ISSUE NO. 36
Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. This one contains spoilers for Shōgun. To read the last entry, check out How Lucy MacLean and Her Okey Dokeys Became Fallout’s Secret Weapon.
In chess, a queen sacrifice happens when a player willingly gives up their queen to the opponent. It’s a move that requires expert strategy due to the importance of the chess piece, and one that easily distracts lesser players — especially those with a proclivity for hubris. The move is often overlooked as stupidity in the event of such hubris and, when played right, frequently results in a checkmate against the lesser player.
Of course, in chess the queen is just a piece on a board. In Shōgun, the queen — at least on Toranaga’s side of the board — is Lady Mariko. And she knows exactly what she’s doing. That knowledge, though, is for her and Toranaga alone. Blackthorne and Tadanobu Asano’s Yabushige have no idea that the Lady is the key to their Lord’s plan and that their foes are about to be presented with an unwinnable decision.
au·ton·o·my
/ôˈtänəmē/
noun: autonomy
- 1. the right or condition of self-government.
- freedom from external control or influence; independence.
- "economic autonomy is still a long way off for many women"
People often fail to understand what the word “autonomy” means. But in the case of Shōgun, it feels inevitable that the bad faith reading will ultimately be something along the lines of “how can you say that this series celebrates autonomy when everything Mariko did was in service of a man?” The answer there is two-fold.
First, considering the historical connotations behind cultural behavior is pertinent when, and only when, the story is not fantasy or sci-fi based. (Read: the argument that Game of Thrones is “justifiably” violent and terrible to its women because of the time period is not a valid rebuttal when dragons exist.) Shōgun makes the cultural behavior of the era clear: a wife’s life belongs to her husband, and her function is to serve. But characters like Anna Sawai’s Mariko, Fumi Nikaidô’s Ochiba, Yuka Kouri’s Kiku and Yûko Miyamoto’s Gin all transcend that in a multitude of ways, and each character does so differently from the last.
The second part of the answer is, rightfully, informed by the first. Cultural barriers can impact things like beliefs, loyalties and allegiances, but they do not dictate them. Japanese stereotypes — particularly those connected to samurai — often depict the entire culture as a monolith of “honor,” while Shōgun leaves its characters free to be treacherous little weirdos when they see fit. (We see you, Yabushige. We don’t respect you, but we enjoy you anyway!) And the whole root of the series is about where allegiances lie. Ochiba is loyal only to herself and her son, while Mariko chooses loyalty to the church and Hiroyuki Sanada’s Toranaga.
Mariko’s autonomy is only furthered by her abject refusal to die alongside her husband. Shin'nosuke Abe’s Buntaro finally gives his wife what she has begged for in all of their years together: the opportunity to take her own life. Despite the samurai’s fierce loyalty, Buntaro can no longer follow Toranaga after he believes his lord has given up and chosen defeat, but the formerly abusive husband, who has only discovered his love for his wife hidden in the fear of losing her, misunderstands Mariko’s desires.
Ochiba, once Mariko’s closest friend and now ostensibly her enemy, points out that Mariko’s sacrificial gamble is her way of getting back at fate. It may be in service of Lord Toranaga, but the Lady has been preparing for this moment from the second her father married her off to an abusive samurai who couldn’t figure out his own emotions until it was too late. Each faction believes that fate will favor them, but it is only Mariko who is able to move the cruel mistress to her will. Fate isn’t the only intangible force that she twists to her favor, either. The aforementioned cultural behaviors that inform everyone’s (Blackthorne excepted) decisions in Shōgun are wielded as a sword by Mariko when she faces down the entire council, advising them of her plans to take Toranaga’s wives with her back to Edo the following morning. Her demure smile cuts like a knife against Takehiro Hira's Ishido's barely contained rage.
Regardless of which decision Ochiba and her betrothed make, the series’ queen sacrifice ensures that the outcome ultimately benefits Toranaga. If they allow Mariko to perform Seppuku, it will become widely known that the nobles are being held hostage, leading to an uprising. If they allow her to go free, the nobles will stop playing along with the charade and demand their own freedom en masse.
I’m not as enamored as others by the starry-eyed romance between Cosmo Jarvis’ gape-mouthed Blackthorne and Lady Mariko, but the series does, at least, lend some final justification to their love before the penultimate episode’s tragic end. Blackthorne begs Mariko to choose life, if for nothing else, then for him. However, when he realizes that she has made her ultimate decision, he picks up the sword to aid her as her second. He’s a (sometimes justifiably) bumbling loudmouth for much of the show but, when faced with, presumably, the most difficult decision of his life, Blackthorne chose to honor Mariko’s autonomy over his own needs.
In the end, Shōgun’s queen sacrifice ends up more literal than I believe Lord Toranaga had hoped. She was a means to an end, but he also loved and valued her. In a world full of men playing with swords, Toranaga saw that his greatest asset was not a battalion, but the fierce loyalty of a woman who had no question in her faith, allegiance, or value. The series may be about his chess game, but Mariko’s story was hers, and hers alone, even as she laid down her life to try to protect her loved ones. And, in the end, her assasination is the final act of a flailing opponent who has realized that they are on the receiving end of a check mate. Meanwhile, she is simply at peace, and in a way that doesn't damn her in the confines of her Christian faith.
She said it best several episodes ago: “A woman is simply at war.” Finally, after a long and cruel battle, Toda Mariko’s war is over.
