#I’m in the middle of a johan and peewit phase

[4ce-of-2pades]

I watched Princess Mononoke for the first time yesterday. I really liked the movie, but my one complaint is that Ashitaka and San should have died at the end instead of being cured of their curses. (For plot reasons, I mean. I have nothing against the characters.) Ashi had made peace with a fate that was inevitable, despite being undeserved. San decided her fate when she stayed with the old boar god to try to help him and was consumed by his demon mass (far more contamination, far faster spread and fatality). The forest spirit could heal Ashi’s wounds but not his curse. It only makes sense that they were doomed to die like so many others.

I mean, it’s good for them that they got to keep living on, but it felt sort of weird to watch them both go off to their lives and promise to keep in touch and visit, like friends going off to separate colleges. It seemed oddly… easy. How quickly they could return to peace, with nothing more than a few faint scars.

I think their deaths would have really drilled in the theme of lasting consequences. The gods are dead and aren’t coming back. Our heroes were cursed and died because they tried to help others. The actions of humanity have hurt the world and its people, and though there is hope in the return of green land, some things can’t be taken back, like unhealable curses.

I was VERY sure throughout the movie that this would be different from all those other deadly curses that find miraculous healing in the end of a story. The tone of this movie felt different. Ashi was too accepting and melancholy, too resigned. The world was too dark and had too much finality to it. I think it would have meant more for him to be told he’s going to suffer and die, and then suffer and die. It would have been tragic and awful, but I think it’s what was needed. It felt… off balance, to have them both saved in the eleventh hour. Some things can be healed, yes, but some things can never be taken back.

Sometimes you can do everything right, and give everything you have, and it still won’t be enough to save you. It doesn’t matter what’s fair. You can’t cheat death.

Other than that though, I thought everything about the movie was absolutely AMAZING. I especially like how much importance they placed on Ashi saving those two injured guys, making all the background characters whose deaths barely registered into real people who matter. I also love the little white tree spirit guys, because they are adorable.

(Also I firmly believe that no arrow could possibly decapitate a person so cleanly, or pop their arms off like that. Not in a million years. It was jarringly cartoonish. But admittedly pretty funny.)

Also, next time I watch this movie I need to keep lists of A: every time Ashitaka gets injured, and B: every place Ashitaka gets banished from on pain of death. He’s so injury-prone and banishable. I’m struggling to think of a significant location he’s gone where he hasn’t been told at least once to leave and never return.