Prominent Antagonists: Lady Eboshi's Version
The intro:
A week ago, I watched the 1997 Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke, which was back in theatres for a limited re-release. I had been wanting to watch this movie ever since experiencing James Cameron’s Avatar franchise, which owes its existence to Princess Mononoke. Both films feature antagonists who create conflict by destroying the natural environment while in contrast remaining fiercely loyal to their own people. Like Avatar’s Colonel Quaritch, Lady Eboshi is a leader, and a strong one at that, despite her violent opposition to the forest gods. Naturally, I had to write a variation of this essay about her.
The prompt:
Prominent antagonists in fictional work are often in positions of power despite their obvious flaws. Identify one of these antagonists and explain what makes them an effective leader.
The essay:
Lady Eboshi from Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 historical fantasy film Princess Mononoke is a remarkable antagonist— not only is she a powerful woman in an era when women were not often granted much agency over their own lives, much less entire towns, but she is able to amass a large following of people not through force but through genuinely looking out for and protecting them, making it clear that she values their contributions. Despite being cast as an antagonist, Lady Eboshi is a highly effective leader because of her radical compassion, strategic decisiveness, and willingness to evolve.
Eboshi’s village, called Irontown, is primarily made up of miners and weapons manufacturers. Not only is the prosperity the town brings a source of pride for Eboshi, but its people are as well- many of the iron workers are women that Eboshi liberated from their former position as slave girls, and the town provides a haven for lepers where they can live in community and even contribute to the town as skilled laborers. In the film, the lepers state that Lady Eboshi personally washed and cared them herself, demonstrating her deep dedication to her people. Thus, Eboshi is shown to be fiercely protective of Irontown, even at the cost of the gods inhabiting the neighboring forest.
Before the events of the film, the boar god, Nago, attacks Eboshi’s village in an attempt to halt their destruction of his habitat. Eboshi arrives and shoots him, unintentionally transforming him into a giant demon. Unbeknownst to Eboshi, the demon-boar goes on to attack protagonist Ashitaka’s village and curses him, causing Ashitaka’s arm to become corrupted by a strange black stain. Ashitaka sets off on a journey to uncover the source of the curse and get rid of it.
In the meantime, while on a mining expedition, Eboshi and her men fend off an attack by wolf god Moro. During the attack, Eboshi leads from the front, fighting two massive supernatural creatures in a treacherous mountain landscape. Although her insistence to continue the expedition despite the deaths and injuries from her side may come off as cavalier, given the circumstances, this was a strategic decision to protect her remaining men by leaving a dangerous site before the wolves could come back.
A few days after this attack, Ashitaka arrives in Irontown, having been shown the way by one of Eboshi’s injured miners that found and carried through the forest. Despite her guards’ skepticism of the newcomer, Eboshi sincerely thanks Ashitaka and shows him the village. Ashitaka’s arm starts to pulsate in Eboshi’s presence, and he realizes that she was the one who shot the boar god. After he confronts her about this, Eboshi admits to shooting Nago and takes responsibility for her actions, saying,
“I’m sorry you suffer. That boar should have cursed me instead.”
Eboshi also reveals her plan to kill the deer god, a forest creature that transforms into the massive Nightwalker. Ashitaka’s cursed arm tries to attack Lady Eboshi, but he subdues it with his other arm while a few of the townspeople, including lepers that Eboshi had rescued, explain how Eboshi and Irontown saved them, and that killing Eboshi won’t solve the conflict between the humans and the forest creatures.
During the film’s final battle, Eboshi does indeed kill the deer god, beheading it as it transforms into the Nightwalker. The god then transforms into a dark, chaotic fluid that kills everything it touches, including the forest. Ashitaka evacuates Irontown before it is destroyed and helps San, Moro’s adopted human daughter, recover and return the deer god’s head. The deer god then dies and dissolves into the wind, but not before renewing the land with abundant plant life.
Having experienced the consequences of her bloodlust, a repentant Eboshi promises to start anew and build a better village, indicating that she was willing to learn from her mistakes and turn to less destructive ways of protecting her people if she needed to.
Eboshi is compelling because her actions stem not from malice, but from protective instinct and personal conviction. She’s bloodthirsty, yes, but it’s a bloodthirst driven by a fierce loyalty to those who love and depend on her. It is this nurturing spirit and care for her town that make her formidable as both a leader to her town and a danger to the forest spirits she opposes.