Decapitation and dismemberment are clearly an important motif in Princess Mononoke, but it took me a while to figure out what it meant. - Fighters often cut off arms and heads - Deer God is beheaded - Moro (wolf god) is beheaded after being put to sleep - The beheaded Moro bites off Eboshi's arm Eboshi's arm getting cut off has a clear pathos: Our separation from nature and natural homeostasis involves a certain *cutting off* of a part of ourselves. This means not only bending the earth and nature to our own needs (the ultimate symbols of which are metalsmithing and tilling the ground), but also cutting off our own animal nature and subordinating it. The symbol of this is the dichotomy between Eboshi and San. San is obviously that unconquered instinct in human beings. Eboshi is the social order which attempts to control it. But, in the effort to control it, she ends up cutting off a part of herself. Eboshi's actions in the movie are a gradual expansion of her attempt to conquer nature, both within and without: Conquers the forest -> Attempts to conquer San -> Conquers the boars from the outer forest -> Conquers the Deer God, the spirit or *principle* of the forest per se It is the last effort which results in her irreversible cutting off of nature: Beheading the Deer God obviously has the meaning of conquering it. But we lose the nuances when we word it that way. In myths, beheading the beast often has the connotation of, not only winning against it, but assimilating it, making its power yours. But, even though territories of nature can be assimilated (by the Irontown, for example, the natural land made into a community), the principle of nature can not. That is why Eboshi is punished with the cutting off of her arm; her hubristic sin was not that of destroying nature--because she does it in spades before her arm is lost--but of challenging and trying to assimilate the principle or spirit of nature. Now, the following are symbolically equivalent: 1) the boar god bearing its will on Ashitaka's arm after it's dead 2) Moro's head coming back from the dead for vengeance 3) the Deer God spilling its death juice all over the land. The results of 2) and 3) are as follows: 2*) Eboshi loses her arm 3*) The Irontown people lose their town Since 2) and 3) are symbolically equivalent, 2*) and 3*) are also symbolically equivalent. For both Eboshi and her town, a part of themselves is destroyed. They must "live on" regardless, and that's the message the movie has for us ordinary folks who, like them, have definitely lost a part of ourselves--i.e., been castrated--while integrating into the collective and cutting ourselves away from nature. But 1) shows a different possibility. The end result of 1) is that Ashitaka is healed flawlessly and the cosmic order restored. You would expect, his arm cursed and his chest shot through, that Ashitaka would emerge with the most injuries. Ashitaka does not cut off his cursed arm; he does not lose it in his confrontation of culture and nature, but always keeps it and makes it his strength. So he's the opposite of Eboshi in this regard; she is punished with losing an arm, while Ashitaka is given mercy by being allowed to keep his arm and having the curse removed without losing any part of himself. What does that mean? Clearly, we are at that stage where we've decapitated the spirit of nature, and it comes back very angry. So in this regard, Ashitaka and San, the union of culture and nature, are the anticipated saviors who will put everything in the rightful place (restoring the head), just like Nausicaä. And this savior will restore the cosmic order without compromising any part of their nature, but ascend fully into apotheosis--just like Christ and many other savior figures. But great stories and myths have this strange way of describing, not only what is happening currently, but also *what has already happened* and *what will happen in the distance.* So for example, if we read Mononoke as a description of the past, it would be something like disenchantment, the receding of nature from human concerns, and the principle of nature already having "died" and becoming the abstract concept of "nature" rather than being represented in gods and rituals. And Mononoke as a foreboding of the future indicates our rapidly expanding mastery over nature (think to Eboshi's expanding conquering of nature throughout the film), and eventually a day will come when people dare to think to discard the principle of nature as a whole. What exactly is the so-called "principle of nature"? Well I could list off the banalities, natural law, natural balance, etc. but these are only partial aspects of a much bigger, possibly ineffable idea. So it would be naive to read Mononoke as an allegory solely of climate change or whatever else is the hot concern today. People have been wresting with these ideas for centuries. I see nothing in Mononoke that is not absolutely perennial.
Wonderful piece of analysis, I hope many people read it here alongside the cast. I agree completely. "[...][If] we read Mononoke as a description of the past, it would be something like disenchantment, the receding of nature from human concerns, and the principle of nature already having "died" and becoming the abstract concept of "nature" rather than being represented in gods and rituals." Is what I during the cast described less elaborately as the death of spirituality and disenchantment. Miyazaki speaks of this with some mourning. He explains that there used to be forests so vast that the collective imagination populated them with huge dragons, tigers, gods, etc., and that the muromachi period depicted in this film is when nature finally lost its status as this insurmountable other and turned into a landscape to be cultivated with rice paddies, roads, harvested for resources. The vastness and the spiritual affect of forests becoming irrelevant, but retained as a loss. Miyazaki says this idea of the spirits deep within and the large forests still exist within the "japanese soul" (make of that what you will!) and that they are all longing for such a place. I think this loss and mourning is one of the many mournings that Miyazaki makes us experience with his films. Most notably in the Totorocast we explicitly talk about how Totoro is literally that. In a childs eye you go into the forest to find a big impressive spirit living there. Totoro having a lot of subtext of alternate history without war trauma which is even embodied in this kind of depiction of nature, as japanese fascism has been explicitly linked with "landscape" rather than "nature" philosophically by theorists such as Kojin Karatani. Check that cast too for more on that! "And Mononoke as a foreboding of the future indicates our rapidly expanding mastery over nature (think to Eboshi's expanding conquering of nature throughout the film), and eventually a day will come when people dare to think to discard the principle of nature as a whole." Maybe further than just "discarding" we might end up having gotten rid of it without noticing. This is indeed the transformation outlined by films such as Pom Poko by Takahata, and even Only Yesterday where we have the amazing scene of Taeko looking at the beautiful nature, only for her to be scolded by Toshio, who explains that "humans made this". That the disconnect what nature is in modernity is already so deep that entirely human made landscape already comes to be nature. This of course goes hand in hand with many Miyazaki themes about the losses that modernity entailed. In Kiki it becomes evident how much Miyazaki wants technology to capture the wonder of flight - however the Hindenburg crashed, modernity and technology has left us in a depression and crisis of meaning. This theme of technology of course becoming extremely potent in his (to date) final film The Wind Rises. I am rambling. However: Thanks for the comment I really appreciate it.
Don't let this podcast episode distract you from the fact that in 1398 the wolf god Moro got shot with an Irontown rifle and plummeted 100 ft into the forest river
Came in excited to hear this podcast as a Miyazaki fan. Turned it off after it started getting into left wing talking points about lgbt representation, gender roles and fetishization of indigenous peoples. Smh
@@Nyard I think you're really reaching if you think you and miyazaki share modern western leftist identity politics. Miyazaki was definitely a traditional feminist but I'm sure he'd disagree with the current third wave version
@@delirium1326 i don't think you know much about either third wave feminism or about Miyazakis positions. I suggest you read his own writings on his own movies.
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You guys are super underated, thanks for filling my work day
Great podcast! Fantastic work. You all are going places for sure. -Someone you spoke to in Vaush’s community
I love this channel! Thank you!
Decapitation and dismemberment are clearly an important motif in Princess Mononoke, but it took me a while to figure out what it meant.
- Fighters often cut off arms and heads
- Deer God is beheaded
- Moro (wolf god) is beheaded after being put to sleep
- The beheaded Moro bites off Eboshi's arm
Eboshi's arm getting cut off has a clear pathos: Our separation from nature and natural homeostasis involves a certain *cutting off* of a part of ourselves. This means not only bending the earth and nature to our own needs (the ultimate symbols of which are metalsmithing and tilling the ground), but also cutting off our own animal nature and subordinating it. The symbol of this is the dichotomy between Eboshi and San. San is obviously that unconquered instinct in human beings. Eboshi is the social order which attempts to control it. But, in the effort to control it, she ends up cutting off a part of herself.
Eboshi's actions in the movie are a gradual expansion of her attempt to conquer nature, both within and without:
Conquers the forest -> Attempts to conquer San -> Conquers the boars from the outer forest -> Conquers the Deer God, the spirit or *principle* of the forest per se
It is the last effort which results in her irreversible cutting off of nature: Beheading the Deer God obviously has the meaning of conquering it. But we lose the nuances when we word it that way. In myths, beheading the beast often has the connotation of, not only winning against it, but assimilating it, making its power yours. But, even though territories of nature can be assimilated (by the Irontown, for example, the natural land made into a community), the principle of nature can not. That is why Eboshi is punished with the cutting off of her arm; her hubristic sin was not that of destroying nature--because she does it in spades before her arm is lost--but of challenging and trying to assimilate the principle or spirit of nature.
Now, the following are symbolically equivalent:
1) the boar god bearing its will on Ashitaka's arm after it's dead
2) Moro's head coming back from the dead for vengeance
3) the Deer God spilling its death juice all over the land.
The results of 2) and 3) are as follows:
2*) Eboshi loses her arm
3*) The Irontown people lose their town
Since 2) and 3) are symbolically equivalent, 2*) and 3*) are also symbolically equivalent. For both Eboshi and her town, a part of themselves is destroyed. They must "live on" regardless, and that's the message the movie has for us ordinary folks who, like them, have definitely lost a part of ourselves--i.e., been castrated--while integrating into the collective and cutting ourselves away from nature. But 1) shows a different possibility. The end result of 1) is that Ashitaka is healed flawlessly and the cosmic order restored. You would expect, his arm cursed and his chest shot through, that Ashitaka would emerge with the most injuries. Ashitaka does not cut off his cursed arm; he does not lose it in his confrontation of culture and nature, but always keeps it and makes it his strength. So he's the opposite of Eboshi in this regard; she is punished with losing an arm, while Ashitaka is given mercy by being allowed to keep his arm and having the curse removed without losing any part of himself.
What does that mean? Clearly, we are at that stage where we've decapitated the spirit of nature, and it comes back very angry. So in this regard, Ashitaka and San, the union of culture and nature, are the anticipated saviors who will put everything in the rightful place (restoring the head), just like Nausicaä. And this savior will restore the cosmic order without compromising any part of their nature, but ascend fully into apotheosis--just like Christ and many other savior figures. But great stories and myths have this strange way of describing, not only what is happening currently, but also *what has already happened* and *what will happen in the distance.* So for example, if we read Mononoke as a description of the past, it would be something like disenchantment, the receding of nature from human concerns, and the principle of nature already having "died" and becoming the abstract concept of "nature" rather than being represented in gods and rituals. And Mononoke as a foreboding of the future indicates our rapidly expanding mastery over nature (think to Eboshi's expanding conquering of nature throughout the film), and eventually a day will come when people dare to think to discard the principle of nature as a whole.
What exactly is the so-called "principle of nature"? Well I could list off the banalities, natural law, natural balance, etc. but these are only partial aspects of a much bigger, possibly ineffable idea. So it would be naive to read Mononoke as an allegory solely of climate change or whatever else is the hot concern today. People have been wresting with these ideas for centuries. I see nothing in Mononoke that is not absolutely perennial.
Wonderful piece of analysis, I hope many people read it here alongside the cast.
I agree completely.
"[...][If] we read Mononoke as a description of the past, it would be something like disenchantment, the receding of nature from human concerns, and the principle of nature already having "died" and becoming the abstract concept of "nature" rather than being represented in gods and rituals."
Is what I during the cast described less elaborately as the death of spirituality and disenchantment. Miyazaki speaks of this with some mourning. He explains that there used to be forests so vast that the collective imagination populated them with huge dragons, tigers, gods, etc., and that the muromachi period depicted in this film is when nature finally lost its status as this insurmountable other and turned into a landscape to be cultivated with rice paddies, roads, harvested for resources. The vastness and the spiritual affect of forests becoming irrelevant, but retained as a loss. Miyazaki says this idea of the spirits deep within and the large forests still exist within the "japanese soul" (make of that what you will!) and that they are all longing for such a place. I think this loss and mourning is one of the many mournings that Miyazaki makes us experience with his films. Most notably in the Totorocast we explicitly talk about how Totoro is literally that. In a childs eye you go into the forest to find a big impressive spirit living there. Totoro having a lot of subtext of alternate history without war trauma which is even embodied in this kind of depiction of nature, as japanese fascism has been explicitly linked with "landscape" rather than "nature" philosophically by theorists such as Kojin Karatani. Check that cast too for more on that!
"And Mononoke as a foreboding of the future indicates our rapidly expanding mastery over nature (think to Eboshi's expanding conquering of nature throughout the film), and eventually a day will come when people dare to think to discard the principle of nature as a whole."
Maybe further than just "discarding" we might end up having gotten rid of it without noticing. This is indeed the transformation outlined by films such as Pom Poko by Takahata, and even Only Yesterday where we have the amazing scene of Taeko looking at the beautiful nature, only for her to be scolded by Toshio, who explains that "humans made this". That the disconnect what nature is in modernity is already so deep that entirely human made landscape already comes to be nature. This of course goes hand in hand with many Miyazaki themes about the losses that modernity entailed. In Kiki it becomes evident how much Miyazaki wants technology to capture the wonder of flight - however the Hindenburg crashed, modernity and technology has left us in a depression and crisis of meaning. This theme of technology of course becoming extremely potent in his (to date) final film The Wind Rises.
I am rambling. However: Thanks for the comment I really appreciate it.
Don't let this podcast episode distract you from the fact that in 1398 the wolf god Moro got shot with an Irontown rifle and plummeted 100 ft into the forest river
AS GOD IS MY WITNESS SHE IS BROKEN IN HALF!
I'm so happy how this Episode went!
thanks for another amazing cast guys! Keep it up!
3 hours of juicy analysis. Free yourself from humanhood, join wolfgang
amadeus Mozart
This episode is CRAZY long!
Seven months later, and no Mononoke Hime x Antigone video yet.
:sadge:
Nyooooo :(
i thought the movie was about the ethics of PEDs in sports and natural substances vs synthetics. Am I completely wrong here?
But will you review Howl's Moving castle ? 👀 I hope so... I can't wait
We absolutely will! We go through all Studio Ghibli movies in release order.
Glad you like the cast!
@@Nyard that's really cool :D. I'm an animation student and i'm really glad to learn things i didn't knew about the productions of these movies !
obligatory algorythm comment
Came in excited to hear this podcast as a Miyazaki fan. Turned it off after it started getting into left wing talking points about lgbt representation, gender roles and fetishization of indigenous peoples. Smh
I suggest you don't look into Miyazaki's politics then so you can remain blissfully ignorant.
I know right?
How could people so disgustingly read their agenda in to the apolitical masterpieces of Hayao "Better a Pig than a fascist" Miyazaki.
@@Nyard I think you're really reaching if you think you and miyazaki share modern western leftist identity politics. Miyazaki was definitely a traditional feminist but I'm sure he'd disagree with the current third wave version
@@ieatbatteries7 Way to miss the point
@@delirium1326 i don't think you know much about either third wave feminism or about Miyazakis positions. I suggest you read his own writings on his own movies.