Lady Eboshi Character Analysis

The characters of the film are split up into 3 main different ideological groups, Lady Eboshi and her followers, San and the Forest Gods and Ashitaka.
Lady Eboshi is a strong willed, courageous, and a charismatic woman and leader of Iron town. She is a power-hungry leader; however, she doesn 't seek power for her own selfish needs but for the needs of her people. She employs women from the brothels of other towns, gives them the same rights as the men of the town, and helps the lives of lepers who have been rejected from society by giving them a job, a purpose to live. She fights to protect her people, their lifestyles, and doing so she must mine iron to fund these endeavours, and that is where the problem against the Forest gods occur. Miyazaki

The stark contrast from a mother-like figure for her people, to a battle hardened, emotionless killer of animals resembles the light within darkness which Daoism teaches. Daoism is believed to be the inspiration of spiritual concepts within Japanese Culture, and the ideology of Daoism is resembled not just by Lady Eboshi, but by their entire character selection of the movie. However, in this case, Miyazaki intended Lady Eboshi to be a character that questions the common concept of good and evil within movies. There are questions that Miyazaki wanted us to ask ourselves, such as Was Lady Eboshi right to cut down the forests in order for her people to mine and live? Does the audience consider her an evil character, the antagonist? There is no right answer and could be debated equally on both sides. However, the main idea behind Lady Eboshi 's construction of her character was intended to provoke the

In between these two sides fighting against each other, there is a lone, neutral point of view from Ashitaka. As previously stated, Ashitaka used to be the Prince of the last Emishi tribe (the Emishi were a tribal group in Japan and is distinguished by their expertise in guerrilla tactics, horse archery and holding a strong grudge against Japanese Emperors), but he was cursed by a demon of hatred and rage, which gives him inhumane strength but would kill him quickly. Since Ashitaka is an outsider to the conflicts between Iron Town and the Forest Gods, he observes and sees the war from both sides, and all he saw was the infinite circle of malice revolving around the war. He saw both sides wanting an unbalance of power, and they believed that it would be the only way to solve their problems, which Ashitaka strongly disagrees with. Ashitaka believes that both sides should be equally balanced and there should not be one side overpowering the other, he treats everyone and everything equally. Ashitaka has been constructed to act as the neutral party, the peacekeeper of the war between the humans and Forest Gods, wanting peace, balance, and equality. Ashitaka is a very important character to Miyazaki, because how Ashitaka resembles the philosophy of Daoism, other religions, and most importantly himself. When Lady Eboshi asked Ashitaka why he travelled West he responded with "To see with eyes unclouded by hate", this single quote links Ashitaka and Miyazaki 's philosophy to be