It's 100% a ruse...Toranaga and Mariko discussed it after it was done. Seemingly, the only question was whether the old man agreed to it before hand and played his part, or if Toranaga knew how he would react and pushed him to it in the moment.dude95 said:Expectation is someone will be telling the Osaka crew that Toronaga is so bent on surrendering that he is willing to have his best friend commit seppuku. I think it's a ruse - whether it was agreed on by the old man before hand or it was because Toronaga just knew he would do it. I don't understand who is the messenger though - the priest?FL_Ag1998 said:Stive said:
My perception last night was that the old man was in on it. He was, right? Isn't that what was being stated to Mariko at the end? He was either asked to kill himself and agreed, or was told to and obeyed prior to the climactic scene. Toranaga didn't "play" him and drive him to it right? If so, that's a pretty impressive back and forth acting job they did to sell it to everyone else.
And why would he ask his son to second him?
This one is a little harder for me to decide on, but I go back to that one line of dialogue in an earlier scene...all of the younger guys are disgruntled that Toronaga is just giving up, but the old guy stops them and says to them along the lines of, "Our Lord is going to fight. Otherwise why would he send the message of surrender back with the priest."
The old man knows Toronaga has something planned. I'm just not sure if he's fully in on it or if he just trusts his lord enough not to question him, and instead just play along with whatever Toronage is pushing and blindly do whatever he's told to do.
I tend to think that even the old man didn't fully know Toronaga's plan and he just blindly put his faith in him, simply because they've portrayed Toronaga as someone who always keeps all of his cards close to his vest, spilling his details to no one.
The son is the second because he knows he will do a good job. Don't want to make a mess out of it.
The messenger that the old man was referring to when they left the meeting where Mariko was asked to translate was the priest. The old man didn't think Toranaga was actually surrendering because he had told the priest to deliver the message to Osaka. I guess if he were really surrendering, he would have asked one of his closest advisors to deliver the message? Or maybe he would tell them himself and commit seppuku on the spot? But asking the foreigner to deliver the message, was a signal to the old man that it was a fake out. And maybe since the old man wasn't falling for it, Toranaga knew that his enemies wouldn't fall for it either? But now they have to believe him because of how he let his closest confidant die.
