The 8 best quotes from the Disney+ miniseries of the year

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If there’s something in which Disney+’s “Shogun” proved unbeatable, it’s its memorable quotes and these are the eight best.

(Attention: The article may contain spoilers for the “Shogun” series)

Disney+ presented a new 10-episode miniseries, “Shogun”, which has caused people to talk. Adapted from the novel by James Clavell, it takes place in Japan in the year 1600, the beginning of a civil war that defined the century. Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) fights for his life when his enemies on the Board of Regents unite against him. In turn, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), the English captain of an abandoned boat in a nearby fishing village, brings with him secrets that could help Toranaga tip the balance of power and devastate the influence of Jesuit priests and Portuguese traders.

Thus, the destinies of Toranaga and Blackthorne become inextricably linked to the interpreter Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), a Christian noblewoman and the last survivor of a lineage that fell from grace. While serving her lord amidst this turbulent political landscape, Mariko must balance her closeness to Blackthorne, her commitment to the faith that saved her, and her duty to her late father.

One of the aspects that has impressed the series is the quality of the series’ text, which invests more in creating and developing relationships between characters and power dynamics than in major battles. Thus, “Shogun” offered us several quotes that will certainly be remembered and repeated in the future… These are the eight best:

What sort of man wields power in a place like this? The one who schemes in the open, or the one you never see?

(“What kind of man holds power in a place like this? The one who conspires openly or the one you never see?”)

This is the type of statement that ends up being one of the main threads throughout this story. It is always possible to see several characters like Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano) or Ishido (Takehiro Hira) showing their strength and what they intend to do to gain power. However, what Rodrigues (Nestor Carbonell) and the public realize is that it belongs to those who work in the shadows and do not announce his arrival.

This is personified in Yoshii Toranaga, who does not have such a significant screen presence but is omnipresent and influential in the way he controls the destinies of each character as if they were a piece in a chess game.

Lord Toranaga – Episode 3: Tomorrow is Tomorrow

You are playing a game of friends and enemies, when you only have yourself in this life.
(“You are playing a game of friends and enemies, when you only have yourself in this life”)

And it is this individualism and the feeling that no one should be 100% aware of our intentions that Toranaga reveals when he confronts his son, Nagakado (Yuki Kura), with the fact that he approaches life with a wrong attitude. Throughout the series, it is possible to see how Toranaga’s politics lead him to glory, while Nagakado’s innocence and desire to prove himself lead him to ruin.

Toda Mariko – Episode 4: The Fence Multiplied by Eight

We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that.
(“We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that.”)

As a person who believes that her place is with her deceased family, Mariko faces life with a passive and contemplative attitude. In this statement that Blackthorne so often repeats, she makes her idea very clear that our destiny is already written and it is up to us to fulfill it.

Toda Mariko – Episode 6: Ladies of the Willow World

A man may go to war for many reasons: conquest, pride, power. But a woman is simply at war.

(“A man may go to war for many reasons: conquest, pride, power. But a woman is simply at war.”)

When Toranaga asks Mariko to explain to him what motivates Ochiba (

Fumi Nikaido) in the fight against herself, the translator makes everything very clear. While men struggle to satisfy their ego, women are left to fight against their own will and have to bow to the desires and whims that these men expect of them.

Lord Toranaga – Episode 7: Brief Moments

Why is it that only those who have never fought in a battle are so eager to be in one?

(“Why is it that only those who have never fought in a battle are so eager to participate in one?”)

Here we have another quote that shows the difference in the way father and son approach life. In what turns out to be the thesis of “Shogun”, Toranaga rejects the idea that

War is some kind of event that must be desired by someone. Instead, it sees it as the last resort in a conflict. The series itself contributes to this idea, by being about war but rarely dedicating time to big, bloody battles.

John Blackthorne – Episode 9: “Crimson Sky”

You’d walk into a sword just to prove the blade is sharp?

(“Would you go against a sword just to prove that the blade is sharp?”)

When

Blackthorne realizes that Mariko is willing to commit seppuku to pressure Ishido to release the hostages, we have yet another example of how this captain still does not understand the level of honor and commitment with which these people view life. There is a contentment and blind loyalty to Toranaga in Mariko that Blackthorne will never understand, something that fundamentally separates them.