Lady Eboshi: one of the main characters
from Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke
Based on her design, fans speculate that she
might have been a Shirabyoushi
Some define Shirabyoushi as prostitutes
I don’t think that’s entirely accurate.
Yes, some of them were concubines
like Shizuka, concubine of the great samurai Minamoto Yoshitsune
But that was not their intended purpose.
They were entertainers.
Not only they danced, they also told tales,
played music, acted, etc.
Still, is easy to imagine that before becoming
the manager of Iron town Eboshi must have
endured many hardships.
A scene that comes to mind, is when Ashitaka
tells her
that he came “to see with eyes unclouded”
and Eboshi looks perplexed at first
and then, she laughs
seemingly amused at the idea.
That moment, plus her indifference towards
Ashitaka’s curse
made me ask myself:
"Just what has this woman been through to become
like that?"
As the leader of Iron town Eboshi’s a woman
of progress
In fact, just being a woman with her role
already makes her a revolutionary.
In a film set in medieval Japan her views
represent modernization.
She cared little about nature
fixating only in how she could use
it to her advantage.
However, she did cared about people.
In times that showed no mercy to lepers and
prostitutes
Lady Eboshi took them
and built a home with them.
Professors Eun Jung Kim and Michelle Jarman
have written about the modern social systems
that can be spotted in Eboshi’s Iron Town
such as (and I quote)
industrialization
gendered division of labor,
institutionalization of
people with diseases
and the militarization of men and women.
Lady Eboshi encouraged women to be strong
and take charge.
She gave them a hard work, yes, but it was
one that keep them away from the hardships
they would have faced with their former profession.
She washed and bandaged a group of lepers
that society disregarded as people cursed
by “bad karma”.
She gave them a place in her secret garden
where they wouldn’t be bothered and where
they could keep themselves busy designing
the guns that would aid her in her ambitions.
It’s worth to notice that some people might
see Lady Eboshi as exploitative of her people,
and it’s true that she use their work to
pursue her goals.
But she also treats them with respect and compassion.
She has a tough personality
but you can notice in her treatment
that she values those she
takes under her care.
In turn, you can notice it in the way they
speak to her
the townsfolk have nothing but love and admiration for her.
There’s definitely an exchange going on,
with people working for her and she granting them
her protection.
And their dependance cement Eboshi in her
position as leader.
Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, is
debatable.
Lady Eboshi’s desire to rule makes sense.
As the head of a society of outcast she wants
to take their destinies in her own hands,
to take action to improve the quality of their
lives.
Her goal also contemplates getting rid of
the enemies of Iron town, like other humans
or the creatures of the forest.
And one of the biggest obstacles to achieve
that is Princess Mononoke, or San.
When you look at Lady Eboshi from San’s
perspective, she’s clearly the antagonist.
For San, the forest is her home
and its creatures,
her family.
She respects its sacred deity: The Deer God,
whereas for Eboshi,
the God was someone to be removed.
That way, the creatures would be easier to
handle
and the God’s blood could be used
to heal the lepers.
Lady Eboshi complete disregard for the creatures
and their environment
feed the hatred they felt toward humans.
At the same time, their violent actions forced
the humans to attack in order to defend themselves.
Eboshi wanted the forest resources to protect
her people and herself, which the creature
saw as an invasion to their territory.
Both sides had the same reasons to fight:
to defend their homes.
The creatures wanted to live in peace.
And the people that were taking resources
from their homes weren’t bad either,
they were hard working people looking for a way
to survive.
Yet none of them had any desire to reach out
and understand the other.
With the mission of seeing with eyes unclouded,
Ashitaka’s the neutral ground between them.
He respected nature and the gods,
but he also sympathized with the town’s folk.
As he witnessed the hatred consuming both
sides, he yearned for a peaceful solution,
a common ground between them.
Their conflict torn him apart.
Without this conflict, he wouldn’t have
been there in the first place.
Eboshi’s gun injured the Board God.
Consumed with hatred, he went rampage on Ashitaka’s
village
who fought him to defend his people.
By killing the God he gained the deadly curse
that brought him to the forest,
and to the Iron Town.
Lady Eboshi,
just like how she saved her people,
her actions also brought a lot of pain to others.
If she’s aware of that, she's indifferent.
If she isn’t, it’s because she’s too
fixated on her own goals to look beyond that.
Eboshi strikes me as the kind of person
that doesn’t hesitate to make sacrifices.
Yet the creatures don’t care for the other
side either.
Other humans want the iron from Iron Town
and if they don’t do anything about it,
their fates won’t be too kind.
When Lady Eboshi receives the Emperor’s
orders to kill the Deer God,
she doesn't look fazed by his authority.
Gods, Emperors, wild beasts:
it seems like
there’s nothing Lady Eboshi fears.
She goes along with the plan and successfully
kills the Deer God,
in spite of San and Ashitaka’s efforts.
Her actions compromised the already precarious
balance between nature and modernization,
which brings immediate disaster.
At one point in the movie, she says
“Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite”.
These words resonate when Moro, the Wolf God
decapitated head,
attacks with the last of its strength,
leaving Lady Eboshi crippled.
When San and Ashitaka retrieve the fallen
God’s head, the God is able to die in peace.
But hatred left lost and scars on both sides.
After all is said and done, there is a sense
of peace.
A sense that there is something to look forward.
In a way, it might seems like nothing have
changed.
San still resents humans
Eboshi still wants to improve the lives of her people.
But with the destruction Iron town, I felt a
subtle shift, in Lady Eboshi.
In her, there is hope, confidence and strength.
There is the promise of a new life and perhaps, an even better home.
I believe her scars served to show her that
her approach was too extreme.
With her people around her, Eboshi
who at one point disregarded Ashitaka’s views
about balance and compromise
is left with a wish to thank him.
And she says it with a smile.
It shows that her shortcomings only served
to make her grow into a better person.
The article titled
“Nature, Technology,
and Ruined Women: Ecofeminism and Princess Mononoke”
argues that this is the fall of
Eboshi from grace, the moment where she loses
her power to Ashitaka and that she has been
punished for being a female with her role.
While I think that’s a very interesting
perspective,
I don’t entirely agree.
Eboshi’s scars, I believe, was the product
of the hatred that flowed in both sides and,
while I think there will be changes in the
town they built along with Ashitaka,
who decided to help them,
I don’t think that her people’s
feelings have changed.
I see that in their concern for her, in the
way they all gathered around her
to hear her plans for their future.
For me, there’s no doubt that whatever she
decides, they’ll follow.
For her people, Lady Eboshi is a hero
But I can see how her actions can be seen differently
when examined through
different lenses.
Like many other characters in Miyazaki’s
filmography, she’s a complex being.
Considering our own quest for modernization
and our struggle with taking care of our environment,
I would say that the themes of Princess Mononoke
and a character like Lady Eboshi
are still relevant today.
