Princess Mononoke Pacifism

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Princess Mononoke is a film directed by Hayo Miyazaki, it takes place in ancient japan and stars a character name Prince Ashitaka. The director portrays Prince Ashitaka as this kindhearted person whom is a pacifist; however, Ashitaka only has one choice which happens to unfortunately be left out of his hands on deciding the fate of some people, and this unfortunate kind of behavior the prince is caused by a curse that was given to him by the dying boar God. Some of the very first few moments that Prince Ashitaka appears on the screen show that he has a sentimental connection to both the forest and the commitment he has towards the community. As Ashitaka rides skillfully through the dark and spiritual forest, and one of his first actions he…show more content…
While he is on his journey, the viewers are constantly seeing repeated signals of a young man’s connection to nature as well as sympathetic towards human beings. Yakul, which is Ashitaka’s loyal mount they end up sharing the same bag of food, the prince's hand feeds Yakul, before he feeds himself, and this symbolizes the true love and his emotional attachment he has for his four-legged companion. Later when a pair of samurai’s shows up that was chasing women and children attacks the prince; his curse flares up and superhuman strength made him shoot his arrows at the samurais, ripping the head off one and tearing the arm off the other. The camera uses a close up shot to show the agony on the Prince’s face, knowing that the curse had made him dismember two men. Even though they were not innocent, Prince Ashitaka does not believe in taking life in general, but the curse was in control of his right arm and gave the prince no choice but to do these horrific…show more content…
With all the heroic deeds, he has accomplished earlier within the movie, such as saving his village from being demolished, as well saving those three village girls’ lives. Even towards the middle of the movie, his kindhearted nature comes into play where he saves those people that were lying in the water left to die. Prince Ashitaka constantly tries to play the peacemaker throughout this whole movie. He has tried reasoning with Lady Eboshi and talking her out of killing the forest god and that her village is being attacked. Due to her foolish ways, she ignores Prince Ashitaka and suspects him to be lying. When it is too late to stop anything, Lady Eboshi slays the forest god. Upon doing that, the forest starts dying and Nightwalker starts to wreak havoc onto the forest. This leaves the prince no choice but to play the savior and return the head back to the forest god. Upon successfully giving back the head, the prince blessed with purity the Nightwalker removes the curse and restoring life back to the forest, however, with the Prince being cured he still has the marks to show his heroic

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