A Roman Bather, 1865 by Eugène Verdyen (Belgian, 1836–1903)

Like many Shōgun viewers, I wondered about Blackthorne's action in Episode 9, when he draws a line in the sand of the garden, marring its perfectly cultivated harmony. Was he taking some stand against Japan and its culture of socially-permissible suicide? Was he silently protesting against the action Mariko was about to undertake?

gif by @yocalio

If we go back to the first episode, though, we realize that this is not the first time that Blackthorne has encountered someone who wishes to take their own life. His Dutch captain, clearly suffering under the effects of scurvy and the futility of remaining at sea for months with dwindling supplies, tells Blackthorne that he no longer holds out any hope of reaching Japan, much less returning to Europe a rich man. Then he glances down at Blackthorne's pistol.

“At my age,” he says, “you draw your line.”

(Like he does with Mariko, Blackthorne argues with the captain, telling him that suicide would be the act of a coward. Interestingly enough, the captain's words — “Pilot, there's nothing to fear. It's a blessed release. It's like only a soft wind in your face. Can you feel it? That is the breath of the Almighty. He's calling us. Listen. He's calling us home” — seem to do as little to convince Blackthorne as Mariko's rationale does. Still, he leaves the captain with his pistol.)

What if Blackthorne's act is not meant as an act of protest, but as a way to honor the sacrifice that Mariko is about to make, even if he vehemently disagrees with her choice? (He honors it even more when he volunteers to serve as her second, an act of love and duty that he agrees to perform even if it will destroy him to do so.) Ever since he came to understand her desire to die, he has argued with her, rejecting what he sees as her fatalism. Even her continued loyalty to Toranaga is branded as “senseless,” as he sees it as leading to her death. But by Episode 9, he has realized that he will never convince her, and perhaps — despite his anguished plea that she consider living, if only for him — he finally sees the purpose of her action and accepts her choice.

That is why he makes the mark in the garden. It is her, standing against her enemies, fulfilling her purpose.

And in the end, he understands: she must draw her line.

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Shōgun writers on Blackthorne's journey, A Dream of a Dream's theme of letting go

Emily Yoshida (writer): "Blackthorne's fate is so interesting, and totally unexpected. People are going to see in it what they wanna see, because there's a lot of ways you can read it. It could be somehow worse than death, like a purgatory of some sort. And then there's a way in which you can read it as a life of devotion to something beyond him, which has been something that has been a struggle for him. How do you view Blackthorne's fate?"

Justin Marks (co-creator): "I think Blackthorne's journey in this episode to the place where it lands, in such a beautiful and powerful scene between Blackthorne and Toranaga - on that hill where he offers up his own life - is the journey that I hope all of us who are trying to kind of understand how we interact with cultures we don't understand and people we want to forge relationships with go on, but don't necessarily speak the same cultural or spiritual or literal language.

Which is to say that Blackthorne has been a prisoner of his own ambition. Which one might call the disease of colonialism, or of capitalism, too. This idea of a man who is so bound by his ambition and where he belongs in this world, and what is owed to him, that he is the worst prisoner of all. So is Yabushige. They're both like this. And Yabushige never comes to that awakening and finds himself dying here.

But for Blackthorne, it revolves crucially on this idea of what we call the 'false dream'. We wanted to open this episode on what feels like the beginning of a flashback structure, where we jump forward into the future, and we meet Blackthorne as an old man, and we tell the story of an old man looking back. And looking back with regret on the life that he led.

Only to realise that that was not the dream of an old man looking back - it was the dream of a young man looking forward to one possible version of his life. A version of his life that he has to draw to an end by killing that path. What Blackthorne is trying to kill there isn't himself, it's the version of himself that he's always been.

When Toranaga knocks that knife out of his hand and looks down at him, he's looking at a man reborn now, to a completely different life.

What is powerful is the idea of a man finally, spiritually, letting go. And this is something that we talked about from the very beginning, Cosmo and I. This whole story for Blackthorne is really just a story of a man learning to let go."

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