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Warning: This post contains spoilers for episode 9 of Shōgun.
With just one episode to go in the sprawling, action-packed, emotional journey that is FX’s Shōgun—loosely inspired by real events that took place in turn-of-the-17th-century feudal Japan—the miniseries has reached one of the most devastating and pivotal moments in the best-selling 1975 James Clavell novel on which it’s based: the death of Mariko (Anna Sawei).
In the run-up to the penultimate episode, we saw Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) lose the trust of a number of allies, including Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) and Yabu (Tadanobu Asano), by feigning as though he truly meant to surrender to Ishido (Takehiro Hira) in Osaka. Mariko, on the other hand, remained staunchly loyal to Toranaga as his plan unfolded—even going so far as to profess that she would take her own life over the offense of not being allowed to do her duty to her liege lord.
How does Shōgun portray ritual suicide?
Episode 9 spends much of its runtime leading viewers to believe that Mariko will commit ritual suicide—a practice that was different for samurai women than it was for men—as an act of protest against the dishonor of being kept from obeying Toranaga by escorting his wife Kiri (Yoriko Dôguchi) and consort Shizu (Mako Fujimoto) out of Osaka and back to his camp at Edo.
The custom known as “seppuku,” which specifically refers to ritual suicide by disembowelment, was reserved for men of the samurai class in feudal Japan. Samurai women had different methods, which traditionally involved either slashing their own throat or stabbing themselves in the heart. The show seems to suggest Mariko intends to do the latter.
To spare Mariko the horror of believing that, as a Christian, she will go to hell for committing suicide, Blackthorne is compelled to stand as her second—the person who beheads the samurai after they’ve begun the ritual, thus killing them. But just as…
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