The original post: /r/television by /u/blacktuxedobrownshoe on 2024-05-07 19:17:58.
People are way too easily taken by high production values. And they used a famous successful book which is why it was good, and then changed some parts into nonsense, which is part of why it becomes bad.
It loses cohesion by the end, the story becomes ruled by contrivance and bad writing. Bad writing meaning poor conveyance, arbitrary events, and characters making nonsense decisions and contradictions to what rules were established beforehand. Things that undermine character goals too.
Toranaga’s son slipping on a rock and dying is the stupidest, most contrived piece of nonsense I’ve seen in fiction in a long time. Yes, it’s clever enough to use that event to your advantage after it occurred, but what would have happened if the son succeeded, and by all rights he should have? How is anyone supposed to take that nonsense seriously? And it’s a major catalyst so it weakens the entire narrative. Big oops I guess in our serious historical drama. Sometimes key figures doing critical things just happen to slip on a rock and die. Whoopsie!
One of the worst parts of contrived/bad writing is how most problems occur because characters are allowed to just walk away from questions. For example, too many times Toranaga ignores Anjin’s direct questions about his ship or crew or trying to help, and he walks away without saying anything. No normal person allows something direct to be ignored or dismissed like that. Especially with life and death stakes and tons of suspicion and known attempts of assassination. They can suffer being ignored but it transforms/poisons future interactions and damages relationships. It makes them think, “He’s deliberately avoiding this, therefore the answer is obviously an unfavorable outcome for me. I must prepare accordingly.” Anjin rightly calls out the gifts and no purpose and he is constantly ignored or told to shut up about it. Not good behavior if your entire operation hinges on trust and loyalty. How many times did he tell him he can make Toranaga a fleet and then Toranaga says nothing until the very end asking him what he wanted to do anyway. The fleet would have inspired more loyalty through power, and inspired protection through deterrence.
Hiromatsu’s death was pointless. It convinced no one and frankly should have been self-damaging to the cause. It convinced the one Portuguese priest but even his superiors who make the actual decisions saw through it without even being there. And no other place was it referred to as being a relevant helpful action. Additionally, his words to Bunta in that moment reveal the deception right in front of everyone. “You must believe in him even when he himself seems not to.” Bitch, YOU’RE killing yourself over the fact that YOU, the most loyal and dedicated longtime guy, don’t believe in him (or so it seems) anymore, so the words are completely hollow and revealing given the blatant contradiction. His allies should be thinking “wow our lord just let his most loyal and longtime guy die in protest, what am I to him? I’m worth less that that guy for sure and he died so why am I wasting my time/life?” or “Hmm, He told his son to stay loyal under our lord’s appearance of no-selfbelief, hmm, must be something to that.” Either more vassals would seppuku in protest or some would leave or not be loyal anymore, or the deception uncovered immediately. One can rationalize it as the only reason the words were effective was because of how repressed and conditioned to extreme-to-the-point-of-senselessness loyalty those people are. In other words, bad writing. We/they are expected to believe something which is blatantly untrue and poorly demonstrated despite the heavy drama of it. One can get taken in by shock and emotions, but logically and from the words used, it was a bad.
Mariko’s discrimination makes no sense. The Nobunaga stand-in was said to be cruel and bad. Her dad Akechi killed him out of the greater good. So why is she still discriminated against and not considered a bit heroic for putting down a tyrant? Even if it is against manners and loyalty and protocol, shouldn’t there be a sort of neutral respect instead of outright distaste?
Especially from her husband who was always abusive to her but also said in the beginning they were happy? So why and what changed? He apparently uses her family name against her as an insult so why get married to her at all is she and her family are such pariahs. And then claim happiness in the first place? She was cold to him? Why was she even running away so much? But she valued her loyalty to her father so why would she mess up her duty that she’s constantly touting as the absolute in importance, above God, above love? And why did Buntaro suddenly want a relationship with his wife at the end and at no point before? No sense, no catalyst for change. Everything about that is a huge mess in portrayal. Sure it can be rationalized but that’s not the point, it’s not my job to fill in the holes and fix errors in the narrative and display.
All the politicking with the regents, the delays, finding a 5th, holding hostages, were all contrived. Not them as events, they are good events, but how they went about doing them, what was actually said, how they were demonstrated was the bad part. So many holes in the methods that the writers chose to do. The regents honestly could have done things their way at any time since from the outset even the impeachment was bogus. If they are going to break rules and do what they want, then why bother to adhere to certain parts of only some protocols? They shot themselves in the foot arbitrarily. It was obvious they could have eliminated him anytime if they wanted. It made no sense for them to break some rules and obey others when they are the ones making the rules.
And don’t get me started on how bad the hostages in the capital nonsense was. Completely arbitrary contrived self-restrictions. If you’re going to do that, then nothing is standing in your way of anything. And no, a borderline nameless translator dying over it is not going to incite noble families to rebel. If taking their OWN FAMILIES HOSTAGE didn’t already do it, a translator of the impeached regent is not going to do anything neither. In fact, her dying would show that their hostage family members are at true risk so it would probably force them to toe the line even further. Makes no sense.
Toranaga really didn’t do much, he was just lucky his enemies were making so many internal mistakes that he could not have possibly known about nor predicted nor affected.
That’s not even Crimson Sky. Crimson Sky wasn’t some bogus attack on the castle. Why did the writers even make that silly change? It’s stupid and wouldn’t ever have worked especially after the earthquake decimating his forces and refusal to build a fleet of ships until the last episode.
Episodes 7 and 8 were mostly filler.
The plot of the Portuguese and the Anjin completely falls away in the 2nd half and that was a very large hook in the beginning. That map scene was hugely marketed as a grabber for the show and it is rendered completely irrelevant. That whole section of people all become pretty much pointless, background, ineffective, non-agent, characters to Toranaga’s melodrama about withholding information from even loyal vassals and family, and the regents imploding.
Even Blackthorne’s acting becomes weird in the 2nd half. He starts out great but then starts walking and standing weirdly, having inappropriate-to-the-scene expressions on his face. It’s conspicuous and bizarre.
Blackthorne fighting his former mate made no sense. Heck, him turning away right as he’s about to see them deliberately made no sense. Mariko speaking up in front of the regents when others have been killed outright for less is completely backwards up to this point in the show. She’s a woman with even less rights and respect than a male in that era and her family name in the show itself.
The non-leper Christian regent suddenly caring about Mariko’s soul when he admitted to Blackthorne that he doesn’t care about the ways of the church in favor of his purse strings in the prior scene makes no sense. And even if he did do it, wouldn’t that technically be murder and his own soul would be condemned? Would Christian god understand the nuance of seppuku? One of them should be going to hell, so neither would do it unless they didn’t actually value their religion.
So many soldiers die so easily in this show and yet Buntaro survived ALL THOSE GUYS on his own and some random ronin pledge themselves to return him home but suffer so much that only two remain? I call bullshit.
Lines like “You must not involve yourself.” The gall of it! Anjin had been kept there as a plaything against his will the entire time. He’s forced to be involved. Bad writing there. I forget the circumstances of the line but I know do remember that my criticism of it is justified in this instance. It’s just one example of many.
Osaka will be disgraced for having Mariko suicide? Why? Who says? Isn’t impeachment and killing of Sugiyama already much more disgraceful? They control everything already. Who will judge that, who would do anything? If the high families didn’t revolt for being held hostage already, a translator woman’s death won’t mean anything. And if they revolt, they were never loyal, so loyalty means nothing anyway and you have your out to disgrace them back. By your own rules this writing crumbles. Lik…
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