That's a rather sad observation, people should celebrate science more.
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Samurai, are they over romanticised?
- Thread starter Jadow
- Start date
That's a rather sad observation, people should celebrate science more.
Best part of the "Tale of Heike" was reading about how many swords they were going through in a battle. Like literally slash one guy down, sword cracked so take his sword and go at next guy.
yes, science like lobotomy, eugenics, etc.
science without morals isn't any better than a lot of other human behavior. if anything, people should celebrate philosophy more.
What we think of as samurai existed for only a very short time.
As I understand it, samurai started out as mercenaries for landowners at least a thousand years ago. The landowners would usually send out their samurai if there was a dispute.
Then warfare became larger in scale with armies of peasants turned into soldiers. It was felt the samurai needed something to make them seem above the common man so that the peasants would take orders from them and respect them as the voice of the lords. Over time the samurai became more ritualized with additional fluff to make them seem special.
Stuff like bushido was the inevitable result of bolting these rituals and stories onto the noble officers, and mythologies retconned historical accounts of samurai to incorporate late-era bushido into tales from ages before it existed.
Weirdly enough, the anime Samurai Champloo might be more realistic in some ways that most pop culture visions of samurai. Most "samurai" in the show are presented as soldiers or hired mercenaries of rich men. They are typically lazy and abusive towards ordinary citizens. And consider the "heroes" of the story. Mugen is a total thug who taught himself to use a sword and is on the lookout for money and food. And Jin, while having a more noble bearing and background, and above abusing innocent bystanders, is still a sword for hire who is always desperate for money and broke.
As I understand it, samurai started out as mercenaries for landowners at least a thousand years ago. The landowners would usually send out their samurai if there was a dispute.
Then warfare became larger in scale with armies of peasants turned into soldiers. It was felt the samurai needed something to make them seem above the common man so that the peasants would take orders from them and respect them as the voice of the lords. Over time the samurai became more ritualized with additional fluff to make them seem special.
Stuff like bushido was the inevitable result of bolting these rituals and stories onto the noble officers, and mythologies retconned historical accounts of samurai to incorporate late-era bushido into tales from ages before it existed.
Weirdly enough, the anime Samurai Champloo might be more realistic in some ways that most pop culture visions of samurai. Most "samurai" in the show are presented as soldiers or hired mercenaries of rich men. They are typically lazy and abusive towards ordinary citizens. And consider the "heroes" of the story. Mugen is a total thug who taught himself to use a sword and is on the lookout for money and food. And Jin, while having a more noble bearing and background, and above abusing innocent bystanders, is still a sword for hire who is always desperate for money and broke.
America likes to stereotype Indians as enlightened peaceful people who were nature spirit wizards. But native Americans held slaves and could be as brutal as anyone else in war. Disney did a number on us.
Cowboys were literally whitewashed though. The first of them weren't white at all.
Dude, I'm a philosophy student, there is way more bullshit in philosophy than science. Eugenics can be traced to ancient Greece and science did manage to phase out these things that you mentioned.
The famous cowboy hat (which weren't even commonly worn by American cowboys) were Mexican in origin.
The real ones didn't even look all that cool.
Dude looks like a kid in cosplay
vs.
I suppose it speaks to Hollywood's tendency to force a good and bad dichotomy in historical settings when it's just different flavours of bad. I haven't seen The Last Samurai but your description makes it sounds like it's standard nationalist, nostalgia trite.
My favorite thing about medieval times is that the ulfberht swords were amazingly built for the time and no one has any idea who made them or where they came from.
Yes. Especially bushido.
You read up on Japanese warfare, you'll learn Samurai, and their lords turn traitor on each other all the time in the middle of battle.
Either they were bought out beforehand, or they know they about to get their shit kicked in, and change sides during the battle.
You read up on Japanese warfare, you'll learn Samurai, and their lords turn traitor on each other all the time in the middle of battle.
Either they were bought out beforehand, or they know they about to get their shit kicked in, and change sides during the battle.
Ehhhhh dude still looks pretty badass imo. He only looks like a kid because everyone was shorter back then
No more than other warrior class. The whole idea of Bushido also makes it seem larger than life. I mean, Jedi are based on them so....
From what I understand samurais were upperclass society. And they were usually weak as rich noblemans tend to be. Sort of like how British nobleman were automatically officers in the military.
Ninjas on the other hand. Poor people who worked their lives tilling fields and doing labor. They could probably wreck the samurai.
Ninjas on the other hand. Poor people who worked their lives tilling fields and doing labor. They could probably wreck the samurai.
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They are overly romanticized but probably not as badly as they were by Japan during the Taisho and early Showa eras. The samurai were praised as the ideal to aspire towards, and it warped Japan into a pretty insane society.
This is somewhat true but katanas were always strictly a backup weapon. It didn't really get romanticized until the Tokugawa Shogunate, and even then they primarily served as a status symbol All told it's not too different from how the sword was viewed in the West: a cool symbol even though there were tons of better weapons out there.
I actually never understood the fascination with pirates, even pirates fiction admits they're criminals.
Samurai are romanticized in the same way knights were romanticized. They were mostly rich people who could afford armor/weapons employed by other people for protection.
Yes. Which is one reason why Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (Seppuku), which is a complete take down of the toxic Bushido code, is one of the few samurai movies I care for.
(**Spoilers in this trailer**)
(**Spoilers in this trailer**)
Yep, swords were only really practical as sidearms in most cases. The biggest benefit of a sword over other weapons was size, so you could carry one on you easily, but they were also expensive and overall other weapons like the spear and the bow ruled the battlefield far more than the sword.
Samurai, ninja, cowboys, knights, etc. People were all manners of asshole, but they're fun to romanticize and imagine in an idealized manner closer to our modern values.
I don't know if people actually glorify the lifestyle vs think that swords are cool
Like I doubt people really think the Jedi lifestyle is cool. Everybody loves a lightsaber tho
Like I doubt people really think the Jedi lifestyle is cool. Everybody loves a lightsaber tho
Wood Elves are not assholes. They just want you to leave them and their woods alone.
I mean they were in a warrior caste who's only societal job was to fight wars and kill people. They cannot be good people.
Cow-boys were less romanticized IMO. Aside from the Clint Eastwood character most of them are villains.
The real ones didn't even look all that cool.
Dude looks like a kid in cosplay
vs.
FF guy just looks like hes going to a fashion show
Yes, you wouldn't typically use a sword in a battle situation but more as a self defense weapon against un-armoured people. Spears and naginata plus bows were the weapons of war.
Whwn Tokugawa set up his reign and basically ended warfare, all those warriors needed something to do, so the sword and the entire bushido thing was mostly a hobby for bored nobles trying to beautify the horrors of what they had been doing up until then. Of course, a few inspiring stories like Musashi (who inspired pretty much all the "lone wolf swordsman" mythos) also glamourized the sword, but Musashi himself was a brute for a long time.
Now, as someone who practiced iaido and owns a sword, they are freaking beautiful and there is something to be said for the refined grace and self control of the idealized arts. But it's also important to remember the ugliness that preceded all that.
They are romanticized exactly as much and in the same ways as medieval chivalric knights. The real difference is the sheer numbers/ratio and the focus on consistent details. At one point the Samurai class represented 10% of the Japanese population - and that's not counting the businesses and infrastructure they needed for that lifestyle. It was MUCH lower than that in medieval Europe although the numbers aren't terribly clear and open to a lot of fudging. But in terms of active military landed knights - an extremely small percentage.
But both were just as likely to murder peasants for sport or profit as rescue a damsel or daimyo.
After Portugal opened up Japan (and again towards the end of the Samurai era) the fascination was very much based on nostalgia for the Arthurian vision of knighthood and chivalry - the analogs to Bushido are obvious.
One weeaboo thing that blew my mind a little - because of the hyperbolic romanticization - was finding out that Japanese Samurai steel was actually pretty trash - a Spanish sword of the same era would have been vastly superior - thanks in part to cultural and technological inertia in Japan - and the isolation of the nation - they were slow to improve metallurgy. Since they were mostly fighting Japanese steel with Japanese steel, it suffered. This is partly my fault for thinking Highlander was a documentary.
But both were just as likely to murder peasants for sport or profit as rescue a damsel or daimyo.
After Portugal opened up Japan (and again towards the end of the Samurai era) the fascination was very much based on nostalgia for the Arthurian vision of knighthood and chivalry - the analogs to Bushido are obvious.
One weeaboo thing that blew my mind a little - because of the hyperbolic romanticization - was finding out that Japanese Samurai steel was actually pretty trash - a Spanish sword of the same era would have been vastly superior - thanks in part to cultural and technological inertia in Japan - and the isolation of the nation - they were slow to improve metallurgy. Since they were mostly fighting Japanese steel with Japanese steel, it suffered. This is partly my fault for thinking Highlander was a documentary.
Come on. There are decades of Westerns made in America before Leone shot his Italian films staring Clint Eastwood. Cowboys were very distinctively the heroes for half of the 20th century.