, Hiromatsu did not have to die. Mariko did have to die to help Toranaga's cause and restore her family name. Fuji's son did not have to die, I'm really not sure if her husband had to. The Christian villagers did not have to die for the ruse Toranaga created.
Toranaga is a politician.
To be a leader of that calibre in that time, don’t you have to be a little bit cunning ?
Tirana’s did not honor the hierarchy! He put his bloodline in the emperor seat and killed the child heir and the heirs mother committed sabaco. He is a super villain that made what was best for him(peace) best for Japan. Super self serving self absorbed villain
exactly
Antihero
Yea, like Stalin-style
definitely a villain
Toranaga burn's Blackthornes ship, then tortures and kill's villager's as punishment, for something he know's he did, not my idea of a hero. certainly a calculating man, but a good man ? prepared to sacrifice the people around him to reach his objectives, a practical man with a holistic view of acheiving objectives. A man with no friend's, seeing that friend's will use or betray you, in the world of sixteenth century Japan.
He didn’t even sacrifice villagers like that in any other version or in real life because it didn’t make sense
@@nont18411 So what were the heads on spikes, ornaments ?
I think the thing Westerns underestimate is how much devotion people have to their tribe/sect. Mariko & Hiromatsu willfully died not for Toranaga's sake but for the sake of the legacy of their collective tribe. Mariko's family regained their honor by showing devotion to Toranaga, Hiromatsu was able to help his tribe get a better strategic position with his death. So it wasn't so much Toranaga's manipulation of his people as much as it was a collective effort to do whatever it takes for their tribe to win the war. Westerner's aren't used to having to sacrifice our lives for our side to win in pragmatic cases but we DO exalt this type of behavior if you think of the Jesus' sacrifice to pay for his followers sins.
Honor, duty & sacrifice for ones country aren't foreign concepts by any means. The fact that ppl were willing to die for him isn't really the point. The point is how he chose to use that devotion to his own ends & how at times, he callously throws away life for nothing more than a game. Look at all the innocent ppl of Ajiro Toranaga killed just to keep up his ruse about burning Blackthorne's ship. These aren't the actions of a hero. Hiromatsu's death was pointless, Toranaga really thought his enemies needed more convincing that he was really giving up when even his own men believed he was giving up. It’s this needless loss of life that makes it pretty clear that Toranaga isn't much better than Ishido.
This is why a season 2 is important. Season 1 established Toranaga as a ruthless schemer willing to exploit his followers’ loyalty in his insatiable quest for power. If season 2 follows the actual historical narrative we will see that Toranaga has no loyalty himself.
Not a villain…. A SURVIVOR!!! He had to be! He was sold or given away as a hostage when he was a child. He learned how to survive. Do you think Blackthorn didn’t have self serving motives? How about the other war lords? And Yabu … playing both sides? Is there not blood on his hands?
Also we never saw any scenes that Blackthorne pillaged the Catholic outposts before he arrived to Japan so he has more positive impression on us than Toranaga.
In fact, if we think about it, we never got any of Blackthorne’s flashbacks. Meanwhile, we got many from both Mariko and Toranaga.